Deceitfulness of Sin

Heb 3:12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
Heb 3:13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.


Hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.


The definitions of deceitfulness and deceit…


Deceitfulness
DECE'ITFULNESS, n.

1. Tendency to mislead or deceive; as the deceitfulness of sin.

2. The quality of being fraudulent; as the deceitfulness of a man's practices.

3. The disposition to deceive; as, a man's deceitfulness may be habitual.


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Deceit
DECE'IT,

1. Literally, a catching or ensnaring. Hence, the misleading of a person; the leading of another person to believe what is false, or not to believe what is true, and thus to ensnare him; fraud; fallacy; cheat; any declaration, artifice or practice, which misleads another, or causes him to believe what is false.

My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit. Job 27.

2. Stratagem; artifice; device intended to mislead.

They imagine deceits all the day long. Psa 38.

3. In scripture, that which is obtained by guile, fraud or oppression.

Their houses are full of deceit. Jer 5. Zeph. I.

4. In law, any trick, device, craft, collusion, shift, covin, or underhand practice, used to defraud another.


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Misleading, catching, ensnaring.


Sin. We think it's so incredibly easy to point out sin and know it for what it is but it's not. Satan the great deceiver takes truth and mixes it with fallacy which no longer makes it pure truth, unadulterated. He corrupts truth just enough to deceive and people EVERYWHERE believe in the corrupted truth. People everywhere believe so much ISN'T sin. Why should they believe sin is sin, because then they'd realize they are leading a life of sin and that isn't something anyone really wants to believe, is it? When we examine our lives by the Lord's word we are allowed to see the sin in our lives. When we seek God with all our heart and soul then we will be allowed to see our truly sinful state. People don't like hearing these words, they like to be lulled and told that nothing matters but what they secretly believe in their hearts, having a good heart, the Lord knows, the Lord understands why I'm the sinner I am and why I can't stop sinning and shouldn't even try. The Lord knows that I love Him.


We love to console ourselves with those thoughts and because they contain an element of truth they are easy to latch onto and forget that our God is a consuming fire, it's easy to forget that we are told to exhort one another DAILY, we believe weekly will suffice, right? It's easy to forget that God gave commandments and Jesus confirmed that those commandments were still in effect, still just, still good, that He didn't come to do away with the law. It's easy to believe that when Jesus said to love God and love your neighbor and that this encompasses the entire law that he meant as long as we SAY we love God and love our neighbors we're doing alright. That's not the truth-that's Satan's lie and it's a good one- good if you are evil. We are told what loving our neighbors means, we are told what the fruits of the Spirit are, we are given ALL the truth, but with Satan ever ready to distort the truth we become hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. We don't want to look too closely at our lives or at God's word, we want the superficial salvation and the problem with that is it won't ever reach our hearts. It's better to have all our sin exposed and feel the weight of that sin, the horror of that sin, the despair of that sin and turn our hearts fully and completely to our Savior than it is to allow ourselves to be deceived.


It's amazing how this study of Hebrews seems to have tied in with the excerpt from C.S. Lewis we looked at the other day. God works in such wondrous ways, ways beyond our comprehension.


C.S. Lewis talked about 'excusing sin' rather than 'truly repenting and seeking true forgiveness'. He discussed that what we might actually think is asking for forgiveness is really us just asking to be excused for our actions. What he said holds A LOT of truth. The deceitfulness of sin is just like that.


Heb 3:12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
Heb 3:13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.


We have to read these words and believe in them or we will be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin… OUR SIN! We aren't hardened by someone else's sin. We have to exhort one another…which means we have to urge one another daily not to depart from the living God, to not depart from the faith. This is what we are called to do. By God's grace alone are we saved, and we must keep God in our lives in all things, repenting, not excusing, enlightened not deceived, truth not lies and deception.


May God open our hearts and minds, our eyes, our understanding to know His will in all things so that we are not deceived. May the blinders satan would have us wear until the day we are fully his, be ripped away and by the Lord's grace and mercy may we in all our filthiness fall at the feet of Jesus in true repentance seek true forgiveness no matter the cost to our comfortable deluded existence.


In our Savior's amazing love!


Amen.