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?
Imagine a man being in a dark cave and could not see himself or anything about himself because of the absolute darkness. If he felt something on him or had a pain, his eyes would be of no help. He could possibly guess but his way of understanding would be limited. Now imagine a person in the depths of a dark cave and that person was also deaf and had no accurate sense of touch. This person could form beliefs and have some information, but this person would be highly ignorant of himself and would have trouble forming true beliefs about himself. Such are those who are in spiritual darkness. They have no light and they are unable to hear spiritual things. They are unable to discern the truth about themselves spiritually and are deceived and do not know what is utterly vital about themselves. So many people are in that state and have no idea that they are in that state. To them what they think of as light is in fact darkness, and so what Jesus said about them is true: “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matt 6:23).
It might seem to be a cruel trick on people, but in fact it is a just judgment on them. People turn away from the light and even hate the light which shines in their darkness, but they do so out of hatred and so they are morally culpable for their state of darkness. Man does not know himself because he does not want to know himself and yet that is the judgment of God upon man for fleeing the light and suppressing the truth of God. So the heart that is in darkness, is deceived, and so flees from God is in a pitiable condition; it is also a heart that is under a severe judgment. It is a heart that must have grace to shine light into it so that it can see what its real problem is.
When we thing of something like the nature of man’s heart and the deception and darkness in and around it, the prophet Amos comes to mind and his preaching that a spiritual famine was coming upon the land. It also brings to mind the repeated teachings of Jesus that He came to bring judgment by blinding people to the truth. When preachers and teachers are blind to the truth themselves, they are a judgment of God to the people. When preachers and teachers do not preach in such a way as to expose the nature of the deceived and darkened hearts of people to themselves, they are a judgment of God to the people. A preacher can be very orthodox and yet not expose the nature of the heart to people so that they can truly see their utter need of grace, and so that very orthodox preacher in terms of confessions and creeds can also be a judgment of God to the people.
When preachers and teachers don’t understand the nature of the human heart and they are teaching others who don’t understand the nature of the human heart, the devil laughs. Any religion that comes from a deceived and darkened heart will be far from the truth in what it should be. This is a terrible statement in light of what is going on in the United States and the world today. Many are stuck in the mire of liberalism, or morality, or of some form of orthodox teaching. Yet few really want to see their hearts in truth. But why is that? It is because their hearts deceive them about the need to know their own hearts. So this deceptive and darkened heart is satisfied without religion or perhaps with a lot of religion but it does not know that it is without Christ Himself.
Titus 1:15 has something to teach on this point: “To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.” This was in the context of those in the local church. Until people have truly repented, which at the very least implies some knowledge of their own hearts to some degree, everything they do (including their religion) is defiled. Their works are defiled, their preaching is defiled, and the best things they can do are defiled. Such is the person that does not know him or herself. This shows how utterly vital it is to know our own hearts in a much greater way, yet in our day it would appear that people flee from even a slight knowledge of their own hearts.
God Loves... Himself 
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