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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57121 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HUMILITY
+THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS
+
+BY
+REV. Andrew Murray
+
+Lord Jesus! may our Holiness be perfect Humility!
+Let Thy perfect Humility be our Holiness!
+
+
+NEW YORK
+FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
+LONDON GLASGOW
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+There are three great motives that urge us to humility. It becomes me
+as a creature, as a sinner, as a saint. The first we see in the
+heavenly hosts, in unfallen man, in Jesus as Son of Man. The second
+appeals to us in our fallen state, and points out the only way through
+which we can return to our right place as creatures. In the third we
+have the mystery of grace, which teaches us that, as we lose ourselves
+in the overwhelming greatness of redeeming love, humility becomes to
+us the consummation of everlasting blessedness and adoration.
+
+In our ordinary religious teaching, the second aspect has been too
+exclusively put in the foreground, so that some have even gone to the
+extreme of saying that we must keep sinning if we are indeed to keep
+humble. Others again have thought that the strength of
+self-condemnation is the secret of humility. And the Christian life
+has suffered loss, where believers have not been distinctly guided to
+see that, even in our relation as creatures, nothing is more natural
+and beautiful and blessed than to be nothing, that God may be all; or
+where it has not been made clear that it is not sin that humbles most,
+but grace, and that it is the soul, led through its sinfulness to be
+occupied with God in His wonderful glory as God, as Creator and
+Redeemer, that will truly take the lowest place before Him.
+
+In these meditations I have, for more than one reason, almost
+exclusively directed attention to the humility that becomes us as
+creatures. It is not only that the connection between humility and sin
+is so abundantly set forth in all our religious teaching, but because
+I believe that for the fullness of the Christian life it is
+indispensable that prominence be given to the other aspect. If Jesus
+is indeed to be our example in His lowliness, we need to understand
+the principles in which it was rooted, and in which we find the common
+ground on which we stand with Him, and in which our likeness to Him is
+to be attained. If we are indeed to be humble, not only before God but
+towards men, if humility is to be our joy, we must see that it is not
+only the mark of shame, because of sin, but, apart from all sin, a
+being clothed upon with the very beauty and blessedness of heaven and
+of Jesus. We shall see that just as Jesus found His glory in taking
+the form of a servant, so when He said to us, 'Whosoever would be
+first among you, shall be your servant,' He simply taught us the
+blessed truth that there is nothing so divine and heavenly as being
+the servant and helper of all. The faithful servant, who recognises
+his position, finds a real pleasure in supplying the wants of the
+master or his guests. When we see that humility is something
+infinitely deeper than contrition, and accept it as our participation
+in the life of Jesus, we shall begin to learn that it is our true
+nobility, and that to prove it in being servants of all is the highest
+fulfilment of our destiny, as men created in the image of God.
+
+When I look back upon my own religious experience, or round upon the
+Church of Christ in the world, I stand amazed at the thought of how
+little humility is sought after as the distinguishing feature of the
+discipleship of Jesus. In preaching and living, in the daily
+intercourse of the home and social life, in the more special
+fellowship with Christians, in the direction and performance of work
+for Christ,--alas! how much proof there is that humility is not
+esteemed the cardinal virtue, the only root from which the graces can
+grow, the one indispensable condition of true fellowship with Jesus.
+That it should have been possible for men to say of those who claim to
+be seeking the higher holiness, that the profession has not been
+accompanied with increasing humility, is a loud call to all earnest
+Christians, however much or little truth there be in the charge, to
+prove that meekness and lowliness of heart are the chief mark by which
+they who follow the meek and lowly Lamb of God are to be known.
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+Humility:
+I.   '' The Glory of the Creature
+II.  '' The Secret of Redemption
+III. '' In the Life of Jesus
+IV.  '' In the Teaching of Jesus
+V.   '' In the Disciples of Jesus
+VI.  '' In Daily Life
+VII. '' And Holiness
+VIII.'' And Sin
+IX.  '' And Faith
+X.   '' And Death to Self
+XI.  '' And Happiness
+XII. '' And Exaltation
+Notes
+
+
+
+Humility: The Beauty of Holiness.
+
+I.
+
+Humility: The Glory of the Creature
+
+_'They shall cast their crowns before the throne, saying: Worthy art
+Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive the glory, and the honour and
+the power: for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will
+they were, and were created. '_--REV. iv. 11.
+
+WHEN God created the universe, it was with the one object of making
+the creature partaker of His perfection and blessedness, and so
+showing forth in it the glory of His love and wisdom and power. God
+wished to reveal Himself in and through created beings by
+communicating to them as much of His own goodness and glory as they
+were capable of receiving. But this communication was not a giving to
+the creature something which it could possess in itself, a certain
+life or goodness, of which it had the charge and disposal. By no
+means. But as God is the ever-living, ever-present, ever-acting One,
+who upholdeth all things by the word of His power, and in whom all
+things exist, the relation of the creature to God could only be one of
+unceasing, absolute, universal dependence. As truly as God by His
+power once created, so truly by that same power must God every moment
+maintain. The creature has not only to look back to the origin and
+first beginning of existence, and acknowledge that it there owes
+everything to God; its chief care, its highest virtue, its only
+happiness, now and through all eternity, is to present itself an empty
+vessel, in which God can dwell and manifest His power and goodness.
+
+The life God bestows is imparted not once for all, but each moment
+continuously, by the unceasing operation of His mighty power.
+Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is, from the very
+nature of things, the first duty and the highest virtue of the
+creature, and the root of every virtue.
+
+And so pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin
+and evil. It was when the now fallen angels began to look upon
+themselves with self-complacency that they were led to disobedience,
+and were cast down from the light of heaven into outer darkness. Even
+so it was, when the serpent breathed the poison of his pride, the
+desire to be as God, into the hearts of our first parents, that they
+too fell from their high estate into all the wretchedness in which man
+is now sunk. In heaven and earth, pride, self-exaltation, is the gate
+and the birth, and the curse, of hell. (See Note A.)
+
+Hence it follows that nothing can be our redemption, but the
+restoration of the lost humility, the original and only true relation
+of the creature to its God. And so Jesus came to bring humility back
+to earth, to make us partakers of it, and by it to save us. In heaven
+He humbled Himself to become man. The humility we see in Him possessed
+Him in heaven; it brought Him, He brought it, from there. Here on
+earth 'He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death'; His
+humility gave His death its value, and so became our redemption. And
+now the salvation He imparts is nothing less and nothing else than a
+communication of His own life and death, His own disposition and
+spirit, His own humility, as the ground and root of His relation to
+God and His redeeming work. Jesus Christ took the place and fulfilled
+the destiny of man, as a creature, by His life of perfect humility.
+His humility is our salvation. His salvation is our humility.
+
+And so the life of the saved ones, of the saints, must needs bear this
+stamp of deliverance from sin, and full restoration to their original
+state; their whole relation to God and man marked by an all-pervading
+humility. Without this there can be no true abiding in God's presence,
+or experience of His favour and the power of His Spirit; without this
+no abiding faith, or love or joy or strength. Humility is the only
+soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient
+explanation of every defect and failure. Humility is not so much a
+grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of all, because it
+alone takes the right attitude before God, and allows Him as God to do
+all.
+
+God has so constituted us as reasonable beings, that the truer the
+insight into the real nature or the absolute need of a command, the
+readier and fuller will be our obedience to it. The call to humility
+has been too little regarded in the Church because its true nature and
+importance has been too little apprehended. It is not a something
+which we bring to God, or He bestows; it is simply _the sense of
+entire nothingness, which comes when we see how truly God is all, and
+in which we make way for God to be all._ When the creature realises
+that this is the true nobility, and consents to be with his will, his
+mind, and his affections, the form, the vessel in which the life and
+glory of God are to work and manifest themselves, he sees that
+humility is simply acknowledging the truth of his position as
+creature, and yielding to God His place.
+
+In the life of earnest Christians, of those who pursue and profess
+holiness, humility ought to be the chief mark of their uprightness. It
+is often said that it is not so. May not one reason be that in the
+teaching and example of the Church, it has never had that place of
+supreme importance which belongs to it? And that this, again, is owing
+to the neglect of this truth, that strong as sin is as a motive to
+humility, there is one of still wider and mightier influence, that
+which makes the angels, that which made Jesus, that which makes the
+holiest of saints in heaven, so humble; that the first and chief mark
+of the relation of the creature, the secret of his blessedness, is the
+humility and nothingness which leaves God free to be all?
+
+I am sure there are many Christians who will confess that their
+experience has been very much like my own in this, that we had long
+known the Lord without realising that meekness and lowliness of heart
+are to be the distinguishing feature of the disciple as they were of
+the Master. And further, that this humility is not a thing that will
+come of itself, but that it must be made the object of special desire
+and prayer and faith and practice. As we study the word, we shall see
+what very distinct and oft-repeated instructions Jesus gave His
+disciples on this point, and how slow they were in understanding Him.
+Let us, at the very commencement of our meditations, admit that there
+is nothing so natural to man, nothing so insidious and hidden from our
+sight, nothing so difficult and dangerous, as pride. Let us feel that
+nothing but a very determined and persevering waiting on God and
+Christ will discover how lacking we are in the grace of humility, and
+how impotent to obtain what we seek. Let us study the character of
+Christ until our souls are filled with the love and admiration of His
+lowliness. And let us believe that, when we are broken down under a
+sense of our pride, and our impotence to cast it out, Jesus Christ
+Himself will come in to impart this grace too, as a part of His
+wondrous life within us.
+
+
+
+Humility: The Beauty of Holiness
+
+II.
+
+Humility: The Secret of Redemption.
+
+_'Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus: who emptied
+Himself; taking the form of a servant; and humbled Himself; becoming
+obedient even unto death. Wherefore God also highly exalted Him.'_
+--PHIL. ii. 5-7.
+
+NO tree can grow except on the root from which it sprang. Through all
+its existence it can only live with the life that was in the seed that
+gave it being. The full apprehension of this truth in its application
+to the first and the Second Adam cannot but help us greatly to
+understand both the need and the nature of the redemption there is in
+Jesus.
+
+_The Need._--When the Old Serpent, he who had been cast out from
+heaven for his pride, whose whole nature as devil was pride, spoke his
+words of temptation into the ear of Eve, these words carried with them
+the very poison of hell. And when she listened, and yielded her desire
+and her will to the prospect of being as God, knowing good and evil,
+the poison entered into her soul and blood and life, destroying
+forever that blessed humility and dependence upon God which would have
+been our everlasting happiness. And instead of this, her life and the
+life of the race that sprang from her became corrupted to its very
+root with that most terrible of all sins and all curses, the poison of
+Satan's own pride. All the wretchedness of which this world has been
+the scene, all its wars and bloodshed among the nations, all its
+selfishness and suffering, all its ambitions and jealousies, all its
+broken hearts and embittered lives, with all its daily unhappiness,
+have their origin in what this cursed, hellish pride, either our own,
+or that of others, has brought us. It is pride that made redemption
+needful; it is from our pride we need above everything to be redeemed.
+And our insight into the need of redemption will largely depend upon
+our knowledge of the terrible nature of the power that has entered our
+being.
+
+No tree can grow except on the root from which it sprang. The power
+that Satan brought from hell, and cast into man's life, is working
+daily, hourly, with mighty power throughout the world. Men suffer from
+it; they fear and fight and flee it; and yet they know not whence it
+comes, whence it has its terrible supremacy. No wonder they do not
+know where or how it is to be overcome. Pride has its root and
+strength in a terrible spiritual power, outside of us as well as
+within us; as needful as it is that we confess and deplore it as our
+very own, is to know it in its Satanic origin. If this leads us to
+utter despair of ever conquering or casting it out, it will lead us
+all the sooner to that supernatural power in which alone our
+deliverance is to be found--the redemption of the Lamb of God. The
+hopeless struggle against the workings of self and pride within us may
+indeed become still more hopeless as we think of the power of darkness
+behind it all; the utter despair will fit us the better for realising
+and accepting a power and a life outside of ourselves too, even the
+humility of heaven as brought down and brought nigh by the Lamb of
+God, to cast out Satan and his pride.
