Do you ever ask yourself questions
like this? Look in the mirror in the morning
or in the evening or sitting in your easy chair thinking, what kind of person am I? What kind of man is it my wife
lives with? What kind of man is it my daughter
has for father. What am I really like? I want
you to. What kind of person are you?
Now, before you answer the question, let me remind you that your character,
your real character, is not to be measured by your words or
your actions. or even the opinions of others
about you. Your real character is to be
measured by your heart, what you are. What is your heart? That will tell you what you really
are. A man is what he is at heart. John Owen, the great English
theologian said what a man is in his closet alone before God
Almighty, that he is and no more. It's pretty accurate. What you
are at heart is what you are. Do you know what your heart's
really like? And again, I say don't be too
quick to answer. You don't really know. Only God
sees your heart. Only God searches and tries the
heart. Only God knows the innermost
recesses of your heart. If we would know our hearts,
if we would know what we're like, really, we must ask God to show
us, and he has most plainly done so. Listen to what God says about
your heart. God says that your heart and
mine is evil only evil and that continues. God says that your
heart is wicked and perverse. God says that your heart is malicious
and that your heart is as hard as stone. As hard as stone. The Lord our God tells us that
our real character is such that we are a proud people. We are
evil, base, wicked, depraved creatures. We are all malicious
men and women, and we are, every one of us, as hard as stone,
cold, dead, immovable, hard as stone. The wise man said, as a man thinketh
in his heart, so is he. And the Lord Jesus Christ, over
in the book of Mark, if you want to turn there, Mark chapter 7,
tells us what we are in our hearts. He tells us how we think in our
hearts. In Mark chapter 7, beginning
at verse 21, Our Lord Jesus Christ says concerning
you and me, concerning all men, from within, out of the heart
of men, and you'll notice he uses it in the singular, but
he's talking about all men, because we've all got the same kind of
hearts, every one of us. Out of the heart of men, proceed
evil thoughts adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness,
wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride,
foolishness, all these things come from within. Now, that's not a pleasant picture. But it's true. What base, depraved
creatures we are. What a hideous monster man is. Man is not good, he's wicked. Man is not moral, he's immoral. Man is not decent, he's vile. There is not so much as a single
spark of decency, morality, or goodness in any of us, not one
of us by nature. The fact is, every loathsome,
hideous evil that has ever been recorded upon the pages of human
history resides in your heart and mine by nature. That's a bitter pill to swallow. We talk about the atrocities
of Adolf Hitler, and we talk about the atrocities
going on in our society. We talk about the crimes that
men commit, and we talk about the terrible indecency and immorality
that goes on. And we talk about it with a certain
smugness, with a certain sense of setting
ourselves up as God in judgment over those things. And in a sense,
we must. We must set in judgment over
those things, but not to the exclusion of setting in judgment
over our own hearts for those things. I have never read yet,
neither in the newspaper nor in history, I have never seen,
by my own eyes or through the television media, I have never
heard tell of the atrocities that go on in my own heart. Never. Never. I don't like that, but
that's the fact. Some of you will quickly defend
yourselves and you'll say, well, I'm not like that. My heart is
not such a cesspool of iniquity. The Lord knows my heart. Indeed,
he does. He knows your heart and he knows
mine. And that's the reason he said
what he did concerning our hearts. Here's something else he said.
Turn over in Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapter 17. Jeremiah
17 verse 9. The Lord God speaking to us by
the prophet Jeremiah says, the heart, the heart. Now, I'm not talking about that
pump inside our chest that pushes blood through our bodies. Folks
get upset because they want to give a heart transplant or they
want to put a mechanical heart in a man. Well, you know, that
may be a question for scientists and moralists to debate on their
But whether this pump is in here or not doesn't make any difference.
