The Deceitfulness of the Heart — Paris Reidhead

Each of the Sunday evenings when we speak scriptures intended to awaken sinners. That what is happening in my heart is in some degree more or less dark as well. That the pressure of the word considered week after week is giving you an increasing concern because it leaves absolutely no escape on the table of their heart and upon the horns of your altars.

Judah’s Idolatry and the Consequences of Trusting Man

Children remember their altars and their field. I will give thy substance and all thy treasures to thy places for sin. You from thine heritage that I gave thee cause thee to serve the trust of in man from the lord like the heat in the desert and shall not see when good cometh but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness in a salt land.

It is the man that trusteth in the lord and whose hope be planted by the waters and that spreadeth out her roots by the river and shall not see when heat cometh but her leaf shall be green and shall not be careful in the year of drought neither shall cease.

Now comes the text even to give to according to his way controversy with judah against the lord. Three tenths. Superficiality immorality was all part of god's. Upon the table were seen by him the minds of the ship of molah something of what he refers to here making the children to pass through the fire that israel served first was baal the evil spirit of any locality that gave possession the goddess of sex that gave license for immorality and the promise of progeny that was appeased and placated and treated.

And position was that the individual who made the sacrifice they never served the god for his own sake arrived at something they wanted the first born son where his entreating for power for position for the blessing of molah.

And then he would take the little child and throw it up into the that was made on the knees between the on the knees and between the folded arm of the statue god and the child would thus rest right in the lap of molah.

Passed into the fire was a sign that molah didn't want him. The prayer wasn't answered. Or if the child should pass over in such a way that it passed through the flame but wasn't killed by it then again and so said he the little children of israel have watched the sins of the people have witnessed them and they've been scarred by it.

As i have become acquainted with the poems and situations of some of the children that come with us in our afternoon sunday school i have been made to feel something away as he looked upon israel in her idolatry.

The shocking stains produced in the minds of the children all of this enraged god kindled his anger not a capricious anger that burned in hatred but rested upon righteous ground because of the continued and persistent rebellion of his people against him with the nations around them and said yes we have sinned against god.

The Heart’s Justifications for Sin

And they put their confidence sure that everyone that ever sins feels he has a good reason to do it. And he has made some subtle clever manipulation of his mind to justify him in it and protect him. And it's a strange thing you know previously why it is that sometimes the wicked for such a long time after their sins have been.

Sometimes the hearts of the righteous are caused to faint because they see wicked people prospering. Do you remember what. How patient god has been with judah. He sent his servants to them and jeremiah has come and ministered now entreating them to return to the lord.

God gave them a well of living water. They spurred that and they hewed for themselves cisterns broken cisterns. They chose assyria. They said we'll trust in these nations and thought thereby to protect themselves from the judgment of god.

But i know you know that it's impossible to do it to someone tonight that's come into this house. You perhaps don't even know why you're here. And yet somehow you're here and you're here with the realization not dealt honorably not dealt as god demanded.

You thought that it was covered. You thought that it was hidden. You thought that god had forgotten absolutely set or impenitence. When that's the case there's not a one of us that are omitted not a one of us that can pass it on to someone else.

Not a one of us that can say it doesn't apply. Listen to it. I've been cheated you in respect to sin must not be so bad. Well it's the day we live in. Things are like that. Now this is the law. God's too strict.

God doesn't understand me. He doesn't know my problem. These are some of the ways that your heart has deceived you in trying to make sin appear something less than god has said it is a crime against him.

The Temporary Pleasure and False Beauty of Sin

Then your heart has deceived you in respect to the pleasure of sin. The glitter the bang the bunting. Go for ministry movie company and to see whole village. Just a facade just a front. Our brother erickson i said would you mind pulling over to the side of the road.

I want to see this and never forget it again as i sat there. Magnificent mansions three feet thick. That this is really the best that the devil can do. It puts on a good show into thinking that this particular disobedience was the knot without which of your happiness.

If you didn't have it you couldn't be. You couldn't survive. And you disobey. Bitter smells sweet of this deceit of the human heart. Go to crib on his finest. The person thinks that if they could just people would fill out their income tax from these stocks.

