God Loves… Himself

Charity does not oblige us to think any man good, because Christ says, “there is none good.” (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).

The words of Christ in this passage should help all see themselves in the right light. If human beings could see themselves in light of these words and the great truths that are communicated by them, it would dash all pride and self-sufficiency. But the Holy Spirit alone can illumine the soul itself and give light to the truths and reality that these words point to.

Jeremiah 5:23 ‘But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; They have turned aside and departed. 24 ‘They do not say in their heart, “Let us now fear the LORD our God, Who gives rain in its season, Both the autumn rain and the spring rain, Who keeps for us The appointed weeks of the harvest.” 25 ‘Your iniquities have turned these away, And your sins have withheld good from you. 26 ‘For wicked men are found among My people, They watch like fowlers lying in wait; They set a trap, They catch men. 27 ‘Like a cage full of birds, So their houses are full of deceit; Therefore they have become great and rich. 28 ‘They are fat, they are sleek, They also excel in deeds of wickedness; They do not plead the cause, The cause of the orphan, that they may prosper; And they do not defend the rights of the poor. 29 ‘Shall I not punish these people?’ declares the LORD, ‘On a nation such as this Shall I not avenge Myself?’ 30 “An appalling and horrible thing Has happened in the land: 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?

If the ministers who are to preach the words of God to His people do not preach the truth that no man is good and that all good must come from God, then what happens? Men will trust in themselves and look to themselves for some good. They will turn away from the Lord and trust in themselves. Regardless of how orthodox a man may claim to be, if he is not preaching and teaching about how men are to be emptied of all hope in themselves and have no good in themselves, that man is not preaching the truth in a truthful way. Sure enough the people will love it as they will rule over themselves and try to determine what is right, but that is not something that is of benefit but instead is a sign of the judgment of God.

It seems like such a small thing to people to bow to the Lord and confess that they have no goodness in them and cannot do one good thing apart from His grace working it in them, but it only appears a small thing because of the great darkness of people in the modern day who read those words. People who do not look to the fact that they have no good in them are full of pride as they think of what good they can do. People who do not know that they have no good in them will try to do good in their own strength. Of course they may say that it is to the glory of God, but it is really to the glory of their own strength and supposed goodness since that is where their strength and wisdom came from.

The very basis for salvation is in realizing that we have no good in us and we must have a new heart. The very basis for sanctification is to realize that we have no goodness in us and we must have His grace work goodness in our hearts so we can do good. It is only when our externally good acts come from a heart moved by the goodness of God in the soul that they are really good works. God takes sinners and raises them from the dead by His grace and as such they are His craftsmanship created for good works which He has prepared for them to do. But if people follow their own wisdom, then what they are doing is not the good works that God has prepared for them to do and they will be doing externally good works in a very wicked way as they are doing them for the idol of self.

Nothing another human being can do should oblige us to call them good when Christ said that no one is good. Nothing we can do ourselves should make us call ourselves good since Christ said that no one is good. Since Christ said no one is good, and “I” and a one, I am not good. But this releases me from trying to be good in my own strength and so is part of being free to love God and do all for His glory. If I am not trying to be good in my own strength, then by His grace I can live by grace and then His goodness flows in and through me.

Charity does not oblige us to think any man good, because Christ says, “there is none good.” (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).

Perhaps one of the issues about our own depravity is our changing the definition from what is good in the eyes of God to what we like or want. When Moses cried out to God to show him His glory (Exodus 33:18), God responded my opening the eyes of Moses to His goodness and the sovereignty of His grace. For example, Psalm 136:1 starts off that important Psalm with these words: “Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good, For His lovingkindness is everlasting.” The language seems to indicate that we are to give thanks to the LORD because He is good. How do we know He is good or what is one way this goodness is manifested? His goodness is manifested in the fact that the lovingkindness of the LORD is everlasting. So the lovingkindness of the LORD flows out of His goodness.

