D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones Studies in the Sermon on the Mount “The Signs of Self-Deception”
The momentous and alarming words of the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 7:21-23, “I never knew you”, make it vital that we consider this matter of self-deception. As we value our souls and as we realize that we are all passing through this world in the direction of a final judgment, and shall all have to stand before the judgment throne of Christ, this kind of self-examination becomes quite inevitable. As the apostle John put it: “Every man who has this hope in him purifies himself even as He is pure” (1 John 3:3). And you cannot purify yourself without examining yourself. What is important is to recognize the need of self-examination. It is taught constantly in the Bible.
The first step to take to avoid deceiving ourselves is to consider the causes of self-deception. These are designed to warn us of the subtle way in which we can deceive ourselves. We do not live our Christian life in a kind of vacuum. Quite apart from the society we live in, we also have to contend with the devil and ‘the principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places.’ Here, then, are the controlling principles. Things that are good in and of themselves, unless we are careful, may be the very things that will deceive us about the state of our souls. But how can we know whether we are tending to depart from the simplicity that is in Christ, and getting into this terrible false position that is described in this verse? Here are some of the answers.
1. If we find our main interest is attending meetings, we are entering into a dangerous condition.
And there are many people in that position. They are kept going by meetings, and when they are suddenly cut off from them they begin to discover a terrible barrenness in their soul and in their Christian experience.
2. The danger of an excessive interest in experiences, feelings, physical healings, etc.
3. The danger of an excessive interest in some Christian movements or fellowships.
The danger lies in our assuming that because of our interest in these things we are, of necessity, Christian. That is the very thing our Lord is warning. Here is a person who says, “Lord, Lord”; he casts out demons, he does many wonderful works in the name of Christ, in the realm of the Church, and because of that he assumes that he is a Christian. Yet Christ says he may not be. Their real interest is in the activity and in the organization, not in the Lord, nor in their own relationship to the Lord. This is a terrible possibility. There are people whose real and ultimate interest is in their particular church, not in Christian salvation, not in the Lord Jesus Christ at all.
4. The danger of an interest in social and political issues instead of the personal aspect of Christianity.
If I find my interest tends to be more and more general, or social issues like abortion and homosexuality, or political, if that is increasingly my main interest in Christianity, then I am in an extremely dangerous state because I have probably ceased to examine myself.
5. The danger of being primarily interested in apologetics. Instead of in a true relationship to Jesus Christ.
This is a danger of which every preacher should be particularly aware. Many a man who has persuaded himself that he is a Christian is in reality only interested in apologetics. He spends the whole of his time arguing about the Christian faith, defending it, denouncing evolution, denouncing false teachings and various other things that seem to be attacking the very vitals of the faith. This is a very subtle danger because such a man may be completely neglecting his own soul, his own personal holiness and sanctification and his personal relationship to the Lord.
6. Another danger is an over interest in prophetic teaching.
The Bible contains a great deal of prophetic teaching, and it is our business to acquaint ourselves with it; but there is nothing that can be so dangerous as an undue interest in prophetic teaching, and especially at a time like this with the world in its present condition. Gradually this interest seems to absorb and to master certain people and they think and talk of nothing but prophecy. There is scarcely anything more dangerous to the spiritual condition of the soul than this over absorption in prophetic teaching.
7. There is a further group of dangers connected with listening to the preaching of the Bible.
Some people simply look for ‘points’ in sermons, and at the end they make comments about this or that. Let us always be careful not to regard ourselves as experts. The effect of true preaching should be to make us fear and tremble; it should make us examine ourselves and think more about the Lord Jesus Christ. Beware of becoming interested in the mere letter of the Word. Beware of too great an interest in the various translations of the Bible.
8. The last danger is the terrible one of playing grace against law and thereby being interested only in grace.
There is no saving doctrine at all apart from the doctrine of grace; but we must beware lest we hide ourselves behind it in a wrong way. Again I remember a man who had been converted, but who then fell into sin. I was very ready to help him until I found that he was much too ready to help himself. In other words, he came and confessed his sin, but immediately he began to smile and said: ‘After all, there is the doctrine of grace’. I felt he was too healthy; he was healing himself a little too quickly. The reaction to sin should be deep penitence.
