God Loves… Himself

Luke 6:31 Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

If sinners may love themselves and others from mere selfish motives, then it is easy to account for all their kind and friendly conduct towards their fellow creatures, consistent with their total depravity. Their selfishness naturally prompts them to do anything which they think will turn to their own personal advantage. To gain friends, they will show themselves friendly. To gain the love, esteem, and confidence of others, they will do acts of kindness, compassion, and even liberality. And the most depraved and selfish creature in the universe would do the same things, to obtain the same selfish ends. Satan always acts from this motive, when he transforms himself into an angel of light, and appears to seek the good of others. When he tempted our first parents, he professed to be more concerned to promote their knowledge and happiness, than even their Creator. When he tempted Christ to turn stones into bread, and commit himself to the divine care and protection, he appeared like a kind and friendly angel. (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

This is another profound thought by Emmons and it reaches the hearts of all human beings. It exposes so much of the nature of what is going by “Christianity” today and shows us just how deceitful the evil one is and how much God will turn professing Christians over to a hardened heart. Just like the civil actions of educated (to some degree) people are calculated to a goal that they want, so religious people and professing Christians can seek goals with their niceness, their outward kindness, and all of those things. Professing churches can do many outwardly good things and think that those things are what Christians do, and yet their unregenerate hearts are doing them in the same manner that Satan does things. Ministers in name can stand before their congregations and be as kind and as compassionate as they can be (outwardly) and yet the devil himself would be just like that (and has been) if he could deceive people, though in one sense he is deceiving people through ministers who are just like Satan. This is not just for liberals, but it is also for conservative people who say they believe the Bible. We must begin to understand that the deceptions and wiles of Satan have thoroughly influenced the modern professing Church.

While we may think of Satan as being dark and working as much outward evil as he can, we must realize that he would work to have many churches in a nation and even conservative churches as long as they did so out of selfish and unregenerate hearts. A “minister” can preach the orthodox truth in an outward sense while his heart is unenlightened as the heathen in utter darkness. In fact, the outward truth of orthodoxy can be used in the hands of the evil one to blind people in a deeper way than the heathen. The Pharisees were the religious elite and highly educated, but they were more blinded than many of the Gentiles. The nature of truth will harden hearts when those hearts are in darkness and try to use that truth for their selfish ends. “Ministers” can preach a form of orthodoxy regarding the letter and yet their selfish hearts do not love God in truth or the people. Those “ministers” use God and the people for themselves to obtain money and the honor of men.

If this paragraph by Emmons is true, and I am not sure how it could be denied from Scripture, then professing churches are as much guided by the devil and are as much like him as those who dress in black and openly worship him. The devil is not so much interested in getting people to be openly evil as he is to get people to be selfish and like him rather than God. The devil’s purposes are served just as well in the average (whatever that is) “evangelical” church and in the average pulpit as with anything else. The purposes of the devil are served quite nicely in getting people to be kind to others, feed others, pray with others and do all sorts of things with and for others and yet their wicked hearts are only serving themselves in doing so. The devil has replaced true love in the professing Church with being nice and outwardly kind. He has also replaced true humility with a false humility that claims that we cannot know what God has revealed. When the ministers and the people are like the devil with their selfish hearts and then think that they have the truth, their delusion and darkness are far greater than we can imagine. Only free-grace can deliver a selfish heart from self and give it true love for God and our neighbors.

Luke 6:31 Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

It [selfishness in the heart] tends to spread misery and destruction through the universe. It makes creatures as bad as they can be, and would destroy them all, were it not for the power and wisdom and goodness of God, which are employed in restraining, directing, and overruling its pernicious influence. Though sinners may love those which love them, and do good to those that do good to them, yet the nature of their feelings and conduct is still the same. Their apparent goodness is the essence of moral evil. Their partial love is general malevolence, and their best deeds are an abomination to the Lord. All their affections and actions terminate in themselves. They value and regard themselves more than all other beings put together, and whose interests they would sacrifice to promote their own. And can there be any thing virtuous, or amiable, or praiseworthy, in such a totally selfish love, which is disconformity to God, disobedience to His law, and its nature and tendency destructive of all the good of His holy kingdom? (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

In the paragraph above we see what moral monsters human beings are in the eyes of God. We see that the most cultured people in the world are living in a hideous way before the living God covering themselves with filth and with even more filth coming from their hearts. We see that the actors and actresses of Hollywood who pretend to be someone as a living are in fact pretending to be righteous to themselves and others. We see that those who are rich in this world are incredibly impoverished in the world to come (apart from the few who have Christ). We see the powerful politicians are weak and helpless against their own lusts for power and honor. All of those people live in a way that is opposite to God, opposite to His law of love, and they do those things in a way that is against His kingdom. It is sometimes easier to see these things in others, especially when they are famous. Clearly what is thought to be the upper echelon of society live in obvious enmity against God.

