Deceit: Its Fruit Is Great Destruction

"Deceit: Its Fruit Is Great Destruction" – Jeremiah 17:9-10 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins." The study defines deceit as the deliberate act of hiding or distorting the truth, traces it from Eden to today's conversation, and shows that it bears only one fruit: destruction. The way out is not cleverness but truth —John 14:6 and John 8:32— upheld by the daily exhortation of Hebrews 3:13, "while it is called To day," and by the truth in the inward parts of Psalm 51:6.

I. What deceit is

A. It is the deliberate act of hiding, manipulating, or distorting the truth —by words or by actions— in order to create a false belief in another person.

B. When on purpose a person conceals what he wants hidden; when he keeps quiet and hides it: that is deceit.

C. Anyone can be deceived: a wife, a husband, a son, a father. We deceive with the words we withhold.

D. The one deceiving knows it; the one being deceived does not, because he believes it. And he is not on guard, because he trusts.

E. To talk for a while and then have twenty lies added up against you is a lack of respect and a lack of dignity: it is the absence of love toward the one who lent us his ears.

F. It can happen through idle words, through false promises in conversation, or through appearances that conceal reality.

II. Its fruit is only one

A. Every deceit yields the same fruit: destruction. There is no other.

B. It is the law of sowing and reaping. What was not reaped, you do not have today; and what was not sown, the worms eat the seed.

C. So we must sow for the years ahead in acts of purity, not of trickery or deceit.

D. When Satan tempts, he says: "thou shalt not surely die; ye shall be as the one who created you." In words, very easy; and the created one believed it.

E. There Adam begins, there Eve begins, in deceit. And what was its fruit? Great destruction for the earth; and that sowing is what we have today.

III. Deceit is common and ordinary

A. "That is not what I meant." What was said was perfectly clear; and it was said according to the state of the heart.

B. Wanting to take it back is telling the one who lent you his ears: "I will do with you whatever I please."

C. Deceit leaves the heart like an arrow and seizes the heart of the one in front, because listening opened it. And how does a person get free of that arrow?

D. Deceit loves to visit the mind, because it knows the mind will declare it through the mouth.

IV. "The heart is deceitful" (Jeremiah 17:9)

A. Scripture uses "heart" to speak of the mind, the desires, and the will.

B. God reveals that without Him the heart distorts: it alters and manipulates the truth deliberately, leading others to accept falsehoods.

C. Not even lawyers use such cunning, for they have laws to be guided by; mortals respect no law about what may be said, nor about what should not even be thought.

D. This people is neither common nor ordinary: when you affect someone with what you say, you have done harm; and if it is a soul on its way to salvation, you are condemning that soul.

E. "I want to say things without affecting anyone": then do not speak. Be happy, embrace people, tell them you love them.

F. A smile neither pushes nor pulls; a smile reaches people. If the disciples had to learn anything, it was how to speak, how to carry others, how to love, how to sacrifice.

G. We cannot always trust what we feel or the impulse to speak. If someone troubles you, pray instead of going to talk; and when you must speak, do it with truth, seasoned with love.

V. "I the LORD search the heart" (Jeremiah 17:10)

A. Verse 9 asks: who can know it? And verse 10 answers: God alone searches the heart.

B. The text is not meant to drive us to despair: hope is not in man, but in God.

C. Sometimes we act very spiritual, as if we knew it all. We know nothing; we must pray every day.

D. "I think the church should be like this, the brethren should be like that." And why do you not think about how you should be?

VI. The origin of deceit (John 8:44)

A. "When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." There is only one who speaks lies, and he is the father of lies.

B. Deceit is a spiritual reality: beliefs and practices are adopted, often driven by the ego. The ego must be brought into obedience.

C. Since Eden the enemy has used deceit to draw man away from God. If someone suggests something to you on Satan's behalf, the one speaking is the deceiver.

D. Behind every spiritual deception there is a war between truth and lie; and the lie will not let you arrive where we must arrive.

E. Jesus calls Satan a murderer from the beginning, because deceit leads to death.

F. Nothing happens in one blow: everything goes little by little. If you let the lie into your house, it will destroy more, and everyone.

G. "Nothing happened, nobody found out." The first to find out is the devil. And when it is uncovered the defending begins; and all defending means you are accused: by conscience and by Satan.

H. Do not play games with words on this earth. Whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are clean: on these we must think. "But that is nothing." No: it is deceit, and I will not do it, period.

I. It is not a matter of believing me: it must become conviction in you. And over conviction there is no arguing; it is not "someone convinced me," it is my own conviction of who God is in me.

J. Deceit brought Adam to spiritual death, and the first thing that followed was a quarrel between brothers out of jealousy and envy. The lie seems small, but its fruit is great destruction.

VII. The answer to deceit is truth (John 14:6; John 8:32)

A. "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Christ is the truth, and He is the one who sets us free.

B. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Where Christ governs, the lie loses its power.

C. For that we need the blood of Christ: if Christ is in your life, there is well-being. In the truth a person is free, and no circumstance can imprison you.

D. The enemy deceives, sin confuses, but Christ liberates. So the question is: are you deceived, or are you confused?

E. Our security is not in what we hear from the world, but in the voice of Jesus and in His word.

F. When the days come that seem the hardest in history, learn to worship God in song. If it rains, let it clear; for it will rain, but it will clear.

VIII. Exhort one another daily (Hebrews 3:13)

A. "But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."

B. From mother to child, from father to child: exhort one another. Do not be cowards. "What is wrong? Are you well?" "I am in a struggle." "Then let us pray."

C. Scripture speaks of the deceitfulness of sin because sin looks small or harmless. Deceit promises pleasure or a solution, but it ends by hardening the heart.

D. The great danger is not only sinning, but ceasing to feel conviction: when there is no longer conviction in you and everyone carries you here and there.

E. Hardening is progressive: nobody hardens overnight. It happens when a person ignores God's voice, justifies what is wrong, and grows used to living far from the Lord while appearing to be near.

F. That is why the text stresses "to day": while there is opportunity, one can return to God. But a moment comes when hearts grow so hard that they no longer want to return.

G. When you pray for your children, do it with tears. The power is not in your words: it is when you fall to your knees and cry out to God.

H. The remedy is daily exhortation. God uses the community of faith to guard us, encourage us, correct us in love, and remind us of the truth: no one should walk alone in the spiritual life.

IX. Truth in the inward parts (Psalm 51:6)

A. "Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom."

B. The greatness of God is that He looks at the inside of the heart.

C. This is the psalm where David, after confessing his sin, acknowledges that God is not satisfied with outward appearance —and we are speaking of the great David: composer, king, and warrior honored by God.

D. There are millions of angels writing everything down. Not because God does not know it, but simply so that it stands on record.

X. Application

A. Examine whether you are hiding something on purpose: there are no degrees here, it is deceit, and its fruit is only one.

B. Pray every morning so that your heart does not distort and does not do harm.

C. When someone troubles you, pray first; and if you must speak, speak with truth and with love.

D. Do not bend the reasoning to suit yourself after you have done something.

E. Exhort someone today —while it is called "to day"— in your home or in the church; no one should walk alone.

F. Read the Bible: if you do not know it, you cannot speak the truth nor set anything right in the spiritual realm.