Of the Heart of Humanity

Many are those who say that you should follow your heart. But God spoke through His prophet, saying, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9). Later, Jesus Christ elaborated by saying, "But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." (Matthew 15:18-19).

Of course the heart to which they refer is not the physical organ that pumps blood through your body, but your inward desires, thoughts, and feelings. It is closely related to the mind, which is something more than the physical brain inside your head. These things, the heart and mind to which we refer, are spiritual, non-physical components of the human being.

And human hearts are corrupt with sin because of the fall, when sin and death came into the world through the disobedience of Adam (Genesis 3, Romans 5:12). When sin (disobeying God) feels sooo right, that is because the heart is sooo wrong. Solomon wrote that "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." (Proverbs 14:12). 

Being a follower of Jesus Christ means surrendering our hearts and minds, our consciences, to our Heavenly Father through Him. His Holy Spirit, who speaks to us through the Scriptures, also comes to live within us. He leads and guides us. He teaches us and molds us into His perfect images as we place our trust in Him and obey Him. By this life-process of sanctification, we will become just like our Lord, Savior, and Friend, Jesus Christ.

In their song, "Blind", Third Day says:

"My heart I could not trust

'Cause it lies to me too much

And my mind just couldn't 

Understand it all

How could I have been 

So blind to not see You?

The more I look the more I find

You've led me to the truth"

Indeed, the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked; enslaving us to sin. But Jesus Christ is the truth that sets us free, and the Way for us to live (John 8:31-34, John 14:6). His word, the Scriptures, are truth, proceeding from Him (John 17:17). We must yield to Him as our Compass. Don't follow your heart. Follow Jesus instead. And He will give you a new heart that is in harmony with Him.

Public and Private Prayer

The assertion has been made by some atheists that Jesus commanded His followers to keep our faith to ourselves. They wrongly claim that Jesus taught His followers to keep all of our religious observances private, and out of public view. But this is a distortion of what Jesus actually taught about public and private prayer in His Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus was speaking out against the religious leaders who made long, loud, pompous prayers in public just to impress other people. Their hearts were not humbled to be in the presence of the Almighty God. Instead, these religious leaders were puffed up with self-pride, self-righteousness, and self-satisfaction. They were drunk on the applause of other people. And they did not think to look for the approval of God alone. That is what Jesus condemned when He said:

"And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly" (Matthew 6:5-6).

He also preceded this teaching on prayer with a similar teaching on doing good deeds (Matthew 6:1-4). But Jesus also said, in the very same sermon:

"You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill can not be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:14-16).

The difference between the public religious observances that Jesus condemned, and the public observances that He approved, is the inward intentions of the heart. Our motives are just as important to God as our actions are. To do the right thing for the wrong reason is an abomination in the sight of God. But to do the wrong thing for any reason is also an abomination in the sight of God. We are commanded by God, not only to do what is right and good in His sight, but also to do it for the right reason.

Jesus condemned the religious leaders of those days because their piety was all just a show to impress others with their own, pretensions. They were not trying to draw people to the heavenly Father. They were seeking applause and glory for themselves. Such outwardly religious persons probably would not practice private prayer much at all, since they are not really interested in communing with the heavenly Father. The people Jesus was speaking against were only interested in impressing each other and exalting themselves above others. But Jesus wants us to be unashamed to honor Him publicly. It's just that it is God that we are to glorify; not ourselves.

The right thing to do is to obey the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the right and proper motive is to give the glory and honor and praise to God. We are not to be the focal point. God is. We are to honor God with our words and actions; not so that others will praise us, or give us the recognition, but that they will give the praise and recognition to the only One who deserves it. And that is God. And God's approval is the only approval that we should be concerned with seeking.

Tongue Bad

If you have never read it, you should read Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. It is a very good autobiography, eloquently written (unlike the intentionally silly title of this post). In the course of telling his story, Fredrick Douglass wrote about the various masters that he had before he escaped to freedom. And he told about an overseer named Mr. Severe. It was Mr. Severe whom Douglass described in this way:

"Mr. Severe was rightly named: he was a cruel man... He seemed to take pleasure in manifesting his fiendish barbarity. Added to his cruelty, he was a profane swearer... Scarce a sentence escaped him but that was commenced or concluded by some horrid oath. His presence made it both the field of blood and of blasphemy... and he died as he lived, uttering, with his dying groans, bitter curses and horrid oaths".

What an epitaph! How would you like to have that engraved on your tombstone? "Here lies a cruel and blasphemous man. He died cursing God". 

The Bible has a lot to say about the words that come out of our mouths. James, a half-brother of Jesus, called the tongue "a world of iniquity". He pointed out how with the same tongue that people use to praise God, they often also curse their fellow humans who are created in God's image (read James 3:1-12). 

King Solomon tells us that "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat it's fruit" (Proverbs 18: 21). Like Mr. Severe's bloody cow-skin whip and hickory stick, so the tongue can become a cruel devise to lash out and wound people. And if anyone blasphemes God, that person wounds their own soul; which is not really their own, because every soul belongs to God who created it.

