God Loves… Himself

There are perhaps more souls lost through a false confidence of salvation than by any other deceit the Devil makes use of. I do not mean those notorious sinners, but among the more decent formalists, who because they have never fallen into any foul, gross sins, or because their lives are somewhat reformed, and they practice some outward duties, make no doubt of the safety of their state. Yet they have no union with Christ by faith; the great renovating change has never been wrought in them; their natures are still unrenewed, their hearts unsanctified; they never saw and bewailed their own vileness; they never felt their real need of a Savior, in a way of renunciation of their own righteousness. They do not pant and labor after higher degrees of grace and holiness, like a true child of God, who can never rest contented with his present attainments [of grace]. They [the deceived] keep plodding on in the same beaten track, vainly thinking to divide their hearts between God and the world and content themselves with a formal, lifeless, luke-warm religion, which only tends to their greater delusion. Thus they go on dreaming of heaven till they awake in hell.              Sir Richard Hill

One of the huge differences between formalism and true Christianity is the motives and desires of the heart. The formalist has no true holiness of heart or life, but may be quite stringent in the external life. The formalist may also be quite active in fighting certain evil thoughts in the inner life as well. But the true child of God longs for more grace and more true holiness, which only comes to and through the soul by grace. The true child of God wants holiness and when that is attained by grace it wants more real and true holiness.

Though it may be the case that Hill overstates the case by saying that the true child of God “can never rest contented with his present attainments [of grace],” there is at the very least a strong point in there. That strong point is that the true child of God, though s/he may waver at times, will have a continuing thirst (to varying degrees) for holiness and grace. The true child of God is battered and buffeted a lot and at times thinks s/he has no desire for grace. The evil one will tempt the true child and it is also true that God Himself will withdraw and give the true child no felt desires for grace and holiness, but there is something in the true child that is something like a magnet that draws the person away from certain things. The true child of God will have the same direction from the moment s/he is born from above, but there are times when that direction may not be discerned to the external eye.

The formalist, on the other hand, may long to be rid of external sin and of evil thoughts that disturb the conscience, but s/he has no concern for true holiness and has no experimental concept of the real nature of sin. The formalist thinks it is righteous by following the external commands and the things of religion, but as long as s/he is not delivered from the formalism and self-righteousness will never see the glory of the Gospel and the free gift of righteousness given by grace alone. One of the deceptive parts of formalism (and how that fits in with the United States, at the least) is the thought that one stands and earns what it gets. It is the strong person standing for self and doing it of one’s own strength. Until a person is delivered from the bondage to self and the desire of self to stand in its own righteousness, that person will never rest in the righteousness of Christ alone and will never desire and seek a true holiness which comes by grace.

The heart is so deceptive that it is possible for a person to intellectually agree with the Gospel of grace alone and the need for an imputed righteousness and still be deceived by the evil one. It is possible for preachers to be deceived while they preach the doctrines of the Gospel according to the doctrines that are necessary for the Gospel. It is possible for preachers and others to think that because they know the truth and believe the truth (as stated in doctrinal form) and trust in the fact that they know and believe the truth rather than the object of that truth, Christ alone. It is possible for preachers and all others to believe that because they know about grace to think that they have grace. The deceptions of the evil one are strong and they cannot be escaped unless a person gives up on self and all the manifestations of self and looks to grace alone. Sinner, know that you will be damned forever if you don’t have the true Christ dwelling in your soul. Know that it is not enough to know about Christ and the Gospel, but instead you must know Christ Himself and you must have grace in your heart. It is not enough to know about the new birth and that one must be born again, but instead you must really be born from above. Don’t be deceived.

