Is the Christian's heart deceitfully wicked?

You've heard that phrase deceitfully wicked from the Old Testament, but is such an indictment

actually applicable to the regenerated Christian heart?

The question is from a podcast listener named Micah.

Pastor John Hello, I was recently in a debate with a friend over Jeremiah 179.

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick, who can understand it?

I applied it to the ongoing sin blindness in the heart of the Christian.

My friend said I was taking a passage about unbelieving heart and misapplying it to

the Christian heart.

However, in returning to the bigger context of Jeremiah 17 verses 5 to 13, I find myself

even more convinced verse 9 is equally applicable to believers, especially in light of verses

7 and 8.

What do you think?

Is Jeremiah 179 about believers, unbelievers, or both?

Pastor John, how would you process this text and this context?

Let me walk quickly through the flow of thought from verse 1 of Jeremiah 17 down through

verse 9.

And I think everybody will be able to see how the verse is functioning if we do that.

How verse 9 is functioning.

Jeremiah begins with an indictment of Judah and a warning of destruction.

It says, the sin of Judah is engraved on the tablet of their heart while their children

remember their altars and their ashrim that those are other gods.

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