BE NOT DECEIVED: GOD IS NOT MOCKED

"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." — Gal 6:7.

I have a subject and a text tonight that I desire greatly to impress upon your minds and upon your hearts. The text and the subject are very much the same. If I can get you to follow the advice of my text and of my subject, your prosperity and your joy for time and also for eternity are assured. The subject is, "Be not Deceived; God is not mocked." The text you will find in Gal. 6:y, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Let these words sink into your heart, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

Men and women who have been defrauded by sharpers of one kind and another in this city have come to me with sad stories, sometimes heartbreaking stories, of how they have been robbed and defrauded of their all, which oftentimes with toil and pain and self-sacrificing economy they have been saving up for declining years. My blood has boiled against some men in this city, whom I could name, as I have listened; to these stories. I have been able in a few instances to save some poor widows and others out of the clutches of these unprincipled scoundrels. There are some men in this city I wish could be put behind prison bars where they belong. They are meaner than the common thieves and the daring bandits that our police force are now trying to stamp out. But I have especially in mind tonight a gang of crooks that is the most dangerous gang in all the world and they are operating here at the present time. The head of the gang, who keeps himself out of sight, would like to kill me and every man who is trying to expose him, if he could. And he would succeed in killing me only God protects me, and "If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Rom. 8:3i). Who this Gang are, and who the Head of the Gang, who keeps under cover and tries to hide his identity, is, will develop as we go on..

I. The World's History is a History of Deception

The first thing I have to call your attention to tonight is, that the history of this old world in which you and I live has been a history of deception from its very beginning to the present day. The first man and woman who ever lived upon this earth were deceived, deceived by the Devil, and they lost Eden, and were driven out of that matchlessly beautiful home to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow amid thorns and briars and sickness and death, and they would have been lost eternally had not God stepped in with His mercy and grace and pardoning love. They were deceived by the Devil. He got them to believe that God's Word was not true, to believe his word rather than God's Word, to believe that God's Word was not inspired and literally true, that it did not mean exactly what it said; and so they lost all. Well, it has gone on that way from that day to this; only it has grown worse, far worse in recent days. The Devil has tried to deceive every man that has lived on the face of this earth and he has succeeded pretty well with most of us, and in just so far as he has succeeded there has been sorrow and pain and loss and anguish; and oftentimes, when men's eyes have not been opened in time, eternal ruin. There is not a man or woman here tonight who has not at some time in their life been the victim of the Devil's deception, and how we have suffered by it.

I. How often the Devil has persuaded us that we could do wrong and gain something by it. We knew better and yet somehow we let Satan pull the wool over our eyes and we did the wrong act; and how bitterly we have repented of it, how we have suffered for it, what would we not give if we could take that wrong act back and undo the mischief we have done.

I remember a young man I met one night in an after-meeting. He was almost in despair. He had been walking the streets of a great city. He had been tempted to do wrong. He knew better. But the Devil deceived him, and he scarcely stopped to think and before he came to himself the act was done, and then the enormity of it came before him. He thought of his mother, he thought of the lovely girl in another city to whom he was engaged, he thought of God, for he was a professing Christian; and he was crushed. It was awful to see the way that fine young fellow suffered, suffered because he had allowed himself to be deceived. The way some men and women have sobbed as they have told me how they had been robbed of everything by land sharks and crooks of one kind and another in this city, was nothing to the way that brokenhearted young man sobbed because he had let the Devil deceive him and lead him into that awful sin.

I remember a young woman who allowed the Devil and one of his representatives in the form of a good-looking and gifted but unprincipled man to deceive her. She too did not stop to think until the deed was done; and then she did think and she was almost crazed with shame. And then the Devil stepped in again and said to her, "there is no remedy" — and that was a worse lie than the first one, for there was a remedy in the pardoning love of God and the atoning and cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. But the Devil said, "there is no remedy," and the poor girl believed him and sent a bullet whizzing through her maddened brain and sent herself to hell to spend eternity with the scoundrel who had deceived her.