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the inmost
being of a man. I'm talking about what a man
he is in his soul, in his essence. I'm not talking about anything
that has to do with the shell, with his body of flesh. I'm talking
about the heart, the heart of man, the heart, that which is
the inner rule, that which is the inner motivation, that which
is the inner power, that which is man at his essence. The heart
is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can
know it? I, the Lord, search the heart. I try the reins. even to give
every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his
doings. The heart deceitful, the heart
desperately wicked. Now that's the condition of man's
heart, yours and mine. I recall when I was a boy in
Western Salem, They had the circus come through town. I forget whether
it was Ringling Brothers or one of the others. The circus came
through town. They had the parade for the animals
that went through, you know, and they had those lions and
tigers caged up. And being little old boys like
we were, those lions and tigers were caged up. We'd get back
and throw rocks at those things. That wasn't a thing they could
do. No need to fear those lions and tigers. They couldn't get
out. You can throw rocks you want to at them. They can roar
and they can spit at you, but they can't do a thing. They're
caged up. Look at them, no need to be afraid of them. But one
morning, about three o'clock in the morning, one of those
tigers got out. And I want you to know everybody was panic-stricken. Mauled a newspaper boy on his
route. Everybody was fearful. They didn't have any idea where
that thing was. They finally caught it and it was a sigh of
relief. One of that caged tiger is like
our hearts. We're caged in by the bars of
society, by the bars of man's opinion, by the bars of opinions
from other people around us, by the bars of divine providence,
by the restraint of law, by the fear of what might happen if
we did the things that are in us and that we imagine. But oh
my soul, thank God, he doesn't completely remove the bond. He
doesn't let us out of that cage and turn us loose. It wasn't that way in the beginning.
Adam's heart before the fall was neither deceitful nor wicked.
The wise man said in Ecclesiastes 7 that God created Adam upright. But he sought out many inventions.
In the garden, Adam's mind was pure, heavenly, godlike. His heart was fixed upon God,
only upon God. In the garden, the affection
of Adam's heart was upon God alone, fully upon God. God had no rival in Adam's heart,
no rival. When God created that man, he
was a man. He was a specimen of manhood. He was the crown of God's creation. God brought all the animals to
Adam to be named. He was not only a man, but he
was a genius of a man. He was a mighty man. Then God
made a woman, set her beside him. She was a woman, a beautiful
woman, a genius of a woman. The two were innocent, and though
Adam loved Eve, He had no love for Eve like he had for God.
And though Eve loved Adam, she had no love for Adam like she
had for God. The two were created in perfection,
in right, with no inclination toward anything evil, with no
weakness, with no bias toward evil. Adam loved God, God loved
Adam. Adam loved what God loved, and
he hated what God hated. There was nothing treacherous
or deceitful about Adam's heart in those days. It was as pure
and transparent as glass. He had nothing to hide. There
was no wickedness, no hatred, no pride, no blasphemy in Adam's
heart. He had nothing to conceal from
God, nothing to conceal from the angels. He didn't even have
anything to conceal from his wife. Never a thought. Nothing to conceal
from God. Nothing to conceal from the angels.
Nothing to conceal from another man. Adam knew his heart, and
his heart was good. It was good. As God looked into
the deepest recesses of Adam's heart, this is what God had to
say about that man whom he had created. Behold, it was very
good. God said so. Adam's heart was a reflection
of God's heart. But then that man who was made
in the image and likeness of God, that man who was the glory
of God's creation, that man who was so much like God himself,
so much like God, sinned against his He rebelled against his bountiful
benefactor. And when Adam sinned against
God, his heart was immediately and permanently changed. Immediately,
he died spiritually. Permanently, his heart became
evil. When he lost the favor of God,
he lost the image of God. And when he lost the image of
God, his heart was filled with evil. Robert Murray McShane said,
just as Nebuchadnezzar suddenly got a beast heart, so Adam suddenly
got the heart, a heart that was in the image of the devil. And
this has been the description of man's heart ever since. The
heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. All men since the fall of Adam
are born with Adam's depraved, deceitful, desperately wicked
heart. The psalmist says over in Psalm
58, if you want to turn there, Psalm 58 verse 3, the psalmist
David describes the heart of man and he describes it in the
earliest beginnings of man's existence upon the earth. He
says in Psalm 58 verse 3, the wicked, that's you and me, that's
every fallen son of Adam, the wicked are estranged from the
womb. That is, they are separated from
God from birth. The wicked are estranged from
the womb. They go astray as soon as they
are born, deceitfully speaking lies. Lying, deceit, cunning,
subtlety, that's the most easy thing on this earth for men to
do. They're masters at it. They're
masters at it. We learn it early. We learn it
in the mama's womb. That's what's learned. That little
baby. Oh, isn't she a darling? No. No. Yeah, before you she is. Don't misunderstand me. Yeah.
