RTW 2023

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things,and desperately wicked.Who really knows how bad it is?But I, the LORD, search all heartsand examine secret motives.I give all people their due rewards,according to what their actions deserve.”

Jeremiah 17:9-10

Then the LORD gave me this message: “O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand.”

Jeremiah 18: 5-6

• “Desperately wicked”: KJV, NLT
• “Beyond cure”: NIV
• “Desperately sick”: NASB, ESV
• Hebrew gives the idea of terminal, incurable illness.
• The context is that Judah has turned away from God and is cursed.
• Those that trust in the Lord are blessed.
• God searches the heart to determine whether man is trusting man or trusting God.
• The application of the verse is very important in modern times.
• “Follow your heart” and “You do you” are the mantras of the day, but neither is biblical.
• The heart is beyond cure.
• It leads us the wrong way.
• There is no way to fix it.
• We need a new one.
• The only hope for the sinful human heart is to be supernaturally changed.
• “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the LORD. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
  Jeremiah 31:33
• Jesus brought the New Covenant…sinners could be born again. John 3:5
• Sinners could get a heart made new, washed clean from sin and ready to follow God.
• Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.
  Romans 6:14

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Understand the incurable illness of the human heart is sin. Understand that there is nothing we can do to cure it. Understand that we need God to give us a new heart, made possible through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Share that truth with everyone. That is the command we have been given!