+
+No tree can grow except on the root from which it sprang. Even as we
+need to look to the first Adam and his fall to know the power of the
+sin within us, we need to know well the Second Adam and His power to
+give within us a life of humility as real and abiding and
+overmastering as has been that of pride. We have our life from and in
+Christ, as truly, yea more truly, than from and in Adam. We are to
+walk 'rooted in Him,' 'holding fast the Head from whom the whole body
+increaseth with the increase of God.' The life of God which in the
+incarnation entered human nature, is the root in which we are to stand
+and grow; it is the same almighty power that worked there, and thence
+onward to the resurrection, which works daily in us. Our one need is
+to study and know and trust the life that has been revealed in Christ
+as the life that is now ours, and waits for our consent to gain
+possession and mastery of our whole being.
+
+In this view it is of inconceivable importance that we should have
+right thoughts of what Christ is, of what really constitutes Him the
+Christ, and specially of what may be counted His chief characteristic,
+the root and essence of all His character as our Redeemer. There can
+be but one answer: it is His humility. What is the incarnation but His
+heavenly humility, His emptying Himself and becoming man? What is His
+life on earth but humility; His taking the form of a servant? And what
+is His atonement but humility? 'He humbled Himself and became obedient
+unto death.' And what is His ascension and His glory, but humility
+exalted to the throne and crowned with glory? 'He humbled Himself,
+therefore God highly exalted Him.' In heaven, where He was with the
+Father, in His birth, in His life, in His death, in His sitting on the
+throne, it is all, it is nothing but humility. Christ is the humility
+of God embodied in human nature; the Eternal Love humbling itself,
+clothing itself in the garb of meekness and gentleness, to win and
+serve and save us. As the love and condescension of God makes Him the
+benefactor and helper and servant of all, so Jesus of necessity was
+the Incarnate Humility. And so He is still in the midst of the throne,
+the meek and lowly Lamb of God.
+
+If this be the root of the tree, its nature must be seen in every
+branch and leaf and fruit. If humility be the first, the all-including
+grace of the life of Jesus,--if humility be the secret of His
+atonement,--then the health and strength of our spiritual life will
+entirely depend upon our putting this grace first too, and making
+humility the chief thing we admire in Him, the chief thing we ask of
+Him, the one thing for which we sacrifice all else. (See Note B.)
+
+Is it any wonder that the Christian life is so often feeble and
+fruitless, when the very root of the Christ life is neglected, is
+unknown? Is it any wonder that the joy of salvation is so little felt,
+when that in which Christ found it and brings it, is so little sought?
+Until a humility which will rest in nothing less than the end and
+death of self; which gives up all the honour of men as Jesus did, to
+seek the honour that comes from God alone; which absolutely makes and
+counts itself nothing, that God may be all, that the Lord alone may be
+exalted,--until such a humility be what we seek in Christ above our
+chief joy, and welcome at any price, there is very little hope of a
+religion that will conquer the world.
+
+I cannot too earnestly plead with my reader, if possibly his attention
+has never yet been specially directed to the want there is of humility
+within him or around him, to pause and ask whether he sees much of the
+spirit of the meek and lowly Lamb of God in those who are called by
+His name. Let him consider how all want of love, all indifference to
+the needs, the feelings, the weakness of others; all sharp and hasty
+judgments and utterances, so often excused under the plea of being
+outright and honest; all manifestations of temper and touchiness and
+irritation; all feelings of bitterness and estrangement, have their
+root in nothing but pride, that ever seeks itself, and his eyes will
+be opened to see how a dark, shall I not say a devilish pride, creeps
+in almost everywhere, the assemblies of the saints not excepted. Let
+him begin to ask what would be the effect, if in himself and around
+him, if towards fellow-saints and the world, believers were really
+permanently guided by the humility of Jesus; and let him say if the
+cry of our whole heart, night and day, ought not to be, Oh for the
+humility of Jesus in myself and all around me! Let him honestly fix
+his heart on his own lack of the humility which has been revealed in
+the likeness of Christ's life, and in the whole character of His
+redemption, and he will begin to feel as if he had never yet really
+known what Christ and His salvation is.
+
+Believer! _study the humility of Jesus_. This is the secret, the
+hidden root of thy redemption. Sink down into it deeper day by day.
+Believe with thy whole heart that this Christ, whom God has given
+thee, even as His divine humility wrought the work for thee, will
+enter in to dwell and work within thee too, and make thee what the
+Father would have thee be.
+
+
+
+Humility: The Beauty of Holiness
+
+III.
+
+The Humility of Jesus.
+
+_'I am in the midst of you as he that serveth.'_--LUKE xxii. 26.
+
+IN the Gospel of John we have the inner life of our Lord laid open to
+us. Jesus speaks frequently of His relation to the Father, of the
+motives by which He is guided, of His consciousness of the power and
+spirit in which He acts. Though the word humble does not occur, we
+shall nowhere in Scripture see so clearly wherein His humility
+consisted. We have already said that this grace is in truth nothing
+but that simple consent of the creature to let God be all, in virtue
+of which it surrenders itself to His working alone. In Jesus we shall
+see how both as the Son of God in heaven, and as man upon earth, He
+took the place of entire subordination, and gave God the honour and
+the glory which is due to Him. And what He taught so often was made
+true to Himself: 'He that humbleth him: shall be exalted.' As it is
+written, 'He humbled Himself, therefore God highly exalted Him.'
+
+Listen to the words in which our Lord speaks of His relation to the
+Father, and how unceasingly He uses the words _not_, and _nothing_, of
+Himself. The _not I_, in which Paul expresses his relation to Christ,
+is the very spirit of what Christ says of His relation the Father.
+
+'The Son can do _nothing_ of Himself' (John v. 19).
+
+'I can of My own self do _nothing_; My judgment is just, because I
+seek _not_ Mine own will' (John v 30).
+
+'I receive _not_ glory from men' (John v. 41).
+
+'I am come _not_ to do Mine own will' (John vi. 38).
+
+'My teaching is _not_ Mine' (John vii. 16).
+
+'I am _not_ come of Myself' (John vii. 28).
+
+'I do _nothing_ of Myself' (John vii. 28).
+
+'I have _not_ come of Myself, but He sent Me' (John viii. 42).
+
+'I seek _not_ Mine own glory' (John viii. 50).
+
+'The words that I say, I speak _not_ from Myself' (John xiv. 10).
+
+'The word which ye hear is _not_ Mine' (John xiv. 24).
+
+These words open to us the deepest roots of Christ's life and work.
+They tell us how it was that the Almighty God was able to work His
+mighty redemptive work through Him. They show what Christ counted the
+state of heart which became Him as the Son of the Father. They teach
+us what the essential nature and life is of that redemption which
+Christ accomplished and now communicates. It is this: He was nothing,
+that God might be all. He resigned Himself with His will and His
+powers entirely for the Father to work in Him. Of His own power, His
+own will, and His own glory, of His whole mission with all His works
+and His teaching,--of all this He said, It is not I; I am nothing; I
+have given Myself to the Father to work; I am nothing, the Father is
+all.
+
+This life of entire self-abnegation, of absolute submission and
+dependence upon the Father's will, Christ found to be one of perfect
+peace and joy. He lost nothing by giving all to God. God honoured His
+trust, and did all for Him, and then exalted Him to His own right hand
+in glory. And because Christ had thus humbled Himself before God, and
+God was ever before Him, He found it possible to humble Himself before
+men too, and to be the Servant of all. His humility was simply the
+surrender of Himself to God, to allow Him to do in Him what He
+pleased, whatever men around might say of Him, or do to Him.
+
+It is in this state of mind, in this spirit and disposition, that the
+redemption of Christ has its virtue and efficacy. It is to bring us to
+this disposition that we are made partakers of Christ. This is the
+true self-denial to which our Saviour calls us, the acknowledgment
+that self has nothing good in it, except as an empty vessel which God
+must fill, and that its claim to be or do anything may not for a
+moment be allowed. It is in this, above and before everything, in
+which the conformity to Jesus consists, the being and doing nothing of
+ourselves, that God may be all.
+
+Here we have the root and nature of true humility. It is because this
+is not understood or sought after, that our humility is so superficial
+and so feeble. We must learn of Jesus, how He is meek and lowly of
+heart. He teaches us where true humility takes its rise and finds its
+strength--in the knowledge that it is God who worketh all in all, that
+our place is to yield to Him in perfect resignation and dependence, in
+full consent to be and to do nothing of ourselves. This is the life
+Christ came to reveal and to impart--a life to God that came through
+death to sin and self. If we feel that this life is too high for us
+and beyond our reach, it must but the more urge us to seek it in Him;
+it is the indwelling Christ who will live in us this life, meek and
+lowly. If we long for this, let us, meantime, above everything, seek
+the holy secret of the knowledge of the nature of God, as He every
+moment works all in all; the secret, of which all nature and every
+creature, and above all, every child of God, is to be the
+witness,--that it is nothing but a vessel, a channel, through which
+the living God can manifest the riches of His wisdom, power, and
+goodness. The root of all virtue and grace, of all faith and
+acceptable worship, is that we know that we have nothing but what we
+receive, and bow in deepest humility to wait upon God for it.
+
+It was because this humility was not only a temporary sentiment,
+wakened up and brought into exercise when He thought of God, but the
+very spirit of His whole life, that Jesus was just as humble in His
+intercourse with men as with God. He felt Himself the Servant of God
+for the men whom God made and loved; as a natural consequence, He
+counted Himself the Servant of men, that through Him God might do His
+work of love. He never for a moment thought of seeking His honour, or
+asserting His power to vindicate Himself. His whole spirit was that of
+a life yielded to God to work in. It is not until Christians study the
+humility of Jesus as the very essence of His redemption, as the very
+blessedness of the life of the Son of God, as the only true relation
+to the Father, and therefore as that which Jesus must give us if we
+are to have any part with Him, that the terrible lack of actual,
+heavenly, manifest humility will become a burden and a sorrow, and our
+ordinary religion be set aside to secure this, the first and the chief
+of the marks of the Christ within us.
+
+Brother, are you clothed with humility? Ask your daily life. Ask
+Jesus. Ask your friends. Ask the world. And begin to praise God that
+there is opened up to you in Jesus a heavenly humility of which you
+have hardly known, and through which a heavenly blessedness you
+possibly have never yet tasted can come in to you.
+
+
+
+Humility: The Beauty of Holiness
+
+IV.
+
+Humility in the Teaching of Jesus.
+
+_'Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart.'_--MATT. xi. 29.
+_'Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant, even as
+the Son of Man came to serve.'_--MATT. xx. 27.
+
+WE have seen humility in the life of Christ, as He laid open His heart
+to us: let us listen to His teaching. There we shall hear how He
+speaks of it, and how far He expects men, and specially His disciples,
+to be humble as He was. Let us carefully study the passages, which I
+can scarce do more than quote, to receive the full impression of how
+often and how earnestly He taught it: it may help us to realise what
+He asks of us.
+
+1. Look at the commencement of His ministry. In the Beatitudes with
+which the Sermon on the Mount opens, He speaks: _'Blessed are the poor
+in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek;
+for they shall inherit the earth.'_ The very first words of His
+proclamation of the kingdom of heaven reveal the open gate through
+which alone we enter. The poor, who have nothing in themselves, to
+them the kingdom comes. The meek, who seek nothing in themselves,
+theirs the earth shall be. The blessings of heaven and earth are for
+the lowly. For the heavenly and the earthly life, humility is the
+secret of blessing.
+
+2. _'Learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find
+rest for your souls.'_ Jesus offers Himself as Teacher. He tells what
+the spirit both is, which we shall find Him as Teacher, and which we
+can learn and receive from Him. Meekness and lowliness the one thing
+He offers us; in it we shall find perfect rest of soul. Humility is to
+be a salvation.
