An Honest Heart Before God

I have for you today one of those
messages that I hope will be thought-provoking. I believe
a message that needs to be preached to this generation, and I'm preaching
it because it's not being preached today. Now, here's my subject,
and if you'd like to follow in your Bibles, you may turn with
me to 1 John, chapter 1. 1 John, chapter 1. Now, here's the subject. An honest
heart before God. An honest heart before God. Now, my friends, you know and
I know, unfortunately, and we may hate to admit it, but there's
more shame and showmanship and hypocrisy and counterfeit. Now, those are severe words,
but it's true. shame, hypocrisy, showmanship,
and counterfeit in religion than any other area. It's amazing
that in the place where there ought to be total honesty before
God and before men, that there's very little. And where there
should be no pretense at all, where there should be no hypocrisy
at all, and no put on, there's a great deal. And I ask this
question, why is it, why is it that in matters of religion and
in spiritual matters that men and women try to give the impression
to other people that they are what they are not? I don't understand
that. Why in religion and in spiritual
matters that men and women insist on leaving the impression that
they are what they are not that they have what they know they
do not have, and that they feel what they do not feel, and that
they know what they do not know. Now, why is this? Well, I've
given a lot of thought to the matter, and I believe I can give
you several reasons for the religious charade that's going on today. I think I can give you several
reasons for the pretense and the showmanship and the hypocrisy
that's found today in the average religious circle. Now here's
the first one. Here's the first reason for the
shame and pretense and hypocrisy that we have today in religion.
Here's the first reason. Men and women do not really know
the living God. They do not really know the holy
living God. God brought this charge against
Israel. He said in Psalm 50, Thou thoughtest
that I was altogether such a one as thyself." He charged them
with several things that they were doing. And then he said,
I'll tell you why you're doing this. Because you thought I was
altogether such a one as yourself. And then our Lord Jesus Christ,
speaking to the religious Pharisees who lived in the day that He
ministered in the flesh, He said to them, you err, you stumble,
and error for two reasons. You don't know the scriptures
and you don't know God. And that's why you're acting
like you're acting. Paul said this in Romans 10. He said they're ignorant. He
said this generation is going about to establish their own
righteousness before God because they're ignorant of the righteousness
of God. They're totally ignorant of the
holiness of God, and that's why they go about to establish their
own righteousness. Now, you know this is true, and
I know it's true. Men look on the outward appearance. God looks on the heart. God is
not a man, and God doesn't act and think like a man. He said,
your thoughts are not my thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.
Man is confined to observe things as they appear to be. God sees
them as they actually are. Men dress up their bodies in
religious garb. Men disguise their true feelings. Men and women sugarcoat their
words and say things that they're not thinking and things they
do not feel. And the Scripture says that our
true feelings and true attitude and true motives are naked. They're
not dressed up and they're not covered. They're naked before
the eyes of God with whom we have to do. God is the one with
whom we have to do, not those around us. We may impress people
around us, but God is not mocked. God is not deceived. God is not
fooled. God is not a man. He said in
Hebrews 4.13, there is no creature that is not manifest in God's
sight. But all things are naked, without
covering. They are naked and open unto
the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." My friends, John
wrote in I John 1, 5, God is light. And in Him there's no
darkness at all. So if we come to God, we're coming
to the bright, revealing, searching light of truth. And the Lord
knows fully a man's attitude. He knows a man's motive. He knows
the nature. He knows the objective. We may say something, but God
knows why we say it. We may do something totally counterfeit,
an imitation of the real thing, and fool the person before whom
we do it. But God knows the objective.
God knows the motive behind every word, every thought, and every
deed. He knows those things. He sees
behind the scenes. And that's what amazes me. Why
will we be hypocritical and counterfeit in dealing in matters of religion
and spiritual matters when God knows our thoughts even before
we think them? For example, in John 2, verse
23, when our Lord Jesus did many miracles in Jerusalem. It said
many believed on Him when they saw the miracles which He did.
But Jesus did not commit Himself to them. He didn't reveal Himself
to them because He knew them. He knew what was in a man. He
didn't need that anyone should testify unto Him why these people
were doing this, why they professed to believe. He knew why they
professed to believe. And he knew it was artificial,
and he knew it was counterfeit. He knew it was phony, and therefore
he didn't commit himself to them. And that's the reason for much
of the shame and the showmanship and the outward foolishness and
counterfeit and the charade that's going on today in the name of
God, in the name of religion. I'll tell you another reason.
