DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 28, 1879,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Which say, Stand by yourself, come not near to me; for I am holier
than you. These are a smoke in My nose, a fire that burns all the day."
Isaiah 65:5.
THE Apostle Paul shall be our interpreter here. You remember how in the
10th chapter of his Epistle to the Romans he quotes from this chapter
and says, "Isaiah is very bold and says, I was found of them that
sought Me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after Me.
But to Israel He says, all day long I have stretched forth My hands
unto a disobedient and gainsaying people"? Isaiah was very bold to
speak the Gospel so plainly, when a legal spirit prevailed, and very
bold to defy the enmity of his own nation by declaring that they would
be rejected for their sins, while the far-off heathen would be brought
in by Sovereign Grace. He was bold to denounce hypocrites to their
faces and to smite a proud nation with the threats of the Lord. Perhaps
it was for this boldness that he suffered a cruel death by the hands of
Manasseh.
The application of the passage to Israel is just thus. Year after year
God dealt with great patience towards His chosen people, but they
seemed to be desperately set upon idolatry in one form or another.
Sometimes they worshipped Jehovah, but then they did it under figures
and symbols, whereas He has expressly forbidden that even His own
worship should be thus celebrated. He who said in the First
Commandment, "You shall have no other gods before Me," also said in the
Second, "You shall not make unto you any graven image, or any likeness
of anything that is in Heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow down
yourself to them, nor serve them."
At other times they altogether rejected Jehovah and worshipped Baal and
Ashtaroth and whole troops of the gods of the heathen and thus they
exceedingly provoked the Lord. They also practiced necromancy, or
pretended communion with the dead, witchcraft and sorcery and all
manners of abominable rites like the depraved nations around them. When
this open rebellion was given up, as it was after the captivity, for
the Jews have never been guilty of idolatry since that day, they fell
into another form of the same evil, namely, self-righteousness–so that
when our Lord came, He found self-righteousness to be the crying sin of
Israel–the Pharisees carrying it to such a pitch as to render it
utterly ridiculous!
They reckoned that the touch of a common person polluted their
sacredness so that they needed to wash after walking down a street.
When they traversed the ways, they took the edge of the pavement so
that they might not brush against the garments of the passers-by. And
even in the Temple, in prayer, they stood by themselves lest they
should be defiled! Their whole spirit is expressed in the words of the
text, "Stand by yourself, come not near to me; for I am holier than
you." God declares this to be as obnoxious to Him as smoke in a man's
nose. He could not bear it. He was no more able to tolerate their
self-righteousness than to endure their idolatry.
It is this last form of the evil of the Israelite heart which I am
going to speak about this morning because it is a phase of evil which
is now common among us. Self-righteousness is rampant in our own day!
There are many who come up to the courts of the Lord's house and mingle
among the followers of Christ who still say, "Stand by, for I am holier
than you." Our sermon is meant to be a cannonade against
self-righteousness–that righteousness which a man makes a show of his
own doings, his own feelings, his own alms, prayers, or sacraments–all
such righteousness is to be utterly despised!
I. The first point is this–THE SIN OF SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS GROWS UP
AMONG RELIGIOUS PEOPLE. It is not always the sin of the outside world,
for many outsiders do not pretend to any righteousness at all and I
fancy they think all the better of themselves for that! This is an idle
plea which needs not many words to expose. "I make no profession," says
one. This is about as honorable a confession as if a thief should boast
when caught at picking pockets,
"I do not make any pretense to be honest," or a liar, when detected,
should turn round and cry, "I never professed to speak the truth."
Would you have men glory in not professing to be honest or true? Yet,
surely, they do no worse than one who boasts that he does not profess
to fear God. Such a man has gone to a considerable pitch of iniquity
before he can bronze his face to make his glory in that which is his
shame.
