Ron Dunn Podcast - The Heart Of The Problem

Episode Date: September 30, 2015

Pastor Ron Dunn preaches a message from Jeremiah 17.

You are listening to the Ron Dunn Podcast. Ron Dunn is a well-known author and was one of the most in-demand preachers during the latter part of the 20th century. He led Bible studies all over the United States, Europe, and South Africa. For more information and resources from Ron Dunn, please visit rondunn.com. I knew that person. I know him. I know he'd never do that. Well, in the first place, you don't know them, really. We don't even know ourselves, fully and truly.

The fact of the matter is there lies within the heart the potential for every kind of evil. Jesus pictured the heart as a jungle full with wild beasts. He said it is not what a person takes into his body that defiles him, But it's what comes out of the heart. The writer of Proverbs says, Keep thy heart with all diligence. Keep a watchful eye on it. Guard it. For out of it are the issues of life.

And there is the potential for every kind of evil in the human heart. And so it's interesting today that we have a lot to say in the newspapers and the television about the increasing crime and violence in our community and the drug use. And then come along the politicians and the socialists and the others who are trying to help. And they say, well, this is what we need. This is what we need. And you hear it a lot now during the presidential elections. Thank God they'll soon be over. And you hear them now.

And they're all promising one thing, and they're all saying this is the answer. We need more education. We need more jobs. We need to get rid of the poverty that's in the land. But I have news for you, friends. I'm for all of that, but I will not solve the problem. I will not solve the problem.

You can make everybody rich, and you can put everybody in fancy homes, and that won't solve the problem. More education won't solve the problem. More education won't solve the problem. I remember the story that Vance Hagner used to tell of a boy that used to steal watermelons from a train, and so they decided that what he needed was an education, so they educated him.

He graduated from college and stole the train. Just made him a more clever crook is all it did. What's wrong with our country? What's wrong with the world? Perennial fighting. War in the Mideast. There'll never be peace in the Mideast. There never will be. I'm not saying we ought not peace in the Mideast. There never will be.

I'm not saying we ought not to try to have it, but there never will be because the Jews are never going to give up Jerusalem and neither are the Arabs. There'll never be peace there. All over the world, there are these kind of things happening. What's going on? I want to talk to you this morning on the heart of the problem.

And the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. You see, it's not the outward things that need to be changed, although there are many of those things that need to be changed and ought to be changed, but that will not change culture. It will not change society. It will not do away with crime and violence. The only thing that will really make a difference is a change of heart. It's the heart that needs to be changed. The trouble, folks, is in men's hearts.

That's where the problem is. It's in the heart. It's not in the head. It's not in the brain. It's not in the environment. It's not anywhere else. It's in the heart, where out of the heart are the issues of life. It is out of the heart that corruption comes. And it grieves me to see that nobody makes that suggestion except the religious people. All of the social activists and the sociologists and psychologists and politicians and economics and economists and all of those who are trying to help. They offer everything, suggest everything, but I've never heard a word of them say yet that the need is for the change of the human heart.

Change that's going to make great change must come from the inside. God always works from the inside. You change a person's heart, and then you change his behavior. So I want us to look at this problem, the heart. Jeremiah says the heart is desperately wicked. The heart is deceitful above all things. The heart is diagnosed and examined by its creator. Let me just share with you these three things. Number one, by heart, the human heart is deceitful in its conduct. He says the heart is deceitful above all things. Now, that's saying a lot. Above all things.

Above all things. The devil is called the great deceiver, but even more deceitful than the devil is the heart, my own heart. Can you imagine that? My greatest enemy is on the inside. The one that will deceive me the most is on the inside. Above everything else that may lead me astray,

it is my heart. And we hear so many people say astray, it is my heart. And we hear so many people say, well, just follow your heart. Just follow your heart. Now, a person who's been reborn is being led by the Spirit. I think God will lead him through his heart. But when you're talking to the average individual

and you say, oh, well, you just do what's in your heart and follow your heart, that's not good advice. You say, well, in my heart I feel that I'm right. In my heart this is what I want to do. In my heart I feel this is the right thing to do. I have news for you. You better watch out.

