An old, old story with a teaching inside it is sometimes called a fable. Do you remember the fable about the hungry fox and the crow? Picture this, if you will . . . . the crow is safely above the fox's head, about to carefully eat the morsel she has found. She is safe on her branch - the fox cannot reach her or the food, either. But the fox is, after all, as sly as his name implies, and so he begins to flatter Mrs. Crow. He tells her how pretty her glossy black feathers are, and then tells her that her song must be just as lovely as she. After a while, Mrs. Crow becomes convinced that the fox is correct, and to show him how beautifully she can sing, she opens her mouth and takes a nice, big breath . . . . . but the moment that she opens her beak, the morsel of food falls to the ground and the fox snatches it up.
The fox used flattery to deceive Mrs. Crow. Flattery is just one kind of deceit, which is another word for lying, misleading, hiding, or distorting the truth.
And she fell for it.
We went far afield to talk about deceit -- here is why. In our focus psalm, David warns us about the deceitfulness of sin. He also talks about the delightfulness of God; it's the flip side of the psalm coin. We are not told the circumstances that prompted David to write Psalm 36 but there's a lot here for us to learn!
Let's look back at our psalm:
I have a message from God in my heart
concerning the sinfulness of the wicked:
There is no fear of God
before their eyes.In their own eyes they flatter themselves
too much to detect or hate their sin.
The words of their mouths are wicked and deceitful;
they fail to act wisely or do good.
Even on their beds they plot evil;
they commit themselves to a sinful course
and do not reject what is wrong. (Psalm 36:1-4)
David says that sin deceives men and women so that they plan it and pursue it. These four verses show us a synopsis, if you will, kind of like the "Cliff Notes" we used to read in college. These were small books (WAY fewer pages to read than the books we were assigned) that gave a snapshot or overview of the longer, larger book. Here's the characters; here is the plot; now write your paper. (Grin)
Verses one through four show us the progression where sin begins in our hearts and then expresses itself in our words and our deeds. The first change in our hearts is that sin flatters us into forgetting to fear God.
What does this mean? Well, at the very root of sin is a lack of understanding of Who God is - and so the sinner does not fear Him. If we do not understand God's absolute holiness, then we won't believe that He will judge all sin.
I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. (Leviticus 11:44a)
Many people today think that God is a "good ole boy" or the "man upstairs" and that He winks at sin -- or at least, He is tolerant of all but the most heinous sins. They view God as loving, but not as a just and righteous God. That way, they feel like He will be lenient on any upcoming judgment Day. How do we know this? Polls verify it: most Americans think they will go to heaven when they die, no matter what they have said and done in this life.
The second way that sin flatters the sinner is that it makes him/her think that they are not really a "BAD" sinner, and so the result is that they don't hate their sin. After all, they theorize, we are not child molesters, or murderers, or any of those really bad things. So they excuse their lying, their lust, greed, gossip, and more. Those aren't SO bad, are they? Everybody does those things.....those are more acceptable sins.
In 1703, a baby boy was born who would only live for fifty-five years, but who would stir the passions and the consciences of millions of people in his own era and in the years to follow. Jonathan Edwards was such an inspiring preacher, with such a command of the English language, that his words move us today. In his sermon on verse two, Edwards points out several ways that sin flatters.
Jonathan Edwards says that sin makes sinners flatter themselves in these ways:
he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, (Titus 3:5)
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— (Ephesians 2:8)
All of our study today begs the question: since sin is so deceitful through its flattery, how can I know whether or not I'm being deceived by it?
First, do I fear God? Do I (as we studied last week) revere Him?
Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Hebrews 4:13)
Because everything is laid bare before Him, and He knows my heart, do I judge my own sin quickly? When I read my Bible and see the holy standards there, do I apply them to my own heart? Or do I just think they should be applied to others?
Am I growing in Christ to identify and hate my own sins more and more, the more time I spend in His Word?
So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. (Romans 7:21)
Paul is telling us that even redeemed Christians make mistakes. We sin because we are at constant war with our old, sinful nature. That nature is trying to regain its place of influence in our lives. We must not allow sin to flatter us; we cannot afford to let sin climb back into the driver's seat. Sin will steer us away from God -- it will flatter us and make us forget to fear God, and it will flatter us into thinking our sins are "not so bad."
The deceitfulness of sin should cause us to seek the delightfulness of God, David tells us. We'll study this more next time.
Spot on! Inspired!
ReplyDelete