+
+3. The disciples had been disputing who would be the greatest in the
+kingdom, and had agreed to ask the Master (Luke 9:46; Matt. 18:3). He
+set a child in their midst and said, _'Whosoever shall humble himself
+as this little child, shall be exalted.'_ 'Who the greatest in the
+kingdom of heaven?' The question is indeed a far-reaching one. What
+will be the chief distinction in the heavenly kingdom? The answer,
+none but Jesus would have given. The chief glory of heaven, the true
+heavenly-mindedness, the chief of the graces, is humility. _'He that
+is least among you, the same shall be great.'_
+
+4. The sons of Zebedee had asked Jesus to sit on His right and left,
+the highest place in the kingdom. Jesus said it was not His to give,
+but the Father's, who would give it to those for whom it was prepared.
+They must not look or ask for it. Their thought must be of the cup and
+the baptism of humiliation. And then He added, _'Whosoever will be
+chief among you, let him be your servant. Even as the Son of Man came
+to serve.'_ Humility, as it is the mark of Christ the heavenly, will
+be the one standard of glory in heaven: the lowliest is the nearest to
+God. The primacy in the Church is promised to the humblest.
+
+5. Speaking to the multitude and the disciples, of the Pharisees and
+their love of the chief seats, Christ said once again (Matt. xxxiii.
+11), _'He that is greatest among you shall be your servant.'_
+Humiliation is the only ladder to honour in God's kingdom.
+
+6. On another occasion, in the house of a Pharisee, He spoke the
+parable of the guest who would be invited to come up higher (Luke xiv.
+1-11), and added, _'For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased;
+and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.'_ The demand is
+inexorable; there is no other way. Self-abasement alone will be
+exalted.
+
+7. After the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, Christ spake
+again (Luke xviii. 14), _'Everyone that exalteth himself shall be
+abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.'_ In the temple
+and presence and worship of God, everything is worthless that is not
+pervaded by deep, true humility towards God and men.
+
+8. After washing the disciples' feet, Jesus said (John xiii. 14), _'If
+I then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to
+wash one another's feet.'_ The authority of command, and example,
+every thought, either of obedience or conformity, make humility the
+first and most essential element of discipleship.
+
+9. At the Holy Supper table, the disciples still disputed who should
+be greatest (Luke xxii. 26). Jesus said, _'He that is greatest among
+you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth
+serve. I am among you as he that serveth.'_ The path in which Jesus
+walked, and which He opened up for us, the power and spirit in which
+He wrought out salvation, and to which He saves us, is ever the
+humility that makes me the servant of all.
+
+How little this is preached. How little it is practised. How little
+the lack of it is felt or confessed. I do not say, how few attain to
+it, some recognisable measure of likeness to Jesus in His humility.
+But how few ever think, of making it a distinct object of continual
+desire or prayer. How little the world has seen it. How little has it
+been seen even in the inner circle of the Church.
+
+'Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.' Would
+God that it might be given us to believe that Jesus means this! We all
+know what the character of a faithful servant or slave implies.
+Devotion to the master's interests, thoughtful study and care to
+please him, delight in his prosperity and honour and happiness. There
+are servants on earth in whom these dispositions have been seen, and
+to whom the name of servant has never been anything but a glory. To
+how many of us has it not been a new joy in the Christian life to know
+that we may yield ourselves as servants, as slaves to God, and to find
+that His service is our highest liberty,--the liberty from sin and
+self? We need now to learn another lesson,--that Jesus calls us to be
+servants of one another, and that, as we accept it heartily, this
+service too will be a most blessed one, a new and fuller liberty too
+from sin and self. At first it may appear hard; this is only because
+of the pride which still counts itself something. If once we learn
+that to be nothing before God is the glory of the creature, the spirit
+of Jesus, the joy of heaven, we shall welcome with our whole heart the
+discipline we may have in serving even those who try to vex us. When
+our own heart is set upon this, the true sanctification, we shall
+study each word of Jesus on self-abasement with new zest, and no place
+will be too low, and no stooping too deep, and no service too mean or
+too long continued, if we may but share and prove the fellowship with
+Him who spake, 'I am among you as he that serveth.'
+
+Brethren, here is the path to the higher life. Down, lower down! This
+was what Jesus ever said to the disciples who were thinking of being
+great in the kingdom, and of sitting on His right hand and His left.
+Seek not, ask not for exaltation; that is God's work. Look to it that
+you abase and humble yourselves, and take no place before God or man
+but that of servant; that is your work; let that be your one purpose
+and prayer. God is faithful. Just as water ever seeks and fills the
+lowest place, so the moment God finds the creature abased and empty,
+His glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless. He that humbleth
+himself--that must be our one care--shall be exalted; that is God's
+care; by His mighty power and in His great love He will do it.
+
+Men sometimes speak as if humility and meekness would rob us of what
+is noble and bold and manlike. Oh that all would believe that this is
+the nobility of the kingdom of heaven, that this is the royal spirit
+that the King of heaven displayed, that this is Godlike, to humble
+oneself, to become the servant of all! This is the path to the
+gladness and the glory of Christ's presence ever in us, His power ever
+resting on us.
+
+Jesus, the meek and lowly One, calls us to learn of Him the path to
+God. Let us study the words we have been reading, until our heart is
+filled with the thought: My one need is humility. And let us believe
+that what He shows, He gives; what He is, He imparts. As the meek and
+lowly One, He will come in and dwell in the longing heart.
+
+
+
+Humility: The Beauty of Holiness
+
+V.
+
+Humility in the Disciples of Jesus
+
+_'Let him that is chief among you be as he that doth serve.'_
+--LUKE xxii. 26
+
+WE have studied humility in the person and teaching of Jesus; let us
+now look for it in the circle of His chosen companions--the twelve
+apostles. If, in the lack of it we find in them, the contrast between
+Christ and men is brought out more clearly, it will help us to
+appreciate the mighty change which Pentecost wrought in them, and
+prove how real our participation can be in the perfect triumph of
+Christ's humility over the pride Satan had breathed into man.
+
+In the texts quoted from the teaching of Jesus, we have already seen
+what the occasions were on which the disciples had proved how entirely
+wanting they were in the grace of humility. Once, they had been
+disputing the way which of them should be the greatest Another time,
+the sons of Zebedee with their mother had asked for the first
+places--the seat on the right hand and the left. And, later on, at the
+Supper table on the last night, there was again a contention which
+should be accounted the greatest. Not that there were not moments when
+they indeed humbled themselves before their Lord. So it was with Peter
+when he cried out, 'Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.' So,
+too, with the disciples when they fell down and worshipped Him who had
+stilled the storm. But such occasional expressions of humility only
+bring out into stronger relief what was the habitual tone of their
+mind, as shown in the natural and spontaneous revelation given at
+other times of the place and the power of self. The study of the
+meaning of all this will teach us most important lessons.
+
+First, _How much there may be of earnest and active, religion while
+humility is still sadly wanting._--See it in the disciples. There was
+in them fervent attachment to Jesus. They had forsaken all for Him.
+The Father had revealed to them that He was the Christ of God. They
+believed in Him, they loved Him, they obeyed His commandments. They
+had forsaken all to follow Him. When others went back, they clave to
+Him. They were ready to die with Him. But deeper down than all this
+there was a dark power, of the existence and the hideousness of which
+they were hardly conscious, which had to be slain and cast out, ere
+they could be the witnesses of the power of Jesus to save. It is even
+so still. We may find professors and ministers, evangelists and
+workers, missionaries and teachers, in whom the gifts of the Spirit
+are many and manifest, and who are the channels of blessing to
+multitudes, but of whom, when the testing time comes, or closer
+intercourse gives fuller knowledge, it is only too painfully manifest
+that the grace of humility, as an abiding characteristic, is scarce to
+be seen. All tends to confirm the lesson that humility is one of the
+chief and the highest graces; one of the most difficult of attainment;
+one to which our first and chiefest efforts ought to be directed; one
+that only comes in power, when the fullness of the Spirit makes us
+partakers of the indwelling Christ, and He lives within us.
+
+Second, _How impotent all external teaching and all personal effort
+is, to conquer pride or give the meek and lowly heart._--For three
+years the disciples had been in the training school of Jesus. He had
+told them what the chief lesson was He wished to teach them: 'Learn of
+Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.' Time after time He had spoken
+to them, to the Pharisees, to the multitude, of humility as the only
+path to the glory of God. He had not only lived before them as the
+Lamb of God in His divine humility, He had more than once unfolded to
+them the inmost secret of His life: 'The Son of Man came not to be
+served, but to serve'; 'I am among you as one that serveth.' He had
+washed their feet, and told them they were to follow His example. And
+yet all had availed but little. At the Holy Supper there was still the
+contention as to who should be greatest. They had doubtless often
+tried to learn His lessons, and firmly resolved not again to grieve
+Him. But all in vain. To teach them and us the much needed lesson,
+that no outward instruction, not even of Christ Himself; no argument
+however convincing; no sense of the beauty of humility, however deep;
+no personal resolve or effort, however sincere and earnest,--can cast
+out the devil of pride. When Satan casts out Satan, it is only to
+enter afresh in a mightier, though more hidden power. Nothing can
+avail but this, that the new nature in its divine humility be revealed
+in power to take the place of the old, to become as truly our very
+nature as that ever was.
+
+Third, _It is only by the indwelling of Christ in His divine humility
+that we become truly humble._--We have our pride from another, from
+Adam; we must have our humility from Another too. Pride is ours, and
+rules in us with such terrible power, because it is ourself, our very
+nature. Humility must be ours in the same way; it must be our very
+self, our very nature. As natural and easy as it has been to be proud,
+it must be, it will be, to be humble. The promise is, 'Where,' even in
+the heart, 'sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly.' All
+Christ's teaching of His disciples, and all their vain efforts, were
+the needful preparation for His entering into them in divine power, to
+give and be in them what He had taught them to desire. In His death He
+destroyed the power of the devil, He put away sin, and effected an
+everlasting redemption. In His resurrection He received from the
+Father an entirely new life, the life of man in the power of God,
+capable of being communicated to men, and entering and renewing and
+filling their lives with His divine power. In His ascension He
+received the Spirit of the Father, through whom He might do what He
+could not do while upon earth, make Himself one with those He loved,
+actually live their life for them, so that they could live before the
+Father in a humility like His, because it was Himself who lived and
+breathed in them. And on Pentecost He came and took possession. The
+work of preparation and conviction, the awakening of desire and hope
+which His teaching had effected, was perfected by the mighty change
+that Pentecost wrought. And the lives and the epistles of James and
+Peter and John bear witness that all was changed, and that the spirit
+of the meek and suffering Jesus had indeed possession of them.
+
+What shall we say to these things? Among my readers I am sure there is
+more than one class. There may be some who have never yet thought very
+specially of the matter, and cannot at once realise its immense
+importance as a life question for the Church and its every member.
+There are others who have felt condemned for their shortcomings, and
+have put forth very earnest efforts, only to fail and be discouraged.
+Others, again, may be able to give joyful testimony of spiritual
+blessing and power, and yet there has never been the needed conviction
+of what those around them still see as wanting. And still others may
+be able to witness that in regard to this grace too the Lord has given
+deliverance and victory, while He has taught them how much they still
+need and may expect out of the fullness of Jesus. To whichever class
+we belong, may I urge the pressing need there is for our all seeking a
+still deeper conviction of the unique place that humility holds in the
+religion of Christ, and the utter impossibility of the Church or the
+believer being what Christ would have them be, as long as _His
+humility is not recognised as His chief glory, His first command, and
+our highest blessedness._ Let us consider deeply how far the disciples
+were advanced while this grace was still so terribly lacking, and let
+us pray to God that other gifts may not so satisfy us, that we never
+grasp the fact that the absence of this grace is the secret cause why
+the power of God cannot do its mighty work. It is only where we, like
+the Son, truly know and show that we can do nothing of ourselves, that
+God will do all.
