What's in Your Heart?

The Nobel Prize winner and most important Russian literary artist of the second half of the twentieth century, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008), who was imprisoned for eight years for criticising Stalin, wrote, ‘The line separating good and evil passes, not through states, nor through classes, nor between political parties... but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts.’ We are all created in the image of God. Human beings are capable of acts of great love, courage and heroism. Yet, not one of us (apart from Jesus) is without sin. Do you know what’s in your heart?

Proverbs 6:30-35

Your heart and its weakness

All sin breaks God’s law and is therefore serious. But there are gradations of sin. Some sins are far worse than others.

The writer of Proverbs makes this point by using the example of a person who steals because he is starving. Yes, even this is wrong and there is a price to pay (v.30–31).

But the writer says the consequences of adultery are far more serious. It leads to ‘shame’ (v.33b), ‘jealousy’ (v.34a), ‘revenge’ (v.34b) and to the destruction of lives, particularly the adulterers themselves: ‘Soul-destroying, self-destructive... a reputation ruined for good’ (v.32–33, MSG).

The writer says, ‘jealousy arouses a husband’s fury, and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge’ (v.34). Human nature has not changed in thousands of years.

There is nothing wrong with sex or money. But there are many temptations that surround them both. Several of the laws in the Old Testament passage for today were developed to put boundaries around them, safeguarding their proper use.