Don't just follow your heart because your heart will deceive you. Your heart's a liar. Actually, the Hebrew word here is Jacob. The heart is a Jacob, and we all know who Jacob was, don't we? Jacob was a con man. He was a thief. He was a crook. He was a liar. He was a cheat. You never turned your back on Jacob, and whenever he was around, you always clamped your hand on your pocketbook extra hard. And the heart is a Jacob just like that, a trickster, a cheater, a liar, a fraud. Your heart will not tell you the truth.

Just to say, well, follow your heart, just do what's in your heart, that's terrible advice. When my brother was in the Air Force and he flew for several years for the Strategic Air Command and he mentioned to me when they were in flight training that there were several occasions when they'd do night flights and he said that there were times when a pilot would be in the darkness without having any point of contact, and he couldn't see anything. He was out there in the darkness doing maneuvers,

and suddenly he was flying upside down, but he didn't know it. He felt like he was flying right side up. Yet his instruments told him he was upside down. But the feeling of his heart was stronger, and so he would pull back on the stick to gain altitude, and all he was doing really was crashing himself into the ground. And my brother said that happened on several occasions because men followed their hearts more than the instruments.

And sometimes my heart tells me this is what I ought to do and this is what I ought to do but listen I need to fly by the instruments I need to fly by what God says in his word I need something reliable I need something stable I have news for you friend your heart will lie to you

it will lie to you about the true nature of spiritual things. The heart deceives us as to what is the true nature of spiritual things. You remember Isaiah in Isaiah 6. He had this great vision. He was in the temple. He was a priest, prophet, and he was ministering, and he was looking past the columns,

and there was the temple, and there was ministering, and he was looking past the columns, and there was the temple, and there was the throne. And all of a sudden, a great vision came to Isaiah, and all of the earthly furniture of the tabernacle faded away and parted, and the temple parted and faded away. And he saw what was behind the material earthly temple, and he saw God himself sitting in his holy temple upon his throne, and the angels crying, Holy, Holy, Holy, and it had a devastating but life-changing effect on the prophet Isaiah. Now, what happened to Isaiah was this. He, like most of the priests of that day,

felt like that they met God, and in a sense they did when they came into the earthly tabernacle and they dealt with the earthly furniture and equipments of the tabernacle. But there's something beyond that. This is not the end in itself. There's something beyond this.

And one day he saw beyond what the physical manifestation, and he saw the true manifestation of the glory of God. And there are so many times when you and I come to church and we go through the motions of worship and we do our duty and go through the rituals, we say, I have met God and I have worshiped. But my dear friends, I wish someday that all of this that we see around us, the physical that we see and the material that we see could someday just fade away and we could see Jesus only. The Bible says the heart deceives us

and it deceives us about the true nature of spiritual things. The true nature of spiritual things is not just going through motions or rituals or gestures or mechanics, but the true nature of spiritual things is my personal encounter with Jesus Christ and knowing Him. But the heart deceives us about something else.

It deceives us about the tendency of evil things. The tendency of evil things is to get worse and worse and worse. But your heart doesn't tell you that. It says, oh, once more hurt. But you know, I've never met a drunk or an alcoholic who said to me, preacher, I decided one day that I wanted to spend my life being a drunk. I decided one day that I wanted to lose my job and lose my family and lose my house and my reputation

and end up as a homeless bum living in an alley somewhere drinking cheap wine. I've never heard anybody say that, that they started out to be that. No. But their hearts deceived them and when they first started, they said, this won't get any worse and you can handle it.

I've never met a drug addict who said to me, I started out intentionally to be a drug addict. I decided the best thing I could do, the most honorable thing I could do with my life was just to become that kind of bum and snatch purses and do little petty robberies

here where I could pay enough to buy my next fix and to live in the gutter the rest of my life and die a trembling wreck at a young age. That's how I wanted to live my life. I've never heard anybody say that. No. Oh, one time won't make any difference. Just one look won't make any difference. Things are not going to get any worse. You can control it.

