Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
The Shadow knows!
Well, at the very real danger of dating myself, I must admit that I am a child of BT (before television). And, sadly, the generations that have followed have missed out on something very special… when it was all about radio. In the 40s our evenings were spent with our ears tuned to the radio and a host of word pictures would flow. Characters had to be visualized, scenes had to be painted, words had to be listened to, and sometimes hearts needed to be quieted. And so it was with one of my favorite programs that featured the exciting adventures of Lamont Cranston, and it opened with those challenging words. It was time for another half hour of The Shadow, and then into bed in a dark bedroom with the covers over my head!
Well, so what brought this up you are asking? Just some wandering down memory lane? No, actually it came up the other morning as I was reading Proverbs…
Prov 20:27 The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, Searching all the inner depths of his heart.
Setting aside the pursuit of evil men and righting wrongs, there was a great message in this verse for all of us; a challenge to allow God’s lamp, His Holy Spirit to search the inner depths of our heart and discover what lies hidden inside. That’s the message Paul delivered in his first letter to the Corinthians…
1 Cor 2:11-16 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. 13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16 For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
If we want to know the things of the Spirit of God, then we are going to have to listen to the voice of the Spirit and not the voice of our spirit. And if we are to be conformed into the Image of Jesus Christ (Rom 8:29), then we are going to have to find our wisdom and knowledge in Him, as Paul told the Romans…
Rom 11:33-36 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! 34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?” 35 ‘Or who has first given to Him And it shall be repaid to him?” 36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.
But “our spirit” is not left out of the process. Go back again to our opening verse…
Prov 20:27 The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, Searching all the inner depths of his heart.
God uses our spirit to search out the inner depths (rooms of the belly) of our heart, and when they are revealed He uses His Spirit to teach us, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. He is the One who knows what evil lurks in our heart, because the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth (Gen 8:21b)… The Spirit Knows!
And this is how my Saturday evening began…