Nothing is more unknown to man than himself. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?
Most likely there are very few people who even think that they don’t know themselves. On the surface, which is basically where most people live, there is not all that much to know. One has to understand the nature of the heart to some degree and then realize that there are depths to the heart before that one can begin to understand that there are motives and intents of the heart that are not on the surface and are not readily known to the untrained eye. It is also not obvious to the human being that there are spiritual powers at work influencing and deceiving the soul in ways that it does not know about. The human soul cannot fathom that it is the slave of sin and of the devil as it lives under the dominion of darkness unless God opens the eyes to see these things. But even more, the human soul does not realize that it deceives itself and loves to do so.
What this leaves us with is the startling realization that human beings are very ignorant of themselves, but even more startling is that they want to remain ignorant and do not want to come to the light to see who they really are. If Jeremiah 17:9 is correct (and it certainly is), then Thomas Adam is right that nothing is more unknown to man than himself. This also helps us to see part of what is going on in Romans 1:18-32. The human soul suppresses the truth about God because it does not want to keep the truth of God in its knowledge, but it does that in order that it does not have to see itself and so that it can continue in its sin following its own way.
We can think of a man who is sick but does not want to admit that he is sick. That man will refuse to hear what anyone else says because he does not want to hear that he is sick. The soul that is deeply asleep in its self-love does not want to be awakened to the truth about itself. However, it is utterly vital that people hear about themselves as they are headed to a day of light and truth where all things will become clear. As Anthony Burgess said in A Treatise of Sin: The Deceitfulness of Sin Unmasked, “who can mourn enough, to see such presumptuous sinners everywhere?” The quote below also strikes at those who want to hide themselves from themselves.
Doth God know all things, all they sins, all they duties, all thy thoughts and ends? Then be thou quickened up to all sincerity in the ways of godliness, what a vain thing will the applause of men, their good words do thee? When God shall say, Depart thou hypocrite into the everlasting fire; What a dreadful thing is it for thee to applaud thy own self, and others to bless thee; and God to curse thee because of thy unsound and rotten heart (Anthony Burgess, from A Treatise of Sin: The Deceitfulness of Sin Unmasked).
The quote above gets at how chilling a thing it is for people to flee from the knowledge of their own hearts and be satisfied with their own standards and the applause of self and good words of others. It is so easy to see in this context how many will cry out “Lord, Lord,” did we not” do this and that in your name? But they don’t know their own hearts at the moment and it appears they still don’t know their hearts at that moment on judgment day. While others may applaud our outward actions, the Lord knows the depths of the heart and if it is in reality an unsound and rotten heart judgment will declare the reality of it despite our pretenses and our desire for it to be something else. Oh how human beings can applaud others for outward things while the heart remains rotten to the core. It also makes it even harder to admit our own rotten hearts while our own deceptive hearts and the applause of others combine to deceive us. Perhaps Thomas Adam was right when he said “Nothing is more unknown to man than himself.” If so, we have a lot of work to do in seeking the Lord to show us our own hearts.
God Loves... Himself 
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