Daddy thinks she's a darling, but she's a devil. Little innocent. Oh, no. No. Little liar. And you best learn it. Foolishness
is bound up in the heart of a child. The rod of correction will drive
it home. You leave the child to himself. Leave the child shut
up to himself. Oh, my soul, what will become
of the child? The child is born with a heart
of corruption, with a heart of evil, and it only gets worse
as time goes on. tried to deny original sin and
tried to deny depravity, they don't like it, they don't like
the teachings of it, but it's taught plainly in scripture and
any fool who's got half sense can recognize it itself. You
take a child from its mother's womb, take that child and shut
it up in a closet, don't ever allow it to see a motion picture,
Don't ever allow that child to see a dirty magazine. Don't ever
allow that child to hear a word of profanity. Don't ever allow
that child to see anybody outside that closet. Just his cell. That's
all. Just his cell. Shut up in that
closet and leave him there till he's 25 years old and open the
door. My soul! What a monster! There he is. He doesn't learn those things
outside. It's in him. It's in him. It's
in him. The apostle Paul tells us the
same thing over in Romans chapter 8, Romans the 8th chapter, verse 7. The carnal mind, another
word for the heart, the carnal mind, the fleshly nature, the
essence of man is enmity against God. Now this is what Paul says. You hate God. You hate God. Now man does not hate what he
thinks God is. Man does not hate his imagination
of God. You take a pathist and they mold
a statue of the Virgin Mary and put gold on it and put emeralds
around it and put a crucifix in its hand. They don't hate
that. They don't hate that. They made it. It's a work of
their own hands. They love it. They cherish it. They delight
in it. That's their God. You take a fundamentalist and
take the idol that he has formed. Oh, he doesn't have a pocket
knife that he whittles out of stone. He's got it in his mind,
in his heart. He makes a weak, effeminate,
helpless little God that has no eyes but his eyes, and no
ears but his ears, and no hands but his hands, and no feet but
his feet. Sir Pastor, nobody ever said
anything like that. Oh, yes, they do. I heard that fellow
in Ohio say, God's got no hands but your hands. God's got no
feet but your feet. He's on a stump, and when you
want to use him, you put him on some rollers and shove him
here and there. He's helpful. Nobody hates that. But man hates God, as is revealed
in this book. All men hate God. You do and
I do by nature. None of us like the revelation
of the fact that God is holy, that God is just, that God is
righteous, that God's a God of judgment and that He's sovereign
and does whatever He will. Nobody likes that. Nobody does. Man hates God. That's what Paul
says here. All men since the fall of Adam
are born that way. I want you to see what Jeremiah
says here. Really, it's not Jeremiah. This
is what God says concerning your heart and mind. Number one, your
heart like mine is deceitful above all things. Sin is not a social disease that
little boys pick up when they go to school and turn 12. Sin
is an inbred family disease. It's the disease of our race.
It's the plague of the heart. Man's problem is not what he
does. That's not the problem. I know
people can go crazy with some things that I say, but you understand
what I'm talking about. People try to get fellas, don't
do this and don't do that. Get them to clean up their acts,
you know, and get them to quit drinking and quit cussing and
quit running around and quit doing this and quit going there.
