Part 1: The Deceived Heart Deceives Itself First
Picture a partridge out in the field. She has come across a nest full of eggs that were never hers. Maybe another bird laid them and left. Maybe she raided the nest herself. Either way, she settles down on top of the eggs, spreads her feathers over them, and starts warming them like a real mother. Anyone walking by would think the eggs were hers. And if you asked her, she would probably believe it too.
That is the picture Jeremiah uses to describe a man who gets rich by wrong ways.
Jeremiah 17:9-11 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.”
Jeremiah opens with a warning about the heart before he ever gets to the partridge. Everything the partridge does starts inside her. Before she ever sits down on eggs that were not hers, something happened in her head that made her think they were.
That is how dishonesty always works. The heart lies to you first. Then the hands follow.
The partridge does not walk up to a nest and think, “These eggs belong to another bird, but I am going to steal them anyway.” She walks up and thinks, “These are mine.” Her instinct pushes her onto the nest and her heart tells her the story that makes it feel right.
Nobody had to convince her. The lying happened on the inside long before she sat down.
That is the deceitful heart Jeremiah is talking about. It does the lying itself. It tells you what you want to hear. It builds you a story that makes the wrong thing feel reasonable, and by the time you sit down on the nest, you already believe it belongs to you.
Every dishonest gain in the Bible started this way.
* Achan looked at the Babylonian garment and the silver and the gold, and his heart told him it would be safe to hide them in his tent. It was not.
* Ananias and Sapphira looked at their land money and their heart told them they could keep back part and lie to the apostles about the rest. It was not safe either.
* Gehazi ran after Naaman for money and clothes his master had refused, and his heart told him a story about how he would use the gain. That story ended with leprosy.
None of these people were talked into their sin by someone else. Their hearts talked first and the devil did not need to make a speech. The heart already had a speech ready.
Why Self-Deception Feels Like Wisdom
The most dangerous thing about a deceitful heart is that it feels like wisdom when it is lying to you.
The partridge does not sit down on the nest thinking, “I am doing something wrong.” She sits down thinking, “This is mine. I earned this. I found it. Nobody else was going to take care of these eggs. It would be a waste to leave them here.”
Every one of those thoughts feels reasonable. Every one of them has a shade of truth. And every one of them is a story her heart is telling her to justify sitting on something that was never hers.
We do the same thing.
The man who cheats on his taxes tells himself the government is corrupt anyway. The employee who steals from the till tells himself the boss can afford it. The businessman who cuts a shady deal tells himself everybody in the industry does the same. The Christian who lies on a resume tells himself he just needs the job to provide for his family. Every one of those stories feels like wisdom. Every one of them is the deceitful heart building a nest.
Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
Notice how the verse tells us it seems right to the man. Not just to somebody else. To him personally. He is convinced and his heart already sold him on it. And the end of that road is death.
Who Can Know It
Jeremiah 17:9 ends with a question. “Who can know it?”
You cannot fully know your own heart and neither can I. The heart is deceitful above all things, and one of the things it deceives is the person carrying it around. You will read this blog and think about other people. You will think about a coworker who cheated or a family member who lied about money, a businessman who cut corners. You will not think about yourself.
That is exactly how the heart works. It always points the finger at somebody else. The last person the deceitful heart wants to accuse is the one it lives inside.
But God knows. Verse 10 says He searches the heart. He tries the reins, sees what we cannot see about ourselves, and He is not fooled by the stories we tell ourselves to make the wrong thing feel right.
The Prayer That Protects
The only defense against a deceitful heart is asking God to search it before it sends you sitting on the wrong nest.
Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
David prayed this because he knew his own heart could not be trusted to police itself. He needed God to search him and try him. He needed God to point out the wicked way that his own heart would never point out to him.
The Christian who never prays this prayer is a partridge waiting to happen. Sooner or later the heart will build a story compelling enough to justify sitting on eggs that were never yours. And by then it will be too late to unhear the story you already told yourself.
What the Partridge Never Asked
The partridge in Jeremiah’s picture never asked whether the eggs were hers. She just sat down.
That is the mistake. She trusted her instinct, the circumstance, and her own reasoning. She gave herself years of effort on eggs that were going to leave her.
Do not sit down on any nest without asking whether it is really yours. Do not trust the story your heart is telling you about the money, the deal, the shortcut, or the opportunity. Ask God to search you before you settle in. Ask Him to try you before you commit. Because the heart will lie to you first, and if you do not catch it, everything that follows will be a partridge sitting on eggs she is going to lose.
The deceitful heart deceives itself first. Do not let yours deceive you into a nest that was never yours to begin with.
