SO YOU REALLY THINK YOU ARE SO HUMBLE? : PART 3
Copyright 1994 - 2008 Endtime Prophecy Org
Last Updated : July 23, 2006
Turning The Tables, The Judge Not Tactic, Sowing Division
Through Pride And Exaggeration, The Legalist's Approach, The
'You Don't Love Me' Tactic, The Direct Approach, Offended By
The Truth, Public Rebuke And Love, Emphasizing The Positive,
Time Wasters And Energy Drainers, Spiritual Midgets, False
Humility, Spiritual Frigidity And Sterility, Our Struggle
Remember; Satan is very subtle. He has all kinds of tactics
which he will use in order to try to defeat you. Sometimes
he will use the person being corrected to totally turn the
tables on you. They will become an accuser of the saints.
Instead of humbly receiving the counsel you are trying to
share with them, which is really for their own benefit, they
will begin to point out your own errors, some of which will
probably be true. But do you see what they have really done?
Despite the fact that everything you have told them is true,
by putting up their own shield of pride, and then casting
their own set of accusatory darts right back at you, they
have completely rejected the conviction which the Lord was
trying to place upon their heart.
To put it another way, they have used your own personal sins
and weaknesses as a red herring in order to justify their
not receiving a single word that you have shared with them.
Because you aren't perfect enough in their view, they feel
that your counsel is either not true, or of little worth to
them. Short of God Himself, or Jesus coming down in person
to deal with them, they probably won't listen to anyone.
They will walk away feeling totally justified that they are
right, and that you are wrong. What a bad attitude, and what
a tragic situation!
If there is one accusatory question which has been used as a
defense mechanism by both worldly people and Christians more
than any other, it has to be 'Who are you to judge me? What
right do you have to judge me?'. Right after this, they will
attempt to quote you, or at least paraphrase Jesus' own
words found in the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Matthew:
"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye
judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it
shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the
mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the
beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy
brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and,
behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first
cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou
see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."
(Matthew 7:1-5)
While the vast majority of people do not know their Bibles,
this is one set of verses which they will keep stored in
their arsenal of personal defenses. Whenever a brother or a
sister tries to point something out to them, out come these
big guns! Sadly, because of their inexpertise with the Word
of God, these people take the above verses out of context in
order to justify their inappropriate behavior, and their
rejection of the truth. The Apostle Peter referred to this
as wresting the Scriptures to their own destruction:
"As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these
things; in which are some things hard to be understood,
which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do
also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction."
(2 Peter 3:16)
Being as I offer a full explanation of this issue of 'judge
not' in the article 'Exposing The Judge Not Fallacy', I will
not go into great detail here. Suffice it to say that the
Lord has indeed given His shepherds the responsibility of
judging the flocks of God. Moses did it with the children of
Israel; the Judges who followed Moses and Joshua did it for
over four hundred years; the Prophets who followed them did
it for about another thousand years; Peter, Paul and others
did it in the New Testament; and we are called to do it
today as well. In my view, to use the previous verses to try
to negate any form of judgment, correction, or spiritual
authority within the body of believers is nothing short of
ludicrous. Consider the following example verses which
delegate us this authority:
"Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous
judgment." (John 7:24)
"But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself
is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the
Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of
Christ." (1 Corinthians 2:15-16)
"For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit,
have judged already, as though I were present, concerning
him that hath so done this deed," (1 Corinthians 5:3)
"Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and
if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to
judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge
angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?"
(1 Corinthians 6:2-3)
Another tactic Satan will use is to try to exaggerate or to
distort the words that have been spoken. He will attempt to
blow the situation out of proportion. He will blow his foul
breath on the hot coals of pride and try to create a bonfire
which will engulf others in your fellowship. He will do his
best to sow division and dissension within the fellowship of
the Saints so that some members will side with you, while
others will side with the person being dealt with. He has
been doing it for thousands of years, and he has perfected
his tactics. If there are any verses in the Bible which
Satan must truly hate, it must surely include the following:
"...Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to
dwell together in unity!" (Psalms 133:1)
"Two are better than one; because they have a good reward
for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his
fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he
hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together,
then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if
one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a
threefold cord is not quickly broken."
(Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)
"Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be
no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined
together in the same mind and in the same judgment."
