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Jeremiah 17:9
Excerpted from: Pure in Heart

Let us read on as we get to the heart of the problem.

This is no doubt a memory scripture for most of us. We might not be able to get it right word for word. I probably could not, by the way. But we understand the gist of the meaning here. But I wonder, do we really understand what this means?

So our heart is described here as "deceitful above all things." Let that sink in for a minute. Deceitful above all things, not some things, all things. Deceitful above all things. The Hebrew word translated deceitful is Strong's H4820, mirmah, meaning a swelling up into a knoll, fraudulent, crooked, polluted, deceitful, prideful, and get this one, puffed up just like leavening, corrupting, self-serving.

As we approach these Days of Unleavened Bread, we must do so realizing that above all things, our heart—your heart, my heart—is deceitfully prideful and puffed up with leaven. But that is not all. The heart is described also as "desperately wicked." Not just wicked—desperately wicked.

Is God trying to get a point across here, brethren? It is frail, it is on the verge of death, it is incurable. It is like a heart of stone that is literally impenetrable to God's truth until God takes action and gives us a new heart and a new Spirit, as we read about in Ezekiel 36.

Jeremiah 17:9
Excerpted from: Truth (Part 2)

The apostle Paul—the converted apostle Paul, writing about twenty years after he was converted—said, "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." (Romans 8:7) One chapter before that he admitted that the law of sin and death was still working in him.

Are you convinced, brethren, those of you who have the Spirit of God, that the law of sin and death is still working in us, and that there is a perversity within us that wants to turn us away from the truth of God, and that we would rather feel comfortable without the truth of God than to confront something that we know within us is not in harmony with the character, the mind, or the standards of God? Jeremiah hit the nail right on the head. He said, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9) It is there.

If we are ever going to deal with the truth of God in a meaningful way, we have to first deal with the self-deception that is within each and every one of us. There is in us, to a greater or lesser degree, the willingness to reject truth before it can lodge as a permanent part of our character. Do you remember what Amos said to the people in his day? He said:

Jeremiah 17:9
Excerpted from: Faith (Part One)

Another place it says that God is not a man that He should lie. When we put this together with what we have just read in Isaiah, God and man do not essentially think the same. God does not lie, man does lie. Man's essential nature according to Jeremiah 17:9 is "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked" because our real spiritual father, up until the time of conversion, is Satan the Devil and he is a liar. And, as Jesus said in John 8, we want to do the things that our father does, not like Abraham did. So God can very confidently and truly say that His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are so much higher than our thoughts there is no comparison. His thoughts on what a father is like are so much higher, so much grander, that we do not even have the eloquence to be able to describe it. It is almost something like maybe we have to "mystically" feel.

Jeremiah 17:9:
Excerpted from: Truth (Part 4)

The more difficult times come as we go along the way toward the Kingdom of God because what happens is that we have a tendency to let down. That is a natural thing to do, and human nature begins to subtly rear its head. Remember Romans 7, where Paul said that sin still worked in him, and the way that it does it—Remember Jeremiah 17:9: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?"—is that it deceives us into glossing over sin. And what it is effectively doing is it is getting us to lie to ourselves that everything is okay as it is. As long as we are in that mode, we will not grow.

Jeremiah 17:9
Excerpted from: The Sin of Self-Deception

Human nature is going to try to reassert its dominance in a converted person's life. It is interesting that this word that is translated into the English word "deceitful" from the Hebrew means "tortuous, twisted, convoluted." That is the way human nature is. It is tortuous and twisted in its thinking. It is convoluted in its reasoning. He is referring to the kind of justifications or rationalizations that it will go to in order to convince the person that it is okay to sin; that it is okay to not pay attention to the law of God; okay to say to the self, "It really doesn't matter. I'm only one person."

Jeremiah 17:6-9
Excerpted from: The Sin of Self-Deception

In other words, the person who does not live by faith is not going to grow. He is going to be like a shrub in the desert that only receives water every so often, not near often enough to really grow.

