Most people think the worm burrows down inside the apple from the outside. In actuality, however, the worm was born inside the apple. It’s an interesting process. I’ve read this in various places, but for this post I’ll quote directly from Big Site of Amazing Facts.

During the summer, small fruit flies can be found buzzing around apple orchards. These are called apple maggot flies. Each female finds herself a sweet smelling apple that is ripening and lands on it. Using a small, sharp, hollow tube on the underside of her body, the fly stabs a small hole in the fruit. Then she releases her eggs, which slide down that hollow tube into the apple.

Soon afterwards, the eggs hatch into tiny white worms, in no way resembling their mother. These worms are called railroad worms.

All during the summer and into the fall, the always hungry worms nourish themselves by munching tunnels in the apple. When the apples are ripe in the fall and drop from the tree, the worms crawl out and burrow into the ground.

There, a hard outer skin develops on each worm’s body. This hard skin becomes a winter home for the worm in the ground. It is inside this winter home that the worm becomes a maggot fly.

The following summer, the fly breaks open the skin, emerges, and begins to fly about the orchard. Then the entire process begins all over again.

The Bible teaches that the heart of man’s problem is the problem of man’s heart. (It should be understood that the Bible primarily uses the word “heart” as a metaphor for a person’s innermost being, not to the actual organ itself.) Sin doesn’t enter in from the outside and burrow its way down into a person’s heart. No, the sin is there in the heart from the very beginning. This is the result of being born into Adam’s fallen race. Consider the following passages (all from the N.K.J.V.):

Psalm 51:5: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.”

Ecclesiastes 9:3: “…Truly the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil…”

Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?”

Matthew 15:18-19: “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.”

Mark 7:20-23: “And He said, ‘What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.’”

While detox centers and prison rehabilitative programs have their place in the grand scheme of things, as do political attempts at moral and social reform, let us never forget that the heart of man’s problem is the problem of man’s heart. The “worm” of sin is forevermore eating its way up from deep within each of us, and it is only Jesus who can adequately deal with that worm. That’s why each of us should, to use the old evangelistic invitation, accept Jesus into our “heart” (Revelation 3:20; Ephesians 3:17). So tell me, have you done that? If you haven’t, I encourage you to do it right now and let Jesus begin to bring that “worm” inside you under control.