Join the church and reform your life and everything will be all
right. You're just lopping off the branches. The root of that
corrupt tree is still alive and well in the heart. The problem's
here. Now, if you get rid of the root,
the branches will die. But you've got to deal with the
root problem, and the problem is man's heart. The heart of man is so wicked,
and the primary, principal, essential element of man's wickedness is
deceit. The Apostle Paul, quoting from
the Psalms, says that with their tongues they have used deceit. will more quickly provoke a man
to rage and anger than for you to stand up and say, well, you
know, I, uh, I don't really know what I believe that is now. You
calling me a liar? Yep. Yep. I'm calling you a liar. A liar. And I'm putting myself
right down there where you're sitting. I'm a liar and you're
a liar. That's what we are. That's what
we are. Now there's no point in us pretending, no point in
us trying to put up a facade if we believe this book, and
if God has taught us anything about ourselves, we are deceitful
creatures. Deceitful creatures. But the
scripture says here, God says here, that the heart of man is
deceitful above all things. Now that takes a big category.
I used to live over right close to the New River. Fayette County,
West Virginia. And, you know, I used to drive
over the river frequently, and it didn't look too bad. Every
now and then on a pretty rough day, you'd have some ripples,
you know, in that wide part of the river. It looked so calm,
so peaceful. You'd think, man, I'd like to
get out there and take a swim. I told somebody one day, I hadn't been
there very long, I said, let's come out here and have a picnic
and go for a swim. They said, you don't want to
go swimming there. I said, why? Hey, that water's nearly 100
feet deep there, and it's got a terrible undercurrent. Some
of the best swimmers in this part of the country have drowned
right there in that water hole. It's deceitful. It's deceitful. But
the heart of man, oh, that's deceitful. We've just come through
a drought in this part of the country. Not sure we got through
it yet, but we're supposed to have gotten through it a few
weeks back, had a little rain. You remember on those hot, dry
days? You'd be out in the yard, out
in the field, and feel a little breeze come up. Sky get a little
dark over there. You almost smell rain in the
air. It just go right back. The clouds are deceitful. But
the heart of man, that's deceitful. More than anything else in the
world. Lots of animals are deceitful. My wife and daughter have always
been fond of cats. I never have. They're deceitful
creatures. They'd give me an old scrubby dog. I don't want
a cat. I want one around the house.
I had a friend of mine who had a cat for years and years and
years. She walked through the house
one day, and that little pet she'd had since she was a little
girl, waiting on her, that cat jumped out and took the hide
off of her legs, just pulled them down. Deceitful animal. more subtle, more deceitful than
all the beasts of the field. But I want to tell you something.
The cat, the serpent, the clouds, the rivers, none of them compare
with the deceit of the heart. Deceitful above all things, your
heart and my heart. Now that's what this book says
here. is masterful in the art of deceiving
others. Every man is a born hypocrite. We are all quieted sepulchers. Oh, we paint up the outside and
we make it look so nice. We fix it up and we make it so
attractive, you know, that you think, man, they got to be a
rose garden in that place. If you could open up the seal
on that tomb, You'd run in horror at what's inside that animal.
It's just a whitish center. Inside a dead man's bones. Inside is darkness and death
and corruption. Inside is a body being eaten
of worms and all kinds of loathsome creatures. Inside is a repulsive,
horrible corruption that no man can endure. Terrible inside. That's what you are. That's what
I am. Our hearts have deceived folks
with the show we put on. And we put it on from the time
we come out of mama's womb and we get better at it as we go
along. The older we get, the more of a show we put on. Not
one of us wears his true colors. If everybody in this place were
suddenly to tear off his pretty mask. Every man and every woman
just really show himself. You know where that word, where
that phrase comes from? Somebody gets a little upset,
you know, out in public. Wife comes home, she says, well,
you really showed yourself tonight. You know what that means? You
took off the mask. Not reading it. He just took
off a little corner of the mask. That's all. If we would all take
off the mask, if we would all expose ourselves for what we
really are, this church would not look like the gate of heaven,
it'd look like the pit of hell, for that's what's there in our
hearts by nature, yours and mine. Not one of us are what we appear
to be and what we pretend to be. Not one of us speak with
absolute honesty to our friends. Not one of us. That not a man
or woman here who speaks with absolute honesty to mom or dad
or sons or daughters. That not a man or woman here
who speaks with absolute honesty all times to his husband or wife. Not one of us. Not one of us.
