← Back to the beginning of Humility
II. But, secondly, the TRIALS OF HUMILITY, or the dangers through which humility has to pass.
And first and foremost, one of the trials to which humility will be exposed is the possession of great ability. When a man has seven talents, he must remember that he has seven burdens, and he who has ten, if he has more than others, should feel that he has ten times any other man’s burden of responsibility; and therefore he should be bowed down. Let a man feel that he possesses more power than another, more eloquence, more mental acumen, more learning, more imagination, and he is so apt to sit down and say, “I am something; I am somebody in the Church.” Yes, one may indeed speak with solemnity here. It is so ridiculous for us to ever boast of any talents which God has given us. It is as though the debtor in the jail should say, “I am a better man than you, for I am in debt 10,000 pounds, and you only a hundred.” The more we have, the more we owe, and how can there be any ground for boasting there? A man might as well be proud because he is six feet high, while another is only five feet, six inches, as be proud that he has 10 talents, while another has only five. We are what God has made us, as far as gifts are concerned. If the Lord said to Moses, “Who has made man’s mouth?” because Moses said he was of stammering speech, you may say that to yourselves if you can speak well. Or if you act well, “Who has made man’s arm?” Or if you think well, “Who has made man’s brain?” The honor never can be to the thingitself, but to that Mighty One who made it what it is! Great talents make it hard for a man to maintain humility. Shall I surprise you when I say that little talents have precisely the same effect?
I have seen in my short time, some of the biggest men I ever set my eyes upon who were the smallest insects that were ever subjected to the microscope; some great men in the pulpit, too—stately, dignified, magnificent, majestic—men of whom a fortune could have been made outright if you could but have bought them at their proper value and sold them at what, in their opinion, they were worth; men who were only fit to be bishops—they never could have been the inferior clergy—a curate’s place would have been utterly insignificant! To have been a tent-maker, or an ordinary preacher like Paul would have been far beneath their level. They always have the idea that they were born on a very fortunate day, and that the world owes them the utmost consideration and respect merely for their doing human beings the honor of living in the midst of them, though there is nothing very much they have ever done! Now little talents often make a man proud. “There,” he says, “I have but a trifle in the world, I must make a flare with it. I have but one ring, and I will always put the finger that wears that, outwards, so that it may be seen.” It is a very common habit of all people who wear rings to keep the fingers on which they wear them always exposed to view, especially if they have only one ring! If a man has no gold in his pocket, he is sure to put on gold cuff links; and if a man has scarcely any wealth at all, he is sure to put it on his back, because he must keep up a position, and that position, never having been his rightful position, he is obliged to maintain at great cost. Now, if you have little talents, and feel you have, do not swell and burst with envy. The frog was never contemptible as a frog, but when he tried to blow himself out to the size of the bull in the meadow, then he was contemptible, indeed! I have frequently had this observation made to me in the most pompous manner by some little minister, “Oh, Sir, I feel the danger of your position, and I always make it a matter of prayer to God that you may be kept humble.” I am exceedingly obliged to the gentleman, but I am sure I could make it a matter of prayer for him, that he might be made humble, once in his life, by way of a change—for he has never yet known what humility is so far as he was personally concerned. Now you know very well that it is just as easy for a man to be proud in his rags, as my Lord Mayor in his gold chain. There is many a proud one riding in his little cart quite as vain as my lord who rides in a gilded coach. Indeed, I dare say he, the last one, feels very little pride, but very great shame at having to make himself so ridiculous! You may be a king and yet be humble; you may be a beggar and yet be proud; you may be great and yet little in your own esteem; you may be little and yet you may be greater in your estimation than those who are the greatest! See to it, then, that your low estate does not make you proud any more than your high estate.