There are perhaps more souls lost through a false confidence of salvation than by any other deceit the Devil makes use of. I do not mean those notorious sinners, but among the more decent formalists, who because they have never fallen into any foul, gross sins, or because their lives are somewhat reformed, and they practice some outward duties, make no doubt of the safety of their state. Yet they have no union with Christ by faith; the great renovating change has never been wrought in them; their natures are still unrenewed, their hearts unsanctified; they never saw and bewailed their own vileness; they never felt their real need of a Savior, in a way of renunciation of their own righteousness. They do not pant and labor after higher degrees of grace and holiness, like a true child of God, who can never rest contented with his present attainments [of grace]. They [the deceived] keep plodding on in the same beaten track, vainly thinking to divide their hearts between God and the world and content themselves with a formal, lifeless, luke-warm religion, which only tends to their greater delusion. Thus they go on dreaming of heaven till they awake in hell.         Sir Richard Hill

This great paragraph by Hill points out the great difference between all religions and true Christianity. It has to do with the source of morality and religion. The whole world thinks of salvation or heaven in terms of good works or refraining from immoral acts, but that is also true of false forms of Christianity. Even worse, it is also true of those who are deceived within true Christianity. Those who are deceived use the name of Christ and orthodox creeds to bolster their deception, but while they believe they have faith and they believe in the words about union with Christ, they are not united to Christ. They believe that they have faith, but they are deceived about the source of their faith which comes from their fleshly nature.

Within Christianity there appears to be many formalists, which means these people can have the same intellectual beliefs and the same morality in terms of the externals. This is one reason that it is so easy for the evil one to deceive them. They have the same appearance as true Christians. But true Christians have Christ and are united to Christ because He gives them a real faith by a real grace, which is to say that these things are not just intellectual ideas to have intellectual beliefs about. This true and vibrant grace which comes from the resurrected Savior actually changes hearts and renovates them so that Christ is united to them and they are new creatures in Christ. Their morality is really holiness and it comes from Christ Himself by His Spirit. Yet for the deceived person there has been no real change of heart, but instead that person lives for self and all his or her religion and morality is for self rather than love for God.

The formalist is a person that will confess sin, but this person has never really seen and felt the vileness of his or her heart. This person may know that s/he is depraved by the intellect, but this person has never felt the stabbing and awful pain of realizing that s/he is a sinner by nature and all that s/he has ever done in religion was out of self-love rather than love for God. The formalist sees that what a person does is sin, but this person is not gripped with the fact that s/he is a sinner by nature. The formalist may be sad about sin or about being caught in sin, but this person does not recognize with pain in the heart that the very best thing s/he has ever done was as a filthy menstrual cloth in the eyes of God. The formalist is quite satisfied with being comfortable with the externals and perhaps just a little deeper, but this is not a person who sees self as utterly and totally ruined in the eyes of God. This person does not see or understand just how unsanctified s/he is with a wicked heart. Oh how blind they are to the true nature of sin because they don’t see the wickedness of their own hearts.

The formalist is a person that does not really see the need for Christ in all ways. This person knows that s/he needs Christ to be saved, but s/he does not see or understand how much s/he needs Christ. Every person must have Christ or s/he will perish because of the wickedness and vileness of the best deeds they have done and the most religious acts that they have done. These people want Christ to save them from the worst of their outward sins, but they don’t see the need for Christ to save them from all that they are and have done. The doctrine of regeneration is indeed nothing more than an intellectual argument that they give assent to, but they miss the fact that they are dead in sins and trespasses and that they need to be make alive so that anything they do will come from a new heart that is united to Christ. Oh how deceptive the evil one is because so many are bound fast in the bondage of sin, of darkness, and of formalism.

There are perhaps more souls lost through a false confidence of salvation than by any other deceit the Devil makes use of. I do not mean those notorious sinners, but among the more decent formalists, who because they have never fallen into any foul, gross sins, or because their lives are somewhat reformed, and they practice some outward duties, make no doubt of the safety of their state. Yet they have no union with Christ by faith; the great renovating change has never been wrought in them; their natures are still unrenewed, their hearts unsanctified; they never saw and bewailed their own vileness; they never felt their real need of a Savior, in a way of renunciation of their own righteousness. They do not pant and labor after higher degrees of grace and holiness, like a true child of God, who can never rest contented with his present attainments [of grace]. They [the deceived] keep plodding on in the same beaten track, vainly thinking to divide their hearts between God and the world and content themselves with a formal, lifeless, luke-warm religion, which only tends to their greater delusion. Thus they go on dreaming of heaven till they awake in hell.      Sir Richard Hill

This is such an important statement about how the evil one works to deceive people that the same idea should be dealt with from the pulpit on a regular basis. We may smile at the thought (or mourn) of those who have a false confidence of salvation while they live in sin. We may understand how people are deceived about their salvation because they are serious about their religion and morality, though we may be surprised at it when those type fall away. But it shocks us to think that people who make a confession of faith and make a drastic turn in their life from immorality and morality. These people are reformed in their morality and they will start becoming more and more committed in their religious duties. But these people are not truly converted.

