The first envelope Rakiya ever received at work, she gave back.
She had been posted to a federal ministry in Abuja as a desk officer, processing payment files for contractors. A man whose file she had moved through the system in the ordinary way came to her office afterwards, smiled, and laid a brown envelope on her desk. “Just to say thank you, madam.” Rakiya pushed it back across the desk so fast that it slid off the edge. She went to the ladies’ room afterwards and found that her hands were shaking. She was a Sunday school teacher. She had been raised in a home in Kaduna where her father prayed over every meal.
A colleague who had seen it took her aside later that afternoon. “My sister, you embarrassed that man. It is not a bribe. You did not ask him for anything. You had already done the work. It is appreciation. That is our culture.”
The second envelope came at Christmas, wrapped inside a hamper with a bottle of drink and a carton of juice. She kept the hamper and meant to return the envelope. It stayed in her drawer for three weeks, and then her son’s school fees were due.
After that, the envelopes became ordinary. And over the next four years, without ever making a single dramatic decision, Rakiya changed. She began to notice which contractors “appreciated” and which did not. She found that the files of those who did not somehow drifted to the bottom of the pile. She began to tell people that a file was “a bit heavy” when it was not heavy at all. She had learned a whole vocabulary: appreciation, PR, settlement, something for the weekend. Every word in it was gentle.
Then one evening her ten-year-old daughter was doing her Civic Education homework at the dining table, and she looked up with her pencil in her mouth. “Mummy, if someone gives you money after you help them, and you would not have helped them so fast if they did not give you the money, is that a bribe?”
Rakiya opened her mouth to explain the difference. And she found that she could not.
Sin that lies to you
The letter to the Hebrews contains a warning that describes Rakiya’s four years with uncomfortable accuracy:
Take heed, 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 To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
The writer is addressing “brethren,” believers. He has just reminded them of Israel in the wilderness, a generation that had seen God’s power at the Red Sea and still hardened their hearts and failed to enter the promised land. He does not want his readers to drift the same way.
Notice the phrase “the deceitfulness of sin.” The word is apate, which means deception, trickery, a lie that leads astray. Sin does not simply tempt. It lies. It tells you that what you are doing is not really what it is. It renames itself. It explains itself. It assures you that you are still the same person you always were, even while it is changing you.
And notice what deceitful sin produces: hardening. The word is skleruno, from which we get sclerosis, the hardening of tissue in the body. Hardening does not happen in a day. It is a slow process in which something that was soft and responsive gradually becomes stiff and unfeeling. The first envelope made Rakiya’s hands shake. Four years later, she could take one without a flicker.
Sincere believers hold different views on what the warnings in Hebrews finally imply, and this is not the place to settle that debate. But all should agree that the warnings are real and are addressed to real believers. The writer is not describing something that only happens to other people. He says, “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you.”
The remedy he gives is striking. “But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day.” The word exhort means to come alongside, to encourage, to urge. The defence against the deceitfulness of sin is community, far more than private willpower: other believers speaking truth into your life, regularly, before the hardening sets in. And the urgency is in the word To day. The writer quotes Psalm 95 more than once: “To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (Hebrews 3:15). Conviction has a shelf life. The time to respond to it is while it is still clear.
PunchlineSin does not only tempt; it deceives. It renames itself and explains itself away, and the time to answer conviction is today, while it is still clear.
Small permissions
Compromise rarely begins with a large step. It begins with a small permission, a decision that seems reasonable at the time. The story of Lot shows how it grows.
When Abraham and Lot’s herds became too large to share the same land, Abraham gave his nephew the choice of where to go:
And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD , like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other. Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom. But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.
Trace the steps. Lot “lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered.” There is nothing wrong with noticing good land. Then he “chose him all the plain of Jordan,” choosing for his own advantage. Then he “pitched his tent toward Sodom.” He was not in the city yet. He was simply facing it. And the narrator adds a quiet warning: “But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.”
In the next chapter we read that Lot “dwelt in Sodom” (Genesis 14:12). The tent pitched toward the city had become a house inside it. A few chapters later, “Lot sat in the gate of Sodom” (Genesis 19:1), the place where the city’s elders conducted public business. He had become one of its leading men.
