God Loves… Himself

It is the devil’s master-piece to make us think well of ourselves. (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).

One book put it well (1960’s) with its title Damned through the Church. The professing Church in the modern day appears to be little more than a way to take people away from the truth of who they are and the truth of God and His Gospel. Yes, this sounds like a depressed person preaching doomsday. Perhaps, but where is God in the professing Church of the day? Are people being moved by things of self (disguised as love) or real love for God?
What would be the case if the devil had replaced love for God with thinking well of self in the veneer of orthodoxy? Would it really be different than what we see today? I don’t think so. People can love orthodox teaching out of love for self rather than love for God. The Pharisees are excellent examples of this.

If the heart is more deceitful than all else, then the heart is certainly under attack by the deceiver (II John 7) who uses the deceitfulness of wealth (Mat 13:22) and the deceitfulness of sin (Heb 3:13) to deceive. Nothing is more deceitful to a heart that is full of self-love than to deceive it my working on it in ways that provoke it by self-love and built on ways to make people think well of themselves. When the message of the Church, whether in preaching or teaching or other ways, is built on the love of self, then the Church is really setting forth the teaching of the evil one. It is that bad and when that is done people are being damned through the Church.

Why is it that preachers will not preach to the heart and deal with sin in the people? Is it not from their own self-love in not wanting to “offend” people who will be “offended” if their high views of self are pointed out to them? I might add that what is known as “offend” and “offended” is in reality simply people getting angry. People get angry when they hear sin preached because it pricks their hearts and they don’t want to think that they are wrong because they love themselves.

The teaching about sin and self-love has literally almost disappeared from the teaching of the professing Church and that is because the teaching and attitude of self-love has been brought into the professing Church. People think that God loves them as they are and that they are to think highly of themselves because God thinks highly of them, but in reality the wrath of God is on them and they should repent of their high views of self. The very heart of sin is self-love and high views of self. People have not repented of sin until they have repented of self-love and thinking well of themselves. Until a person can bow to the biblical truths that s/he is an ungodly wretch, how can they believe that God justifies the ungodly? How can they believe the Gospel of grace alone until they see that they are so vile and wretchedly sinful that they cannot do one good thing to merit the least aspect of grace? In fact, one little work makes grace no longer to be grace (Rom 11:6). As long as a person has a high view of self that person will never be the humbled, contrite, and broken sinner that bows at the foot of the cross and goes to the throne of grace. High views of self are contrary to the character of God, of man, and of the Gospel of grace alone.

In trying to write as clearly as I can the book Damned through the Church speaks to the condition of the modern professing Church today. Preaching and teaching that does not address people as sinners is contributing to the deception of the people who want to be deceived and does in fact make the name of the book descriptive of what is happening rather than just a title. It may have been the case in history that people could go to most churches and hear the Gospel of grace alone, but that is not the case today. The Gospel is so lost today that it would be rare for one to attend a church and hear the Gospel rather than being deceived in a way that it could be said that the person was being damned through that church. When the devil works high views of self in the professing Church, he is doing his work of deception and damnation through the professing Church.

It is the devil’s master-piece to make us think well of ourselves. (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).

Evangelism can be done by nothing but self-love and a way to make self think well of self. Evangelism can also be a way for souls to trust in themselves and their own works, which in a sense is a way for people to think well of themselves. The devil hides behind supposed good words, works, and motives. How can one be wicked if that person does evangelism? How can one be wicked if one spends time and money in evangelizing? The easy answers are that they do this in an effort to win something from God, to prove something to themselves or others, or simply from the love of self.

Matthew 23:15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

In Matthew 23:15 it is clear that the Pharisees went to great lengths in their evangelism. They would travel long distances in order to make on proselyte. But what was the problem with the Pharisees? Matthew 6 is so clear that they did all their works of righteousness to be seen by men. This passage teaches us that people can be missionaries who travel to foreign lands and yet they are doing it out of nothing but the love of self and the love of applause of others.

Galatians 4:17 They eagerly seek you, not commendably, but they wish to shut you out so that you will seek them.
Galatians 6:12 Those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh try to compel you to be circumcised, simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ.