One of the main problems with how the deceitfulness of the evil one works is that the Gospel of grace alone and regeneration by grace alone seems to be lost (for the most part) in this day. While the doctrine of justification by faith alone as stated in the creeds is agreed to, that does not guarantee or even make it likely that people are truly converted. There is a massive difference between a person believing that justification by faith alone is true and actually being justified by faith alone. One of the reasons for people being mislead about the true Gospel is that they are mislead about what it means to be truly converted and that this happens by grace. Another reason is that people are not taught about the true nature of faith nor about how a person must quit believing in self and free-will before a person will look to Christ alone.

When the true nature of the Gospel and the true nature of faith has been compromised (at best), people will believe the facts of believe from fleshly wills and think that they are converted. If a moral reformation occur, then that is seen as a sure evidence that a person is converted. A moral reformation must happen, to be sure, but that is no guarantee that a person is truly converted. As people can believe in a way that is from their flesh, be religious in a way that is from the flesh, so they can have a moral reformation that is from the flesh. All of this can happen under a cloak or orthodox religion. As Hill notes, these people are not united to Christ by faith and they have not had the renovation of their nature by the Spirit of the living God. Apart from those things, all of their orthodoxy, all of their religion, and all of their moral reformations are nothing but works of the flesh. All that these people do is from their fleshly nature though indeed they may be singing the praises of Jesus who did it all.

It is far better to be a poor broken sinner with many doubts who knows that s/he has a weak faith than to be a very confident religionist with strong confidence. It is far better to be poor in spirit while looking to Christ for crumbs of spiritual bread than it is to be one that knows vast amounts of theology and the Bible with a strong confidence, but all of that is from the flesh. It is better to be weak so that His grace will be our strength than have vast amounts of confidence from the flesh without grace. It is better to have a little grace to where the poor sinner bemoans his lack of faith and grace than to be one strong and confident in the flesh and yet deceived that s/he has grace while s/he has no grace. Yet we have the proud and self-confident running things in the professing churches because they appear to have true faith and a strong faith. The one with true faith may be one that has many doubts and fears while continuing on in his or her pursuit of Christ. The deceptions of the evil one are strong and the world is so backwards as to the nature of true faith. But Christ will keep His sheep despite their weakness and their little faith.

There are perhaps more souls lost through a false confidence of salvation than by any other deceit the Devil makes use of. I do not mean those notorious sinners, but among the more decent formalists, who because they have never fallen into any foul, gross sins, or because their lives are somewhat reformed, and they practice some outward duties, make no doubt of the safety of their state. Yet they have no union with Christ by faith; the great renovating change has never been wrought in them; their natures are still unrenewed, their hearts unsanctified; they never saw and bewailed their own vileness; they never felt their real need of a Savior, in a way of renunciation of their own righteousness. They do not pant and labor after higher degrees of grace and holiness, like a true child of God, who can never rest contented with his present attainments [of grace]. They [the deceived] keep plodding on in the same beaten track, vainly thinking to divide their hearts between God and the world and content themselves with a formal, lifeless, luke-warm religion, which only tends to their greater delusion. Thus they go on dreaming of heaven till they awake in hell.            Sir Richard Hill

While it is true that volumes have been written concerning false conversion and volumes will most likely be written in the future, this is not a job that should be left to scholars lengthy tomes. This is a vital truth about one of the primary practices of the evil one and that is true of all people. A scholarly tome may indeed have some good points here and there, but this is a basic truth that hits all people at all intellectual levels. This is also a truth that should hit every person that attends church, tries to be religious, and/or tries to be moral. The evil one uses all of those things to give people a false confidence of salvation for the purpose of damning them. This is a particularly diabolical practice in that not only are those with false confidence deceived, but that deceives many others as well. This helps deceive others with false confidence and yet deceives non-believers (in any way) about true Christianity.

