We cannot go to the bottom of sin without the convincing, searching Spirit of God. If the work is to be our own, we shall deal very tenderly with ourselves, that nothing can ever come of it. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
This is a very powerful truth that speaks to human self-love, the deception of our hearts, and the need for human beings to be in utter reliance upon God. We know how others and ourselves respond when something is said by another about something we have done wrong or about our sin. Oh how tender we are of ourselves and how hard it is to admit that we are wrong. It is always another person or the circumstances. It was always something the spouse said or did, but never self. A natural soul, even if as honest as a human being can be, will always try to insulate itself from guilt and from seeing itself under the wrath of God. The darkness and blindness of the soul keeps it from seeing what is truly obvious and instead it only sees things through the lenses of self.
The human heart will only seek conviction of sin to a degree that it is comfortable with. It will only seek conviction to the degree that it wants to repent of or is willing to repent of, though it may stretch that just a little beyond the comfortable part. Human beings, in their natural state, will only seek conviction if it will help them to be more self-righteous in their own eyes or in the eyes of others. But whatever else a human being does, s/he will not seek to die to self, self-righteousness, and pride until the Spirit of the living God opens the eyes of that person to see the horror and filth of sin. Not only that, the human being does not want to see that s/he has a sinful heart and is a vile and wicked being in the sight of God. Even more, the human being will fight with all of his or her strength that hateful doctrine of original sin. It does nothing for a person’s self-esteem and self-love to think of him or herself as dead in sins and trespasses and by nature children of wrath. The Spirit alone will take the soul by the hand (so to speak) and guide the soul into the depths of its own sin and to see itself what for what it is.
This also shows us why the gospel that is being preached today (in the vast majority of cases) is a false gospel. It is based on the teaching that all a soul has to do is to admit that it is a sinner and to pray a prayer. It does not teach people that they must see themselves in the depths of their sin and unable to do one thing apart from the grace of God. It does not teach people that they must have a new nature in order to believe and to love God. Instead, it is nothing but men teaching other men external things about their sin and in so doing they leave the depths of sin untouched. That leaves men in their natural and fleshly state and in their own strength. This is why the depths of sin must be preached if the Gospel of grace alone is to be preached at all.
The soul must give up the idea that it is strong enough, wise enough and penetrating enough to discover its own sin. That is the work of the Spirit alone. The soul must give up the idea that it can repent in truth based on what it discovers, because God demands true repentance and not just of the things I am presently willing to repent of. Oh how so many are willing to repent of a sin if that sin is causing them trouble at the moment. Oh how so many are willing to repent of a sin if they think they can gain something better a little later on. But how few are there in our day (and perhaps most of the previous days in history) that truly desire for all of their sin to be exposed so that they can cry out to God to be delivered of it. If a person is not truly willing to do that, then perhaps they have not truly repented at all.
God Loves... Himself 
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