Again, success often has a very sorry influence upon humility. The man was humble before his God, till God had given him the great victory over the Moabites, but then his heart was lifted up within him, and the Lord forsook him. When he was little in Israel, he bowed before the Most High; when he became great, he exalted himself. Great success is like a full cup, it is hard to hold it with a steady hand. It is swimming in deep waters, and there is always a fear of being drowned. It is standing on the top of the pinnacle of the Temple, and Satan often says, “Cast yourself down.” But on the other hand, lack of success has just the same tendency. Have you not seen the man who could not get a congregation, and who insisted that it was because he was a better preacher than the man who did? I sometimes read a magazine, the message of which is this—if you want to be a good preacher, you must preach according to the outlines which are given you in this magazine! There are some who do this, but still find their chapels empty; then says the magazine with all complacency—“The men who get the congregations are always the weakest men; they are always the men who have the least mental power, while we who have but a few, a mere handful—we are the intellectual people.” “The mob always will,” they say, “run after the foolish men.” So that the Brother who gets no success, comforts himself with this thought—that Providence is quite wrong, and that the Christian public are quite mistaken that he ought to be, if things had been right, the most popular man living, and that it is quite a mistake he is not. Now, lack of success has a very great influence on some men to make them feel, “Well, if I cannot succeed in getting other people to think me somebody, I will think everybody else, nobody, and I will elevate myself above them all in my own opinion.” Now, I am speaking some home-truths. I have received a deal of advice, myself, and I think I may sometimes take the liberty of giving it to others. I hope that those who are always thinking of success as certainly involving pride, may also take to themselves the comfortable reflection that their non-success, suggesting as it may very bitter thoughts about their Brothers, may also be pride, only in another direction!
But then, again; long enjoyment of the Master’s Presence has a tendency to make us proud. To walk all day in the sunlight brings us in danger of a sunstroke. Better not sit too near the fire, or one may get scorched. If we have nothing but full assurance, we may come to be presumptuous. There is nothing like the heat of summer to breed putrefaction. When you have long-continued joys, fear and tremble for all the goodness of God. But on the other hand, long-continued doubts will breed pride. When a man has long been doubting his God, and mistrusting His promise, what is that but pride? He needs to be somebody and something. He is not willing to believe his God in the dark—he thinks, in fact, that God deals harshly with him, in allowing him to be in despondency at all! He thinks he always ought to have joy and satisfaction, and so it comes to pass that his doubts and fears are as ready parents of pride, as assurance could have been. In fact, to cut short a very long story, for I might go on with these two sides of the question all morning, there is not a position in the world where a man cannot be humble if he has Divine Grace; there is not a station under Heaven where a man will not be proud if left to himselfI pray you, never think that leaving one station and getting into another will be any help to your humility. ‘Tis true the peasant boy in the Valley of Humiliation sang—
“He who is down need fear no fall He who is low no pride, He who is humble ever shall Have God to be his Guide.”
But I dare say that very same boy was sometimes singing in that very valley, songs of despondency, Psalms of pride and wicked rebellion against his God. It is not the place, it is the heart It is not the position, but the Grace. That man is as safe on a pinnacle as on level ground, if God holds him up; and he is as much in danger in the valley as he is upon the high place if God is not with him. If the Lord forsakes him, he will fall in either place! If the Lord is with him, he will stand in every position! I have thus hinted at some of the dangers to which humility is exposed.
III. And now, thirdly, SOME OF THE ARGUMENTS BY WHICH WE OUGHT TO BE PROVOKED TO HUMILITY OF SPIRIT.
1. First, let us draw some arguments from ourselves. What am I, that I should be proud? I am a man, that is to say, a worm; a thing that is and is not. An angel—how much he surpasses me, and yet the Lord charged His angels with folly, and the heavens were not pure in His sight. How much less, then, should the son of man, a creature full of sin, lift himself up and exalt himself as though he were something? Verily, man at his best estate is altogether vanity; his life a dream, an empty show. Oh, vain man, why should you be proud? Think of our mortality. In a few more years we shall be worm’s meat. Caesar’s dust shall be eaten, eaten by the most base of creatures! Take up the skull of some departed one in your hand and say, “What had this man to be proud of?” Go to some morgue and mark the corruption; look on some body which has been buried but a little while—what a heap of loathsomeness! And yet you and I carry about with us the elements of all that putridity—the food of all that rottenness! How, then, dare webe proud? I have at home a picture which is so admirably managed that when you look closely at it, you see two little children in the bloom of youth at play, enjoying each other’s company. If you go some distance from the picture, the outlines get more and more indistinct and standing some few yards away from it, it turns into death’s head, with vacant, empty eyes, and the bones of the skull and the jaws—a perfect death’s head. Now, this is just ourselves! When we are looking with our poor short-sight of time, we look like fair beings that are full of life; but stand at a Scriptural distance, and view these things, and you soon perceive that we are nothing, after all, but death’s heads! What right, then, have we to be proud? Begin not to be proud, Man, till your life is secure—and you know that will never be! You bubble, boast not of the many colors you have—you shall directly burst. You glorious rainbow, exalt not yourself because of your varied hues—when the sun withdraws its light, or the cloud moves, you are gone! Oh, you fleecy cloud that is so soon to burst on the earth, and be dissipated forever— think not of yourself and your fleecy glories—for you shall soon depart and be gone! Every time your humility gives way, and your pride lifts up its head, remember that you are mortal, and the skeleton may teach you humility.
