Transgression is a heart issue……

“The God-rebel tunes in to sedition— all ears, eager to sin.
He has no regard for God, he stands insolent before him.
He has smooth-talked himself into believing that his evil will never be noticed.

Words gutter from his mouth, dishwater dirty.
Can't remember when he did anything decent.
Every time he goes to bed, he fathers another evil plot.
When he's loose on the streets, nobody's safe.
He plays with fire and doesn't care who gets burned.”  Psalm 36:1-4 Message Bible

All transgression is a heart issue…if you transgress, that makes you wicked, and that wickedness comes from “deep in (one’s) heart.”  What does that mean?  I think it means that deep in the core of our being there is a motive issue, both a passion and a thinking which rebels and seeks something other than God.

I say this because of the next line, reads, “there is no fear of God before his eyes.”  So the contrast would be, if one does not have wickedness deep in his heart, then there would be a great fear of God before his eyes.  When you fear God above all else there is no one and nothing else to be afraid of and your heart is not led astray from Him…because He is your primary focus and concern.

Transgression is a heart that transgresses or crosses God, it goes against Him, and it rebels against Him, thinking God is not One to be afraid of.  It is saying there is an underneath the surface issue, a sin beneath the sin really, a heart problem between us and God.

David says, “He flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.”  Instead of looking to God one looks at themselves and thinks they are sufficient and comes up with a whole way of thinking to support their way of living…self-flattery.

“The one who makes little of God makes much of himself.”  Big God equals little you.  Little God equals big you.

That principle has an effect on us. David describes three different steps here. This attitude against God begins to lead to action…first in our words, “the words of his mouth are trouble and deceit.”  And then in our actions, “he has ceased to act wisely and do good.”

It is so easy to flatter oneself into thinking that we are really not that bad off, yeah, maybe we mess up sometimes, but we do some good too.  It is so easy for us to think of ourselves as generally morally good people.

 This is the universal view of the Bible. Jesus Himself said this is how things work. In Matthew 15, Jesus says, “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”

If we think we are going to be able to act wisely and do good and not be connected to the source of good, God himself, we are massively deceived.  An attitude and a heart whose eyes do not fear God and instead creates their own life and morality will make one increasingly unwise, self-centered and unable to do any good whatsoever.

It just gets worse and worse.  Which is what David describes in verse 4 where he says; you eventually end up lying on your bed imagining new ways of sinning and enjoying it. What has happened at that point is a person has just let go and given in. There is this inner conclusion and decision and commitment to a certain path and way of life and it sets in. You know it is evil but you do not reject it and you become hardened and set yourself in that way.