Your Cheatin’ Heart is a song written and recorded in 1952 by country music singer and songwriter Hank Williams. However, the song was released after his death in 1953.
Your Cheatin’ Heart is considered one of the greatest songs of country music. The song is a slow ballad, telling an unfaithful lover of the guilt that she felt for cheating on the singer. The story goes that Williams was prompted to write the song when thinking about his first wife, Audrey Williams, while driving around with his second wife, Billie Jean Williams. She was supposed to have written down the lyrics for him in the passenger seat. When it was released it remained in the number one slot for country music for six weeks.
Rolling Stone ranked it #213 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2003, Country Music Television ranked the song #5 in CMT’s 100 Greatest Songs in Country Music but gave it the #1 rating in the 40 Greatest Done Me Wrong (Cheatin’) Songs. Ray Charles, Patsy Cline, Elvis Presley, and Louis Armstrong are just a few who have recorded the song. Your Cheatin’ Heart was the title of the 1964 movie of Hank Williams life with George Hamilton playing the part of Williams.
It could have been the theme song for King Solomon. Solomon had everything imaginable working in his favor. At first, it seemed as if Solomon would gratefully follow God. He greatly pleased the Lord, and the Lord poured out blessings on this man like no one before or since then. Yet by the end of his reign, he had squandered away nearly every advantage.
In one generation, Solomon took a fledgling nation to superpower status. Alone Solomon’s income in gold was 25 tons/year! The economy was booming. He extended the borders farther than they had ever been. One of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Temple, was built in seven years. The nations were drawn to come to Jerusalem and behold the outpouring of God’s blessings on this man and his people. The only thing that exceeded his wealth was his wisdom. However, along the way, Solomon lost sight of the original vision God had for him and the nation to fulfill.
By the time of Solomon’s death, Israel resembled the Egypt from which they had escaped. The government was domineering and held in place by a bloated bureaucracy and slave labor. The state religion was under the ruler’s command. It was more ritual than real. Interest to succeed in personal kingdoms of this world had pushed aside concern for God’s kingdom. God withdrew his blessings on the king and the people because of their cheating heart. After the death of Solomon, the kingdom split in two and slid toward ruin.
Oscar Wilde’s quote describes Solomon. Wilde said, “In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” Solomon got whatever he wanted, especially when it came to symbols of power and status. Because he failed to guard his heart, these things resulted in him depending less on God and more on the props around him: things like the world’s largest harem, a house twice the size of the Temple, a well-equipped army with chariots, and a strong economy. The more he enjoyed the world’s good gifts, the less he thought about the Giver. He failed to guard his heart. (Yancey, Men’s Devotional Bible)
Guarding our heart depends on our relationship to God’s Word. I want you to hear this again. Guarding your heart depends on your relationship with God’s Word. What is your relationship with God’s Word at this moment? If you are reading it, are you obeying it? We can read the Bible but not obey it. Are you reading it? Are you launching out into your week without any real interaction with your mind or will with the Word of God? You are leaving your heart unguarded.
How do you guard your heart?
GUARD YOUR HEART BY OBEYING GOD’S WORD (PROV. 4:20-27)
(20) My son, pay attention to my words; listen closely to my sayings. (21) Don’t lose sight of them; keep them within your heart. (22) For they are life to those who find them, and health to one’s whole body. (23) Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life. (24) Don’t let your mouth speak dishonestly, and don’t let your lips talk deviously. (25) Let your eyes look forward; fix your gaze straight ahead. (26) Carefully consider the path for your feet, and all your ways will be established. (27) Don’t turn to the right or to the left; keep your feet away from evil.
Solomon is teaching his son God’s truth. He tells his son that the most important duty he has is to guard this truth in his heart. The word guard is not describing a sentry standing on the wall watching for the enemy. The picture is a guard watching a prisoner so that he doesn’t escape. Guarding your heart is not just keeping things out of your heart. It is protecting and keeping God’s truth central and priority for your life.
How important is it to guard your heart? Look at the repetition as a way to emphasize this is the single most important action you can take to protect your relationship with Jesus. Read v. 20-21…
The motivation for guarding your heart is given in v. 22: For they are life to those who find them, and health to one’s whole body. Solomon is not saying that his son is to live by his teachings. Rather, he is saying this is your life. As the son keeps and guards his father’s teachings, which are the Word of God, he is guarding his very own life. Any departure, any carelessness could lead to a wrong turn onto the path of evil and its life-destroying force.