And you can be thankful. You can be thankful. Not one
of us ever expose his real inmost thoughts and imaginations. Sometimes
we kind of skirt around the border of the cesspool. And we, as I
have done this evening, we kind of get close, but my soul, we've
got better senses to get over and start exposing everything.
Don't dare do that. You don't dare do that. Not one
of us deals plainly with his inmost thoughts or imaginations.
Not one of us speaks honestly, telling others exactly what we
think or exactly what we feel. We don't do it. And if we do ever come close,
it's only to hurt you. If we do say, well, I'll speak
my mind. Our reason for doing so is everybody
look at us and say, well, he's not afraid of anybody. or our
reason for doing so, so we'll be mean and hurt somebody. And
even then, you don't dare speak what's on your mind. You don't
dare do it. If it were possible for all men
to see what other men really are, what they think, what they
imagine, none of us would be safe. This world would soon come
to an end. I dare say no human being would
live with any other human being if either knew the other. None
of us would. None of us would. But that's
not the worst of it. The heart of man is also masterful
in the craft of self-deceit. Oh, my soul. Satan is the master deceiver.
He's a subtle fellow. But he's got a willing assistant
in your breath. He got a willing assistant, Bob,
inside you. He's got a willing ally in you,
in your heart. Men are easily deceived because
they're willingly deceived. They said over in Isaiah 28,
that don't speak to us about judgment and death. We've made
lives our refuge. We've made a covenant with death.
Nothing's going to happen to us. That's in my strange language. Until you see here that the heart
is deceitful above all things. The heart. Oh boy, the heart of man. It
tells you that everything's okay. Everything's okay. You walked
the church aisle. You knelt at an altar. You sent
the sinner's prayer. Every now and then you shed a
few tears. You've been baptized and joined the church. You've
changed your lifestyle. You don't live the way you used
to live. You say, I believe in Jesus. And you say, well, what
else could I do? What more could I do? I had a
friend, very dear, very dear relative asked me just recently,
I was talking to him about the gospel and he said, Don, what
more can I do? What more can I do? And there
was nothing I could say to him because he didn't understand
the first thing I said. Nothing. Nothing. What more can I do?
You can't do anything. You can't do anything. If this
is not enough, then nobody's safe. I've done everything I
know to do. Your heart tells you that everything's
well when nothing's well. Your heart tells you that you're
a changed person. Because your heart tells you
that no man could have seen and felt and experienced the things
that you have unless he was truly a child of God. I say to you,
my friends, beware. Beware your heart, the deceitfulness
of your heart. Oh, may God save us from our
deceitful hearts. Salvation not in what we do.
Salvation's not in what we feel. Salvation's not in what we experience.
Salvation's not in what we know. Salvation's in Christ. That's
not right, Wes. Salvation is Christ. It is Christ. That's it. Mine eyes have seen
thy salvation. He that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son, doesn't
matter what else he's got, he has no life. I hope you see that first point.
gotten close to expounding it yet, your heart is deceitful above
all things. Don't trust your heart. Don't
lean upon your heart. Don't trust your feelings. Don't
trust your emotions. Don't lean upon your heart. It's
no wonder to me, I read this statement by Martin Luther the
other day, this is not at all marvelous. Anybody who understands
what I'm saying could say just what Luther said. He said to
one of his friends one time, I'm more afraid of my own heart
than of the Pope and all his cardinals. Bobby, I'm afraid of my heart.
I'm afraid of it. I'm afraid of the subtlety of
Satan. I'm afraid of the care of this
world. I'm afraid of the charms of a
happy home, a loving wife, a loving daughter. I'm afraid of the allurements
that are set before me day after day. I want to tell you something,
more than all the demons in hell, I'm afraid of this part I'm afraid of it. It's deceitful. Deceitful. Deceitful. Not only is the heart deceitful
above all things, but Lord God also says that our hearts are
desperately wicked. Now that word desperately is
really a medical term. If you ever get real sick, And
the doctor stands by your bed and they pat you on the shoulder
and he says to your wife, he's desperately ill. You may
as well call the ambulance. You're gone. That's what the
word means. He's past cure. He's beyond all
human remedy. He's past recovery. Now, this
is what God says concerning your heart and mind. The heart is
deceitful above all things and desperately, incurably, past
recovery, wicked. Now, we ought not be too hard
to convince of that. The Word of God speaks very plainly.
