Proverbs 11:3: Self Deception

Self-Deception as Sin’s Inner Destruction

We're continuing in our study of the book of Proverbs, and this is actually lesson number 38, and the title of it is Your Worst Nightmare. We're working our way systematically through Proverbs, and just by way of review a little bit, what we're doing is we're pausing at each theme, because the themes are repetitious as we go through the book, and so you might have one theme shown in several different chapters, and that's what we're doing.

So we're pausing at each theme we come to, and this morning we're addressing the topic of self-deception. What we're really looking at is the true character of sin, and one of the things that is a hallmark for sin, and one of the reasons why it's so tempting is because it is, in fact, self-deceptive.

Our beginning text is Proverbs 11 .3, the integrity of the upright will guide them, but the falseness of the treacherous will destroy them. Notice the falseness of the treacherous will destroy them. Keep that verse in mind as we go through this.

There's a line that is used quite often in action movies, and that's how we got the title I'm Your Worst Nightmare. I mean, you can just picture Sylvester Stallone, you know, standing over somebody with his weapon saying, I'm your worst nightmare.

Or Clint Eastwood, or Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis. And of course, the purpose of that is it's meant to instill fear or dread in the individual, in the victim, if you will. The thought being is that the villain is about to inflict pain that is worse than anything you can imagine.

But the wisdom of Proverbs disagrees. The proverb before us this morning indicates that man is his own worst nightmare. You want to see your worst nightmare? Just look in the mirror. You're your own worst nightmare.

Look again at Proverbs 11 .3. The integrity of the upright will guide them, but the falseness of the treacherous will destroy them. Notice carefully the wording. It doesn't say that the sin of a man will lead him to actions that will destroy him.

Doesn't say that. You can imply, infer it from it. But it's his falseness. His sin itself is self-destructive. It doesn't necessarily lead to self-destructive, but sin in itself is self-destructive.

So it's not the temptation from the outside or someone else that leads a person to destruction.

Okay?

And that's an important distinction to make. And we'll follow up on that in a few minutes. The destruction of a man comes from within. In other words, a man is his own worst nightmare. Now last month, our study was titled When Pride Comes.

If you remember, we discussed the insidiousness of pride, and we saw that pride is at the very core of all sin. At the root of it, we're thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. We're looking to please ourselves, and that's what leads to sin more than any other reason.

Pride comes when we take away our trust from God and put it in ourselves. And so we begin to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. Granted, we have temptation from the devil. We have temptation from the world.

But ultimately, it's the sin within us that brings us down, because sin is deceptive by its very nature. Therefore, our sin is self-deceptive. And we're going to start right at the very beginning and look at Adam and Eve as our model for how this works.

Remember, the serpent came to Eve. Eve is in the garden. The serpent comes, and there's no question the serpent was cunning. He was crafty. He was manipulative. He was deceptive, all right? But notice something important in the text.

All of his devices were external. He didn't control Eve's mind. He didn't get inside of her and take control of her central nervous system, all right? Eve's problem, ultimately, was not Satan. It was her own thought process.

She thought she needed something other than what God had provided to make her happy. My brother-in-law, who was a biblical counselor for over 30 years, did a youth retreat for us. And I'll never forget his initial opening statement was, the number one problem we have is the way we think.

And as a man thinks within himself, so is, he says, the book of Proverbs. Eve deceived herself. Granted, the external catalyst was the words of the serpent, but Eve deceived herself. She sinned the moment she began to think her own selfish thoughts and not godly thoughts.

Remember, sin begins where? In the heart. It's not, somebody can't force you to sin unless it's already in your heart. In other words, she began to think in a satanic way. We don't like to talk in terms like this because it makes us sound too extreme.

But you have godly thinking or you have satanic thinking, that's the bottom line. Because we're told in scripture that the wisdom of the world is in fact demonic. James 3, 14 to 18. But if you have bitter jealousy, selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth.

This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. Notice what he's saying. He's talking about the selfish ambition, bitter jealousy from within your heart. And what does he talk, how does he call it, how does he categorize it?

Earthly, but natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exists, there is disorder in every evil thing. The way you think determines what you do. And Eve is a classic case of self-deceptive thinking.

She had a personal relationship with the creator God. Just think about that, a perfect relationship. Sin was not there. She walked with him, had communion with him. Yet she chose to believe the serpent, a created being.

And mankind is guilty of this throughout history, even today. Eve's view of the world became distorted. She really believed that eating the fruit would make her wise as God. Now, just think about something.

Think about what is going on in our society today and tell me that this world is not self-deceived. I mean, it's... I keep saying it and I know it's redundant. But when I was a kid growing up, we never would have believed that the things that we're seeing today would be accepted as the norm.

At the time she ate the fruit, Eve had convinced herself, she really believed that she would be happier by eating it. She believed the lie. She abandoned her godly worldview and acted on another worldview.