+
+It is when the truth of an indwelling Christ takes the place it claims
+in the experience of believers, that the Church will put on her
+beautiful garments and humility be seen in her teachers and members as
+the beauty of holiness.
+
+
+
+Humility: The Beauty of Holiness.
+
+VI.
+
+Humility in Daily Life
+
+_'He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love
+God whom he hath not seen?'_--1 JOHN iv. 20.
+
+WHAT a solemn thought, that our love to God will be measured by our
+everyday intercourse with men and the love it displays; and that our
+love to God will be found to be a delusion, except was its truth is
+proved in standing the test of daily life with our fellowmen. It is
+even so with our humility. It is easy to think we humble ourselves
+before God: humility towards men will be the only sufficient proof
+that our humility before God is real; that humility has taken up its
+abode in us; and become our very nature; that we actually, like
+Christ, have made ourselves of no reputation. When in the presence of
+God lowliness of heart has become, not a posture we pray to Him, but
+the very spirit of our life, it will manifest itself in all our
+bearing towards our brethren. The lesson is one of deep import: the
+only humility that is really ours is not that which we try to show
+before God in prayer, but that which we carry with us, and carry out,
+in our ordinary conduct; the insignificances of daily life are the
+importances and the tests of eternity, because they prove what really
+is the spirit that possesses us. It is in our most unguarded moments
+that we really show and see what we are. To know the humble man, to
+know how the humble man behaves, you must follow him in the common
+course of daily life.
+
+Is not this what Jesus taught? It was when the disciples disputed who
+should be greatest; when He saw how the Pharisees loved the chief
+place at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues; when He had
+given them the example of washing their feet,--that He taught His
+lessons of humility. Humility before God is nothing if not proved in
+humility before men.
+
+It is even so in the teaching of Paul. To the Romans He writes: 'In
+honour preferring one _another_'; 'Set not your mind on high things,
+but condescend to _those that are lowly_.' 'Be not wise in your own
+conceit.' To the Corinthians: 'Love,' and there is no love without
+humility as its root, 'vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, seeketh
+not its own, is not provoked.' To the Galatians: 'Through love be
+servants _one of another_. Let us not be desirous of vainglory,
+provoking _one another_, envying _one another._' To the Ephesians,
+immediately after the three wonderful chapters on the heavenly life:
+'Therefore, walk with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering,
+forbearing _one another_ in love'; 'Giving thanks always, subjecting
+yourselves _one to another_ in the fear of Christ.' To the
+Philippians: 'Doing nothing through faction or vainglory, but in
+lowliness of mind, each counting _other_ better than himself. Have the
+mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who emptied Himself,
+taking the form of a servant, and humbled Himself.' And to the
+Colossians: 'Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility,
+meekness, long-suffering, forebearing _one another_, and forgiving
+_each other_, even as the Lord forgave you.' It is in our relation to
+one another, in our treatment of one another, that the true lowliness
+of mind and the heart of humility are to be seen. Our humility before
+God has no value, but as it prepares us to reveal the humility of
+Jesus to our fellow-men. Let us study humility in daily life in the
+light of these words.
+
+The humble man seeks at all times to act up to the rule, _'In honour
+preferring one another; Servants one of another; Each counting others
+better than himself; Subjecting yourselves one to another.'_ The
+question is often asked, how we can count others better than
+ourselves, when we see that they are far below us in wisdom and in
+holiness, in natural gifts, or in grace received. The question proves
+at once how little we understand what real lowliness of mind is. True
+humility comes when, in the light of God, we have seen ourselves to be
+nothing, have consented to part with and cast away self, to let God be
+all. The soul that has done this, and can say, So have I lost myself
+in finding Thee, no longer compares itself with others. It has given
+up forever every thought of self in God's presence; it meets its
+fellow-men as one who is nothing, and seeks nothing for itself; who is
+a servant of God, and for His sake a servant of all. A faithful
+servant may be wiser than the master, and yet retain the true spirit
+and posture of the servant. The humble man looks upon every, the
+feeblest and unworthiest, child of God, and honours him and prefers
+him in honour as the son of a King. The spirit of Him who washed the
+disciples' feet, makes it a joy to us to be indeed the least, to be
+servants one of another.
+
+The humble man feels no jealousy or envy. He can praise God when
+others are preferred and blessed before him. He can bear to hear
+others praised and himself forgotten, because in God's presence he has
+learnt to say with Paul, 'I am nothing.' He has received the spirit of
+Jesus, who pleased not Himself, and sought not His own honour, as the
+spirit of his life.
+
+Amid what are considered the temptations to impatience and touchiness,
+to hard thoughts and sharp words, which come from the failings and
+sins of fellow-Christians, the humble man carries the oft-repeated
+injunction in his heart, and shows it in his life, _'Forbearing one
+another, and forgiving one another, even as the Lord forgave you.'_ He
+has learnt that in putting on the Lord Jesus he _has put on the heart
+of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and long-suffering._
+Jesus has taken the place of self, and it is not an impossibility to
+forgive as Jesus forgave. His humility does not consist merely in
+thoughts or words of self-depreciation, but, as Paul puts it, in 'a
+heart of humility,' encompassed by compassion and kindness, meekness
+and long-suffering,--the sweet and lowly gentleness recognised as the
+mark of the Lamb of God.
+
+In striving after the higher experiences of the Christian life, the
+believer is often in danger of aiming at and rejoicing in what one
+might call the more human, the manly, virtues, such as boldness, joy,
+contempt of the world, zeal, self-sacrifice,--even the old Stoics
+taught and practised these,--while the deeper and gentler, the diviner
+and more heavenly graces, those which Jesus first taught upon earth,
+because He brought them from heaven; those which are more distinctly
+connected with His cross and the death of self,--poverty of spirit,
+meekness, humility, lowliness,--are scarcely thought of or valued.
+Therefore, let us put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility,
+meekness, long-suffering; and let us prove our Christlikeness, not
+only in our zeal for saving the lost, but before all in our
+intercourse with the brethren, forbearing and forgiving one another,
+_even as the Lord forgave us._
+
+Fellow-Christians, do let us study the Bible portrait of the humble
+man. And let us ask our brethren, and ask the world, whether they
+recognise in us the likeness to the original. Let us be content with
+nothing less than taking each of these texts as the promise of what
+God will work in us, as the revelation in words of what the Spirit of
+Jesus will give as a birth within us. And let each failure and
+shortcoming simply urge us to turn humbly and meekly to the meek and
+lowly Lamb of God, in the assurance that where He is enthroned in the
+heart, His humility and gentleness will be one of the streams of
+living water that flow from within us. [Footnote: I knew Jesus, and He
+was very precious to my soul: but I found something in me that would
+not keep sweet and patient and kind. I did what I could to keep it
+down, but it was there. I besought Jesus to do something for me, and
+when I gave Him my will, He came to my heart, and took out all that
+would not be sweet, all that would not be kind, all that would not be
+patient, and then He shut the door.'--GEORGE FOXE.]
+
+Once again I repeat what I have said before. I feel deeply that we
+have very little conception of what the Church suffers from the lack
+of this divine humility,--the nothingness that makes room for God to
+prove His power. It is not long since a Christian, of an humble,
+loving spirit, acquainted with not a few mission stations of various
+societies, expressed his deep sorrow that in some cases the spirit of
+love and forbearance was sadly lacking. Men and women, who in Europe
+could each choose their own circle of friends, brought close together
+with others of uncongenial minds, find it hard to bear, and to love,
+and to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And those
+who should have been fellow-helpers of each other's joy, became a
+hindrance and a weariness. And all for the one reason, the lack of the
+humility which counts itself nothing, which rejoices in becoming and
+being counted the least, and only seeks, like Jesus, to be the
+servant, the helper and comforter of others, even the lowest and
+unworthiest.
+
+And whence comes it that men who have joyfully given up themselves for
+Christ, find it so hard to give up themselves for their brethren? Is
+not the blame with the Church? It has so little taught its sons that
+the humility of Christ is the first of the virtues, the best of all
+the graces and powers of the Spirit. It has so little proved that a
+Christlike humility is what it, like Christ, places and preaches
+first, as what is in very deed needed, and possible too. But let us
+not be discouraged. Let the discovery of the lack of this grace stir
+us to larger expectation from God. Let us look upon every brother who
+tries or vexes us, as God's means of grace, God's instrument for our
+purification, for our exercise of the humility Jesus our Life breathes
+within us. And let us have such faith in the All of God, and the
+nothing of self, that, as nothing in our own eyes, we may, in God's
+power, only seek to serve one another in love.
+
+
+
+Humility: The Beauty of Holiness
+
+VII.
+
+Humility and Holiness
+
+_'Which say, Stand by thyself; for I am holier than thou.'_
+--ISAIAH lxv. 5.
+
+WE speak of the Holiness movement in our times, and praise God for it.
+We hear a great deal of seekers after holiness and professors of
+holiness, of holiness teaching and holiness meetings. The blessed
+truths of holiness in Christ, and holiness by faith, are being
+emphasised as never before. The great test of whether the holiness we
+profess to seek or to attain, is truth and life, will be _whether it
+be manifest in the increasing humility it produces._ In the creature,
+humility is the one thing needed to allow God's holiness to dwell in
+him and shine through him. In Jesus, the Holy One of God who makes us
+holy, a divine humility was the secret of His life and His death and
+His exaltation; the one infallible test of our holiness will be the
+humility before God and men which marks us. Humility is the bloom and
+the beauty of holiness.
+
+The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is its lack of humility. Every
+seeker after holiness needs to be on his guard, lest unconsciously
+what was begun in the spirit be perfected in the flesh, and pride
+creep in where its presence is least expected. Two men went up into
+the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, the other a publican. There is
+no place or position so sacred but the Pharisee can enter there. Pride
+can lift its head in the very temple of God, and make His worship the
+scene of its self exaltation. Since the time Christ so exposed his
+pride, the Pharisee has put on the garb of the publican, and the
+confessor of deep sinfulness equally with the professor of the highest
+holiness, must be on the watch. Just when We are most anxious to have
+our heart the temple of God, we shall find the two men coming up to
+pray. And the publican will find that his danger is not from the
+Pharisee beside him, who despises him, but the Pharisee within who
+commends and exalts. In God's temple, when we think we are in the
+holiest of all, in the presence of His holiness, let us beware of
+pride. 'Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present
+themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.'
+
+'God, I thank thee, I am not as the rest of men, or even as this
+publican.' It is in that which is just cause for thanksgiving, it is
+in the very thanksgiving which we render to God, it may be in the very
+confession that God has done it all, that self finds its cause of
+complacency. Yes, even when in the temple the language of penitence
+and trust in God's mercy alone is heard, the Pharisee may take up the
+note of praise, and in thanking God be congratulating himself. Pride
+can clothe itself in the garments of praise or of penitence. Even
+though the words, 'I am not as the rest of men' are rejected and
+condemned, their spirit may too often be found in our feelings and
+language towards our fellow-worshippers and fellow-men. Would you know
+if this really is so, just listen to the way in which Churches and
+Christians often speak of one another. How little of the meekness and
+gentleness of Jesus is to be seen. It is so little remembered that
+deep humility must be the keynote of what the servants of Jesus say of
+themselves or each other. Is there not many a Church or assembly of
+the saints, many a mission or convention, many a society or committee,
+even many a mission away in heathendom, where the harmony has been
+disturbed and the work of God hindered, because men who are counted
+saints have proved in touchiness and haste and impatience, in
+self-defence and self-assertion, in sharp judgments and unkind words,
+that they did not each reckon others better than themselves, and that
+their holiness has but little in it of the meekness of the
+saints?[Footnote1: ME is a most exacting personage, requiring the best
+seat and the highest place for itself, and feeling grievously wounded
+if its claim is not recognised. Most of the quarrels among Christian
+workers arise from the clamouring of this gigantic ME. How few of us
+understand the true secret of taking our seats in the lowest
+rooms.'--MRS SMITH, Everyday Religion.] In their spiritual history men
+may have had times of great humbling and brokenness, but what a
+different thing this is from being clothed with humility, from having
+an humble spirit, from having that lowliness of mind in which each
+counts himself the servant of others, and so shows forth the very mind
+which was also in Jesus Christ.
