It's good to be back again. Debbie
and I always enjoy coming and visiting and worshiping with
you. And this morning I want you to
turn to Jeremiah 17. Now, Debbie reminded me that
I have preached on that before. But you know, sometimes I do
go back to scriptures again. So that's okay. This is a passage
in Jeremiah 17 that I want to use as a basis to go to some
passages in the New Testament concerning issues of the heart. I've entitled this message, How
Can We Know Our Hearts? How can we know our hearts? It's
common in religion for people to Just shove that issue aside
in the sense to say, well, we can't know anybody's heart. What is the heart? It's the mind,
the affections, the will, the inner man, the spirit. I mean,
there's a lot of ways that you can describe the heart of man. And then there's a passage that
is quoted out of Jeremiah 17 quite often. And I believe it's
used in a wrong way most of the time when it's quoted. It's in
verse 9. of Jeremiah 17 when it says, the heart is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? And
so people will quote that or read that and use it as a proof
that, well, we can't even know our own hearts and therefore
we cannot have assurance of salvation or the comfort of salvation.
We can only know when we stand before God at the judgment and
He reveals our hearts to us. And therefore we have to wait. I heard a message on this years
ago where someone went to Matthew chapter 7 and dealt with those
false preachers in verse 21 that the Lord was speaking of. They
stood before him in judgment and they said, Lord, Lord, haven't
we prophesied in your name? Haven't we cast out demons? Haven't
we done many wonderful works only to hear him say, depart
from me ye that work iniquity? I never knew you. And so they
go to passages like this, the heart's deceitful, above all
things desperately wicked. Who can know it? So we can't
know our own hearts and will I stand before God at judgment
only to hear Him say that? Well, that's not what this passage
is about. It's not what the whole Bible is about. The whole Bible,
as you know, is a testimony to the holiness and justice of God
in punishing all sin. to the fact of our sin and our
depravity and the fact that we deserve nothing but condemnation
and death based upon our sin and even based upon our best
works. By deeds of law shall no flesh be justified, declared
not guilty, declared righteous in the sight of God, and the
testimony of God's way of salvation in and by Christ. And that's
what this passage is about. You know, Jeremiah, he preached
to the southern kingdom of Judah right at the end of that episode
in their history before they were taken into captivity in
Babylon, before Nebuchadnezzar came and destroyed Jerusalem
and took them away in captivity. And so Jeremiah was preaching
to a sinful, rebellious people, yet a religious people. And that's
common, as you know, religious but lost. Religious, but no righteousness. Religious, but no truth. Religious,
but no heart for God. Religious, but no Christ. And
that's the issue here. And so he starts out with the
reality of sin. Look at verse one. He says, the
sin of Judah is written with a pin of iron and with a point
of a diamond. It is graven upon the table of
their heart and upon the horns of your altars. The sin of Judah,
it's an indelible sin. And what he's essentially saying
here is their sin could not be erased, it could not be denied.
This is kind of like what Paul wrote in Romans chapter three
and verse 19 when he talked about those who are under the law,
that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become
guilty before God. In other words, you've got no
answer to this. This is the sin of Judah. And it's a religious
sin, he says, upon the horns of your altars, their altars
of idolatry, and even their religion that was immersed in the law
of Moses they had perverted. They had taken that and turned
it into a legal system of works righteousness whereby they thought
they could be saved, that they could be accepted with God based
upon their works. But He says you cannot deny it.
And it goes all the way to the heart. It's not just outward
things now. It goes all the way to the heart.
Christ taught that in the Sermon on the Mount. You know, when
He talked about the righteousness that we need in order to enter
the Kingdom of Heaven, it has to far exceed what the best people
on earth could achieve. by their works. And then he begins
to show the high standard of the law of God. That it not only
condemns the outward act of murder, for example, but it also condemns
the thought of murder, anger, even pronouncing condemnation
on people. It not only forbids the outward
act of adultery, but it forbids the covetousness and the inward
lust that we have within. That's condemnable too, for by
the law is the knowledge of sin, and the wages of sin is death.
So this is what Jeremiah is doing. You know, they call Jeremiah
the weeping prophet. It's because he had a lot of
negatives to say about his generation, and he stood alone. Look at verse
two. It says, whilst their children
remember their altars and their groves by the green trees upon
the high hills. You know what he's saying there?
