The Heart Of Man

Jeremiah 17:1-7 12/5/21 a.m.

I really like WILL ROGERS. He was a great actor. (If you’ve never watched Judge Priest it’s a great film) But he was also a great comedian. He didn’t care if you were a Republican or a Democrat, he would make jokes about both parties. One of his famous lines was, “I don’t belong to any organized political party... I’m a Democrat.” He was known for his laughter, but he also knew how to weep. One day he was entertaining at the Milton H. Berry Institute in Los Angeles, a hospital that specialized in rehabilitating polio victims and people with broken backs and other extreme physical handicaps. Of course, Rogers had everybody laughing, even patients in really bad condition; but then he suddenly left the platform and went to the rest room. Milton Berry followed him to give him a towel; and when he opened the door, he saw Will Rogers leaning against the wall, sobbing like a child. He closed the door, and in a few minutes, Rogers appeared back on the platform, as jovial as before. But to see so much misery had BROKEN his HEART.

If you want to see what’s in a person’s heart just look to see what makes them ANGRY, what they LAUGH at, and what makes them CRY.

Let’s go ahead and turn in our Bibles to Jeremiah 17. We’re going to read Verses 1-10.

“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars;

2 Whilst their children remember their altars and their groves by the green trees upon the high hills.

3 O my mountain in the field, I will give thy substance and all thy treasures to the spoil, and thy high places for sin, throughout all thy borders.

4 And thou, even thyself, shalt discontinue from thine heritage that I gave thee; and I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in the land which thou knowest not: for ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn for ever.

5 Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.

6 For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.

7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.

8 For he shall be as a tree 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 from yielding fruit.

9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

10 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”

This passage of scripture begins with a conversation about the HEART and we quit reading in Verse 10 still talking about the HEART. This morning I want us to take a look at what God does with the HEART. You know, the thing inside of our chest that PUMPS BLOOD throughout the body. With an average life span of 70 years or so, a person’s HEART BEATS around 2 BILLION TIMES and pumps around 1 MILLION BARRELS of BLOOD. That’s enough BLOOD to fill up 3 SUPERTANKERS.

But the PHYSICAL HEART is NOT what I want to talk about today.

In this time that we live, we tend to see people as having two separate parts, one part is the emotions, which we refer to as the heart, then a brain, which houses the mind.

But when God speaks in both the Old and New Testaments about the heart, it never means just your EMOTIONS.

The Biblical word “HEART” is talking about three PARTS.

It’s the MENTAL PROCESS. It’s where we ACT and REACT to things around us.

It’s EMOTIONS. Love and Hatred. Joy and Sadness. Peace and Fear. It’s what ENRICHES our lives.

And then it’s WILL. The WILL of a PERSON is where decisions are made between RIGHT and WRONG. It’s where we RATIONALLY THINK. Proverbs 4:23 tells us,

“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”

EVERY PART of our LIFE comes from the HEART. And so this morning I want to speak about the HEART. But before I do, let’s go to the Lord in Prayer.

Brother ______, would you lead us?