But from Scripture we see that Jesus reserved His hardest words for the religious elite. Could it be that the worst of people in this sense are some of the most religious? Could it be that some of the worst people are those who pretend to speak and write for God when in fact they are only doing it for themselves? The vile heart of a man who would speak biblical theology and do it for the sake of obtaining honor for himself is on display in the presence of God. The wretchedness of a minister (in name) who would use the name of Christ in order to obtain honor for himself is a wretched act of idolatry. Imagine how wicked it is in the sight of God to speak of His glories and wonders and yet that only be a way for a man to obtain honor for himself!

It takes humble men and women for God to advance His kingdom in, which is really the reign and rule of Christ by grace in the souls of human beings. A selfish heart is a proud heart and as such it is in direct opposition to the kingdom of God and in reality a selfish heart fights the kingdom of God with its every breath. It may be true that a minister in name may do a lot or apparent good and may be orthodox, but that same man may be unconverted and as such have a selfish heart and so all he does is for himself. As the Pharisees sought honor from men in all that they did, so men today can do the same damnable things.

It takes far more than orthodox theology and niceness to be a Christian and/or a minister. It takes free-grace to take a heart and deliver it from the bondage and dominion of sin and the devil to the kingdom of Christ. The glory of free-grace shines forth in delivering sinners from the dominion of selfish hearts to where instead of fighting the reign and rule of Christ by their selfish hearts they seek Christ for delivery from the vestiges of selfish hearts. Christ does not just deliver sinners from the guilt of sin, but He delivers them from the power and dominion of sin as well. No, He does not perfect them in this life, but they are under His dominion rather than the complete dominion of sin. Saved sinners are under the dominion of grace and they live by that free-grace. They don’t live by sin and by their own strength, they live by grace.

Luke 6:31 Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

It [selfishness in the heart] tends to spread misery and destruction through the universe. It makes creatures as bad as they can be, and would destroy them all, were it not for the power and wisdom and goodness of God, which are employed in restraining, directing, and overruling its pernicious influence. Though sinners may love those which love them, and do good to those that do good to them, yet the nature of their feelings and conduct is still the same. Their apparent goodness is the essence of moral evil. Their partial love is general malevolence, and their best deeds are an abomination to the Lord. All their affections and actions terminate in themselves. They value and regard themselves more than all other beings put together, and whose interests they would sacrifice to promote their own. And can there be any thing virtuous, or amiable, or praiseworthy, in such a totally selfish love, which is disconformity to God, disobedience to His law, and its nature and tendency destructive of all the good of His holy kingdom? (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

One of the greatest issues with sinful hearts is that of pride and its brat of self-righteousness. The proud heart is blind to its utter spiritual poverty and its great indebtedness for the sins it has committed. The proud heart rationalizes its sin away and proudly thinks of the external things it does that appear good as righteousness. However, it is blind to spiritual reality. It does not see that without a regenerate heart and without Christ dwelling in that heart the soul is hopelessly lost in pride and sinful self-love. It does not see that it is in darkness and that instead of being like God in holiness, truth, and love it is like the devil in selfishness and pride. It does not see how badly it needs grace to be humbled from its pride and how it needs Christ to be restored to the moral image of God.

The fallen soul, fallen into selfishness as to its motives and intents, is not in conformity to God and as such is quite unlike God and even opposite of Him. Jesus Christ is the perfect image of God and only He can restore these souls. But in being unlike God, the fallen sinner is in full disobedience to His holy law in all that the sinner does. The law is only kept out of love and the law can only be kept when Christ is in the soul working the fruit of His Spirit in the soul that it may love God. The law is but a reflection of Christ as He loved His Father and continues to love His Father. We see the reason that Christ came and saved sinners in John 6 and John 17.