Psa 136:9 The moon and stars to rule by night, For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
10 To Him who smote the Egyptians in their firstborn, For His lovingkindness is everlasting,
11 And brought Israel out from their midst, For His lovingkindness is everlasting,
12 With a strong hand and an outstretched arm, For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
13 To Him who divided the Red Sea asunder, For His lovingkindness is everlasting,
14 And made Israel pass through the midst of it, For His lovingkindness is everlasting;
15 But He overthrew Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea, For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
16 To Him who led His people through the wilderness, For His lovingkindness is everlasting;
17 To Him who smote great kings, For His lovingkindness is everlasting,
18 And slew mighty kings, For His lovingkindness is everlasting:

In the parts of Psalm 136 listed above, not many people in the modern world would begin to understand how the lovingkindness and the goodness of God could possibly be displayed in those actions. How could it be that the lovingkindness of God in the smiting of the firstborn of the Egyptians was good? How could it be that when the LORD drowned the army of Pharaoh in the Red Sea that His lovingkindness displayed His goodness? How could it be that the goodness of God is seen in killing great and mighty kings? When we are hesitant to think of those things as displays of the goodness of God it displays the lack of goodness in our hearts because our idea of good is not the same as God’s idea of goodness.

God’s idea of goodness is the display of His glory in the good of His people who bear His name. In the modern day the idea of good is simply what feels good for me, though there are some who argue that it is what is good for the greatest number of people. The goodness of God shines forth in the cross of Christ, but so many today think of that as a horrible event and could not be true because of the wrath in it. The wicked heart of man can behold the very essence of the glory of the goodness of God and think of it as vile and beneath true morality. The human heart is so full of self that it does not seem to be able to see anything but what is of benefit to it (as it thinks of benefit) at the moment as good.

How wicked it is of the human heart to even think that its fleshly actions for self can be good. How wicked of the human heart to think that its fleshly actions in religion for self can possibly be acceptable to God. How wicked is the human heart to curse God for His display of justice and righteousness and think of it as evil. How wicked is the human heart to only think of good as that which makes it feel good. In doing so, that is one way human beings try to be like God. Notice how Genesis 3:5, which was the promise of the Serpent to Eve, fits with the present idea of human beings determining what is good: “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When man fell into sin, he thought he could determine right and wrong for himself. However, that is the prerogative of God alone. So man thinks he can determine what is right and wrong for himself and in doing so he judges God as non-good. To the degree human beings follow their own wisdom as to what is good is to the degree that they think goodness comes from them and is determined by them. This is a hideous evil and an attempt to usurp the throne of God. God and His goodness will triumph.

Charity does not oblige us to think any man good, because Christ says, “there is none good.” (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).

The mindset of modern America and beyond is to speak in a positive manner about ourselves and others. We are supposed to be nice, kind, and positive so as not to disrupt the positive thoughts others are having of themselves. The great problem, we are told, is that people do not have enough self-esteem or they don’t think positive thoughts about themselves. Behind that type of thinking, however, is an utter denial of Christianity which is at least partially expressed by the words of Christ, as quoted above, “there is none good.”

This is a devastating word from Christ if each person would hear it in his or her heart. One can argue and defend this statement from Christ without having had it driven to the depths of his or her heart. But if ever the Spirit drives this great truth to the depths of the soul a person begins to see what s/he is and how utterly dependent s/he is on the sovereign hand of God. If the Spirit drives this to the depths of the soul, the person will see that s/he has never done one good thing and has no goodness in self to do one good thing. The Pharisees lived in strict observance to the Law as they interpreted it, but what they didn’t see was that they were not good but evil in their hearts and so they did not interpret the Law according to a perfect standard of real goodness. Then they set out with true evil in their hearts (self, self-reliance, self-dependence, self-love) rather than true goodness (God-centeredness, God-reliance, God-dependence, love for God) to keep their own interpretations of the Law and thought of that as good.

If people had ears to hear they could see the link between the previous two paragraphs. Both depend on a view that human beings have some goodness in them or that some goodness can come from them. True love not only does not demand that we think of human beings as having or being good, but it demands that we not think of them that way. External niceness and external religion (even if very rigid) cannot produce the slightest amount of goodness. The only thing that can come from a human heart without the grace of God and without God working in the heart is self and that is evil.