You can control it. And I want to tell you something. Some of you sitting right here this morning, your heart is telling you that you're different. You're flirting with your secretary or somebody else, and your heart is telling you that you're different. You're flirting with your secretary or somebody else, and your heart is saying to you, you're different, you won't get caught. It won't go beyond this. It won't get any worse.

I have news for you folks. You are no different. You are not special. Your heart is a deceiver, and if you continue to listen to your heart, you're going to find yourself in big trouble. And then, of course, the heart is deceitful about the truth of itself. The heart doesn't want you to know the truth about yourself,

and so it hides from you. Well, let's move on. Not only is the heart deceitful in its conduct, it's also diseased in its character. Notice he says, it is desperately wicked. And who can understand it? The heart is desperately wicked.

The word desperately there means it is incredibly wicked. It has been attacked by a disease, the disease of sin sin the disease of the fall it is utterly completely totally wicked now that's simply the doctrine of total depravity and the doctrine of total depravity doesn't mean you're as bad as you could be some of you could. I know it's hard to believe. But you could be worse than you are. Some of you could be better than you are, too.

Total depravity doesn't mean that you're as bad as you can be. It simply means that every area of your life, every area of your personality has been touched and marred by sin. Your thought life, your feeling life, every part of you, there is not a single part of your life

that has not been affected by this. It is utterly wicked. It is unsearchably wicked. Who can understand it? Who can understand it? How many times have we struggled with this? Why would I feel this way in my heart? How could this person do such a thing?

None of us can understand the workings of the heart. It is incurably wicked. He says in Jeremiah 15, My wound is what? Incurable. There's no cure for the human heart. The only thing that will do it is a transplant you need a new heart

and Ezekiel says that's what the new covenant is all about that's what Jesus is all about he said I will give you a new heart and I will write upon that heart my laws and you'll know my ways. And the miracle of salvation is that when Jesus Christ comes into the life,

he gives that individual a new heart. He's not asking us to reform. He's not asking us to follow a new set of rules and regulations to try to make ourselves behave. He's saying, let me give you a new set of rules and regulations to try to make ourselves behave. He said, let me give you a new heart, and then out of that new heart will come new issues of life. Well, let me close by just pointing out

one other thing. The heart is diagnosed by its creator. It is under constant diagnosis. Notice in verse 10, after he says that nobody can understand the heart, he says, I, the Lord, search the heart. I explore the heart. And to the Hebrews,

the heart had the idea of the mind. Hebrews were very physical, very visceral in their descriptions, and they, instead of saying, I search the mind, the will, they said, I search the heart. And it just feels right, doesn't it? The heart is the steering wheel of your life.

The heart is the control panel of your life. You are doing things today according to what you feel in your heart, which in reality is your will, your mind, your thought process, all of the things that go with it to making up a decision. I believe this is right. And God says, I am constantly exploring that to see what is in your heart. He said, I'll try the reins. Actually, the Hebrew word here is kidneys.

I told you the Hebrews were very visceral, and the kidneys and the bowels and many times represented the deepest compassion, the deepest urges. It's what we would call the gut feeling of a person. And he said,

God is always watching out and searching and testing the heart, the gut feelings, the things that motivate us. Why? Because he knows they're deceitful. But he said he's doing this for a reason. First of all, he says, so that he can give to every man according to his ways. Now that's good and bad.

That's judgment and that's reward. To give to every man according to his ways. He's going to judge every man, every woman. He's going to do it according to his ways. Now that word ways there is very important. It has the idea of the whole life pattern. He's here not necessarily saying, I'm going to judge this good act and this bad act and this good act and this bad act.

He said, I'm going to judge the tenor of the life as a whole, taken as a whole. One time I was down at the World Trade Center in Dallas. I'm stupid for admitting this. But anyway, I wanted to go up to the second floor, and I got on an escalator. The only thing is, the escalator was going down. I wanted to go up. Have you ever tried to walk up a downward escalator?

It's not easy, is it? I mean, it's foolish. But I don't know. There's something so proud and stubborn about me. I wasn't about to. And I just going to try to act like, well, you know, every once in a while I could take a step forward. Every once in a while I took a step higher, but that did not change the general tenor of my direction, you see.