John 6:37 “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. 38 “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.

John 14:31 but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here.

John 17:1 Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, 2 even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. 3 “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4 “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.

Jesus did all He did out of love to the Father. It is in His love for the Father that we see true conformity to the Father and to the Great Commandments from which all the other commands come. This is also taught by the apostles and one example is Romans 13:10: “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” Jesus did all He did out of love and the selfish heart does all it does out of sinful self-love. Jesus was both law-giver and law-keeper. Fallen man, however, does all out of sinful self-love and is opposite to God and is in conformity to the devil.

What righteousness can man rightly and justly claim when all he does out of his selfish heart is opposite to God and like the devil? What righteousness can man rightly and justly claim when all he does out of his selfish heart is a violation of God’s holy law of love? Man’s heart is more deceitful than all else and he lives in the deception of his own heart and in the deceitfulness of the evil one and his scheming. Not only is he deceived about who God is, but about who he is and about what true righteousness is. Man thinks of himself as basically good and apart from a few flaws and mistakes that he is basically a good person. He is incredibly deceived. Some men see a need for Christ to finish or make up for what they could not do, but they don’t see that everything they have done and do is sinful and very sinful. They do not see that apart from Christ they can do nothing spiritual or good. Men desperately need Christ, but they are bound in their selfish hearts with great blindness and love for self.

Luke 6:31 Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

It [selfishness in the heart] tends to spread misery and destruction through the universe. It makes creatures as bad as they can be, and would destroy them all, were it not for the power and wisdom and goodness of God, which are employed in restraining, directing, and overruling its pernicious influence. Though sinners may love those which love them, and do good to those that do good to them, yet the nature of their feelings and conduct is still the same. Their apparent goodness is the essence of moral evil. Their partial love is general malevolence, and their best deeds are an abomination to the Lord. All their affections and actions terminate in themselves. They value and regard themselves more than all other beings put together, and whose interests they would sacrifice to promote their own. And can there be any thing virtuous, or amiable, or praiseworthy, in such a totally selfish love, which is disconformity to God, disobedience to His law, and its nature and tendency destructive of all the good of His holy kingdom? (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

If a selfish heart is what the above paragraph sets out, then there is absolutely nothing virtuous, amiable, or praiseworthy in such a selfish love. This type of selfish love is really nothing but the sinful love of self and is idolatry in the presence of God. This selfish love is against the nature of God and all that is of the true God, though indeed it is in accordance with the love that the devil has for his sinful self (though he has nothing but a sinful self). A selfish heart has no true love. In fact, Scripture tells us that the only people who love are believers.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. (I John 4:7-8).

Love is not simply an action, it is what a person does who is born of God and knows God. Those who do not love do not know God, which is to say that those who do not love are not born of God and do not know God. When we come to grips with this we need to think of the Great Commandments and the teaching of I Corinthians 13. Apart from true love there is nothing we do that is acceptable to God or pleasing to God. Without true love which must come from God all we do is “disconformity” to God. Not only do our actions, regardless of how outwardly moral they are or how religious they are, not conform to God, they are the opposite of conformity to God. It is not just that love to God is important, but it is utterly vital. A selfish heart loves self in all it does and even when it does something that has an outward benefit to others, the greatest motive and intent that selfish heart has is for self. Yet that act that is outwardly good in appearance comes from a heart that is in full disobedience to all the commands of God and as such it is sinful and vile in the eyes of a thrice holy God.

It is perhaps impossible to stress this point too much. All the commandments of God have the foundation of true love underneath them and apart from that love all that sinners do can be nothing but disobedience and enmity toward a holy God. As I Corinthians 13:3 puts it, “if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.” This must be driven to the depths of our souls. Apart from true love which must come from God and only comes by His glorious free-grace, there is nothing that we can do to please Him. This throws us completely upon the free-grace of God in Christ Jesus. Not only must we have Christ in order to be saved from our sins, we must have Christ purchase a new heart for us. Not only do we need Christ to give us His Spirit to give us a new heart, we must have Christ in us working the fruit of His Spirit in us and that fruit is love. We are nothing but branches and all we can do is receive from the vine at the mere pleasure of the vine. We can only love God and anyone else if we receive the love of God by free-grace. It is only by free-grace that we have a capacity to love (a new heart), it is only by free-grace that we have the ability to know the God of love, and it is only by free-grace that the Spirit works His love in our hearts. We must be delivered from selfish hearts in order that by grace we can love and do acts of love.