He's saying their heart is set upon idolatry. The children of
Judah, the children of Israel, they have fond memories of their
religion, but their religion is false. And that's what their
heart's set upon. Not upon the glory of God. Not upon seeking mercy and grace
in the promised Messiah. Not in justice, not in compassion,
but upon their religion. their experience, their dreams,
their visions, their groves, their green trees upon the high
hills. That's where they set up these
altars of idolatry to worship, which God had forbidden. And
so he says in verse three, he says, oh my mountain in the field,
I will give thy substance and all thy treasures to the spoil
and thy high places for sin throughout all thy borders. Verse four,
and thou even thyself shall discontinue from thine heritage, that is
the land that God had given him, that I gave thee, and I will
cause thee to serve thine enemies in the land which thou knowest
not, for you have kindled a fire in mine anger which shall burn
forever. And that's God's judgment against Judah. And that was gonna
come true in Jeremiah's time. Jeremiah was alive when the Babylonian
Empire descended down upon Judah and Jerusalem and destroyed the
temple. And Jeremiah, as you know, he fled to Egypt. And that's
where he spent most of the rest of his days. And so God's judgment
against sin. God must punish sin. God must be just. The soul that
sinneth, it shall surely die. The wages of sin is death. Now,
go down to verse nine. Now he's talking about, and I'm
gonna come back and read verses five through eight here in just
a moment. But he's showing here how deep
this problem is. How tough it is. How impossible
it is. It's a problem that man cannot
solve. It's a problem, it's a disease that man cannot cure, sin. And man may be able to see something
of it, but he cannot get to the root of it. He cannot get to
the very heart of it. It's kind of like, you know,
there's a type of cancer called melanoma. And it usually starts
with a little blemish on the skin. And they say if you let
that go, it spreads fast and it goes deep and it kills. You
don't see the inward part. You don't see how far it goes
until it's too late. And so a lot of times, that's
what sin is. It's like the leaven. Leaven,
which is a type of sin in the scripture. Starts out real small,
but it spreads throughout the whole lump. And that's what Jeremiah
is saying here. See, Judah's problem was not
just outward issues. but it was a heart problem. And
so then he comes down here and he says in verse nine, the heart
is deceitful above all things. That means it's the most deceptive
thing in the world. How in the world could we know
our hearts if that's the case? It's the most deceptive thing
in the world. He said above all things and
desperately wicked. Now, when you see that term wicked,
understand now that he's not just talking about the immoral
perversions of society, the out and out rebellious criminals
who belong in the jail cells and in the prisons. He's talking
about from the high priest on down. He's talking about all
the religious people too. He said it's from the best of
us to the worst of us. And he says, who can know it? Who can know it? How can we know
our hearts? Well, the answer is found in
this same passage, and let's read that, and then we'll go
to some New Testament passages. He says, look back up in verse
five now. Now he brought Judah in guilty
before God. And I'm gonna tell you something,
this is just a microcosm of the whole world by nature, fallen
in Adam. That's our problem too. We ruined
in Adam. And we're born in sin. It's a
heart problem with all of us. It's a problem we can't cure.
It's a problem we can't even see. Could you imagine living
in the days when they didn't have x-ray machines or MRIs or
heart catheterizations and all that. You know, you just get
that pain and you don't know what's going on. You know it's
a heart problem, but you don't know how to get in there and
look at it. Well, that's what it is. You
see, this is the issue of sin. We just don't understand how
deep this problem goes. And that's why man by nature,
just like Adam, believes that he can take care of the problem
by doing certain things. Avoiding this and doing this.
That's why he thinks that he can make himself righteous and
acceptable and holy before God by what he does and what he doesn't
do. That's why man's view of righteousness
and man's view of holiness lies in mostly what they don't do.
Look at the Pharisee in the public, and remember the Pharisee, I
thank God I'm not like other men, I don't do this. You see,
that's man's view, and that won't take care of. So what is the
answer? Well, look at verse five. He says, thus saith the Lord,
cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his
arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. Now, if you trust
in man, in yourself, or in anything that comes from the flesh, religiously
or whatever, that tells you the condition of your heart. And
so he says in verse 6, for he shall be like the heath in the
desert, like the rabbit or the little animal, and it says, and
shall not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched
places in the wilderness in a salt land and not inhabited. In other
words, it's going to be just nothing. It's going to be destruction.
It's going to be barrenness. It's going to be dryness. There's
no bread to be fed with. There's no water of life there.
He trusts in the flesh. Paul, the apostle, described
himself in Philippians 3 as one who trusted in the flesh. And
what were the acts of the flesh that he trusted in? He said,
I was a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee of Pharisees, circumcised the
eighth day of the tribe of Benjamin, as touching the law of Pharisee.
