Deuteronomy 9:4-5 Speak not you in your heart, after that the LORD your God has cast them out from before you, saying… I. PRINCIPLES OF GOD'S GOVERNMENT. 1. Mark the assertion that God governs mankind. 2. That God governs by law in the moral as in the material world. II. THEY POINT OUT A NATIONAL DANGER — SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS. 1. A subtlety in self-righteousness. It is so multiform. (1) There may be the form of godliness, etc. (2) A power to criticise. (3) Freedom from observable faults. (4) Possession of some great virtues. 2. And its danger is — (1) To mistake the outward for the inward. (2) To lose sight of personal sin through the glorification of some real or imaginary virtue. (3) To rest on privileges. (4) To simulate virtues. (5) To blind the soul as to its real state and need.Application — 1. Self-righteousness the great hindrance to the reception of the Gospel now (Luke 18:10; Romans 10:3; Revelation 3:17). 2. Use David's prayer (Psalm 139:23). 3. Work of the Holy Spirit (John 16:8). (H. W. Dearden, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee. |
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