Luke 6:31 Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

It [selfishness in the heart] tends to spread misery and destruction through the universe. It makes creatures as bad as they can be, and would destroy them all, were it not for the power and wisdom and goodness of God, which are employed in restraining, directing, and overruling its pernicious influence. Though sinners may love those which love them, and do good to those that do good to them, yet the nature of their feelings and conduct is still the same. Their apparent goodness is the essence of moral evil. Their partial love is general malevolence, and their best deeds are an abomination to the Lord. All their affections and actions terminate in themselves. They value and regard themselves more than all other beings put together, and whose interests they would sacrifice to promote their own. And can there be any thing virtuous, or amiable, or praiseworthy, in such a totally selfish love, which is disconformity to God, disobedience to His law, and its nature and tendency destructive of all the good of His holy kingdom? (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

This paragraph by Emmons shows the roots and depths of the depravity of man. All the apparent goodness that men have apart from Christ is really the essence of moral evil and their best deeds are an abomination to the Lord. This is so hard for men to come to terms with. When those things are seen as true and all the affections and actions of men terminate in themselves, then we can see that we value and regard ourselves more than all other beings put together and that we would sacrifice all the interests of other people in order to promote our own. The solemn realization of this would destroy self-righteousness in the heart and show men just how much they need Christ. Oh the horror of seeing the darkness and blackness of our own hearts. It is such a frightful thing that the proud heart wants to deny what it sees.

When we see the way men are and how they relate, we know that these things are true though indeed we may want to flee from the truth of it. We see how many people are willing to sacrifice the good of others by stealing and lying for the purposes of sinful self. We see large corporations that are willing to pay their workers far less than they could while they pay the CEO’s huge salaries with huge benefits. We see the governments (people in the government) who are willing for many people to suffer so they can get what they want. We see heads of governments (sometimes dictators) killing large numbers of people in order to obtain or keep what they have. We know our own hearts in that the desires are there and we have to pray for grace that we would not carry out our selfish desires.

In one sense we see families and businesses (therefore, jobs of many others) ruined because a person decides to commit adultery. We see murder after murder carried out in the streets of our cities because of selfish hearts wanting money from drugs and other criminal activity. We see governments killing thousands upon thousands in order to obtain lands from other countries. During WW II we saw the slaughter of millions and millions (Germany and Russia) because of the desires of a few men. There can be no doubt that the hearts of men regard themselves and their own interests above that of the well-being of millions of others and above the lives of millions of others. The proud and selfish hearts of men would sacrifice the whole world if God withdrew His hand and let men fulfill the full desires of their evil and selfish hearts.

The devil can be seen as the most selfish being in the entire universe. Not only did he deceive Adam and Eve and they chose to try to be like God and in doing so plunged the whole human race into sin, but he also led a revolt in heaven and who knows how many angels fell into sin with him. The devil wishes that all would follow him though indeed it will lead to their eternal misery. When men are like this, they show that they are like their father the devil. But when men truly love others, they show that they have been born from above and know the true and living God. The Lord Jesus sought the glory of God and the eternal welfare of men by coming to this planet, taking human flesh, living among sinners, and then going to the cross to suffer in their place. There is no returning from the fall into sin and the horrors of a selfish heart apart from receiving a new heart by grace alone. It is only free-grace that would move God to save sinners. It is only the great and grand mercy of God that sinners are saved and it is not because they are worth it. Only Christ can suffer such a great punishment and purchase the release of sinners from the bondage of sin and of the devil. Glory to God alone.

Luke 6:31 Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

It [selfishness in the heart] tends to spread misery and destruction through the universe. It makes creatures as bad as they can be, and would destroy them all, were it not for the power and wisdom and goodness of God, which are employed in restraining, directing, and overruling its pernicious influence. Though sinners may love those which love them, and do good to those that do good to them, yet the nature of their feelings and conduct is still the same. Their apparent goodness is the essence of moral evil. Their partial love is general malevolence, and their best deeds are an abomination to the Lord. All their affections and actions terminate in themselves. They value and regard themselves more than all other beings put together, and whose interests they would sacrifice to promote their own. And can there be any thing virtuous, or amiable, or praiseworthy, in such a totally selfish love, which is disconformity to God, disobedience to His law, and its nature and tendency destructive of all the good of His holy kingdom? (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