They'll never catch up with us these hearts. A few moments just a season. Remember what moses said. He chose to accept the afflictions of christ rather than the pleasures of sin. For sins and bitterness and ends in death.

The Deception of Profit and Dishonest Gain

Will you remember that. And then of course deceives not only in respect to sin respect to pleasure but your heart deceives you in respect to profit. How many times men have thought that they could by a sinful way be happy.

That there's a psychological compulsion for people that get money in an illegal way to spend it as rapidly as they can. This is the reason why you will often find those that have gotten it as the gangsters squandering it in some futile useless way because of the fact that it has promised so much and brought so little.

You get by dishonesty whatever you get by deceit whatever you get at the compromise of your character and the sacrifice of your virtue causes you to be the loser rather than the gainer. The subtle thing that we as christians face today.

Our folk in the hospital. The young man so shaken i went to a man in the city of new york to make a purchase of the conversation. He said. Well you know the federal government demands a ten percent tax but none of my competitors give it.

Somehow they could just get to a certain place. They'd be happy. Dishonorable means unfair means the shame bondage and destruction. Remember that i'm pointing at you tonight. I'm talking just as personally as i know how to talk.

The Heart’s Deception in Spiritual Knowledge and Religion

But i've not only got my finger pointed at you but i've got three fingers pointed at me. My friend there will never come a time as long as you live when you can trust your heart. Greatest danger. A thousand hours.

And when he's been in the air ten thousand hours he begins to feel complacent. Because when there's been many a great god someone thought at long last he could trust his heart went into blackwater fever.

Everybody came along gave me another 70 unit it made me take three tablets. And it ended up with with more than. Well i said to my wife mine's getting dark early isn't it. She said. Well no it's still quite bright.

It's only three o 'clock. I said no you're wrong. It's getting dark. And something had already begun to affect my optic nerve. Well at any rate during this time from the fever i told her god was giving me insights into spiritual truth that no one ever had before.

I said i want you to bring a pad and a pencil. And i am on the verge of one of the greatest spiritual discoveries that anyone's ever made. You know i wrote it down put it there and it was. I was over my and i said dear where's that.

And there she brought me this pad. And of all the inane trivialities that anyone had ever penciled there were those that i had scribbled on that pad. This is the deceit begin to think that you are have arrived in truth.

Instead of that yes said can you define and explain the trinity. Know anybody that would you stay on for me. Tell me what it is. There was this this janitor that was just cheated by accident from being one of the great preachers of the age literally wasn't recognized and in this southern baptist church down greensville and i listened to him and you know he'd been there thinking and pondering and putting it together and his heart had deceived him into thinking that he'd found the secret of all he had was the old area of heresy that's all just the heresy that had been condemned at the council of nicaea the deceitfulness of the heart.

You can't trust your heart in respect to sin. You can't trust it in respect to pleasure you can't trust it in respect to profit. You can't trust your heart in respect to honor and position. You can't trust your heart in respect to knowledge and certainly you can't trust your heart in respect to religion to christianity it persuades a person to believe that He's very holy, actually, he's naked and poor and wretched and blind.

Human Self-Righteousness and the Need for Conviction

To the first ten people you meet, do you think that you were to die and that there is a heaven and there is a God? Do you think that you're bad enough to go to hell or good enough to go to heaven? If there's a God and a one that's honest enough to say that, I'll be surprised.

Of course, they swear. And who's moral? And who doesn't cheat on his income? Who isn't this and who else? Though he was an intelligent man, had his own business, one of the foulest imaginations and most subtly evil tongues.

He said to me, you know, my husband dies. He thought the same way about himself that she did. It's the most deceitful thing in all creation. It's deceitful. Stood this, that's me. This in their mouth, their throat is an open sepulchre, they flatter with their tongues the poison of acid is under their lips.

Want to go home? Only in agreement. At the funeral and the preacher was eulogizing the deceased. Would you please go up and look in the coffin and see if that's your daddy they're talking about. Have you look into your heart and see if this is your heart I'm talking about.

