4 ‘Warning Lights’ of Self-Righteousness

For many years, the Lord has been patiently and gradually showing me signs of the self-righteousness that hides in the deep recesses of my depraved heart. He began many years ago, and continues today. Sometime in the past year, a friend of mine gave me one of his extra copies of Extreme Righteousness: Seeing Ourselves in the Pharisees. This book is a biblical study of the Pharisees whom the author, Tom Hovestal, affectionately calls the “scoundrels” of the Gospel accounts. It has been in my “books to read soon” bag for awhile, but I finally took it out a few days ago. In the fourth chapter, the author effectively indicts every one of us as a Pharisee and warns of the self-righteousness that lurks within.

Pharisaism’s fatal flaw is self-righteousness. It lurks just beneath the surface of our evangelical souls. But we do not see it! Why? Perhaps we live such good lives that we look for sin in all the wrong places! We tune in to the external symbols of goodness but miss the internal symptoms of evil. Jesus does not want us, however, to live our lives in the pseudo-security of human righteousness. While on earth, He loved people too much to permit them to continue their merry religious ways blinded to their true spiritual condition. Instead He regularly engaged in the ministry of enabling religious people to find freedom and true life.

A few pages later, he writes, “We are sufficiently sophisticated and self-controlled to cover up most self-righteousness….So what subtle clues expose the hidden condition of our hearts?” He then describes 4 ‘warning lights of self-righteousness’ and challenges us to ask questions of ourselves. For myself, I see all four in my life at certain times and in varying degrees. How about you? Do you see yourself in this mirror?   Continue at Paul Tautges

A Call to Self-Examination by Benjamin Keach

What can render the state of a person worse than to be an enemy of God, Jesus Christ, and the power of godliness; and yet to think he is holy and a good Christian? Nay, because his conscience is blind in the matter, it acquits him since it lacks saving light, while he keeps up in a zealous performance of the external acts of duty and religion; by which means he is deprived of that help which some openly profane gain from the rebukes and lashes of their own consciences, which often proves a means of their conversion. But the hypocritical professor, not knowing he lacks a changed heart, nor understanding that he is without those Sacred Principles from whence should flow all he acts and does, but contrariwise he is stirred up by false Principles, and acts only by the power of natural conscience and affections, having no clear judgment to discern his own danger, nor what a state he is still in. His condition is deplorable, and this unclean spirit is worse and more dangerous than that which he was in before.

Their blindness and ignorance consists in that they cannot discern nor distinguish between a changed heart and a changed life, or between legal reformation and true regeneration. They think, because their behavior seems so much better than it was before, in their own apprehension, and in the apprehension of others also, their condition is good enough. They comparing themselves with themselves, beholding what a vast difference there is, or seems to be in respect of what they once were, when swearers, drunkards, whoremongers, etc., cannot but commend themselves to themselves. Once they saw themselves sinners, and called themselves so, and were ashamed of their own sinful and wicked lives; but now they are righteous in their own eyes, and so have no need of any further work, being arrived to that state of holiness (so they think) to that degree of piety, to that change, to that conversion, that they conclude they need not seek for further change and yet they are deceived…

The state of the self-righteous and Pharisaical persons is far worse than the state of gross and profane sinners. These are sick and know it not; wounded, but see no need of a physician… They may conclude they are converted, and therefore seek not after conversion.

It is a hard and difficult thing to bring a Pharisaical person, one that looks upon himself to be a religious man, to see his woeful state and condition.  Continue at  Benjamin Keach

Lent and the Sufficient Work of Christ

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been inclined to focus on the practice of Lent.  I’ve seen my Roman Catholic friends do this for years, but I never gave it much thought.  Yet Lutherans, Anglicans, and other denominations inheriting the Reformation tradition also observe this part of the liturgical calendar.  Most people who practice Lent sacrifice something from their daily life (usually a food item) from Ash Wednesday until Maundy Thursday.

Its purported purpose is to imitate the suffering and temptation of Christ during His forty-day fast in the desert.  In centuries past, the methods of penance were much more serious compared to the types of self-denial we commonly see today.  

Giving up sweets (for example) during the Lenten season may indeed trivialize the sufferings of Christ, but that’s not my main reason for opposing the practice.

Of the many theological errors before us, one of the most common is the confusion between historia salutis (redemption accomplished) and ordo salutis (redemption applied).  The former represents those once-for-all, unrepeatable events in redemptive history.  Roman Catholicism, for example, makes the serious mistake of confusing historia salutis and ordo salutis with respect to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross (i.e., their practice of the Mass in which Christ is “re-sacrificed”).  Charismatic movements do the same thing with Pentecost.  Continue at Josh Dermer

How to Stone People Without the Inconvenience of Picking Up Rocks

Shepherding those who struggle with life dominating sin is not unlike swimming out to a drowning victim. There’s always the potential of having your nose broken by the very one you are trying to save. It’s an exhausting sort of love, but sincere. Churches that truly love their members swim out to each other’s lives in light of the risks.