It is like a devastating punch in the stomach when one realizes in the depths of the soul that the good things that they have done is nothing but apparent goodness and is the essence of moral evil. The devastating punch is combined with another devastating punch when the Spirit opens the eyes of the soul to itself and it sees that all it has ever done is out of self-love and as such is malevolence and the best things it has ever done is an abomination to the Lord. When those things are combined to the soul and it sees what it is and that all that it has ever done has never added up to the slightest bit of righteousness, but instead is nothing but sin and vile in the eyes of God. While the doctrine may make people come to a realization about itself, the Spirit must drive this deep into the soul and open the spiritual eyes to it. Oh how the soul cries out with Isaiah woes to itself. Oh how the soul is crushed as it sees itself and its very best deeds as wickedness and vileness before God.

When the soul begins to meditate upon these truths and sees and understands that it is guilty before God, it begins to meditate upon how and why this is true. It begins to think upon its own motives and intents and sees that the affections it has are really for self and nothing but self. It now sees all of its good actions as coming from its sinful heart and now it understands that the goal of the actions was for self and it loved self in doing them rather than God. It now sees itself as a vile idol of self before a holy God who rightly commands His creatures to do all out of love for Him and all for His own glory. It now begins to understand that those commands are what is best for other creatures and for him or herself. It begins to see the misery that it has brought upon itself by its selfish heart and selfish acts. It now sees the misery it has caused others. It now sees how it was nothing but blindness and pride that could make it think that anything it did out of self-love and a selfish heart had the slightest bit of righteousness to it. The soul looks upon itself with horror and detests what it sees in its own heart.

The soul can easily deceive itself out of a selfish heart into thinking that it loves God in truth when in reality it loves what it thinks God is doing for it. Sinners love those who love themselves and as long as they think that God (usually a false idea of God) loves them they will love their false idea of Him and so think that they love God. They will think that their affections and their actions have the goal of His glory and flow toward Him, but they are blind to the fact that both their affections and actions flow toward a false idea of God and so in fact they are doing all that they do for themselves. When our affections flow toward God only because of what we think He has done for us, the reality of the matter is that they flow toward a false god and they actually terminate back in the self. When all my “love” is really for self rather than the true God and my neighbors, then that is not a moral good but a great evil.

The soul must wrestle and pray for the true God to show him or her the true state of the soul. The god of this world, who is also the great deceiver, loves to deceive people with false ideas about the true God and loves to have people love themselves. When people love themselves as the goal of their affections and their actions, they are just like their father and that is the devil. He is the most selfish being in the universe who does all for himself and is opposed to the true God. He deceives people from being like the true God and wants them to be like himself. Oh how people need to wake up to this and understand the nature of true deception and that they may be deceived on this. The narrow gate is one that includes the denial of self rather than the indulgence of self whether it is in worldly things, religious activity, or moral asceticism. The glory of free-grace is that it sets out the true God and yet takes a person dying to self by that grace. Only the true God gets the glory in free-grace.

Luke 6:31 Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

It [selfishness in the heart] tends to spread misery and destruction through the universe. It makes creatures as bad as they can be, and would destroy them all, were it not for the power and wisdom and goodness of God, which are employed in restraining, directing, and overruling its pernicious influence. Though sinners may love those which love them, and do good to those that do good to them, yet the nature of their feelings and conduct is still the same. Their apparent goodness is the essence of moral evil. Their partial love is general malevolence, and their best deeds are an abomination to the Lord. All their affections and actions terminate in themselves. They value and regard themselves more than all other beings put together, and whose interests they would sacrifice to promote their own. And can there be any thing virtuous, or amiable, or praiseworthy, in such a totally selfish love, which is disconformity to God, disobedience to His law, and its nature and tendency destructive of all the good of His holy kingdom? (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

In the last post (Selfishness as Sin 34) there was an effort to see this principle as applied to ourselves in our hearts. This is more than just a theory, it is a truth that reigns in all the hearts of all those who are unregenerate and also plagues the hearts of all who do have Christ in reality. This is a horrible truth about us, but the horror of it does not change the reality and truthfulness of it. The hearts of men are evil and only evil and that continually when seen in the light of this truth. The only thing that keeps each human being from being worse than Adolph Hitler is the restraining hand of God upon us. Yes, this is a humbling and breaking truth, but it is still a truth that our denials will not change and our fleeing will not enable us to escape it. We cannot flee from our own sinful hearts because wherever we go that sinful heart is driving us.

