The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?
Jeremiah 17, 9.
Some young people were once discussing this verse from the Bible. They wondered what the exact meaning of the word “deceitful” was in this context. After some consideration they came to the conclusion that it meant: the heart finds an excuse for everything. This explanation seems apt enough.
When the very first sin was committed on this earth, Adam found an excuse for it. He told God: “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate” (Genesis 3, 12). He tried to make God partly to blame. Since then excuses have rarely been lacking, when people have been confronted with offences.
Now be honest about your own opinion. Should we accuse God for all the misery caused in the world through the wars, suppression and violence that we human beings have caused?
Let us just ask ourselves why people do so. God tells us: “The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8, 21). Education doesn’t help here. Our “imagination”, i.e. our thinking and planning remain marked by evil.
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh” the Lord Jesus Christ said, but He added the solution at the same time: “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again” (John 3, 6.7). The new birth for eternal life is granted for faith in the Redeemer… Whoever fails to take this step will one day meet Him as the Judge of the world. That will be final: excuses will be of no avail.