The epistle of Paul to Titus,
chapter 3. I want to look at this this morning,
and the Lord's willing after we eat a sabbat this afternoon,
I want to come back and look at it again. Titus chapter 1,
Titus chapter 3 and verse 1. He's speaking here to the saints,
the church. put them in mind to be subject
to principalities and powers, to obey the magistrates, to be
ready to every good work. This verse is instructing us
as Christians what our attitude should be towards
unbelievers. The first verse here, our attitude
towards those in authority, the rule of government. And he said
here that we should obey them. He doesn't say that we should
not seek to have a better government. Nothing forbids the saints of
God from doing that. I don't want to live under a
tyrannical government, and you don't. Whatever means that have
been provided for us, we should use those means Have just laws
to make sure those laws are obeyed, enforced. Paul instructs us further
to pray for those who are in authority. Hold them accountable. Pray for them that we may live
a quiet and peaceable life in all honesty. Obey them that have
the rule over you. And I think he hints here in
the last portion of verse 1 that a Christian does not determine
how he lives or where he goes, what he thinks, what he does,
according to the government that he lives under. If he lives under
a crooked, tyrannical government, a deceitful government, wretched,
miserable politicians that lie and cheat and steal, That doesn't
determine the Christian's conduct, the Christian's attitude. If
you live under a good government, if you live under a bad government,
that doesn't affect you as the believer, as a child of God.
In all things and everything, be ready for every good work. Our surroundings, our circumstances,
does not determine our character and our conduct. We're believers. We're children of God. No matter
what is in society, whether it's one that manifests restraining
grace or where it's open and profane, the Christian is always
to maintain good works. And he says here in verse 2,
to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, But be gentle,
showing all meekness unto all men." No matter what people's
character is like. No matter what their policies
are. He says you're to refrain from speaking evil of their persons. Boy, this takes grace, doesn't
it? Don't you find something in you
that you always want to think evil? To speak evil. That's something that you and
I will never depart from. We'll pray over it. We'll guard
against it. All of our lives. Speak evil
of nobody. Nobody. Don't be a brawler. Don't be
of a fighting attitude. Don't be argumentative. Don't
have this bad attitude towards unbelievers. But this should
be your attitude, the Apostle said. Showing mildness, meekness,
long-suffering, lowliness of mind. In meekness instructing
those that oppose themselves. And in verse 3, he gives the
reason for showing this Christian attitude towards others. One
reason. There's many. But here's one
reason he gives that you and I should Be meek and kind and
long-suffering and gentle towards those who are without. Why we
shouldn't be so quick to criticize even our government and our leaders. He said, remember what you were.
This is a motive. Why you should be kind and gracious
and tender to other people. Remember what you were. For we
ourselves also were sometimes foolish. You were also unwise. My children are so foolish. My
neighbors are so foolish. I know so many foolish people,
and you were just like that one time, weren't you? Remember that?
Remember that? I've often said I didn't have
a lick of sense until I was 40 years old. Unwise. And doing unwise things. We were foolish. But not only
were we foolish, he said, we were disobedient. Who did we
disobey? I disobeyed my parents when I
was a child. And I'm ashamed of that. I wish
my dear mother was here today. I'd hug her neck and apologize
to her for every evil look, for every hateful word. for the worries
that I caused her and my dad. Disobeyed the law when I could
get by with it, didn't you? Disobeyed God. Disobeyed your
own conscience. Disobedient. Rebels. Rebels. Deceived. There was a time we
didn't know the truth. What truth we heard, we perhaps
fought against it. Rejected it and refused it. Deceived. Serving divers lust and pleasures. That was the rule of our life.
