It is one of Satan's great aims to seduce the children of God and the servants of Christ into error; if he cannot do that, he will tempt them to keep back part of the truth, or to dwell upon any other part rather than Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. The sum of man's excellency is "dust and ashes:" nevertheless, Satan deludes men into thinking themselves something; he helps them to carnal self-amendment and self-improvement, and so makes them blind to their true state before God. Self-Knowledge and Self-Judgement True Self-judgment shuts out the adversary. The more we exercise ourselves in Self-judgment, the more will the flesh in us be discerned _by ourselves_, and the less will it be seen _by others_. In our exercise of Self-judgment, we should keep our eye upon the Advocate with the Father, else we shall have a self-vexing conscience which profits not. Self-examination is a solemn and profitable business it should mainly consist in this, "My soul, believest thou? lovest thou?" (Heb. 11:6; 3:12.13; John 13:34.35; Rom. 13:10; 1 Cor. 13) The custom of Self-judgment is among the best of spiritual habits. "The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed" (1 Sam. 2:3). Because God tries the _heart_, therefore, in instances innumerable, God's judgment condemns where man may approve and praise. The oftener we invite Him with whom we have to do to use the keen edge of "the sword of the Spirit" in our own consciences, the less will there be in us for Satan's fiery darts to fix upon. If we better considered that "we have an Advocate with the Father" (1 John 2:1), we should not go far from the paths of the Lord and the presence of God. This Advocate speaks to the pity and love as well as to the holiness of the Father. It was the Advocate who said, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matt. 26:41). He knows all our circumstances, and the power of temptation and trial. Let it be the _first_ business of the conscience to think of this "Advocate with the Father;" then what child of God will be slow to make confession whenever it is due? Each one of us has in himself some especially besetting evil -- a weight to be laid aside. (Heb. 12:1.) Let _me_ ask the Lord to give me self-knowledge; for self-knowledge, though a painful, is a necessary thing, worth all the trouble of the search, and all the mortification it may cost me. When Israel suffers defeat before Ai, it is time to do what should indeed have been done before: to search out the Achan in the camp. (See Joshua 7) When I see a brother overtaken in a fault, let me beware of my own besetments, and seek to restore him in the spirit of meekness. Humility and Self-Abasement Self-humiliation brings with it tenderness of spirit; and as we sink in our own esteem, the Lord fulfils in us that precious promise, "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word" (Isa. 66:2).