Sick

“The heart is more deceitful than all else and desperately sick; who can understand it?”  Jeremiah 17:9

Sick – The Big C.  Health issues today seem to revolve around the fear of Cancer – the Big C.  No matter how tiny the infection, cancer is lethal.  It is literally cells of the body destroying themselves with out of control growth.  That description might remind us of another word (sarach – May 19 – to be out of bounds).  Once cancer is discovered, it must be removed or destroyed if the victim is going to live.  This is the idea behind this Hebrew word – anash.  It means “incurable disease leading to death.” 

Jeremiah’s description of the human heart is seen from God’s perspective.  We are literally sick to death.  Unless this cancer is removed and destroyed, we will not survive.  All of us need a major heart operation.  In fact, we need a transplant, not a by-pass.  The entire organ (our will) is incurably sick.

This view is not popular.  It never has been.  Human beings want to believe that there is a spark of the divine deep within the human spirit, something “good” down under all that corruption.  Ancient Greek philosophy taught that men were really good at the core but the passions and pressures of the world distorted this goodness.  According to the Greeks, men needed to be released from these oppressive forces so that they would reveal their essential goodness.  Jeremiah says that thinking this way is very bad medical advice.  It is equivalent to drinking Gatorade because you want more energy when you have leukemia.  Better get the right diagnosis before you decide on the right treatment.

God can do amazing things.  One of them is the replacement of the human heart.  David said, “Create in me a new heart”.  He knew that it wasn’t a matter of ethical improvement or moral education.  He needed transplant surgery.  Every time God reaches into the life of a man or woman with the anas disease, He performs a life-saving miracle.  Without God’s surgical hand, there is no hope at all.  Don’t be fooled by a false diagnosis.  Don’t think that it is only a matter of being a better person.  That is the world’s greatest lie.  Anash is incurable.  Unless God goes to work on your heart, you will die.

Cancer is terrible.  But anash has infected millions and millions.  Say a prayer for those victims today.  They are dying without even knowing they’re sick.