Somebody told that just last week or so to us. That was what
motivated us. That's what ruled us. Is lust. Self love. What do I want? What can serve me? Malice, being disposed to injure others,
a spirit of revenge, malice, get even. A spirit of envy, jealousy,
a feeling that somebody else has got something we want. Hateful, had hate in our hearts. The carnal
mind is enmity against God, enmity against our fellow man. Our feet
were swift to shed blood, hating one another. I tell you, we're
talking this morning about marriage, and it's amazing that any marriage
lasts. Do you know that? It's amazing
there's any friendship in this world that's lasted. It's amazing
that there's any peace, any safety in society at all. And I tell
you, the only reason there is, is owing to the grace and goodness
of God. When you consider what we are by our very nature, and
how that all sometimes is manifested, if God doesn't restrain a fallen,
sinful society, He'll destroy itself. You and I should be surprised
and amazed and thankful that we have the security that we
have. That we have the safety that we have in each and every
community that you and I live in. When you consider what we
were here. And he tells us in verse 4 what
changed us. What was it that changed our
character and our conduct that he just described here in verse
3. Well, here's what it's owing
to, but after, that the kindness and love of God, our Savior,
towards man appeared. The love and the kindness and
the grace of God appeared. He had appeared on our behalf. It appeared to our hearts. It
appeared to our understanding. The goodness and the grace of
God. I'll be honest with you, that's what finally broke my
heart. All the years I was afraid that God was going to put me
in hell. All the years I was afraid that someday I was going
to have to stand before Him and give account of my wretched life.
That all made me afraid. But what finally broke me, how
good God has been to me. Should have put me in hell, but
didn't. Shouldn't have given me breath and movement, but He
did. And I began to think of how good
God was to me. And that just tore me up. Just
broke my heart. And I began to seek Him because
of it. The goodness of God appeared. What did He do? What did this
goodness bring? Not by works of righteousness
which we've done, but according to His mercy, He saved us. We were like this, Paul said,
but here's the difference. Here's what changed us. He saved
us. Why don't you like that anymore? He saved you. He saved you from
your disobedience. He saved you from your foolishness.
He saved you from being ruled by your lust. He saved you from
yourself. He saved you. He saved you. But why in the world would He
save you? Hasn't saved everybody, has He? The love and the goodness
of God does not appear to everybody, has it? But it's appeared to
you. He saved you. But why would He
save you? Of all people, why would He save
you? It's not because of any good thing you did. It's not
because of any good thing you were. Not by works of righteousness
which you've done. Then why would He save you? He
delights in mercy. But by His mercy, He saved us. He willed to have mercy. I didn't come, the Lord Jesus
said, to solicit a sacrifice from you. I come to show mercy. He's going to get a great name
for Himself. He's going to make us rejoice
and glorify Him for His mercy. That's why He did it. That's
why He did it. How does He save us? Look here
how He saves us in verse 5. Not by works of righteousness,
which we've done, but according to His mercy He saved us. And
here's the way He does it. By washing of regeneration. and renewing of the Holy Ghost. That's how God saves a sinner.
We talk about the new birth. Somebody said, God saved me.
How did He save me? Well, I was going down the road
and I got involved in this car wreck. And I come out of it all
right. I didn't die. I didn't get killed.
He saved me. I'm not talking about that kind of salvation. I'm talking about a salvation
that washes you from sin. I'm talking about a salvation
that gives you life eternal when you were dead in trespasses and
sin. The new birth consists of two
things, washing, He loved us and washed us, and it consists
in giving you life, a renewing of the Spirit of life. That's
the way God saves us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing
of the Holy Spirit. So what's the Apostle Paul saying
here? Well, he's saying here, you and I, when you and I look
around us in the society that we live in and towards lost people,
we should maintain a kind and gracious and loving and generous
attitude towards all people. Because there's not a which difference
between them and you except God's grace. Apart from the washing
of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, you're just
like them. And you'll live like them and
think like them and talk like them, apart from it. My title this morning is found
here, though, right in the middle of verse 3. Paul describes himself
and Titus this way, deceived. We ourselves also were sometimes
foolish, disobedient, and deceived. That's the title of my message
this morning. Deceived. And I picked this particular
word out of this text for two reasons. Deceived. First of all, because I believe
that it's the chief characteristic of a lost person. If you ask
me how I would describe a lost person, if I had to describe
him with a short definition, this would be the way I would
describe a lost person. He's deceived. He's deceived. And I think this more characterizes
a lost person than all of these other ways in which he described
a lost man. You look at some people. And
they're so moral outwardly, it seems like they've got their
life under control. They don't live in open and profane
sins. And you'd be hard-pressed to
say to that person, lust and pleasure is ruling your life. They keep all that in check. You can't see it. They're not
hateful. They don't hate people outwardly
and it would be hard pressed to accuse them of that. It's
in their hearts. And they may not know it and
therefore you can't see it. But here's the characteristic
I think that you can see and more evident in a lost person
than anybody else. And I think this is what will
surface when you begin to talk to them. They are deceived. What are they deceived about?