See, all of those things that he thought recommended him unto
God. See, anybody who trusts in themselves or what they do
or what they think they've been enabled to do is trusting in
the flesh. And what does the Bible say?
They're cursed. Cursed of God. And then verse 7, he says, blessed
is the man that trusteth in the Lord and whose hope the Lord
is. Now, that name Lord there, that
title Lord there is Jehovah. So what's he talking about? He's
talking about the covenant God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. The God of promise. The God of
grace. He's talking about the Lord Jesus
Christ and the promise of His coming. Trusting in God for grace.
In other words, I know I've got a sin problem that runs deeper
than I can even see and know and understand. And I can't cure
it, I can't fix it, and even my efforts to do so are wicked
and evil in the sight of God because that means I'm trusting
in the flesh. So what recourse do I have? That is to trust in the God of
grace and mercy in Christ. He's the only one who can take
care of that problem. And he says, those who trust
in him, verse 8, for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters,
and that spreadeth out her roots by the river. This is growth,
you see, this is flourishing. And he says, and he shall not
see when the heat cometh, but her leaves shall be green. and
shall not be careful in the year, that is, anxious in the year
of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit." Christ
said, I'm the vine, you're the branches. You'll bear fruit in
Him. Now you think about all that. The heart's deceitful,
desperately wicked, who can know it? What recourse do we have? If I have a dreaded disease within,
what recourse do I have? Let's go to the doctor and either
get an x-ray or an MRI or something. You've got to show somebody outside
of myself has got to show me with the tools that they have
what's wrong with me inside. Well, look at verse 10. He says,
I, the Lord, search the heart. Now that's the only hope we have.
to know the condition of our heart, that the Lord, again,
that word Lord there, that title Lord, that's Jehovah, God our
Savior, the God of all grace, the God of the covenant, the
God who justifies the ungodly through the blood and righteousness
of Christ. And he says, I, the Lord, search the heart. Now,
you can try to search my heart all you want, and you're not
gonna be successful, but here's the point. And listen to me. I can try to search my own heart,
but if I don't do it with the right tools and the right person
who's able to do that. In other words, Randy, if I had
a pain down here, it'd be silly for me to come and ask you, Randy,
what do you think that is? And the reason is because you're
no doctor. You might be able to give me a lot of good information
in a lot of areas, but not there. You'd say, Bill, I don't know.
You better go see a doctor. You better go see someone who's
qualified to find out what that is. And so if I come and ask
you, what's the condition of my heart? You can tell me what
you think, and you may be right, but you may not. The only one
that I can ask about my heart and the condition of my heart
who's qualified to know my heart and to tell me the reality of
my heart is the Lord. I, the Lord, search the heart.
He says, I try the reins. You know what the reins are.
You know, if you got a horse, you put the bride on him, you
got the reins and the reins tells him when to go and when to stop,
go left, go right. And what he's talking about the
reins here is what drives you, what motivates you, what tells
you to go in this direction, in that direction, what tells
you to stop and when to go. And God says, I test the reins,
even to give every man according to his ways. Well, what is my
way? What are my ways? And he says,
according to the fruit of his doings. Now Paul spoke of that
in Romans chapter seven. He said, there's two kinds of
fruit. He said, there's fruit unto God and there's fruit unto
death. Only God can tell me the difference.
which is fruit unto God, which is fruit unto death. That's the
only way. Now, how does God do that? Well,
does he just give you a feeling one day? I mean, does he come
to you in a dream at night? Does he cause you to walk an
aisle and let some preacher tell you or what? How does God do
that? How does he test the rain? How does he try to search the
heart? How does he test the rains? How
does he determine what he's going to give every man according to
those ways and according to the fruit of his doings? We'll turn
to Hebrews chapter four. I'll show you exactly how he
does it. And this is why you need to do what you're doing
this morning. Right now. This is why we need
to, this is one of the many reasons we need to do this. Not just
one time, but as a habit of life. And look at it, Hebrews chapter
four, verse 12. Here's what he says. For the
word of God is quick. And it doesn't mean, quick there
doesn't mean fast. It means it's life. Like quickening,
giving of life. What Peter say to the Lord when
he turned to the disciples and after the multitude went away
in John chapter 6, I believe it's verse 62 or 63, somewhere
around there. And the Lord said, will you go
away also? And Peter said, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the
words of life. The word of God is life. And
it's powerful. Now we know the word of God is
only as power and life in the hands of the Holy Spirit. Paul
called it the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth
to the Jew first and the Greek also because therein is the righteousness
of God revealed. That's the obedience unto death
of the Lord Jesus Christ to put away my sin and make me righteous.
