If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. – 1 John 1:8-10
Dear friends, the natural tendency of our heart is to try and appear to be what we are not, and we all have more or less to struggle against this tendency, for it assails the most truthful. That love of approbation which, rightly checked and kept in order, has its uses, very readily pushes men on to pretend to be better than they are. Fear of censure is an equally powerful means of producing hypocrisy. We must by all means strive against the very beginnings of this frightful evil, for if it should ever get the mastery over us, it will make us altogether untruthful, and consequently we shall be far removed from all power to walk with God…Our tendency to be false is illustrated in the text before us, for we find three grades of it there. There is first the man who lies: “If we say we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” We say and do that which is untrue if while abiding under the influence of sin and falsehood we claim to have fellowship with God. If this tendency is let alone and unchecked, you will find the man growing worse and doing according to the eighth verse, wherein it is written, “We deceive ourselves.” Here the utterer of the falsehood has come to believe his own lie; he has blinded his understanding and befouled his conscience till he has become his own dupe. Falsehood has saturated his nature, so that he puts darkness for light and light for darkness. This is at once his sin and his punishment; he closed his eyes so long that at length he has become stone blind. He will soon reach the complete development of his sin, which is described in the tenth verse, when the man, who first lied, and then secondly, deceived himself, becomes so audacious in his falseness as to blaspheme the Most Holy by making Him a liar.
He Hath Said 