Well, the nature of God. The character of God. That He's
absolutely holy. That He's so holy no sinner can
approach Him. That His eyes are too pure to
behold iniquity. He cannot look upon sin? That God is light? In Him is
no darkness at all? You begin to talk to a lost man
about the nature of God and see if he understands the nature
of God. He does not even want to talk about the nature of God. He is deceived as to his own
sinfulness. and depraved nature? He don't
even know himself. Every man will speak of his own
goodness. The ways of man are right in
his own eyes. He don't know himself. He's deceived as to the judgment
and the danger that he's under. That's why he sleeps so well
at night. That's why he's not afraid, because he don't realize
the judgment that he's under. You remember that verse of Scripture
in John chapter 3 verse 36, where it says, "...he that hath the
Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life, but
the wrath of God abideth on him." If a lost person knew that, do
you think they'd live so easy in this world? If they looked
up and there it was, the dreadful, heavy, awful, eternal wrath of
God, do you think they could sleep as easy as they did? No,
they couldn't. But they're deceived as to that.
And they're deceived as to any way to remedy their situation. They're deceived to this, the
merit and the worth and the beauty of the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. They see no beauty in Him. Oh,
He's beautiful. He's beautiful to you that believe
He's precious. But they see no beauty in Him. They're deceived as to the way
of that eternal salvation that is in Him and by Him. They're
deceived as to what it means to have a saving interest in
Him or to how to obtain it. If they start beginning to seek
a way to obtain this life that's in Christ, they go about it all
wrong. When I used to seek the Lord
for life, I thought I was seeking Him for life. I knew I needed
life. But I thought, well, the way
I'm going to get it is to do the best I can. and quit my life
and get my act together. What was wrong with me? I was
deceived. I didn't know how to see Christ. You sit down and talk with a
person about these things. The nature of God. His own sinful,
fallen nature. The nature of Jesus Christ as
a Savior. How to know Him. How to come
to Him. And it won't be but just a minute.
You'll find out that person's deceived. He may be a good moral
person outwardly. You may not see the characteristics
that Paul used to describe us with. But this one thing will
be so evident. It's the chief characteristic
of a lost man that he's deceived. Secondly, I picked this word
out to describe a lost person Not only because I think it's
the chief characteristic of a lost person, but I think it's the
most fearful characteristic. What is it to be lost? It means
I'm lost and don't even know it. It's bad enough to be lost. It's
even worse to be lost and think you're saved. It's bad enough to not know God,
but it's even worse to profess to know Him and not. See what
I'm saying? It's the most fearful characteristic
of a believer, of an unbeliever. Let me give you two or three
examples of this. It's fearful because of the strength
of this deception. Now, you're going to leave here
today with heavy hearts, I'm telling you. I'm telling you.
Hopefully, you'll leave here today with a heavy heart. Because
this is so weighty, and this is so serious. I say that deception is a fearful
thing, first of all, because of the strength of it. We can't escape it. We can't
shake it loose. We can't deliver ourselves from
it. The Lord Jesus said there would be multitudes that stood
before Him in the day of judgment, and here's what they will say.
Master, have we not cast out devils in
your name? Have we not done many wonderful
works in your name? Have you not taught in our presence? Have we not eat in your presence?