So the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any
two-edged sword cuts both ways. piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit and the joints and marrow and is
a discerner, you might say a tester or a judger of the thoughts and
intents of the heart. And he says in verse 13, neither
is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight. But
all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom
we have to do. How does God try, search the
heart? How does he try the reins? By
his word. And so this is kind of like,
we might say, the x-ray machine. This is kind of like the MRI.
That when I read this book, I want to know what it says about me.
And here's what it says. It says I'm a sinner. I'm just
like Judah. By nature, as I was born into this world, fallen
in Adam, I'm just like Judah. I'm a sinner. I have no righteousness
of my own and I can't work one out. It's an indelible problem
that reaches to the heart which means I can't cure it. My best
efforts at religion, morality, dedication, and sincerity will
not put away my sins and make me righteous before God. It will
not do it. Just like, turn to Romans chapter
nine. Just like Israel. And these were
spoken by the words, by the prophet Isaiah, these words in Romans
chapter nine. several years before Jeremiah. In verse 31 of Romans 9, he says,
but Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath
not attained to the law of righteousness. They were trying to keep the
law to be righteous. Verse 32, wherefore, why? Because
they sought it not by faith. That means they didn't believe
God, and it says, but as it were, by the works of law. They were
trying to be righteous by works of the law. Now Judah, and that's
who Isaiah prophesied to, preached to, he says, you've got a problem,
in Jeremiah 17. And that problem was in Isaiah's
day, the problem in Jeremiah's day, it never changes. It's all
men and women born of Adam, doesn't matter who they are, who we are,
you've got a problem. And it's written with a pin of
iron and the point of a diamond. That means it cannot be erased.
It's there and it's an impossible thing for man to do it, to erase
it. And as long as you try by your
works, it's gonna stay right there. It's a heart problem and
it says in verse 32, they stumbled at the stumbling stone. What
is the stumbling stone? That's a prophecy from Isaiah
chapter eight and Isaiah chapter 28. And it says in verse 33,
as it is written, behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and
rock of offense, and whosoever believeth on him, that stumbling
stone is a him, that's a person, shall not be ashamed, shall not
be confounded or confused. What's he saying? Well, he's
telling us the only cure for sin is the Lord Jesus Christ
and what he accomplished on Calvary. He's telling us that the only
way that a sinner can be made righteous before God is through
the obedience and death of a substitute who meets three qualifications.
Number one, he's one whom God chose. Now, man can choose his
own substitute, but he's going to fail. That's why people in
other religions, they'll choose Buddha, they'll choose Mohammed,
they'll choose Confucius, they'll choose any, but it won't work.
God has to choose, appoint, anoint his substitute, and he's done
that. He appointed his son, the second
person of the Trinity, the God-man mediator, God in human flesh.
And secondly, he's got to be qualified. He's gotta be appointed
by God and he's gotta be qualified. Now he's qualified because he's
both God and man in one person. Book of Hebrews chapter two says
that the reason that he was made flesh is because the ones whom
he represented and died for were flesh. The difference was he
was without sin. And so he was qualified. And
number three, he's got to be willing. He's got to be willing. Christ said, they didn't take
my life from me. He said, I gave it willingly.
He loved his own until the end, to the finishing of the work.
And it says, look at chapter 10 now. It says, brethren, verse
one, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they
might be saved. Saved from what? Saved from sin. Somebody says, well, saved from
hell. Well, it's sin that puts sinners in hell. You've got to
go to the root of the problem. That's what Jeremiah's talking
about. You see, that's how we can know our heart. You know,
people say, well, you know, we're just preaching a gospel of a
fire escape. No, we're preaching salvation
from sin. It's a sin problem. It's a heart
problem. It goes farther than just escaping
hell because it's sin. Somebody said, well, we want
to escape death. Well, the wages of sin is death. If it weren't
for sin, there wouldn't be any death. So you gotta go to the heart
of the problem. That's what Jeremiah's talking about back there. You
gotta look, how can we know our heart? Christ is not just a fire
escape from hell. He shall save, his name shall
be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Is he able to do it? Well, his
name shall be called Emmanuel, which being interpreted as God
with us. And so he says, my heart's desire and prayer for Israel
is that they might be saved. Verse two, for I bear them record,
they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. Now
this thing of not, what are we talking about? How we can know
our heart. We know that to stand before
God, we must have a righteousness that equals the demands of his
justice. And in the deception of our heart,
we think that in some form, to some degree, at some stage in
our lives, we can work one out in some way with the help of
God. That's a deception. That's where
the wicked heart is really deceptive. That's where it's wicked above
all things, desperately wicked. And this is what he's saying
here in verse 3, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness,
ignorant of God's justice, his high standard. What does it take
for a sinner to be righteous? Takes perfect satisfaction to
God's justice. God must be just when he justifies. And they're ignorant of that,
so the deceptive heart is what leads them to go about to establish
their own righteousness there. That's the deception of the heart.