It is the heart that motivates us to break faith with God's Word. It does it by weakening our trust in what God says as being really true. Is that not what happened in the Garden of Eden? Is that not why Adam and Eve sinned, because their trust in God's Word was broken by the arguments, by the reasons, by the convoluted ideas and justifications that Satan came up with?

Jeremiah 17:9
Excerpted from: Love's Basic Definition

We also went into some of these verses in order to show that this love—the agape love the Bible is teaching us of—is not something that is normally a part of man's attributes. Man cannot be described, like God, as being "love." Instead, the Bible describes man as being self-centered, deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). We are described as being carnal, that is, fleshly. And so, by contrast, God is love.

Jeremiah 17:9
Excerpted from: Truth (Part 1)

If we put this thought together with the teaching that is in John 8, then we can understand that if we put our faith in other things it is going to blind us to the acceptance of what is really true, because our deceitful heart is going to work to turn us away. See, if you continue, you will know the truth, but the deceitful heart does not want you to continue.

Jeremiah 17:9
Excerpted from: Passover (Part 1)

God knows it; and a person having the Spirit of God can know it too. They can see it in themselves. But we have to be careful, because that spirit (that mind, that heart) still lurks in each of us. It can blur the matter too, because it wants to stick with that which is carnal.

Articles

Are Humans Good or Evil?  
Cogitations on Christmas  
Cogitations on Christmas  
Cogitations on Christmas  
Cogitations on Christmas  
Cogitations on Christmas  
Communication and Leaving Babylon (Part One)  
Communication and Leaving Babylon (Part Two)  (3)
Conquering Temptation: Learn from Jesus Christ  
Deceptions of the End Time  
Eating: How Good It Is! (Part Six)  
Implications of the Gospel of the Kingdom  
Innocent Victims?  
Innocent Victims?  
Innocent Victims?  
Innocent Victims?  
Innocent Victims?  
Is the Christian Required To Do Works? (Part Two)  (3)
Job, Self-Righteousness, and Humility  
Living By Faith and Human Pride  (2)
Our Spiritual Marathon of Hope  
Praying Always (Part Four)  
Praying Always (Part One)  
Presumption and Divine Justice  
Separation and At-One-Ment  
The Beast and Babylon (Part Six): The Woman's Character  
The Beatitudes, Part 6: The Pure in Heart  
The Fourth Commandment (Part Two): Christ's Attitude Toward the Sabbath  
The Nature of God— What's Love Got To Do With It?  
The Ninth Commandment  (2)
The Ninth Commandment (1997)  (3)
The Offerings of Leviticus (Part Seven): The Sin and Trespass Offerings  
The Second Commandment  (2)
The Second Commandment (1997)  
The Second Exodus (Part Three)  
The Symmetry of History (Part One)  
The Tongue: Our Tool of Power  
This Body of Death  (2)
Unsheathe Your Sword! (Part One)  
Whatever Happened to Gnosticism? Part Two: Defining Gnosticism  
Who Fulfills the Azazel Goat—Satan or Christ? (Part Two)  
Why Hebrews Was Written (Part Five)  
Will Deceive Many (Part Two)  (2)

Bible Studies

Overcoming (Part Two): Self-Justification  
The Seven Churches (Part Nine): Laodicea  

Booklets

What Do You Mean . . . the Unpardonable Sin?  (2)

Essays

April Murder  
Celebrating a Lie  
Christmas Contradictions  
Dependence Day  
Did Eve Really Speak to a Snake?  
Evil Is Real (Part Four)  (2)
Evil Is Real (Part Three)  
Good to the Core  
Has Humanity Reached Total Depravity? (Part Two)  
Is the Tide Turning?  
Jedi Versus Sith  
Middle East Democracy?  
Our Hidden Enemy  
Patterns of Resistance (Part One)  (2)
Patterns of Resistance (Part Two)  (2)
Repentance: The Genuine Article (Part One)  
The Process of Love (Part One)  
The Process of Love (Part Two)  
The Seed of Overcoming  
The Subtle Power of Bias (Part One)  
The Subtle Power of Bias (Part Two)  
The World's Moral Resentment  
What Is Real Conversion? (Part Three)  
Whom Do We Trust?  

