The Heart is Sinful and Desperately Wicked in Need of a Savior

Even after this, Jeroboam did not change his evil ways, but once more appointed priests for the high places from all sorts of people. Anyone who wanted to become a priest he consecrated for the high places. This was the sin of the house of Jeroboam that led to his downfall and to its destruction from the face of the earth.  I Kings 13:33-34

We’ve exchanged shame and morals for wokeness in this generation, the kind of things that we are proud of in this generation would even make demons ashamed. Sad case, no fear of God anymore, even thanking God for journey mercies to sin. The end is here.

The Bible says in the book of Jeremiah 17:9, The heart is sinful and desperately wicked, above all things and it needs a Savior. Don’t play God. If you look at our world now, every tree is protected except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We’ve redefined everything and what chaos in this world in which we live.

God gives us second chances so that we can repent and mend our evil ways. God always warns before sending judgment. In the courts of God, mercy always triumphs over justice. The Bible tells us to, “Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” (James 2:12-13). This is the heart of our loving and merciful God. He shows abundant grace and mercy before releasing judgment. But divine judgment is bound to come when grace is trampled upon. In fact, we are admonished by Paul not to sin in the hope that grace will abound (Romans 6:1-2).

Jeroboam deserved to die for his incendiary sins of idolatry. He flagrantly violated the word of the living God and continued to do so with impunity even after God had spared his life and restored his shriveled hand. So, the aftermath seemed rather predictable: “This was the sin of the house of Jeroboam that led to his downfall and to its destruction from the face of the earth.”  God gave him the opportunity to repent and be restored but he trampled upon the grace of God and was eventually destroyed.

Jeroboam’s situation is not unique to him. It seems rather endemic to all humanity. Our hearts are desperately wicked and beyond cure and unless we hold tenaciously to a genuine fear of God, we can be as recalcitrant in our ways as Jeroboam was. The wickedness of our hearts demand that we fall prostrate before our merciful God and ask for His grace daily to help us stay within the boundaries of His righteousness. We should never be cavalier about the things God warns us about otherwise we can slide into a state of no return. It happened even to Solomon: the brightest, the richest and the wisest of the human species.

Coming to terms with our human wickedness and frailty helps us understand the prayer of David: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” Being cognizant of this would cause us to humble ourselves daily and ask God to search us and cleanse from every wicked way just like David did.

Prayer: Father, I thank you for your inexhaustible grace and mercy.  Please help me never to take your grace for granted. Help me to continually examine myself in the light of your word and to continually live in repentance and not be resistant in any form of sin. Amen.