Know yourself!

[AI translation] Dear Brothers and Sisters! The confession of faith that most succinctly summarizes our Reformed faith, the Heidelberg Catechism, in connection with this Word that I have just read, the great commandment of love, is interesting in the way it speaks of the greatest tribulation of our human life. It says that it is in the light of this Word, in the light of this commandment, that it is really exposed how unheard of miserable we are as human beings. And now I would like to talk about this too!To know ourselves so truly, to the very depth of our being, is not so easy at all. One does not know oneself at all. This knowledge is not part of general education. Human cognition has increased almost by leaps and bounds in the last two centuries, at an alarming rate. We have revealed and learned many secrets of the world around us, of nature. We have also penetrated into the secrets of the atomic nucleus, we have discovered the primordial force within it. We have also travelled to a part of outer space and explored its horizons. We now know the composition of cells and the matter of stars. But, at the same time, he has not made much progress in knowing himself. He is very right who said that it is easier to find our way to the Moon or Mars than to ourselves, than to our own souls. Brothers and sisters, it is not a matter of knowledge, it is not a matter of technical sophistication, it is something quite different. One may be a very famous inventor and a great explorer, but he may not have discovered himself, he may not have discovered the true, deepest misery of his own life. Of course, this is not material misery, but something else entirely. There is much talk today all over the globe of the many ills and miseries of human coexistence. For example, the disintegration of family life. Then there is the constant decline in moral standards, and the many ills and miseries arising, for example, from the relaxation of labour discipline and economic inequality and mutual distrust. And also of all the troubles and miseries caused by war. But that is not what we are talking about here, we are talking about a much deeper misery.
It is the trouble that we call by the unpleasant word: sin. The misery of miseries. That which is the basis and cause of everything else. And this is the misery that most people have almost no idea about. They simply have no vision of it. No eyes to see it. He cannot perceive it. He talks about all kinds of trouble and misery in his own life, but he never talks about it, as if it doesn't exist. As if it wasn't the cause of all his troubles, as if it wasn't the source of all his other troubles. And yet, brethren, he who does not know what misery is sin has no idea of misery at all, even if he is up to his neck in a lot of misery. But it is not so easy to see this, brethren. The real misery. It is not so easy to see it, especially in ourselves. In others it is very easy, but in ourselves it is very difficult. It is very easy to go so far as to grind one's teeth and say very bitterly, "Oh, you wretched man!" But "I, wretched man" - as the apostle Paul used it, you heard it in the Word we read, "I, wretched man" - is at most only used as a pathetic phrase sometimes when we want to say something interesting. But not in the realisation of our own true misery, in the awareness of the tragic, the desperate. When did the apostle Paul say this about himself?
When did he cry out from his heart, almost like a wail, "O wretched man!"? Was it when the stones were falling on him there in Lystra? - They wanted to stone him, so much so that he fell asleep. And when he was in a truly terrible state of misery, because he saw only people crowding around him, and everyone was running away from him, and he was alone there, miserably at the mercy of a bunch of vile enemies, was that when he said, "Oh, my miserable man!"? Or did he say it when he was locked hand and foot in a cage in the Philippine prison, waiting for that truly terrifying night to pass? When he was in a really terribly miserable situation, did he say, "Oh, my wretched man"? No! Then sang the Apostle Paul! That was when he praised God! But the apostle Paul said it when he once saw himself in the light of God's law. When he looked into his own soul, when he made the greatest discovery a man can ever make: when he discovered sin in himself. That sin is in me. The inner lawfulness that makes him incapable of good. Of any good. So, when he had to discover in despair, as you say in your own words, "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want." And then the soul in him cries out, O wretched man!
