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WEEKLY
Volume 4 Number 23
1 November 2009
A Deceitful or True
Heart?
(Message delivered by Rev Hien Nguyen at the
Worship Service, 2:00 pm, Nov 1, 09)
Text: Heb 10:22-25
This world is full of
deceits and lies. Many people have been deceived by the lying words of
those who intended to take advantage of them. Many others have been
deceived or misled by human religions with unbiblical beliefs, teachings
and practices, even lying signs and fake healing. Many others have been
deceived by worldly mindsets and values or human ideas, theories and
philosophies. Many do not know that they are being deceived or misled,
and even willing to die for their wrong beliefs! Then at the end of
their lives or on the Judgment Day when they find out that they have
been deceived, how regretful they will be!
None of us wants to be
deceived. We love our children and never want them to be deceived, so we
usually warn them to be cautious and not to play with bad friends nor
follow strangers. Our Lord Jesus loves us and does not want us to be
deceived, warning us, “Take heed that no man deceive you”
(Matt 24:5). Paul has the same warning, “Let no man deceive you
with vain words” (Eph 5:6) and “Let no man deceive you by
any means” (2 Thess 2:3). May the Lord graciously keep us close
to Him and His Word from all the deceits and lies of this sinful world.
God is true and He wants His children to be true as well. Then, do you
and I have a deceitful or true heart?
A Deceitful Heart
God created the heaven and
the earth, everything in it including human beings, and “God saw
every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Gen
1:31). However, due to the disobedience of Adam and Eve, the curse of
sin and death entered into the world (Gen 3; Rom 5:12). God’s Word says,
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:
who can know it?” (Jer 17:9). My dear friends, many do not admit
that their hearts are deceitful, but God’s Word is truth. Like sheep
that do not know they are going astray, we are just deceiving ourselves
by thinking that we are alright. Therefore, if God does not graciously
bring us back and regenerate us, we surely perish, “For ye were as
sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and
Bishop of your souls” (1 Peter 2:25). The verb “go astray” is the
same root verb of “deceive.”
Nowadays the philosophy of
the world is to promote oneself by thinking, “I am good, I am smart,
I am able” and denying, “I am bad, I am sinful, I am helpless.”
They do not know that they are deceiving themselves as the Bible says, “If
we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth
is not in us” (1 John 1:8).
Many others think that they
are wise and that their knowledge, ideas and theories are wise and
scholarly. They even arrogantly criticise God’s Word, the Holy
Scriptures, regarding it as out-of-date or impractical, but they do not
know that they are deceived by their own knowledge and worldly “wisdom.”
Then, “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you
seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he
may be wise” (1 Cor 3:18).
Many others live in sins
and think that they will still go to Heaven through joining a religion
or even going to church regardless of whether they are truly born again
and submissive to the Lord and God’s Word. They do not know that they
are deceiving themselves as the Bible says, “Know ye not that the
unrighteous shall not inherit the
kingdom of God? Be not
deceived:
neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor
abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of
God” (1 Cor
6:9-10), and “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for
whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal 6:7).
Many others are thinking
they are serving the Lord while opposing, persecuting, or fighting
against God’s servants who magnify the Lord and His perfect Word! Our
Lord Jesus warns us, “the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you
will think that he doeth God service” (John 16:1-2). My dear
friends, how dangerous we are if we think that we are right and serving
the Lord while we are against the Lord and His Word!
Then, due to human
deceitful heart, many have “lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue”
(Ps 120:2) and “a deceitful work” (Prov 11:18), “deceitful
weights” or “a false balance” (Micah 6:11; Prov 11:1), and
“deceitful lusts” (Eph 4:22), and “false way” (Ps
119:104,128), and “a false vision and divination, and a thing of
nought, and the deceit of their heart…
false dreams”
(Jer 14:14; 23:32), and “lying vanities” (Prov 31:6) and “a
lying tongue” (Ps 109:2) and “lying words” (Jer 7:4), etc.
They live a double life with double speak and double standard, and our
Lord Jesus still rebukes them as hypocrites, “Even so ye also
outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy
and iniquity” (Matt 23:28).
As God is true, righteous
and holy, He will surely judge and condemn all deceivers and liars, “false
witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish”
(Prov 19:9) and “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the
abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and
idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Rev
21:8).
Dear friends, be not
deceived, you and I must have a true and honest heart in the Lord to
enjoy His blessings for ever. Then, how can you and I have a true and
honest heart?
A True and Honest Heart
Be Born Again:
As human heart is
“deceitful above all things”, the first and crucial condition is to
be born again. We are to believe and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as
our Lord and Saviour (John 1:12) and submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit
and God’s Word (John 3:5; 1 Peter 1:23). The signs of a truly
born-again Christian are to thirst for the Lord and for God’s Word (Ps
42:2; 1 Peter 2:2) and to stop living in sins as a habit (1 John 3:6,
9). God’s Word says, “He that committeth sin (keeps on doing sin)
is of the devil; for the devil sinneth (keeps on sinning) from
the beginning…whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither
he that loveth not his brother” (1 John 3:8, 10). Our Lord Jesus
said to the Jewish leaders who planned to kill Him, “Ye are of your
father the devil
and the lusts of
your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode
not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a
lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it”
(John 8:44). Then are you and I
the children of God or of the devil?