She chose a worldview that denied the word of God and the power of God. And her actions were consistent with her thinking when she ate the fruit. She was very consistent. Once she had abandoned godly truth, everything that followed was consistent.

She wasn't acting apart from her thoughts. She was just following through on what she had accepted to be true. And that's what happens every time you abandon the word of God. You abandon the word of God, accept the lie of the world, and then you will follow yourself very consistently.

She didn't believe there would be consequences. God had made it very clear that there would be... What did God say? In the day you eat of it, you shall die. And what did Satan say?

You won't.

Who did she believe? She obviously didn't believe she would die because at this point, you know, she wasn't suffering from some sort of mental delusion, you know, or spiritual depression. She just simply adopted the lie.

She believed the lie. She was deceived. Remember Haman? We're going to look at two examples today. First is Adam and Eve, and we'll refer to him again later. But remember Haman. Everybody remember who Haman was?

King Ahasuerus had taken Esther as his queen. Haman was his number one guy. And Haman hated the Jews, but especially Mordecai. Mordecai was his bitter enemy. He hated him with a passion. Haman was self-deceived because he believed that he had the heart of the king and queen.

He believed that he could do virtually anything or ask the king anything, and he would get it. He had deceived himself as to his own self-importance, and so he acted consistently with his beliefs. He constantly was doing things to antagonize the king against the Jews and specifically against Mordecai.

But at each turn, he was foiled. His thinking was wrong. He thought that he had the king's heart when in fact he didn't have the king's heart at all. He had deceived himself, and he had deceived himself of his own self-importance.

If there's ever a classic example of somebody whose own self-importance led them astray, it's Haman. He thought he could do anything and get away with it. And what happened? His own actions proved to be his destruction.

And we'll talk a little bit more about him in a few moments. I just put this in here for a moment of self-reflection. Ask yourself this question. Are you deceiving yourself in any area of life? Are you living according to a worldview that denies the word of God and the power of God?

You can be a professing Christian and still accept a worldview that is not consistent with the scripture. Have you tasted the fruit? Oh, just one little bite is all it takes. Have you ever yielded, compromised on your convictions?

Because, well, it's only this one time, or it's only a little, just a little taste of the fruit. That's all it took. Is your life one that is more consistent with the secular worldview? Proverbs 11 .5.

The righteousness of the blameless will smooth his way, but the wicked will fall by his own wickedness. I love the wording of Proverbs. It's so practical. The righteousness of the blameless will smooth your way, but the wicked will fall by his own wickedness.

Proverbs 11 .27. He who diligently seeks good seeks favor, but he who searches after evil, it will come to him, and not necessarily in the way you expect. To rephrase that proverb, you will get what you seek, but it may not be what you expect.

Haman was seeking his own self-worth, his own self-glory. Did he get it? Oh, he got what he asked for, but it wasn't what he was expecting. Proverbs 11 .6. The righteousness of the upright will deliver them, but the treacherous will be caught by their own greed.

How many times have we seen that? How many successful, quote, successful, unquote, people have you seen in the newspaper riding the wave at the top of the world, and then what's happened? Their fall is great.

The higher you go, the farther you fall. And we've seen that. How many times in our society have we seen people risen to the top, only to fall? But sin is not only self-deceptive, it's self-defeating.

Why is it self-defeating? Because a self-deceived person doesn't see the consequences of his actions. Proverbs 11 .17. The merciful man does himself good, but the cruel man does himself harm. Now again, this is in the long run.

The cruel man thinks that he's got things under his control. He can be cruel without consequence, but he always winds up coming down on his head. And of course, if not in this world, then the next will be even worse.

And this bears repeating. I just had this on the slide before. But the self-deceived will get what he seeks, but it won't be what he expects. Eve thought that the fruit would make her happy, wealthy, healthy, and wise.

Where have we heard that type of thinking? Substantively from within the church. But that's what Eve thought. Instead, it brought a curse. Eve was so deceived that she thought that what she thought would be a great victory was actually the greatest defeat.

She was created to be a helper to Adam, and she became a hindrance instead. However, since this is men's breakfast, I could have just left it at that and puffed you guys up a little bit. Yeah, it's Eve, it's that woman you gave me.

But remember, Adam was not blameless in all of this. It is called the sin of Adam, not the sin of Eve. This was not just Eve's defeat. Adam failed as well. Genesis 3, 6. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate it, and she gave also to her husband.

And look at this. With her, and he ate. I know, it's funny, when I was growing up, and I grew up in the church, we were always taught that Eve took the fruit and then she had to go get her husband and give him some of the fruit as well.

But the scripture clearly shows that, no, while all of this is going on, Adam was there with her. And that was his downfall, because Adam was the leader. And he should have done right then and there what the second Adam did, and that's crush the serpent's head.

It would have been justified to take a club and just beat that serpent, chase him out of the garden, or even kill him. Adam was self-deceived, and he received the due consequences of his action, as well as his sinful action of eating the fruit.

