I Can't See Their Hearts

I have been irritated lately. I have heard a dozen or so comments from various people that have just really angered me. I’ve already tipped my hand by the title of this post. Yes, it’s about this lily-livered, spineless, relativistic, “who-am-I-to-judge-anyone” attitude that has infected, or should I say, infested much of so-called Christian thought. Much more could be said that I will say, but there are some huge flaws that this mindset betrays.

First of all, it is based on the assumption that truth is subjective. That idea in and of itself is absolutely idiotic. I don’t know of a nicer way to put it. It is so fashionable for people to say that what is right for one person may not be right for someone else. But this is sheer idiocy and hypocrisy. If a person, outside the Christian faith wants to believe such drivel, I say, let them. Paul said we didn’t judge those outside the Church. But, for a person who claims Christianity to hold to such a philosophy is unpardonable. Christianity means nothing if it doesn’t mean it absolutely.

The world has been turned on its head by this relativistic mindset. G.K. Chesterton, in his book Orthodoxy, remarks that we were meant to be sure of the truth and doubtful of ourselves, but we have reversed the order. It is considered arrogant to make exclusive truth claims. Classic Christianity is too “narrow” because it views all other religions as false and holds that no one who does not believe in Christ is or will be saved. Period! Somehow it has been portrayed as humble to be doubtful or, at least, to not be insistent about the exclusive claims of Christianity about salvation and sin. What kills me though is that the same people who are so “modest” and “humble” as to doubt God’s Word, are the same ones who are unspeakably confident in themselves. The only reason that the subversive Emergents reject the exclusivist claims of Christianity, is because they place their own minds above God’s. Chesterton quipped that we are well on our way to producing a race of men too modest to believe in the multiplication table!

But it gets uglier. As my title suggests, I’m particularly irritated by the Osteen-esque refusal to pin oneself down theologically by appealing to this wimpy, “I Can’t See Their Hearts,” copout. Say what you like, but this is nothing other than a denial of sin. It is based on the false, anti-Christian belief that all men are essential good. It is assumed that regardless of how a person lives or believes, as long as he has a “good heart” then nothing else matters. But there’s the rub. Scripture claims that NO ONE has a good heart. Outside of Christ, everyone is vile, corrupt, wicked and perverse. The noblest unbeliever is on a greased slide to hell.

Here’s a short sample of what God says, and incidentally, He can see the heart.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jer. 17:9

And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Gen 6:5

I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Gen. 8:21

Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one. Job 14:4

Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Ps. 51:5

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil. Jer. 13:23

Peter tells us that the spurious believer is "in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity." Acts 8:23

"The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8:7

All men are by nature children of wrath.... and dead in trespasses and sins. Eph. 2:1, 3