Turn over to Genesis chapter 6. Genesis chapter 6. I want you to see this. Now,
this is what the Word of God says about man's heart. Genesis
6 verse 5, God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth
and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart, now
did you see that? Every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart, every one of them, was only evil continually. Turn over to chapter 8, Genesis
chapter 8, God sent the flood now He destroyed
the world, things will get better now. Man's heart's going to improve
now. Let's see. Verse 21, the Lord smelled a
sweet savor and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again
curse the ground anymore for man's sake. For the imagination
of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I again smite
the ground anymore or smite anymore every living thing as I've done.
Doesn't change man his heart still evil. His heart is still
corrupt turn over to Proverbs Proverbs chapter 6 verse 14 The wise man says frowardness
is in his heart He deviseth mischief Continually he soweth discord
frowardness Pride, arrogancy, wickedness, corruption. He devises
iniquity. He devises mischief. He sows
discord. That's what's in his heart. That's
what's in his heart. Turn to Matthew chapter 15. Matthew
15 verse 19. You're familiar with this passage.
Our Lord's disciples sat down in a restaurant to eat lunch
one day and they didn't recite one of the prayers, and some
religious folks standing back there, and they said, well, those
fellows aren't very religious. They didn't pray before they
ate. They don't look religious to us. Actually, what had happened
is they didn't go through the ritual and custom of washing
their hands before they ate. And the Pharisees said, why,
your disciples eat with unwashed hands. Don't they know that's
dirty? Don't they know that'll defile
them? Our Lord said in verse 17, don't you understand yet
that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly
and is cast out into the draft? You don't need an explanation
of that, do you? You all know what that means, don't you? It
goes in and it goes out, that's what it means. It's insignificant,
it's useless, it's vain. There's not any need to be worried
about that. But those things which proceed out of the mouth
come forth from the heart and they defile the man. For out
of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications,
thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile
a man. These fellows, they try to find
every excuse in the world for man-sin. The psychiatrist has
been telling us for a hundred years now, it's not your fault,
Johnny. If your daddy had hit you on
the head when you was a boy and you tried to shoot him, you wouldn't
be the way you are. Mary, now you know you oughtn't
to blame yourself for what you're going through now. But think,
just cause you're a little thief, you know, just cause you held
up a bank and shot a fella with a machine gun, cut him in two,
hacked him in pieces, that's not your fault. Your mama never
to have lost her temper with you. It's not your fault. And
they get a little more. They say to the rapist, it's
not your fault. You know if that fella, what's
his name? I don't know the name. Anyway,
that fellow who publishes those dirty magazines, he didn't publish
those things. You wouldn't do that. It's not your fault. It's
not your fault. Yeah, it's your fault. It's your
fault. What you do comes out of your
heart. What you say comes out of your
heart. It doesn't come out of mama's heart or daddy's heart.
It comes out of your heart. Your heart's wicked, desperately
wicked. Read history. You don't have
to read history, read your newspaper. Don't even have to read your
newspaper, go home and turn it on. You read of murder and rape and incest
and violence and child abuse and you read of every kind of
ungodliness in the world and you listen to it and you watch
it and the news media knows that you like to watch it and they
keep on showing more of it. You like to see it all because
your heart corresponds to it. The reason we have an interest
in it. Did you ever notice that all
of our heroes All of our heroes are men of blood. You ever notice
that? I don't, I think I'm correct.