Look unto the Lord Jesus
Christ, Our Perfect Example:
Our Lord Jesus Christ lived
a true, honest and holy life on earth as a perfect example of a true Son
and Servant of God, seeking and doing God’s will, living by God’s Word
in holiness and righteousness without any compromise, teaching God’s
Word without any addition nor subtraction, exalting and glorifying God
alone without seeking honour and glory from men, ministering and not
being ministered, and obeying God unto death. Satan and his followers
can show great signs and wonders, but they can never live a true,
honest, righteous and holy life as Jesus lived, nor teach as Jesus
taught, nor have the same motives as Jesus had. Let us compare others
with our Lord and His Word so that we may discern whether they are true
servants of the Lord. Let us also look unto the Lord and compare
ourselves with Him and His Word so that we may be humble, honest,
submissive, holy and true as He is.
Moreover, “Many believed
in his (Jesus’) name, when they saw the miracles which he did.
But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men”
(John 2:23-24). Dear friends, we should trust in the Lord and God’s
Word alone rather than men and his empty words.
Our Lord Jesus Christ was
not surprised when Judas Iscariot betrayed Him with his deceitful kiss
(Luke 22:48). How about Peter? Did he know Jesus? But Jesus still
gently looked at him after he had denied Him three times (Mark 14:71;
Luke 22:61). Dear friends, we should not be surprised or upset when
encountering the betrayal or denial of our friends as without God’s
grace and true life in us, we would do the same in great testing or
temptations.
Although our Lord Jesus
Christ was the true Son of God, who spoke and taught the Truth of God,
many rejected Him and blasphemed against Him as a deceiver. They even
found false witnesses to put Him to death (John 7:12; Matt 26:59). Dear
friends, we should not be surprised when others regard us as deceivers
or seek false witness against us while we are true and honest. Let us
keep ourselves honest and true to the Lord and His Word, “Having
your conversation (conduct) honest among the
Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by
your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of
visitation” (1 Peter 2:12).
Live by the Lord and God’s
Word: As God
alone is true, “let God be true, but every man a liar”
(Rom 3:4) and “the LORD is the true God, he is the living God”
(Jer 10:10; 1 Thess 1:9), and God’s Word alone is true, “Thy
word is true from the beginning” (Ps 119:160), we must live by
the Lord and His Word alone, that may produce the true and honest fruit
in our heart and life, “I am the true vine…
He that abideth
in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me
ye can do nothing”
(John 15:1, 5). Do you and I truly live by and depend on our Lord and
His Word moment by moment? Are your heart and mine like the good soil to
God’s Word, “But that on the good ground are they, which in an
honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring
forth fruit with patience” (Luke 8:15).
Be Cautious While Living in
This Deceitful World:
God’s Word tells us that Satan, the Devil, is the deceiver, who deceives
the whole world (Rev 12:9). He often disguises himself as an angel of
light (2 Cor 11:14), with a very nice and bright appearance but full of
deceits and temptations to lure many people away from the living and
true God and from God’s truth, the Bible. He has attacked, twisted, and
cast doubt on God’s Word since the first human beings were on the earth.
Nowadays, Satan still attacks God’s Word through unbiblical preaching
and writings of false prophets, false teachers, deceitful workers and
wicked men! How cautious you and I should be so that we may not be
deceived or misled by unbiblical words! “Let no man deceive you
with vain (empty) words” (Eph 5:6) and “doctrines
of devils” (1 Tim 4:1).
Satan also likes to
attract and deceive people with Satanic miracles, lying signs and
wonders (Matt 24:24).
Then, you and I must be
cautious while living in this deceitful world with “false
prophets…false Christs” (Matt 24:24), “false witnesses” (Acts
6:13), “false apostles, deceitful workers” (2 Cor 11:13)
“false brethren” (2 Cor 11:26; Gal 2:4); “false accusers” (2
Tim 3:3; Titus 2:3), “false teachers” (2 Peter 2:1), etc. They
even may perform miracles to deceive many (Matt 24:24) and “by good
words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple” (Rom
16:18). How can you and I detect and discern truth from falsehood, lies
and deception so that we may not be deceived? We must personally know
the Lord and His Word and be rooted and grounded in Him and His Word and
walk closely with Him in His Light, and the Holy Spirit will help us
discern and keep us from being deceived.
Moreover, we have to keep
ourselves from evil communications, “Be not deceived: evil
communications corrupt good manners” (1 Cor 15:33).
Communication here means association, companionship, company or a
speech, a sermon. Then we have to be discerning and cautious as bad
friends, evil companionship, unbiblical articles, sermons, books,
journals, websites may corrupt, ruin or destroy our good manners, morals
and character in the Lord. We have witnessed many leaders and seminaries
that used to be biblical but now are new evangelical, liberal or
ecumenical due to their compromise and acceptance of textual criticism
and corrupt modern versions! Then we should not be deceived: “evil
communications corrupt good manners.”
Conclusion
Dear friends, “Let us
draw near (to God) with a true heart in full assurance of
faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our
bodies washed with pure water” (Heb 10:22). May God help us look
unto our Lord Jesus Christ, live by Him and His Word, be cautious and
discerning, keep ourselves from evil communications and pray God to keep
us true to Him and His Word in this sinful and deceitful world. Amen.
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