There will be young Christian women at OU who fail to guard their heart and will open it to the wrong man. They will compromise God’s clear truth and fall in love with this man. It will lead them down a path that harms future blessings and their walk with God. Solomon is saying that we’re talking about guarding your life.
The word “health” in v. 22 is used elsewhere to indicate healing, 13:17; 16:24. Perhaps Solomon is saying not only will guarding your heart protect your life from the ravages of sin but spiritual wisdom actually has the power to overcome the ravages of sin. Spiritual truth has the power to heal relationships, restore peace to a troubled conscience, and open blind eyes to trust the Savior.
Now you know why Solomon says to his son the single greatest responsibility he has each day is to guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life (v. 23). Do this above all else. Your heart is the most valuable treasure committed to you from God. Your heart is the source of your thought life, words, actions, emotions, values, dreams, and motivations. Your past, present, and future plans all have an influence on your heart. This place is to be saturated with the spiritual wisdom found in God’s Word.
Solomon says your heart is the “source of life.” The capacity to live with joy and vigor ultimately come from within and not from circumstances. A Christian counselor explained that counselee’s give him one of four reasons for their unhappiness or their life’s mess. They blame the past, parents, people, or a predicament. Notice what’s missing—them. He went on to say we have no control over the past, parents, people, or much of the predicament. This leaves them hopeless. They will always be miserable. However, they do have control over themselves. They can know life. They can live victoriously and not be a victim. How? Guard your heart. When it begins to move away from a passionate love for Jesus and walk in ways contrary to the will of God, don’t let it escape. Do whatever you have to do to get your spirit happy with the Lord Jesus.
How can you tell if you are guarding your heart? Listen to your speech: (24) Don’t let your mouth speak dishonestly, and don’t let your lips talk deviously. Every time you open your mouth you let others see into your heart. Is anyone under conviction yet?
You can tell if you are guarding your heart by what you look at: (25) Let your eyes look forward; fix your gaze straight ahead. The idea is straightforward, unswerving toward a fixed goal, without turning aside toward that which is profitless and forbidden. A superficial application would be pornography, but it’s more like becoming envious of the wicked and the way of the sinner. You want what they want in the way that they want it. Adam and Eve looked at the fruit, but they wanted independence from God. David looked at Bathsheba. She was beautiful but he had a harem of beautiful women. He was king and he had the power to do anything he wanted.
Therefore, (26) Carefully consider the path for your feet, and all your ways will be established. (27) Don’t turn to the right or to the left; keep your feet away from evil. Solomon calls his son to step back and evaluate all his ways. Is he becoming the person that God wants him to be and is he acting in ways that result in him arriving at the destination God purposed for him? The verb in v. 26 is used elsewhere of leveling a road. It’s more than thinking about your life but taking action that aligns with the truth. What do you need to remove from your life that is hindering progress? If someone else evaluated your life, what would they say is the conclusion to the path your walking in your marriage, parenting, or financial security?
This is critical for all your ways to be established. A life that is fixed and firm in this path is a life that matters and a life that steadfastly pleases God.
Ft. Knox guards $13 billion in gold. During WWII, the original Declaration of Independence, the original copy of the U.S. Constitution, the first printing of the copy of the Guttenberg Bible, and the original copy of Magna Carta were all moved to Ft. Knox. The security is updated constantly. Not even Nathan Hawk of the Mission Impossible Bureau can infiltrate it. Why was this done? These are the most valuable treasures of American history.
The single most important thing in your life is your relationship with Jesus Christ. The second you step into eternity, you will absolutely be convinced this is true.