Each and every person should read those words of Christ and immediately fall on his or her face, but the very fact that people are not good means that they will not interpret this verse with its devastating meaning in accordance with truth. The heart that loves self will defend self from all attacks upon it and its perceived goodness and righteousness. But the heart that the Spirit is working in is losing its desire to defend self and is beginning to see what it is really like in the mirror of the Word. It sees through its own veil and veneer of niceness and self-righteousness to see the flood of evil (self) that is at the root of all it does. It sees through the defenses that self throws up so that self will not have to die and it begins to see that until self dies there will be no true goodness come from him or her.

Luther spoke of how one little word will fell him in speaking of the devil. In the text above Christ speaks (yes, speaks) four words that have the ability to fell all self-righteousness, self-love, and self-reliance from the hearts of human beings. Human beings are born dead in sins and trespasses and are not good. The problem is that human beings have developed a different idea of what goodness is than the Bible. Modern American has its own idea and the Pharisees had theirs. But both are nothing but illusions and they will deceive until the Day of Judgment when all illusions will dissipate in the glare of pure light and holiness as the morning fog is burned away by the sun.

The words of Christ (above) dealt a death blow to those who were deceived by the way of the Pharisees. The words of Christ deal a death blow to those who are deceived by the way of modern America. Human beings are not good and they have no access to true good apart from the goodness of God in making them new and then Christ dwelling in them by His Spirit. While it may not be nice in the American sense to tell people that they are without goodness, it is true love to do so. While it may not appear to be kind in the modern American sense to tell people this, it is true kindness to do so. Proclaiming the Gospel is not just telling people the easy and positive things, it is also telling them what they must know about themselves so that they will not trust in themselves but Christ alone.

Charity does not oblige us to think any man good, because Christ says, “there is none good.” (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).

Indeed this should rake the heart of every saved sinner and every unsaved sinner as well. When Christ says that “there is none good”, we can know that there is not one person who is good in and of himself. That, of course, though more painful, for each person means me. Of course Jesus meant that no one had a nature of perfect goodness and no one could do good in and of themselves but God alone. But the implications for that are simply staggering and humbling. No human being is good and no human being can do good apart from God working that in the soul. Oh how that should strike at our hearts and deliver us from all pride. The only thing that I can do in and of myself is non-good, which means that I am utterly dependent on God alone for any good that comes from me.

Romans 3:12 ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.”

While this verse indicts all human beings, it also indicts each and every human being including me. Not only am I not obliged to think of myself as good, I am obliged to see myself as utterly dependent on God for all good that I may do. But apart from God, I am utterly useless and worthless to do one good thing. I have turned aside and I have become useless and worthless to do one good thing. If there is not one human being that does good, then I don’t do good as well. The conclusion, then, is that I am not good and I don’t do good. What room is there for pride in the evil I have done? What room is there for pride if something good does come through me? The depths of humility is what I need, not pride or pats on the back.

Titus 3:3 For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.

This verse is a puzzle to many people, but it brings the light upon the lives of those who are not Christians and on the former lives of those who are now. It tells us that outside of Christ we were foolish, disobedient, and deceived. It tells us (me) that as unbelievers as we lived in our deceived state we had malice toward others and hated them even when we thought we loved them. We (I) were so deceived that in all we did toward others we hated them in doing what we thought was love. In doing so we have broken the second Greatest Command in all we did. Oh how terrible it is to think of how much I was guilty of hating others. Indeed, I should not think that others are good or that I was or am good. Any good that any human being can do has to be originated in God.

Luke 18:19 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.

Indeed there is no one who is good in and of himself except God. He is goodness itself and all He does is perfectly good. Yet no man can claim that for self and no man can lay a legitimate claim to a good work apart from it coming from God who is good. This should decimate all claims to goodness of human beings.

1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.

In this passage we have the apostle Paul telling us that whatever he was it was because of the grace of God. Not only that, but whatever his labor accomplished or did was not Paul but was the grace of God. The Scriptures are abundantly clear that no one should view others as good in themselves or that good can be done by them apart from the grace of God. But more pointedly, the Scriptures are just as clear in telling each person (me) that I have no goodness in me and I can do no good unless it is the grace of God working in and through him or her. How utterly helpless human beings are to do anything good apart from grace and we must recognize that to see true goodness.

