The Hardest Sin to Spot — Shane Idleman

Weeping Before Correction

Do you enjoy being critical? Do you love critiquing others? Do you love being a fault finder? Then I would submit to you that your heart needs spiritual resuscitation. I love what Leonard Ravenhill used to say probably 40, 50 years ago now, that we must weep before we whip.

Before Jesus went in and made the whip and drove them out, he wept over the condition of Israel. If you want to whip, you first need to weep. We shouldn't be excited about pointing out the flaws of another.

Contending for Truth with Humility

We shouldn't be excited about pulling other churches down, other ministries down. That should not excite us. If it does, there's something wrong. Because the minute we think that we're the spiritual say-so, we have the spiritual say-so, that God has given me the gift of criticism when no such gift exists.

There's no such gift as criticism and being critical. Now do I say we shouldn't contend for truth? Absolutely not. We're called to contend for truth. But it better come from a broken, humble, loving attitude that does not enjoy what they're doing and weeps over the condition of the person and or the church or the ministry instead of taking delight in it.

Because if we're just happy about going around telling everybody off and showing how right we are, that's called spiritual pride. And Jesus goes right to it. As a matter of fact, let me submit to you, you're all older, many of you, some young adults in here, you can take it.

Jesus Confronted Religious Pride

It's gonna hurt a little bit. But Jesus went after prideful, arrogant, religious people more than sinners. That in and of itself should tell you something. Jesus, he just went after these religious people because they had spiritual pride.

They're looking down at everybody else. So just take it and just dwell on that. And it's hard to spot spiritual pride because we want to make excuses. And these are the excuses that I've heard. These are the excuses I've had.

Excuses That Conceal Spiritual Pride

And I've told you before, I've been through a time, 2005 -2006, in being in ministry that I could put down everybody. What were my excuses? I'm just passionate. No, I'm prideful. I'm contending for the faith.

No, I'm contentious. I'm right. No, you're wrong in your attitude. I'm a defender of the faith. I'm a defender. No, I'm being defensive. And a lot of times I can pick a critical, arrogant person out very easily because I want to see what they do with constructive criticism.

The Test of Teachability

When you start to call them on the carpet, they run the other direction. One example, there's a group I won't mention. And many of you know Pastor Chuck Smith passed away recently. And people were going after him as a false prophet, not doing some things in his ministry he should have, and just really not saying some good things.

So I emailed the guy and I said, hey, I have some experience with Calvary Chapel and the movement. I know a lot of the pastors. You got a time for about an hour call? No, he just, I don't need to listen.

I know enough. And he didn't even want to talk to me. And I was just, hey, let's talk. You might be missing some very important points here. You might be only hearing one side of the equation. Didn't want to talk to me.

And guess who might be on his heretic list next? Why? Because you challenge those arrogant, prideful people. That critical heart has got to be convicted just as much as the lukewarm heart does. I'm convinced of that.

Spiritual Pride and the Lukewarm Church

We love to point out the lukewarm church. The lukewarm church, they're compromising. They're this or that. But Christ went after the prideful, arrogant heart just as much. These groups that do not like, they are unteachable, they are proud, and they are eager to dispute.

And Paul says, do not have anything to do with them. So this is a very important topic, spiritual pride, because it's hard to spot. It's hard to spot. It isn't getting drunk every weekend. It's taking pride in the fact it's not getting drunk every weekend.

Religious Performance as Hidden Pride

It's not sleeping around. They're taking pride in the fact that they're not sleeping around. It's not because they're not in the Word of God. Oh, they'll let you know they're in the Word of God as much as possible, because they're the defenders of the faith, and they can critique everything.

They'll be critiquing this service, this and this and this, the worship. All these videos go out, so I hear from a multitude of different people on what we're just not quite doing right. You guys need to go to the old hymnals.

The Spirit's not there.