Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Holy Spirit is the only One who can convince men of sin. The natural heart is “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked,” and there is nothing in which the inbred deceitfulness of our hearts comes out more clearly than in our estimations of ourselves. We are all of us sharp-sighted enough to the faults of others but we are all blind by nature to our own faults.
That such an answer should be given to such a charge is a strange, solemn fact, which tragically confirms the true indictment. The effect of all sin is to make us less conscious of its presence, as persons in an unventilated room are not aware of its closeness. It is with profound truth that the Apostle speaks of being hardened by the 'deceitfulness' of sin.
Even in this hour of extremity, of impotent wrath, I could find no contempt in my heart for her feeble hypocrisy; with all the old wonder I watched that exquisite profile, and Karamaneh's very deceitfulness was a salve for had she not cared she would not have attempted it! Suddenly she stood up, taking the keys in her hands, and approached me.
"Well, what does thee think of this business?" inquired William Sebastian of the lawyer who was busying himself drawing squares on the tablecloth with a steel fork. "It ought to come in thy line. Thee deals with criminals and knows the deceitfulness of our human hearts. What does thee say to the woman?"
Take heed, brethren, that there be not in any one of you a wicked heart of infidelity, evident in departure from the living God: but exhort one another daily, whilst to-day remains, that no one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
"The care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the truth," and yet in that short sentence He gave an epitome of all human history. Reforms come up from the oppressed, not down from the oppressors a fact which Christ explains in a word. He announced the divine order: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness."
Our Lord alludes to the danger of multiplied occupations in the Parable of the Sower: "He that received seed among thorns, is he that heareth the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful." Again, these worldly advantages, as they are called, will seduce us into an excessive love of them.
For when we come to understand the deceitfulness of our hopes, and are entirely diffident of human helps, we rely on God, who alone can deliver us out of those dangers, into which we have engaged ourselves on his account: we shall soon experience that he governs all things; and that the heavenly pleasures, which he confers on his servants on such occasions, ought to make us despise the greatest hazards; even death itself has nothing in it which is dreadful to them, who have a taste of those divine delights; and though, when we have escaped those perils of which we speak, we want words to express the horror of them, there remains in our heart a pleasing memory of the favours which God has done us; and that remembrance excites us, day and night, to labour in the service of so good a Master: we are also enlivened by it to honour him during the rest of our lives, hoping, that, out of his abundant mercy, he will bestow on us a new strength, and fresh vigour, to serve him faithfully and generously, even to our death."
The deceitfulness of the human heart. The thoughts and intents which colour all men do. The lusts and desires, the loves and hates from which conduct springs. The selfishness and rebellion which drive men on to the rocks. The real question for us then is, Can our religion does our religion, when tried by the test of human experience afford any remedy for these?
Although beyond doubt clever, he was universally esteemed a much more intellectual man than he really was, and this through no voluntary deceitfulness on his part, but owing to a method he had unconsciously adopted of exhibiting his wares with their most favorable aspect to the front.
Word Of The Day