One of the things that impresses me most as I move about from city to city and watch what is going on and as I listen to the stories of sin and sorrow that people come to me to pour into my ears, and as I read the papers is, how easily men and women are deceived by their fellow men and how easily they are deceived by the Devil. I ask many a man and woman who come to me and tell of their folly and its consequences, "How could you have done it? Why didn't you know better?" And they shake their heads and say, "I don't know. I don't understand it myself. I did know better. I was deceived." Oh let us ask God to keep His Words ringing in our hearts day and night "Be not deceived," "Be not deceived," "Be Not Deceived." There is many and many a man in this house tonight who knows as he listens to my words that he is being deceived. There is many a woman here tonight who knows she is being deceived, being deceived by the great arch enemy of our souls, being deceived by the Devil, being deceived to your present misery and to your eternal ruin. Why then do you allow yourself to be deceived? Why do you continue to allow yourself to be deceived? Do you not know what the final end is? It is hell and everlasting hell unless you wake up and repent.

"Oh," some of you say, "I do not believe there is any Devil." Well that is where you are being deceived the very worst way. The apostle Peter knew what he was talking about when he said, "Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." (i Pet. 5:8.) And there is not anyone of whom he makes a quicker meal than the one who thinks "there isn't any lion around." The apostle Paul knew what he was talking about when he wrote, "Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Eph. 6:11,12.) And there is no one the Devil gets a better strangle hold upon and downs quicker than the one who thinks there is no Devil to wrestle with. The Lord Jesus Christ knew what he was talking about when he taught us to pray to our Father in heaven to "deliver us from the Evil one" (Matt. 6:13 R. V.). "Be not deceived," young man. "Be not deceived," young woman.

2. The Devil not only deceives us by persuading us that we can do wrong and gain something by it, but he deceives us by persuading us that certain things are not wrong, that in our inmost hearts we know are wrong.

How many young people there are tonight, people of decent parentage at that, who have been led in the last twelve months here in Los Angeles to do things that they once abhorred and that every really decent man and woman abhors still. Some of you are here tonight. Do not get up and go out or you will expose yourself to everyone here. You do not wish to do that and I certainly do not wish you to. Just sit still and listen. Do not giggle, either, for nothing gives a guilty man or woman away so quickly as a guilty giggle. Why do you now do these awful things you once so wisely abhorred? I will tell you why. It is because the Devil whispers, "there is no harm in it. It is all right. You are an old fogy puritan to fancy it is wrong," or he says, "Well, the circumstances in your case are very peculiar. Of course it would be wrong under ordinary circumstances but not in your circumstances." And you suffer the voice of conscience and the voice of God's Word and the voice of the Holy Spirit, yes and the voice of self-respect and the voice of common decency to be silenced and you do the foul and wicked thing, and then you wake up to the horror of what you have done; or it may be, worse yet, you now set your heart in sin and go on and on and on and on — whither? into Hell.

If I could only tell you what a broken-hearted mother told me only three Sunday nights ago right here in this auditorium as to what her daughter had said to her in trying to explain her shocking conduct, many of you would be startled and shocked. And some of you would have to say, "Yes that is my case too." Oh, the way the Devil is deceiving a multitude of young men and young women in our city is appalling.

How many the Devil is deceiving today by saying, "There is nothing wrong in a glass of wine"; "There is nothing wrong in being free with persons of the opposite sex"; there is nothing wrong in going to see the movies that are full of impure suggestions; there is nothing wrong in dances, of a character that a few years ago would not have been tolerated except among professionally bad women and morally rotten men; there is nothing wrong in games that lead straight to the gaming table and a gambler's ruin; there is nothing wrong in using the Lord's Day for pleasure-seeking and to the neglect of that never-dying soul that you are educating for an eternal heaven or for an eternal hell." There is nothing wrong in the one thousand and one things that in your best moments you see are gateways to hell. "Be Not Deceived." How these startling and arousing words of God need to be emphasized and dinned into the ears of a multitude of foolish men and women in our day, "Be not deceived."

II. We Cannot Mock God

At the foundation of all of Satan's deceptions is the thought that we can mock God, that we can turn up our noses at God (that is the exact force of the word translated "mocked" in our text) , that we can sneer at God, that we can deride God, that we can get the laugh on God, that we can deceive God, that we can treat God and His Word and His laws with contempt, and yet prosper. It is a blasphemous, an outrageously blasphemous thought. But many of you here entertain it, though you probably have never put it into words; but you are acting on that foolish, wicked thought every day that you live, the thought that you can somehow outwit God.

