Recognizing the Deceitfulness of Sin and True Wisdom

The essence of the message is this: that man is in his present predicament because of the deceitfulness of sin. Now we've seen that here in this notable verse, the ninth verse, where we are told the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? [00:03:11]

Sin is something that deceives us, and we have already considered some of the ways in which it does so. Now, I say this is a constantly recurring theme in the whole of the Bible. Take, for instance, the way the Apostle Paul puts it in writing to the Corinthians in his Second Epistle. [00:04:30]

The Bible, of course, is a book which God has given to us in order to teach us and to instruct us. There is nothing which is so foolish as to think of the Bible as a book that is remote from life, that's got nothing to tell us and nothing to help us as we struggle daily with life in this world. [00:05:57]

The message is that any man, all men as sinners, are guilty of precisely the same thing. Now you notice that the prophet puts it in particular in terms of riches, in terms of getting wealth. So he says he that getteth riches, wealth, but not by right shall leave them in the midst of his days. [00:10:03]

The commonest way of all is that he deceives himself with regard to his own wisdom, with regard to his own ability, with regard to his own understanding. I don't think I need hesitate in asserting that this is the essential thing in sin. I say it's the essential thing in sin for this reason. [00:12:29]

Men is always confident of his own intellect and his own power. He always holds the view that he really has nothing to do but to sit down and to think and to work things out, and that as the result of so doing, he can master any problem, he can solve all difficulties. [00:14:13]

Man not only deceives himself with regard to his own cleverness and his own ability, he tends also to deceive himself always in this way, that he feels that he can ignore the law and that he can break the rules with impunity. Now we are carrying two ideas in our minds, aren't we? [00:19:36]

The way of the transgressor is hard, hard. The way of the transgressor is hard. But does mankind believe that? If mankind believed that, nobody'd ever sin again. You see, what we all say is this: oh well, of course, that man got into trouble. I should get into trouble. [00:21:56]

The trouble with men is that he doesn't know himself. He doesn't know his own greatness. Men cannot be satisfied with money. Men can't be satisfied with things, and man can't live by bread alone. He can't live by bread and drink and money and wealth and position and the gratification of his passions and his lust. [00:35:23]

The thing that makes this gospel so marvelous and so wonderful and that should move us all to the depths of our being is this: that though we have all, like Saul the king of Israel of old, played the fool and in our folly have pitted our little selves against God and have defied him. [00:44:00]

God so loved the world, the world that has done the very things about which I've been speaking. God so loved that world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Thank God. [00:44:41]

If any man willth to be wise in this world, and that's what we all want, isn't it? We all, by nature, as I've said, want to be wise in this world. We want to do the best for ourselves. If any man willth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be made wise. [00:46:19]