Jesus Himself said, "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45). But this truth leaves no one unscathed, because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Jesus confirms this when He calls everyone evil (Luke 11:13, Luke 18:19, John 7:7). 

And when we sin in any way at all, we demonstrate a lack of love toward our heavenly Father who is love, and who created us in His perfect image before the Fall. And so when we speak any kind of wickedness; whether cruel insults, hurtful gossip, deceitful lies, foul obscenities, or irreverent blasphemies, we speak against our holy God who is love. And it is a reflection of the condition of our hearts. 

When God sent the prophet Nathan to confront David about his sin, Nathan spoke by the Holy Spirit and said to David:

"Why have you despised the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in His eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised Me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own" (2 Samuel 12:9-10; NIV, emphasis added).

So we learn from this passage of Scripture that all sin is a personal affront to our heavenly Father. And that of course includes any kind of sinful speech, because our words are a reflection of what is in our hearts. And one thing that David understood is that even though humans are fallen creatures, God desires righteousness to be in our inward being (Psalm 51:5-6).

David also prayed, saying, "Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, oh LORD, my strength and my Redeemer" (Psalm 19:14). Only by the power of the Holy Spirit, can our inward being become truly right and good and pure in the eyes of the LORD. And as Jesus said "If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!" (Luke 11:13; NIV).

Thankfully for David, the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross paid retroactively for his sin, just as fully as it pays for the sins of all who trust in Jesus. And like Abraham before him, David looked forward to the arrival of God's salvation which came through Christ (John 8:56-58, Psalm 119:81). He even prophesied concerning the Crucifixion, a millennium before it happened (Psalm 22).

Now because of His sacrifice, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, those who trust in Jesus are no longer subject to that foul, lacerating, severe old man. Sin is no longer our master. We are free in Christ (John 8:31-36, Romans 6:6-23). And as we practice righteousness in Him, we grow in His likeness; the perfect image of God in which He originally created humanity (1 John 3:2-3). 

So we are admonished through the Holy Spirit to put away that dead, decomposing old man; and become the new man, created in harmony with God. Which, among other things, means to put away "corrupt speech", or "unwholesome talk" and use our mouths to praise our heavenly Father; and to bless, and build up others through the grace of God (Ephesians 4:21-32).   

The Head and the Heart

Suppose two people are debating which part of the body is most important. Imagine that one of them insists the head is the most important part, while the other firmly defends the heart as being the most important. But isn't it true that the body must have both a head and a heart to live, and can not dispense with either one?

The literal, bodily resurrection of Jesus the Messiah is the heart of Christian doctrine and apologia, and the Genesis creation/fall is the head. It hardly seems reasonable to believe the one and not the other. 

And actually, the resurrection is a validation of the history recorded in Genesis. Jesus constantly made statements that validate both the Divine inspiration and the historicity of the Old Testament narrative. (For examples, see John 5:46, John 8:56, Luke 24:25-27, Mark 10:6, Matthew 5:18, Matthew 23:31-35, and Matthew 26:52-56). And His resurrection gives assurance that Jesus is the Son of God, so that His statements possess Divine authority.

But Jesus' resurrection from the dead was not merely to prove that He is the Son of God. Jesus arose from the dead to conquer death. God considers death to be an enemy to be destroyed (1st Corinthians 15:21-26). Death is not a part of the original created order. It was introduced into the world by sin. (Romans 5:12).

For theistic evolutionism to be true, there would have to be billions of years of death, disease, and suffering before humans even appeared on the earth. 

If the sedimentary rock layers of the geological column were laid down slowly over 4.5 billion years, the fossils inside them would show this to be the case. Death would be a part of the original created order. And so it would be silly for God to view death as an enemy to be destroyed. 

However, if the rock layers were laid down slowly, there would be no fossils in them. Those organic things would have decayed in open air, being reduced to dust before the sediment could cover them. This is especially obvious in the case of polystrate fossils.

Those layers were laid down after the Genesis fall. And they were laid down swiftly, by the flood that God sent to judge sin during Noah's lifetime. And truly, all scientific data can be best interpreted and understood within the framework of the Genesis creation/fall/flood scenario.

When Paul the apostle addressed a pagan audience at the Areopagus in Athens, he gave a message that centered on creation (Acts 17:24-30). Note the sweet affirmation that all nations are descended from one man (verse 26). So far, Paul's audience listened.

It's a rum thing because at the end of his speech he mentioned the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. And it was at that part that some in his audience mocked him (verses 31 & 32). This is the opposite of what often happens in contemporary Christian apologetics. 

Nowadays, it is common for people to believe in the resurrection and yet scoff at Genesis. It is as though Paul's generation viewed the head as the most important part, and saw no use for the heart. And the current generation views the heart as most important, and sees no use for the head. 

Visit: 
www.answersingenesis.org
www.icr.org
and http://creation.com/