Self Delusion: MANY PROFESSORS ARE DECEIVED 


EVERY wise merchant will occasionally hold a stock-taking, when he will cast up his accounts, examine what he has on hand, and ascertain decisively whether his trade is prosperous or declining. Every man who is wise in the kingdom of heaven, will do the same by himself; he will always cry, “Search me, O God, and try me;” and he will frequently set apart special seasons for self-examination, to discover whether things be right between God and his soul. The God whom we worship is a great heart-searcher; and of old his servants knew him as “the Lord which searcheth the heart and trieth the reins of the children of men.” We who are called to be mouth for God unto the people, feel ourselves impelled to stir you up in his name to make diligent search, for we would not have you come short of the promised rest. We should be unfaithful to your souls if we did not warn you against deception, and excite you to solemn trial of your state. That which every wise man does, that which God himself does with you, I may well exhort you to do with yourselves this morning. O may God help you to deal very faithfully with your own hearts. Let the oldest saint here look well to the fundamentals of his piety, for grey heads may cover black hearts; and let not the young believer, in the first flush of his joyous faith, despise the word of warning, for the greenness of youth may be joined to the rottenness of hypocrisy. 

     I. Our first remark is this — MANY PROFESSORS ARE DECEIVED. So the text teaches us. It does not say “a few may be misled,” but “many shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able." That many professors are deceived is clear enough from the language of Christ himself, both here and in other places. For instance, “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom; and five of them were wise, and five were foolish.” We hope that in our Churches we have not such a division as this, for it were fearful to contemplate only one half as sincere, and the other half graceless, having the lamp of profession, without the secret vessel of spiritual life! Yet, so alarming a proportion as five out of ten should make us search ourselves very carefully, lest we be found among the virgins, and among the virgins having lamps, ay, and among those whose lamps are burning, and yet should be cast away as having no oil in our vessels with our lamps. Remember how the Master in another parable putteth the multitude of the lost clearly before us: “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.” Now, by these goats are meant those who are in the flock, but are not sheep. A separation is needed, for they once were mingled; yes, so mingled that they had a sort of hope, and were able impudently to plead— “Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?” Yet I do not discover in the parable that there were more sheep than goats. I find, at any rate, that the goats made up a very considerable multitude; and though they expected to receive the benediction with the blessed, he said, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” Recall to your recollection, also, another picture of our Savior, where the Sower went forth to sow his seed. Here there were three places where the seed fell in vain, and only one where it brought forth fruit; and, out of the three where it fell in vain, there were two that must be numbered with professors. In the one case it fell where the thorns sprang up and choked it: there was religion, but worldliness killed it. In the next, it fell where there was not much depth of earth; and the Master tells us that there are some who hear the Word, and anon with joy receive it; but when persecution comes by-and-bye, they are offended, for there was never a deep work in their inner spirit. Tremble, my hearers, so many of you as have received the Word with joy and gladness, lest you should be found to have had no depth of earth, and so, by-and-bye, the good thing which has blossomed and budded in you should perish before the burning sun of persecution.

All these metaphors, and many more, go to warn us that there are many professors who are deceived— many that are in Israel, who are not of Israel— many that are mingled with us, who are like the mixed multitude which came up out of Egypt with Moses, who shall never enter into the promised land, but shall leave their carcasses to perish in the wilderness.

Ah! and we have the painful conviction that there are others who are not discovered yet, whose sins do not go beforehand unto judgment, but follow after; who are nevertheless tainted at the core. There are the many covetous professors who are as grasping and as grinding as if they never professed to be Christians; and you know that “covetousness is idolatry.” There are the many time-serving Christians, who hold with the world and with Christ too; and ye know that we cannot serve two masters. There are the many secret sinners among Christians, who have their petty vices which come not under human observation, and who, because they are thought to be good, write themselves down among the godly; now we know there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, and woe to them when their secret sins shall be published on the house-tops. 

Then we have the legal professors, who trust to their own works, and shall find that the curse of Sinai shall wither them. And what shall I more say? Have we not many who are not so inconsistent that we could put our finger upon any open sin sufficient to deserve excommunication, but who are guilty of enormous spiritual wickedness? They are dead; they bring forth no fruit; their hearts are hard as a millstone with regard to the conversion of sinners; they have not the faith of God’s elect; they do not live by faith; they have not the spirit of Christ, and therefore they are none of his. God knoweth we have sought to use all care and diligence in this Church, both to keep out unworthy persons and to cast out unhallowed livers; but, despite all that, we cannot but be conscious, and we tell it you faithfully, that the enemy still continues to sow tares among the wheat. The gold is mixed with the dross and the wine with water: for evil men thrust themselves into the heritage of the Lord. When our muster-roll shall be revised at last, how many out of our more than two thousand members will be found to be base-born pretenders unto godliness! O my brethren, I conjure you, by the precious blood of Christ, which was not shed to make you hypocrites, but shed that a sincere people might show forth His praise; I beseech you, search and look, lest at the last it be said of you, “Mene, Mene Tekel, thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting.” 

Some have maintained an admirable character to all appearance all their lives, and yet have failed of the grace of God because of some secret sin. They persuaded even themselves that they were believers, and yet they were not truly so; they had no inward holiness, they allowed one sin to get the mastery, they indulged in an unsanctified passion, and so, though they were laid in the grave like sheep, they died with a false hope, and missed eternal life. This is a most dreadful state to be in, and perhaps some of us are in it. Let the prayer be breathed, ‘Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.’ Are you earnest in secret prayer? Do you love the reading of the Bible? Have you the fear of God before your eyes? Do you really commune with God? Do you truly love Christ? Ask yourselves these questions often, for though we preach the free Gospel of Jesus Christ, I hope as plainly as any, we feel it to be just as needful to set you on self-examination and to excite in you a holy anxiety. It ought to be often a question with you ‘Have I the grace of God, or do I fall short of it? Am I a piece of rock crystal which is very like the diamond, but yet is not diamond?’"