In the two passages above there are two motives for evangelism given. One is that the ones seeking the Galatians wanted the Galatians to seek them. This shows that one can do evangelism in a way that has the primary motive of wanting others to seek the one doing the evangelism. In the second passage we see that some sought for the Galatians to be circumcised in order to keep themselves from being persecuted. This, once again, is seeking something for others out of a motive that has self as its primary intent and love.

Phi 1:15 Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from good will; 16 the latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel; 17 the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment.

The passage above shows us that there are people who preach Christ simply out of selfish ambition. In this case, they wanted to cause distress to Paul while he was in prison. Most likely, then, those preaching Christ in that context were trying to get the people to follow them rather than Paul. But in their efforts to get the people to follow them rather than Paul, their chief love was not Christ or the people but instead themselves. Even in being an orthodox minister a person can preach Christ in a way to make self think well of self.

Phi 2:19 But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly, so that I also may be encouraged when I learn of your condition. 20 For I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare. 21 For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus.

The passage just above is a startling passage. Paul had not one to send to the church in Philippi because he had no one who would genuinely be concerned about the people. The reason for this is that he had no one who was truly concerned about the things of Christ instead of the things of self. But all of this sets out the clear and unmistakable teaching that people can evangelize and be very religious and do that only for the reasons of self. In other words, the devil has brought his master-piece of making people feel good about themselves into the churches and into our evangelistic practices. People evangelize because they feel good about themselves rather than love for Christ. People evangelize in order to obtain or further a sense of self-righteousness instead of love for Christ. In other words, evangelism can be a way for people to deceive themselves and as such is a way of the devil to make people think well of themselves. It is diabolical.

It is the devil’s master-piece to make us think well of ourselves. (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).

We can imagine professing churches teaching people to pray in ways that make them feel good about themselves and the prayers are all about themselves because that is essentially what we see in reality. We teach people to pray and to know that God cares about them and that God will do this and do that for them, but is selfishness in the form of prayer really prayer? We teach them to pray for self and the things that concern self, but if self is the idol we all must repent of we are doing nothing but teaching them to pray for the idol of self. We teach them to pray for religious things, but that is rarely done and when done it makes us think we are religious enough. However, even the Pharisees prayed for religious things and religious reasons, but they only did so because of self. “Every man is an idolater, so far as he is selfish” (Richard Baxter). Selfish prayer is idolatrous prayer and that is what the devil loves to hear in the prayers of the religious.

 Jesus spoke firmly to the Pharisees and contrasted what they did with true prayer.

Mat 6:5 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6 “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. 7 “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.8 “So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. 9 “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.

Why did the Pharisees love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners? It was so that they could be seen by men. Why do many love to stand and pray in the churches, at athletic events, and at political events? It is the same reason that the Pharisees prayed and that was in order to be seen by men. What is the point of being seen by men? It is the heart of self desiring honor for self and for self to be seen as righteous or holy. But this is not limited to one religious and political party two thousand years ago. It is the state of the heart. Satan has worked hard to get people to thinking that thinking well of themselves is okay, but now the churches are full of that type of thing. That thinking well of self is now used in teaching people how to pray and how to get what they want from God, but the heart of that type of prayer is idolatry. In other words, the churches are full of self-centered people who go to church and pray in order that they may obtain the desires of self. On the other hand, Jesus said that we must deny self if we are going to be His followers. So people are being taught to pray in a way that will keep them from following the true Christ. Such a thing sounds outrageous at first, but when the reality starts to sink in the hand of the devil in his deceiving work can be seen.

In the fall the evil one worked his way into the situation and so deceived Eve into becoming like himself in wanting to live by his own wisdom and for his own honor. It took the humility of Christ to take a human body to Himself and so live, suffer and die for the sins of others and raise up a church (the body of Christ and the wife of Christ). But the evil one is constantly trying to work his own image in the churches and this is done by working self-interest and self-love in people so that they will think well of themselves and seek themselves. In other words, he wants people to be like himself and seek the interests of self. When people seek self rather than the glory of God, though indeed they may be deceived into thinking they are seeking God, in fact they are just like Adam and Eve in the Garden who sought self and so the Fall occurred. As in the Old Testament when the evil one constantly sought to get the Israelites to set up idols in the land in order for God to be dishonored, so now the evil one is constantly seeking to have the idol of self set up in the churches. To the degree that men think well of themselves they will seek themselves when in the church or not. Idolatry reigns when self is served rather than denied.
The evil one has many deep roots in the professing Church of today.

