A beautiful apple sits on the table. Bright red in color. Firm. Glossy and appealing. Then, one day a hole suddenly appears—a wormhole. Where did it come from? There were no worms in the house. Where did the worm come from that broke through the glossy red peeling and corrupted the fruit of the apple?

Scientists have discovered that, in many cases, the worm comes from inside the apple! An insect lays an egg in the apple blossom. Later, the worm hatches in the heart of the apple. Then it eats its way out ruining the heart and substance of the apple and only later becoming visible to those who see only the outside of the apple.

What that worm does to the physical apple—destroying it from the inside out—is what the wrong kind of thoughts can do to our spiritual lives and our souls. Hence, Solomon’s warning to his son and to all of us, young and old: “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Prov. 4:23).

The impure thoughts that we have—the immoral fantasizing—can steadily and progressively spoil our hearts and eat away our spiritual substance, in some cases long before the sin shows itself in such a way that others can see that sin in our lives.

We tell ourselves that if others cannot see a wormhole, then it is okay to have the worm! We convince ourselves that, if the wormhole is not showing through the surface, no real harm is done to the inside of the apple. We delude ourselves into thinking that if the worm has not made it through to the surface, we have that worm under control so that it will not reach the surface. It is a grave mistake to underestimate the sin of fantasizing. Our thoughts can spiritually ruin us from the inside out.

This is especially true when we allow our minds to concentrate on and fantasize about, things that are not morally pure and wholesome.
We cannot be pleasing to God with impure thoughts and imaginings. We need to fully understand that God knows what we think. Through the prophet Ezekiel God made that perfectly clear when He said “…for I know the things that come into your mind, every one of them” (Ezek. 11:5). The Lord told Solomon the same thing: “…the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts:…” (1 Chr. 28:9). The Psalmist said: “The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man…” (Psa. 94:11).

God knows what we think, and God cares what we think. The reason God decided to destroy the world by water was that God saw: “…that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5).

And, it should not be surprising that on Solomon’s “short list” of things that are an abomination to God is included a heart filled with wrong thoughts: “An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations…” (Prov. 6:18).
If we desire to be acceptable and pleasing to our God, we must understand that the Scriptures tell us that we cannot please God with an impure heart. We fool ourselves, but certainly not God, if we think we can do that. God sees and hates the worm—long before it surfaces in the very predictable wormhole.