Charity does not oblige us to think any man good, because Christ says, “there is none good.” (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).

Very few believe that no on is good, but none believe it about themselves much at all. We must believe it as a theological fact, but accepting that truth as true about ourselves is more than our pride and self-love can bear. We don’t have to think of anyone as good and we must not think of others as good if we want to be biblical. While many speak of people as being “a good man” or something of that order, at best it is not theologically accurate and at worst it build up the self-righteousness of others. We may think we have to believe that others are good in order to make it though the day or walk down the street feeling safe, but that shows how little we rest in the sovereignty of God. We would rather believe in what is not biblical (that man is basically good) than believe in the sovereignty of God in whom all that man does is under His perfect control.

Romans 3:12 ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.”

Titus 3:3 For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.

Luke 18:19 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.

The three texts of Scripture above do not equivocate and do not beat around the bush. No one does good as an unbeliever and in fact spends his or her life as slaves of lusts and pleasures while spending his or her “life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.” Jesus specifically said that no one was good except for God alone. Perhaps He was meaning something different than Romans 3:12, as there is a distinction between doing good and being good, but the point should be driven home. No one is good but God. No unbeliever is good and no unbeliever can do good, but instead spends his or her life in slavery and hating others.

But speaking of believers, not one believer is good, but a believer can do good because He who is good can work that good in and through him or her. This should drive the believer to a deeper and deeper humility as he sees himself as he is which is not good, but also utterly unable to do one good thing from self and by self. The truth drives us to see ourselves as the Bible sets it out, but also to see others in that light. It is only when we see ourselves as having no good in us but needing to have each bit of good given to us that we begin to see our utter dependence on Christ each moment.

Charity or love not only has not demand on us to think of others as good, but the truth of love demands that we not think of others as good so that we may see the glory of the goodness of God as He works good in His people. The love for God and His glory should drive us to see that we have no goodness that can come from ourselves other than what we receive by grace from Him. Oh the horror of our deceptive hearts which deceive us about true goodness which is to deceive us about the true God. The world is based on building the esteem of ourselves and others based on the good they and we do in most cases, but in doing so it is a deceptive system that comes from the deceiver himself. God is infinitely glorious in His goodness and man has none of himself but what comes from God and that is to the glory of His name.

We can no more bear to be told of our faults by God than man; and if we durst think it, are in reality as much disgusted by the one as the other. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

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

This penetrating thought of Thomas Adam (above) can reveal a lot about our own hearts if we will take the time to think for a few moments on it. We know that we don’t like to be told bad things about ourselves whether they are true or not. We much prefer to go on deceived about ourselves rather than actually deal with our own hearts. It is painful to our pride and our self-love and horridly inflated self-esteem when someone points out something about us that is less than perfect. While Scripture speaks of a flattering tongue as working ruin and the wounds of a friend as being faithful, we will not listen to Scripture at that point and instead listen to our wounded pride. A person that speaks ill of us, even if it is in true kindness, is a person that we are disgusted by.

When Nathan the prophet confronted David with his sin concerning Bathsheba and Uriah, he pointed at him and said “you are the man.” David was immediately convicted of his sin and brought to a thorough and painful repentance. Something of his repentance is recorded in Psalm 51. In it David said that he had sinned against God and God alone, “So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge.” In other words, whatever God did with David God was justified in doing so and David admitted that.

On the other hand, there are so many who hate to go to a church where sin is mentioned and hardly anyone is able to endure what they used to call “close preaching.” People want to have their itching ears tickled even more rather than have the Word of the living God spoken and the Spirit convict them with it. Behind or underneath all of this is that people have an exalted opinion of themselves and down deep they see themselves as good and perhaps as righteous. Then the truth pokes at those false bubbles it shakes people to their very foundations. When this happens, people are disgusted by those who tell them or show them that they are sinners. They are disgusted by people who do this or by the living God when His perfect and righteous standards are set forth.

