Tell Tale Heart

Edgar Allan Poe was a famous American writer that lived in the seventeenth century. He often wrote about dark subject matters and his writings are still very popular in modern society. The Tell Tale Heart was one of his most well known short stories.

The story is about a man that commits a murder and then proceeds to hide the evidence of his crime. He decides to cut his victim into pieces and then stores the body parts under the floorboard of his apartment. The murderer is confident that he will get away with the act until he begins to encounter unexpected events. He becomes increasingly disturbed by the sound of a beating heart coming from underneath his floorboard. The murderer begins to suffer constantly from paranoia coupled with a guilty conscience. These feelings become so overwhelming that he eventually confesses his crime to the police.

I have seen several critics and theologians review this story and completely miss the entire point of it. There is a far greater underlying truth to this story that illustrates why Poe was a masterful storyteller.

Popular television shows such as Forensic Files and CSI will often detail how they were able to resolve unsolved murder cases. DNA and physical evidence help to solve a few cases but many others are solved with the assistance of one key element. Criminals will always confess details of their crimes to friends, family members and even fellow inmates. They do this because they continually suffer from that same guilty conscience. The guilt slowly eats away at them like a poisonous cancer inside their body.

Did you ever do something wrong and then tell your friends about it? Of course you did! You have to tell somebody what you did or it will drive you insane.

Lie detector tests measure the activity of one primary organ in your body. The Tell Tale Heart. Your heart is like a narc or a tattletale that will always give you away. People who are suspected of criminal acts will always refuse to take a lie detector test. They know they can’t fool the test and it will confirm if a suspect is telling lies.

Did you ever notice when you do something wrong that your heartbeat increases rapidly? You start to feel an uneasy adrenaline rush or nervousness. I can still remember watching a video testimony of a teenager that described these symptoms. He was so bothered by the nervousness and sweat that he decided to return an item he had shoplifted from a store. The reason everyone experiences all of these symptoms is due to the fact that we are all made in God’s image.

“Which show the work of the law written on their heart. Their conscience bearing witness” – Romans 2

“The people in whose heart is my law” – Isaiah 51

The law is the Ten Commandments and the word conscience means with knowledge. When you do something wrong you know it was wrong before you even committed the act. God gave you a conscience so you cannot stand before him and say I did not know it was wrong to lie and steal. He created you with the ability to discern between what is good and what is evil

“God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, to know good and evil” – Genesis 3

Your heart also presents a very big problem with the Theory of Evolution. Natural Selection teaches “only the strong survive”. There is no such thing as good and evil according to Darwin’s Theory. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis did not only kill the Jews during the holocaust. They also murdered thousands of innocent people that were physically handicapped or mentally disabled.

Do you agree with killing children simply because they have down syndrome or muscular dystrophy? What about Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles? They were both born blind from birth. You would be classified as extremely talented if you could play music even half as good as them. The doctrine of Natural Selection fails miserably and you do not agree with that mindset.

“Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an EVIL HEART of unbelief, in departing from the living God.” – Hebrews 13

You don’t like when people tell you lies and steal things that you have worked hard to acquire. I have yet to meet one single person that likes adulterers and murderers.

Did you know even the worst criminals in the world hate child molesters? Fellow inmates often kill sexual predators after being sentenced to prison. They know that is a line you never cross because their conscience testifies against them. How is it that convicted felons think it is acceptable to commit rape and murder but pedophilia is wrong? That is the very definition of hypocrisy.

“You hypocrites! Depart from me you that practice lawlessness. For out of THE HEART PROCEED EVIL THOUGHTS, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” – Jesus.I am confident you can now see that evil comes from the heart. The same heart that convicted the murderer in Poe’s story. The same beating heart that is going to tell on you when you stand before God on judgment day.

Do you hear it beating? Guilty, Guilty, Guilty.