Any sinner who's going about trying to establish their own
righteousness has a deception of their own heart. And that's
the desperately wicked heart. He says, they have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God. Now, what is the righteousness
of God? Verse four, for Christ is the end, the fulfillment,
the finishing, the completion of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. What Jeremiah say, blessed are
they that trust in the Lord. That's what it means to trust
in the Lord, verse four of Romans 10. Not trying to work out a
righteousness of your own, that's the desperately wicked, deceived
heart. God tries, he tests the heart.
Well look at it, he goes on, he says in verse five, for Moses
describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the
man which doeth those things shall live by them. In other
words, if you're gonna be made righteous by your law keeping,
you've gotta keep it all perfectly. But the righteousness which is
of faith speaketh on this wise, say not in thine heart, who shall
ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down from above,
or who shall descend into the deep, that is to bring Christ
again from the dead. You know what he's essentially
saying there? He's essentially saying this, it's kind of like
the same thing that John the Baptist said when he said this,
you cannot get to heaven unless you came from heaven. You see,
that's why Paul makes the distinction in 1 Corinthians 15 of the first
man, Adam, is of the earth, earthy. The second man, Christ, he's
from the heaven. In other words, salvation must
come from heaven. You can't get there unless you
came from there, and you didn't come from there, and I didn't
come from there. Christ did. He came down. He was made flesh
and dwelt among us. So in other words, if we're going
to be saved, if we're going to be made righteous, it must come
from God. It must be the righteousness
of God. The righteousness of the best men on earth won't do
it. Not even Adam's before the fall, because that's a creature
righteousness. And so he says in verse eight,
but what saith it? That the word is nigh thee, even
in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the word of faith which
we preach. Now look at verse nine, that if thou shalt confess
with thy mouth the Lord Jesus. Now that's a confession with
the mouth now. And he says, and shalt believe
in thine heart. that God hath raised him from
the dead, that means he finished the work, and as Daniel 9.24
says, he finished the transgression, made an end of sin, and brought
in everlasting righteousness. Now that's what it means to believe
that God raised him from the dead. It's not just the historical
fact of the resurrection, we do believe the historical fact
of it. But that means that righteousness has been brought in and established.
And he said, thou shalt be safe for with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto
salvation. Now there's the heart that's
not deceived. How can I know my heart? He says,
well, with the heart man believeth unto righteousness. Now notice
it doesn't say with the heart man worketh unto righteousness.
He believeth unto righteousness. What is it to believe unto righteousness?
He just told us, verse 4 up there in Romans 10. For Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. To
believe unto righteousness is to believe in and rest in and
submit to Christ and all that he accomplished in his obedience
unto death to put away my sin and make me righteous before
God. Now, what does that say about my heart? Well, as the
psalmist said in Psalm 57 and verse 7, he said it this way,
my heart is fixed. Oh God, my heart is fixed. I will sing and give praise.
My heart's fixed on Christ. Psalm 108, verse one, oh God,
my heart is fixed. I will sing and give praise even
with my glory. What is my glory? Paul said in
Galatians 6, 14, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul wrote in Philippians chapter
3 and verse 3, we're the circumcision which worship God in spirit and
rejoice or glory in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the
flesh. What Jeremiah is saying, Jeremiah 17, he said, cursed
is the man who puts his trust in man and trust the arm of the
flesh. We don't have any confidence
in the flesh. My heart's fixed on Christ and him alone. Incidentally, back here in Jeremiah
17, let me close with this. You read the rest of that chapter,
but beginning there at verse 12 and going on through verse
18, Jeremiah prays for deliverance for himself and for the people,
and everything he says here points to the coming of Christ. That's
where his hope is. And then in verses 19 through
27, he brings an indictment against Israel because they didn't keep
the Sabbath. Well, what is it to keep the
Sabbath? What did that picture, what did that typify? Our rest
in Christ, read Hebrews chapter four sometime. You know, we keep
a Sabbath. If you're a believer, you keep
a Sabbath. Now, that's not Sunday. at your rest in Christ for all
of salvation, for all holiness, for all righteousness, for all
forgiveness. It's His blood alone at your
Sabbath. Okay.