No single step was dramatic. A man looks at good land. He chooses it. He pitches his tent facing a certain direction. He moves in. He takes a role in the city’s life. Each step made the next one feel normal.
Yet Lot was not comfortable. Peter tells us that Lot was a “righteous man” who “vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds” (2 Peter 2:8). He knew what Sodom was. He was troubled by it every day. But he stayed. That is one of the marks of compromise: a believer can be uneasy about something and still make his home in it.
And the cost came due. When the angels warned Lot to flee, he went to his sons-in-law and urged them to leave, “But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law” (Genesis 19:14). His words had lost their weight. Years of living comfortably in Sodom had emptied his warning of credibility. Even then, Scripture says, “he lingered,” and the angels had to take him by the hand and pull him out (Genesis 19:16).
The Song of Solomon has a line that suits Lot’s story: “Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines” (Song of Solomon 2:15). It is the little foxes that do the damage, the small, quick creatures that slip in unnoticed and ruin the harvest. Rakiya did not fall in one dramatic act. She pitched her tent toward Sodom when she kept that first hamper. Every step after that felt smaller than the one before.
The language of excuse
James describes the inward process by which desire becomes sin: “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:14-15).
The phrase “when it is finished” means fully grown. Sin is not static. It begins small and it grows. What was conceived as a single act becomes a habit, and the habit becomes a pattern, and the pattern becomes part of a person’s character. James then adds a short sentence that is easily overlooked: “Do not err, my beloved brethren” (James 1:16). The word err means to be led astray, deceived. James knew that the growth of sin is usually accompanied by self-deception.
One of the main ways that deception works is through language. Compromise always needs new words. Rakiya did not take bribes; she received appreciation. Others do not steal from their employers; they balance things. They do not lie; they manage the information. They do not commit adultery; they have a friendship that went too far. The new words feel kinder, and they make the next step easier.
Isaiah pronounced a woe on exactly this: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness” (Isaiah 5:20). Renaming sin does not change what it is. It only changes how clearly we see it.
The law of Moses had already identified one of the most powerful forms of this blindness: “And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous” (Exodus 23:8). Notice that the gift blinds the wise and perverts the words of the righteous. The warning is aimed at good people, who are confident that they could never be bought. Rakiya was wise and righteous when she started. The gifts blinded her slowly.
There is another kind of excuse that sounds even more spiritual. “God knows my heart.” “Everybody does it, and God understands the situation in this country.” “I give a good part of it to the church.” Each of these has a grain of truth in it, which is why they work so well. But a grain of truth used to cover a lie is still a lie.
When the conscience grows quiet
Paul describes the end of this road in his letter to the Ephesians. He is speaking of the unbelieving world around them, but he is warning believers not to walk the same way:
This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
Look at the progression. The mind becomes futile, “the vanity of their mind.” The understanding becomes darkened. The person is “alienated from the life of God.” And all of this comes “because of the blindness of their heart.” The word translated blindness is porosis, which literally means a hardening, like a callus that forms over a wound. It is the same idea as the hardening in Hebrews.
Then comes the most chilling phrase: “Who being past feeling.” The word apalgeo means to cease to feel pain. The conscience, which once hurt, no longer hurts. And having lost the capacity to feel, such people “have given themselves over,” handing themselves to what they once resisted, and they pursue it “with greediness,” always wanting more.
That is the end of the road of compromise if it is never confronted: a heart so hardened that the alarm no longer sounds. Paul writes elsewhere of people “having their conscience seared with a hot iron” (1 Timothy 4:2). Scar tissue does not feel.
But Paul does not leave the Ephesian believers there. Immediately he writes, “But ye have not so learned Christ” (Ephesians 4:20). The believer has a different teacher and a different nature. Paul reminds them of what they were taught: “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24).
Notice the phrase “deceitful lusts.” The old self is corrupt precisely because its desires lie to it. The new self, by contrast, is “created in righteousness and true holiness,” literally the holiness of the truth. The answer to deceit is truth. The believer is called to put off the old ways, to let the Spirit renew his mind, and to put on the new self that God has already created in him.