What happened to Solomon? He failed to guard his own heart by obeying the Word. Read Deuteronomy 17:14-20: (14) “When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, take possession of it, live in it, and say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations around me,’ (15) you are to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses. Appoint a king from your brothers. You are not to set a foreigner over you, or one who is not of your people. (16) However, he must not acquire many horses for himself or send the people back to Egypt to acquire many horses, for the Lord has told you, ‘You are never to go back that way again.’ (17) He must not acquire many wives for himself so that his heart won’t go astray. He must not acquire very large amounts of silver and gold for himself. (18) When he is seated on his royal throne, he is to write a copy of this instruction for himself on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. (19) It is to remain with him, and he is to read from it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to observe all the words of this instruction, and to do these statutes. (20) Then his heart will not be exalted above his countrymen, he will not turn from this command to the right or the left, and he and his sons will continue reigning many years in Israel.
If that can happen to someone like Solomon, how much more for you and me? This morning would you look down the road and see where are you going to end up if you keep doing what you are doing? If you’re pleasing God, don’t let anything cause you to veer off the path. If it is hell or a life of hellishness, please repent and obey the Savior.
Stanley Milgram did an interesting study, that is now famous. He wanted to understand why ordinary people will obey blatant wrongdoing. Milgram did this experiment when he was a social psychology professor at Harvard in 1963. The experiment was inspired in part by the 1961 trial of Adolph Eichmann. The results were later used to explain the 1968 My Lai Massacre in Viet Nam.
The people recruited for this experiment were told they were participating in a study of memory in different situations. One would be the “teacher” and the other would be the “learner.” The “teacher” was given a list of word pairs that he was to teach the “learner.” He would read through this list with the “learner.” He would go back through the list giving one word and then four other words to choose as the pair. If the “learner” missed the word the “teacher” gave him a 45-volt shock of electricity. Before they started, the “teacher” was given a 45-volt shock as a sample of what the “learner” would receive. Every time the “learner” missed the voltage would be increased. They were separated into two rooms. They could not see one another but could communicate.
The role of the experimenter was played by a stern, impassive biology teacher dressed in a white technician’s coat. The “learner” was a plant too. He actually had recorded various screams depending on the level of shock.
Milgram asked fourteen Yale University senior-year psychology majors as to what they thought would be the results. They believed that only a few would be willing to inflict the maximum voltage. It was the same response from his colleagues.
In his first experiment, 65% (26 of 40) participants administered the final 450-volts of electricity. The experiment was halted after the 450-volts were given three times in succession. All of the “teachers” stopped at around 135-volts when the “learner” banged on the wall and complained about his heart condition. The stern biology teacher would use four different statements, each one more demanding than the last, to prod the “teacher” to continue with the experiment. No participant steadfastly refused to administer shocks before the 300-volt level.
His experiment reminds us of the power that social forces exert on our values and behaviors. We not only battle a world value system that is always molding us into its likeness, but we have our sinful nature that exerts an incredible corrupting power. Paul tells us in Romans 12:2, that we are not to be conformed to the pattern of this world, but we are to be transformed by the renewing of mind. Then we will be able to test and prove what God’s will is—his good, pleasing, and perfect will. It is the Word of God that guards our heart from these powerful corrupting forces from without and within.
The explanation for the difference between those Christians who have cheating hearts and those who have loyal hearts is that one gives persistent attention to obeying the Word of God. When you regularly attend church, read your Bible, pray, give, serve, and witness, you are guarding your heart from the powerful outward and inward corrupting forces by obeying the Word. Solomon failed to do this.
Guarding our heart depends on our relationship to God’s Word.
CONCLUSION
The Christian’s God is shockingly different than any other supposed god. The Old and New Testaments both assert that what God most wants from us is not allegiance, sacrifice, or duty. What He most wants from us is love. This is why the Christian faith doesn’t place its emphasis on external rituals and laws. The emphasis is upon the internal, the heart. He is interested in the transactions of your heart because He wants your love. For us to love Him, we must guard our heart from sin and compromise through obedience to His Word. Guarding our heart depends on our relationship to God’s Word.
INVITATION
Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” That’s easy to prove. A man loves a woman and asks her to marry him. She has his heart. How do we know? He spends a great deal of money and buys her a ring. He put his treasure where his heart is.
The story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac is so compelling to us because of how much we treasure our children.
I wonder what God treasures most. He treasures his Son above all else. Now look at what He did with His treasure. He gave his Son to us. This cross testifies that we are not to doubt God’s love for us. To reject Christ is to reject the very heart of our loving God. Come today and receive Christ…
Christian, do you realize the depth of God’s love for you? Surrender to it again