Bobby, you kind of enjoy that movie about Sergeant York, don't
you? Yeah, yeah, we watch that thing. Sat up one night and watched
that 3, 4 o'clock in the morning. And all it did was show a fella
shooting men. Yeah, just shooting them. That's
a hero for you. Because we got something in our
hearts that says, I like that. I like that. And we watch the
junk we watch because we've got something in our heart that corresponds
with it. We delight in what we delight in because we've got
something in our heart that corresponds with it. The testimony of every
truly converted man or woman in this place bears witness to
what I'm saying. Thank God he has mercy upon us
in Christ. I have reason to believe I am chosen of God, redeemed
and justified in Christ. I have reason to believe I'm
accepted of God, forgiven of all sin. I have reason to believe,
herewith, I'm regenerate, born of God's Spirit. Oh my God, what goes on in my
heart. You pray. Call it prayer. and the imaginations that run
through your mind. You read the Word. And reading the Word of God,
the sensuality that comes to your mind, let's get off of that. The stocks that come to your
mind, cattle that come to your mind, the house that comes to
your mind, the work that comes to your mind, the money that
comes to your mind, it's all the same thing. It's all the
same thing. Anybody here who doesn't know
what I'm talking about? Is there anybody in this place
who doesn't know what I'm talking about? I'm asking you. This is
what our hearts are like. That's the heart of man, desperately
wicked. Not only is the heart of man
incurably wicked, it's also unsearchably wicked. The Lord God raises the
question, Who can know it? No natural man knows it. You
can bank on it. Turn over to 2 Kings. Let me
give you an illustration of this. 2 Kings chapter 8. Elisha the prophet came to this
fellow Hazael. 2 Kings chapter 8 and verse 12. And Hazael said, Why weepeth
my Lord? And he answered, because I know
the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel. Now this
Hazel fellow was a popular fellow. He was a man of reputation, a
man of renown. He wasn't a crook. He wasn't
a criminal. He wasn't somebody Elijah dug up out of a dungeon
somewhere. He was a popular fellow. He said,
I know the evil that you're going to do to the children of Israel.
Their strongholds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men
wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children,
and rip up their women with child. Now, you can imagine what Hazel's
response was, can't you? Hazel said, but what? Is thy
servant a dog, that he should do this great thing? Hazel said, Elijah, you've got
the wrong fellow. I ain't never done anything like
that in my life. Well, I've never killed a dog, much less a man.
What are you talking about Elijah? I wouldn't do that. You know
me better than that. Read the prophecy a little further.
And Hazel became, as king of Syria, the most horrible persecutor
imaginable of children Words can't describe the vileness of
the actions he did. Because you see, Hazel didn't
know his heart. He didn't know his heart. If I had the spirit of a prophet, then I could look you, men, women,
boys and girls in the eye, and tell you everything you're going
to do Between now and the time you die, I could tell you some
of the things that you're certain to do. You'd look at me and say,
you're talking, you talk to me like I'm a dog. I wouldn't do
that. You don't know your heart. You
don't know your heart. I have a friend. Your companion. dear companion,
companion of many years, who sacrificed his wife, his
children, our friendship, the Church of God, the Gospel of
Christ, and eternal glory, everything, on the altar of his own lust.
Everything. Everything. You'd ask me four
years ago, five years ago, six years ago, who on earth is the
least likely fellow on this earth to do such a thing as that? I'd
say my buddy did never do it. He'd never do it. And he never
suspected himself of doing it. Awakened sinners have some real
knowledge that their hearts are wicked, but none of us knows
how wicked. Believers have an ever-increasing
knowledge of the wickedness of their hearts, but none of us knows how wicked
our hearts are. None of us. Go ask Noah. Father's working
on that hour. Reckon you'll ever get in a drunken
stupor and have one of your sons rape you? What? Abraham, when he comes back delivering
Lot from the kings of the plains, and they try to make him rich
by their deeds, and Abraham said, I want him to take a shoelace
from you. Abraham, reckon you'll ever get scared of a man and
offer to give him your wife? David, probably standing over
the head of Goliath with a Goliath sword in his hand. David, reckon you could ever take another
man's wife, have him killed? What? You're talking to me like
I'm a dog. No. Ask Peter. when he's in the garden, the Roman soldiers come to arrest
the Lord, and Peter, at hazard of his life, takes out his sword
against those Roman soldiers. Ask Peter if he'd ever tremble
and deny Christ before a mate. I won't. Ask Paul. As you read 1 Corinthians
chapter 13, the exposition of Paul on the love of God and the
love of God in a man. As you read that, when you get
done reading it, ask Paul, would you ever have such a strife with
Barnabas that it caused you to part ways and never work together
again? Ask Don Fortner. Ask yourself. Can you do this or do that? We
say, we say, yeah, I know possible for any of us to do anything.