NuggetThe fact that you still feel uneasy about something is a mercy. It means your conscience is still alive. Do not silence it. Listen to it.
Blind to your own story
Perhaps the most frightening thing about the deceitfulness of sin is that it can leave a person sharp-eyed about everyone’s sin except his own. King David is the clearest example.
After his adultery with Bathsheba and the arranged death of her husband, David married her and carried on with his reign. Scripture records that “the thing that David had done displeased the LORD” (2 Samuel 11:27), but David seems to have felt nothing that he could not manage. Then the prophet Nathan came and told him a story about a rich man who owned huge flocks and yet took a poor man’s only lamb to feed a guest. David’s response was immediate:
And David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die: And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity. And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul.
David’s anger was “greatly kindled.” He was outraged. He pronounced sentence: the man deserved to die. He specified restitution: fourfold. He identified the moral failure: “because he had no pity.” Every judgement he made was correct. His moral sense was working perfectly, for everyone else.
“Thou art the man.”
David had been living for months with a sin far worse than the rich man’s, and he had not seen it. He could condemn injustice with passion while committing it. That is the deceitfulness of sin. It does not destroy our moral vision. It points it outward.
Rakiya told me later that during her four years of envelopes, she had been one of the loudest voices at her church’s prayer meetings against corruption in the nation. She had prayed with real tears for God to deal with corrupt politicians. “I meant every word,” she said. “I just did not see myself in it.”
That is why we need a Nathan. We need people in our lives who love us enough to tell us the story, and then to say, “You are the man. You are the woman.” And we need the humility, when they do, to answer as David did: “I have sinned against the LORD” (2 Samuel 12:13).
Strength that leaves quietly
The story of Samson shows one more feature of compromise: its consequences often arrive before we have noticed them.
Samson had been set apart to God from birth as a Nazirite, and part of his vow was that no razor would touch his head. His strength came from the Lord; the hair was the sign of his consecration. Over many years Samson had played games with his calling. He had scooped honey out of a lion’s carcass that a Nazirite should never have touched, gone where he should not have gone, and toyed with Delilah’s questions three times without consequence. Then:
And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once, for he hath shewed me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and brought money in their hand. And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the LORD was departed from him.
“And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the LORD was departed from him.”
He did not know. Samson expected the same strength that had always been there, because he had got away with it before. Each time he had played with the edge of his consecration and nothing had happened, he became more confident that nothing would. But the Lord’s patience is not the same as His approval. When the moment came, Samson rose to fight in a strength that was no longer there, and the next verse records that the Philistines put out his eyes and set him to grind in a prison house.
When I was a boy, my uncle’s house had a wooden door frame that looked perfectly sound. It was painted, solid-looking, and nobody gave it a thought. Then one day a carpenter who had come to fix a hinge pressed his thumb against the frame, and it went straight in, as though the wood were bread. Termites had eaten out the inside years before. Only the paint had been holding its shape.
Compromise works like that. A person can keep the appearance of strength long after the substance has been eaten away from within. They may still preach, sing, pray loudly at the prayer meeting. And they may not know how hollow things have become until the moment of testing comes.
I say that to wake up comfortable consciences, never to frighten tender ones. Samson’s story did not end in the prison house. His hair began to grow again, he called on the Lord, and God answered him (Judges 16:22, 28). There is grace even for those who have gone a long way down this road. But how much better to deal with the termites while the frame can still be saved.
Responding while conviction is still clear
How, then, do you respond to the deceitfulness of sin? Here are some practical steps drawn from these passages.
Take conviction seriously while it is fresh. The writer to the Hebrews says “To day.” When the Holy Spirit brings something to your attention, that is a gift. Jesus said the Spirit would “reprove the world of sin” (John 16:8), and He does the same work, with a Father’s tenderness, in the hearts of believers. The first envelope, the first lie, the first compromise always feels uncomfortable. Respond to that discomfort, and do not argue with it.
Call it by its real name. Strip off the gentle words. If it is a bribe, call it a bribe. If it is a lie, call it a lie. The moment Rakiya’s daughter used the word, the vocabulary of four years collapsed. Plain words are a weapon against deceit.
