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Self-righteousness?
Spurgeon, "Self-righteousness; a Smoldering Heap of Rubbish"
"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all
our righteousnesses are as filthy rags..."
Nothing is more deadly than self-righteousness!
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.
O wretched egotist, you do at once lie and blaspheme!
Self-righteousness is born in the house
of folly, and it is nursed by human fancy.
Cease from doting upon your own fancied
beauties and worshiping your own foolish image.
Self-righteousness is a great, God defying sin.
Soul poverty and destitution bring a man
to God. Self-righteousness is the ruin of
all who harbor it.
Self-righteousness most effectually bars
a man from all hope of salvation. Beware,
you who are self-righteousness, lest all
your 'good works' be like millstones about
your necks, to sink you low as the lowest hell.
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.
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 who is saved by grace finds no room
for boasting in himself. A sinner washed in
Jesus' blood and clothed in Jesus' righteousness,
boasts only in the Lord. He is done once for all
with that which glories in self.
Self-righteousness is detestable in his sight.
His cry is "God forbid that I should boast
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."
The heavens are not pure in God's sight; he
charges his angels with folly; and do you, who
are defiled from head to foot, dare to talk about
self-righteousness? Righteousness, indeed!
when you are a mass of sin!
To what a pitch of madness does pride lift itself!
Oh, the absurdity of self-righteousness!
Self-righteousness is a mass of lies!
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.
This pride is loathsome to the last degree!
Self-righteousness is always afraid of the
gospel, lest the uncompromising truth should
unmask its self deceit.
See 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. 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.
When a man sees himself to be altogether lost
and ruined, covered all over with the defilement
of sin, and in no part free from pollution; when
he disclaims all righteousness of his own, and
pleads guilty before the Lord, then he is justified
by the grace of God.
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