Edgar Allen Poe wrote among others, the short story, The Tell-Tale Heart. It’s the story of a man who wishes to murder an elderly man, who lives with him, and because of his so-called, “vulture eye,” the look from that eye enough for him to want his elderly roommate dead. He planned to do this villainous deed at night, but he couldn’t summon the courage because the ‘vulture eye’ was closed while the man slept, Finally he did it on the eighth night, and to spare the detail, he disposed of the body under the floorboards where apparently no one could find his victim,
After the murder and the disappearance of this man, the murderer could not stop hearing the low, dull, but quickly beating heart of the man incessantly. When the police come to investigate his disappearance, the murderer was quite, very sure that they too must hear the dead man’s heart beating through the floorboards, so he confesses his crime.
One could call the sound of a beating heart in Poe’s story that his murderer imagined, a guilty conscience. He couldn’t hide the tell-tale evidence of a guilty conscience from the police. It was a telling sign that he was guilty of murder.
Telling Sign
People often think of unbelief as a purely intellectual rejection of God. But what if the deepest, most telling sign of an unbelieving or unregenerate heart isn’t a complex theological dispute, but something far more common: unthankfulness? Scripture reveals that a persistent, profound lack of gratitude towards God is a central defining characteristic of a person who has not been saved and is living in rebellion against his Creator. Unthankfulness is the visible fruit of an unseen root: unbelief. It is the tell-tale heart of the unbeliever.
The “they” of Romans 1:21 are those who have seen God’s power and divine nature through creation. They have knowledge of God, Who is a good and loving God. This active rebellion is twofold in verses 19-21 of Romans 1: they “did not glorify Him as God” and “neither were they thankful.”
The failure both to honor God, acknowledge His supremacy, and to thank God, confess His goodness as the source of all things, are the initial and immediate sins that begin the terrible slide into even greater depravity: vain imagination and then a darkened, foolish heart. Unthankfulness is not some minor slip-up, but the gatekeeper to all other vices.
Scripture says that unthankfulness is a profound theological failure, rooted in a fundamental denial of the true source of blessings. The unbelieving heart assumes ownership — “I earned this” — or attributes the goodness to luck or its own merit instead of the sovereign hand of God. The opposite of gratitude is self-sufficiency. When you do not thank God, you are essentially saying, “I am the source, I deserve this, or I’m not getting what I think I deserve.” In the world of the unbeliever, God is either irrelevant, absent, or indebted to the unbelieving person himself.
Old Testament Connection
There is a scriptural connection to the New Testament passage, Romans 1:21, to an Old Testament one, Deuteronomy 8:17-18:
17 And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. 18 But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, zthat he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.
The sin is not just in saying it, but in the unthankful heart that thinks it. The ungrateful person acts as though he is not the recipient of grace but rather the claimant of a wage.
Theological Indictment
In 2 Timothy 3:1-2, one in Paul’s list of characteristics of men in the last days of apostasy, right alongside blasphemers and and lovers of self, is unthankfulness. The unthankful heart is never satisfied because its happiness is tethered to circumstances and acquisition rather than God. The unthankful heart is consumed by what it lacks rather than what it has received. It is incapable of worship.
Unthankfulness is not just some social gaffe; is is a theological indictment. In Romans 1:21, it is the sin of an unbelieving mind. It denies God’s rightful glory and His source of gracious goodness. The gospel of Christ only is powerful enough to move from rebellion of ingratitude to the worship of thankfulness. If God gave you Christ when you were an unthankful, ungodly sinner, how can you not thank Him for everything else?
The Alternative
To examine your heart, you could ask, “Is your default attitude one of entitlement, what God owes you, or thankfulness, what God has given you.?” A persistent spirit of complaining, bitterness, and lack of thanks reveals an unbelieving heart that still thinks of itself as the center of its own world.
True thankfulness is not a pleasant feeling. It is the fundamental and then obedient recognition of God’s saving work in your life. In Ephesians 5:18-20, thankfulness is both a command and a manifestation, evidence, of being filled with, controlled by the Holy Spirit, God the Third Person of the Godhead. It is a supernatural response, proving that the heart is now submitted to God.
Well said! Thanks be unto God!
Amen.