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Christian Family Principles
Written by Dr. Lester Hutson

Copyright - Lester Hutson - 1981
This material is copyrighted and may not be copied or reproduced without the express written permission of Dr. Lester Hutson.

Honesty With Self
Part II

Chapter Twenty Seven

INTRODUCTION: Text * Hebrews 13:18

I shall here continue the discussion of honesty with self. In the first part, I defined what honesty is and discussed the need for being honest with the facts. Refusal to face the facts is the seat of much frustration and misery for lots of people, but there are several other ways in which people are dishonest with themselves, which I’d like to discuss here.

B. You can also be dishonest with yourself by failing to face your faults.

1. First there are your physical faults.

a. I know it is hard to be objective about your own physical faults. Even when someone suggests or hints at what they are, it is so easy to ignore the hint and even resent the person who made the implication.

b. For example, we don’t want to believe we have bad breath, so we refuse the guy who offers us a lifesaver. We resent anyone who makes a comment about our body odor or unpolished shoes, but, folks, you do nothing but hurt yourselves, hurt your testimony and alienate those around you by practicing blindness or dishonesty with self over personal physical faults.

c. Everyone of us would do well to honestly look at how we dress, how we smell, how our hair looks, how our weight is and other such personal matters.

d. Some things you cannot change, and everybody knows that. You just have to accept those things, and we’ll later discuss that, but many things you can change. When you have a physical fault that you could change, yet you dishonestly ignore it as though it didn’t exist, people will scorn and resent you for it, and you will be the loser.

2. Besides your physical faults, there are your bad habits about which you can deceive yourself.

a. Lots of people refuse to admit that a habit is bad, even when it is. Smokers are notorious for this. They’ll destroy their own health and choke and stink out everybody around them with their smoke, yet act as innocent as if they were feeding milk to a baby.

b. With many a bad habit most of us estrange ourselves from our friends and strain relations with our loved ones with our carelessness of not putting things back where we got them and failure to return borrowed things promptly. David said, "The wicked borroweth and payeth not again," in Psalm 37:21. We meddle with other people’s goods, fidgeting with some part of our body or something in our pocket, smacking when we eat, sitting with careless posture and other such habits. We really hurt our effectiveness and joy in life and get ourselves into many conflicts with others. This is not to mention habits such as drinking, cursing, lying, speeding and the like.

c. I know this may sound trivial to some of you, but I am down in an area where most of us are guilty as sin, and the very fact that it sounds trivial is evidence of the fact that most of us are not facing these things in our lives. We’re being dishonest with ourselves about them. I’ll bet that if you will begin to take a really honest, objective look at your life, you will find several bad habits that you really ought to eliminate from your life. Job 14:11 says, "If iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away and let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles." Dishonestly telling yourself these are not here won’t help you. That will just add conflicts to your life. Your best means of alleviating any problems you are suffering because of these things is to face the truth that you have these bad habits, and then seek, by God’s grace, to get rid of them.

3. Another area where you can deceive yourself is regarding faults in your personality.

a. Have you faced the truth that you are hard and unfriendly? Perhaps you rarely smile, and you are always nagging and complaining? Are you the kind of person who always sees the negative, dark, pessimistic side of a thing? Do you talk too much and always monopolize a conversation? Do you insist that you are always right and pick and question anything anyone suggests or does?

b. Most people I’ve observed who have these personality defects don’t even know it. They’ve lied to themselves and think they have a good pleasant personality, and they can’t understand why people don’t like them, why nobody seems to be able to get along with them, and why they never seem to have any really close friends for a very long time.

4. Furthermore, most of us are blind and dishonest as to the faults in our attitudes.

a. We don’t even know that we’re basically greedy and selfish, yet others can see it as clear as day. We refuse to look at the fact that we covet this world’s goods; we enjoy satisfying the lusts of the flesh; we are jealous and envious and partial in our judgments. Many of us are extremely judgmental and critical and lack compassion and sympathy.

b. This is exactly how the Pharisees were. Jesus pointed it out to them in Matthew 23. They were rotten to the core on the inside, yet they rebelliously refused to admit it. Their problem was one of dishonesty with self. Jesus said, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone," in Matthew 23:23. He continued in verse 25, "Ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess," and in verse 27, "Ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto me, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." Yet, these twisted wretches could piously say, "Abraham is our Father," and "We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God," in John 8:39, 41. They prided themselves as being God’s prized champions.

c. In 2,000 years little has changed. Too many today are still Pharisees. They make some show of going to church, giving some money, praying prayers and abstaining from wine, women and song, and in this they pride themselves, remaining blind to their hatreds, greed, stubbornness, judgmental spirit, lack of compassion and other devilish attitudes.

5. Another area of personal faults with which many are dishonest with themselves is spiritual.

a. I am specifically referring to the common practice of our being faithful to the Lord in one or two areas, but neglecting Him pitifully in other areas. For example, many who serve well on a work committee never visit or win a soul to Jesus. Others actively support a Sunday school class but rarely attend an evening service. Many give well, but they neglect prayer and Bible study, and their convictions are weak.

b. It is even quite common for us to become critical of another Christian’s spiritual weakness in some area when we have an equally weak trait in another area. Paul wrote in Romans 2:1, "Therefore thou are inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things." Be careful to get your spiritual life in shape before you start casting stones at some brother or sister in the Lord. David said, "Blessed is the man...nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful," in Psalm 1:1.

c. I am telling you to be honest with yourself about your spiritual condition. Don’t say it is in top shape when it is not. Self-delusion in this area will make you critical and judgmental, which will destroy your testimony and usefulness in the service of the Lord. It is another of Satan’s ways of putting you on ice.

