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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJabez Burns Sermons: 865. Jer 17:9. The Greatest Deceiver
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Jer_17:9. The Greatest Deceiver
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"—Jer_17:9.
All men profess to admire candor and truth, and hate guile and hypocrisy in others. An open foe is generally preferred to a deceitful friend. To be deceived is not only to be injured, but to be degraded. We feel that while our interests have been assailed, our judgment and acuteness have been overreached. There are many things around us of a deceiving character. Circumstances often deceive us; appearances which promise much often leave us disappointed. Few have loved long who have not suffered by deceitful friends. The world is a great deceiver. How its myriads of vassals are every day involved in the meshes of its treachery! Satan began his evil reign on earth by treachery and guile; he is described as that old serpent—the devil. But we are now to consider the master spirit of treachery—the greatest of all deceivers—and that is the carnal human heart. So says the text—"the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Then let us endeavor to establish and illustrate the truth of the text.
The superlative deceitfulness of the heart is manifest,
I. By its multifarious modes of operation.
The devices it employs are legion. It has its thousands of schemes and plans of action. It diversifies its measures according to the varied circumstances in which its victims are placed; and it suits its deception to the temperaments, constitutions and dispositions of its subjects. It deceives the sanguine by exhibiting false and delusive objects of hope. It deceives the desponding by foolish and superstitious claims. It deceives the impetuous by hurrying them on to rashness; it deceives the supine by encumbering them in the incrustations of lethargy. It deceives the self-willed by overweening confidence; and the timid by incessant fears. It would lead the moral into pharisaism; and the licentious into antinomian quagmires. It would deceive the prosperous by exciting them to arrogance and pride; and the unfortunate by sinking them into sullenness and despondency. It has its characteristic plans, and its appropriate modes, for all the endless varieties of human state and condition. We see the truth of the text,
II. In the universal sphere of its influence. Go where you will, you see the workings of the deceitful heart. Some nations are proverbially so; but the fact is, all are really so. It is seen in the cunning of the savage, and in the adroitness of the intelligent. It is alike observable in all latitudes and zones—amidst all people and tongues. It lives in all regions—and speaks and operates in all languages. It is never absent from the 'Change, or the busy scenes of merchandise. It is even present in the rural and retired hamlets of seclusion. It is the privileged guest of cabinets, and courts, and councils. It has laid under its ban trade and commerce, art and science, philosophy and literature, morals and religion. Like the atmosphere, it. fills, and surrounds, and impregnates all regions and countries with its pestiferous influences.
III. It subjects to its control all orders and, classes of men.
How soon it betrays the child into equivocation and falsehood! And how it involves the hoary head in the mists of duplicity! It debases the noble youth; and maiden purity is not proof against its assaults. It is seen often to throw its shadows over the manly brow, and over womanly excellency. There is no age nor period of life when men are free from its vassalage. It disturbs, and renders foul and turbid, the streams of knowledge; corrupts the principles of virtue; and canker-worms the very acts of philanthropy and goodness. The woman of fashion, and the demure nun—the man of pleasure, and the man of austere devotion—the downcast beggar and the exalted monarch—are each and all spellbound by its deleterious machinations. While it reigns rampantly in many places, it reigns insidiously everywhere; so that you cannot escape its miasmatic power. There is no region where it is not, and there are no classes absolutely exempted from its operations. It lives in all latitudes and climes; and no community of men, however small, has yet been discovered entirely strangers to it. It is the disease of our race—the plague-spot of the family of man. But observe,
IV. It deceives the whole man.
It darkens the understanding and covers it with mists of error. It perverts the judgment, and makes its decisions false and valueless. It surrounds with felicitous glare the imagination, so that vanity is preferred to that which is real, and a lie to truth. It gives to the affections a corrupt influence, and excites with unhallowed desires and passions. It binds the will with its silken cords, or fastens it securely in its gaudy trappings. It pollutes the conscience, and bribes God's vicegerent to duplicity or silence. It betrays the memory into a tenacity for evil, and an oblivion-like fatuity as to good.
If the mind is thus entirely possessed, no marvel that the senses are led captive at its will. It enlists the eyes with treacherous gaze to go on voyages of evil discovery.
It employs the ear as the recipient of external and evil communications; and it anoints the tongue with flattery, dissimulation, and falsehood. It makes the countenance to change its aspects as the chamelion its colors; and invests the whole man, both physical, mental, and moral, with hypocrisy and guile. Who then can know its depths, its wiles, and its deadly evils? How true of the soul of man, as of Israel of old!—"The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the soul of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment."—Isa_1:5, Isa_1:6.
