In the first place, it is essential that we cherish a deep sense of the evil of these plagues. A predominant and powerful heart plague carries in it a vast amount of varied evil. It indicates that evil is present in us, it provokes evil, it spreads and perpetuates evil. Remember, heart plagues, darling sins, have been so much a part of us that it requires the working of the Precious Spirit to cause us to see the true evil of them from God's eyes.
Secondly, a heart plague, in so far as it prevails, makes us unlike God! To that extent it defaces, mars and rejects His Blessed Image. It counteracts and transgresses the law of God. It thwarts the design of Christ's work which is to redeem you from all iniquity and purify you wholly unto God.
Thirdly, a heart plague uncured grieves the Spirit of God, weakens us in our communion with God, hinders us in prayer, makes us averse from God's holy fellowship, and hides the light of His Countenance from us.
Fourthly, it leaves us open to Satan, for every heart plague is just a weak point at which Satan has us at advantage, a handle by which Satan can hold us and use us in his service. I need scarcely say that a heart plague must inevitably interfere with and intercept our comforts, for it will indispose us for that spirituality of mind to which alone spiritual comfort can address itself and commend itself, while it will at the same time cloud our evidences of adoption and conceal from us our title to the consolations and privileges of the children of God.
And lastly, we must see the full evil in our heart plague, that it's continual and intended purpose is to infect the whole soul, and take possession of the entire man, on the principle that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. It must be so. We cannot lock up a heart plague, uncured and uncorrected, in one corner or chamber of our soul and all others remain free and healthful. There are neither corners nor chambers in our souls at all. The soul is a living unity. A plague in it anywhere pervades and pollutes the whole. It is all darkened, diseased, enfeebled, polluted, when any debilitating principle acts within it. It is not some fragment of us that is rendered weak, or guilty, or helpless or unclean but us! It is us--us in our entirety--whom the plague affects. We will be what a heart plague uncured will make us!!! We will lie exposed and a prey to Satan, with little evidence of our adoption and still less comfortable sense of its privileges.