When for example anyone fancies that he can do wrong and gain anything by it, he is trying to mock God, he is turning up his nose at God. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked." Men disobey God and yet seem to prosper; but wait, just wait. God is never in a hurry but God always gains the day. Men and women, if there is any point upon which you cannot afford to be deceived, it is this: You cannot mock God, you cannot overreach God, you cannot deceive God, you cannot get the best of God. The biggeset fool in the universe is the man who- thinks he can fool God. Yet there are many fools of that sort. There are many in this house tonight.

Let us consider some of those who are trying to mock God, to deceive God, to get the best of God, to turn up their nose at God.

I . First of all, the man who thinks he can do wrong and gain by it is trying to mock God, to get the best of God. God is a God of infinite holiness, perfect justice and inviolable law. And it is God's inviolable law that whoever sins shall suffer, "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." From the creation of this world down to the present day there has never been one single sin that paid, not one. There has never been one single sin small or great that did not bring loss to the sinner. The law that whosoever puts his hand into the fire shall get burned is not so sure and inexorable as the law that whosoever sins must suffer. Young man you are contemplating a sin tonight; commit it, and you will pay the penalty, you cannot escape it. There is not power enough on earth or in hell to protect any sinner from suffering loss by his own sin, and by his every sin. You can escape some human courts. No man or woman or angel or devil can escape the penalty of God's every day court of inexorable justice that sees to it that every sinner, great or small, rich or poor, pays an adequate penalty for every sin he commits. It is as certain that every sin any man or woman commits shall cost the sinner an adequate penalty of loss and suffering of one kind or another as that a stone dropped from a height will fall toward the earth. Perhaps in an hour, perhaps in a week, perhaps in a year, perhaps not for years, but sooner or later you will pay for every sin you commit. Now if in the light of that absolutely certain fact you commit the sin that you are contemplating tonight, you are a hopeless fool. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

2. In the second place: The man or woman who tries to hide from God the sin which they have already committed is trying to mock God. You cannot do it. "Be sure your sin will find you out" (Num. 32 123 ) . Men may not find you out, but God will. He sees the sin: you cannot hide it from Him. It is not only written in God's Book; it is also written in universal experience, "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper" (Prov. 28:13). The sinner may hide his sin from the eye of man but he cannot hide it from the all-seeing eye of God. Therefore, every sin brings with it in due time its proper harvest. Do you wish to know the secret of the failure and the wretchedness in your life? I will tell you. The sin you are trying to hide from God.

How well King David seemed to cover up his sin. The only man who would know of it and would call him to account for it was dead and buried; and King David thought that the knowledge of his sin was buried too and that he could rest easy now. But no! God knew of the sin and David knew of the sin; and there was no rest for him, no indeed, only utter wretchedness in his heart. David wrote the story of it in later life. He said, "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture was changed as with the drought of summer" (Ps. 32:3, 4).

I know a woman who had sinned and she succeeded in hiding her sin from every human eye. No one knew it, not one; only she herself AND GOD. It haunted her, it hunted her, it drove her from place to place, from city to city, from land to land. It caused . her years and years of agony, nearly fifteen years in all, fifteen years of hell on earth, until she confessed it to me and to God and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, and found full pardon and perfect peace. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked."

3. In the third place; Men think that they can mock God, that they can sneer at God, that they can outwit God, that they can circumvent God, that they can turn up their nose at God, by questioning or denying or ridiculing His Word. Quote the Bible to some men, read God's commandments and God's warnings against sin and what God says about judgment and eternity to some men and they will laugh at it and at you. But listen, "God is not mocked." Pharaoh did the same thing. When Moses declared the Word of Jehovah to him he replied, "Who is Jehovah that I should hearken unto his voice and let Israel go? I know not Jehovah and moreover I will not let Israel go." But Pharaoh found out who Jehovah was, and he also found out that God's Word was sure. God kept every word of warning. And you too may laugh at God's Word and sneer at the one who believes in verbal inspiration and the literal accuracy of the Word of God; you may laugh at the stern warnings of this book as to the eternal destruction of the one who rejects Jesus Christ or refuses to confess Him before the world, but you too will find out who the God of the Bible is, and you will find out that every word in this Book is true and every warning sure. If you do not find it out in the life that now is you will find it out in Hell; find it out when it is too late to repent.