Another reason for this hypocrisy, folks claiming to be what they're
not, claiming to feel what they don't feel, and to be what they
aren't, and to understand what they don't understand, and even
claiming things that God says to them. God is not... God speaks
through His Word. There's no man living on this
earth today who's heard the voice of God. Don't tell me that. He
knows it's not so, and I know it's not so, and I think most
of you know it's not so. I hear preachers talking about
going home at night, and God spoke to them and gave them definite
directions on something they were supposed to do the next
day. They just like to pick up the telephone and talk to God.
What language did God speak? What kind of voice did God have?
What appearance did he have when you saw him in your vision? Just
like the pictures? You know, another reason for
the hypocrisy and pretense in religion is man's love of approval. I think that's the reason for
a lot of this sham and all of this claiming what men and women
do not have. They love the praise of men.
They love the applause and they love the approval. They just can't stand rejection. They have a fear of rejection
and a love of approval. That's what the Lord said. He
said, you love the praise of men rather than the praise of
God. In John 5, verse 44, the Master said, how can you believe?
How can you believe? How can you really believe the
Word and enter into the Word and understand the Word and walk
with the living God as Enoch did when you receive honor one
of another? You're seeking the honor one
of another. That's why you deal in numbers. and statistics, you're trying
to impress one another. That's why you build gaudy houses
and drive gaudy automobiles and dress in the fashion that you
do and put on all this entertainment, you're trying to impress someone.
We're not impressing God, I know that, but we're trying to impress
one another. You seek not the honor that comes
from God, you seek not the praise that comes from God, you seek
not the approval that comes from God, You're seeking the praise
and honor of men. We just love approval. And you
know our Lord in Matthew 6 condemned the religionists. He talked about
when you fast, wash your face that you appear not unto men
to fast. He said when you do your alms,
do them in secret. He said don't be like the hypocrite
who does his good works out on the street corner lets everybody
know about them and advertises them. Why do they do that? He
said they do it that they may have glory of men, glory of men. He said they fast and pray to
be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, when men
see them, they have their reward. But when you pray, enter your
closet and shut the door and pray to your heavenly Father
in secret. And the Father which seeth in
secret shall reward you openly." Don't do your alms to be seen
of men. Don't brag publicly about how
you fast, and how you pray, and how you give alms, and how you
do works, and how you give your money. I hear these people who
want their names read every time they give a dollar or two dollars.
They want their picture in the paper, and their name in the
bulletin, and their name over television, and their name over
the radio. They want the praise of men. That's not spiritual
giving. Why do they do it? They do it
for the glory of men. They do it to be seen of men.
And our Lord said they have their reward. When men see them, and
when men glorify them, and when men praise them, that's all the
reward they'll ever have. You do your alms in secret. Let
not your left hand know what your right hand doeth. That's
how secret alms are to be done. Pretense. Showmanship. sham, hypocrisy, all of this
in the name of God. And we don't find it in the Scriptures.
We find men and women walking with God quietly and secretly
and personally. And then I'll tell you another
reason. I'll tell you another reason for the hypocrisy and
pretense in religion. And that is that men know little
or nothing of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The average person believes that he is forgiven of sin and saved
from sin and an heir of eternal life because of his good deeds
and good works and religious life instead of by the grace
of God through the merits and righteousness and blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. The average person doesn't have
any idea why Jesus Christ the Lord came into this world and
took on himself the form of a servant and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. Why he suffered on that tree,
and why he was bared and rose again, and why he ascended to
the right hand of God. The average person doesn't. They
know he did. And they say, well, believe on
Jesus. But my friends, Christ, listen
to this. Do you know what his mission was into this world?
Do you know why he came? Luke 19, 10 says, The Son of
Man is come to seek and to save the lost. That's why he came.