And he says, I'll say to them, I never knew you. But listen
to this. They stood and argued with the
Lord. They said, wait a minute now,
wait a minute. You're about to make a critical mistake here. Remember who we are. Remember
all the things that we did? They summonsed Him to the Dover. They went through the river of
death, went up the hill to the celestial city, and beat on the
Dover, and summonsed the Lord of glory, and said, We're here! We're home! He said, I don't
know who you are. Well, here's who we are. We cast
out devils. We preached in your name. We've
done many wonderful works in your name. I tell you, I don't
know you. Wait a minute now. Deception
is so strong that men will go across the river of death, not
be shaken by it, up the celestial city and talk with the Lord of
glory and argue with Him. Still deceived. There are some people, and this
is the characteristic, and this is what makes it so fearful,
that death itself won't even make them afraid. I have seen people die, ungodly
people, no faith in Christ, no evidence at all of having a saving
interest in Him, and death didn't even make them afraid. They never
were shaken loose from their deception until the Lord of Glory
turns them away from the gate of hell. Depart from Me. And not until then do they realize,
I was deceived. I was deceived. Here's another example. Remember
the rich man who fared sumptuously every day? Seemed like Lazarus. That man that lived in daily
affliction warned him, instructed him, yet his eyes never were
opened. He lived and he died with his
eyes shut. His spiritual eyes were shut. Lazarus warned him, death's coming,
judgment's coming. Do you have a saving interest
in the Lord? That never shook him loose. All
of the warnings never shook him loose. People dying all around
him never shook him loose from this deception. And the Scripture
says never did he lift up his eyes while he was in this world.
Never one time did he lift up his eyes and say, I need to be
saved. I'm not right with God. I'm lost. until the fire of hell, the torment,
engulfed him. And the Scripture says, in hell
he lift up his eyes. What would keep a person deceived
all through his life, death not awaken him, but it took the fires
of hell to do it? Deception, how strong it is. Let me give you another example.
Remember Paul, he says here about himself, that Titus, you and
I were deceived too. We were deceived. We were deluded. We were in error. You remember
this man, what a religious man he was. He was killing Christians. And all along he was thinking,
I'm doing God's will. He actually believed that. He
said, I sought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus
of Nazareth. And those things I did. I sought
to stump out His name and His kingdom from this world. That's
how deceived that a man can be. That's how deceived he was. He
thought by his own works that he could win God's favor and
God's presence. He even thought he was without
sin. I had not known sin, he said, all through my teenage
years, my early twenties. I had not known sin. I did not
believe or know or think that I was a sinner. I was deceived. That's what he said. He helped the coats of men. that
stoned a child of God. He's the one that was promoting
them doing that. Fellas, I'll hold your coat,
and there's that man that professes this Jesus of Nazareth. I want
you to stone him. And he stood while they stoned
Stephen. And he heard Stephen pray, Lord,
lay not this sin to their charge. He looked upon Stephen as he
was dying and he saw Stephen lift up his eyes towards heaven
and said, I see the Son of Man standing on the right hand of
God. None of that fazed this Saul of Tarsus. He still went
on breathing out threatens against the Lord and against the Lord's
people. Until one day he was on the Damascus
road. Here's what it takes to shake
a man loose from his deception. Here's what it takes to open
a man's eyes in this world, or he'll go on until being turned
away from heaven opens his eyes, or the torments of hell will
open his eyes. Paul was on the road to Damascus, and suddenly
there shone round about him a light from heaven. And he said, Who
are you, Lord? Who are you? I'm Jesus, whom
you're persecuting. That's who I am. What is it that
will take, what will it take to deliver a man from deception,
from deceiving himself in this life? Here's what it's going
to take. It's going to take a revelation
from heaven. It's going to take light from heaven. Nothing else
will do it. Paul said this, you've heard
of my conversation in time past. How that beyond measure I persecuted
the church of God and wasted it. I profited in the Jews' religion
above many of my equals. I was exceeding zealous towards
the traditions of my Father. I was so deceived. But, when
it pleased God, here's what it takes to deliver us from being
deceived. when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's
womb and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me. Nothing
else will save us from our deception. A revelation from heaven of the
Son of God to our hearts. Nothing else. Your experience and my experience
is not like Paul's in this sense. We don't go through this life
deceived and then a light shines around us like it did Him. That's
not our experience. But our experience is found here
in verse 5. Here's what saves us from our
deception. The washing of regeneration and
renewing of the Holy Ghost. There's but one thing that will
save you and save me from this deception. And that's to be born
again. If a man is not born again, if
a man has not been saved by the grace of God in Christ, he is
right now deceived. And the only thing that will
deliver him from that deception is the washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost. I believe this, but I believe
that. And I do this, and I do that. None of that will save
us from our deception. The Holy Spirit must come and
regenerate us and give light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in our hearts. Moses told us about this in Genesis
chapter 1 and verse 2. What a beautiful picture that
is of a man, a sinner, being delivered from deception. If
you want to see a beautiful picture of how God saves a sinner, What
a sinner is and how God saved him. Go back sometime and read
Genesis chapter 1 and verse 2. And here's what it says. The
earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face
of the deep. Can you imagine that? Can you
get a picture of that in your mind? What that looked like?