It’s unloving to let a brother drown. Accountability, or church discipline -as we call it – is part of what makes for a loving community. It’s necessary if we are to be biblical churches. Churches that don’t practice accountability as mandated by the Lord aren’t really churches. Confrontation is a part of true love. If I love you I will not let you leave your wife and children without a fight. Right? Some of my biggest fans as a pastor are people who once hated me for interfering in their lives. Some of my dearest friends are those who have stepped in and confronted mine when I most needed it.

But, having noted the importance of church discipline, I do think we most often get it wrong. Mainly at the level of motivation – not to mention the misapplication of method. We can seem more committed to practicing church discipline for the sake of practicing church discipline than loving people. Yet, the aim is love. Based on Jesus’ description it might just as well be called church loving as much as church discipline. Keep Reading >>>

Are You Depending Upon A Righteousness of Your Own? Your Righteousness Shall Perish With You

George Whitefield (1714-1770)

“To the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” ― Romans 4:5

George Whitfield,

Are any of you depending upon a righteousness of your own? Do any of you here, think to save yourselves by your own doings? I say to you…your righteousness shall perish with you. Poor miserable creatures! What is there in your tears? What in your prayers? What in your performances, to appease the wrath of an angry God? Away from the trees of the garden; come, ye guilty wretches, come as poor, lost, undone, and wretched creatures, and accept of a better righteousness than your own. As I said before, so I tell you again, the righteousness of Jesus Christ is an everlasting righteousness: it is wrought out for the very chief of sinners. Ho, every one that thirsteth, let him come and drink of this water of life freely. Are any of you wounded by sin? Do any of you feel you have no righteousness of your own? Are any of you perishing for hunger? Are any of you afraid ye will perish forever? Come, dear souls, in all your rags; come, thou poor man; come, thou poor, distressed woman; you, who think God will never forgive you, and that your sins are too great to be forgiven; come, thou doubting creature, who art afraid thou wilt never get comfort; arise, take comfort, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of life, the Lord of glory, calls for thee: through his righteousness there is hope for the chief of sinners, for the worst of creatures. What if thou hadst committed all the sins in the world? What if thou hadst committed the sins of a thousand, what if thou hadst committed the sins of a million of worlds? Christ’s righteousness will cover, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ will cleanse, thee from the guilt of them all. O let not one poor soul stand at a distance from the Savior. My dear friends, could my voice hold out, was my strength equal to my will, I would wrestle with you; I would strive with arguments, till you came and washed in this blood of the Lamb; till you came and accepted of this everlasting righteousness.   Keep Reading>>>

Killing Moralism

Many Christians have grown up in the church on moralistic preaching; that is, preaching that calls for obedience without connecting the commands of God to the cross of Christ. This disconnect is dangerous, potentially leading hearers into either self-loathing or self-righteousness. Moralistic preaching is often the ground in which the devil sows the seeds of legalism. Of course biblical preaching will always be relevant and call for a response, but how can we preach the commands of God without reducing our messages to moralism? Is the key to simply jump from the command “pray without ceasing” to the reality that Jesus suffered a vicarious, penal atonement? Well, that’s one way to do it. But, let me suggest three ways of preaching the commands of God that help us avoid the trap of moralism.

Show the God of the Command

God’s laws are not arbitrary, but stem from who he is. And, because we are made in his image and for his glory, he gives us commands that reflect his character. So, when holding out the commands of God we must point beyond the command to the God who gives it.    Keep Reading...

The Problems With "WWJD?"

Pastor Robert W. Glenn of Redeemer Bible Church in Minnetonka, MN has written a thoughtful critique of the very popular Christian movement WWJD?  WWJD? is a movement that began in the 1990s among evangelical Christians as an exhortation to Christians that they should act and live in a manner that demonstrates the love of Christ. Obviously, the desire among those who started this movement was for the Lord's name to be glorified by Christians heeding this exhortation to live mindfully and Biblically in a lost and spiritually dark world. The movement manifested itself in all manner of items that bore the letters "WWJD?" (t-shirts, coffee mugs, plagues, bumper stickers, bracelets, etc.). So what on earth could be wrong with that? Well, I'm glad you asked. Pastor Robert Glenn's article below lays out a number of very thoughtful reasons why this movement is not just a harmless fad. Read it HERE

The Double-Reach of Self-Righteousness

My Heart is a Horror Movie - I have got to look away

We learn that the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against us as humanity because we, in rebellion, “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (1.18), “do not honor Him as God or give thanks” (1.21), “exchange the glory of the incorruptible God” (1.23), “exchange the truth of God for a lie” (1.25), “are storing up wrath for the day of wrath” (2.5), are unrighteous (3.10), lacking understanding (3.11), not seeking God (3.11), not doing good (3.12), are useless (3.12), do not fear God (3.19) and are, with the rest of humanity, “under sin” (3.10).

The ultimate horror show is a person who is habitually engaged in the overt rebellion towards the King by stealing that which is most precious to him and then mocking, dishonoring, discrediting, undermining, and ignoring his righteous rule. This rebellion is characterized by a persistent attitude of fearless indifference. In natural human terms the type of person is a psychopath who seeks to satisfy his own twisted cravings. In a spiritual sense this type of person is every natural descendant of Adam. Read the rest HERE

The Outrageous Love of God – R.W. Glenn