It is the devil’s master-piece to make us think well of ourselves. (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).

Imagine professing churches having its preaching focused on ways to get people to feel good about themselves. It can also be a way for form of preaching that makes the preacher feel good about himself. A man can feel good about himself if he preaches a sermon full of orthodox doctrine. A man can feel good about himself if he preaches in an expository method and goes through a book of the Bible stressing orthodox doctrine and conservative morality. Either way, whether the preaching is intended to make the minister or the people feel good about themselves (or both), it is not aimed at the glory of God.

After all, this is the way to gain a hearing and a way to get people to do what we want. Getting people to do things makes ministers think that they are good leaders, though indeed they are leading people astray. Getting people to do things does get things done and it makes people think that they are advancing the kingdom. But if the root of it is (as it appears to be much of the time) getting people to think well of themselves (as workers, as spiritual, as righteous), then the root of it is not love for God but for self. Then the ministers praise people and give awards for this! Oh how hearts are being deceived within the churches by the devil and those who do his bidding.

The Scriptures speak of this problem (sin) in different places. We see it in the Old Testament and in the New.
Jeremiah 5:31 “The prophets prophesy falsely, And the priests rule on their own authority; And My people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it?”

II Tim 4:3 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, 4 and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths”

The people love to hear it when the prophets don’t tell the truth and their leaders rule on their own authority. Why is that? Because people hate God and they don’t want to hear the truth about Him and they don’t want to hear of those who are under His authority. The Scriptures can only be proclaimed when they are set out as God-centered with a love for God as the center. The Scripture can only be proclaimed when God and His grace are the focus and the strength to do good works and those for His glory.

People do not want to endure sound doctrine because they want to have their ears tickles, which is to say that they want to hear things that please them and make them feel good about themselves. They would rather hear good things about themselves and of things that make them feel good about themselves rather than the truth of who they really are and of who God really is. The teaching of self-esteem and self-love has simply permeated the church and has worked terrible things in all facets. It is the devil’s master-piece to bring the things he wants into the church and he is able to do so because his children are like him in wanting the honor and glory for themselves.  It is a terrible thing when minsters preach to gain honor and glory and the people want to hear nothing but what makes them feel good about themselves. That is a demonstration that those who are like the devil are rampant in the churches. The devil wants himself to be the focus and to get the honor and his children are like him in that regard.

It is the devil’s master-piece to make us think well of ourselves. (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).

Imagine professing churches being taught how to study the Bible in a way that profanes the name of God and is in fact an idolatrous action, but being told that it is pleasing to God. That is precisely what is being done across this nation (and beyond). We are taught to study the Bible in a way that makes us think well of ourselves. We are taught to think of the study of the Bible as a spiritual discipline rather than a way of seeking God out of love for God. We study the Bible to gain knowledge rather than to know God. We study the Bible to defend our orthodox positions rather than to love God. We are taught to study the Bible in a way that promotes pride rather than a way that sends us as helpless sinners into the dust crying out for mercy.

The Bible is the Word of God and is the revelation of God. At the same time it is the revelation of man and the sinful nature of man which is seen in the light of the holiness of God. One reason that human beings want to twist the truth about God is because it enables them to twist the truth about themselves. In the study of Scripture, then, we see that principle at work. We must twist the teaching of the Bible regarding our own hearts or we must repent in order for God to change us. The human heart is for full of deceit and those deceitful twists and windings that it can deceive itself at any point using a multitude of methods of reasoning and motives. But in studying the Bible and twisting it to escape the truth rather than as a way of seeing more of God and His glory, that is an act of idolatry and is an act of hatred for God.

The Scriptures speak of men who loved the Law of the Lord and desired for true holiness. But if the devil has gotten his master-piece of thinking well of ourselves across, then people only love the Law of the Lord if it will make them feel good about themselves as well. They will flee from the truth of holiness and of the Lord because those things don’t make them feel good about themselves. When they do things like this, they will study the Bible but not in order to see and find the real God revealed, but in order to sustain their good feelings about themselves and perhaps to make them feel good about themselves. Again, when they do this it is nothing but an act of idolatry in taking what reveals God and suppressing that truth so that they can feel good about themselves in unrighteousness. In a sense, it is diabolical.