Imagine, if the apostle Paul, who burned his whole life in the service of God, thought of himself as such, what are we like? Of course, not in the eyes of others, not according to the opinion of others, because that is always deceptive, untrustworthy, a liar. But we give so much! It is always distorted. Not in our own opinion, of course, because that is very unreliable. But how can we be as God sees us? And how can we know ourselves as God sees us? Well, Brothers and Sisters, it is only natural from one thing: from the law of God, where God has told us so definitely and so unmistakably what man ought to be. To see the evils of society, the miseries of family life, the miseries of war, you do not need a divine law, you can see it for yourself, you only need open eyes, a little listening ear and an open heart, and everyone sees it at once. But we do not come to the knowledge of the true deepest misery of our own selves by ourselves. For that we need an enlightened mind and open eyes! Once a little child said to his mother: "Mother, close the curtains, because so much dust comes in when the sun shines. What the child didn't know was that all that dust is there even when the sun isn't shining, it's just not visible. Is this why we don't really like to open the curtains of our souls to the Word of God in the light of that heavenly light? It's no good seeing all that dust! Without it, no one can see into himself. Without it, Brothers and Sisters, one cannot imagine how much dust and disorder there is in the souls of all of us. And without it we are even content with ourselves.
For example, I myself was content with myself for a long time. I could see the faults in myself, big and small, but I was convinced that if everyone was like me, there would be nothing wrong. I was convinced of that. And that's why I know how terribly difficult it is to get to the point where you can say it so honestly: Oh, I'm a miserable man! And that's why I know how frightening it is when the light of God's Word shines in and all that ungodliness deep down inside becomes visible. I know very well that when they pull out the furniture, hang up the pictures and shine the light into the basement and the attic, where they don't usually go, and then they are amazed at what they have hidden. Imagine what would happen if the law of God were to shine through our consciousness and illuminate before us the depths of our own subconscious world and the tangled confusion of our dream world! What if, for once, God with His Word were to shine His light behind our actions, behind our actions, and for once the invisible springs and motives from which our actions flow, and our world of thought, were to become apparent, were to become apparent. What if a special X-ray machine was shone on someone and everything inside became visible?! So behind the furniture and pictures, neatly arranged for the eye, and in the big jumbled mess of the basement of our souls, what is there.
You've never been scared of yourself? You couldn't even cry out for redemption then! What really needs a doctor is a sick man. Well, then, what does the law of God require of us? Yes, we must ask ourselves this question: what does the law of God require of us? Let us understand well, it is not a question of what your own well-understood interest requires of you, nor even a question of what the interest of your family requires of you. The problem is that different interests are in conflict and clash with each other, and it is precisely out of the clash of different interests that clashes between people and countries and between continents arise. What is interesting is what God's law requires of you. And Jesus answers this in one word: love. That is what he wants from us, nothing else. That's all there is to it. As Jesus says, that is the whole law and the prophets.
So he doesn't want you to do this or that, or not to do this or that. Because it's not as if he lays down a lot of rules, and then you can apply those rules to different situations in life. It is not that, it is simply and briefly that he wants us to love him. And here, perhaps, we need to add a little to last Sunday's sermon, when it was said that we who have become believers in God should strive to do good deeds. For this is true, but a good work according to God is only that which flows from love. For, Brothers and Sisters, it is possible to do many good things, to do many good things, which look good, which look great, but which may not have love in them. And then it is no longer a good deed. The apostle Paul says the same thing, that if I give all my goods and my body to the fire, say for someone, but have no love in me, then all this unheard of sacrifice and all this good deed is worth nothing, nothing. So the law of God requires that everything you do, everything you do, should be imbued with love. That love should be the root from which the branches of love sprout, that love should be the spring, the motivator, the motivating force of our whole conduct in life.
Remember the rich young man who once had a conversation with Jesus? There are so many nice and good things to say about him. He himself listed such beautiful things about himself. When Jesus refers to him keeping the law and lists: honour thy father and thy mother, and kill not, and bear not false witness, and keep the feasts - and then with such a calm heart the boy says to him, "Lord, I have kept all these things from my youth." The Pharisees would most certainly have given this young man a grade of five, so they would have given him an A. So this is a man with an excellent examination. And by Jesus' standards, he failed in love. And that's the way we measure it. We also used to say, "Well, I'm not a thief, I'm not a meddler, I'm not a harmer. As if that means as much as saying I love. But it doesn't mean that! Not at all. Let us look more closely at the great commandment. That is to say, in this love the whole man is included. Not with half his heart, not with half his soul, not with half his strength, but with the whole. Not sharing himself, as we are wont to do. Well, well, my heart belongs to my loved ones, my mind to the world, my body to earthly goods, my soul to God - but with the whole life of thought, emotion and will, it belongs to God. And not just in the way we usually do, by making a little gesture towards God out of politeness - it is not advisable to fool around with God, with such mysterious, great power - but out of true love. So, by loving God. I love it like my mother, I love it like my love, more than my mother and more than my love. Do you feel how soon all the misery is coming out of this, from so many facts? Who can say that about himself?
