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I. WE ARE TO CONSIDER WHAT IS IMPLIED IN SINNERS KNOWING THEIR OWN HEARTS. They know that they have hearts, which are distinct from perception, reason, conscience, and all their intellectual powers and faculties. But this knowledge of their hearts is not that which is intended in the text. For in this sense they may perfectly know their own hearts, while they remain entirely ignorant of them in other important respects.

1. Their knowing their hearts in the sense of the text, implies the knowledge of their selfishness. Saints love those who do not love them; but sinners love those only who do love them; and all the criminality of their hearts consists in their partial, interested affections. They may love all the objects that saints love, and hate all the objects that saints hate; and yet all their affections be different, in their nature, from the affections of saints. Whether they love or hate good or bad objects, still their love and hatred are entirely sinful, because they are altogether selfish. This they are not apt to know, nor believe.

2. The knowledge of their hearts implies the knowledge of their desperate, incurable wickedness. There is no hope of their ever becoming better from any motives that can be set before them, or from any means which can be used with them. And until sinners see their hearts in this light, they are unacquainted with them, and know not the nature and depth of their own depravity.

3. Their knowing their own hearts implies their knowing their extreme deceitfulness.

II. WHY IT IS SO EXTREMELY DIFFICULT FOR THEM TO GAIN THIS KNOWLEDGE.

1. They are unwilling to know their own hearts. This is true of all sinners. "He that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved."

2. Another thing which renders it still more difficult for them to know their own hearts, is what the Scripture calls the deceitfulness of sin. All sin is selfishness, and all selfishness is deceitful. They love or hate all objects, just as they view them as having a favourable or unfavourable aspect, in respect to themselves. In particular —

(1) They love or hate God, just as He appears friendly or unfriendly to them.

(2) They love or hate Christ, accordingly as He appears to be their friend or their enemy.

(3) They love or hate good men, just as they appear for them or against them.

(4) They love and hate one another, just as they appear to promote or obstruct their interest. Herod and Pontius Pilate.

(5) They love or hate the world in which they live, accordingly as it smiles or frowns upon them.

(6) They love and hate their own hearts, as they appear to promise good or threaten evil to them.

(7) Their hearts lead them to love or hate the means of grace, accordingly as they appear to do them good or hurt.

(8) They love or hate convictions, accordingly as they appear to have a favourable or unfavourable aspect upon their future happiness.

(9) They love or hate heaven according to the views they have of it. When they view it as a place of perfect and perpetual happiness, they love it, and desire to take up their everlasting residence in it. But when they view it as a place of pure and perfect holiness, they hate it, and prefer to run the risk of everlasting separation from it, rather than to enter into the presence — of a holy God, and into the society of perfectly holy beings.Improvement —

1. We learn that there is but one way for men to know their own hearts; and that is, to inquire why they love or hate, rejoice or mourn, hope or fear, or why they exercise submission, patience and confidence.

2. We learn that saints may more easily ascertain their true character, than sinners can theirs. They sincerely desire to know their own hearts; and they are willing to take the only proper way to discover their true character.

3. It appears that all the changes that mankind meet with in the course of life, are trials of the heart. All changes in men's circumstances, whether great or small, whether from prosperity to adversity, or from adversity to prosperity, try their hearts, and give them opportunity every day to know whether they are in a state of nature, or in a state of grace.

4. It appears from the wickedness and deceitfulness of the human heart, that it is not strange that religious apostasy has prevailed so much in the world.

5. It appears that those are unwise who trust in their own hearts.

6. We learn that sinners are never under genuine convictions until they see the desperate wickedness and deceitfulness of their hearts.

(N. Emmons, D. D.)

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KJV: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

WEB: The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it?