You couldn't see the face of the deep. There was this awful
darkness that was upon him. That's the lost man. You talk
to him. You pray with him. You pray for
him. But you can't get through that darkness, can you? I remember
it. Don't you remember it? Oh, that Egyptian darkness. You
could feel it. And then the next verse says
this, "...but the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,
and God said, Let there be light in those lights." Ain't that
the way it happens? Here you and I are, we're deceived,
we're in darkness, but the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God's grace,
the Spirit of His Son, comes to us and He hovers over our
darkness the darkness of our soul, and in some mysterious
and wonderful and gracious way, He sends light into our hearts. The light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Those who sat
in darkness saw great light. And until that takes place, we
can never see. We'll deceive ourselves. I want you to turn to three passages
with me right quick, and I'll handle this as quickly as I can.
Just three verses of Scripture. Look in Jeremiah chapter 17 and
verse 9. Jeremiah chapter 17 and verse
9. I hope we see in these three
passages that I want to read to you, the seriousness of this
subject that I'm on this morning. We were sometimes deceived. And here's three Scriptures that
tells us exactly why we were deceived. In Jeremiah chapter
17 and verse 9, The heart. You know what the heart is, don't
you? It's the center of what we are. It's the seat of what
we are. It's us. It's us. The heart. It's deceitful. Above all things
and desperately wicked, who can know it? The heart houses our intellect. That's where knowledge comes
from, the heart. It houses our affection. You
love what you love because your heart loves it. We love it. We
hate what we hate because the heart hates it. It houses our
will. The heart is us. And what about the heart? It's
deceitful. That word simply means it's misleading. It causes to err. It deludes. It lies. It tricks. My heart
is deceitful. My intellect, my thoughts, my reasoning, my
thinking is deceitful. I can think something that's
not right. Can my thoughts deceive me? Can
the knowledge I have deceive me? You mean my affections can deceive
me? I think I love something, and
it's not love at all, it's lust. Here I am hating what I should
be loving, loving what I should be hating. I can't even distinguish
between them. What's wrong with me? The heart
is deceitful. The will, the motives for doing
what I do is deceitful. Ain't that amazing? Apart from the worship of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost, the heart has no rivals as to
its deception. It's deceitful above everything,
above all things. It's deceitful. And add to this
another characteristic of this deception and look at it. The
heart is deceitful above all things and incurably wicked. It cannot be cured. The Lord don't even cure it.
He doesn't even heal it. He gives a new one. Why should
you be stricken anymore, he said. The whole heart is sick, incurably
sick. What are you going to do with
it? I'm going to take it out. That's the only thing to do with
it. Set it down from its throne room and give a new heart. A heart that's pliable. A man by the name of John Gill
had four things to say about the heart being deceitful. I thought this was very interesting.
He said this about it. He said, the heart deceives a
man in respect to sin. And he gives these several sins.
It proposes it to him. It proposes sin to him under
the notion of pleasures. The heart promises him a great
deal of pleasure in sin, but does not yield what it promises. Have you experienced that? Boy, you do this, you're going
to have a big time. You're going to have so much
fun, you're going to have so much pleasure in this, that the
heart never fulfills its promise, does it? Gil said it's all fancy and imagination,
a mere illusion and a dream. It does not give what it promises. No, it is all short-lived, and
in the end, bitterness and death. Look, look at the lifestyle of
the rich and famous. And outwardly speaking, we look
at people that's got all the money they could ever spend in
ten lifestyles, live in houses that would house ten families,
all the recreation that you could possibly imagine, and you'll
find some of the most miserable people this world has ever known.
