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The power and rewards of humility (Humility, part 4)
This is part 4 in our study of the particular fruit of the Spirit called humility. We have been finding examples of the power and rewards of humility. Another example is found in 2 Chronicles, chapter 12. This is a situation where the late King Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, is facing foreign invasion from Egypt. This is a case, though, where it appears the repentance was somewhat more sincere and true than in the case of Ahab.
2 Chronicles 12:5 Then came Shemaiah the prophet to Rehoboam, and to the princes of Judah, that were gathered together to Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said unto them, Thus saith the LORD, Ye have forsaken me, and therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishak.
6 Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves; and they said, The LORD is righteous.
7 And when the LORD saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah, saying, They have humbled themselves; therefore I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance; and my wrath shall not be poured out upon Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak.
8 Nevertheless they shall be his servants; that they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries.
Allow me to interject an off-topic (but very important) observation at this point. Notice the very important biblical principle here. When God’s people are due for a national “whipping” (chastisement) from the Father, it sometimes manifests as a national captivity.
That captivity can be extraordinarily harsh and involve the deportation of the people of Israel to a foreign land (as in the Assyrian captivity of ten-tribed Israel commencing in 745 B.C.), or it can be a captivity involving a milder judgment which does not result in deportation, but “only” that the offending nation (in this case, the Kingdom of Judah) becomes subject to another nation while Judah remains in their own land.
Now here’s the point: God declares in verse 8 that serving the conquering king IS SERVING our heavenly Father! Need I comment on how that applies to those who might have ideas of refusing to bow and serve our present conqueror, Mystery Babylon the Great?! God put us (U.S.) into this captivity and He has ordained the time of our release!
I take back what I stated above when I initially thought this was an “off-topic” commentary. It is not off-topic at all because it is all about humility and humbling on the national scale!
9 So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house; he took all: he carried away also the shields of gold which Solomon had made.
Just briefly, let me read to you two other occasions where God rewarded humility in a similar manner. We remember the story of how the Assyrian king Sennacherib came to conquer Jerusalem …
The Power of Humility
This is part 3 of the fruit of humility.
Preface: These essays were originally parts of lectures that I have presented over the years through my CD Ministry, and before that, through my Tape Ministry. This particular series on the fruit of humility was given in April of 2001. Thus, in hindsight, perhaps a better title for this would be “9-11: Judgment deferred through humility.” Here now is the text from April 2001.
I am seeing more and more that our Father seems to delight in paradoxes. The way up is down. To be the greatest, He says, one must seek to be the most humble servant of all. And I would now title this little section the power of humility—doesn’t that sound paradoxical? It is the power that comes in recognizing our weakness. It is exemplified by Paul where he tells how he sought thrice for the Lord to remove his thorn in the flesh.
2 Corinthians 12: 9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in [your] weakness, [Paul]. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
Paul understands the power of humility. The only way to be truly strong and powerful in spirit and soul is to recognize our impotence, our powerlessness, because that is when the power of Christ in us is made manifest. Christ and His Holy Spirit in a sense do not operate in us when we have our self in the way trying to get the glory and take the credit.
Another example of the power of humility is found in the story of the wicked Israelite King Ahab back in 1 Kings 21. As you are turning there, I will point out that immediately after the election of Bill and Hillary Clinton in 1992… (I know we didn’t elect Hillary, but I say it that way because we did seem to get a two-for-one deal there, didn’t we?—and it is pertinent to the following discussion.)
The point is that many of us saw Bill and Hillary as antitypes of Ahab and Jezebel. There were so many similarities that I devoted a two-part message to the topic at the time. I think I called it “Ahab and Jezebel Go to Washington.” A year or two later, I wondered if the whole Whitewater land development scandal was an antitype of the story of Naboth’s vineyard, which is recounted in the first part of 1 Kings 21.
Naboth’s vineyard, you will recall, was a nice piece of property near Ahab’s palace in the area of Jezreel. Jezreel was located fairly near the center of the land mass of ancient Israel. Sort of like Arkansas is near the geographic center of latter-day Israel in …
The fruit of humility, part 2
We stopped last time in the middle of a passage I was presenting from Micah, chapter 6. I stopped after verse 7, so I will repeat the verses and then continue.
Micah 6:6 Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?
7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
Of all the things that could have been listed here as requirements for man, God chose to emphasize only three, and one of them is humility before God. Do you think God is suggesting that humility is important?
Obviously! Yet I daresay that humility is probably not on the list of daily goals for most of us, is it? Why is it so hard for us to seek humility? The answer? Because we are proud! It goes against that most basic and fundamental of all sins: the pride of self. Humility means recognizing that someone else is in control. And that is Someone with a capital “S,” the Lord God Almighty.
Humility is a requirement for entering the kingdom of heaven. We know that attaining to the high calling of being an overcomer qualifies one for rulership in the kingdom of heaven. But it seems that the Bible also teaches that—leaving overcomership aside—just getting into heaven as an ordinary Christian will require humility.
