Duplicitous

April 4, 2020

The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity. -Proverbs 11:3 (NIV)

Have you ever heard the word duplicitous?  I had not either until 2:11 am on March 21, 2020.  I was in a deep sleep. I honestly don’t know if I heard the word or saw the word.  It was like both at the same time.  The Holy Spirit awoke me.  I googled duplicitous. I read the definition, rolled over and went back to sleep.  I awoke again around 4am and the word loudly scrolled through my brain, again.  I went back to sleep and at 4:45 am; I awoke to the word again. I checked my phone to see if what I remembered was true.  It was all like a dream about a word. I hadn’t dreamed it.  It showed up in my google search at 2:12 am.  I did not even know how to spell duplicitous awake, much less in my sleep.  Needless to say, this was not a word in my every day vocabulary.

I proceeded to google, definition after definition.  What was the Holy Spirit trying to tell me?  I only told four to five people about this dream.  I wanted to see if they had any revelation on the word.  I discovered it meant double, hypocrite or fraud.   And, it WAS in the Bible, once.  I was not immediately enlightened by putting my eyes on the scripture. The light bulb was still off. I had nothing.  I knew God would tell me in time.

About 10 days later he dropped the bomb on me. Stay with me…

Duplicitous:  du·​plic·​i·​tous | \ du̇-ˈpli-sə-tə
: marked by duplicity : deceptive in words or action

“The idea of doubleness is at the core of duplicity. Duplicity comes from a Latin word meaning “double” or “twofold,” and its original meaning in English has to do with a kind of deception in which you intentionally hide your true feelings or intentions behind false words or actions. If you are being duplicitous there are two you’s: the one you’re showing and the one you’re hiding. And—key to the idea of duplicity—you’re hiding in order to make people believe something that’s not true.” ( https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/duplicitous).

Synonyms: bent, bent, crooked, dishonest, double-dealing, fraudulent.

Sound like two-faced?  A hypocrite?

The integrity (completeness, upright)  of the upright (straight, straight-forward) guides them, but the unfaithful ( rooked and slippery) are destroyed by their duplicity (covert, fraudulence)   -Proverbs 11:3 (NIV)

Duplicitous: Hypocrisy: Double-Minded

Let’s look at a few examples:

• Praying for God to heal, but worried and fearful if he will.
• Talking one way to your spouse, and another way to everyone else.
• Posting on Facebook and Instagram your happy family, when it is really falling apart.
• Firing an employee for cheating on their time-card, but taking home a pen, paper clips and paper from the office.
• Pretending to be listening on the phone to your Dad, but hitting the mute button and mouthing to your spouse, “He is crazy.”
• Praying for someone to their face, but saying to others behind their back, “That family is jacked up.”
• Taking communion on Sunday after being drunk in the club or at the course on Saturday.
• Eating salad every day for lunch with others, but indulging in pizza chased by ice cream and cookies at night.

James 1:8 sounds very similar to. Proverbs 11:3:
“A double minded (double spirited, double-breathed) man [is] unstable in all his ways.”

Matthew 23:28 reads: “In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy (fake, speak falsely to. impersonate anyone, play a part, wear a mask) and wickedness.”

I enCOURAGE you “therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.”  Join me in taking out the trash of  hypocrisy and “the double” in our lives.  Thinking we might need to turn from being duplicitous. We also need to watch out for the duplicitous.  We must walk worthy of the call  to remain from being duplicitous and from being duped.  Ouch that hurt!