+
+_'Stand by; for I am holier than thou!'_ What a parody on holiness!
+Jesus the Holy One is the humble One: the holiest will ever be the
+humblest. There is none holy but God: we have as much of holiness as
+we have of God. And according to what we have of God will be our real
+humility, because humility is nothing but the disappearance of self in
+the vision that God is all. The holiest will be the humblest. Alas!
+though the barefaced boasting Jew of the days of Isaiah is not often
+to be found,--even our manners have taught us not to speak thus, how
+often his spirit is still seen, whether in the treatment of
+fellow-saints or of the children of the world. In the spirit in which
+opinions are given, and work is undertaken, and faults are exposed,
+how often, though the garb be that of the publican, the voice is still
+that of the Pharisee: 'Oh God, I thank Thee that I am not as other
+men.'
+
+And is there, then, such humility to be found, that men shall indeed
+still count themselves 'less than the least of all saints,' the
+servants of all? There is. 'Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed
+up, seeketh not its own.' Where the spirit of love is shed abroad in
+the heart, where the divine nature comes to a full birth where Christ
+the meek and lowly Lamb of God is truly formed within, there is given
+the power of a perfect love that forgets itself and finds its
+blessedness in blessing others, in bearing with them and honouring
+them, however feeble they be. Where this love enters, there God
+enters. And where God has entered in His power, and reveals Himself as
+All, there the creature becomes nothing. And where the creature
+becomes nothing before God; it cannot be anything but humble towards
+the fellow-creature. The presence of God becomes not a thing of times
+and seasons, but the covering under which the soul ever dwells, and
+its deep abasement before God becomes the holy place of His presence
+whence all its words and works proceed.
+
+May God teach us that our thoughts and words and feelings concerning
+our fellowmen are His test of our humility towards Him, and that our
+humility before Him is the only power that can enable us to be always
+humble with our fellow-men. Our humility must be the life of Christ,
+the Lamb of God, within us.
+
+Let all teachers of holiness, whether in the pulpit or on the
+platform, and all seekers after holiness, whether in the closet or the
+convention, take warning. There is no pride so dangerous, because none
+so subtle and insidious, as the pride of holiness. It is not that a
+man ever says, or even thinks, 'Stand by; I am holier than thou.' No,
+indeed, the thought would be regarded with abhorrence. But there grows
+up, all unconsciously, a hidden habit of soul, which feels complacency
+its attainments, and cannot help seeing how far it is in advance of
+others. It can be recognised, not always in any special self-assertion
+or self-laudation, but simply in the absence of that deep
+self-abasement which cannot but be the mark of the soul that has seen
+the glory of God (Job xlii. 5, 6; Isa. vi. 5). It reveals itself, not
+only in words or thoughts, but in a tone, a way of speaking of others,
+in which those who have the gift of spiritual discernment cannot but
+recognise the power of self. Even the world with its keen eyes notices
+it, and points to it as a proof that the profession of a heavenly life
+does not bear any specially heavenly fruits. O brethren! let us
+beware. Unless we make, with each advance in what we think holiness,
+the increase of humility our study, we may find that we have been
+delighting in beautiful thoughts and feelings, in solemn acts of
+consecration and faith, while the only sure mark of the presence of
+God, the disappearance of self, was all the time wanting. Come and let
+us flee to Jesus, and hide ourselves in Him until we be clothed upon
+with His humility. That alone is our holiness.
+
+
+
+Humility: The Beauty of Holiness
+
+VIII.
+
+Humility and Sin
+
+_'Sinners, of whom I am chief.'_--1 TIM. i. 15
+
+HUMILITY is often identified with penitence and contrition. As a
+consequence, there appears to be no way of fostering humility but by
+keeping the soul occupied with its sin. We have learned, I think, that
+humility is something else and something more. We have seen in the
+teaching of our Lord Jesus and the Epistles how often the virtue is
+inculcated without any reference to sin. In the very nature of things,
+in the whole relation of the creature to the Creator, in the life of
+Jesus as He lived it and imparts it to us, humility is the very
+essence of holiness as of blessedness. It is the displacement of self
+by the enthronement of God. Where God is all, self is nothing.
+
+But though it is this aspect of the truth I have felt it specially
+needful to press, I need scarce say what new depth and intensity man's
+sin and God's grace give to the humility of the saints. We have only
+to look at a man like the Apostle Paul, to see how, through his life
+as a ransomed and a holy man, the deep consciousness of having been a
+sinner lives inextinguishably. We all know the passages in which he
+refers to his life as a persecutor and blasphemer. 'I am _the least of
+the apostles_, that am _not worthy to be called an apostle_, because I
+persecuted the Church of God. ...I laboured more abundantly than they
+all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me' (1 Cor. xv.
+9,10). 'Unto me, who am _less than the least of all saints,_ was this
+grace given, to preach to the heathen' (Eph. iii. 8). 'I was before a
+_blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious;_ howbeit I obtained
+mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. ...Christ Jesus came
+into the world to save _sinners, of whom I am chief'_ (1 Tim. i. 13,
+15). God's grace had saved him; God remembered his sins no more for
+ever; but never, never could he forget how terribly he had sinned. The
+more he rejoiced in God's salvation, and the more his experience of
+God's grace filled him with joy unspeakable, the clearer was his
+consciousness that he was a saved sinner, and that salvation had no
+meaning or sweetness except as the sense of his being a sinner made it
+precious and real to him. Never for a moment could he forget that it
+was a sinner God had taken up in His arms and crowned with His love.
+
+The texts we have just quoted are often appealed to as Paul's
+confession of daily sinning. One has only to read them carefully in
+their connection, to see how little this is the case. They have a far
+deeper meaning, they refer to that which lasts throughout eternity,
+and which will give its deep undertone of amazement and adoration to
+the humility with which the ransomed bow before the throne, as those
+who have been washed from their sins in the blood of the Lamb. Never,
+never, even in, glory, can they be other than ransomed sinners; never
+for a moment in this life can God's child live in the full light of
+His love, but as he feels that the sin, out of which he has been
+saved, is his one only right and title to all that grace has promised
+to do. The humility with which first he came as a sinner, acquires a
+new meaning when he learns how it becomes him as a creature. And then
+ever again, the humility, in which he was born as a creature, has its
+deepest, richest tones of adoration, in the memory of what it is to be
+a monument of God's wondrous redeeming love.
+
+The true import of what these expressions of St. Paul teach us comes
+out all the more strongly when we notice the remarkable fact that,
+through his whole Christian course, we never find from his pen, even
+in those epistles in which we have the most intensely personal
+unbosomings, anything like confession of sin. Nowhere is there any
+mention of shortcoming or defect, nowhere any suggestion to his
+readers that he has failed in duty, or sinned against the law of
+perfect love. On the contrary, there are passages not a few in which
+he vindicates himself in language that means nothing if it does not
+appeal to a faultless life before God and men. 'Ye are witnesses, and
+God also, how holily, and righteously, and unblameably we behaved
+ourselves toward you' (1 Thess. ii. 10). 'Our glorying is this, the
+testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity of God we
+behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly to you ward' (2
+Cor. i. 12). This is not an ideal or an aspiration; it is an appeal to
+what his actual life had been. However we may account for this absence
+of confession of sin, all will admit that it must point to a life in
+the power of the Holy Ghost, such as is but seldom realised or
+expected in these our days.
+
+The point which I wish to emphasise is this--that the very fact of the
+absence of such confession of sinning only gives the more force to the
+truth that it is not in daily sinning that the secret of the deeper
+humility will be found, but in the habitual, never for a moment to be
+forgotten position, which just the more abundant grace will keep more
+distinctly alive, that our only place, the only place of blessing, our
+one abiding position before God, must be that of those whose highest
+joy it is to confess that they are sinners saved by grace.
+
+With Paul's deep remembrance of having sinned so terribly in the past,
+ere grace had met him, and the consciousness of being kept from
+present sinning, there was ever coupled the abiding remembrance of the
+dark hidden power of sin ever ready to come in, and only kept out by
+the presence and power of the indwelling Christ. 'In me, that is, in
+my flesh, dwelleth no good thing;'--these words of Rom. vii. describe
+the flesh as it is to the end. The glorious deliverance of Rom.
+viii.--'The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath now made me
+free from the law of sin, which once led me captive'--is neither the
+annihilation nor the sanctification of the flesh, but a continuous
+victory given by the Spirit as He mortifies the deeds of the body. As
+health expels disease, and light swallows up darkness, and life
+conquers death, the indwelling of Christ through the Spirit is the
+health and light and life of the soul. But with this, the conviction
+of helplessness and danger ever tempers the faith in the momentary and
+unbroken action of the Holy Spirit into that chastened sense of
+dependence which makes the highest faith and joy the handmaids of a
+humility that only lives by the grace of God.
+
+The three passages above quoted all show that it was the wonderful
+grace bestowed upon Paul, and of which he felt the need every moment,
+that humbled him so deeply. The grace of God that was with him, and
+enabled him to labor more abundantly than they all; the grace to
+preach to the heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ; the grace
+that was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ
+Jesus,--it was this grace of which it is the very nature and glory
+that it is for sinners, that kept the consciousness of his having once
+sinned, and being liable to sin, so intensely alive. 'Where sin
+abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly.' This reveals how the
+very essence of grace is to deal with and take away sin, and how it
+must ever be the more abundant the experience of grace, the more
+intense the consciousness of being a sinner. It is not sin, but God's
+grace showing a man and ever reminding him what a sinner he was, that,
+will keep him truly humble. It is not sin, but grace, that will make
+me indeed know myself a sinner, and make the sinner's place of deepest
+self-abasement the place I never leave.
+
+I fear that there are not a few who, by strong expressions of
+self-condemnation and self-denunciation, have sought to humble
+themselves, and have to confess with sorrow that a humble spirit, a
+'heart of humility,' with its accompaniments of kindness and
+compassion, of meekness and forbearance, is still as far off as ever.
+Being occupied with self, even amid the deepest self-abhorrence, can
+never free us from self. It is the revelation of God, not only by the
+law condemning sin but by His grace delivering from it, that will make
+us humble. The law may break the heart with fear; it is only grace
+that works that sweet humility which becomes a joy to the soul as its
+second nature. It was the revelation of God in His holiness, drawing
+nigh to make Himself known in His grace, that made Abraham and Jacob,
+Job and Isaiah, bow so low. It is the soul in which God the Creator,
+as the All of the creature in its nothingness, God the Redeemer in His
+grace, as the All of the sinner in his sinfulness, is waited for and
+trusted and worshipped, that will find itself so filled with His
+presence, that there will be no place for self. So alone can the
+promise be fulfilled: 'The haughtiness of man shall be brought low,
+and the Lord alone be exalted in that day.'
+
+It is the sinner dwelling in the full light of God's holy, redeeming
+love, in the experience of that full indwelling of divine love, which
+comes through Christ and the Holy Spirit, who cannot but be humble.
+Not to be occupied with thy sin, but to be occupied with God, brings
+deliverance from self.
+
+
+
+Humility: The Beauty of Holiness
+
+IX.
+
+Humility and Faith
+
+_'How can ye believe, which receive glory from one another, and the
+glory that cometh from the only God ye seek not?'_ JOHN v. 44.
+
+In an address I lately heard, the speaker said that the blessings of
+the higher Christian life were often like the objects exposed in a
+shop window,--one could see them clearly and yet could not reach them.