Among those who profess to be religious, self-righteousness very
frequently comes in because they have not truly received the religion
of Jesus Christ. If they were true Believers they would be humble and
contrite, for self-righteousness and faith in Christ are diametrically
opposed. He that is saved by Grace finds no room for glorying in
himself. What says the Apostle? "Where is boasting, then? It is
excluded." The word is, it is shut out and it has the door shut in its
face. A sinner washed in Jesus' blood and clothed in Jesus'
righteousness glories only in the Lord! He has done, once and for all,
with that particular form of sin which glories in self. It is
detestable in his sight. His cry is "God forbid that I should glory
save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Many who mingle with Christians and are religious in a certain sense
because they practice the forms of religion, are known to put the forms
into the place of the Holy Spirit. With them, in Baptism, the washing
in water is everything, but the burial with Christ which it sets forth
is quite unknown. With them the partaking of the bread and the wine are
everything at the Lord's Table, but the spiritual feeding upon the body
and blood of Christ is not understood. With them, the place of worship
is everything, but the spirit of worship is lacking. The broken heart,
the contrite spirit, the soul that trembles at God's Word, the heart
that joys in the Lord–they are strangers to all this though they can
sit as God's people sit, though they can hear as God's people hear and
look as if they were all that saints should be.
These persons, too, even when they do not join the Christian Church but
only worship or seem to worship with Christians, are very apt to think
that they must be better than other people because they do so. They are
not openly Sabbath-breakers. Is there not something in this? Yes, there
is something in it, certainly, and we will not say a word against it.
But there is not everything in it and certainly not enough in it to
make a perfect righteousness of it! The bed is shorter than that a man
may stretch himself on and the covering is too narrow for a man to wrap
himself in. "Oh, but I have occupied a seat in an orthodox Chapel for
many years." Yes, that may be, and if you have not received the Gospel,
those sermons which you have heard will rise up against you in judgment
to your condemnation!
It is true you close your eyes in prayer, but if you never pray, do you
not mock God with a pretense of doing it? And may it not turn out that
your religiousness is only an impudent provoking of God to His face?
Avoid the tendency to say, "We are certainly much better than the
outside world and if God is hard with us, He will be hard with a great
many." Avoid this, I say, for it is the danger of outwardly religious
people who are not savingly converted to dream that they are somewhat
advantaged by a mere attendance on the means of Grace. Should an
Egyptian rub his shoulders against an Israelite, would it turn him into
an Israelite? Will living near a rich man make you rich?
Because the Lord Jesus eats and drinks in your streets, are you,
therefore, safe, even though you have never believed on Him? Be not
deceived by such a notion! Do you forget that cry of our Lord's, "Woe
unto you, Chorazin. Woe unto you, Bethsaida"! Did He not proclaim woe
to the very places where His voice was most often heard and where His
miracles were most often worked? Beware, I pray, you outwardly
religious people, lest you fall into the sin of self-righteousness and
fancy that you are holy when you are not!
II. THIS IS A SIN WHICH FLOURISHES WHERE OTHER SINS ABOUND. We read of
these people, that they did evil before the eyes of God and chose that
wherein He delighted not. They blasphemed God and polluted themselves
with unhallowed rites, communing with demons and the powers of
darkness–and pretending to speak with departed spirits and yet for all
that, they said–"Stand by yourself, I am holier than you."
Self-righteousness is never more ridiculous than in persons whose
conduct would not bear scrutiny for a moment!
Look at the Pharisee with his phylactery and his broad-hemmed garment
standing there in conscious perfection! Look at him and feel disgust,
for the wretched hypocrite has been secretly devouring a widow's house
and his heart is full of wickedness! In his greediness and lust he
makes clean the outside of his cup and platter, but within he is full
of extortion and excess! Hear how the devil derides him. "Ah, ah," he
laughs with satanic glee, "the outside may be as you will. What care I,
as long as the inside is foul!" It is dreadful that any man should be
self-righteous, but it is monstrous that men of openly evil lives
should dare to set up such a pretense.
Such persons know, if they will but think, that they are trying to palm
off a barefaced lie! Yet it is common enough in spiritual things for
those who are naked, poor and miserable to declare that they are rich
and increased in goods! How are they able to keep up this imposture
upon their own consciences? Is it not a part of their spiritual
madness? The very blindness which makes them choose sin prevents their
seeing how sinful it is and enables them to fancy that all is well. As
men who wear spectacles of colored glass find all things tinted with
their own hue, so does a self-righteous heart impart a tint to actions
till the worse appears the better and sin glitters like righteousness.