Matthew 18:1 At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
First, let’s notice their question. They did not ask Jesus about the requirements for getting into the kingdom, but rather about being the greatest in the kingdom. But how does Jesus answer them?
2 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,
3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus does not immediately answer their question about being the greatest. First, He simply sets forth a couple of requirements for even entering the kingdom. We can all agree that being converted is a requirement for entering the kingdom, but what is this additional requirement about becoming like little children? Well, I think the meaning becomes clear as Jesus then goes on in verse 4 to actually answer the specific issue about being the greatest.
4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
It seems obvious that the quality about becoming as little children in verse 3 just …
The fruit of humility, part 1
We are involved in a study of the fruits of the Spirit. Before we even began to delve into the specific fruits, we took a time-out to lay out some of the basic principles of the doctrine of grace. The primary reason for that detour was so that we would understand the fruits of the Spirit in proper perspective.
In other words, that even as we exhort one another to live lives of virtue and even as we encourage one another to strive to produce these fruits in our life that we would all understand clearly that all that we do is due to the grace of God. We have all declared “chapter seven spiritual bankruptcy,” remember?
As we study the various fruits of the Spirit, we will all be seeking to implement them in a greater way in our daily lives. But whatever is praiseworthy in our Christian walk, it is because of the grace of God causing us to desire to do it in the first place and then enabling us to actually perform it. Whatever virtues we possess, it is not a cause for our boasting of our great spiritual status.
We are nothing in and of ourselves. We are nothing except what God deigns to make us and to give to us out of His gracious loving kindness. This applies to all the fruits of the Spirit. And it should become unmistakably obvious today as we study the fruit or virtue of humility. The apostle Paul writes in
NKJ 1 Corinthians 13:13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
If love is the chief of all virtues, then humility is its handmaiden. Love cannot truly be love without humility because love flows through humility. All the other fruits and virtues likewise flow through humility.
One of the great doctors of the early church, John Chrysostom, said it this way: “Humility is the root, mother, nurse, foundation, and bond of all virtue.”
Over the past many years, we have often spoken of being an overcomer. It has become apparent to me that there is a thread of continuity that runs through and ties humility with forgiveness, grace, jubilee and overcomership. We have often stated that to be an overcomer, one must apply the principle of jubilee. That means we must be forgivers.
Being forgivers means giving grace to others, to those who have offended us. Remember the definition of grace? It is unmerited favor. In other words, perhaps the person who has offended you does not deserve your favor; but that is exactly what it means to show grace. Isn’t that what our Father does for us?
We will show later the link between humility and forgiveness, and thus demonstrate the thread which ties humility to being an overcomer. So, if you are striving to be an overcomer, the fruit of humility must be evident in your character.
Let’s begin though, by looking at Webster’s 1828 dictionary definition …
Grace in the New Testament, part 4-Conclusion
Since I have been teaching the restitution of all things these many years now, I have had a number of people write to me objecting with the idea that “Well, if everybody is going to get saved eventually anyway, why try to live a Christian life? Why be good? Why not go out and just sin up a storm, just sin like the devil since we all get saved anyway?”
We answered that at length in one of the lectures in our series on Universal Reconciliation. But it is really basically the same objection made concerning God’s grace. And that’s not surprising, because after all, and as we have stated numerous times, the whole doctrine of God’s grace towards us is based on the Old Testament law of jubilee, and that same law of jubilee is itself one of the bases of universal reconciliation.
The objection to God’s grace can be stated like this: “Well, if you tell me that all my efforts to lead a Christian life, going to church and being obedient to the laws of God and all that, if all my work will never earn me one blessing, then I’m afraid I’ll just quit trying. After all, aren’t we supposed to work for rewards in heaven?”
We would answer: absolutely. The rewards in the kingdom of heaven are earned, and we do “earn” blessings after we are saved; but…we must understand the vital truth that whatever we have “earned” is only because God gave us the grace both to desire to do it and to actually do whatever it is that earns the reward or blessing.
That is not contradicting anything I said earlier. It is a matter of understanding Who is really responsible and Who therefore gets the credit for any good work that any of us does.
There is no room for apathy and do-nothing’s in the economy of God’s grace. Nor is there any excuse for deliberate sin simply because God’s grace will cover it. Grace does not give us a license to sin. Grace does not give us a license to break the laws of God.
At its best, taking license in deliberate sin is a misunderstanding of God’s grace, and at its worst, it is an abuse of God’s grace. God knew this misunderstanding and abuse would arise and so he had Jude warn against those who would use grace as an excuse to sin. Jude writes:
4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness [license], and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Some years ago I was with a preacher and he and I were entrusted with some material goods belonging to another, and during the course of our oversight of these goods, he proposed that we avail ourselves of the material we were entrusted with. He said to me “Let’s go ahead and sin; we …