The study of the Bible can be nothing more than an act of pride. The deceived soul can study the Bible for the sake of nothing more than gaining more knowledge in order to feed its pride which is to make the self feel good about self. Oh how the soul that wants to defend its orthodox positions out of pride will give itself to study in order to do so. But this soul is studying to defend self, the honor of self, and the pride of self rather than out of love for God. This, once again, is nothing more than idolatry.

The study of the Bible can be nothing more than the acts of a disciplined person seeking to be righteous in his or her own eyes. It can be a person trying to earn some form of righteousness by the act of study or it can be a person wanting to appear righteous in his or her own eyes because of the study. It can also be a person wanting to know more about God in order to appear righteous, which sure seems to be a particularly egregious sin. Oh how wicked the human heart is when it is driven by a desire to feel good about itself. That can be a root of self-righteousness and pride. It is also an idolatrous desire for self rather than for Christ.

It is the devil’s master-piece to make us think well of ourselves.        (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).

Imagine professing churches being taught that the way to have fellowship and love each other is to be nice and always speak in a positive manner. Yes, in more orthodox places we know that we must deal with sin, but even that can be done in ways that are intended to make people think they are forgiven and so feel good about themselves rather than repent in dust and ashes and be before a holy God in contrition. Niceness has replaced love and what is being nice but trying not to offend people (to be offended is really self getting mad when self is dishonored or made to face sinful self for a moment)? So people go around being nice to each other and then we try to be nice to ourselves and all we are doing is wickedly ignoring God and who we really are.

The biblical concept, or at least one of the biblical concepts, is seen in I John 1.
1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life– 2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us– 3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete. 5 This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; 7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

The concept of fellowship in I John is not just about being nice, going to sporting events, or perhaps eating together. It may include those things, but the heart of biblical fellowship is in sharing fellowship with God. The focus of esteem is on God. Part of this fellowship is not to practice sin but to walk in the light. True fellowship comes when people are pursuing truth and holiness and in doing that they are walking with God and so they fellowship with each other. That holy and biblical practice has been replaced with casual discussion and the need to be nice and help other people feel good about themselves, which of course helps us feel good about ourselves. The reality, however, is that those things are completely opposite of biblical fellowship.

The concept of feeling good about self is one that governs all things in the modern day (or at least it seems to). If we want to think well of ourselves and feel good about ourselves, then we must love others as we want to be loved. So we are to help them think well of themselves so that they will feel good about themselves. Such says the modern professing Church. But the Bible has something far different to say about fellowship. It is to be in fellowship with God first and it includes the pursuit of holiness. At least one aspect of fellowship is being cleansed from sin.

True fellowship and true love, then, is to help people see their sin so that they can walk in the light and love God and others more in line with the truth. True love is to look beyond what a person wants to feel about self to what the person must be doing if that person is to please God and fellowship with God. True love and true fellowship have to do with spiritual things and not just talking about the things of the world. When the desire to think well of ourselves gets involved in what is termed fellowship, true fellowship is destroyed. True fellowship includes the desire to be holy and has to do with fellowship with God. True fellowship has an aspect of being cleansed from sin, which one would hope would be both the guilt of sin and then the practice of sin as well. True fellowship is not about gossip, but about dealing with the sins of both hearts and tongues. If one wants a person to think and feel good about self, the topic of sin will be studiously avoided. But if a person desires to fellowship with God and other true believers, the topic of sin will be brought up so that sin can be discovered, repented of, and God pursued in the light of holiness.

It is the devil’s master-piece to make us think well of ourselves.                                                                          (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).

It is hard to imagine it, but imagine a people that are deceived about an important part of Christianity. They are so deceived that what is an essential part of repentance toward God they now believe is the motive they must have to please Him. The deception is so great that they are in reality bowing to an idol and think that it is how God is really pleased. That is the situation with modern professing Christians. They have bought into the devil’s lie about thinking well of themselves. Ministers are trained in this (or at least it is a hidden part that supports much of what they do) and so it comes down to the people in the professing churches.