+If told to stretch out his hand and take, a man would answer, I
+cannot; there is a thick pane of plate-glass between me and them. And
+even so Christians may see clearly the blessed promises of perfect
+peace and rest, of overflowing love and joy, of abiding communion and
+fruitfulness, and yet feel that there was something between hindering
+the true possession. And what might that be? _Nothing but pride._ The
+promises made to faith are so free and sure; the invitations and
+encouragements so strong; the mighty power of God on which it may
+count is so near and free,--that it can only be something that hinders
+faith that hinders the blessing being ours. In our text Jesus
+discovers to us that it is indeed pride that makes faith impossible.
+'How can ye believe, which receive glory from one another?' As we see
+how in their very nature pride and faith are irreconcilably at
+variance, we shall learn that faith and humility are at root one, and
+that we never can have more of true faith than we have of true
+humility; we shall see that we may indeed have strong intellectual
+conviction and assurance of the truth while pride is kept in the
+heart, but that it makes the living faith, which has power with God,
+an impossibility.
+
+We need only think for a moment what faith is. Is it not the
+confession of nothingness and helplessness, the surrender and the
+waiting to let God work? Is it not in itself the most humbling thing
+there can be,--the acceptance of our place as dependents, who can
+claim or get or do nothing but what grace bestows? Humility is
+'simply the disposition which prepares the soul for living on trust.
+And every, even the most secret breathing of pride, in self-seeking,
+self-will, self-confidence, or self-exaltation, is just the
+strengthening of that self which cannot enter the kingdom, or possess
+the things of the kingdom, because it refuses to allow God to be what
+He is and must be there--the All in All.
+
+Faith is the organ or sense for the perception and apprehension of the
+heavenly world and its blessings. Faith seeks the glory that comes
+from God, that only comes where God is All. As long as we take glory
+from one another, as long as ever we seek and love and jealously guard
+the glory of this life, the honour and reputation that comes from men,
+we do not seek, and cannot receive the glory that comes from God.
+Pride renders faith impossible. Salvation comes through a cross and a
+crucified Christ. Salvation is the fellowship with the crucified
+Christ in the Spirit of His cross. Salvation is union with and delight
+in, salvation is participation in, the humility of Jesus. Is it wonder
+that our faith is so feeble when pride still reigns so much, and we
+have scarce learnt even to long or pray for humility as the most
+needful and blessed part of salvation?
+
+Humility and faith are more nearly allied in Scripture than many know.
+See it in the life of Christ. There are two cases in which He spoke of
+a great faith. Had not the centurion, at whose faith He marvelled,
+saying, 'I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel!' spoken,
+_'I am not worthy_ that Thou shouldst come under my roof'? And had not
+the mother to whom He spoke, 'O woman, great is thy faith!' accepted
+the name of dog, and said, _'Yea, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the
+crumbs'?_ It is the humility that brings a soul to be nothing before
+God, that also removes every hindrance to faith, and makes it only
+fear lest it should dishonour Him by not trusting Him wholly.
+
+Brother, have we not here the cause of failure in the pursuit of
+holiness? Is it not this, though we knew it not, that made our
+consecration and our faith so superficial and so short-lived? We had
+no idea to what an extent pride and self were still secretly working
+within us, and how alone God by His incoming and His mighty power
+could cast them out. We understood not how nothing but the new and
+divine nature, taking entirely the place of the old self, could make
+us really humble. We knew not that absolute, unceasing, universal
+humility must be the root-disposition of every prayer and every
+approach to God as well as of every dealing with man; and that we
+might as well attempt to see without eyes, or live without breath, as
+believe or draw nigh to God or dwell in His love, without an
+all-pervading humility and lowliness of heart.
+
+Brother, have we not been making a mistake in taking so much trouble
+to believe, while all the time there was the old self in its pride
+seeking to possess itself of God's blessing and riches? No wonder we
+could not believe. Let us change our course. Let us seek first of all
+to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God: _He will exalt us._
+The cross, and the death, and the grave, into which Jesus humbled
+Himself, were His path to the glory of God. And they are our path. Let
+our one desire and our fervent prayer be, to be humbled with Him and
+like Him; let us accept gladly whatever can humble us before God or
+men;--this alone is the path to the glory of God.
+
+You perhaps feel inclined to ask a question. I have spoken of some who
+have blessed experiences, or are the means of bringing blessing to
+others, and yet are lacking in humility. You ask whether these do not
+prove that they have true, even strong faith, though they show too
+clearly that they still seek too much the honour that cometh from men.
+There is more than one answer can be given. But the principal answer
+in our present connection is this: They indeed have a measure of
+faith, in proportion to which, with the special gifts bestowed upon
+them, is the blessing they bring to others. But in that very blessing
+the work of their faith is hindered, through the lack of humility. The
+blessing is often superficial or transitory, just because they are not
+the nothing that opens the way for God to be all. A deeper humility
+would without doubt bring a deeper and fuller blessing. The Holy
+Spirit not only working in them as a Spirit of power, but dwelling in
+them in the fullness of His grace, and specially that of humility,
+would through them communicate Himself to these converts for a life of
+power and holiness and steadfastness now all too little seen.
+
+'How can ye believe, which receive glory from one another?' Brother!
+nothing can cure you of the desire of receiving glory from men, or of
+the sensitiveness and pain and anger which come when it is not given,
+but giving yourself to seek only the glory that comes from God. Let
+the glory of the All-glorious God be everything to you. You will be
+freed from the glory of men and of self, and be content and glad to be
+nothing. Out of this nothingness you will grow strong in faith, giving
+glory to God, and you will find that the deeper you sink in humility
+before Him, the nearer He is to fulfil the every desire of your faith.
+
+
+
+Humility: The Beauty of Holiness.
+
+X.
+
+Humility and Death to Self.
+
+_'He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death.'_--PHIL. ii. 8.
+
+HUMILITY is the path to death, because in death it gives the highest
+proof of its perfection. Humility is the blossom of which death to
+self is the perfect fruit. Jesus humbled Himself unto death, and
+opened the path in which we too must walk. As there was no way for Him
+to prove His surrender to God to the very uttermost, or to give up and
+rise out of our human nature to the glory of the Father but through
+death, so with us too. Humility must lead us to die to self: so we
+prove how wholly we have given ourselves up to it and to God; so alone
+we are freed from fallen nature, and find the path that leads to life
+in God, to that full birth of the new nature, of which humility is the
+breath and the joy.
+
+We have spoken of what Jesus did for His disciples when He
+communicated His resurrection life to them, when in the descent of the
+Holy Spirit He, the glorified and enthroned Meekness, actually came
+from heaven Himself to dwell in them. He won the power to do this
+through death: in its inmost nature the life He imparted was a life
+out of death, a life that had been surrendered to death, and been won
+through death. He who came to dwell in them was Himself One who had
+been dead and now lives for evermore. His life, His person, His
+presence, bears the marks of death, of being a life begotten out of
+death. That life in His disciples ever bears the death-marks too; it is
+only as the Spirit of the death, of the dying One, dwells and works in
+the soul, that the power of His life can be known. The first and chief
+of the marks of the dying of the Lord Jesus, of the death-marks that
+show the true follower of Jesus, is humility. For these two reasons:
+Only humility leads to perfect death; Only death perfects humility.
+Humility and death are in their very nature one: humility is the bud;
+in death the fruit is ripened to perfection.
+
+_Humility leads to perfect death._--Humility means the giving up of
+self and the taking of the place of perfect nothingness before God.
+Jesus humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death. In death He
+gave the highest, the perfect proof of having given up His will to the
+will of God. In death He gave up His self, with its natural reluctance
+to drink the cup; He gave up the life He had in union with our human
+nature; He died to self, and the sin that tempted Him; so, as man, He
+entered into the perfect life of God. If it had not been for His
+boundless humility, counting Himself as nothing except as a servant to
+do and suffer the will of God, He never would have died.
+
+This gives us the answer to the question so often asked, and of which
+the meaning is so seldom clearly apprehended: How can I die to self?
+The death to self is not your work, it is God's work. In Christ _you
+are dead_ to sin the life there is in you has gone through the process
+of death and resurrection; you may be sure you are indeed dead to sin.
+But the full manifestation of the power of this death in your
+disposition and conduct, depends upon the measure in which the Holy
+Spirit imparts the power of the death of Christ And here it is that
+the teaching is needed: if you would enter into full fellowship with
+Christ in His death, and know the full deliverance from self, humble
+yourself. This is your one duty. Place yourself before God in your
+utter helplessness; consent heartily to the fact of your impotence to
+slay or make alive yourself; sink down into your own nothingness, in
+the spirit of meek and patient and trustful surrender to God. Accept
+every humiliation, look upon every fellow-man who tries or vexes you,
+as a means of grace to humble you. Use every opportunity of humbling
+yourself before your fellow-men as a help to abide humble before God.
+God will accept such humbling of yourself as the proof that your whole
+heart desires it, as the very best prayer for it, as your preparation
+for His mighty work of grace, when, by the mighty strengthening of His
+Holy Spirit, He reveals Christ fully in you, so that He, in His form
+of a servant, is truly formed in you, and dwells in your heart. It is
+the path of humility which leads to perfect death, the full and
+perfect experience that we are dead in Christ.
+
+Then follows: _Only this death leads to perfect humility._ Oh, beware
+of the mistake so many make, who would fain be humble, but are afraid
+to be too humble. They have so many qualifications and limitations, so
+many reasonings and questionings, as to what true humility is to be
+and to do, that they never unreservedly yield themselves to it. Beware
+of this. Humble yourself unto the death. It is in the death to self
+that humility is perfected. Be sure that at the root of all real
+experience of more grace, of all true advance in consecration, of all
+actually increasing conformity to the likeness of Jesus, there must be
+a deadness to self that proves itself to God and men in our
+dispositions and habits. It is sadly possible to speak of the
+death-life and the Spirit-walk, while even the tenderest love cannot
+but see how much there is of self. The death to self has no surer
+death-mark than a humility which makes itself of no reputation, which
+empties out itself, and takes the form of a servant. It is possible to
+speak much and honestly of fellowship with a despised and rejected
+Jesus, and of bearing His cross, while the meek and lowly, the kind
+and gentle humility of the Lamb of God is not seen, is scarcely
+sought. The Lamb of God means to two things--meekness and death. Let
+us seek to receive Him in both forms. In Him they are inseparable:
+they must be in us too.
+
+What a hopeless task if we had to do the work! Nature never can
+overcome nature, not even with the help of grace. Self can never cast
+out self, even in the regenerate man. Praise God! the work has been
+done, and finished and perfected for ever. The death of Jesus, once
+and forever, is our death to self. And the ascension of Jesus, His
+entering once and for ever into the Holiest, has given us the Holy
+Spirit to communicate to us in power, and make our very own, the power
+of the death-life. As the soul, in the pursuit and practice of
+humility, follows in the steps of Jesus, its consciousness of the need
+of something more is awakened, its desire and hope is quickened, its
+faith is strengthened, and it learns to look up and claim and receive
+that true fullness of the Spirit of Jesus, which can daily maintain
+His death to self and sin in its full power, and make humility the all
+pervading spirit of our life. (See Note C.)
+
+'Are ye ignorant that all we who were baptised into Jesus Christ were
+_baptised into His death?_ Reckon yourselves to be _dead unto sin,_
+but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. Present yourself unto God, as
+_alive from the dead.'_ The whole self consciousness of the Christian
+is to be imbued and characterised by the spirit that animated the
+death of Christ. He has ever to present himself to God as one who has
+died in Christ, and in Christ is alive from the dead, bearing about in
+his body the dying of the Lord Jesus. His life ever bears the two-fold
+mark: its roots striking in true humility deep into the grave of
+Jesus, the death to sin and self; its head lifted up in resurrection
+power to the heaven where Jesus is.
+
+Believer, claim in faith the death and the life of Jesus as thine.