Moreover, self-righteous men, like foxes, have many tricks and schemes.
They condemn in other people what they consider to be very excusable in
themselves. They would cry out against others for a 10th part of the
sin which they allow in themselves! Certain constitutional tendencies,
necessities of circumstances and various surroundings all serve as
ample apologies. Besides this, if it is admitted that they are wrong
upon some points, yet in other directions they are beyond rebuke! If
they drink, they do not swear! And if they swear, they do not
steal–they make a great deal out of negatives. If they steal, they are
not greedy and miserly, but spend their gains freely. If they practice
fornication, yet they do not commit adultery! If they talk filthily,
yet they boast they do not lie.
They should be counted good because they are not universally bad. They
do not break every hedge and, therefore, they plead that they are not
trespassers. As if a debtor for a hundred pounds should claim to be
excused because he does not owe two hundred! Or, as if a highwayman
should say, "I did not stop all the travelers on the road. I only
robbed one or two and therefore I ought not to be punished." If a man
should willfully break the windows of your shop, I guarantee you, you
would not take it as an excuse if he pleaded, "I did not break them
all! I only smashed one sheet of plate glass." Pleas which would not be
mentioned in a human court are thought good enough to offer to God! O
the folly of our race!
Besides, these people will make righteousness this way–they plead that
if they do wrong, yet there are some points in which they are splendid
fellows. "You should see how grandly I acted on such an occasion. You
will think me almost a saint and quite a hero if you will but fix your
eyes on that one particular virtue. Drink, Sir? No! I never touch a
drop." I am glad you do not, but still, if you live in lying, or in
pride, your abstinence is a short piece of stuff to make a garment out
of. The mere fact that you are not a drunk is so far so good, but it
goes a very little way towards the perfect righteousness which God's
Law demands.
Some one thing in which the unconverted man may excel is put in to make
up for his deficiencies in a hundred other things. By hook or by crook
a man will make out that he is not so bad as he seems to be–the
inventiveness of self-esteem is extraordinary! Those who come with the
language of repentance but without the spirit of it are sometimes the
most self-righteous of all, for they say. "I am all right because I am
not self-righteous." They make a self-righteousness out of the supposed
absence of self-righteousness! "Thank God," they say, "we are not as
other men are, nor even as these self-righteous people." Hypocrites all
the way through!
Have you ever heard of the monk who said he was a very great sinner? He
said that he had broken all the Ten Commandments, that he was as bad as
Judas and deserved to be hanged as well as he! But when his confessor
began to go over the Commandments, he said about each one of them,
"Holy father, I have not broken that, I have kept that." He was a
sinner in the gross but not in detail! A sinner by name but not in
reality–so he said–and hosts of people virtually say the same. Listen
to them–"Yes, Sir, of course I am a sinner. We are all sinners." But
if you bring one fault home to them, straightway they bristle up! Who
are you that you should speak evil of them? They have done nothing
amiss–they are most excellent people–and you will go a long way to
find anybody better than they are and so on!
Oh, this horrible self-righteousness! It is not merely to be found in
the man who attends his Church regularly and reads his prayers
daily–it is found in the man who will not go to his Church nor say his
prayers! The harlot has her self-righteousness. The thief, the drunk,
the profane still have their self-justifications. Yes, and it may be
seen even in Atheists who have cast off all fear of God and then stand
in an elevation of self-esteem which hardly any other man can match!
Hear him–"I have proved my freedom of thought and nobility of mind! I
am the model man! As for these Christians, they are cants and
hypocrites and believers in Christ are either fools or knaves. No man
has any honest and rational convictions but myself! I can improve upon
the Bible and criticize the life of Christ! Stand by yourself. I am
holier than you."
This weed of self-righteousness will grow on any dunghill! No heap of
rubbish is too rotten for the accursed toadstool of proud self to grow
upon!
