Sin Always Lies
From Gospel Translations
By John Piper About Christian Hedonism
Audio Transcript
All sin is a lie. Therefore, nothing is more preferable than God. Or, since nothing is more preferable than God, sin — which is believing that something is more preferable than God — is always a lie. Because nothing is more desirable than God. Nothing. If you are lured, if you’re being lured into believing that something is more desirable than God, you are in sin.
When that deceit of sin insinuates itself into the human heart, one description of what happens as the deceit starts going into the heart is hardness happens. As the deceit starts, like tentacles going into the heart, lying to the heart, the heart begins to embrace the lie. What happens is hardness.
What’s that mean? What is that image supposed to do? I think it means, not easily touched, not easily penetrated by the truth and the beauty and the worth of Jesus. Jesus presents himself, and just ricochets off your heart: “The videos are so unbelievably compelling and money is so compelling, sex is so compelling, and power’s so compelling, and wanting to be better than somebody’s so compelling.”
The compelling power of alternatives to God are a reflection of how hard your heart has become to seeing, feeling, being penetrated by the superior beauty and worth of Jesus.