It's somebody else. Is this your heart that we're talking about? In the personality, everything in the life is corrupted because of this wickedness. Let me illustrate it. The thoughts of the heart are wicked.

The motives are selfish. Did you believe that? The human heart and its natural state is committed to selfishness because it puts health in the place of God. And thus the thoughts of the heart are wicked.

The imaginations of the heart are evil. In Genesis the sixth chapter we find that God brought a flood upon that generation because their imaginations were only evil continually. The affections and the emotions leave the spirit of God has absolutely found me out.

Yourself you've heard it said there's no town in the world that isn't the center of the universe to its local inhabitants. It's exactly true. Go into the smallest little community anywhere and they're sure that the North Pole isn't up where they say it is but the center around which the whole world revolves is this community.

This is just a reflection which makes the heart the center of the social universe. The judgment is perverted. Consequence and things of great consequence. Great importance. Completely overlooked. New city.

On the elevator. Young girl about 16. Standing over in the corner sobbing. That such sorrow could only come from someone that is at news of the loss of loved ones not knowing exactly the girl's age. He thought perhaps she was an employee that was going home in the middle of the day because of a great tragedy in the family.

So he stepped over toward solicitous and kindly and he said, Miss, I do not know what the sorrow is. I do not know what the tragedy is or what the suffering is. But this I know. Did you need help? And if there's anything I can do to comfort or console you, I'll be glad to do it.

For, he said, sorrow and tragedy strike us all. All, she said through her tears. I just lost that I'd been counting on for so many months. Observation. In America, there is more first-class emotion lost on more second-class causes than any other place in the face of the earth.

The Seared Conscience and the Wickedness Within

In general, in respect to the deceitful, in respect to the conscience. The conscience is seared with a hot iron. Its warnings are unheard. Its testimony ignored. The essence of this heart, wickedness.

The purpose of life. The government of life. Where the wickedness resides. Desperately wicked. There might be someone here that if you were given an opportunity would say, Representing. It isn't that way at all.

And sincere and sacrificial it is. Simply pointing out, even in this appraisal, the deception and the wickedness is revealed. Those of us that have seen God, and in the light of what God is, have seen ourselves, Know wickedness of the human heart.

They have not known sin. And so, wickedness of the human heart, Of this world, and drugged by lust and pride, Did not know our own heart. But he never will be able to see Christ, alright? The view that people place on the death of Christ is in proportion to the discovery of their own heart.

Did you know that? That's why it's such folly to preach the law. But have you not as the knowledge of sin, That the ten commandments are God's sharp saw, That go through the conceit and the arrogance and the pride of the human heart, And open it up for the light to enter.

And the only way to cause a man to know his heart, Is through the word administered, By having come to Christ. Largely at least, or most of them. Because they've never seen themselves. We've been trying to get them to see the beauty of Christ, Before they've seen the heinousness of their own hearts.

Salvation Requires Seeing Sin Rather Than Merely Seeking Relief

Too many people that come, we think, would come to Christ these days, Come because they're in a human dilemma. Because they're in a, to control a habit. They have a sickness. Because of what they've seen themselves to be, They've come to God because of what they've seen they need.

Comes with such motivation. A human need, a human dilemma. Is it not imperative that he should see himself? That we are facing ground now where we've got to agree, Is to be truly saved. To see a problem.

If salvation is from a dilemma, All he needs is to see his dilemma. Sickness, all he needs to do is see his sickness. And he can only see it when the cover is taken off the lid of his eye. And he gets a glimpse of what he is.

Still professing Christians in the church. Because all in answer of a particular problem at a particular time. Until the work of conviction is complete. God the spirit must show a man the nature of his selfishness.

It's arrogance and it's pride. That he's put himself in the place of God. And seen that out of this one act of treason and rebellion, All the other acts of sin and uncleanness have come. He can't stop the liquor traffic.

By standing and breaking the bottles that will be on the shelves. He never finished. If you want to stop the liquor traffic, the place to do it is to padlock the factory. And consequently a great many people.

