Truth and the Heart

"A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips; and a liar giveth ear to a naughty tongue" (Prov. 17:4). It really is just that simple my friend. Anyone with and honest heart is going to take to the truth when it is presented to them. Everyone who is looking for a reason to refuse the truth would just rather be a liar. Whether truth or error, everything has a compatible counterpart in all men. Sadly the counterpart for most people is error. And why would that be? Well, Jeremiah tells it just like it is: "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, and according to the fruit of his doings" (Jer. 17:9,10). The truth of the matter is that man does not know his own heart, and the reason for that is because he was born into this world with a perversely distorted spirit, thanks to sin. David, by the inspiration of the holy Ghost was in full agreement with this assessment: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Psm. 51:5). But thanks be to God, he has made a way for us to escape that condition, and this is it: "And God, which [alone] knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, PURIFYING THEIR HEARTS by faith" (Acts 15:8,9). Peter was speaking here of the first Gentiles to have the gospel preached to them, and of the experience that they obtained from God through their faith; which experience, as he stated, "purified their hearts:" "While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God" (Acts 10:44-46). That experience which alone purifies the perverse hearts of men, was and is the baptism of the holy Ghost, which is always initially evidenced by speaking with other tongues. In fact this experience is the ONLY reason that Jesus came to this world to suffer, die, and raise from the dead; even as his forerunner simplistically stated: "I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost" (Mk. 1:8). And though there is an experience with God by faith in Jesus before being baptized with the Spirit, that experience is NOT the remission of sins and purifying of the heart [from sin]. There is a conception before birth in the natural realm, and the same is true concerning the new birth experience (Jn. 16:21; Rom. 1:20). So we can have our hearts, which Jeremiah, or God actually, said are "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked;" purified from that depraved state through the baptism of power that Jesus himself baptizes with (Acts 1:4,5,8). But in order to receive that experience one must fully agree with God, that they indeed ARE IN a depraved state of spirit, and desperately need to be cleansed and changed by the power of God (Rom. 6:3,4; II Cor. 5:17). Without total honesty of heart, calling everything just like it is, you will get nowhere with God. Not now. Not ever. Period.

It is an insult to God to call sin anything other than sin, and to try to make an excuse for one's own faulty condition. And not only does it take absolute honesty of heart to get STARTED with God, it also takes KEEPING absolute honesty till the end in order to be saved, as David clearly realized: "Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth IN HIS HEART (Psm. 15:1,2). So then, our hearts can be cured of their condition of deceitfulness and wickedness, simply by coming fully clean with God, being baptized with the Spirit, and continuing on the same exact path that we start on. The apostle Paul understood this reality and wrote the following: "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him" (Col. 2:6). Most people who receive God's Spirit, sadly do NOT continue on the path that got them started, and subsequently they do not grow in the Spirit or produce much real fruit. Much of that is due to the overwhelming prevalence of erroneous traditions and doctrines that dominate the entire landscape of Christianity. But many are honest enough with themselves to know that something is seriously wrong in the environment that they worship God in. These are the people that can heed God's call to forsake these erroneous, spiritually toxic environments, and boldly come unto Jesus to find HIS word: "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the [congregations]" (Rev. 3:13; Rev. 18:4). Finally, Jesus put the cap on this whole matter of the importance of remaining completely honest in heart, when he told the parable of the sower and the seed. Most people do not realize that the first three conditions that he described were indicative of God's people who will NOT be saved in the end; but it's what he said about the fourth condition that I like, because that is the one condition that will be found worthy of salvation: "But that on the good ground are they, which in an HONEST AND GOOD HEART, having heard the word, KEEP it, and bring forth fruit with patience" (Lk. 8:15). God's Spirit speaks nothing but truth, but the only people who can truly hear it and continue in it are those who keep and honest and good heart (Jn. 8:31,32). If we do not keep total honesty of heart then the original condition of deceit and wickedness returns, and as our text scripture points out, those who are NOT fully honest do NOT hear or keep the truth. No wonder one of my most valued scriptures in all the Bible is this: "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life" (Prov. 4:23). And for the flip side, another sobering verse is also one of my favorites: "The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding [truth] shall remain in the congregation of the dead" (Prov. 21:16). I think that about covers it for now. Amen.