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‘But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.’
1Co_11:28
I. The reasons why we are so averse to perform the duty of self-examination are chiefly three.
(a) It needs time and effort, which we are not able to give.
(b) There is a secret consciousness that if we do it faithfully the result is sure to be mortifying and painful.
(c) The peculiar difficulty of the case—that any one ‘examining’ himself in the ordinary way is at one and the same time the prisoner, the witness, and the judge—all united in the same person.
No wonder, then, that any one who treats it thus finds it so complicated and so involved!
II. The reason of ‘self-examination.’
(a) It is a plain command of God. ‘Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?’ Observe carefully the solemn alternative which ‘self-examination’ is alone to decide. Either Christ at this moment is in you, or you are a reprobate!
(b) Ought you not to examine that which will soon be examined in the solemn court of God’s universal empire?
III. As respects the times and places of the self-examination.
(a) In the morning, examine yourself. ‘Have I strength for the day?’
(b) In the evening, settle accounts before you go to bed.
Both morning and evening, before you close your Bible, with reference to the passage you have been reading—‘examine’ yourself. If it is a duty, ‘Am I discharging that duty?’ If it is a doctrine, ‘Do I understand that doctrine?’ If it is a promise, ‘Do I enjoy that promise?’ If it is a threat, ‘Is it hanging over me?’
(c) Take opportunity of anniversaries. A birthday—or any day made memorable by some particular joy or sorrow in the house. A Saturday evening—taking stock of the week preparatory to the Sunday.
(d) And especially preparatory to the Holy Communion. Do it both in your room and in the church, before and after you partake.
(e) Or, after a fall into some sin, ‘examine’ yourself. ‘What was the root of that sin? How came I to do it?’
IV. Self-examination is a very difficult duty.—‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?’ And then, to make it the more clear, we cannot do it without God, because it is an attribute of God, and His prerogative—‘I the Lord do search the heart.’
—
Rev. James Vaughan.