Deceitful and desperately wicked!
(William S. Plumer, "Sinners Saved by Unmerited Kindness")
"The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked. Who really
knows how bad it is?" Jeremiah 17:9
Man is the only creature on earth
that practices self-deception. That we
should sometimes deceive others is
proof of our depravity; but that we
should spend our lives in self-
deception is truly astonishing!
Men of the fewest virtues commonly
have the highest thoughts of themselves.
How strange and yet how common that
he, whose heart has deceived him
a thousand times, should yet confide
in it as if it had always been honest!
The human heart deceives
every being but one--
and it would deceive HIM, if HE
were not omniscient. None but GOD
knows all the depths of iniquity
and duplicity within us.
Though the language of the Bible
is strong, it is just. GOD declares,
and every Christian knows
by sad experience--
that his heart is deceitful
above all things. A perfect
knowledge of the treachery
of our hearts is possessed by
none but GOD.
The heart is also VILE.
It is "desperately wicked."
It loves vanity, and folly, and sin.
It hates holiness, and truth,
and divine restraints.
The heart is . . .
a sink of iniquity,
a pool of pestilential waters,
a cage of unclean birds,
a sepulcher full of dead men's bones.
It is torn by wild, fierce, unhallowed passions.
It rejects good and chooses evil.
It is wholly corrupt.
It is full of evil.
There is no soundness in it.
"For from the heart come evil thoughts,
murder, adultery, all other sexual
immorality, theft, lying, and slander!
These are the things which defile the man."
Matthew 15:19, 20
"He who trusts in his own heart is a fool!"
Proverbs 28:26
(William S. Plumer, "Sinners Saved by Unmerited Kindness")
"The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked. Who really
knows how bad it is?" Jeremiah 17:9
Man is the only creature on earth
that practices self-deception. That we
should sometimes deceive others is
proof of our depravity; but that we
should spend our lives in self-
deception is truly astonishing!
Men of the fewest virtues commonly
have the highest thoughts of themselves.
How strange and yet how common that
he, whose heart has deceived him
a thousand times, should yet confide
in it as if it had always been honest!
The human heart deceives
every being but one--
and it would deceive HIM, if HE
were not omniscient. None but GOD
knows all the depths of iniquity
and duplicity within us.
Though the language of the Bible
is strong, it is just. GOD declares,
and every Christian knows
by sad experience--
that his heart is deceitful
above all things. A perfect
knowledge of the treachery
of our hearts is possessed by
none but GOD.
The heart is also VILE.
It is "desperately wicked."
It loves vanity, and folly, and sin.
It hates holiness, and truth,
and divine restraints.
The heart is . . .
a sink of iniquity,
a pool of pestilential waters,
a cage of unclean birds,
a sepulcher full of dead men's bones.
It is torn by wild, fierce, unhallowed passions.
It rejects good and chooses evil.
It is wholly corrupt.
It is full of evil.
There is no soundness in it.
"For from the heart come evil thoughts,
murder, adultery, all other sexual
immorality, theft, lying, and slander!
These are the things which defile the man."
Matthew 15:19, 20
"He who trusts in his own heart is a fool!"
Proverbs 28:26
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