Oh how convicting it is to the soul to see that what it thinks is its very love is in fact a malevolence toward God and others. Oh how man wants to be moral in his own eyes and in the eyes of others, but when the eyes are opened to see that what it thinks of as love is really malevolence, the self-righteousness of man is shattered. When my eyes are opened and I see that my very best deeds are nothing but an abomination to God, I am crushed in the inner man and will respond with cries to God for free-grace or with great enmity toward Him. There is no middle ground at this point, though indeed there may be degrees. It is vital for a sinner to see that not only has he no ability to do good, but he has no ability to restrain from evil. Oh how crushing this is for the heart to see. The believer must come to see this in a deeper way as well. We are not here to do outwardly moral things, but we are here to live to the glory of God and to be clay in His hands to do with as He pleases. While there is no excuse for me to sin, I must know that I should seek the Lord to deliver me from evil and the evil one.

This is a shattering truth to the pernicious lie about the ability of man that each heart deceives itself about. This takes all the wind out of our sails and leaves us utterly helpless in the hands of God. No only is it the case that our very being is upheld by God each moment and that our every breath comes from Him by His pleasure, but our souls have no ability to do good apart from Christ and our souls have no ability to refrain from evil apart from His restraining hand. Our hearts are evil, are inclined to evil, and will always go toward that evil (of a self-centered heart full of self-love) in all it does unless God restrains us according to His good pleasure. On judgment day sinners will see that God judged them for their sin by drawing back His restraining hand and turning them over to more sin. They will see that He was holy and just in doing so, but they will only be turned over to more sin in their hearts because of their hatred toward Him. That very hatred toward Him and others will only increase their misery.

Yes, it is true; the worst fears of sinners are true. They are not in control and they are not sufficient to stop sin as all they do, whether outwardly good or bad, is an abomination to God. There is nothing in them that pleases God and there is nothing that they can do that will please God. Their hearts are full of self and nothing they do can possibly come from anything but that heart that is full of self. That selfish heart loves self rather than God and as such even the religious actions of the fallen heart is always for self and as such is at enmity with God. The selfish heart wants to be able to help save itself but it cannot save itself from a selfish heart because that is all it can do anything from. A selfish heart cannot deliver itself from selfishness because it never has a higher motive than its own selfish heart. Oh how desperately this teaching shows us that we need Christ. How utterly necessary it is that free-grace save us as there is nothing worth saving in us and nothing we can do will ever be lifted above the level of being an abomination to a thrice holy God.

Luke 6:31 Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

It [selfishness in the heart] tends to spread misery and destruction through the universe. It makes creatures as bad as they can be, and would destroy them all, were it not for the power and wisdom and goodness of God, which are employed in restraining, directing, and overruling its pernicious influence. Though sinners may love those which love them, and do good to those that do good to them, yet the nature of their feelings and conduct is still the same. Their apparent goodness is the essence of moral evil. Their partial love is general malevolence, and their best deeds are an abomination to the Lord. All their affections and actions terminate in themselves. They value and regard themselves more than all other beings put together, and whose interests they would sacrifice to promote their own. And can there be any thing virtuous, or amiable, or praiseworthy, in such a totally selfish love, which is disconformity to God, disobedience to His law, and its nature and tendency destructive of all the good of His holy kingdom? (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

The nature of the heart is beyond the powers of the natural heart to see without aid by the Holy Spirit, but to accept the fact about ourselves and see our utter inability to do anything spiritual apart from the new birth is a deeper work of the Spirit. The new heart alone, however, can live in light of this and constantly cry out for grace to enable it to live by grace and true love rather than only by the love of self. Oh the profundity of this truth and how we need to have the Spirit search our hearts and shine the light upon ourselves that we can see it.