III. As self-righteousness grows among sins to our surprise, so IT IS,
IN ITSELF, A GREAT SIN. One is almost startled to find self-esteem
placed after such a list of sins as this chapter records. To the Jew,
the eating of swine's flesh and broth, of all abominable things, was a
great pollution–and self-righteousness is classed with it–it is even
placed with necromancy and witchcraft. To us, drunkenness and swearing
are sins in rags, but self-righteousness is sin in a respectable black
coat. It is an aristocratic sin and does not like to be put down with
the common ruck. And if we even call it sin, yet many will plead that
it is only so in a very refined sense.
But God does not think so. He classes it with the very worst and He
does so because it is one of the worst. For a man to be self-righteous
is, in itself, a sin of sins. For, first, it is blasphemy! Perhaps you
do not see that. Follow me, then. God is holy. Here comes this base
imposter and boasts, "And I am holy, too." Is not that a ludicrous and
contemptible form of blasphemy? It is profanity in its very essence!
The cherubim are crying, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts: Heaven
and earth are full of the majesty of Your Glory" and amid it all there
is heard this squeaking pretender, whining, "And I am holy, too!"
O wretched egotist, you do at once lie and blaspheme! The heavens are
not pure in His sight! He charged His angels with folly and do you,
that are born of woman and defiled from head to foot, dare to talk
about righteousness? Righteousness, indeed, when you are but a mass of
sin! This self-righteousness is idolatry, for the man who counts
himself to be righteous, by his own works worships himself!
Practically, the object of his adoration is his own dear, delectable,
excellent self! All his confidence is in himself! His boasting is in
himself and, though he may sing Psalms to God with his voice, yet his
heart is really singing hymns to himself and he is saying to himself,
"You have done well, my Soul. There is something great and bright in
you. You deserve much of your Creator. You shall surely enter Heaven on
your own terms. At your worst you have never been so bad as your fellow
men–at your best you are a right noble being and a brilliant reward is
your due."
What is this but idolatry in its worst form? Then, again, it is
profanity, for it calls God a liar. The Lord declares that no man is
righteous. He says that He looked from Heaven and surveyed the sons of
men and He saw that, "There is none righteous, no, not one." To this
Divine assertion self-righteousness gives a flat contradiction, for it
claims to be, itself, holy! God declares that we have gone astray and
altogether become unprofitable and He proves that He believes this, for
He sets Christ to bleed and die for the world of sinners, as it is
written, "All we, like sheep have gone astray. We have turned,
everyone, to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of
us all." But He could not lay our iniquity upon Jesus if we had none,
nor impute transgression to Christ if there were no sin in us!
And thus the self-righteous man virtually declares that God is false
and speaks not the strict truth, since he claims to be an exception to
the rule. He testifies that God's "No, not one," is false, for he
himself is one righteous person and, therefore, there may be others.
Though God says that by the works of the Law no flesh shall be
justified in His sight, yet this man says, "By the works of the Law I
shall be justified," and so he profanes the Word of the Most High and
questions the Truth of God, which is as the apple of Jehovah's eye. It
is clear beyond all question that self-righteousness is, in itself, a
great, God-defying sin! May the Lord deliver us from it and, by the
Holy Spirit, work in us a humble, lowly faith in Jesus Christ, the
Lord.
IV. In the fourth place we would remark that SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS IS THE
FRUIT OF MAN'S OWN
THOUGHTS. Look at the second verse of the chapter–"I have spread out
My hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walks in a way
that was not good, after their own thoughts." Those who have high
thoughts of themselves do not walk according to God's Commandments, but
according to their own notions. If any man thinks himself to be
righteous in himself, he has never derived that idea from God's Law.
Read the Ten Commandment. Understand their spirituality and know that
they concern not only overt deeds but thoughts and imaginations–and
you will see that the Law condemns us all without exception.