(1 Corinthians 1:10)
It is in situations like this where other members of your
fellowship become involved in the problem, that the full
dangers of pride become manifested. You see, while Cancer is
indeed a dangerous affliction in the physical sense, pride
is an even more dangerous disease in a spiritual sense. Why
is this? Quite simply, it's because Cancer is not considered
a communicable, or contagious, disease. It normally resides
in the body of its victim/host. It is not like the flu, or
like chicken pox, or like poison ivy which can spread from
one person to the next. Pride, on the other hand, is very
contagious. Once it rears its ugly head in one person, it
doesn't take long before others are manifesting it as well.
What started out as an honest attempt to help out one
person, could very easily turn into a serious problem which
engulfs the entire fellowship.
Another tactic which some people use in order to try to
avoid the conviction of God's Spirit, is to simply become
legalists. For example, in their pride they might tell
themselves, 'Oh, that person just doesn't understand the
situation correctly, so I can't possibly accept what they
are saying to me. Their perspective is all wrong. They have
totally misunderstood me and don't have all of their facts
straight. They are in no position to tell me what is true
and what isn't.'
If that tactic doesn't work, they might become involved in
semantics; that is, in particular words that were used. They
might say 'That isn't what I really meant'; or 'That isn't
how I really understood the situation'. In other words, they
try to argue about what you really meant, as opposed to what
they really meant. They try to twist the meanings of words,
or else they try to give entirely new definitions to certain
words or phrases that were spoken. One worldly example of
this which immediately comes to my mind is the current sex
scandal surrounding American President Bill Clinton and
former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. I find President
Clinton's attempts to save his reputation, and his job, by
applying his own definition to the term 'sexual relations'
absolutely ridiculous. Instead of becoming such a legalist,
I think people would respect him more if he just acted like
a man and fully accepted responsibility for his actions,
come what may.
Another tactic used by certain people when they are being
dealt with is to say something like, 'Oh, you didn't say
that in a very loving spirit, so I can't possibly accept
that as being of the Lord!'. Or they might say 'You just
said that to be vindicative! You don't really love me!'.
They become offended by a particular word or phrase, and
thus justify their ignoring the main lesson the Lord might
have for them. They say to themselves, 'Well, that person
used a very poor choice of words; they really offended me;
so I can't accept anything they have to say'. Instead of
seeing the Lord trying to work behind or through that
person, because a grain of truth has pierced their heart,
they allow their pride to look for any technical reason
which will allow them to justify, (at least in their own
heart), their not receiving what is being said to them.
Sadly, this tactic usually works, because as we have already
seen, the Apostle James wrote:
"For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in
word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the
whole body." (James 3:2)
Now, as I mentioned earlier, some of us, like myself, tend
to be rather blunt and to the point when we deal with
certain people. We don't like to waste our time 'beating
around the bush' carefully choosing our words so as not to
offend anyone. We simply want to make our point, deal with
the problem at hand in as Scriptural a manner as possible,
and then move on to other issues. When one is dealing with
what he believes to be a group of mature Christians, he
expects them to be able to endure hardness as good soldiers
of Jesus Christ, and to humbly receive what is being shared
with them, without putting up their defensive walls of
pride.
This direct kind of approach has its advantages and its
disadvantages. Sometimes while in the course of trying to
resolve an issue, feelings do get hurt, because you say
things that people do not want to hear about themselves.
Sometimes it simply can't be helped. We saw earlier how some
of the Lord's Disciples were greatly offended when He gave
His 'flesh and blood' sermon. He told them the straight
Truth, but they weren't able to bear it, so they backslid.
It is better to speak the truth and lose one, than not speak
the truth and lose all, or at least lead them all astray
through compromising the truth. Besides that, some people's
pride is so great, that they will be offended no matter what
you say, and no matter how softly or how diplomatically you
try to say it. Someone somewhere will always be offended. As
the old saying goes, you can please all of the people some
of the time, and you can please some of the people all of
the time; but you can never please all of the people all of
the time.
Such people would do well to study the Scriptures. The Lord
said and did many things in both the Old and the New
Testaments which His critics would clearly label as being
unloving or too harsh. If Jesus in fact had to rebuke His
own Disciples to their faces on certain occasions, which
was clearly for their own good, why should we today expect
to be treated any differently when we fall into error? I am
reminded of the following verse found in Paul's first
Epistle to Timothy:
"Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may
fear." (1 Timothy 5:20)
Thus we see that when someone falls into error, whether it
be doctrinal error, or a sin of the heart, and it is known
to the body as a whole, it is Scripturally sound to rebuke
and correct them before all so that everyone may profit from
the lesson being taught. We are all familiar with the
popular saying, 'A wise man learns from his own mistakes,
but a wiser man learns from the mistakes of others'. While I
normally do not quote from sources of worldly wisdom, it is
appropriate for this situation as it does agree with Paul's
admonition above. In fact, it is in full agreement with the
following verse found in the Book of Proverbs:
"Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser:
teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.