Let me tell you something. We say it, we say it just like we
say that's a piece of wood there. We say it without thought. We
say it without any realization of what we're talking about.
We say it not really meaning it. I'm convinced we don't mean
what we say. Not one of us really thinks we
would ever do the things that we very likely will do. and most certainly would do if
God didn't restrain us. I know we think that way. I know
we feel that way. God, forgive me, I know it's
true of me and I know it's true of you. Because we talk just
that way. Look at old Dale Smith and say,
boy, I don't know how to do that. I don't know how many men do
that. What I'm saying is I wouldn't do it. Do you follow me, Dale?
I wouldn't do it. No, I wouldn't do it. Look at
West and you say, man, I don't know how a fella could do that.
How could a man be a Christian and do something like that? What
we're saying is I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. You ladies
look at some woman and you say, man, how could a woman treat
her kids that way? What you're saying is I wouldn't
do it. I wouldn't do it. I don't see how a man could know
God and do this or how a woman could know God and do that. What
you're saying is, I wouldn't do it. You don't know the wickedness
of your heart. Neither do I. I've learned by
bitter experience, now listen to me, listen to me. I've learned
by bitter experience that there is no sin. I hope I've learned this and
I don't have to learn it by falling to the disgrace of my God. There is no sin that was ever
committed in heaven, earth, or hell that is not in my heart
right now, ready to break out at any time if God should just
lift his finger from the cage of our heart. None. None. None. I'm not talking about
what it was yesterday or what it was 20 years ago. I'm talking
about right now! The heart of flesh never gets
any better. Never. Well let me tell you a couple
of things. Turn over to Jeremiah chapter
10, or chapter 24 rather. where you learn from them, learn
from the Word of God, you need a new heart. You need a new heart. In regeneration and in conversion,
God doesn't patch up the old heart. That old heart continues
to be an overrunning cesspool of But in the new birth and regeneration,
God gives deceitful, desperately wicked, incurably wicked, unknowably
wicked hearts. He gives men with that kind of
heart a new heart. A new heart. Look at what it
says in verse 7. I will give them a heart to know
me, that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people, and I'll
be their God, for they shall return to me with their old heart." I heard you explain what on earth
you're talking about. You told us you got our heart of flesh. Vile, sinful, corrupt, rotten
flesh. And now you tell us God gives
you a new heart. Yeah. There is within me a man, a man that hates God and hates righteousness and hates
truth. And that man's gonna be with
me till this body rots in the grave. But there he is within me, another
man with another heart. A divine given, a divine created, a divine
like heart. A heart that loves God. A heart that loves Christ. A
heart that beats with the love of God. A heart that's committed
to God. A heart that's in love with God
and in love with the truth of God and in love with righteousness. That's what it's all about. A hot shot soul winner can't give
it to you. But God in heaven can give it to you. He can give
you a new heart. He can give you a new heart. Only He can. Oh, learn that only Christ can
give you a new heart. Blessed be His name, the Lord
Jesus Christ can cure the incurable. That woman with an issue of blood
came to the Son of God and she said, if I could just touch you. Oh, if I could just touch you. I know He'd make me. She'd spent everything she had
on positions of no value. She'd given all her money to
Dr. Freewill and Dr. Do-Good. She'd
given all her money to making the decision Joining the church
and being baptized and she was nothing better. They took her
money and left her in the same shape she was in But she met
the Son of God in the way And immediately She was made
whole There was a leper an incurable rotten cankered He saw the Son
of God coming and he fell down and worshipped him, and he said,
Lord, if you will, you can make me whole. The Son of God said,
I will. Breathe out for me. And immediately,
he was baptized. I say to you, incurable, desperately
wounded sinner, with your incurable, desperately wounded heart, come,
lay hold of some God, for he gives incurably wicked men an
immutably perfect cure. It does it right, right. God help you trust it. Amen.