He didn't come just to set an example. He didn't come to reform
the Roman Empire. He came to seek and to save the
lost sheep. Matthew 9, 13, our Lord said,
I am come Not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. In
1 Timothy 1.15, Paul said, this is a faithful saving. And it's
worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ is coming to the
world to save sinners. That's why he came into the world,
to save sinners. Paul added, of whom I am chief. And then Romans 5.8, but God
commended his love toward us. in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. Don't pretend not to be a sinner. That disqualifies you from the
mercy of God. The thing that qualifies us for
the grace of God is the thing most people are doing their best
to deny, their sins. Romans 5, 6 says, In due time
Christ died for the ungodly. For whom? For good people, church
people, religious people, do-gooders? This pious, whoop-de-do, holier-than-thou
group of folk? Oh, no. He died for the ungodly.
He didn't come to call the self-righteous, but sinners to repentance. Matthew
1.21, when the angel announced his birth, he said, Call his
name Jesus. Why? Why Jesus, Joshua, God my
Savior? Because he'll save his people
from their sins. That's why. you to call his name
Jesus. Follow our master as he goes
about in this world calling out his sheep. Follow him. Walk behind
him. When he went down into Samaria,
whom did he save? Now Samaria is a big town, big
community, big province. But he went down there and saved
a woman. What kind of woman was it? A
sinful woman. You know the story. You know
how many times she'd been married, what kind of woman she was? And
our Lord saved her. We went down into Jericho. For
whom? Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus the publican. That was the man that our Lord
called down from the tree and said, I'm going home with you.
I'm going to have dinner in your house. And when he walked off
with Zacchaeus, some of these religious fellows, you know,
some of these holier than thou, fellows, touch not, taste not,
handle not." They said, well, look at him. He's gone to be
the guest of a man that's a sinner. He's the friend of sinners. Well,
my friend, that's why he came, to save sinners. That's why he
died. Aren't you a sinner? Whom did
he save and free from bondage in the land of the Gadarenes?
A wild man that they couldn't even tame, that chained him He
ran around naked among the tombs, a crazy man, possessed of demons. And our Lord saved him. He didn't
do anything for the fellows down in the synagogue there. Among all the people about the
cross, do you know how many people were standing about that cross
when they nailed Jesus Christ to the cross? Among all those people, Whom
did the Lord save and escort personally into glory? A thief. What do all these people have
in common? Listen. Mary Magdalene, the woman found
in adultery, the harlot who bathed his feet, Simon Peter, Saul of
Tarsus. Now these were the chief companions
and inner circle and people to whom our Lord ministered. and
whom he called friends and whom he saved. What do they have in
common? They're all sinners. Then why, I ask you, do we in
religion today do our best, our very best, to hide and to deny
the one thing that would qualify us for the mercy of God? Our
sins. Now you think that over. You
think that over. Everybody I know in religion
claims to be better than the rest of them. The most difficult
thing in the world today to find is a sinner. The most difficult
thing in the world to find is a person who will confess, admit,
and not deny that he's a sinner and needs desperately the grace
and mercy of God in Christ Jesus. One old hymn writer said, a sinner
is a sacred thing. The Holy Ghost has made him so.
When the religionist today uses the word sinner, now listen to
me, you know this is so. I'm not telling you anything.
When the religionist uses the word sinner, sinner man, sinner
woman, you've heard them say that, haven't you? He means,
by that word, a person who does not go to church, a person who's
not made a profession of faith, a person who lays no claim to
religion. But when God uses that word,
sinner, He means you too, everybody. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. There's not, God said, a righteous
man on the earth. who doeth good and sinneth not. Man at his best state, God says,
is altogether vanity. The Lord God looked down from
heaven to see if there was any that did do good, and he found
there altogether become unprofitable, there's none that doeth good,
there's none that understandeth, there's none righteous, and there's
none that seek God. David, man after God's own heart,
wrote this in Psalm 51. And these are words that the
average preacher or religionist wouldn't dare take to himself. And that's the reason he's not
a David. That's the reason he's not a man after God's own heart.
That's the reason those psalms have been written. Have mercy
upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness, according
to Thy the multitude of thy tender mercies, O Lord, blot out my
transgressions. Wash me throughly, completely,
altogether, inwardly and outwardly, from mine iniquity, and cleanse
me from my sins. For I acknowledge my transgressions,
my sins are ever before me." Now that's a man whom God owned
and loved and redeemed, and called him a man after his own heart.