The nature of true Christianity has always been under attack and the evil one has always tried to deceive people with the shell of it rather than the true life of it. The people with life in their soul have always been called derisive names by religious people without life in their souls. We must know that religious people can say the right words, have the right external morality, have the right creeds, but still be very, very lost because the evil one has deceived them by all of the things they do right. The severe lack of preaching in discerning the distinction between external religion and the life of Christianity does not help, but the numbers of those who teach the mere externals of Christianity seems to be the vast majority. As Hill notes above, this great deception of a confidence of salvation deceives many, but it appears almost exclusively among those who are decent formalists. This is a terrible deception when a person thinks that because s/he has the external form that s/he must be converted.

The mere formalist makes a huge mistake being deceived by the evil one through the pride, spiritual darkness, and self-love of the formalist. The formalist cannot come to the point of thinking himself as being worthy of damnation for what he has done and is doing. The formalist does not realize that his view of self is skewed by his own pride and darkness, so he does not see his sin and how far short of the glory of God his supposed religion falls. The formalist has never been broken and contrite for sin and instead follows along with the external duties thinking that those are demonstrative evidence of salvation, though indeed he has a wrong idea of God, of sin, and of the Gospel. This type of formalist can be quite orthodox in terms of creed or stated belief, but that intellectual belief of the truth does not sink any deeper into his heart than the teaching of his own sin does.

There are many formalists who will insist that they have loved God since they can remember and so they must have been saved at a very early age, but again this may not be the truth of the matter. If these people were told that God loved them and had a wonderful plan for them, they would have loved that god and not the biblical God. They would then be deceived into thinking that they loved God when in fact they just loved themselves and a false idea of the true God. So this type of formalist thinks that s/he has loved God and has never fallen into any bad sin (according to them), which deceives this formalist into thinking that s/he is converted. Jesus told Nicodemus who was a champion formalist of his time that he must be born again to see or enter the kingdom. That remains true for all people of all time. Being a formal believer is something to repent of rather than trust in for salvation. A formal believer is a deceived believer and on the way to hell. A false confidence of salvation can be eternally fatal.

There are perhaps more souls lost through a false confidence of salvation than by any other deceit the Devil makes use of. I do not mean those notorious sinners, but among the more decent formalists, who because they have never fallen into any foul, gross sins, or because their lives are somewhat reformed, and they practice some outward duties, make no doubt of the safety of their state. Yet they have no union with Christ by faith; the great renovating change has never been wrought in them; their natures are still unrenewed, their hearts unsanctified; they never saw and bewailed their own vileness; they never felt their real need of a Savior, in a way of renunciation of their own righteousness. They do not pant and labor after higher degrees of grace and holiness, like a true child of God, who can never rest contented with his present attainments [of grace]. They [the deceived] keep plodding on in the same beaten track, vainly thinking to divide their hearts between God and the world and content themselves with a formal, lifeless, luke-warm religion, which only tends to their greater delusion. Thus they go on dreaming of heaven till they awake in hell.        Sir Richard Hill

In his day (in the 1600’s) Thomas Vincent wrote on how true conversion was rare. If those views of were correct in his day, then how much more so in our day? It is hard to express how far Christianity has fallen since the mid or perhaps early 1800’s. It is even harder to express how far Christianity has fallen since the late 1600’s and the 1700’s. The Gospel of grace alone is asserted as a doctrine and as part of a creed, but it appears to be rarely preached as a truth for the whole of life. The teaching and preaching of the day has been greatly influenced by psychology, humanism, and politics. It goes without saying that the liberal influence has been devastating. The morality of our nation is so far gone that it is almost useless to speak about it other than to state that it is still astonishing to behold. R.C. Sproul once said that if Luther came back to life and wrote a book today he would title it “The Pelagian Captivity of the Church.” Pelagianism has indeed taken over, though it may call itself Arminianism or various other things.