V. It deceives the most distinguished and illustrious of our race.
It not only deceives the masses, but also the élite; the worthless, but also the excellent of the earth; the profane of the world, but also the pious of the church. Look at Noah, the father of the postdiluvian world, deceived into drunkenness and shame! Look at Abraham, deceived into dissimulation and lying! Look at Lot, deceived into sensuality and incest! Look at Jacob, deceived into overreaching, duplicity, and fraud! Look at Moses, deceived into rashness and passion! Look at Elijah, deceived into petulance and discontent and a longing for death! Look at David, deceived into pollution and bloodshed! Look at Solomon, deceived, even in old age, into voluptuousness and idolatry! Look at Jonah, deceived into misanthropy and anger! Look at the Disciples of our Lord, deceived into worldliness and ambition, and again into cowardice and temporary apostasy! See the chief of them, Peter, deceived into lying and perjury! What saith this illustrious galaxy of the earth's greatest and best men? "That the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"
Now, the power of this moral illusion is specially proven, when the wise, and the good, and the great, and the godly, are among its victims—when it insidiously overcomes the prudent, and the strong, and the noble of mankind. And it is thus that the preeminent deceit of the heart is made manifest.
Then notice,
VI. That its deceptions are often repeated.
We may suppose that all men might occasionally be deceived. At least once, or say twice; but the heart deceives over and over again. It holds men in its delusive enchantments for years, and often for the whole of life. And what is astounding, it makes men in love with their deceits. They prefer the ideal to the palpable—the shadow to the substance—the dross to the fine gold. No bird would be ensnared often, but the heart is. No animal instinct would be often deluded, but the heart is; and this is one of the peculiar traits of the depth of the deceit, in which the human heart is involved.
To advert more at length to some cases the word of God has handed down to us—Noah, whose piety kept him pure amidst the general depravity of the old world, fails to preserve him after the terrible scenes and judgments of the flood. Lot, who was holy in Sodom, becomes depraved in retirement. Solomon, who began his career with so much humility, prayer, and wisdom, renders his gray hairs despicable, by his open apostasy from sound knowledge and the way of godliness.
VII. The heart deceives us in concerns of the greatest moment and importance.
Thus, these heart-deceivings dishonor man, and cover him with shame and reproach; and sink him lower than the beasts that perish. It impoverishes man, steals his true riches, and degrades him into mental and spiritual poverty,—clothes him with rags,—leaves him in a state of moral impotency.
It destroys man. Blinds his eyes—hardens his heart—poisons his spirit. It is the plague of the soul—the leprosy of the moral nature. It finally involves him in eternal death. It cheats the soul out of present peace and good; and abandons it to everlasting destruction. A deceitful heart is unfit for divine communion, and for the divine presence. It cannot enter through the gates of the holy city of God. It is now condemned, and under the divine wrath, and is exposed to eternal death. So that this deceitfulness of the heart is its undoing; there can be no moral health, nor purity, nor bliss, so long as we are under its deadly influence. The question then arises—is there any remedy? Or is the heart helplessly and hopelessly deceitful? Is there no cure? No power to break the delusion, to expel the poison, and to save the soul? To this we reply,
VIII. That for the deceitfulness of the heart the gospel provides the only remedy.
How ancient philosophers and moralists disputed, and wrangled, and taught, on the evils of the world, and means of moral deliverance! Epicurus, Zeno, Socrates, Plato, and Seneca—how they discoursed and reasoned in vain! How their best remedies were at most but slight palliatives, that left the disease untouched, and the malady as deep and inveterate as ever! But thanks be to God, the divine word announces the great specific! Hear it prophetically described by the ancient seer of Israel—"Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my commandments, and do them."—Eze_36:25-27.
Hear Jesus asking the morally diseased if they would be made whole; and then exerting his divine power in forgiving sins, and healing their spiritual maladies. "Behold!"—says John, in reference to Christ—
"the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." Hear too what he attests as to this great remedy—"It we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."—1Jn_1:8, 1Jn_1:9. So the apostle Paul dwells on this one and only theme. "For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God."—Heb_9:13, Heb_9:14.
Now, the heart must be brought by humble and entire faith to rest on Christ's atoning sacrifice, and thus it experiences, "That the blood of Christ, God's Son, cleanseth from all sin." Then light takes the place of darkness—truth the place of deception—and sincerity the place of guile, in the human soul. God by his Spirit, through the atoning blood of the cross, and by the energy of his divine word, sanctifies the heart, and makes it his hallowed dwelling, his consecrated temple.
Oh, yes, it is matter of infinite joy, that there is truth to enlighten the heart—grace to renew it—and the Holy Spirit of God to dwell in it, and to keep it.
Then, in conclusion,
1. Let the depravity and deceitfulness of the heart be acknowledged and confessed. Don't add to its deceivings by dreaming that it is not so deceitful. But rather humble yourselves before God, and seek that grace which alone can deliver and sanctify you.
2. The man, who by faith in Christ is a new creature, let him show forth, and recommend to others the great remedy which has been so efficacious to his own moral healing. And let all remember,
3. Despising Christ's cleansing blood and renewing grace, and we know of no other means for the real spiritual elevation of man. Education, and other useful influences, may preserve him from the loathsome aspects of vice; but only in the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness can he find an entire and abiding cure for the deep inwrought depravity of the soul.