111. RIGHTEOUSNESS/SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS    --page 873--

         I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Mt.9:13).

         1. You can never be too bad for Jesus, only too good!
         2. You haven't got anybody's righteousness except Christ's, and He's the only one that can give it to you!
         3. The greatest saints were the greatest sinners, who knew it and therefore depended totally on God.
         4. God's idea of goodness is Godliness--a sinner who knows he needs God and depends on Him for Salvation!
         5. Self-effort is sin! It's a mistake! It is even abusing your body! You need to let go and let God! All you have to do is just let the Lord through! Just let the oil flow! Let the water flow! Let the Lord flow! Let the Lord do it!
         6. The most raging religious controversy the world has ever known has always been between the do-it-yourself religions and the God-alone-can-save-you kind.
         7. The greatest of all sins is self-righteousness.
         8. If you don't have His goodness you have no goodness.
         9. If you hide behind a hypocrite, you're smaller than he is!
         10. God's idea of saintliness is not sinless perfection or self-righteousness, it's utter dependence on Him.
         11. God's way up is down!--Down to defeat of self and self-righteousness.--Up to the victory of the cross and death to self for others!
         12. All the false religions are dependent upon self-righteousness and their own way!
         13. May God deliver us from the worst of all sins!: Man's own religious hypocritical self-righteousness and evil knowledge and greed for power through every form of cruelty, including war!
         14. If you are trusting in your own righteousness, your own perfection, it almost becomes impossible to confess you mistakes and shortcomings, because it destroys your self-confidence and nearly shatters your self-reliance, because it proves you are not perfect, which you hate to even admit to yourself!
         15. What is righteousness? It is being right!--Full of rightness!--Full of the Lord, for only He is all right!
         16. Self-righteous perfectionists are the hardest people in the World to live with.
         17. To put your righteousness above the righteousness of God is the ultimate sin! To put your will above the will of God is the ultimate idolatry!
         18. The ones who don't have the fire like to squelch and quench the people that do, to excuse themselves for not having it!
         19. If you're lifted up in pride and glad you're not like the sinner, then you're even worse! You're self-righteous and hypocritical!
         20. The Lord doesn't hold you as responsible for even your deeds as He does for you unbelief.
         21. When you feel so righteous and good, it's because you are self-righteous and not closer to God, but closer to yourself.
         22. Man's greatest temptation is to produce good works to obtain righteousness, to try instead of trust.
         23. Let not the pot call the kettle black.
         24. The Lord love the honest sinner better that the hypocritical self-righteous person.
         25. The only saints are sinners saved by grace!
         26. Forget about trying to be perfect--you never will be!--Only God is good!
         27. It is possible for you to be too big for God to use, but never to small for God to use.
         28. When you're accusing others of all they didn't do
         Their glaring lack reflects right back,
         And the spotlight points at you!
         29. Our new life is only by Grace, never by works or confession sessions or battling in the flesh with our sins.
         30. Let's forget about trying to be perfect--'cause we never will be! Let's follow the Lord and do the best He can!
         31. He who would cleanse a blot with blotted fingers makes a greater blur.
         32. Self-righteousness is the greatest of all sins, because it's pride, the downfall of the Devil!
         33. If we were so righteous and didn't have any weaknesses, we couldn't help others much. We couldn't be sympathetic or compassionate if we were so self-righteous and perfect. We couldn't even understand others.
         34. Watch out about having a critical condescending attitude towards homosexuals and epileptics and other handicapped people! You yourself may be guilty of things worse, like jealousy and the sins of the spirit! That holier-than-thou self-righteous attitude is in itself a much worse sin than the pitiful human afflictions of the flesh and physically afflicted and tormented.
         35. David was far more righteous after he became a great sinner than he was when he was so haughty and self-righteous.
         36. Self-righteousness is a works trip.
         37. The greatest men in the Bible were guys that made terrible mistakes and realized they were sinners, that they needed God.
         38. The smallest package in all the World is a man wrapped up in himself.
         39. The World's idea of righteousness is self-righteous perfection. God's idea of righteousness is the pitiful, hopeless, lost, humble, loving sinful sinner who knows he needs God!
         40. Jesus said, "You need to go back and learn what God meant when He said, I will have mercy and not sacrifice."(Mt.9:13; 12:7) In other word, I would rather see you have love that this sacrificial, law-keeping offering of sacrifices and duties. I'd rather you'd give love to somebody than just to be so self-righteous.
         41. Since Man's number is six, I think it's particularly significant that the number for the Devil's Antichrist is 666, three sixes! Now that's very significant because it's the ultimate that Man can do, and it's also symbolic of the trinity of Satan.
         42. Six is almost seven but no quite. Six is almost perfect, it's almost seven, but it's not, and that's the whole thing, the whole deal, man trying to prove he's perfect.--Man trying to prove he can run the World without number seven.--Man trying to prove that he has it all and doesn't heed God and he can do it himself. The ultimate in self-righteousness is man trying to save himself, and making a final, horrible mess of the whole thing!--Proving that man cannot do without God and number six is nothing without seven!

         (See also No. A, 35, 45, 117, 117A, 159, 258, 266, 286, 312, 524, 525, 531, 605, 635, 647, 648, 720, 784, 845, 919, 1017, 1371.)

         43. GEN.15:6 He believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness.
         44. JOB.9:2b How should man be just with God?
         45. JOB.9:20 If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall prove me perverse.
         46. JOB.13:16b An hypocrite shall not come before Him.
         47. JOB.15:14-16 What is man that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? Behold, he putteth no trust in His saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in His sight. How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?
         48. PSA.4:5 Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord.
         49. PSA.130:3 If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
         50. PRO.20:6 Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?
         51. PRO.20:9 Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?
         52. PRO.21:2 Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the Lord pondereth the hearts.
         53. PRO.21:21 He that followeth after righteousness and mercy findeth life, righteousness, and honour.
         54. PRO.30:12 There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.
         55. ISA.64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
         56. JER.17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
         57. MAT.5:20 For, I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
         58. MAT.19:17a And He said unto them, Why callest thou Me good? There is none good but one, that is, God.
         59. LUK.20:46,47 Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets, and the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts; Which devour widows' houses, and for a shew make long prayers: the same shall receive greater damnation.
         60. JOH.8:7 So when they continued asking Him, He lifted up Himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
         61. JOH.9:41 Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now you say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.
         62. JOH.15:22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.
         63. ROM.3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.
         64. 1CO.7:19 Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.
         65. GAL.3:6 Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
         66. PHI.3:9 Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.
         67. TIT.3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.

         (See also MAT.23:2-33; LUK.11:39,42,44,52; LUK.13:13-17; ROM.2:1,3,17-29.)


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