What is important to point out in this context is that the real problem is with the professing Church. One of the real problems with the professing Church of this day is that it works hard to get people to be confident that they are saved before they are saved and that in fact hardens them to the true Gospel. We have become so nice and politically correct that we want to comfort people and assure them that they are saved regardless of what condition they are in. We have reached the point where it is assumed that people who attend church (especially “my” church) are saved. We assume that a person that is moral or religious to some degree, especially if they believe like I do, must be converted. We will excuse almost anything except a person who will tell people that they are not converted. Yet, as Hill points out above, it is his belief that more souls are lost through a false confidence of salvation than perhaps any other method.

Several years ago a man by the name of John Montgomery wrote a book titled “Damned Through the Church.” If the paragraphs above even resemble something close to reality, his book is also descriptive of our day. While it was the case that years ago pastors trembled and warned their people against being deceived about being converted, pastors today tremble at the mere though that their congregants may not have perfect confidence that they are converted. Could it be that the older way was right? If so, there are many, many people being given confidence that they are converted by their ministers while they are on the way to eternal flames. In that case, they are being damned through the church.

The devil, while we must not give him more credit than he deserves, does have a diabolical plan of deceiving people regarding their conversion. When we add the fact that God turns people over to their sins, it leaves us with a very frightening view of the modern professing Church. True Christianity is rare, which is easy enough to say. But one of the implications of that is that the vast majority of professing Christianity are deceived by ministers who try to convince people that they are saved when in fact they are not. This is also to say that when ministers do not try to distinguish between those with a false confidence and those who are truly converted, God has withdrawn His hand from the professing Church and has given it over to unfaithful shepherds. It could also be that the professing Church has many, many false prophets as well. We are in need of a great Reformation once again.

There are perhaps more souls lost through a false confidence of salvation than by any other deceit the Devil makes use of. I do not mean those notorious sinners, but among the more decent formalists, who because they have never fallen into any foul, gross sins, or because their lives are somewhat reformed, and they practice some outward duties, make no doubt of the safety of their state. Yet they have no union with Christ by faith; the great renovating change has never been wrought in them; their natures are still unrenewed, their hearts unsanctified; they never saw and bewailed their own vileness; they never felt their real need of a Savior, in a way of renunciation of their own righteousness. They do not pant and labor after higher degrees of grace and holiness, like a true child of God, who can never rest contented with his present attainments [of grace]. They [the deceived] keep plodding on in the same beaten track, vainly thinking to divide their hearts between God and the world and content themselves with a formal, lifeless, luke-warm religion, which only tends to their greater delusion. Thus they go on dreaming of heaven till they awake in hell.     Sir Richard Hill

This is a very sobering and perhaps frightening statement. It is not frightening because of the use of hyperbole or because of flowery language, but because it is so earnest and so to the point. It is frightening because it appears to be so true of so many. It is frightening because it is biblical and so applicable to our present day, perhaps even more than the author’s own day. It is also frightening because this is the same thought of Jonathan Edwards and others. It is frightening because so many are encouraged and pumped up to think that they should have confidence in our day. It is frightening because so many ministers want to give their people confidence and hate the idea that their confidence would be shaken. It is frightening because there are so many ministers who will not try to discern between the false confidence of so many and that of a true faith.

The Lord Jesus spoke of a wide gate and a broad road that many are on. It can be that people think of that gate and road as referring to the whole world, but it refers to those who actually think that they are on the road to heaven. “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Mat 7:13-14). These people were trying to enter the gate that leads to life but they actually entered the gate that leads to destruction. The wide gate and the broad road that leads to destruction are populated or tried by those who think that they are on the way to life. This should startle us and wake us up to stop playing with the Gospel and the nature of true conversion. When the Gospel is watered down, the message becomes something other than the true Gospel and becomes a message with a wide gate and a broad road.

While it may be nothing more than an intellectual problem or something to tickle the fancy of others, this is as serious as it gets. A false confidence of salvation is used by the devil to deceive human beings to damnation. This means that professing churches can be one of the favorite places of the devil to deceive people. This means that people who are more concerned with evangelism than the truth may in fact be the evangelists of the devil. This means that preachers who are more concerned with numbers and growth than the true Gospel are preachers for the devil. All of those things lead people to a false confidence of salvation.

