Eight Ways of Deceiving Ourselves - Part 6

In fact, we'd stop everything else and wash that off before we proceed. But he says, if you look at God's Word, which is a mirror, I mean, right now, for example, as you hear God's Word, you're standing in front of a big mirror. You're seeing yourself.

It's like an x-ray machine, which is, you know, I've seen certain x-ray machines where you go and stand in front of it and you can actually see your bones and all that. It's like that. What's happening right now? You're standing in front of God's Word and you're seeing your insides.

And if you see something is wrong and you ignore it, and you go home and you don't set it right, you're deceiving yourself. It says here, you're deceiving yourself, thinking that you're going to get anywhere. But the person who does, who deals with that problem, it says, that person, an effectual doer, verse 25, last part, will be blessed.

Two people can hear and one person does and the other person doesn't do. For example, right now, all of you are hearing, at least I think you are, and I think you're understanding as well, but how do I know how many of you are going to go and do? I don't know. Whether you will do what you heard.

When you go home tomorrow, sometimes I've said to people, you need to go and ask somebody's forgiveness because you've hurt someone. You don't do it. It's up to you.

You know, the way some believers behave when they hurt somebody, they're too proud to apologize and say, I'm sorry I did that wrong. They just go and be nice to them and act as if nothing has happened. I mean, that's something like I steal somebody's money or I borrow some money from someone and I don't return it.

And I just go and act nice to them and say, hi, good to see you and all that type of stuff. It's a deception. If you hurt somebody, you're in debt to that person.

You've stolen something from him. You've stolen his dignity. You've stolen his reputation.

And you don't return it? You're a thief. How can you act as if nothing has happened? God sees who goes and does something about it. Some people just don't do anything.

Hearers. Many, many hearers. That's the other ones whom Satan is just watching for.

Who are the ones who just hear and don't do anything about it? Those are the ones I can get. So be a doer, brother, sister. Then number 7. That's in verse 26 of James 1. If anyone thinks he's very spiritual and he doesn't control his tongue, he cannot control his tongue.

He is deceiving himself. His religion is worthless. Supposing you come to every meeting you say you're filled with the Holy Spirit speaking in tongues and all that.

You know the Bible well and you do a lot of good, give for missionary work and very active in the church. And at home you cannot control your tongue with your wife or your husband. Your entire Christianity is worth one big zero.

How many people believe that? I'd say 99.9% of believers I have met in my life don't believe it. They think I'm doing such a lot of good things for the Lord. I've got this small weakness, I can't control my tongue.

What do you mean small weakness? That makes your entire Christianity zero. It's not a small weakness. It's zero.

All the other things count for nothing. Here is where you slip up. Because the mark of a spiritual man is that he can control his tongue.

Not that he's very active in preaching and giving money and doing that. No. See what it says in chapter 3 middle of verse 2 If anyone does not stumble in his speech he's a perfect man.

If you could find someone whose speech was perfect, that's a perfect man. So perfection is perfection in speech. That's how I know I'm pressing on to perfection.

We have this verse up in front. Let's press on to perfection. That means little by little by little.

I don't get there overnight. It's a huge Mount Everest to have to climb. But little by little I climb it and it's the way I find greater control over my tongue.

I found that in my own life. Greater control over my tongue. Greater control over the words I speak to people.

Or the words I write to people. Greater control. That means I think about what I say.

The Bible says a fool utters whatever is in his mind. As soon as it comes to his mind it flows out through his mouth. There's no filter there.

We should not speak everything that comes to our mind. A wise man thinks about some thoughts coming to his mind. It may be from the devil.

I can't just speak it. It may be from himself. He thinks about it.

Can I speak that? And he says no. Or maybe he thinks about it again and again and again. And he says no, I don't think I should speak that.

And he doesn't speak it at all. Or he purges it. Many letters I've written maybe 20 times before I mailed it.

Because I want to be careful what I say. The Bible says in the multitude of words there'll always be sin. And you'll always find that those who talk a lot they sin a lot.

It's true. There's a saying in the world if you keep your mouth shut they may think you're a fool. But if you open your mouth too much you may remove all doubt from their minds.

That you are a fool. We must be restrained in our speech. James 1 says be slow to speak and quick to hear.

Okay, the last one, number 8 is in 1 John chapter 1 and verse 8. If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves. What does that mean? To say I have no sin. Not saying I have not sinned.

None of us will say I have not sinned. That's another point in verse 10. That's another subject.

We all say we have sinned so we don't come under verse 10. This is verse 8 where I think well I have no sin. That means I'm okay.

You know you can have a conflict with somebody and you think the fault is entirely the other person's. He did this and he did that and he did the other thing, he did the other thing. What about you? Can't think of anything I did.

That's the attitude. If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves. It's always good to recognize that there's always the possibility of selfishness in our actions and in our words and it's good for us to humble ourselves and say Lord as long as I live on this earth I carry with me a flesh in which dwells nothing good.

So I have the possibility of sinning every moment. May not be consciously but I can hurt people unconsciously. Think you husbands and wives if you'll always remember.

You can hurt each other unconsciously. Brothers you can hurt each other without knowing it. Sisters you can hurt each other without knowing it.

The humble person will recognize that. The proud person says no, no, no I'm okay. Such a person is self-deceived and he's a target for Satan to deceive of her.

So if we keep these things in mind we can be protected and we can be saved from that deception that's going to come all over the earth. Let's pray.