We all know the terrible story of what took place further; God created man, and Satan came in the form of a serpent and tempted Eve with the thought of becoming as God, having an independent self, knowing good and evil.  And while he spoke with her, he breathed into her, in those words, the very poison and the very pride of hell.  His own evil spirit, the very poison of hell, entered humanity, and it is this cursed self that we have inherited from our first parents.  It was that self that ruined and brought destruction upon this world, and all that there has been of sin, and of darkness, and of wretchedness, and of misery; and all that there will be throughout the countless ages of eternity in hell, will be nothing but the reign of self, the curse of self, separating man and turning him away from his God.  And if we are to understand fully what Christ is to do for us, and are to become partakers of a full salvation, we must learn to know, and to hate, and to give up entirely this cursed self.

Now what are the works of self?  I might mention many, but let us take the simplest words that we are continually using,—­self-will, self-confidence, self-exaltation.  Self-will, pleasing self, is the great sin of man, and it is at the root of all that compromising with the world which is the ruin of so many.  Men can not understand why they should not please themselves and do their own will.  Numbers of Christians have never gotten hold of the idea that a Christian is a man who is never to seek his own will, but is always to seek the will of God, as a man in whom the very spirit of Christ lives.  “Lo, I come to do Thy will, oh, my God!” We find Christians pleasing themselves in a thousand ways, and yet trying to be happy, and good, and useful; and they do not know that at the root of it all is self-will robbing them of the blessing.  Christ said to Peter, “Peter, deny yourself.”  But instead of doing that, Peter said, “I will deny my Lord and not myself.”  He never said it in words, but Christ said to him in the last night, “Thou shalt deny Me,” and he did it.  What was the cause of this?  Self-pleasing.  He became afraid when the woman servant charged him with belonging to Jesus, and three times said, “I know not this man, I have nothing to do with Him.”  He denied Christ.  Just think of it!  No wonder Peter wept those bitter tears.  It was a choice between self, that ugly, cursed self, and that beautiful, blessed Son of God; and Peter chose self.  No wonder that he thought:  “Instead of denying myself, I have denied Jesus; what a choice I have made!” No wonder that he wept bitterly.

Christians, look at your own lives in the light of the words of Jesus.  Do you find there self-will, self-pleasing?  Remember this:  every time you please yourself, you deny Jesus.  It is one of the two.  You must please Him only, and deny self, or you must please yourself and deny Him.  Then follows self-confidence, self-trust, self-effort, self-dependence.  What was it that led Peter to