Invite someone else to see. “Exhort one another daily.” Deceit thrives in isolation. Give one or two trusted, mature believers permission to ask you hard questions about the areas where you are most vulnerable, and answer them honestly. If you find yourself avoiding the people who would ask, that is a sign in itself.
Turn around early. Lot’s compromise was easiest to reverse when his tent was only facing Sodom. It became much harder once he had a house and a seat in the gate. Whatever direction you are facing, if it is toward Sodom, turn the tent around now.
Put right what you can. Repentance in a matter like Rakiya’s involves more than private sorrow. It may involve restitution, a change of role, a difficult conversation with an employer, or seeking wise counsel, including legal counsel, about how to put things right. The aim is to bring your life back into the truth. Self-punishment has no part in it.
And do not confuse conviction with condemnation. Some tender-hearted believers read a passage like this and begin to suspect themselves of compromise in everything. They lie awake wondering whether every small decision is a step toward Sodom. That is not the Spirit’s voice. The Spirit convicts specifically, clearly and with a way forward. Condemnation is vague, endless and hopeless. “For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things” (1 John 3:20). If you are not sure, ask a wise believer to help you tell the difference.
Above all, bring the whole matter to God in prayer. David, who knew the deceitfulness of sin from bitter experience, wrote this prayer:
Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults . Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD , my strength, and my redeemer.
“Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.” David knew that some of his sins were hidden even from himself. So he asked God to search and cleanse what he could not see. “Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me.” Presumptuous sins are deliberate ones, the sins we commit knowing they are wrong, presuming on God’s patience. David asked God to keep him from them before they gained dominion. And he ended where every believer must end, with a prayer that both his words and his inner thoughts would be acceptable to the Lord, “my strength, and my redeemer.”
PunchlineRakiya did not answer her daughter’s question that evening. She said she would think about it, and she went to bed and did not sleep.
The next week she came to see me. She sat in my office and said, “I have been calling it appreciation for four years. My daughter called it a bribe in one sentence.” She wept, and then she said, “I think I knew all along. I just made the words softer every year so I would not have to hear them.”
What followed was hard. She stopped accepting envelopes immediately. She asked for redeployment to a unit that did not handle payments, and eventually received it. With careful advice, she made restitution where she could identify the people she had disadvantaged. She told her husband everything. And she found two women in the church who agreed to pray with her every week and to ask her, plainly, how things were at the office.
Some weeks later, she told me, she sat down with her daughter at the dining table. “You asked me a question about a bribe,” she said. “The answer is yes. It was a bribe. And Mummy was wrong to take them. I have stopped, and I have asked God to forgive me.”
Her daughter thought about it for a moment and then said, “Okay,” and went back to her homework.
“She did not make a big thing of it,” Rakiya told me. “But I did. It was the first time in four years I had called it by its name.”
Sin is deceitful. It grows quietly, renames itself and explains itself away. But it cannot survive the truth spoken plainly, today, in the light of God’s mercy. If there is a tent in your life facing toward Sodom, turn it around while it is still only a tent.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- Can you think of a small permission in your own life that has gradually become a pattern? What first step began it?
- What gentle words do you use, or hear others use, to describe things that God calls by plainer names?
- David could see the rich man’s sin clearly but not his own. Who in your life loves you enough to be a “Nathan” to you? Have you given them permission to speak?
- Are there areas where you feel uneasy but have not yet responded? What would it mean to respond “to day”?
- How can you tell the difference between the Spirit’s conviction and vague condemnation?
This Week
Each evening this week, pray Psalm 19:12-14 slowly, and then ask the Holy Spirit a simple question: “Is there any tent in my life facing toward Sodom?” Write down whatever comes to mind, without arguing with it. At the end of the week, look at what you have written. Choose one thing, call it by its plainest name, and take one concrete step to turn it around. Then share it with one trusted believer and ask them to check on you next week.
A Prayer
Father, thank You for the mercy of conviction, and for every time Your Spirit has made me uneasy about something wrong. Forgive me for the times I have softened the names of my sins and explained them away. Cleanse me from secret faults, and keep me back from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me. Give me friends who will speak the truth to me, and give me the humility to hear it. Where my heart has begun to harden, make it tender again. Help me to answer Your voice today, while it is still clear. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.