It would be hard to overestimate this. People would be up in arms if a minister brought an idol into the church building and tried to motivate people to serve that idol. People would rise up and kick a minister out if he tried to get people to bow down before and idol and worship and pray. What has happened, however, is that the idol of self has been brought into the sanctuary (so to speak) and it is bowed down before and worshipped. When self is the primary motive for “Christian” activity, self becomes the reason for what is done. While God may be brought up and told that it is to be done for Him, He becomes a secondary motive in the whole of the activities of the church.

If the devil has indeed made people feel good about themselves, it is not hard to imagine that professing churches would teach people to worship in ways that make them feel good about themselves rather than to see their sin and know and love God. But beyond the mere theory of the matter, it seems as if the professing Church in the United States has been given over to the worship of self rather than the worship of God. We want to worship in ways that make us feel good rather than in ways that make us bow prostrate before Him and His holiness. We want to worship in ways prescribed by us because they make us feel good and feel good about ourselves. When we begin to think that worship is about us, we have just brought an idol into the church just as much as if we brought in a totem pole or a metal idol and bowed down to it.

Oh how the heart is so ready and easily deceived into thinking that what pleases it must surely please God. How easy it is for hearts that don’t understand spiritual things to be deceived into thinking that as long as God is mentioned and the work is done in His name that it must be for Him and His glory. But the heart that does not truly love God as its core and central love is in fact doing all things for itself and as such all the good works are done for an idol. But then again, it seems to be quite easy for those who are the strictest in their adherence to what appears to be biblical to do those for self as well.

The heart is so deceitful and is the instrument of the deceiver of our souls. Once it is thought that attention must be given to people in order to make them feel good about themselves the idol has been set up and is an idol that must be served in all areas of the church. How easy it is to do religious things and think we are doing them for God when in fact we are trying to use God to make a name for ourselves or try to obtain some form of righteousness for self. When the self becomes my focus, I can focus on others in a way that makes me the focus of self in serving others. It is all so deceptive, but the analogy is something like a politician who takes an opportunity at a soup kitchen for the publicity. The politician has no real concern for the people that s/he is serving, though it may be done in the name of mercy and kindness, but the politician is really only concerned about self. Such is the people of the local church when self is not truly denied. Many good things can be done by self and said to be done in the name of God, but the reality of the matter is that self does them for self. This is self trying to use God for the purposes of self and to get honor for self. It can be self trying to obtain righteousness before God, or to enable self to view self as righteous, or perhaps to get others to admire him for what he does. But when self does something with the self as the real love, it is an act of idolatry and the devil has deceived that person with his master-piece.

It is the devil’s master-piece to make us think well of ourselves. (Thomas Adams, Private Thoughts on Religion)

“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

In the past Christian pastors and theologians wrote a lot about the need to deny self and the need not to think well of self. But things have changed. Indeed, the love of self is so widely accepted as orthodoxy today that it gives forth quite an ominous cloud concerning the Church. One reason that this is so ominous (even deadly to a great degree) is that this high view of self and love of self is what deceives people about themselves, their own sin, the nature of God and of grace. If it is a fact (and I think it is) that people basically believe what they want to believe, then a soul that is full of self and love for self has a belief system that is set on automatic to deny the truth about God and His glory. This is why people will not listen to sound doctrine and so gather teachers around them to tickle their ears (II Tim 4:3). People like that turn their ears from the truth in order to listen to myths (II Tim 4:4).

The declaration that God is holy, holy, holy does not allow room for a lot of comfort for self in sin, so people simply turn away from that in the name of orthodoxy or liberalism. The orthodox person can rest in his or her orthodoxy just as much as a liberal can rest in liberalism. Who wants to admit that s/he is in the hands of a holy God that demands perfect justice and there is nothing that s/he can do to satisfy His burning anger and wrath? Oh how self-love wants to believe that a loving God would never treat him or her like that! Oh how self-love has a hard time seeing that its little indiscretions (in its own deceived eyes) are worthy of eternal flames! What self-love does not want to believe self will fight and reason away. Self tells itself that it would never do anything like that and so self has convinced self that God would never do that. But again, that is self reasoning and trying to reason away the truth about God. Romans 1:18-32 is quite clear on this. People suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Those who love self (in reality, the love of self is an idol and is having other gods in His presence) serve self and develop belief systems that allow self to remain at the center.