It proves our guilt, reveals our proneness to evil, pronounces a curse
upon us and gives us over to condemnation. It pays us no respect, but
shuts us up in hopeless despair. A man who is self-righteous,
therefore, did not derive his self-esteem from a true consideration of
the Law. No Jew that stood at Sinai and saw the mountain on a smoke and
heard the Words which sounded forth with noise as of tempest and
trumpet, dared to stand there and say, "I am righteous." But crouching
away, moving further and further from the burning mountain, the best
Israelite begged that the Words might not be spoken to him anymore, for
he could not endure the terror of that thrice holy Law.
A Pharisee stands on an elevation raised by his own fancy, for the Law
would pull him down and never, for a moment, set him up. His proud
notions come not from the Law and certainly not from the Gospel, for
the Gospel knows no man after the flesh as righteous. It regards all
men as sinners and comes to them with pardon! It treats men as lost and
comes to save them! If there is a man in the world who is pure and
perfect by nature, the Gospel has nothing to say to him, for it was not
intended to meet such a case. Its medicines are not for those upon whom
the sickness of sin has never come, for, "the whole have no need of a
physician, but they that are sick."
Our great Lord came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to
repentance! Jesus is the sinner's friend. Christ came to wash away
stains, not to flatter men into a notion of their spotlessness. He came
to heal the sick, not to applaud the vigorous. To such as are righteous
in themselves there is not a single syllable of promise in the entire
Gospel–why should there be, for they don't need it? Self-righteousness
is a child which neither Law nor Gospel will own–it is born in the
house of folly and it is nursed by human fancy!
Self-righteous people are not much inclined to search the
Scriptures–they do not read them with an understanding heart so as to
get the meaning–they rather make the Bible say their own meaning and
twist it to support their own pleasing dreams. Like a battery of
ordnance of the strongest kind, both Law and Gospel fire into the
sinner's righteousness and sink it, like a riddled hulk, into the deeps
of the sea! "But cannot a man arrive at a religion by his own unaided
thoughts?" asks one. A great many have tried it, but the very idea is
absurd! Facts about God and man are to be learned–not invented.
Suppose a man were to think out the science of botany but never went to
see the flowers? He would deliver strange botanical lectures,
misleading and absurd, for no cogitation upon what a flower ought to be
would always require a man to guess at what flowers really are. Suppose
a man who never looked at the stars were to despise the telescope and
depend on his thoughts for his astronomy? Would he not make strange
work of it? We have heard of the German who carefully thought out in
his own inward consciousness, a camel, and there are many people of the
same order of learned ignorance and profound folly. Such do not look at
what the Gospel is, but they have their own notions of what it ought to
be– they do not look at what Revelation declares, but at what their
own precious thoughts can manufacture.
Half the people in the world make their own theology and are either too
idle or too proud to be guided by the Infallible Scripture. As many a
vintner composes his own wine, so do these concoct their own doctrine
and by this means they arrive at a high opinion of their own goodness.
Like the spider, they make their web out of their own bowels–they are
righteous and by no stretch of the imagination the sort of persons
which the Word of God declares them to be! He whose foundation is his
own dream is certain to be deceived.
Listen, O man, and learn wisdom! God's thoughts are not your thoughts!
Neither are His ways your ways and in the day when He comes to deal
with your fancied righteousness, He will make short work of it and you
will have to cry, "We all fade as a leaf and all our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags, and our iniquities, like the wind, have carried us
away." The sooner that happens the better, for if it comes not until
you get into the next world, it will be dreadful, then, to be found
naked where you never can be clothed–to have your fancied riches melt
into a poverty from which you never can recover–to be made a bankrupt
where you thought yourself wealthy and in a world where you never can
begin again!
Woe to those who make eternal shipwreck while they dream that they are
steering straight to the desired haven! God save you from setting up to
furnish yourselves with inspiration. You are not Oracles and should
never dream of being so! Search the Scriptures to know the facts of
your case and then you will recoil from the very idea of the
righteousness of unrenewed man! Your glory will become your shame! Your
spangled robes will turn to worthless rags and you will accept, with
humble gratitude, the righteousness which is of God by faith!
V. This leads us on to our fifth remark which is
this–SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS HAS THIS VICE ABOUT IT,
THAT IT ALWAYS LEADS TO DESPISING OTHERS. That is the meat of the text.