II Samuel 12:9 ‘Why have you despised the word of the LORD by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon. 10 ‘Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’

In the II Samuel 12 passage Nathan spoke very strongly to David. He told him that he had despised the word of the LORD by doing evil in His sight. This is a very powerful passage when we break it down just a little. When a person does what is evil, that person despises the word of the LORD. The standard of evil, however, is not what man says about it, but what is evil in the sight of God. This is why human being must strive to know their own hearts and they must strive to discern and judge what is evil in accordance with what God says is evil. The Pharisees thought they were righteous because they practiced righteousness by their own standards, but the NT clearly shows that what they thought of as righteousness was actually wicked lawlessness by the standards of God.

The II Samuel 12 passage, however, goes just a bit deeper. Nathan tells David that not only had he despised the word of the LORD in doing the evil he had done, but he had actually despised God Himself (see v. 10). This is an aspect of sin that we don’t hear about very much. When people commit sin they despise the word of God and therefore God Himself. When others disgust us by their standards, if their standards are the standards of God then we are disgusted by God. Indeed our sin is so enormous that we cannot even begin to make the smallest dent in it. We desperately need a Savior who can save by grace alone and be moved out of love for God rather than us.

God may say to every self-righteous man, as he did in the case of Sodom, “Show me ten; yea, one perfect good action, and for the sake of it I will not destroy.” (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).

As human beings try to hide their hearts from others and themselves they reflect so little on the smallness of their own righteousness. In all actuality, however, when a person looks in his own heart in truth as illumined by the Spirit, he will not find any righteousness at all. While Scripture speaks (Mat 5:3) of the blessed man as being one is utterly impoverished of spirit, that is, has no righteousness of his own and no way to obtain any either, human beings constantly want to find something good about themselves. So on the one hand Scripture says we are blessed if we are poor (utterly impoverished regarding righteousness) in spirit and yet that blessedness is seen in having Christ alone as our righteousness. Oh how the Reformation made justification by faith alone a common doctrine of the brain, but how hard it is for human beings to be brought to the point of believing that and living like it from the depths of their souls.

The heart that is filled with self-love and self-sufficiency does not want to hear that it has never fulfilled one command of God by love and it has never obeyed His law to its stringent and spiritual demands. O how the heart of man, and perhaps especially the religious folks, rebels and fights against the law being applied to the depths of the soul and stripping it of all righteousness and all good works. O how the heart does not want to be left naked with nothing but filth and wickedness to cover it before the searchlight of the Word of God. Nevertheless, Adam is right. If God did make the offer to human beings that if they could come up with one good work that had no sin in it, He would not find one person that could honestly make that claim if that person knew his or her heart.

Romans 3:12 may be read a fair amount, but it is not truly believed. The piercing words can be passed over by the eyes or go in one ear and out the other, but this passage of Scripture is utterly devastating to all who will take a few moments to pray for the Spirit to give them understanding. “ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.” Humanity as a whole and each individual have become useless or worthless. They do nothing good, not even one of them. If not one human being does good, then that means that I have never done one thing good. A person that is dead in sin has no ability to comply with the law of God and cannot do one thing to please God in any way. A person that is dead in sin with an unbelieving heart cannot please God in anything he does because it takes faith to please God.

The heart that has arrived at the startling realization that it has no righteousness to claim for its own and nothing to point to but sin, is a heart that has started to realize the utter necessity of divine grace. The Divine Potter does not start with a few good deeds of ours and then work to make us better, but instead He starts with clay and forms it as He pleases to the glory of His own name and grace. While God will never make that offer that Adam spoke of above, perhaps it would be good to use that approach in evangelism. After all, until a person is broken from all hope in self how will s/he rest in grace alone? We are so easily satisfied in our day with professions of faith and knowledge in the head of grace. Until a person knows his sin and knows in the depths of his heart that he has no righteousness at all (none, zero, zip, nada), that person does not truly understand the glory of the grace of God in the Gospel of Christ alone.

The heart of man pants everlastingly after distinction; and our pride only changes its appearance. Mine, I find, is grown to a goodly size, under the show of humility (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).