They take all kinds of drugs to make them happy. Wind up,
some of them do, taking their own life. The heart cannot yield
what it promises. Pleasure. But it promises, doesn't
it? Why would it do that? It's deceitful. Gill said this about it. The heart proposes sin under
the notion of profit. It promises riches and suggests
several ways of obtaining those riches. Yet when the man gets them, he
is a loser by them. Why? Because they choke the Word,
the true riches, from his heart, cause him to err from the faith,
and finally pierces him through. with many sorrows that drown
men in destruction and perdition. Charles Spurgeon said one time,
he said, I have never seen a man leave Christ because of poverty. Not the first time have I saw
anybody leave Christ because of poverty. He said, I have saw
multitudes leave Christ because of riches, profit. A man cannot serve God and men. A man cannot obtain the riches
of Christ while lusting after the riches of this world. Here's
the third thing that Gil said about the deceitfulness of the
heart. He says the heart deceives a man by promising him honor
and preferment, but promotes him finally to shame. It promises him liberty, but
brings him into bondage. It promises him exemption from
punishment and peace and safety, but finally exposes him to sudden
and eternal destruction. And fourthly, he says this about
this, the heart deceives a person in the point of knowledge. It
persuades him that he's a very knowing person. That's the problem
with the Pharisees. Remember what they said to the
man that the Lord opened his eyes? He was born blind and the
Lord opened his eyes and the Pharisees began to question him.
And when he told them who it was, Jesus said, all I know is
this, I was blind and he opened my eyes. And they got so mad at him, you
know what they said, you realize who you're talking to. You're a fool, man. You was born
in sin. And you're trying to teach us?
Ain't that what they said about it? We're theologians. We're
brilliant men. We've gone to school. Our heads
are full of knowledge. But all the time, what were they?
Ignorant and blind to the thanks of God. What does it matter how much
a man knows if he don't know God, if he don't know Christ and Him
crucified? What does it matter how smart
a man is in all the subjects of this world if he don't know
his own misery, if he's not acquainted with himself, and he doesn't
know the nature of Jesus Christ as a Savior? What else matters
in the way of knowledge? And fifthly and lastly in this
poem is this, in the matter of life and death, the heart persuades
a person that they will indeed live forever. One of the most amazing things
as me is that you and I live in a world that people are dying
all around us and we don't believe we're going to die. We think
we're going to die forever. Bob Quentin just died this week.
If you saw him, you would know him. He comes to all of our worship
service there at the Watery. Pushed Martha, his wife. I was
telling you about this this morning, Ray. So many times I've sat with
Bob there at the nursing home, and he's told me of his plans
that he had when Martha died. Martha was sick. And Bob says,
she ain't going to last much longer. And here's what I'm going
to do when Martha dies. Martha's still living. Martha
was at his funeral yesterday. You'd probably be shocked and
surprised if I'm not here next Sunday to preach to you, but
I'm six foot under somewhere. You'd probably be surprised.
But I'll tell you what would surprise you more if you're not
here next Sunday. Huh? Why can't we face the reality
of death? The heart is deceitful. Man,
you're not going to die. You're going to live forever.
How can the heart deceive us? It's deceitful above everything.
And it's wicked. It's wicked. Look at my next text. Look at
my next text. I've just got a few minutes,
so I've got to hurry. Look in Hebrews chapter 3. Brother Terence
just read it to us this morning. Hebrews chapter 3 and verse 12. Look at this. The heart is deceitful. Why were we deceived? It's the
chief characteristic, the most fearful characteristic. The heart,
our own hearts had deceived us. Hebrews chapter 3, look in verse
12. Take heed, brethren, lest there
be in any of you An evil heart of unbelief in departing from
the living God. If you want to know why a man
leaves his profession of God, unbelief. Never did believe. Never did believe. But exhort
one another daily what it is called today, lest any of you
be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Sin is a deceitful fact. And here's the way it deceives
by hardening. It's like a piece of clay that
you fashion and you mold it and you lay it out in the sun and
it begins to dry and slowly but surely it hardens. And it's so hard that you can't
fashion it anymore. That's the nature of sin. It
deceives and the way it deceives is by hardening. Some people think something's
wrong, so they don't do it at first. But finally, after a while, that
which they know is wrong, they go ahead and do it anyway. And
what happens? Boy, their conscience is smitten.
They're full of sorrow. They're broken. Oh, I'll never
do that again. Oh, God kept me, I'll never do that again. But
what happened? Well, they attempted to do it
again. And what did they do? After a while, they do it again.