When a man is in a healthy spiritual condition he does not find relief quite as easily as that. He feels that he is hopeless and vile. If therefore you find that you can heal yourself easily, if you find you can jump lightly to the doctrine of grace, I suggest that you are in a dangerous condition. The truly spiritual man, while he believes in the doctrine of grace, when he is truly convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit, feels at times that it is almost impossible that God can forgive him. I have put that sometimes in this form by saying that I do not quite understand the Christian who can sit through a truly evangelistic sermon without feeling convicted again. There is always a convicting aspect to the message; and once we find that we are not reacting in that way because we fly at once to grace, we are in the condition which leads to this tragic self-deception.
So, again, while we believe that theology is vital and essential, we must remember that the devil may so press us that our interest in it becomes inordinate and unbalanced, with the result that we are ‘puffed up’ rather than ‘edified’. As I look back across some thirty years and more in the Christian ministry, I have seen many instances of that. I have watched such people, and have seen a kind of intellectual pride, a pride of knowledge coming in. I have seen the tendency to compromise on the ethical and moral side. I have seen the note of urgency disappearing from their prayers.
Though the original interest was right and good, gradually Intellectual Pride in Right Doctrine Mastered them. They lost their balance and became Intellectualists who were No longer concerned about the idea of Holiness and the pursuit of a True and Living Knowledge of God.
A man can be so busy preaching in pulpits that he forgets and neglects his own soul.
After you have attended all your meetings, and denounced Communism, after you have dealt with your apologetics, and displayed your wonderful knowledge of theology and your understanding of the times; I still ask you: What about your relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ?
You denounce many wrong things; but do you love Him more? You are an expert in apologetics; but are you obeying the law of God and of Christ increasingly?
Is the fruit of the Spirit more and more manifest and evident in your life?
Those are the questions.
Let us all examine ourselves, and let us take the time to do it thoroughly. Do we really desire to know Him?
“Refusal to Honestly Examine Oneself” Studies in the Sermon on the Mount on Matthew 7:21-23: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven…”
Self-examination is not popular today, especially, amongst evangelical Christians. Indeed, one often finds that evangelical Christians not only object to self-examination, but occasionally even regard it as almost sinful. Their argument is that a Christian should look only to the Lord Jesus Christ, that he must not look at himself at all, and they interpret this as meaning that he should not examine himself.
But that is not scriptural. Scripture constantly exhorts us to examine ourselves, ‘to prove to our own selves whether we are in the faith’ or whether we are ‘reprobate’. And it does so for the very good reason that there is the terrible danger of drifting into antinomianism; that is, into holding that as long as a person believes on the Lord Jesus Christ it does not matter what he does; that if a man is ‘saved’ it does not matter what kind of a life he lives.
This is the fatal danger of trusting only in what we say, and forgetting that the essential thing about Christianity is that it is a life to be lived, and that it is ‘the life of God in the soul of man’, that the true Christian is a ‘partaker of the divine nature’, and that this must of necessity be manifest in his life.
Let us look at the first Epistle of John, which was written to correct this very danger. It has in mind those people who were ready to say certain things, but whose lives were a blatant contradiction of what they professed. John produces his famous tests of spiritual life.
“He who says, “I know Him (Christ),” and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4). “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth” (1 John 1:6). There were people who were doing just that; they were saying, ‘I am a Christian, I am a believer on the Lord Jesus Christ; but they were living in sin. That is a lie, says John; it is transgression of the law, it is disobedience to God and His holy commandment.
However much a person may say he believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, if the habit of his life is persistently sinful he is not a Christian. And clearly the way to discover this is to examine ourselves. We must look at ourselves and examine ourselves in the light of scriptural teaching, in the light of this Sermon on the Mount, and we must do it honestly.
A person may be doing right things for a thoroughly wrong motive. It is possible for a man to preach the gospel of Christ in an orthodox manner, to be right in doctrine, and yet to be doing it the whole time for his own self-interest and his own glory and self-satisfaction. The only way to safeguard ourselves against that is to examine ourselves. It is painful and unpleasant; but it has to be done. It is the only way of safety.
A man has to face himself squarely and ask: ‘Why am I doing it? What is the thing that, in my heart of hearts, I am really out for? If a man does not do that he is exposing himself to the terrible danger of self-delusion and self-deception.
Psalm 119:29 "Remove from me the way of lying" (KJV)
(NLT) "Keep me from lying to myself"
Thomas Watson "Farewell Prayer", 1662
Keep us from the fallacies of our own hearts...
A.W. Pink
https://testallthings.com/2024/08/11/a-study-of-psalm-119-verse-29/