+Enter in His grave into the rest from self and its work--the rest of
+God. With Christ, who committed His spirit into the Father's hands,
+humble thyself and descend each day into that perfect, helpless
+dependence upon God. God will raise thee up and exalt thee. Sink every
+morning in deep, deep nothingness into the grave of Jesus; every day
+the life of Jesus will be manifest in thee, Let a willing, loving,
+restful, happy humility be the mark that thou hast indeed claimed thy
+birthright--the baptism into the death of Christ. 'By one offering He
+has perfected for ever them that are sanctified.'The souls that enter
+into _His_ humiliation will find _in Him_ the power to see and count
+self dead, and, as those who have learned and received of Him, to walk
+with all lowliness and meekness, forbearing one another in love. The
+death-life is seen in a meekness and lowliness like that of Christ.
+
+
+
+Humility: The Beauty of Holiness
+
+XI.
+
+Humility and Happiness.
+
+_'Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the
+strength of Christ may rest upon me. Wherefore I take pleasure in
+weakness: for when I am weak then am I strong.'_--2 COR. xii. 9. 10.
+
+LEST Paul should exalt himself, by reason of the exceeding greatness
+of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was sent him to keep him
+humble. Paul's first desire was to have it removed, and he besought
+the Lord thrice that it might depart. The answer came that the trial
+was a blessing; that, in the weakness and humiliation it brought, the
+grace and strength of the Lord could be the better manifested. Paul at
+once entered upon a new stage in his relation to the trial: instead of
+simply enduring it, _he most gladly gloried_ in it; instead of asking
+for deliverance, _he took pleasure_ in it. He had learned that the
+place of humiliation is the place of blessing, of power, of joy.
+
+Every Christian virtually passes through these two stages in his
+pursuit of humility. In the first he fears and flees and seeks
+deliverance from all that can humble him. He has not yet learnt to
+seek humility at any cost. He has accepted the command to be humble,
+and seeks to obey it, though only to find how utterly he fails. He
+prays for humility, at times very earnestly; but in his secret heart
+he prays more, if not in word, then in wish, to be kept from the very
+things that will make him humble. He is not yet so in love with
+humility as the beauty of the Lamb of God, and the joy of heaven, that
+he would sell all to procure it. In his pursuit of it, and his prayer
+for it, there is still somewhat of a sense of burden and of bondage;
+to humble himself has not yet become the spontaneous expression of a
+life and a nature that is essentially humble. It has not yet become
+his joy and only pleasure. He cannot yet say, 'Most gladly do I glory
+in weakness, I take pleasure in whatever humbles me.'
+
+But can we hope to reach the stage in which this will be the case?
+Undoubtedly. And what will it be that brings us there? _That_ which
+brought Paul there--_a new revelation of the Lord Jesus._ Nothing but
+the presence of God can reveal and expel self. A clearer insight was
+to be given to Paul into the deep truth that the presence of Jesus
+will banish every desire to seek anything in ourselves, and will make
+us delight in every humiliation that prepares us for His fuller
+manifestation. Our humiliations lead us, in the experience of the
+presence and power of Jesus, to choose humility as our highest
+blessing. Let us try to learn the lessons the story of Paul teaches
+us.
+
+We may have advanced believers, eminent teachers, men of heavenly
+experiences, who have not yet fully learnt the lesson of perfect
+humility, gladly glorying in weakness. We see this in Paul. The danger
+of exalting himself was coming very near. He knew not yet perfectly
+what it was to be nothing; to die, that Christ alone might live in
+him; to take pleasure in all that brought him low. It appears as if
+this were the highest lesson that he had to learn, full conformity to
+his Lord in that self-emptying where he gloried in weakness that God
+might be all.
+
+The highest lesson a believer has to learn is humility. Oh that every
+Christian who seek to advance in holiness may remember this well!
+There may be intense consecration, and fervent zeal and heavenly
+experience, and yet, if it is not prevented by very special dealings
+of the Lord, there may be an unconscious self-exaltation with it all.
+Let us learn the lesson,--the highest holiness is the deepest
+humility; and let us remember that comes not of itself, but only as it
+is made matter of special dealing on the part of our faithful Lord and
+His faithful servant.
+
+Let us look at our lives in the light of this experience, and see
+whether we gladly glory in weakness, whether we take pleasure, as Paul
+did, in injuries, in necessities, in distresses. Yes, let us ask
+whether we have learnt to regard a reproof, just or unjust, a reproach
+from friend or enemy, an injury, or trouble, or difficulty into which
+others bring us, as above all an opportunity of proving Jesus is all
+to us, how our own pleasure or honour are nothing, and how humiliation
+is in very truth what we take pleasure in. It is indeed blessed, the
+deep happiness of heaven, to be so free from self that whatever is
+said of us or done to us is lost and swallowed up, in the thought that
+Jesus is all.
+
+Let us trust Him who took charge of Paul to take charge of us too.
+Paul needed special discipline, and with it special instruction, to
+learn, what was more precious than even the unutterable things he had
+heard in heaven--what it is to glory in weakness and lowliness. We
+need it, too, oh so much. He who cared for him will care for us too.
+He watches over us with a jealous, loving care, 'lest we exalt
+ourselves'. When we are doing so, He seeks to discover to us the evil,
+and deliver us from it. In trial and weakness and trouble He seeks to
+bring us low, until we so learn that His grace is all, as to take
+pleasure in the very thing that brings us and keeps us low. His
+strength made perfect in our weakness, His presence filling and
+satisfying our emptiness, becomes the secret of a humility that need
+never fail. It can, as Paul, in full sight of what God works in us,
+and through us, ever say, 'In nothing was I behind the chiefest
+apostles, _though I am nothing.'_ His humiliations had led him to true
+humility, with its wonderful gladness and glorying and pleasure in all
+that humbles.
+
+'Most gladly will I glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ
+may rest upon me; wherefore I take pleasure in weaknesses. 'The humble
+man has learnt the secret of abiding gladness. The weaker he feels,
+the lower he sinks; the greater his humiliations appear, the more the
+power and the presence of Christ are his portion, until, as he says,
+'I am nothing,' the word of his Lord brings ever deeper joy: 'My grace
+is sufficient for thee.'
+
+I feel as if I must once again gather up all in the two lessons: the
+danger of pride is greater and nearer than we think, and the grace for
+humility too.
+
+_The danger of pride is greater and nearer than we think,_ and that
+especially at the time of our highest experiences. The preacher of
+spiritual truth with an admiring congregation hanging on his lips, the
+gifted speaker on a Holiness platform expounding the secrets of the
+heavenly life, the Christian giving testimony to a blessed experience,
+the evangelist moving on as in triumph, and made a blessing to
+rejoicing multitudes,--no man knows the hidden, the unconscious danger
+to which these are exposed. Paul was in danger without knowing it;
+what Jesus did for him is written for our admonition, that we may know
+our danger and know our only safety. If ever it has been said of a
+teacher or professor of holiness,--he is so full of self; or, he does
+not practise what he preaches; or, his blessing has not made him
+humbler or gentler,--let it be said no more. Jesus, in whom we trust,
+can make us humble.
+
+_Yes, the grace for humility is greater and nearer, too, than we
+think._ The humility of Jesus is our salvation: Jesus Himself is our
+humility. Our humility is His care and His work. His grace is
+sufficient for us, to meet the temptation of pride too. His strength
+will be perfected in our weakness. Let us choose to be weak, to be
+low, to be nothing. Let humility be to us joy and gladness. Let us
+gladly glory and take pleasure in weakness, in all that can humble us
+and keep us low; the power of Christ will rest upon us. Christ humbled
+Himself, therefore God exalted Him. Christ will humble us, and keep us
+humble; let us heartily consent, let us trustfully and joyfully accept
+all that humbles; the power of Christ will rest upon us. We shall find
+that the deepest humility is the secret of the truest happiness, of a
+joy that nothing can destroy.
+
+
+
+Humility: The Beauty of Holiness
+
+XII.
+
+Humility and Exaltation
+
+_'He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.'_
+--LUKE xiv. 11, xviii. 13.
+
+_'God giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourself in the sight of the
+Lord, and He shall exalt you.'_--JAS. iv. 10.
+
+_'Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He
+may exalt you in due time.'_--1 PET. v. 6.
+
+JUST yesterday I was asked the question, How am I to conquer this
+pride? The answer; was simple. Two things are needed. Do what; God
+says is your work: humble yourself. Trust Him to do what He says is
+His work: He will exalt you.
+
+The command is clear: humble yourself. That does not mean that it is
+your work to conquer and cast out the pride of your nature, and to
+form within yourself the lowliness of the holy Jesus. No, this is
+God's work; the very essence of that exaltation, wherein He lifts you
+up into the real likeness of the beloved Son. What the command does
+mean is this: take every opportunity of humbling yourself before God
+and man. In the faith of the grace that is already working in you; in
+the assurance of the more grace for victory that is coming; up to the
+light that conscience each time flashes upon the pride of the heart
+and its workings; notwithstanding all there may be of failure and
+falling, stand persistently as under the unchanging command: humble
+yourself. Accept with gratitude everything that God allows from within
+or without, from friend or enemy, in nature or in grace, to remind you
+of your need of humbling, and to help you to it. Reckon humility to be
+indeed the mother-virtue, your very first duty before God, the one
+perpetual safeguard of the soul, and set your heart upon it as the
+source of all blessing. The promise is divine and sure: He that
+humbleth himself shall be exalted. See that you do the one thing God
+asks: humble yourself. God will see that does the one thing He has
+promised. He will give more grace; He will exalt you in due time.
+
+All God's dealings with man are characterised by two stages. There is
+the time of preparation, when command and promise, with the mingled
+experience of effort and impotence, of failure and partial success,
+with the holy expectancy of something better which these waken, train
+and discipline men for a higher stage. Then comes the time of
+fulfilment, when faith inherits the promise, and enjoys what it had
+so often struggled for in vain. This law holds good in every part of
+the Christian life, and in the pursuit of every separate virtue. And
+that because it is grounded in the very nature of things. In all that
+concerns our redemption, God must needs take the initiative. When that
+has been done, man's turn comes. In the effort after obedience and
+attainment, he must learn to know his impotence, in self-despair to
+die to himself, and so be fitted voluntarily and intelligently to
+receive from God the end, the completion of that of which he had
+accepted the beginning in ignorance. So, God who had been the
+Beginning, ere man rightly knew Him, or fully understood what His
+purpose was, is longed for and welcomed as the End, as the All in All.
+
+It is even thus, too, in the pursuit of humility. To every Christian
+the command comes from the throne of God Himself: humble yourself. The
+earnest attempt to listen and obey will be rewarded--yes,
+rewarded--with the painful discovery of two things. The one, what
+depth of pride, that is of unwillingness to count oneself and to be
+counted nothing, to submit absolutely to God, there was, that one
+never knew. The other, what utter impotence there is in all our
+efforts, and in all our prayers too for God's help, to destroy the
+hideous monster. Blessed the man who now learns to put his hope in
+God, and to persevere, notwithstanding all the power of pride within
+him, in acts of humiliation before God and Men. We know the law of
+human nature: acts produce habits, habits breed dispositions,
+dispositions form the will, and the rightly-formed will is character.
+It is no otherwise in the work of grace. As acts, persistently
+repeated, beget habits and dispositions, and these strengthened the
+will, He who works both to will and to do comes with His mighty power
+and Spirit; and the humbling of the proud heart with which the'
+penitent saint cast himself so often before God, is rewarded with the
+'more grace' of the humble heart, in which the Spirit of Jesus has
+conquered, and brought the new nature to its maturity, and He the meek
+and lowly One now dwells for ever.
+
+Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will exalt you. And
+wherein does the exaltation consist? The highest glory of the creature
+is in being only a vessel, to receive and enjoy and show forth the
+glory of God. It can do this only as it is willing to be nothing in
+itself, that God may be all. Water always fills first the lowest
+places. The lower, the emptier a man lies before God, the speedier and
+the fuller will be the inflow of the divine glory. The exaltation God
+promises is not, cannot be, any external thing apart from Himself: all
+that He has to give or can give is only more of Himself, Himself to
+take more complete possession. The exaltation is not, like an earthly
+prize, something arbitrary, in no necessary connection with the
+conduct to be rewarded. No, but it is in its very nature the effect
+and result of the humbling of ourselves. It is nothing but the gift of
+such a divine indwelling humility, such a conformity to and possession
+of the humility of the Lamb of God, as fits us for receiving fully the
+indwelling of God.