Not as bad this time. Then they do it again and again
and again. What happens after a while? They
don't feel bad at all. They can go ahead and do it very
easy. It doesn't bother them. The conscience, what's going
on? The conscience is being hardened. The conscience is being seared. There's people doing things.
What's going on in our society today, and I'm sorry, brothers
and sisters, much is going on in the church today that a few
years ago people would have been horrified to think about doing.
But now it can be done as easily as people can breathe. What's
happened? the deceitfulness of sin. I often
use this example because it stuck with me when I was a boy. I've
often told you about we didn't have any TV sets when I was young. And I heard some people talking
about Mae West. I bet there's two or three people
here that have heard of Mae West. She was an actress. You've heard
of Mae West? You're as old as I am. But she was an entertainer
back when I was a kid. And she had appeared on TV in
a sleeveless dress. And I mean everybody went, wow! What in the world? And somebody asked somebody,
a preacher of somebody, what is wrong with that? A sleeveless
dress. And the answer was this, that's
where it begins. That's the beginning of it. If
we let this go on, what will be the end? It starts out as
a sleeveless dress. Now what it's wound up to be?
Bottomless almost, isn't it? Is there an outcry against it? Why? Hardening effect. Beware, brothers and sisters,
of the beginning of sin in your own heart. Beware of the little
foxes. The little things that your conscience
is pricked about. Don't override them. Don't violate
your conscience. That's one of the most dangerous
things that a person can do. Why? That's the way sin deceives
us. The deceitfulness of sin. Look at another place. Look at
Revelation chapter 12, and this is my last text. Deceived. Look in Revelation 12. I am more scared of myself than
I am the devil. And I should be more scared of
my sin than I am anything. But here's somebody else that
deceives us, and look at this. In Revelation chapter 12, and
look in verse 7. There was war in heaven. Michael
and his angels fought against the dragon. Now, he's called
the dragon. When you see the word dragon
to identify the devil, that means for his cruelty. As a roaring
lion, he goes about seeking him, he may devour. And the dragon
fall in his angels, and prevail not, neither was their place
found any more in heaven for them. And the great dragon was
cast out, look how he is defined here, the old serpent. He is
called a serpent because of his deception. The serpent was wise,
and he deceived Eve, our mother. And he is called old because
of his experience. He has had six Thousand years
now on you and me. The reason He's so wise in dealing
with us and can trip us up so easy, He's had 6,000 years of
experience in working with people just like us. He's called the
devil. He's called the devil because
He accuses us to God. He accuses us one to another.
He's called Satan because He's the enemy of God and Christ.
And look what He does. which deceiveth the whole world." The world is deceived. Think
about that. You and I lived in a world, we
are living in a world right now, and the whole world, apart from
God's elect, apart from the washing of regeneration and renewal of
the Holy Ghost, this world is deceived. The devil has them
deceived. In 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and
verse 4, here's what the Bible says. If our gospel is hid, it's
hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath
blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of
the glorious gospel of God, of Christ, should shine to them. He's a God. A God, not the God. He's not the sovereign God. He's
not the Creator. He's not the Sustainer. But as
God allows Him, He rules in the kingdom of darkness in this world.
He's a God. And He has access to the mind.
You'll never see Him. You don't see Him with a red
suit on with horns coming out of His head. He's a Spirit. And
He has access to a person's mind. He put thoughts into our heads. And therefore he blinds the mind.
As to what? The way of salvation. How to
be saved. How God can be just and justify
a sinner. He's blinded their minds to the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He blinds them to the
gospel. He don't care what else people
have. He's not keeping you from good
health. Oh, the devil. If it wasn't for the devil, we'd
be healthy. He's not interested in your health or your sickness.
That's not what the devil's all about. He's not interested in
how rich you are or how poor you are. He knows all this is
temporary. You know what he's interested
in? Keeping you from hearing the gospel in your heart. He's going to keep you from coming
to Christ if he can. He's going to keep you from being
saved if He can. And He knows if He can keep you
from the gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ, then He's got
you for all eternity. How does He do that? First of
all, He does it like this. He keeps the gospel from you. God allows Him to do things.
And God allowed Satan to keep the gospel from some people.
Now, you can say that's wrong. You can say that ain't right.