Well, even if we let the other part of this law, the other side of it, shine into the hidden corners of our souls, and there try to examine ourselves in the light of it. Let us think, brothers and sisters, whom do we love? Those who love us. And those who are easy to love because they are worth loving. Or those who are worth loving because there is something to be gained from it. Well, God has a very different standard for measuring love for our fellow human beings. That different standard is you know what? You are you and I am me. So that measure is how much I love myself. Well, then our whole life is one big sermon on that, how much we love ourselves. That is the measure, God says, of your love for another person. With this. How much do you love yourself? Would you, for example, do to yourself as you would do to an intrusive, unpleasant person? Would you use the same harsh tone with yourself that you use with your wife? Would you allow yourself to feel cold and sad as an abandoned old woman sits there in the apartment next to you? If someone were to look at your clothes from this point of view and enter your apartment at noon today, for example, and sit down at your table, they would surely conclude that you love yourself. You're doing the right thing. You're right. Love it. But do you love the other person that much? What one will do for oneself, at no expense, no effort, if one must! Even if you don't have to. But also for the other person?
Don't say that you do everything for your family, don't say that you sacrifice yourself for your children. It's natural, it goes without saying. It is just a more collective form of selfishness. It is not yet love of neighbour. Neighbourly love begins beyond the individual and the family circle. What did Jesus say? "Love your neighbour as yourself." He didn't say love your child as yourself - of course, that too, since the animal does that too - your neighbour, and that includes your enemy! Well, Brothers and Sisters, God does not expect from us mere good deeds, but love. A good deed without love is like a cut flower. For a while it flourishes, but very soon it withers, it is destined to die.
This is the great difference between humanism and Christianity. We can still do that general, humane good deed somehow. But there is more to it than that. It's about honest, true love without an ulterior motive! And here is our basic misery, that we are incapable of it. Our whole nature is such that we cannot truly love either God or man. In fact, we can only ever make God and man angry. We can only ever annoy, offend, hurt, hate. Do you know that this law, this great commandment of love, exposes the beast that lurks in the depths of our souls, that grumbles incessantly at God and snarls at our fellow men? In the zoo, beasts are kept in cages. But just because a beast is behind bars, it hasn't changed its nature. It hasn't turned the lion into a gentle kitten! It is still a beast, and the beast inside us is only restrained by the cage.
Do you know what kind of cage is the beast inside us restrained by? Authority and public opinion and the voice of conscience. That's why this beast behaves in a relatively tolerable way. But what if there were no bars, no fear of punishment from the authorities, the voice of conscience completely silenced, no one could see - what then?! In Jerusalem, the priest and the Levite were the embodiment of mercy, yet on that lonely road to Jericho, where no one saw them, they left their companion frozen in blood. Because no one saw them! If they had had an audience, if they had had a public opinion, their conscience would have spoken differently. That's the way we are.
It's one thing to be restrained from the outside by the bars, but another to be led from the inside by the restorative power of God. Because that's how it is! And it is only because there was once Someone, only One Someone, Who fulfilled perfectly the great commandment of love: Jesus! And He is always and now closest to the one who feels most in need of redemption, of grace, of His help. And this whole sermon today was just to make us feel it too!
Amen.
My Jesus, who orphaned my soul, You have redeemed it with Your blood,
You have saved me from damnation, O take away my sinful heart!
Grant that I may repay thee, That thou hast not left me in death,
Thou hast shown me that whatever thou givest, Thou art my refuge.
(Canto 295, verse 1)
Date: 16 January 1966.