(Proverbs 9:9)
Let's be honest here for a moment; a public rebuke can be
hard on the pride of the person being dealt with, but it is
probably exactly what they need in order to put the fear of
God back into them. As we read in the Old Testament:
"And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is
wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding."
(Job 28:28)
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good
understanding have all they that do his commandments: his
praise endureth for ever." (Psalms 111:10)
"Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart
from evil." (Proverbs 3:7)
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the
knowledge of the holy is understanding." (Proverbs 9:10)
"By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of
the LORD men depart from evil." (Proverbs 16:6)
As with a small child who cannot always see or understand a
parent's love for him while he is in the middle of being
chastised, Satan may also lie to the person being dealt with
at the time, and tell them that they are no longer loved;
but this is the furthest thing from the truth. As I have
pointed out in other articles, godly chastisement is a form
of love. It is when we ignore our child's wrongdoings and
don't chastise him, that we show our lack of love. If we
really love him, we will correct him, no matter how hard it
may be on us to do so. When we are rebuked by one of our
spiritual elders in the Lord, we need to remember that it is
because they love us, and because they are held accountable
by God for our souls. They watch for our souls. It is not
because they hate us, or because they don't like us, or
because they are simply being vindicative because of
something we said to them. These are all lies of Satan. In
the Old and the New Testaments, we find the following
verses:
"Open rebuke is better than secret love." (Proverbs 27:5)
"And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto
you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the
chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of
him:...Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be
joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the
peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are
exercised thereby." (Hebrews 12:5, 11)
"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous
therefore, and repent." (Revelation 3:19)
One thing which all of the Lord's shepherd's need to watch
out for, is that they don't waste time dealing with the
Devil's dirty work any longer than is absolutely necessary.
When a problem arises in your fellowship, you need to try to
resolve it as quickly and as effectively as possible before
it drags down the entire flock. As the Apostle Paul wrote to
the Philippians, we are to strive to emphasize the good and
the positive as much as possible:
"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever
things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever
things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if
there be any praise, think on these things."
(Philippians 4:8)
Believe me, if you let him, the Devil will you keep you tied
down with a certain person and their personal problems for a
very long time. He will drain you of your time and your
energy, and cause you to neglect your main responsibilities
to the flock. The more you try to help some people see the
error of their ways, the more they will continue to resist.
You will find yourself getting caught up in a war of words
with no end in sight. Not only will you personally be
affected by it, but your flock will as well. Spiritual
fatigue and discouragement will set in; and unless the
problem is resolved as quickly as possible, some may even
choose to leave the flock in search of greener more peaceful
pastures. In some cases, you might even end up becoming
physically sick, as may have happened to me recently. I was
dealing with about three or four different situations at the
same time, besides a certain problem involving my own flesh
family; and I suspect that it simply became a little too
much for me. My spiritual and my physical resistance were
down, and I became quite sick for about three weeks. Thank
the Lord that I am finally recovering from my illness.
The bottom line is, because of their pride, some people will
always find a way to justify their actions, and refuse to be
corrected. They will find some way to derail the real issue,
and thus remove the spotlight of God's conviction which has
been placed upon their heart. What they don't realize is
that the longer they cling to their pride, and stubbornly
refuse to accept the lesson which the Lord may be trying to
teach them, the longer their spiritual growth will be
stunted. While those around them might be growing in their
relationship with the Lord and with each other, these
problem cases will remain spiritual midgets by their own
choice. So do you see who the real losers are in these kinds
of situations? They are. Sadly, they can use these very same
tactics over and over again every time they are dealt with,
and they will probably work; but they will never grow.
By now, I am sure you are fully aware of the dangers of
yielding to our pride. At this point you may even be asking
yourself, 'Well, exactly how is one supposed to rid himself
of his pride?'. As I pointed out earlier in this series,
amongst some deluded Christians, one common approach is to
simply pretend that they no longer have it. The way they do
this is by feigning false humility. Just like the Scribes
and the Pharisees of old, they try to be very careful with
their words so that they appear to others to be very humble
and very pious. They also tend to do certain things, or to
act in a certain way which gives others the false impression
that they are godly and humble; however, in the Gospel of
Matthew, we find the Lord saying the following concerning
such hypocrites:
"Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen
of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is
in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not
sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the
synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of
men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward."