Again, it was two prongs there. His own thought life, allowing his wife to speak to the serpent, and in fact, allowing the serpent to speak to his wife in that manner, and then he actually took the fruit and ate it himself.

So he's guilty on two charges. Adam and Eve were given the mission to guard and to tend the garden. They were also given the task to protect the garden. They failed at both and were defeated, self-defeating, and they suffered the consequence for their sin.

Back to Haman. Haman was defeated as well. Haman had convinced the king that the Jews were his enemies. He plotted to have the Jews annihilated and for Mordecai to be hanged on a special gallows constructed just for him.

Can you imagine? Just pause for that for a moment. Imagine the hatred that this man had for Mordecai. Just any gallows weren't good enough. I'm sure the king had all kinds of ways of putting people to death, but Haman so hated Mordecai that he had gallows built especially just for Mordecai.

There is a hatred that grows from the heart. Haman was self-assured, self-confident, and self-deceived, and he was so consumed with himself that he didn't understand the reality of the situation. Here's where self-deception leads to self-defeat.

He was so convinced of his position that he didn't see it as it really was. So Queen Esther intercedes on behalf of her people, and Haman's true character is revealed to the king, and he's hanged on the same gallows he had built for Mordecai.

What do they call that? Poetic justice? His own wickedness was his defeat. Proverbs 21 .7, the violence of the wicked will drag them away because they refuse to act with justice. Notice how many different Proverbs deal with this same subject, and they're all basically saying the same thing just with different nuance to it.

Proverbs 22 .5, thorns and sneers are in the way of the perverse. He who guards himself will be far from them. Thorns and sneers. Where have we heard that language before? Could it be in the garden? The wicked will continue to reap the curse of Adam and Eve.

Why? Because sin is self-defeating, and a man's own sin will come back on him. Proverbs 22... I'm sorry, Proverbs 29 .6, by transgression an evil man is ensnared, but the righteous sings and rejoices.

Two completely opposite pictures of the type of person. An evil man, ensnared. He's trapped. The righteous sings and rejoices. Proverbs 26 .27, he who digs a pit will fall into it, and he who rolls a stone, it will come back on him.

These are Proverbs that are telling us this is the way it is. This is the way God's world works. You can't expect to sin with impunity and not have consequences for it. Galatians 6 .7, do not be deceived, God is not mocked.

For whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. Over and over again. It's not just Proverbs. But the deception goes even further. The self-deceived always blame others for their problems. It's never my fault.

Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent. In the end, the sinner always blames God. Proverbs 19 .3, the foolishness of man subverts his way, and his heart rages against the Lord. Realize that when Adam said, it's the woman you gave me, he was blaming God.

When Eve blamed the serpent, she was blaming God. Ultimately, it always comes back to God. Do you realize that when you go through a tough time, you ever said, why me, God? You're blaming God. You need to be careful.

But the deception goes even further. The self-deceiver always plays the if-only game. If only I had a different wife. If only I had a different job. If only I had more money. If only this was different, or if only that was different.

If only, if only, if only. We can have only for all that we want. That's always just blaming God. Blaming God is the highest degree of self-deception. Especially if you're a believer, because what is the promise of God?

The promise of God is that even the tough times, even the worst of times, will work out for your good. So when you say, if only I had this, or if only this didn't happen, you're saying, God, you don't know what you're doing.

But sin doesn't stop with self-deception and self-defeat. Unrepentant sin ends in self-destruction. Adam and Eve were cursed by God. They reaped the consequences of their own sin. Their end was their own doing.

They could not blame God. The curse that came upon them was from their own actions, their own thinking, apart from God. They were clearly told not to eat of the tree. There was no confusion. Eve even relayed pretty accurately to the serpent.

No, we're told not to eat of this fruit. They deceived themselves and believed a lie. And they did die, spiritually, covenantally, and eventually physically. Their deception had consequences even beyond themselves, as we all know.

How about the fate of Haman? The self-confident, self-assured Haman's true character was revealed to the king, and he was hanged on the very gallows he had built for Mordecai. Proverbs 11 .3, integrity of the upright will guide them, but the falseness of the treacherous will destroy them.

Haman's sin destroyed him. The sinner walks in self-deception. He believes he's on his way to happiness. Proverbs 11 .5, righteousness of the blameless will smooth his way, but the wicked will fall by his own wickedness.

And ultimately, his own sin destroys him. Proverbs 11, I'm sorry, Proverbs 14 .12, there is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. Questions or thoughts? It's a pretty bleak picture for someone who deceives themselves, isn't it?

Any thoughts? So much for blaming somebody else for our problems. Proverbs makes this very clear. Somebody comes up... Do you realize how many people are built by scam artists, lose money? Happens every day.

And they always blame the scammer. When who is really at fault? Scams only work on dishonest people. If you're honest, nobody can scam you. Self-destruction is the result of self-deception and self-defeating philosophy.

Final thoughts or comments? Okay, Pastor Chris, would you close us in a word of prayer?