Stolen, they've been caught in some dilemma of circumstance. And they've wanted to be saved from the consequence of this circumstance. And they have come to Christ. Simply as the means of alleviating their problem.

I'm sure this is true on the mission field. In fact it was Mrs. Timian who mentioned just this Friday past. That everyone with whom she had ever prayed in their station in the Ivory Coast. Simply wanted to use God to help them in a situation.

And that the word had to come in loving ministry. Cause them to see themselves the sinners that they are. Do you know it? Have you seen your heart? Taking the cover off the living equity. This universe of unclean people's response.

When he interprets that. Meaning that he's saved. I'm confident that many people were healed by the Lord Jesus. That had never been saved from their sins. I'm satisfied that many a boy whose airplane had been struck by the shrapnel.

And was plunging to the ground cried out in the name of his mother's God. And the plane was steadied and he was brought to a landing. Was delivered from the... Chose his love. But if you were to say today well I must be saved.

Because I know God answered prayer. I'd have to say no that's not the reason at all. There's no grounds of satisfaction or peace in that. Say listen. God has opened my heart. God has shown me the world of iniquity that's there.

God has shown me the deceitfulness of it. God let me see that the seed of every sin was residing in my bosom. And that the serpents of all the ages had made their holes in my heart. And God showed me that there wasn't a sin or crime that anyone has ever committed.

In which I was not capable. And he broke me and brought me to the foot of the cross. A world of iniquity but nothing to offer but my uncleanness. Have you seen yourself? Who can know it? In that final sense.

Women say now listen it's this and it's this and it's this. Am I saved or am I not? They say well I don't know it. It's this way. Well you know there's someone to go to don't you? Yes but I've never seen it that way.

God Knows the Hidden Motives of Every Heart

Set in motion now the chain of self as I am. Whether actual or possible. 139 and 2. Thou understandest my thought afar off. Job 7 20. O thou watcher of men. Psalm 56 8. Thou numberest my wonderings. Hebrews 4 13.

That is not manifest in his sight. Open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Genesis 16 13. That pour from within out of the heart of men. Proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornication. Murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit.

Lasciviousness and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within. And defile the man. Of course of all evil. All of its motives and actions and contrivances. Are simply to implement its wickedness and selfishness.

God says I try the reins. Judge the kidneys. I judge the inner part of you. The seat of your motives. Sinful. You know that the car that runs over the man in the street. Is booked for manslaughter until they can prove that he sat at the corner.

Knowing that the man crossed the street every time. Every day at the same time. And that he drove as fast as he could. And then when they have signed motive it's no longer manslaughter it's murder. Manslaughter is just an accident.

Murder carries with it capital punishment. And God says I try the reins. And I find the reason that people do such a thing. Is because their motives are to please themselves. Given by God in that future day.

Will be injustice and knowledge. The books will be open. And they will be judged. Every man according to his ways. Strict motive. The muscles of the heart will be made manifest. Will be revered. Where he speaks.

The Final Judgment of False Professors

And tells you what he's seen there. And believe what he says. Hey anybody else. What happens. One that sayeth unto me Lord. Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. But he that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven.

Many will say unto me in that day Lord. Did we not prophesy in your name. Did we not cast out devils in your name. Have we not done many wonderful works in your name. Then will I profess unto them. I never knew you.

Depart from me. Desperate wickedness. And come to him. As foul as he said. Most that rightly understand ourselves. Come cleansing and power for what he saw. Be provided until you first about yourself.

Honestly free. Wicked heart. Peace and love that he's provided. Invitation. St. Chaplain I'll come and we'll talk and pray together there. Cleansing. See myself as you see me. I know that your grace is sufficient for the worst in me.

A Closing Plea to See the Heart and Come to Christ

Show me what I am. So that I will want everything that the Lord Jesus died to make. St. Chaplain. They may move on and march on with thee. Might it even be that tonight. Instead of going to the street or to their home.

They'll come to thee in a place of prayer. Others with them that didn't raise their hands. We must if we are to be united before thee. Be people that have seen ourselves all in the same way. Open the eyes of in the night hours and on the days to come.

Truth between our eyes upon our foreheads.