But Paul said, I'd have come to you once and again. I determined
to come to you. I wanted to come to you to preach
the gospel to you. But Satan hindered me. Did God
permit him to do that? Well, He does. Folks, there's
people all over this world that's never heard the gospel. They've
never heard the gospel. And you'll have to go to God
and take it up with Him as to why. But I know the devil, if
God permits him, will keep the Gospel from reaching many people.
There's people in this world that's never heard amazing grace,
how sweet to say, that saved a wretch like me. Depths of mercy
can there be, mercy still reserved for me. Can my God His wrath
forbear, me the chief of sinners? They never heard that. They've
never heard any song of Zion. They've never heard a verse of
Scripture read. They've never heard a man pray over them. They've
never heard a man approaching to God through the name and the
marriage of the Son of God. They've never heard any spiritual
word, song, or testimony. Why? Satan keeps the Word from them.
He keeps the gospel from them. Satan hindered us. There have
been people, it may happen today, who was going somewhere to preach
the gospel. A man of God was going somewhere
to preach the gospel to a group of people, and he didn't make
it there. He got sick in a car accident or something happened.
And what was it? Well, I know this much. God allows
Satan some time to do it. And secondly, Satan deceives
by keeping men from the gospel by keeping them from coming and
hearing the gospel. Not only keeping the gospel from
them, but keeping them from coming to hear the gospel. There have been people who purpose
on Saturday night to get up on Sunday morning and come to hear
the gospel, but they don't make it. They just don't make it. They got good intention, but
they don't make it. Their intentions are diverted.
I wonder, and I've said this to you before, but I wonder,
the judgment will tell. We come down, I know we come
down three just north of town there next to the park, and they've
got all the soccer fields set up on both sides of the road.
Almost every Sunday, when I come through here, there's all kinds
of kids out there playing soccer. And parents sitting out there
watching. On the Lord's Day? When my daughter used to be in
sports, I was amazed. Every weekend they had games
scheduled, volleyball games scheduled. Practice on Wednesday night,
prayer meeting. And I began to think, what in
the world is going on here? That's not something they do
consciously a lot of times. You go to them and talk to them.
Why did you schedule practice tonight? We're going to meet
for prayer and Bible study. I had no idea. Why would you
meet at 10 o'clock? That's when we're going to gather
to worship God. Why don't you meet at 2 o'clock
or something? I don't know. I know. I know. The devil's behind it. You say, Bruce, you mean the
devil would keep people? The devil would move upon the
hearts of parents to keep their children from coming and hearing
the gospel of their salvation? Yes, he would. Yes, He would. And that's His chief end, to
keep you from Christ, to keep you from His Gospel. He keeps us from the Gospel this
way, not just by keeping it from us and us from it. But when we
do hear it, He gets in the mind and stirs up all of this prejudice,
I don't like the way that Crabtree guy looks. Why don't he get a
haircut anyway? He looks like a porcupine, a
sick porcupine. I don't like the way that guy
sings. Listen to what he's saying. That guy lied to me one time,
and I never have forgot that. I ain't going back over there
anymore. All these thoughts, all of these prejudice spills
up in the hearts, and it keeps you from hearing the gospel. If you're not deceived this morning,
dear soul, be thankful. If you're not deceived, God has
saved you. He saved you from it. Be thankful
to Him. The Spirit has washed you. The
Spirit has given you life. Be thankful. Never get over it. And never get over the way that
He's did it. which He shed on you abundantly
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Only through the cross, only
because of the cross, only because of Jesus of Nazareth are we saved. Don't trust yourself Don't trust
what your heart tells you. Don't trust your feelings. Don't
trust your notions. Don't trust your thoughts. Don't
trust your opinions. He that trusts in his own heart
is a fool. Avoid sin. Pray against it. Don't give in to it. Beware of
the beginnings of it. It will harden your heart. Thank God for His Word. Thank God for His Word. Read
it. Meditate on it. Lay aside the
other things and get along with God and His Word. It will be
a lamp unto your feet, a light unto your pathway. Let it dwell
in you richly in all knowledge. If you reject it and go contrary
to it, you will do nothing but destroy your own precious soul. Don't trust your heart. Trust
His Word. Trust His Word. Are you heavy? You go to Him. You go to Him. You plead to Him. Let's pray.