Ministers will work and work to gain a large number of converts and build bigger buildings and will do that for the honor of self. Oh indeed they say it is for the glory of God, but down deep they are doing it out of self-love. They are able to maintain a form of orthodoxy while they deceive themselves and others in building up large numbers and large buildings. They are so blinded that they use their orthodoxy as a blinder to themselves rather than a guide on how to preach the Gospel. They will speak on the issue of depravity and feel good about themselves in doing so, yet they will deny the reality of depravity in the way they do evangelism (so-called) so they can get large numbers and fund large buildings.

Ministers go to ministerial meetings and conferences (even conservative ones) and there they are made to feel good about themselves. They are told that they are doing great jobs if they preach through a book of the Bible. They are told that they are doing great jobs if they are getting converts or baptizing people, though indeed they may be doing nothing more than deceiving people into thinking they are saved. Beneath and underlying much of what goes on in these conferences is making ministers feel good about themselves. How beneath the Gospel of grace alone these things are. In other words, this shows how the devil has brought his master-piece of getting people to think well of themselves in the Church. When the ministers are trained while in seminary and then taught in continuing education with methods that are built on the rotting foundation of thinking well of self, the devil has made huge inroads into the Church.

Ministers are taught to motivate people and to get people into “Christian” service by getting them to think highly of themselves. Positive speaking and praise is what gets people to move rather than love for self. But when that is the case, one can know that the devil has worked his master-piece deeply in the Church. When self-denial has become denying things for self so that self can think well of itself rather than the denial of self as a whole, the devil’s master-piece has taken root. It is a real and vital question to ask just how much of real Christianity remains in the United States today when so much of what goes on reflects the master-piece of the devil. An orthodox veneer cannot cover over such a rotten foundation. It cannot stand the eternal test and it will not stand for long in this world either. How we need a deep sense of our sin, unworthiness, and utter helplessness before God.

It is the devil’s master-piece to make us think well of ourselves. (Thomas Adams, Private Thoughts on Religion)

“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

At least in America the overwhelming thought is that people need to think well of themselves in order to treat other people as they should be treated. This basic thought has also overwhelmed the professing churches as well. Rather than the biblical teaching which is that love for God is that enables human souls to be aligned with God and then man, this teaching is directly opposite of the biblical teaching. Even worse, or perhaps to add to its evil, the thought that man loves others based on a love for self is really to make man his own god and idol. How deceitful the teaching is that directs man to love himself and tell him that to be moral and treat others he must do that.

As usual this type of teaching can be traced back to the fall where Eve listened to the evil one and ate the apple in order that she could be her own god and determine for herself what was good and evil. This thinking well of ourselves is completely opposite of the reality of fall and what we are as a result of sin. Thinking well of ourselves makes us prone to disregard grace if not despise it. Instead of thinking well of ourselves, we should be like Paul who groaned, thought of himself as a wretch, and wondered who would deliver him from his body of death (Rom 7:24). We should also remember that Jesus taught us to hate our own lives (Luke 14:26) and that we must deny ourselves if we were to be followers of His. We must think deeply on the Gentile woman that Jesus called a dog and she responded humbly (Mat 15:26-27).

A person that is going to live by grace is not a person that lives by thinking well of self. A person that lives by Christ does not esteem self but esteems Christ. While the bumper sticker and the t-shirt theology tells us that God did not make junk, the Bible speaks of what man has done in the fall and then the continuing sin as a result of the fall. What man is does not reflect necessarily on how God made man, but on what man did when the evil one tempted and lied to man. Now, it would seem to be quite clear, not only did the evil one lie to Adam and Eve in the Garden and get them to focus on themselves rather than (or even opposed to) God, the lies continue. The evil one is opposed to God because God does all out of love for Himself (as triune) and His own glory while the evil one (not triune) does all out of love for himself and his own honor. The evil one wants all human beings to be opposed to God and love and live for themselves like he does, while the Gospel of Jesus Christ saves human beings from themselves (the heart of sin) and delivers them into the kingdom of Christ where He is the one that reigns in their hearts rather than self. God delivers sinners from themselves and grants them that they may love Him and His glory. This is a key divide between biblical Christianity and the false forms of it.