Many thoughtless people who have never taken the time to examine their own hearts may read the quote above or something like it and know that it does not describe them. This simply shows that they are in darkness and have not seen their own hearts in the light. The heart is like an attic or a basement that is full of spiders, mice, and all kinds of animal life but is not seen because it is in the dark. But if someone turns on the light, all the things that were invisible in the dark become visible.

John 3:19 “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.”

John 8:43 “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word.
44 “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 “But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.”

John 12:42 “Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue, 43 for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.”

It was judgment on the people of that day that the Light Himself came into the world and yet men loved the darkness rather than Him. Why did they love the darkness rather than the Light Himself? Because their deeds were evil and they did not want them exposed. The religious people of that day wanted to keep their positions of power and their distinctions among the people because they loved the honor they received from the people. It was to these religious people that Jesus said that because He spoke the truth they did not believe Him. Their hearts were the problem, not Jesus. He was truth and light Himself and His words and deeds shone the truth to and in these religious elite of the day and they hated Him because of that.

The Pharisees were born in sin and they were of their father the devil. They could not understand what Jesus taught because they could not hear Him, that is, hear Him as to what He said and desire what He said. The devil lies and has no truth in him and so that is how his children are. The Pharisees, again, were the religious elite of the day and Jesus said to them very clearly that they were children of the devil. Their hearts desired distinction among the people of that day and they were able to obtain that distinction in religion. But when Jesus came and spoke Truth to them, they could not hear Him and would not hear Him or believe Him precisely because He spoke the truth and they were not of the truth.

Oh how deceptive the heart of man is and how man is so deceived by his heart and he is so deceived that he loves being deceived. Man is born in sin and his father is the father of lies and has no truth in him, yet his children are like him in that way. So when someone with the truth comes and proclaims it, just like it happened with the Pharisees, they are deceived by their own hearts which have no truth in them. As the proud hearts of the Pharisees did not want to admit that they were sinners and so needed a Savior because they would lose their distinction among the people, so people today don’t want to admit that they are helpless sinners. Many of them may be pastors or men of distinction in churches, but when they hear about sin they won’t listen to it or believe it. When they hear that Christ is the only way, they won’t hear about it and refuse to believe it. Indeed under the show of humility they think that their humility earns them distinction. Proud hearts are a judgment from God and it takes omnipotent power and grace to bring a proud sinner to true humility.

The heart of man pants everlastingly after distinction; and our pride only changes its appearance. Mine, I find, is grown to a goodly size, under the show of humility (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

This comment by Adam is very insightful and frightfully true. We see this in the way teens dress and the way they behave. We see this in the way adults dress and the way they behave. Human beings, since they are both social creatures and very proud and self-centered creatures by nature, want to stand out and be distinguished in some way. But of course this does not fail to be noticed by some, so their pride of wanting to be different can be hidden by not wanting to be like all those other people who desire distinction by dressing in weird outfits or doing weird things. As noted before, the proud heart of man does not want to be known as proud so it tries to put on humility in order to hide its pride. The outward appearance of humility, however, is nothing but a show of pride as well.

It would appear that there are many who seek their distinction by the things of religion. These can be innovative in worship, evangelism, or preaching. They say that they are there to preach Christ and to see souls saved, but in the depths of their hearts they are just proud men seeking after distinction. Their pride may hide this from them and so they will try to put on the appearance of humility, but God sees the heart. 2 Corinthians 4:5 shows us that Paul saw this as a problem and perhaps many others were doing this as well: “For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.” We see the same thing in Philippians 2:21 where Paul was writing to them and saying why he had no minister to send them: “For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus.” There were even some who preached Christ for the purpose of causing Paul discomfort: “The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment” (Phil 1:17).

How horrible and idolatrous the human heart is that it would have the desire to boast in itself and preach Christ in such a way for the motives of self, but then again what a horrible and idolatrous thing it is to live in such a way as to try to distinguish self. The religion of the Pharisees appeared to be a practice where they were in competition with each other to see who could get the most attention in prayer, in fasting, and the giving of alms (see Matthew 6:1ff). They prayed in order to be seen by men and they fasted in order to be seen by men. They gave alms in order to be seen by men. In other words, these men were proud in their religion and sought to distinguish themselves in the things of religion. In the eyes of God these things are an abomination.

