Every wise business owner takes inventory. They check their accounts, examine their stock, and figure out exactly whether their business is thriving or dying. And every person who is wise in the kingdom of heaven cries out, "Search me, O God, and test me!" They regularly set aside special seasons for self-examination, to discover whether things are right between God and their soul.

The God we worship is a great heart-searcher! His servants have always known him as the Lord who searches the heart and tests the deepest motives of his children. Let me stir you up in his name to make diligent search and solemn trial of your state, lest you fall short of the promised rest.

What every wise person does, what God himself does with all of us, I exhort you to do with yourself this evening. Let the oldest saint look well to the foundations of their faith—gray hair can cover a black heart! And let not the young believer despise this warning—the freshness of youth can be joined to the rot of hypocrisy. Every so often a mighty cedar crashes down among us. The enemy still sows weeds among the wheat.

Now, I'm not trying to plant doubts and fears in your mind—no! I hope instead that the rough wind of self-examination will blow those doubts away. It's not true security we want to kill, but carnal security. Not confidence, but fleshly confidence. Not peace, but false peace we would destroy.

By the precious blood of Christ—blood that was not shed to make you a hypocrite, but so that sincere souls might show forth his praise—I beseech you: search and examine yourself! Otherwise, at the last it may be said of you: "Mene, Mene, Tekel—you are weighed in the balances and found wanting!"