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(12) Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of
you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; (13) but exhort
one another daily, while it is called "Today," lest any of
you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. New
King James Version Change your email Bible version
Hebrews 3:12-13 reveals a worrisome characteristic of sin:
"Beware, 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 'Today,' lest any of you be
hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." Sin is seductive, enticing,
deceitful, and hardening.
Sin's deceitfulness is that it cannot deliver what it promises. It deludes a
person into thinking he can "have it all" or "take it or leave it." It promises
pleasure, contentment, fulfillment, and life, but what it delivers in those
areas is fleeting, which leads to its addictive quality. The pleasure is never
quite enough to produce the desired contentment and fulfillment. Sinners are
forced into greater perversions until it kills them.
Sin offers rationalizations and justifications. It puts on a plausible
appearance and can even seem to be virtuous, as in situation ethics. However,
sin's drug-like quality always demands more because what formerly satisfied no
longer will. The person in its grip gradually becomes its slave, and all along
the way, his heart becomes hardened as well.
In Hebrews 3:13, hardened is translated from the Greek
word for a callus. A callus forms around the break in a bone, on the palms of
hands and on fingers from constant hard use, or in a person's joints, paralyzing
its actions. In a moral context, it suggests "impenetrable," "insensitive,"
"blind," or "unteachable." A hardened attitude is not a sudden aberration but a
habitual state of mind that shows itself in inflexibility of thinking and
insensitivity of conscience. It can eventually make repentance
impossible.
Jeremiah 9:1-5 describes people in this state, so inured, so
enslaved to sin that they weary themselves pursuing and doing it:
Oh, that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might
weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! Oh, that I had in
the wilderness a lodging place for wayfaring men; that I might leave my people,
and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
"And like their bow they have bent their tongues for lies. They are not valiant
for the truth
on the earth. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know Me," says
the LORD.
"Everyone take heed to his neighbor, and do not trust any brother; for every
brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will walk with slanderers.
Everyone will deceive his neighbor, and will not speak the truth; they have
taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit
iniquity."
— John W. Ritenbaugh
To learn more, see:
The Elements of Motivation (Part Seven): Fear of
Judgment
Related Topics:
Addiction to Sin
Addictions
Addictive Quality of Sin
Habits
Habitual Sin
Hardening Hearts
Hardening of Conscience
Sin , Addictive Quality
Sin Destroys the Will
Sin, Deceitfulness of
Sin, Hardening Effects of
Slave of Sin
Spiritual Callus
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