They said, "Stand by yourself, come not near to me; for I am holier
than you." The self-righteous think thus of one another–one sinner
dreads pollution from another–one rebel is alarmed lest he should be
made disloyal by another! Think of a wretch condemned to die for his
sin and yet afraid that a fellow criminal might soil his innocence! To
what a pitch of madness does pride lift itself! "Do not come near me; I
am holy," cries the man steeped in sin! Oh, the absurdity of
self-righteousness! This pride is loathsome to the last degree!
But this pride is seen to be still more loathsome when the proud
self-deceiver bids the lowly penitent man stand off. The repenting
publican has his eyes opened to his real state and he goes up to the
Temple and prays, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." He does not dare
look up, he is so broken-hearted. But yonder Pharisee is bold to thank
God for his own surpassing virtues! Look how he gathers up his garment
for fear the fringe of his raiment should touch the ground whereon the
publican has set his polluting feet! Why, Sirs, that publican was one
of God's jewels and this abominable Pharisee was a mere dunghill
reeking with offensive self-conceit! He did not know it, but his
self-righteousness made him despise the very man of whom God has said,
"To this man will I look, and with him will I dwell; even to him that
is poor and of a contrite spirit and that trembles at My Word."
"Oh," says one of my free-thinking but self-righteous hearers, "I hate
such cant! Confessing sin is all nonsense. I cannot endure to hear such
talk." We are well aware of that, good Sir, but this weighs not with
us. We know you very well and recognize in you an old acquaintance of
some 1,900 years standing. Proud Pharisees never can endure penitent
publicans, nor their Savior, either. They are always saying of the
Lord's ministers that which they once said of Him, "This man receives
sinners and eats with them." They find fault with the great Advocate
and His clients, with the great Physician and His patients–but the
Redeemer's kingdom waits not their patronage and fears not their
opposition! If you reject the banquet of mercy and will not come to it,
there are others who shall and your refusal shall bring on your own
head the contempt you now reserve for others!
Yes, and this self-righteous spirit dares to pour its bitterness upon
the most gracious men. If you need a thoroughpaced persecutor, find a
self-righteous man! I tell you there is no venom in the heart of
dissolute, debauched men against Christianity that is at all comparable
to the poison of asps which lie in the heart of the self-righteous man!
Who was it in Jerusalem that hunted down the saints? It was not some
son of Belial who railed at them. I daresay that many a Jerusalem
rioter said, "What does it matter? They have their ways and I have
mine–let the men alone." But there was one man in Jerusalem who, above
most others, thought that verily he had kept all the Commandments of
God from his youth up and was utterly blameless–and he hated the
Christians because they preached a doctrine which struck at his
self-esteem.
Therefore he despised men who were a hundred times better than himself!
He dragged them into the synagogue and scourged them to compel them to
blaspheme. And when he had done all he could in his own country to
worry them, he obtained letters from the High Priest that he might go
to Damascus to hunt them even in strange cities! He verily thought he
did God service when he breathed out threats and bloodshed against
God's own children! Yes, it is so, and must be so–they that are born
after the flesh persecute them that are born after the Spirit. Ishmael,
the child of Hagar the bondwoman, which comes from Sinai, in Arabia,
hates the Isaac that is born of the free woman, according to promise.
There is a deadly feud between these two and this is a part of the sin
of self-righteousness, that it sets itself so bitterly against Christ
and His people and is the direst opponent that the Gospel has among
men.
We see the self-righteous spirit, at times, display itself in the
papers when they touch on religious subjects. One of them lately
condemned the hymn–
"Sinner, nothing do, either great or small, Jesus did it, did it all,
long, long ago." This is shocking doctrine, so they say, for it denies
salvation by good works! Of course, editors of papers are good judges,
for they are so exceedingly careful of our morality and so studious
never to insert anything that could injure our purity! That precious,
plainspoken bit of Gospel verse is too much for our pious friend, the
editor, and he is afraid that it will hurt our morals!