Sermons

Psalm 51 (Part Two): Psalm 51:1-4  
Avoiding the Ruts of Puny Faith  
Ecclesiastes Resumed (Part Thirty-Seven): Ecclesiastes 10:12-19  
Ecclesiastes Resumed (Part Thirty-Four): Ecclesiastes 9:2-12  
A Rewired Society (Part Two): A Post-Truth World  
Guarding Our Vulnerable Hearts  
Guarding Our Vulnerable Hearts  
Strategies for Interfacing with Babylon Without Becoming Assimilated (Part Two)  
Strategies for Escaping Babylon (Part Eight)  
Strategies for Escaping Babylon (Part Four)  
Flee From Idolatry (Part One): Self-Discipline  
Responding to God's Pruning is Not Passive (Part Two)  
God Expects a Return on His Investment (Part Six)  
God Expects a Return on His Investment (Part Five)  
God Expects a Return on His Investment (Part Four)  
The Pure in Heart  
The Pure in Heart  
God Expects a Return on His Investment (Part Two)  
The Poor in Spirit  
Job and Self Evaluation (Part Two): Perspective  
Our Part in the Sanctification Process (Part Ten): Cultivating the Fruit of Self Control  
Are You Living An Illusion?  
Values and Conversion  
The Fourth Commandment (Part 2)  
The Talking Blood (1994)  
Conscience (Part 3)  
Joseph: A Saga of Excellence (Part Three)  
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part 2)  
John 3:16: Does God Really Love the World?  
By This Shall All Men Know You  
Sin (Part 1)  
Sin (Part 3)  
Faith in the Healer  
Warfare!  
Knowing Christ (Part 4)  
Repentance and Righteousness (Part 1)  
The Christian and the World (Part One)  
From Pride to Humility  
The Christian and the World (Part 4)  
The Christian and the World (Part 5)  
God Has Faith in You  
He Who Overcomes  
He Who Overcomes  
Reconciliation and Unity  
Why Does God Keep Secrets?  
Snares  
God's Good Work in Us  
Poor Choices  
Poor Choices  
Maintaining Good Health (Part 11)  
Whose Morality Are We Following?  
Conviction to Godly Righteousness  
The Reality of Evil  
Potential for Good  
New Covenant Priesthood (Part 8)  
Authority: Why So Many Resent It  
Knowing God: Formality and Customs (Part 3)  
Knowing God: Formality and Customs (Part 5)  
What's So Bad About Babylon? (2003) (Part 2)  
Imagination  
The Commandments (Part Three)  
Does Doctrine Really Matter? (Part 5)  
Judgment According to Works  
Judgment According to Works  
Thou Shall Not Covet  
Faith and Healing (Part 2)  
Why Are We Called To Overcome?  
Communication and Coming Out of Babylon (Part 2)  
Harden Not Your Heart  
Our Walk Out of Darkness Into the Light  
The Heart's Self-Absorption  
Liberty Through Self-Control  
Hide and Seek  
The Ninth Commandment  
Sincerity Without Truth Is Worthless  
The Great Flood (Part 6)  
Anger (Part 2)  
Editing Our Sins  
The Spirit of Gratitude  
Compromise  
Original Sin and Holiness  
Living by Faith: Human Pride  
What Will Happen to Liars?  
Human Nature: Good or Evil?  
What's Your Attitude?  
Genesis 3:20-24: Consequences for God and Man  
Our Trusted Source of Truth (Part Two)  
Resistance (Part Two): Solutions   
Don't Cherry Pick God's Law  
Esther (Part Four)  
Caveats About Self-Examination  
Christian Marriage (Part One)  
Forgiving, Giving, and Living  
Solving the School-Shooting Crisis  
Human Will and God's Sovereignty (Part Two)  
Good Fences  
Handpicked By God  
Discerning Spirits and Discerning the Body  
What's the Endgame?  
Wilderness Wanderings (Part One)  
Discerning Signs and Redeeming Time  
Our Part in the Sanctification Process (Part Seven): Cultivating Goodness  
God and Self-Government  
The Talking Blood (Part Two)  

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