But there is yet a stronger argument than this. What are you but depraved creatures? When the child of God is at his best, he is no better than a sinner at his worst, except as far as God has made him to differ! “There goes John Bradford— but for the Grace of God.” No, there goes Paul to curse—if notfor the Grace of God. There goes Peter to be a Judas— unless Christ shall pray for him, that his faith fail not. A sinner saved by Grace and yet proud? Out on such impudence! God pardon us, and deliver us from that evil!
But, then, let us remember we are not only depraved so that we are inclined to sin, but we have sinned, and how can we then be proud? Sinners whose highest deservings are the wrath of God, and the hot flames of Hell—how can we venture for a single moment to stand as those who had done anything meritorious or could claim anything of our God? Verily, you and I may stand up today and say, “What is man that You should be mindful of him, or the son of man that You visit him?” The more we think of ourselves, if guided by God’s Spirit, the more reasons we shall find for “Serving God with all humility.”
2. But there are not only reasons in ourselves, there are reasons in Christ Our Master was never exalted above measure. You never detect in Him one proud or scornful glance upon the meanest of the mean or the vilest of the vile. He condescended to men of low estate, but it did not look like condescension in Him. He did it in such a way that there was not the appearance of stooping. He was always on their level in His heart. He ate and drank and sat with publicans and sinners, and all in such an easy, happy spirit, that no man said of Him, “Look how He stoops.” Everyone felt that stooping was His natural attitude; that He could not stand up and be proud; it would be unbecoming in Him. “And shall the servant be above his Master, or the disciple above his Lord?” You who are purse-proud, or talent-proud, or beauty-proud, I beseech you, think how unlike you are to the Master. There was nothing in Him that would keep man back from Him, but everything that would draw them to Him. “He made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Himself the form of a Servant, and being in fashion as a man, He became obedient unto death, even to the death of the Cross.” Look at that strange sight, and never be proud again. There is the God of Heaven, and with the basin in His hands and the towel on His arms—He is washing His disciple’s feet; and here are you and I, instead of washing other men’s feet, we want them to anoint our heads, and pour on the balmy cordial of a flattering unction, that we may say of ourselves, “I am rich and increased in goods,” whereas by that very desire, we prove ourselves to be naked, and poor, and miserable! By the love of Christ, then, let us seek to be humble.
3. There is yet one other source for arguments, though, of course, there are so many that I could not mention them all, and that is God’s goodness towards us, which should make us exceedingly humble. You remember that text which says, “Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, hearts of compassion and humbleness of mind”? Now, I have known some who believing that they were the elect of God, have put on haughtiness of looks! You know the school I allude to; certain gentlemen who are the elect, and nobody can ever come near to them; all other Christian people, if saved, which is a great question with them, will at least be saved so as by fire. Verily they appear to read the text thus—“Put on, as the elect of God, pride and self-conceit.” Like another text which says, “See that you love one another with a pure heart fervently,” which I think some people read the wrong way, upwards, and they make it out, “See that you hate one another with a pure heart fervently.” And oh, how fervently they have done it! How fervently they have hated one another! Now the mercy of God in having elected us—the mercy of God in having bought us with the precious blood of Jesus Christ— should tend to keep us very low in the dust of self-abasement.—
” What was there in you that could merit esteem, Or give the Creator delight?”