So the devil is at war with God for human souls and their ultimate allegiance. He works in his deceptive and devious ways to get human beings to focus on themselves and to think well of themselves. In modern America he has gotten people to think that they must love themselves before they can love others. The reality of the matter, however, is that this is nothing but another lie that correlates to his original lie to our parents in the Garden. If human beings must love themselves in order to love other human beings, then they are only loving others (which is not true love) out of love for themselves. That is a violation of the Greatest Commandment, the Second Greatest Commandment, and all other commands as well. Human beings are to love God with all of their being and then out of that love for Him they are to love others.

The root and the heart of sin is the love of self and thinking well of self. The devil has brought that basic idea into the Church and in doing so has tricked and deceived human beings into thinking that Christianity is all about them. He has tricked human beings into thinking that God is all about them as well. This means that professing believers strut around thinking well of themselves not knowing that they have been deceived into this by the devil who has them in bondage to the very thing that they need to be saved from. To repeat, the very thing that sinners need to be saved from (self, love of self, pride) the devil has deceived them into thinking that this is what God saves them for. It is a stroke of deception, no doubt and one impossible to be saved from apart from the cross. At the cross is where Christ suffered and died out of love for the Father and His people. It stands against self-love and self-esteem and is in reality the only way to be delivered from the bondage of those things. We must love Christ, not self.

If we sought after truth out of pure love to it, and for the pleasure of it, as is pretended, we should not fear the great teacher, Death, as we do. (Thomas Adams, Private Thoughts on Religion)

“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

The human soul is so full of pride and self that it deceives itself in all areas. It thinks it has a great love for truth, but many times it is simply a great love of the pride of self in knowing more than others. Self can be orthodox only out of a love of being orthodox rather than something else. The human heart is so deceitful because of its love of self and honor for self (either by self or others), it will take on differing drives and appearances in order to appear like it wants to self or before others. It may even be so deceived as to do those things in an effort to appear in certain ways before God.

If we loved the truth with a pure love and found pleasure in the truth, death (at His sovereign pleasure) would be seen as a way of obtaining the highest truth, real joy, and love. This is not to say that death itself must be pursued, but it is to say that when the soul that lives and dies for His glory and in His timing, that soul will find the highest truth along with real joy and love. Romans 14:8 sets out this great truth: “for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.”

Acts 20:24 sets out how this would influence our view of life and ministry: “But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.” It is only when people are free from the fear of death (to some degree if not a large degree) that they are then able to live for His glory. As I Thessalonians 5:10 shows us, the issue is not death but it is being with Christ in this life and in the next: “who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him.” I John 4:18 tells us that perfect love casts out fear because fear involves punishment.

Jesus also taught that we must be willing to deny self in order not to deny Him. Part of the denial of self is to deny our right to live as we please and perhaps to die in our own timing. To come to Christ in truth is to come to Christ in total submission to Him as our Master who can do with us as He pleases. This is nothing more than to pursue truth out of love both now and forever. It is to say that Christ is my Master and He is the One who chooses when I die and I will not fight Him over that. If He calls me to be a martyr, then so be it. The believer must learn in an increasing way not to fear death but instead to love true life which is Christ Himself. It is in the pursuit of Truth and Life (that is, Christ) that the fear of death will slowly fade away. This does not mean that a person will not fear the pain and certain things about it, but perhaps we can grow to be like Paul who cried out to be delivered from his body of sin. If we pursued truth enough perhaps we would hate sin so much that death would be a welcome deliverance from sin into the arms of Christ.

But for the present, we fear death because we are attached to the world and don’t want to leave it. We fear death because we do fear some punishment and so we have not been growing in love for Christ as we should have. We fear death because we don’t want to leave our families and friends, but in so doing that is idolatry because we should want and love Christ more. Perhaps, then, the real issue with our fear of death is that our hearts are too focused on and cleaving to this world. The modern brand of Christianity is so focused on a God who gives good and easy things now that it will not wrestle with sin and the hard things that God sends to train His people. With that focus the modern brand of Christianity simply cannot prepare people to pursue truth and love hard enough to not fear death. We are too shallow to grow up.