Turn in your Bibles over there to I John 1. Let me show you
something. The Apostle John in this first
chapter encourages, yea, demands an honest heart before God. An honest heart before God. If
we have any hope, my friends, if we have any hope of obtaining
salvation, if we have any hope of eternal life, if we have any
hope of knowing the living God, we're going to have to remember
God looks on the heart. And God will have nothing to
do with your hypocrisy and your put-on and your pretense and
your sham. God will have nothing to do with
it. You'll have to play your religious game somewhere else. It's a fatal, fatal mistake.
If you cannot come honestly before God, don't come. If we can see
through your game, think how He sees through it. He says in
verse 6 of 1 John 1, if we say we know God, we have fellowship
with God, we have communion with God and walk in darkness, In
the darkness of indifference, in the darkness of ignorance,
in the darkness of false piety, in the darkness of self-righteousness,
we're liars, God said. We do not the truth. What a ridiculous
claim. What a ridiculous claim for a
man to make. What a foolish position for a
man to assume. What on earth for? To claim to
know God and not know Him? to claim to walk with God and
not walk with Him? What are we seeking? Gain? We
gain nothing. What shall it profit a man if
he gains the whole world and loses his soul? Glory? Human glory? Why, it fadeth like
the flowers of the field. Human approval? A reputation? God will not hold him guiltless
who taketh or wears his name in vain." Now think of that a
moment. God will not hold him guiltless
who takes his name. And that doesn't just mean with
the mouth. Who assumes his name, who wears his name, who takes
his name in vain. But then he says in verse 8,
if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth's
not in us. No sin, S-I-N, singular. Now,
the word sin here does not refer to an act. It does not refer
to a deed. It does not refer to a habit.
It refers to a nature. If we say that we have no sinful
nature, why, he said, we deceive ourselves. We are deceiving ourselves. The truth's not in us. You see,
we're born with a sinful nature. We do what we do because of what
we are. We aren't what we are because
of what we do. We do what we do because of what
we are. You see, man likes to present himself as basically
good by nature. That's the way we like to come
off before people, basically good by nature. I have a few
bad habits, I have a few false, but basically I'm a good man
or a good woman. No, basically, in reality, we're
evil. And we occasionally do an acceptable
deed. In the flesh dwelleth no good
thing. That's what God says. In the flesh no man can please
God. The natural mind is enmity against God. We're so evil by
nature. Let me show you something. That
only the restraining hand of God keeps any and all of us from
the most perverse, lowest form of evil. Did you know that? Only
the restraining hand of God. God will restrain the rest, the
Scripture says. God will restrain. The nature's
there. Don't mistake it. Only sovereign,
divine restraint. Keeps us back. And don't you
mistake personal merit for sovereign restraint, or sovereign restraint
for personal merit. To deny your sinful nature is
to be deceived. Now watch this. If we say we
have not sinned, we make God a liar, and His truth's not in
us. This is what's difficult for
the religionists to admit, that He does actually sin. That He
does actually sin. He said with the Pharisees, I'm
not like other men. I'm not like other men. I'm not
an adulterer. I'm not an extortioner. I'm not
unjust. I'm not like other men." Yes, you are. Do you know the
thought of foolishness is sin? Sin is not only the presence
of hate, it's the absence of perfect love. Sin is not only
an act, it's a thought. Sin is not only a deed, but a
look. To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, it's
sin. Do you love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength?
If not, it's sin. You love your neighbor as yourself?
No, that's sin. Sin is envy, covetousness, jealousy,
gossip, pride, lust, discontent, murmuring, finding fault, anxious,
worry. Anything short of God's holiness
is sin. And if you say you have not sinned
this day, you make God a liar. He said you did. But here's the
beauty. If we confess our sin, Oh, if
you could just do it. If you could just face it honestly
before God and confess your sin. He's faithful. Faithful to His
promise, to His Son, to His Word. He's just. Christ died that God
may be just and justify to cleanse us from all sin. What a promise. Honest before
God. Want this tape? Send a donation
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Heart Before God and one I preach next week on He'll Fill the Hungry. Study the Word. Join us again
next week. Until then, God bless you.

An Honest Heart Before God

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An Honest Heart Before God

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