But we can use this illustration to help the non-Christian also. The only way to God lies in the recognition of one's own sinfulness, and by practicing a rugged honesty with oneself. Even this is only given to us as the Spirit of God brings us under conviction. The world is full of so-called religious people who think they are Christians because their opinion is that they are very excellent and upstanding people and they try to do right. But according to the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, they have no true spiritual experience at all. True Christianity is this: it is responding to this void within, seeking the Lord, seeking the Lord through the word of God and through this message. Furthermore, it is being prepared to see the evil in oneself.
We are very good at judging other people. Every man born is a critic. One old sage says that there is one exercise in the whole world which needs no qualifications, no acumen, no experience at all, and it is to be a critic. Now, he happened to be a musician, but the same applies in many areas of life. There's one thing for which everybody is fitted for from birth, and that is to be critical. People will tear other people apart, and reveal the hypocrisy that is in us all. We can verbally tear a person into shreds who isn't half as bad as we are. We are so corrupt that we can justify our own deceitfulness and arrogance and dishonesty. We can justify our own selfishness and self-centeredness, and our own maliciousness.
Now the only way to God is to begin to turn that ruthless searching spotlight which is always on others, and to begin to turn it on ourselves. We need to be prepared to see how wretched and how self-centred and hopeless we are ourselves. It is essential if we are ever going to search for God; we have got to begin to feel our own sin. We have got to, as the Bible describes it, come under conviction of sin. We have to be pricked with an awareness of our own sins, and that is a harrowing experience for a worldling. Every one who is a child of God can testify to this: that when we came to know the Lord, it was the puncturing of a great balloon within. It was a humiliating, humbling experience. All of us so full of ourselves, so ready to justify ourselves; we came under conviction, and we began to see ourselves.
Here is another vital point in understanding how to seek the Lord. Be prepared to come under conviction and to feel your shame and your own sin, because the only way in which you will ever be able to approach God is by repenting of that sin. Understand this: that coming to God is being changed by the Lord. You say, ‘Coming to God means I have got to have a spiritual appetite. I have got to want to seek spiritual things.’ No, you have got to come this way. You have got to be prepared to see your unworthiness and sinfulness.