Now, a person may do a good thing here and there, but if he's not saved, that doesn't change the general direction and tenor of his life which is downward and when he says I will judge every man according to his ways he's not going to take this good work and this good work and this bad work

and this bad work and put them on scales and see which one outweighs the other he's going to judge the life as a whole the tenor of the life and that can be good and that can be bad the life as a whole, the tenor of the life. And that can be good, and that can be bad. Re-reward or be judgment.

Ah, but there is something else he says. And according to the fruit of his doings. Now that's different. He's going to reward every man to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings in other words he's saying

I'm like a tree and I do things and that tree bears fruit from what I do things, and that tree bears fruit from what I do. In other words, I'm not being judged by simply what I did. I'm being judged by the consequences of what I did, the fruit of what I did. For instance, we hear a lot today,

there is so much talk today about abusiveness, abused children, abused wives, and studies show that most people who abuse themselves have been abused by their parents. It's something that seems to be passed on. And so if I abuse my children, and they grow up in that kind of environment, and they become abusers of their children, and they become abusers of their children environment and they become abusers of their children and they become abusers of their children and they become abusers of their children.

You know what's going to happen? Not only am I going to be judged for abusing my own children, but I'm going to be judged for all of the subsequent abuse because it's the fruit of my doings. You know why the judgment must come at the end of all things? People say, well, he died and has gone to his reward. No, he hasn't. He's died and gone to his judgment.

No, he hasn't. What does the Scripture mean when it says some men's sins fall unto their grave? Why does the judgment come at the end? Because it's not all tiled come at the end because it's not all tied up until the end. There's no way of knowing the effect that your life is going to have throughout generations to come until it's all at the end. See, it's a solemn thing that it's not just what I do,

but it's the consequence of what I do, the fruit of his doings. Now again, this is good or bad. This can be judgment or reward. And you see, that man, that shoe salesman that led D.L. Moody to Christ over a hundred years ago

will not only be rewarded for leading that man to Christ, but he will share in the millions that that man, through his preaching, brought to Jesus Christ. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that something? You see, here is a mother or father that raises their children in the admonition of the Lord, and they're going to receive not just for doing that, but for all of the good things that their children do throughout the rest of their life. Here's a Sunday school teacher teaching a little class of monsters, and we all know the age and gender.

I don't need to go into that. And ready to give up, ready to give up, ready to give up. Oh, but there's one little monster in there that takes the seed in the heart and becomes a godly person. May become another Billy Graham or may just become a good person and leads others to Christ. You know something?

God's not going to reward you just for teaching that class. He's going to reward you for all the fruit that comes from that, generation after generation. Isn't that something? Isn't that something? God doesn't just deal with the present. Our sin nor our goodness doesn't end with us. It extends to the end of eternity. What about your heart this morning? Do you have a new heart? Has your heart ever been changed?

What's in your heart today? Are you fine by your heart or by the instruments? You say, I don't know what you're talking about, new heart. I've never had that experience. Well, Jesus is here today, and he wants to give you a new heart. He wants to give you a new heart, a new heart with new feelings, new aspirations, a new start. When we stand to sing in a moment for our time of invitation, the pastor and others are going to be here at the front. And as God speaks to your heart and you say, I've never had that personal experience

with Jesus I need a new heart this morning you just slip out from where you'll be standing make your way here to the front and one of the ministers will be here to meet you and there may be some you feel God leading you to put your life into this wonderful church

and that's what you ought to do or you may want to come and just kneel at this altar and speak to God and God alone. But I want us to be obedient just to the Holy Spirit today. That's His task, to tell us what to do. You don't need me to tell you what to do. Right now, God is speaking to your heart,

and you know what is there, what needs to be adjusted, what needs to be changed, what needs to be changed, what needs to be done. So I'm going to pray that as God speaks to you, that he'll give you the grace just to step out from where you'll be standing and make that decision for Jesus unashamedly, confessing him before men as he even confessed us. Dunn materials, sermon outlines, devotions, and scanned pages from his study Bible, please

visit rondunn.com.