What was there in you that Christ should buy you with His precious blood? What in you that you should be made the temple of the Holy Spirit? What is there in you that you should be brought to Heaven; that you should be made to sit down with Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob at the right hand of God? What if you have been grafted into the good olive tree? Remember, you were once branches of the wild olive, and you are now nothing but grafts. What if your branch hangs down with the weight of its produce? There was a time when it brought forth nothing but the apples of Sodom, and the grapes of Gomorrah! Bless God and thank Him that the root bears you, but you bear not the root. What have you that you have not received? Who made you to differ? Your very gifts are given you by electing love; God gave them not because you deserved them, but because He chose to do so. He has made you a vessel unto honor, chastened you and made you in a fair and goodly mold; made you a fair vase, showing forth the skill of the Master. But who made you; who made you? Look back to that clay pit; look back to the potter’s house, to the fashioning fingers, and the revolving wheel, and surely you will say, “My God, unto You be the praise for what I am, but of myself, I am less than nothing; I am worthless and useless; unto You be all the Glory.”
IV. I shall now come to my last point, upon which, with excessive brevity, I would speak to myself. Indeed, I have been all the morning speaking to myself as much as to you.
I have now a story suggested to me. There was an excellent lady who accosted me one day, and told me that she had always prayed that I might be kept humble. Of course I was excessively grateful to her, although it was a very usual thing, so I said to her, “But do you not need to pray the same prayer for yourself?” “Oh, no,” she said, “there is no need; I do not think there is any tendency in me to be proud.” Well, I assured the good lady that I thought it was necessary for her to always pray, for as sure as ever she thought she had no tendency to be proud, that proved at once that she was proud already! We are never, never so much in danger of being proud as when we think we are humble!
Well, now, let us turn to practical account what I have said. You and I have a great work before us. I speak now especially to my Church and congregation. We are about to enter into a large edifice, having large designs in our hearts, and hoping that God will give us large success. Let us have humble motives in all this. I hope we have not built that house, that we may say with Nebuchadnezzar, “Behold this great Babylon which I have built.” We must not go to our pulpit, and to our pews with this soft note ringing in our ears. “Here will I make unto myself my nest, and gain a great name.” Or, “Here will be members of the largest Baptist Church to receive a part of the honor which is bestowed upon the success of the ministry.” No; let us go into that house wondering at what God has done for us; marveling that God should give such Grace to such a Church, and that it should have such innumerable conversions in its midst. Then, when we have settled upon our work, when we see that God is blessing us, let us still keep very low before Him. If we want to lose God’s Presence, it can soon be done—pride can shut the door in the face of Christ. Only let us take out our tablets and write down, “God is for me, therefore let me be proud”—only let us say with Jehu—“Come, and I will show you my zeal for the Lord of Hosts,” and God’s Presence will soon depart from us and Ichabod will be written on the front of the habitation. And let me say to those of you who have already done much for Christ as Evangelists, ministers, teachers, or what not—do not sit down and congratulate yourselves! Let us go home and think of all the mistakes we have made, all the errors we have committed, and all the follies into which we have been betrayed, and I think instead of self-congratulations, we shall say, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes sees You, therefore do I abhor myself in dust and ashes.” Let us humble ourselves before God! You know there is a deal of difference between being humble and being humbled. He who will not be humble, shall be humbled! Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, and He shall lift you up, lest He leave you because you hold your head so high. And should I be addressing any here this morning who are very much exalted by the nobility of rank, who have what the poet calls—
“The pride of heraldry, The pomp of power,”
be humble, I pray you! If any man would have friends, let him be humble. Humility never did any man any hurt. If you stoop down when you pass through a doorway, if it should be a high one, you will not be hurt by stooping; you might have knocked your head if you had held it up. He who is willing to be nothing, will soon find someone who will make him something, but if he will be something, he shall be nothing, and all men will try to make him less than nothing! Go then, I pray you, as Christian men and women, and speak with the poor and needy. Be kind and affectionate towards all men. Let your Christian life suggest Christian courtesy and Christian charity.
As for you who have never believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, it is useless to recommend you to humility, for how can you get the flower till you have the root? Begin, I pray you, with the root. This is the root of every Christian Grace— faith in Christ! Come to Jesus, today, just as you are. Trust Him with your poor, guilty soul. Believe Him to be both willing and able to save you. Repose your confidence in Him alone. You will then be saved, and being saved with such a salvation, you will bring forth humility as one of the sweet fruits of the Spirit of God, and your end shall be everlasting life, by the Grace of God.