It is one thing to see this in some way as truth, it is quite another to see it as true of myself. It is still quite another step to have the Spirit open the heart and to see that this truth has pervaded and utterly despoiled every moral action that I have ever had. But even deeper, it absolutely sinks the soul into despair when the Spirit brings the deep conviction of sin that all of my religious actions were done out of self-love and as such were evidences that my heart is guilty of the essence of moral evil. The Spirit must work this truth in the soul and shine His light in the soul so that it may see that it stands guilty before the living God with nothing but a selfish heart. It will see that it has never done one thing out of love for God. It will see that it has done all of its very best moral actions (the worse as well) out of a sinful self-love and as such it was an idolatrous evil which means that the very best moral actions of the soul were vile and wicked idolatrous acts before God. It will see that all of its religious actions, devotions, attending church, reading of the Bible, and prayer were nothing but the acts of a selfish heart.

When the very best moral acts and religious acts that I do demonstrate the essence of moral evil, then that leaves me in the hands of the living God to do with as He pleases. I have nothing of my nature to plead before Him because my nature is evil. I don’t even have one moral action to plead because the best I could do was evil. I have nothing to claim in the religious realm because all of my religious actions were evil and done out of a sinful love for self. I have nothing that I can do to change my own heart so that I can do something that pleases God. Instead, I will see that all I can do is sinful as well. This teaches me that I must have a new heart and I must have a Savior or I will perish. Since there is nothing in me that can move God to save me, it must be something in Him that will move to save me. The only thing that can save a vile wretch is the free-grace of God and that is found only in Christ Jesus and in Him alone.

We must see that apart from teaching the depravity of man and really apart from seeing that the self is the essence of sin, we will never quite get to Christ alone and grace alone and the glory of free-grace in the Gospel. Men and women don’t just need a little help, some help, or even a lot of help; but instead they need someone to do it all from the motives, to the purchasing, to the applying. If everything that the unregenerate person does is out of a sinful self-love and as such is repugnant to a holy God, then salvation must be all of grace and all of God. This salvation must change the heart from a selfish creature to one that loves God and loves the neighbor in truth and in reality. This salvation will change the heart from wanting to be saved out of preservation and sinful self-love to one that glories in salvation because in that salvation the soul was enabled to love God and His glory.

Luke 6:31 Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

It [selfishness in the heart] tends to spread misery and destruction through the universe. It makes creatures as bad as they can be, and would destroy them all, were it not for the power and wisdom and goodness of God, which are employed in restraining, directing, and overruling its pernicious influence. Though sinners may love those which love them, and do good to those that do good to them, yet the nature of their feelings and conduct is still the same. Their apparent goodness is the essence of moral evil. Their partial love is general malevolence, and their best deeds are an abomination to the Lord. All their affections and actions terminate in themselves. They value and regard themselves more than all other beings put together, and whose interests they would sacrifice to promote their own. And can there be any thing virtuous, or amiable, or praiseworthy, in such a totally selfish love, which is disconformity to God, disobedience to His law, and its nature and tendency destructive of all the good of His holy kingdom? (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

The paragraph just above penetrates and exposes the darkness and fog that so many live in, though indeed the fact that some see this does not show how much better they are but sets out the mercies of God in showing men their hearts. The light that the paragraph above may give if God blesses it to our hearts is beyond a simple blessing as such, but instead is an open window into the heart of sin in many ways. Sinners love themselves and as such they love those who love them and they do good to those that do good to them. However, and a huge however at that, their hearts are just as bad in doing that as those who are hating those who hate them and do evil to those who do evil to them. The reason is that the nature of their conduct is still the same. Whether a person loves others because the other is being nice to them or hates a person who is not being nice to them shows that the selfish heart is operating by the things of self rather than the things of God and especially love for God.

When a person loves others only because of being treated nicely or in accordance with the person’s selfish heart, that is to put self in the place of God and is to be at enmity with the true God and His Great Commandments. This clearly shows that outward goodness is only goodness in appearance and that outward goodness can be nothing more than a covering for the essence of moral evil. Outward goodness (only) is nothing but an apparent goodness and is the demonstration of the greatest evil when seen in light of Scripture. This is simply and plainly profound and when accepted from the heart (which only the illuminating work of the Spirit can do) will shine light upon the darkness of the fallen human heart. This should show men and women the nature of depravity, but also shines light upon the religion that the fallen human heart can come up with.

