Your Natural Face

Your Natural Face

You will find an image of your natural face in Romans 3:10, ff. It is a painful truth which—when you receive light over it—shakes up your entire inner being and produces prayers and vehement cries for salvation. Who wants to see his natural face, and who wants to show it to others? Hypocrites pretend to be what they are not. Religious hypocrites will be judged more severely, for they feign salvation from all the impurity that is within them. Beware first of all, not of sin, but of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, which is hypocrisy. That is the greater danger. It requires humility to acknowledge that one appears in reality what the natural face shows us to be. However, most people recoil from their own image, cover themselves up, and decorate themselves as best they can, imagining that they are good.

James speaks about observing your natural face in a mirror. Jas. 1:23. Oh, how necessary that is in our days in the Christian assemblies. They compete in showing off their high, Christian ideals for which people can become enthusiastic; they speak beautifully about God and Christ and are built up on the old self-life. If there is a courageous man in a place who shows the assembly their natural face so they can acknowledge the bitter truth and lose their life in order to find it again, they are immediately offended and rail against such salted words.

People desire to find life without losing it, and there is much of this in the preacher milieu of our days. But in order to lose your life, you must necessarily acknowledge it, see it, and then surrender it into the death of Christ. This causes pain, but the one who wants to advance in God’s kingdom must accept this pain.

Those men who have amounted to anything in God’s kingdom are the ones who have looked the truth about themselves in the eye. They have seen their natural face. Abraham saw it, for he says, “I am dust and ashes.” Therefore he was God’s friend. Peter saw his natural face and he went out and wept bitterly. When Job saw his natural face, he put his hand on his mouth and was silent when the Almighty confronted him. But you boast of your greatness, your education, your clothing, and your social graces and facial expressions with which you seek to deceive others; you boast of your talents as a preacher, of your listeners. Bow down! Acknowledge and look at your natural face, and you will find a needy cry in your heart for salvation from the monstrosity of your self-life.

The heart of man loves to be deceived, and is deceived. Many people are being led into a false holiness and on a false way to glory. Who does not want to see God’s glory; who does not want to have His glorious treasures revealed? The Lord’s treasure is hidden in the Lord’s sanctuary. The impure are not allowed to enter there. Hezekiah showed all his treasures to the ambassadors of Babylon, and the consequence was that the Israelites were led into captivity. Isa. 39. What does impurity have to do in the Lord’s temple? What do the uncircumcised have to do with the Lord’s glories? Lead them to Gilgal where the foreskins of their impurity can be cut off. Before Moses could lead Israel, he had to put his hand into his bosom, and behold, it was leprous. Is the glory not hidden in a secret place behind death over one’s self-life? The glory that is hidden in the secret place is used by the Christian deceivers to glorify the old self-life. If they were to mount a concentrated attack on all the proud necks of the self-life, how much more would their labor not be crowned with glory and honor? If they used the sword of the Spirit, God’s Word, on the self-life so that death could ravage in the assemblies, what honor they would have in heaven! Then they would be fellow-workers of the Spirit in convicting people of sin, righteousness, and judgment. But now they only want to convince people of a false love and a false tolerance. They say that the sword, God’s Word, must not be used according to what is right because then you judge. But that is precisely what the sword does—it judges. It judges the natural man’s thoughts and the counsels of his heart. The man whose words do not judge sin and the self-life is not a servant of the Lord but rather a hireling.

When Jesus met the Samaritan woman and said that He wanted to give her living water, the woman asked Him to give her this living water! She wanted to possess this glory immediately. However, the living well in the heart had to flow out by way of an acknowledgment of man’s natural soil. Therefore He showed her her natural face and told her that she has had five husbands, and the man she now has is not her husband. She acknowledged the truth, went into the city, and told the men about Jesus, saying, “Come, see a Man, who has told me all things that I ever did.” Then the well gushed forth. She spoke about her Lord and Master. Nathan showed David his natural face when he had sinned, and David acknowledged it. Then the living well began to flow again in his inner man.

Preachers who sell themselves for money and a livelihood do not dare to show the people their natural face. It doesn’t agree with their enthusiastic, false liberation doctrine that lets people be holy without dying to the old life. They are blind guides for the blind.

Jesus showed the Pharisees their natural face. The Pharisees assumed a mask of piety and godly fear, but Jesus tore off the mask of the priests of that time and showed them their natural face. However, when they saw themselves in the mirror and were revealed as hypocrites even in front of the people, in spite of their tithing of anise and cummin and rue and mint, they fumed against Jesus and hated Him with all of their heart. But He exposed them even more, calling out that they were whitewashed tombs, blind leaders, a brood of vipers; fools and blind! On the outside they appeared to be righteous before men, but inwardly they were full of hypocrisy and unrighteousness.” Matt. 23. Is it any wonder that they crucified Him? Who exposes hypocrites in these days? Who cries, out, “Woe!”? Traveling preachers and priests? A nice hypocrite is more esteemed in an assembly, collecting the tithe, than a man who cries out “Woe!”

Stephen showed the Pharisees their natural face when he, full of the Holy Spirit, cried out: “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.” Acts 7:51.

Who of the prophets did not show Israel their natural face? Who of them did not expose their folly and show the way to salvation? After Peter had spoken, it cut them to the heart. They saw themselves and asked what they should do in order to be saved. Paul showed the Corinthians their face so they could see themselves, acknowledge the truth, and be led to salvation.

Many a critical mistake has been committed, often because of a lack of understanding, by showing the treasures to a soul without the soul having been led to an acknowledgment first. A soul who, by acknowledging his own, was led to see the treasures in the sanctuary wanted to lead another soul to the same brother so that he could display his treasures again; but instead of showing his treasures, he showed this soul his natural face to his horror and mortification and offense. This soul was brought there to see glorious things, but all he got to see was his own foolishness—his natural face.

Jesus says, “Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” Indeed, blessed is he who is not offended by what one says and testifies about the natural man. Those who are offended are not blessed in spite of their lofty confessions and much boasting. The cross is the gate to life. Death to all of self is the way to glory. Behind the dark door of one’s self-life are the gems. Blessed are those who find them, but the mystery of godliness is great. 1 Tim. 3:16.