“The Deceitfulness of Sin.”
By R. F. COTTRELL
Yes, the apostle has well expressed it: the deceitfulness of sin. Sin is a deceiver. She promises largely, but her promises are false and deceptive. Persons sin because they hope to gain something by so doing; but he that sins is the loser every time. Our mother Eve thought the fruit of the interdicted tree was very desirable as an article of food, and to make one wise. She imagined it would be great gain to transgress the prohibition of her Maker. But what a mistake! What an almost infinite loss! The groaning of the earth under the curse for six thousand years, and the utter perdition of the great majority of our race, are the sad results. The murderer, the adulterer, the thief, and the false witness, hope to be the gainers by the course they pursue. Wealth, or pleasure, or the gratification of a malicious, revengeful heart, is the bait which they so eagerly seize; but in the end their gain is loss, their pleasure pain, and their self-gratification torment and sorrow. The sinner promises himself that at some future time he will turn to God and serve him; but he postpones it, because he cannot afford to lose what he is now gaining by sin. His sinful pleasures must be followed, and wealth and fame must be sought and obtained; and then, after giving the best of his time and life-energies to the service of Satan, he proposes to serve the Lord! What a mistake! He is losing all the while. Instead of being better prepared to serve God in the future, he is continually disqualifying himself for his service, and traveling with continually-accelerating speed in the downward road to perdition. And here is the professor of religion who is convinced of his obligation to keep the Lord’s Sabbath, which he is now breaking. He would obey God if it would not cost him so much. He cannot afford to lose what he is now gaining by sin. Perhaps he imagines that the service of sin will so enrich him that at some future time he will be able to serve God. Or perhaps he imagines that obedience to God will destroy his influence in the Christian world, and that he can do much more good in the cause of Christ to remain in disobedience and sin. This is not a fancy sketch. The sentiment has been openly expressed by apparently-pious Christians. “It goes so hard against the grain,
They hope the Lord will not complain,
At least, he’ll not send me to hell,
If I keep Sunday pretty well;
I’ll make it up some other way,—
But pray, do let me keep first-day:
Who keep the seventh are so few,
It seems to me ’twill never do;
I’ll serve the Lord with all my might,
Do anything besides, that’s right,
I’ll go exhort, and preach, and pray,
But only let me keep first-day.
It makes no odds as I can see,
If one is kept as ’t ought to be;
And now the prospect looks so bright,
I think I’ll risk it, wrong or right.”
Oh, the deceitfulness of sin! to cause men to believe that they can even serve God better by breaking his commandments than by keeping them! One could hardly believe that Satan could persuade any person that such a conclusion was truly logical; but facts testify that it has been done. You wonder, my brother, my sister, that any one could be so deceived as to think that sinning against God would prove a real benefit, not only to themselves, but to the cause of God; that telling lies would advance the truth; the illegal means being sanctified by the holy motive, as Papists have held; but let me ask you if you are not deceiving yourself in the same way? Do you not imagine, sometimes, while you are covetously grasping after worldly gain, and heaping up treasures on earth, that you are preparing yourself to do a great amount of good in the cause of the Lord at some future time? And when inclined to follow the foolish and wicked fashions of the world, do you not flatter yourself that it will give you more influence for good in the world? Or, if you are too indolent and careless to make a decent appearance in the world, do you not flatter yourself that you are crucifying self, and glorifying God by your slackness? If you are laboring beyond your strength and breaking down your constitution to accumulate wealth, are you not doing it for the cause? Or, if you are squandering your time and means through idleness, are you not doing so in honor of Him who said, Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth? Are you all engrossed in business, so that you have not time for the duties of religion at home, and are not qualified for the worship of God on the Sabbath, so that, should you get into meeting, you fall asleep? Is it not because an apostle has bid you, Be diligent in business? Is not this your excuse for not being “fervent in spirit when serving the Lord?” Or, if you are slack and careless in your worldly matters, is it not because the Lord has said, Take no thought for the morrow? Is there anything gained by cheating your neighbor that you may give it to the Lord? or robbing God of his tithes and offerings that you may consume it upon your desires? Is there anything gained by fretting because things do not go right in the family, in the church, or in the world? On the other hand, is anything gained by regarding real wrongs with stoical indifference? Will deception and guile profit us in the end? Will it profit us to make the world first in our affections for a time, in order to make the service of God all, at some future time? In short, will anything benefit us but to be honest with God, honest with our neighbors, and honest with ourselves? Will anything be gained by shirking our duties and responsibilities, or postponing them to a more convenient time? No! Idleness is a moral gauge, procrastination is the thief that steals our time, our pride and worldliness is vanity, and our ill-gotten wealth will eat as doth a canker. Sin flatters to decoy. Its promises are deceptive. Oh, that all might realize that nothing is gained by it, but everything lost. “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To-day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” Heb. iii, 12, 13.