Self-righteousness is always afraid of the Gospel, lest the
uncompromising Truth of God should unmask its self-deceit. Why, Sirs,
the doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone is the essence of
Protestantism and the soul of the Gospel! That Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners and that salvation is not by works of
righteousness which we have done, but by the Sovereign Grace of God who
passes by transgression, iniquity and sin is the great Truth for which
Reformers protested and martyrs died! Let those who deny it look to
themselves.
VI. But I must pass on to observe that SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS IS MOST
ABOMINABLE IN THE SIGHT OF
God. What does He compare it to? He says, "It is a smoke in My nose, a
fire that burns all the day." At the bottom of the garden we gather
together the dead leaves and all the rubbish of the garden. The heap is
lighted and it keeps on burning and smoldering all day–and if you go
and stand in the eye of the wind, your eyes will smart, your nose will
be offended
and you will feel that you cannot bear it. As you see the refuse
burning, smoking, smoldering all day, it will tell you what the Lord
thinks of man's righteousness.
This is His opinion of those who say," Stand by, I am holier than you."
Their boasted righteousness is a burning heap of rubbish pouring forth
a thick smoke most obnoxious to Him. We do not wonder that He thus
scorns and abhors proud, self-righteousness, for God is a God of Truth
and Truth cannot bear a lie–and self-righteousness is a mass of lies!
He who is of perfect Nature cannot bear mere pretense. It is so among
men in common matters. You introduce a man of real learning to a person
who has purchased for himself a sham degree and who boasts that he is a
classical scholar– mark his disgust when the pretender quotes a Latin
author and in the very first sentence gives false facts! The truly
learned man says, "He is a disgrace to his title. Let me get away from
him! He pretends to be a doctor and yet he makes all these blunders."
He who possesses the reality is indignant with the counterfeit!
Now, God is truly holy and cannot, therefore, bear that these men
should talk about a holiness which they have no claim to and vaunt
themselves and brag within themselves of a thing that is not theirs.
The true God, therefore, calls them a smoke in His nose. Moreover,
self-righteousness is such a proud thing. God is always provoked with
pride. It is one of the evils which His soul hates! He daily fits His
arrow upon His string to fetch down the proud in heart. The
self-righteous man is proud in himself and proud with a contemptuous
sneer at others and, therefore, the Lord abhors him. Self-righteousness
also denies the wisdom of God's plan and is utterly opposed to it.
God's present plan of working in the world goes upon the theory that we
are guilty–being guilty, He provides a Savior for us and sends us a
Gospel full of Grace.
His whole system is a gigantic blunder if we are or can be righteous in
and of ourselves! The work of the Holy Spirit is needless if we can be,
of ourselves, fit for Heaven! The whole character of this gracious
dispensation is a mistake if man is not guilty! The man who says, "I am
righteous," virtually casts a slur upon a work which is meant to be the
highest display of Divine Love and Wisdom. He is like the Greek to whom
the Cross of Christ was "foolishness." I venture to say that
self-righteousness, in effect, makes Christ Himself to be a superfluity
and this, my Brothers and Sisters, is the unkindest cut of all! This is
a stab at the heart of the great Father!
Did Jesus come down from Heaven and take our Nature because we were
sinners? And in that Nature did He give Himself as a Sacrifice that He
might put away sin–and was all this a mistake? Calvary, are you a
blunder? Bleeding Savior, were You an amiable enthusiast, putting away
sin which did not exist and filling a fountain for the removal of
stains which are not to be found? Yet self-righteousness involves all
this! If one sinner has a right to be self-righteous, so has another!
And then it comes to this–that God should deal with us all on quite
another theory and, instead of His dear Son coming to the world to die
for us as sinners, we might all go to Heaven without an Atonement or a
Savior! Do you think God can bear such a slur upon Christ, such a
trampling on the precious blood of His own Son? Can even long-suffering
bear this?
I may be speaking to some who have never considered what their
self-righteousness means, but I hope they see it now. Get rid of it, my
dear Friends! Put off your ornaments of fancied virtue and put the dust
and ashes of confession on your heads. Go home and tear your finery to
pieces and put on the robe of heavenly righteousness–otherwise you
will be, as long as you live, nothing but that smoking heap of weeds at
the bottom of the garden! And whereas you think you are a bright and
shining light, God's thoughts will be the reverse, for He will count
you to be a mere smother of smoke in His nose–a fire that smolders all
day.
