Human nature is like a bad clock. It may go right now and then, or be made to strike the hour, but its inward frame is to go wrong. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
The power of the statement above has with the power of analogy (if God is pleased to do so) to open eyes to the true heart that all human beings have. People are so happy when they see something good about themselves, or at least something they think is good or when they do something they think is good. It is said that a clock that has stopped is right twice a day, but if we look at it in terms of military time it would only be right once a day at best. But then again, when you think about it the clock is not really right but the hands are pointed to the time that repeats itself daily. So the clock that has died is in one sense never right, but as the time of day comes around it makes it appear that the clock is right.
Human beings are born dead in sins and trespasses and are by nature children of wrath. When they do something that appears to be correct, it is not that it is truly correct, but instead just appears to be that way. The externals of the human being are like the hands of the clock that have the appearance of being correct, but if you look to the inward nature of the human or the clock you can see that it is not really correct but just has an outward appearance of it. As the clock that still runs but has parts that are not running correctly, the inward frame of the clock is really running in such a way as to keep the clock from being correct. So the human soul that is dead in sin is not set to where it can do one thing correctly in terms of the inward nature, but is set in such a way that it always runs in the wrong way and runs in such a way that it keeps the soul from doing one thing correctly.
The heart may indeed have the appearance of being right much of the time when one does not check it often as may happen with a clock, but when the inward part of the clock is wrong, the clock is wrong. When the heart is wrong, all that the human does is wrong. People are deceived when a clock is wrong, but a wrong heart deceives people far worse and far more often. How so many are so deceived by their own hearts because they don’t realize that their hearts are wrong. When the heart is wrong, the heart is deceived about what is right and wrong and good and evil. The heart that is deceived about those things is satisfied with the appearance of self-righteousness or a legal form of righteousness. The heart that is deceived about those things is also deceived about the truth of who God is and what God is like.
The ramifications are enormous when we think of how badly the heart deceives itself because it is wrong in its basic framework. A heart that is wrong is a heart that views itself as basically good in what it is and what it does, yet the heart is all wrong which means that all it does is wrong in the sight of God. The heart that is wrong in its inward frame is a heart that serves self out of love rather than God out of love, yet that heart can deceive itself into thinking that what it does for self and out of love for self is really out of love for God. The question, then, for each person to consider seriously is whether the heart is really right or not. If the heart is bad, then all the outward works a person does are worse than worthless and instead are idolatry and wickedness before God. As a clock that is always wrong when its inward parts are wrong, so the heart that is wrong is always sinning before God whether the appearance of good is there or not. All that heart does is wrong. It would be good for each person to be awakened to the realization of the true nature of his or her own heart.
God Loves... Himself 
July 1, 2013 at 12:31 pm |
How corrupt and sick and how desperate to see that and not trust in myself to do one good or righteous thing. Who shall deliver me from this body of sin and death?