The Fallibility of Self Knowledge

The Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). Desperately wicked, meaning incurably bad. The heart is so corrupted by sin that it robs the individual of the ability to accurately assess his own condition. The sinner is self-betrayed and will remain blind to his own true state apart from the convicting work of the Holy Spirit (Jn. 16:8).

Only God Himself is able to properly understand what is within each of us. Thus the answer to the question raised in our text comes in the following verse. “I, the Lord, search the heart…” (vs. 10). But as for man himself, he is chronically self-deceived. Ironside cites as an example Benedict Arnold. Arnold rose to the rank of major general in the American military. But he was extravagant in his lifestyle, and quick to take offense. Charges were brought against him of misuse of his military powers. In revenge, he sold out to the British in 1780. His name as become synonymous with treachery and betrayal. Yet he wrote to his fiancee, “I daily discover so much baseness and ingratitude among mankind, that I almost blush at being of the same species.”

The inability to properly see our own faults also affects how we direct our steps, the life we live, the goals we set, and so on. Proverbs says, “There is a way that seems right to a man [in his blinded condition], but its end is the way of death” (Prov. 16:25). If we cannot see ourselves accurately, how can we find our way? Recently the A & W fast food chain came out with an advertising slogan that said, “Listen to your cravings. They are wise.” But how contrary that is both to reality and to God’s revealed truth. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Rom. 1:22).