The men before the flood ridiculed the warnings God gave through Noah. They laughed at the Word of God. But God was not mocked. He kept His Word to the letter. The flood came and carried them all away.

The sons-in-law of Lot down in Sodom laughed at God's Word. God's warnings through Lot to his sons-in-law seemed as idle tales ("folklore" our "modern scholars" would call them). God's warnings seemed to them a huge joke, just as the warnings of God do today to many a hardened sinner and many a boastful infidel and many a "liberal preacher." But Lot's sons-in-law found out God was not mocked. God kept His Word. Sodom was destroyed and Lot's sons-in-law in it and with it.

The Jews of Jeremiah's time mocked at God's Word. They ridiculed the warnings of God's faithful messenger, Jeremiah. All their "leading scholars" scoffed at the predictions that God made through Jeremiah. False prophets arose and preached a "more liberal" and a pleasanter and "more philosophical" theology. They told the people that Jerusalem would not be taken and destroyed. They were "the scholarly men" and "the leading theologians" of the day and the mass of the people believed them and laughed at God's Word and at His faithful messenger. But God was not mocked. History tells us that God kept His word, that Jerusalem was destroyed and sacked, that King Zedekiah was taken, and his sons were slain before his eyes and that then his own eyes were put out, all just as God had said it would be. It all came out just as God by His servant Jeremiah had said it would. God's "historical interpretation" of His own Word was an exactly "literal interpretation."

The men of our Lord Jesus Christ's own time ridiculed the Word of God as spoken by our Lord Himself. They scoffed at the idea that judgment would come upon the apostate nation, that Jerusalem and the temple would be destroyed, and that they should perish miserably. Yes, they scoffed at all His loving but stern words and they nailed our Lord Himself to the cross for making them in His great love for them. The voice of warning was hushed in death, — but "God was not mocked." God kept His word to the very letter. History outside of the Bible tells us that God kept His word with fearful thoroughness and "literality." Jerusalem was surrounded by the armies of Rome just as Jesus Christ said it would be. Jerusalem and the magnificent temple were razed to the ground just as God through Jesus Christ said it would be. Starvation stalked the streets and the streets ran with blood in the most awful siege of all human history, just as God through the Lord Jesus Christ said it would be. More than a million people perished in that siege and the Jewish leaders hung on crosses in the hills around about the city. No, God was not mocked. They reaped what they had sown. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Oh, you men who call yourselves skeptics and infidels and "advanced scholars" and "New Theology" men and "Modernists," you men who question this Book and question and deny and even ridicule its warnings of coming doom, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked." History proves it. God's Word has been questioned over and over again. Very specious arguments have been brought against it over and over again. Men o*f influence and brains and eloquence have derided it, over and over again. All so-called "Scholarship" has been against it over and over again. But God's Word has never failed; and it never will. Every word of God regarding judgment upon individuals and upon nations up to the present moment has been kept, kept to the last letter. And do you think God will not keep His word in times yet to come concerning those who reject Jesus Christ today to the last letter? He kept His word about Tyre. He kept His word about Babylon. He kept His word about Nineveh. He kept His word about Jerusalem. He kept His word about Greece. He kept His word about Persia. He kept His word about the Roman Empire. He kept His word about the Jew. Look into the Bible and see what God says and then look into history and see what history tells us God has done; and you will find that the Bible and History exactly match. God has kept His word, His word as found in this book, about all these nations, and will He not keep His word regarding us? What is His word regarding us? Listen, "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with the angels of his power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus; who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of His might" (2 Thess. 1:7-9). That is God's word. Do you doubt whether God will keep it? "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

What then shall we do? In the light of these plain statements of God's Word and these undeniable facts of history demonstrating the absolute certainty and Inerrancy and literal accuracy of God's Word there is only one thing for any really intelligent man or woman to do. That is to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior at once. Surrender absolutely to Him as your Lord and Master at once. Begin to confess Him as your Lord before the world at once. Who will do it now?