External religion that does not come from a regenerated heart (born from above) is a religion that is a vile thing in the heart of the living God. External religious devotion is not a devotion to God, but instead is a devotion to self and springs from nothing but love for self. External religion that is based on the thought that God loves everybody and so loves me is based on nothing but the selfish heart that loves those who love it. This selfish heart does what it does out of self-love and has no idea of the nature of true love that is of the nature of the true God and only those who are born from above share in. But to repeat in order to be clear, the religious devotion of people can be nothing but that which springs from a selfish heart and as such religious devotion can be the essence of moral evil.

If this basic truth would be taught faithfully in the professing churches in our nation (and other nations as well) there would be far less “churches” as the hearts of men would rise in opposition to God and they would not want to hear of such hateful things. The living God opposes all who love themselves and do all for themselves as those who violate the Great Commandment of loving Him with all of their being. Professing churches would shrink and go out of “business” as they could no longer preach a so-called gospel that was aimed at fulfilling the selfish nature of the human heart rather than one that sought to have fallen hearts seek the Lord for a new heart. When men saw that God was opposed to them, their selfish hearts, and intended great harm to them because of those selfish hearts they would see the enmity of their own hearts as they rose against the living God. Some would fall down and cry out for mercy and grace, but others would be hardened. But without the teaching of the selfishness of sin men will not see that their very best moral and religious actions are the essence of moral evil and as such they will not see their desperate need of Christ and a new heart.

Luke 6:31 Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

It [selfishness in the heart] tends to spread misery and destruction through the universe. It makes creatures as bad as they can be, and would destroy them all, were it not for the power and wisdom and goodness of God, which are employed in restraining, directing, and overruling its pernicious influence. Though sinners may love those which love them, and do good to those that do good to them, yet the nature of their feelings and conduct is still the same. Their apparent goodness is the essence of moral evil. Their partial love is general malevolence, and their best deeds are an abomination to the Lord. All their affections and actions terminate in themselves. They value and regard themselves more than all other beings put together, and whose interests they would sacrifice to promote their own. And can there be any thing virtuous, or amiable, or praiseworthy, in such a totally selfish love, which is disconformity to God, disobedience to His law, and its nature and tendency destructive of all the good of His holy kingdom? (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

The glory of God is the greatest good, so when men seek the glory of self rather than God that is the exact opposite of what true goodness, holiness, love, and the purpose God created man for. In other words, men are born dead in sin and trespasses and in that they seek themselves and the lusts of their own hearts, flesh, and minds. In this men go around spreading misery and destruction as their selfish hearts seek themselves. After all, sin brings misery and death. Now this selfishness may indeed bring what appears to be outward good, but all sin will spread misery and death as men seek themselves even in what others think of as good acts.

It is the selfish heart that makes men as bad as they can be, though indeed God restrains and overrules it. If God did not restrain the selfish heart and block it from getting all it wanted and from carrying out all of its desires, the selfish heart would spiral downward quickly and become as evil as a human being could be. The old saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is true, though we must limit this to fallen hearts. We can see this in men like Adolph Hitler and those who surrounded him. Their hearts sought self though in the disguise of a zealous nationalism. Their hearts were so given over to self that they destroyed nations and peoples as they followed the downward path of their sinful hearts. They became so selfish that they wanted to kill all the Jews in the nation (and perhaps the world) and yet they took all their belongings down to their gold teeth. They enslaved these people and used them as they wished and then killed them. It was selfishness that drove them to try to conquer the world with brutality and death. Ah, it is so easy to speak evil of Hitler and his men, but that same selfish heart is in all the hearts of fallen men.

Our own hearts desire power over others so that we can use them for ourselves and our own purposes. Our own hearts would destroy others for our own sakes, though indeed God restrains people from carrying out those desires. We see selfish hearts in murder and mass murder as well. One person does not get what s/he wants because another person stands in his or her way and that becomes a motive for murder. The ways that another person can stand in the way of another are virtually countless and so while we may view murder as having many motives, in reality there is only one real motive. It is the selfish heart wanting to kill another to obtain what that selfish heart desires. It is true that the percentage of murderers is rather small, but when we view murder in light of Scripture we see that hate in the heart is considered as murder before God. How many men, women, and children hate others in their hearts as others stand in the way of obtaining what those sinful hearts desire. While God may prevent men from being turned over far enough to carry out that hatred and others may not because selfish hearts don’t want to be punished for it, yet those hearts desire the death of others and apart from restraints they would carry it out. Oh how far our selfish hearts will go if God did not restrain them.