Dangers for Our Souls (2): Self-Flattery (2)

Last month (pages 117-118) we considered the deceit of self-flattery and three varieties of self-flattery. This month we wish to conclude by considering two more varieties of self-flattery, namely, good intentions and excuses, and by considering the dreadful punishment promised to those who persevere in self-flattery to the eternal ruination of their own souls.

The variety of self-flattery (concluded)

Good intentions

Fourthly, many rely on good intentions. They rest their hopes for eternity, like Felix, on a future “convenient season” (Acts 24:25). They say with Augustine, “Convert me, Lord, but not yet.” Some day they hope to reform their lives, to earnestly seek after God, and to join the church. They aim for future faith and repentance.

“The road to hell,” Martin Luther wrote, “is paved with good intentions.” And Jonathan Edwards added: “Hell is full of good intenders.” Future faith is simply today’s unbelief. Future faith is a self-flattering glissade that slopes straight into hell.

Excuses

Finally, self-flattering excuses are endless in their variety:

(1) Some hide behind their inability contrary to Ezekiel 33:10-11, acting as if their inability is someone else’s fault and guilt.

(2) Some hide behind God’s sovereignty and secret will, contrary to Deuteronomy 29:29. They abuse the precious doctrines of grace.

(3) Some simply minimize their sins. They compare themselves to others, and tragically conclude that a holy sin-avenging God will take scant notice of their iniquities. They confess with the wicked, “The Lord shall not see: neither shall the God of Jacob regard it” (Ps. 94:7).

(4) Others deny reality. They flatter themselves by acting as if there were no God, no judgment, no eternity.

(5) Still others simply deny plain reasoning. They know that they are in a Christless condition. They know too that Scripture says, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). Nevertheless, they persevere in sin, flattering themselves that somehow they will arrive in heaven — but how they know not.

(6) Finally, there are those who turn a blind eye to life’s brevity. They lean on false conceptions of human longevity. They place death a long way off, and persuade themselves that they will be converted in the intervening years. “Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names” (Psa 49:11). They forget that they have no assurance of living until old age, as well as that few are converted in their senior years.

The punishment of self-flattery

The self-flatterer thinks that God will not discover, hate, and punish his iniquity. Nor does he himself hate sin. He does not see guilt in what he is doing nor in who and what he is. He is blind to the real nature of sin. He suppresses all fear of God so that he may indulge in his lusts with minimal pangs of conscience.

But the day is coming, says our text, when his iniquity will “be found to be hateful.” This can have three meanings: others can find it out and consider it hateful; he himself can experience that its consequences are hateful; God can manifest His hatred to it in this life and/or in life to come. In any case, the self-flatterer shall experience that his sin shall “at last bite like a serpent, and sting like an adder” (Prov. 23:32).

“Until his iniquity be found to be hateful.” What a blessing if this “until” is experienced penitently in this life! Oh, when God convicts a sinner savingly, he shall discover that iniquity is “found out” not only by his own conscience, but especially by the thrice-holy Jehovah. Then he confesses with Judah, “What shall we say unto my lord? what shall we speak? or how shall we clear ourselves? God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants” (Gen 44:16).

When God discovers both our actual and original iniquity, we experience that sin is exceedingly sinful and hateful. Like Joseph and Daniel, we are brought to a point where we would rather die than sin. And yet we find nothing but sin within. The best of our best becomes as filthy rags (Is. 64:6). The need for a justice-satisfying Mediator and Savior becomes both an urgent necessity and a holy impossibility. How real these words of Jonathan Edwards then become: “There are but two states in that other world — a state of eternal happiness, and a state of eternal misery, and there is but one way of escaping the misery and obtaining the blessedness of eternity — which is by obtaining an interest in Christ, through faith in Him; and this life is the only opportunity of obtaining an interest in Christ.”

Yet how tragically few are brought experientially to this confession! How few are truly cut off before the bar of God’s holy justice and learn to sign their own death-sentence that God is righteous and just to cast them away forever! How few learn to cry, “Give me Jesus, else I die.”

A recent survey taken in America about future punishment revealed that less than four per cent of Americans feel there is a possibility that they might end in hell. Must we not then fear that the vast majority of the masses are flattering themselves straight into hell? Few conclude they are hell-bound, yet Scripture says that few shall escape it and enter into heaven. “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Mat. 7:13-14).

The day of judgment will be the greatest day of excommunication the church has ever witnessed. In that day, millions shall first discover their iniquity to be hateful. Shall you and I be among them?

Oh, dear friends, we cannot ask God too often to make us honest with ourselves that we may not by self-flattery fall into the condemnation of the wicked. If the righteous shall scarcely be saved (1 Pet. 4:18), ought we not cry continually with David, “Unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit” (Psa. 28:1)?

Iniquity will definitely be found out in the life to come. On the day of judgment, four “books” will be publicly opened for the self-flatterer: the book of remembrance, containing all God’s providential invitations and admonitions (Mal. 3:16); the book of the law, “As many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law” (Rom. 2:12); the book of the gospel, “In that day God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel” (Rom. 2:16); and the book of conscience, which will not provide one answer upon a thousand questions (Job 9:3) — yes, which will be more poignant than a thousand witnesses.

Oh, in that day sin will be found to be hateful indeed — but then it will be forever too late for the self-flatterer! Heaven shall resound, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mat. 25:41). Every word of that judgment shall pierce the soul of the self-flatterer, but the day of repentance will have passed him by. The market of free grace will have been shut down.

This solemn judgment will be final. There will be no bail. No reduction of sentence. No parole. No escape. No intermission. No end.

In that day, the self-flatterer will be undeceived. Then conscience will be convinced. Sin will appear in its true colors. The ungodly will become a terror to themselves. Then the cup of trembling will be put into their hands and they will be made to drink the dregs of it. Then iniquity will be found to be hateful. Self-flattery will prove to be our unspeakable folly. It will be an aggravation of our condemnation. It will be hell within hell.

Hell means to be without God forever, to be forever under His unmitigated wrath. Hell is a continual dying, yet never being fully dead. In hell, there is no more common grace. Hell is unceasing pain, agony, torture. In hell, all of our sins will torment us all the time. Hell knows no relief. The damned will be unable to comfort one another, due to the internal pain felt in each conscience. Hell is the place of absolute loneliness. Hell will feel like eternal solitary confinement.

The wages of self-flattery are hell. Oh, dear reader, do not allow Satan to allure you down the slippery slope of self-flattery into hell! Redeem the time God has given you. Do not delay like Felix. Pray for grace to crucify self-flattery and self-deceit. Rest assured that if the damned in hell could speak with you, they would tell you that the same self-flatteries you possess brought them to eternal condemnation as well. Before it is forever too late, seek grace to flee to God’s only refuge, Jesus Christ, in whom God’s blessed people are safe in the “book of the Lamb” and the “book of life.” Let nothing encourage you to go on in sin.

Rather, pray for grace to seek and love God in Christ with heart, soul, mind, and strength. “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). Make haste for your life’s sake.

Dr. J.R. Beeke is pastor of the First Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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