The deceitfulness and ruinousness of sin

 

J. Stafford.
The metaphor is taken from a robber who leads a man into some by-path and then murders him. The word principally denotes an innate faculty of deceiving. We read of the deceitfulness of riches (Matthew 13:22); the deceitfulness of unrighteousness (2 Thessalonians 2:10), which is their aptitude, considering the sinful state and the various temptations of men, to deceive them with vain hopes and to seduce them into crooked paths. Once it is put for sin itself (Ephesians 4:22). Here, as it is joined with sin, it denotes that habitual deceit that is in indwelling sin, whereby it seduceth men and draweth them off from God (Hebrews 12:13).

I. SIN IS OF A SUBTLE AND DECEIVING NATURE. Sin deceives the souls of men —

1. As it blinds their understandings (Romans 1:21, 22; Ephesians 4:18). This blindness of the mind consists in ignorance of God and of our own interests, giving us light thoughts of sin and extenuating it.

2. As it presents various false appearances to the fancy in order to engage the affections. It allures with the specious prospect of riches, but it steals away our best treasure; it flatters us with hopes of honour and happiness, but rewards with disgrace and misery; it premises liberty, but binds us with fetters stronger than iron (Proverbs 16:25).

3. It has a great advantage in its very situation: it is within, ever present, and sometimes it makes a man become a tempter to himself. There is nothing either within or without but may be, and often is, turned into the nature of sin. The very heart is deceitful, and it aims to deceive the superior powers of the soul. Who can tell how many ways it has to deceive itself? It calls evil good, and good evil.

4. As it turns aside the thoughts from the punishment of sin.

5. Finally, as it sometimes lead men to think, that because they are sinners, the great God is become their enemy, and that there is no hope of reconciliation through Christ.

II. WHERE SIN HATH DECEIVED IT WILL ALSO KILL, EITHER HERE OR HEREAFTER. The apostle intends that it brought him into a state of aggravated condemnation, or, as it were, delivered him over to eternal death, so that the more he reflected upon it, the more was he convinced that he had been grossly imposed upon by the fascinating power of sin (Job 20:12-14; Proverbs 20:17; Proverbs 6:32, 33; James 3:15). Achan thought to obtain a goodly prize; but how did sin wound his conscience and at length slay his soul!

III. THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN IN THE HEART OF MAN IS UNSEARCHABLE. "The heart is deceitful above all things," and if the heart be so deceitful, what must sin be whorl it gets possession of such an heart! As we know not the hearts of one another, so neither do we fully know our own hearts. Who can tell how our hearts would act if suitable objects, inclinations, and temptations were to unite and concur at any time?

(J. Stafford.)

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