(Matthew 6:1-2)
"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites
are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in
the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.
Verily I say unto you, They have their reward."
(Matthew 6:5)
"Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad
countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may
appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have
their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine
head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to
fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy
Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly."
(Matthew 6:16-18)
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye
make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but
within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind
Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and
platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe
unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like
unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful
outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all
uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto
men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity."
(Matthew 23:25-28)
Clearly then, this is not the way to truly be humble. Acting
in this way is simply a proud, pretentious, sickening show
of false humility! All of these things done by the religious
elders of Israel were merely self-righteous works of the
flesh which did not draw them closer to God, but only to
themselves and to their own egos. Sadly, Christianity today
is full of these very same things. A number of people have
written to me telling me how, even though they have been
church-goers for many years, something seems to be seriously
lacking in their fellowship. While their members appear to
be pious, there is a certain spiritual coldness which keeps
everyone distanced from each other. In one of His Endtime
sermons, Jesus prophesied of this coldness when He said:
"And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall
wax cold." (Matthew 24:12)
In other words, because sin and evilness shall abound in the
Earth in the Last Days, many people will grow cold towards
each other. This is something which none of us can deny. As
I point out in other articles, many of us don't even know
the names of our neighbors who live down the street from us,
or even across the hallway in the same apartment building.
We are total strangers to each other. As we have seen
throughout this series, one of the chief sins which is
prevalent in our lives today, is pride. Pride, inflated
egos, and self images we feel we must preserve, strengthen
this spiritual coldness which abounds in the world today;
and our churches are not immune to it. In fact, I will go as
far to say that pride even creates frigidity in our personal
sexual relationships; and that if you realize that we are
symbolically the Bride of Christ, it is easy to see how it
can also affect our relationship with the Lord and with each
other. Pride can make us spiritually sterile so that we
cannot bare fruit for the Kingdom of God. Our pride simply
will not allow us to humbly yield ourselves to the Lord as
we know we should.
So perhaps our real question should not be, 'How do I get
rid of my pride?', but rather 'How do I learn to be truly
humble?'. From the Old Testament, all the way through the
New Testament, we are clearly and repeatedly told that we
are to walk humbly before the Lord our God. For example,
consider some of the following key verses:
"The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and
saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." (Psalms 34:18)
"Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before
honour is humility." (Proverbs 18:12)
"...but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor
and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word."
(Isaiah 66:2b)
"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven." (Matthew 5:3)
"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth."
(Matthew 5:5)
"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and
lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls."
(Matthew 11:29)
"Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little
child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."
(Matthew 18:4)
"But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.
And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he
that shall humble himself shall be exalted."
(Matthew 23:11-12)
"But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be
great among you, shall be your minister: And whosoever of
you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even
the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."
(Mark 10:43-45)
Over and over again we are told to be humble, to practice
humility, to esteem our brethren more than ourselves. How do
we do this when our ego wants us to do the exact opposite?
How do we resist our pride and make ourselves humble? The
simple truth of the matter is that we cannot make ourselves
humble no matter how hard we try. We cannot be humble of our
own accord. We can try to be humble, and we might even
convince ourselves that we have actually succeeded at it for
a short time, but others will see right through it; just as
Jesus exposed the hypocrisy of the Scribes and the Pharisees
of old. We can consciously make efforts to take the lower
seat as Jesus and His Disciples advised us to do, but
believe me, it won't last for very long. Sooner or later we
will grow tired of this vain work of the flesh, and we will
be back to our old selves again. Not only that, but we will
probably end up more discouraged than ever, thinking that we
are just one hopeless case; which we are, without Jesus.
So what is the solution to this problem? Is there really a
solution? Obviously there must be; otherwise the Bible would
not instruct us so many times to be humble. The Lord is not
in the habit of placing a stumbling block in the way of His
children. There is a way out of this predicament, just as
there is a way out of every trial that we face; for as the
Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians:
"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to
man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be
tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation
also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."
(1 Corinthians 10:13)
The Lord will not ask us to go where He Himself has not gone
before; and that is actually part of the answer right there.
To be humble, we must first understand what it actually
means to be humble. As you will see in the final part of
this series, the world's definition of what it means to be
humble is very different from how God views humility. By
looking at the life of Christ, we will come to a full
understanding of godly humility. I hope that you will join
me.
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