+
+He that humbleth himself shall be exalted. Of the truth of these words
+Jesus Himself is the proof; of the certainty of their fulfilment to
+us He is the pledge. Let us take His yoke upon us and learn of Him,
+for He is meek and lowly of heart. If we are but willing to stoop to
+Him, as He has stooped to us, He will yet stoop to each one of us
+again, and we shall find ourselves not unequally yoked with Him. As we
+enter deeper into the fellowship of His humiliation, and either humble
+ourselves or bear the humbling of men, we can count upon it that the
+Spirit of His exaltation, 'the Spirit of God and of glory,' will rest
+upon us. The presence and the power of the glorified Christ will come
+to them that are of an humble spirit. When God can again have His
+rightful place in us, He will lift us up. Make His glory thy care in
+humbling thyself; He will make thy glory His care in perfecting thy
+humility, and breathing into thee, as thy abiding life, the very
+Spirit of His Son. As the all-pervading life of God possesses thee,
+there will be nothing so natural, and nothing so sweet, as to be
+nothing, with not a thought or wish for self, because all is occupied
+with Him who filleth all. 'Most gladly will I glory in my weakness,
+that the strength of Christ may rest upon me.'
+
+Brother, have we not here the reason that our consecration and our
+faith have availed so little in the pursuit of holiness? It was by
+self and its strength that the work was done under the name of faith;
+it was for self and its happiness that God was called in; it was,
+unconsciously, but still truly, in self and its holiness that the soul
+rejoiced. We never knew that humility, absolute, abiding, Christlike
+humility and self-effacement, pervading and marking our whole life
+with God and man, was the most essential element of the life of the
+holiness we sought for.
+
+It is only in the possession of God that I lose myself. As it is in
+the height and breadth and glory of the sunshine that the littleness
+of the mote playing in its beams is seen, even so humility is the
+taking our place in God's presence to be nothing but a mote dwelling
+in the sunlight of His love.
+
+'How great is God! how small am I!
+Lost, swallowed up in Love's immensity!
+God only there, not I.'
+
+May God teach us to believe that to be humble, to be nothing in His
+presence, is the highest attainment, and the fullest blessing of the
+Christian life. He speaks to us: 'I dwell in the high and holy place,
+and with him the is of a contrite and humble spirit.' Be this our
+portion!
+
+'Oh, to be emptier, lowlier,
+Mean, unnoticed, and unknown,
+And to God a vessel holier,
+Filled with Christ, and Christ alone!'
+
+
+
+Notes.
+
+NOTE A--'All this is to make it known the region of eternity that
+_pride_ can degrade the highest angels into devils, and humility raise
+fallen flesh and blood to the thrones of angels. Thus, this is the
+great end of God raising a new creation out of a fallen kingdom of
+angels: for this end it stands in its state of war betwixt the fire
+and pride of fallen angels, and the humility of the Lamb of God, that
+the last trumpet may sound the great truth through the depths of
+eternity, that evil can have no beginning but from pride, and no end
+but from humility. The truth is this: Pride may die in you, or nothing
+of heaven can live in you. Under the banner of the truth, give
+yourself up to the meek and humble spirit of the holy Jesus. Humility
+must sow seed, or there can be no reaping in Heaven. Look not at pride
+only as an unbecoming temper, nor at humility only as a decent virtue:
+for the one is death, and the other is life; the one is all hell, the
+other is all heaven. So much as you have of pride within you, you have
+of the fallen angels alive in you; so much as you have of true
+humility, so much you have of the Lamb of God within you. Could you
+see what every stirring of pride does to your soul, you would beg of
+everything you meet to tear the viper from you, though with the loss
+of a hand or an eye. Could you see what a sweet, divine, transforming
+power there is in humility, how it expels the poison of your nature,
+and makes room for the Spirit of God to live in you, you would rather
+wish to be the footstool of all the world than want the smallest
+degree of it.'--_Spirit of Prayer_, Pt. II. p. 73, Edition of Moreton,
+Canterbury, 1893.
+
+
+Note B.--'We need to know two things: 1. That our salvation consists
+wholly in being saved from _ourselves_, or that which we are by
+nature; 2. That in the whole nature of things nothing could be this
+salvation or saviour to us but such a humility of God as is beyond all
+expression. Hence the first unalterable term of the Saviour to fallen
+man: Except a man denies _himself,_ he cannot be My disciple. Self is
+the whole evil of fallen nature; self-denial is our capacity of being
+saved; humility is our saviour. ..._Self_ is the root, the branches,
+the tree, of all the evil of our fallen state. All the evils of fallen
+angels and men have their birth in the pride of self. On the other
+hand, all the virtues of the heavenly life are the virtues of
+humility. It is humility alone that makes the unpassable gulf between
+heaven and hell. What is then, or in what lies, the great struggle for
+eternal life? It all lies in the strife between _pride_ and humility:
+pride and _humility_ are the two master powers, the two kingdoms in
+strife for the eternal possession of man. There never was, nor ever
+will be, but one humility, and that is the one humility of Christ.
+Pride and self have the all of man, till man has his all from Christ.
+He therefore only fights the good fight whose strife is that the
+self-idolatrous nature which he hath from Adam may be brought to death
+by the supernatural humility of Christ brought to life in him.'--W.
+Law, _Address to the Clergy,_ p. 52. [I hope that this book of Law on
+the Holy Spirit may be issued by my publisher in the course of the
+year.]
+
+
+Note C--'To die to self, or come from under its power, is not, cannot
+be done, by any active resistance we can make to it by the powers of
+nature. The one true way of dying to self is the way of _patience,
+meekness, humility, and resignation to God._ This is the truth and
+perfection of dying to self. ...For if I ask you what the Lamb of God
+means, must you not tell me that it is and means the perfection of
+_patience, meekness, humility, and resignation to God?_ Must you not
+therefore say that a desire and faith of these virtues is an
+application to Christ, is a giving up yourself to Him and the
+perfection of faith in Him? And then, because this inclination of your
+heart to sink down in _patience, meekness, humility, and resignation
+to God,_ is truly giving up all that you are and all that you have from
+fallen Adam, it is perfectly leaving all you have to follow Christ; it
+is your highest act of faith in Him. Christ is nowhere but in these
+virtues; when they are there, He is in His own kingdom. Let this be
+the Christ you follow.
+
+'The Spirit of divine love can have no birth in any fallen creature,
+till it wills and chooses to be dead to all self, in a _patient,
+humble resignation_ to the power and mercy of God.
+
+'I seek for all my salvation through the merits and mediation of the
+_meek, humble, patient, suffering Lamb of God,_ who alone hath power
+to bring forth the blessed birth of these heavenly virtues in my soul.
+There is no possibility of salvation but in and by the birth of the
+_meek, humble, patient, resigned Lamb of God_ in our souls. When the
+Lamb of God hath brought forth a real birth of His own _meekness,
+humility, and full resignation to God_ in our souls, then it is the
+birthday of the Spirit of love in our souls, which, whenever we
+attain, will feast our souls with such peace and joy in God as will
+blot out the remembrance of everything that we called peace or joy
+before.
+
+'This way to God is infallible. This infallibility is grounded in the
+twofold character of our Saviour: 1. As He is the Lamb of God, a
+principle of all _meekness and humility_ in the soul; 2. As He is the
+Light of heaven, and blesses eternal nature, and turns it into a
+kingdom of heaven,--when we are willing to get rest to our souls in
+meek, humble resignation to God, then it is that He, as the Light of
+God and heaven, joyfully breaks in upon us, turns our darkness into
+light, and begins that kingdom of God and of love within us, which
+will never have an end.'--See _Wholly For God,_ pp 84-102. [The whole
+passage deserves careful study, showing most remarkably how the
+continual sinking down in humility before God is, from man's side, the
+only way to die to self.][Footnote: The whole dialogue has been
+published separately under the title _Dying to Self: A Golden
+Dialogue._ By William Law. With Notes by A.M. (Nisbet & Co., 1s) Every
+one who would study and practise humility will find in this golden
+dialogue what it is that hinders our humility, how we are to be
+delivered from it, and what the blessing of the Spirit of Love is that
+comes to the humble from Christ, the meek and lowly Lamb of God.]
+
+
+Note D.--_A Secret of Secrets: Humility the Soul of True
+Prayer._--Till the spirit of the heart be renewed, till it is emptied
+of all earthly desires, and stands in an habitual hunger and thirst
+after God, which is the true spirit of prayer; till then, all our
+prayer will be, more or less, but too much like lessons given to
+scholars; and we shall mostly say them, only because we dare not
+neglect them. But be not discouraged; take the following advice, and
+then you may go to church without any danger of mere lip-labor or
+hypocrisy, although there should be a hymn or a prayer, whose language
+is higher than that of your heart. Do this: go to the church as the
+publican went to the temple; stand inwardly in the spirit of your mind
+in that form which he outwardly expressed, when he cast down his eyes,
+and could only say, 'God be merciful to me, a sinner.' Stand
+unchangeably, at least in your desire, in this form or state of heart;
+it will sanctify every petition that comes out of your mouth; and when
+anything is read or sung or prayed, that is more exalted than your
+heart is, if you make this an occasion of further sinking down in the
+spirit of the publican, you will then be helped, and highly blessed,
+by those prayers and praises which seem only to belong to a heart
+better than yours.
+
+This, my friend, is a secret of secrets; it will help you to reap
+where you have not sown, and be a continual source of grace in your
+soul; for everything that inwardly stirs in you, or outwardly happens
+to you, becomes a real good to you, if it finds or excites in you this
+humble state of mind. For nothing is in vain, or without profit to the
+humble soul; it stands always in a state of divine growth; everything
+that falls upon it is like a dew of heaven to it. Shut up yourself,
+therefore, in this form of Humility; all good is enclosed in it; it is
+a water of heaven, that turns the fire of the fallen soul into the
+meekness of the divine life, and creates that oil, out of which the
+love to God and man gets its flame. Be enclosed, therefore, always in
+it; let it be as a garment wherewith you are always covered, and a
+girdle with which you are girt; breathe nothing but in and from its
+spirit; see nothing but with its eyes; hear nothing but with its ears.
+And then, whether you are in the church or out of the church, hearing
+the praises of God or receiving wrongs from men and the world, all
+will be edification, and everything will help forward your growth in
+the life of God.--_The Spirit of Prayer,_ Pt. II. p. 121.
+
+
+A PRAYER FOR HUMILITY
+
+I will here give you an infallible touchstone, that will try all to
+the truth. It is this: retire from the world and all conversation,
+only for one month; neither write, nor read, nor debate anything with
+yourself; stop all the former workings of your heart and mind: and,
+with all the strength of your heart, stand all this month, as
+continually as you can, in the following form of prayer to God. Offer
+it frequently on your knees; but whether sitting, walking, or
+standing, be always inwardly longing, and earnestly praying this one
+prayer to God: 'That of His great goodness He would make known to you,
+and take from your heart, _every kind and form and degree of Pride,_
+whether it be from evil spirits, or your own corrupt nature; and that
+He would awaken in you the _deepest depth and truth of that Humility,_
+which can make you capable of His light and Holy Spirit.' Reject every
+thought, but that of waiting and praying in this matter from the
+bottom of your heart, with such truth and earnestness, as people in
+torment wish to pray and be delivered from it. ...If you can and will
+give yourself up in truth and sincerity to this spirit of prayer, I
+will venture to affirm that, if you had twice as many evil spirits in
+you as Mary Magdalene had, they will all be cast out of you, and you
+will be forced with her to weep tears of love at the feet of the holy
+Jesus.--_Ibid._ p. 124.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Humility, by Andrew Murray
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57121 ***