VII. The last point and one of the most practical is this, that
SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS MOST EFFECTUALLY BARS A MAN FROM ALL HOPE OF
SALVATION. We cannot be saved unless we become truly holy, but, my
Brothers and Sisters, no man ever becomes truly holy who is content
with a false holiness. If he says, "I am holy," he never will be holy.
The student who enters college as a wise man will probably remain a
fool. You never can win wisdom till you confess your folly. The man who
says, "I am rich," but is under a delusion which makes him call copper,
gold, will never be rich–it is a first necessity that he be able to
estimate his true estate. And so self-righteousness shuts a man out
from real righteousness most effectually.
It also prevents the heart from repentance. How can you repent if you
have never sinned? How can you mourn your failure to obey while you
conceive that you have always kept the Law? It shuts you out, too, from
faith. You never will believe in Jesus Christ while you believe in
yourself. "How can you believe," said Christ, "that receive honor one
of
another?" If you can save yourself, you do not need a Savior and,
consequently, you will never trust in the Savior of sinners. Man.
Woman. While you are righteous, Christ and your heart will never agree!
He brings you water, but you are not thirsty! He brings you the Bread
of Life, but you are not hungry! He has made a raiment of needlework
for you, but you are not naked! He comes to enrich you, but you are not
poor! He comes to give you pardon, but you are not guilty! He comes to
give you Everlasting Life, but you are not dead!
What is there, then, in Christ for you? Nothing–and so you will never
have Christ. All the entreaties of God, even such as are described in
this chapter when He stretches out His hands all day, will never make a
self-righteous person come to Him. The prodigal did not say, "I will
arise, and go unto my father" while he could fill his belly with the
husks that the swine ate. Soul poverty and destitution bring a man to
God–and God may call as long as He wills–man never will come as long
as he can be independent of his heavenly Father and so
self-righteousness is the ruin of all who harbor it.
Let me warn you who have heard the Gospel continually, that if you are
self-righteous, the privileges which you enjoy will be all neutralized
and cease to be privileges. If you do not come to Jesus when He
stretches out His hands, He will call others who are not, now, a people
and He will be found of those that sought Him not. You are first, now,
in point of privilege, but the first shall be last while those outside
that have not heard the Gospel shall hear it and be saved! And so the
last shall be first. God will turn the tables upon you–the children of
the Kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness where there shall be
weeping and gnashing of teeth–while many shall come from the east and
from the west and shall sit down in the Kingdom of God. Beware, you who
are self-righteous, lest, because you put yourselves to be the head,
God should make you the tail, for then all your Sabbath privileges and
Gospel hearings will be like millstones about your necks, to sink you
low as the lowest Hell!
What is the remedy for all this? The remedy is just this. God says,
"Behold Me." That is to say, He bids you cease from doting upon your
own fancied beauties and worshipping your own foolish image. Look first
to the holy God and tremble! Can you, of yourself, ever be like He
is–pure, spotless and glorious? Can you ever hope to deserve anything
from Him? Look to Him and despair!
Then comes the second, "Behold Me." See Christ Jesus on the Cross
dying, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God! As you see Him
dying, your self-righteousness will die. You will say, "He would never
have suffered thus for me unless I had sin to repent of. God would
never have put Him to this grief for me unless I had been sadly guilty.
I should never have needed such a Savior if I had not been a great
transgressor. In the heights and depths of dying love I read the
heights and depths of my accursed sin! In the infinity of the Atonement
I read the boundless blackness of my guilt and lie humble before God.
At the same time, in that perfect Divine righteousness, which has put
away sin, I see the hope of a sinner and as a sinner I look to Christ
for everything."
If you do this, it is well. God blesses you. May everyone here be
enabled to do this immediately and unto God shall be the glory forever
and ever. Amen.
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Mistrust of God Deplored and Denounced