Many Self-Deceived

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jun 5, 1879

Many Self-Deceived.

"BECAUSE thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see." Rev. 3:17, 18.

All flattery is dangerous; self-flattery is more dangerous; but self-flattery in the business of salvation is the most dangerous of all. To pretend to the good we know we have not, is gross hypocrisy; to persuade ourselves of the good we have not, though we think we have it, is formal hypocrisy; and this was the case of those self-deceivers in the text.

My design is not to shake the well-built hopes of any man, or to beget groundless jealousies, but to discover the real and dangerous flaws in the foundation of many men's hopes of heaven. Everything is as its foundation is; and that failing, all fails.

There is a twofold self-suspicion or fear in God's own people. The one is a fear of caution, awakening the soul to the use of all the preventive means for avoiding danger; this is laudable. The other is a groundless suspicion of reigning hypocrisy, tending only to despondency; this is culpable. By the former the soul is guarded against danger; by the latter it is betrayed into needless trouble, and debarred from peace. Good men have sometimes more fear than they ought, and wicked men have less than they ought. The former sometimes shut their eyes against the fair evidences of their own graces; the latter shut their eyes against the sad evidences of their sin and misery. This is an evil in both, but not equally dangerous; for he who shuts his eyes against his own graces and privileges, loses but his peace and comfort for a time; but he who shuts his eyes against the evidence of his sin and misery, loses his precious soul to all eternity. Of this latter sort of self-deceivers the world is full; and these are the men I am now concerned with.

Oh, that some men had less trouble; and oh, that some had more! If the foolish virgins had been less confident, they certainly had been more safe. If those boastful professors in Matt. 7:22 had not shut their eyes against their own hypocrisy, Christ would not have shut against them the door of salvation and glory. Ananias and Sapphira, Hymeneus and Philetus, Alexander and Demas, with multitudes more of that sort, are sad instances and proofs of this point. It is said in Prov. 30:12, that "there is a generation that is pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness." Through what false spectacles do the men of that generation look upon their own souls.

There are everywhere to be found more professors than converts—unregenerate professors, whose religion is but the effect of education. Christianity, by the favor of an early providence, was the first comer; it first bespoke them for itself. These are Christians of a human creation, rather born than new-born believers. Now, all these are self-deceived, and hastening to damnation under the efficacy of a strong delusion; "for if a man think himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself," says the apostle. Surely our birth-privilege without the new birth is nothing, yea, worse than nothing, as to our last and great account. That which stands for a great sum in our arithmetic is nothing, it is but a cipher in God's. "Except a man be born again," say the lips of truth, "he cannot see the kingdom of God." Poor self-deceivers, ponder these words of Christ. You have hitherto thought your moral education, your dead and heartless duties, enough to constitute you Christians before God: but go now, and learn what that scripture means; and be assured that you must experience another manner of conversion, or else it is impossible for you to escape eternal damnation.

Many professors are acquainted with the externals of religion only; and that all their duties are no more than a compliance of the outward man with the commands of God. This is the superficial religion which deceives and betrays multitudes into eternal ruin. True religion seats itself in the inward man, and acts effectually upon the vital powers, killing sin in the heart, and purging its designs and delights from carnality and selfishness; engaging the heart for God, and setting it as a bow in its full bent, in the approaches we make to him. But how little are many professors acquainted with these things. Alas, if this be all we have to stand upon, how dangerous a station is it. What is external conformity but an artificial imitation that which lives only in the souls of good men? Thus was Jehu deceived: he did many acts of external obedience to God's command; "but Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart." 2 Kings, 10:31. And this was his overthrow. This was also the ruin of those formalists in Ezek. 33:31. They came and sat before the Lord as his people; the word was to them as a lovely song; they were mightily charmed with the modulation of the prophet's voice, and his lively gestures; but all the while their hearts went after their covetousness. And what an abundance of such pharisaical, superficial religion, is everywhere to be found.

Every trial made by sufferings upon professors, blows away multitudes, like dry leaves in autumn blown away by a stormy wind. Many fall from their own steadfastness in shaking times. Prosperity multiplies vain professors, and adversity purges the church of them. "Then shall many be offended." This the Scripture everywhere marks as a symptom of hypocrisy: "A generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God." "But they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us." "For when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended." But should any one have told them, in the days of their first profession, that all their zeal and labor in religion would have ended in this, it is likely that they would have replied, as Hazael did to the man of God, "But what! is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?" 2 Kings 8:13. Oh, how unlike is their dark and foul evening to their glorious and hopeful morning. These professors have more of the moon than of the sun; little light, less heat, but many changes. They deceive many, yea, they deceive themselves, but they cannot deceive God. During the calm what a flourish do they make, and with what gallantry do they sail. By and by you may hear tempests; and soon after you may see dreadful shipwrecks made by the furious storm; and no wonder, for they wanted that ballast and establishment in themselves that would have kept them tight and stable. 2 Peter 3:17.

Many professors secretly indulge and shelter beloved lusts under the wings of their profession. This, like a worm at the root, will wither and kill them at last, how fragrant soever they may seem to be for a season. Gideon had seventy sons, and one a bastard; but that one bastard was the death of all of his seventy sons. Judges 9:5. Some men have many excellent gifts, and perform multitudes of duties; but one secret sin indulged and allowed will utterly destroy them at last. He who is partial as to the mortification of his sins, is undoubtedly hypocritical in his profession. If David's evidence was good for his integrity, surely such professors will never clear themselves of hypocrisy: "I was also upright before him, and kept myself from mine iniquity." Here is the right eye and right hand, which every sincere Christian must pluck out and cut off. And this is a metaphor from surgeons, whose manner it is, when the whole body is in danger by any part, to cut it off, lest the whole man perish. The suppressing of some lust raises men's confidence; the indulging of one destroys the foundation of their hopes; and thus they deceive themselves.—Flavel's Touchstone.