It has been noted by others that men are so proud that they try to hide their pride behind a show of humility. Perhaps this deceives others, but it can also deceive self. But it will never deceive God. To put it bluntly, when men try to hide their pride behind a fake or feigned humility, that is a growing pride. Nothing but a proud heart that is deceiving itself could ever think that it could fool God or hide its pride from God with a feigned or pretend humility. It is an act of atheism itself. How we need to fall on our faces before God and ask Him to deliver us from pride rather than try to cover up our hearts by it.

Nothing is more unknown to man than himself. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?

Part of the reason that people do not know their own hearts is because they walk in great darkness and part of that great darkness is that they walk according to self-love rather than the love of God. One aspect of walking in self-love is self-flattery, and in fact self-love leads one to view self in a self-flattering way. Since the heart is unknown to the person who is dead in the sin of self-love, this person is virtually always living in the flattery of self. All things must be judged by the truth and justice of God rather than the standards of a self-flattering and fallen human being. As seen in Proverbs 16:2, “all the ways of a man are clean in his own sight”. In contrast to that, however, the motives are weighed by the LORD. In Proverbs 21:2 it says “but the LORD weighs the hearts.” In other words, the man does not know his own heart and so does not take into consideration his sinful and selfish motives. He has flattered himself by looking at the outward action through the eyes of self-love and does not notice the wickedness of his own heart.

In much the same way we see in Proverbs 16:25 that “There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” So men have ways that seem right to them, but in fact those ways lead to death. Why do they seem right to men when in fact those ways lead to death? One reason is because men flatter themselves in their own eyes that they know what is right and that they wouldn’t do what is wrong. It seems right to men because they judge on the basis of what is good for themselves or on the basis of what they want to be right. But they don’t know their own hearts and so what they do leads to death.

Proverbs 26:28 sets out very clearly that “A lying tongue hates those it crushes, And a flattering mouth works ruin.” What the verse does not state is that a lying tongue can hate the liar because lying can end up crushing the liar. It is also true that “a flattering mouth works ruin” to those it flatters, but the flattering mouth can also ruin the one doing the flattering when that person is flattering himself in his own eyes. The one driven by self-love (all those who don’t love Christ in truth) is one who flatters himself and as such works ruin to himself. In much the same way we see that Proverbs 29:5 tells us that “A man who flatters his neighbor Is spreading a net for his steps.” But it would also be true that the man who flatters himself is spreading a net for himself.

The person who is full of self-love judges all things by his self-love and so “is pure in his own eyes, yet is not washed from his filthiness” (Proverbs 30:12). While walking in sin those who are guided by self-love flatter themselves by telling themselves that they are pure. It is flattery of self and working ruin to self because they are nothing but filthiness and sin. Psalm 36:1, a Psalm of David, says that “Transgression speaks to the ungodly within his heart; There is no fear of God before his eyes. 2 For it flatters him in his own eyes concerning the discovery of his iniquity and the hatred of it.” How devastating it is to those who refuse to look at their own hearts and seek a full discovery of it. Not only does a person flatter himself regarding sin, Psalm 36:1 says that the transgression itself speaks to the ungodly within his heart. Because the transgression speaks within the heart, the sinner does not fear God because of the sin. The text tells us that this is because the transgression flatters him “in his own eyes concerning the discovery of his iniquity and the hatred of it.”

Those who live in self-love live in self-flattery and as such they are crushing themselves, ruining themselves, and spreading traps (nets) for their own feet. But what is hidden from these people who deceive themselves is that it is sin itself which is deceiving them about being discovered and hating it. Sin does not want to be discovered and it does not want to be hated, because it does not want to die. But when we see that sin is essentially self-love working in the heart we see that it is self-love that does not want to deny self and die to self. Self-love and self-flattery are ruining souls because it does not want sin to be discovered and hated. How terrible it is to be in the grip of a deceitful person, but how more terrible to have our own hearts be so deceptive toward us. How utterly helpless we are to discover our own sin and how desperately we must have the Spirit open our eyes to it.