Do we have got to acknowledge that that is true of us? We are the centre of our own stage; everything is to do with me. We tend to think that what is meant by sin is certain things which are done: the committing of adultery, the taking of life, stealing, lying and so on. We have to remind ourselves the ugliest part of sin is not actually the deeds that are committed. The ugliest part of sin is the state of the heart within us that generates those deeds. This Pharisee can't even get it out of his prayers. He is supposed to be talking to God, and, as he talks to Almighty God, all he can say, all he can think about is his miserable self. Is that true of us? When we come into the house of God, and God looks down upon us, does it make us feel unclean? Does it make us honestly aware of how wretched and unclean and foul we are? Do we begin to feel uncomfortable when we address God? Do I realize God is high above me, and I am just a worm in his sight, just somebody who has taken this breath and life he has given me, and is just living selfishly for myself? What good am I on the face of this earth? God has created me, and I am just living for myself. Does it make us feel like this? If it doesn't, then self-righteousness has taken charge of us.
Maybe you have attended church for 20, 30, 40 years. Did you ever hear that charming tale of Charles Spurgeon. It's recorded in his book ‘Lectures to my Students.’ He was complaining about the number of people in a church he once went to, who spent their entire time looking around to see who came in and every time the door opened many of them looked around to see who had come in. So it was that Spurgeon hit upon the idea of curing this. As he was preaching he said to the congregation, ‘You just sit and look at me, and I don't want you to be distracted every time anybody new comes in. I will describe them to you’, and that is just precisely what he did. The next person came in and he described him. Of course the congregation were horrified, but it brought home to them the absurdity of what they had been doing. Just as it was absurd for the preacher to be describing everybody who came in at the back, so it was equally nonsensical for people to be turning around to have a look. How many people have been coming to worship for years, but you have to admit that you cannot hold a train of thought as you worship God. During the prayer you are thinking of something else. During the Scripture reading you are thinking of something else. It may be the mark of a self-righteous person who has got no real need of God. The whole thing is a charade.
Are you satisfied with yourself? ‘Oh, I would be accepted by God.’ Most of the time, you may say, ‘I am kind. I am reasonably generous to people in my attitude. I am easy-going. I harm no one. I haven't made anybody desperately unhappy.’ And you move along these lines and you say to yourself, ‘Well, I will be accepted by God.’ That is what this man does, only in an extreme way. He applauds himself for what he thinks are his attributes. But he doesn't talk about love for God. He doesn't examine himself on whether he's really worshipped from the heart, whether he loves God, whether he obeys him, whether he lives for him. He doesn't touch on another aspect of himself. He doesn't touch upon his heart's sins, his pride, all the things that lurk within. He never notices them. He doesn't think about them: he is so busy applauding himself. That is what we are like before we come to God, before we are converted. We don't put the spotlight on the heart: how we think, how selfish we are, how proud we are, let alone some of the hidden lusts. We don't see ourselves as God sees us.
Do you really have no sense of your sin or your unworthiness, no sense of it at all? It just hasn't struck you. God is Almighty God and holy and you here are, just a created being, but one who has spurned him and knows him not, and you are not aware of your sin, and you are not aware of your need. Look at this Pharisee. Here he is talking about only outward things. Because he hasn't exhorted money out of anybody – and actually, if the truth were known, he probably had, but being very accomplished in the art of self-righteousness when he charged too much rent or kicked out people who couldn't pay it, he probably had a very neat way of justifying it to himself. But because he hasn't committed adultery – he is thinking only of the outward act and not of adultery in the mind – and because he hasn't murdered anybody, and because he hasn't swindled anybody in business, he seriously goes into the house of God and thinks he is sinless and needs no forgiveness. The self-righteous man or woman turns God into a being who sees no further than the skin and has no view of the inner man. This Pharisee couldn't see his own heart. But God looked into his heart and he saw this man was bigoted, full of stinking pride, full of deceit and self-justification. The self-righteous person can be self-righteous, only because he never takes a serious look inside himself. He always reckons up his score on the basis of gross sins. If he hasn't committed murder, he thinks he is righteous, and he takes great care not to examine whether he is selfish, malicious, ill-tempered, sensual, arrogant or conceited.
Why had he gone into the temple? He had gone to tell God how good he was. He seems to need nothing from God at all: no pardon, no power, no help. He goes into the temple to bolster his self-righteousness by one little trick, and it's a trick which every self-righteous person uses. It is the trick of comparing yourself with other people. The Pharisees begins to make comparisons in his mind. For the self-righteous person comparative righteousness is good enough. He therefore looks round to find someone who he believes is inferior to him, and seems to have little difficulty in elevated himself above that person. That will justify him in his own eyes and in the eyes of God. But of course, when God judges us, he does not compare us with other men and the level of righteousness they have achieved or failed to achieve; he compares us with his own perfect standard, and nothing else matters. Have you done this? Have you drawn yourself up as though you are far, far better than you are? You have pulled God down to your level by assuming that you are good enough; you are just what he approves. At one and the same time, you pull yourself up and you pull God down. But God lives in light which no man can approach. He is absolutely pure and holy. He cannot stand deceit and selfishness and wretchedness of any kind. Such a God who has no blemish, no fault; he is altogether wonderful. Such a God cannot have anything at all to do with you or I in our unforgiven state. But actually this Pharisees has completely misread the publican, and would face the terrible shame of his miscalculation.