While the thought may seem repugnant to many, it makes perfect sense when one reads Scripture. The devil began his human history of deception with twisting the words of God. He tried to twist Scripture in his temptation of Jesus. There is only one place in all of history that God inspired (breathed forth) His words about the Lord Jesus and the true Gospel. This means that men who are careless in their handling of the Scriptures and preach and teach a gospel that is not according to the whole of Scripture are deceiving men about the Gospel. We live in a day where it seems that the vast majority of people judge professing churches by results, numbers, and money. Where is the Gospel? It has been watered down by people on all sides. Some will tell us that all a person has to do is repeat a prayer while others will give us a list of moral issues that we must take up. The devil, however, continues to give people a false confidence in their salvation while keeping people busy with so many other things rather than the Gospel itself. Once again, the genuine Gospel is rare in our day.

There are few sinners but what hope to repent before they die, and nevertheless continue to swallow the damnable intoxicating draughts of sin. The extravagant folly of such person may be compared to that of a man who stabs himself in order to heal the wound again…There are those who plunge themselves deeper and deeper into sin, in order to stifle the thoughts of those sins which they have already committed; this is just as if a man should drink a dose of poison to expel another.      Sir Richard Hill

Sin is the most horrible thing in the universe, though indeed few see it that way in reality. Sin is not just an intellectual theory, but it is reality at its very worst. Sin, because it is human nature, is not just a power exerted from the outside upon man, but instead it is the very nature of man. The very nature of man is depraved and sinful, though part of that sinful nature is pride and that hides sin from man to some degree. Men can see that there are things in the world that harm people and they will agree that those things are sin, but what they cannot see is that all a person does comes from the heart. If the heart is bad, then all the things that a person does is bad even if the things appear as good to the love a person has for self.

The eye of faith beholds what sin does to the soul, but those without faith only pursue and can understand whether it is good for their pleasure at the moment. While no sinner that understands the true nature of hell will want to go there, so clearly they hope to repent in some way before they die. But they don’t truly desire a true repentance because they continue to give themselves to those things that are the opposite of repentance. Sin is what hardens the heart and yet they continue to give themselves to sin which hardens the heart while they give lip service to saying they want to repent.

As Hill points out, people give themselves over to more and more sin in order to stifle the thoughts of previous sin and the pangs of conscience that go with it. These people give themselves over to sin just in order to feel better or stop the pain. They give themselves over to sin in order to sleep at night, but they will not wake up to the fact that they are doing the very thing that caused the problem in the first place. If sin causes the problem, and it does, then it will do no good to continue in sin to stifle previous sins. It is a circular issue and people will need to go deeper into sin in the future to stifle the memory and conscience of sins committed now.

In the statements by Hill above we see some things opened and revealed our understanding about modern society. Sin brings misery, though people don’t like that thought. They want to be free from pain and misery, yet they don’t want to give up the things that cause the pain and misery. People go on in their sin and they go to counselors who pump them up and provide them with medication or false theories that will allow them to go on in their sin. Sin is essentially living for the glory, honor, and pleasure of self rather than the glory, honor, and pleasure of God. No matter what people do apart from a true repentance granted them by God, they will go deeper into misery.

We can see many of the problems of modern professing “Christianity” in the writing by Hill. People want to go to heaven by a wide path and take their sins with them. While this is not true Christianity, it does expose what the hirelings and charlatans are doing. They are raking in lots of money while helping the people go along in their misery. Some people entertain themselves to death in order to keep them from thinking about their misery, yet others give themselves to religion in order to stifle their conscience and misery. Some want an easy road to heaven and so they have an easy type of belief, yet others want to earn a lot if not most of it and so they want a hard road to heaven. The problem, however, is that neither of those roads are the narrow road, but instead both are on the broad road. There is only one way to deal with sin and that is the blood of Christ who gives true repentance by grace alone. False Christians may seem to have more fun, but they actually have more misery. The Beatitudes tell us that those who mourn are those who are “happy” or are truly blessed. Sin brings misery regardless of what one holds to as a creed or as an intellectual or historical faith. Only the risen Christ living in the heart of man can bring true contentment and true joy.