The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jer 17:9)Is it true?
Well, of course, any Bible-believing Christian will (should ... must) answer, "Yes!", because, obviously, it's in the Bible and the Bible is God's Word. But ... is it true ... demonstrably? Is there proof? Can we taste this metaphorical pudding? I think that's an easy question. It can be seen in our constant human problem with "unintended consequences," where things go wrong seemingly every time we apply a "good action." We are notoriously bad at judging intentions. We are remarkably good at rationalizing sin. We're often oblivious to our own double standards, our own self-contradictory lives where we point fingers at others for doing what we're doing ourselves ... often in pointing fingers at others. We delude ourselves into holding contradictory "truths" as true. We are exclusive in our inclusivity, judgmental in our ... nonjudgmental-ism. We demand tolerance and won't tolerate intolerance. We know God, but refuse to honor Him or thank Him (Rom 1:21). And that rots the brain (Rom 1:22, 28). And the very fact that there is such clear evidence that it's true and we still question it proves ... that we don't understand it.
So we get the next verse, a direct quote from God.
"I, YHWH, search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds." (Jer 17:10)And we find ourselves under God's undeceived eye, knowing all truth about our character and depravity. So we stand at the claim and have evidence that it's true. We can even see how bad it is, even if we don't fully grasp how bad it is in our own hearts. And we need a solution. That's God. He searches and tests. And we can ask for help in that (Psa 139:23-24). And we can renew our minds (Rom 12:2). We do it by the Spirit (1 Cor 2:14). We do it by sacrificing self to God (Rom 12:1). We do it by God's Word (John 17:17). We don't do it when we ignore the fact that it's true.
I believe that we can certainly “taste [the] metaphorical pudding” (as you creatively worded it) and see evidence that man’s heart is wicked, deceived, and set against the things of God. It is proven every time another hateful, violent act occurs in our nation or elsewhere (after which the various commentators ignorantly ask, “where is this all coming from?”). God does indeed have opportunity and ability to “search the heart and test the mind” and has therefore spoken full truth about our condition. Conversely, we can “taste and see that the Lord is good….” (Psa. 34:8)--much lovelier “proof of the pudding.”
ReplyDeleteStan, I think you might have coined a new phrase with “taste [the] metaphorical pudding”--and that got me thinking: If you should ever need inspiration for a post theme, I bet you could look at a typical idiom (like the pudding one from today) and derive a biblical lesson from it (also like today). (It’s probably good to get updated interpretations for a lot of those older obscure ones that just make us scratch our heads.)
ReplyDeleteIt takes an amazing step of blatant denial of experienced reality to say that Jeremiah was wrong here.
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