6. Folks, in any of these areas where you fail to face your faults, people around you will see, and they will scorn you and lose respect for you because of your dishonesty with yourself. You may not be objective or honest with yourself, but most of those around you will be honest or objective in their own minds about you. In fact, most people have a great capacity for being objective in their analysis of others. They will see your physical faults, your bad habits, your personality faults, your attitude and your spiritual faults. They will recognize your dishonesty with yourself, your personal blindness, and you will lose your testimony with them and your ability to reach them. Solomon said, "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold," in Proverbs 22:1. Jesus talked about letting your light shine and not putting a bushel over it in Matthew 5:15-16. Personal dishonesty destroys your good name and is like a bushel over your spiritual candle.

C. I warn you, don’t convince yourself things are different than they really are.

1. I will grant that you can be honestly deceived, but I’m not talking about that in this discussion.

2. I am talking here about having a deep desire or preconceived idea, and as a result thereof, twisting or perverting the picture to make it fit what you wanted anyway or already thought.

a. Some people get so determined or bent on their ways that they simply will not face the truth, the handwriting on the wall. It is the idea of "Don’t confuse me with the facts. My mind is made up."

b. The Jews were that way about Jesus. They wanted an immediate earthly kingdom in Matthew 21:5-11, and they were convinced that Jesus was a blasphemer and not the promised Messiah in Matthew 26:63-67. Thus, with their closed minds, they did not believe the truth about Jesus, regardless of how much evidence there was to support it. They ignored every prediction of Moses and the prophets. They ignored the testimony of John the Baptist. They refused the mighty works and miracles Jesus did. They refused to listen to Jesus’ testimony. They ignored His fulfillment of every prophecy related to Him. They refused the voice of God out of heaven that Jesus was His Son.

c. How typical they are of most of us today. At times, nearly every one of us has such a strong urge or desire for a thing to be a certain way, that we simply will not see or believe that it is not that way.

3. As a result of that preconceived position and our desire for it to be our way, we begin to rationalize the truth and true condition of the case away.

a. This is especially true where morals and Christian conduct is involved. We rationalize that everyone else is doing it so why shouldn’t we, even though we know that it doesn’t make a thing right or wrong just because everybody else is or isn’t doing it. All the other boys are drinking and smoking, they’re all having sex affairs, nobody else is all fired up about serving God, nobody else is practicing really strict Christian standards, and on and on goes our reasoning. We can kick down Christian principles by reasoning that our situation is different and that we are sort of an exception to the rule. We can do what we please and figure it is not too serious because God will forgive us. We can neglect whatever God has commanded, excusing ourselves with the rationale that "God will understand." By our reasoning away the facts in self-deception, we become as those of Romans 1:25, "who changed the truth of God into a lie."

b. But the divine irony of rationalizing things away is that we don’t really convince ourselves subconsciously. The results are devastating. Emotional problems of all sorts develop. Fears set in, for even though we’ve told ourselves our wrongdoing is alright, we don’t like for it to be known, so we fear being found out, for our dear old mother to know, for our wife to find out, for the parents to learn and even for the police to know. Uncertainty sets in and there is a constant inner debate going on about whether it is really right or not, thus, the heart is filled with doubt. This leads to worry, a worry about, "What if I’m wrong?" This brings a basic dread, dread of the consequences that will result if it really is wrong. Quite often shame sets in, a shame for self and a shame of facing others. All of these emotional tensions and feelings make a person feel bad inside. We often feel inferior, cheapened, a compromiser, and without real convictions. You might well call this process the dishonesty spiral, and notice that it starts with personal dishonesty and leads ever downward.

c. Most likely, once a person gets to this position in life he will develop a self-justification attitude and grow very defensive and rebellious against anyone or any implication that condemns what he is doing. In order to hide himself, he will even grow judgmental of others and self-authoritative on issues. This focuses on someone else and takes the spotlight off his own self-deceived activity.

d. No wonder God says in I Corinthians 3:18, "Let no man deceive himself." The church in Laodicea was deliberately blind or self-deceived. Jesus said to them, "Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked," in Revelation 3:17. Then He exhorted them in verse 18, "I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see." What excellent counsel that is for all of us. Let us throw off the patches of deliberate blindness. Let us look with honesty at the facts, and admit to ourselves the way things really are.

D. I want to briefly mention one other area of self-deception and that is our tendency to hope and plan and believe what there are no grounds on which to believe and hope.

1. Oh, how many times we tell ourselves things are going to be different, or better, when we know there is no real basis for that hope. We build elaborate, extensive sand castles only to have them swept away by the storms of life, and this with great grief, sorrow and bitter disappointment.

2. God’s Word warns of many dangers and predicts the results of various types of conduct. Faith is believing what God says, yet many refuse to believe God’s word about the certainty of death, the problems and adversities that will come in life, the way people will disappoint and wrong you, the way leaders will grow corrupt, the way temporal goods will perish and slip away, plus a thousand other predictions of truth. We throw faith in God’s Word to the four winds and substitute our own groundless hopes, plans and beliefs in its place. It is dishonesty with self in one of its rankest forms, and like all other forms of personal dishonesty, it leads to bitter, bitter consequences.

3. You people who are rejecting Christ are doing just this. You’re hoping where there is no hope.

"It Does Make a Difference What You Believe"