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{The Application
Application for the Godly
Directions for Carrying On a Constant Holy Course of Life
Put Yourselves in Upright Condition
Be Humble}
Be humble. Keep your hearts low. Be low in your own eyes. Do not think of yourselves above what is fitting. Also be content to be low in the eyes of others; this is the harder lesson of the two. There is many a person who is so conscious of his own poverty and worthlessness that, even if he wished, he cannot have high thoughts of himself. But he desires, like Saul, to be honored before people (1 Samuel 15:30). Take heed of an inordinate desire for esteem by others. While you pretend only to seek a good name, take heed of the affectation of a great name. Paul considered himself the least of saints. Be content if others count you also to be the least of saints.
While others are ambitious, like Simon (Acts 8:9), to be deemed to be somebody, you must be willing to be deemed nobody. Let whoever wants to be counted among the world’s great ones do so, but let it be enough for you to be counted among God’s little ones. If the Lord has lifted you up, take heed of lifting yourselves up. Your work is to abase yourselves, and then let God alone exalt you.
Pride is a pernicious enemy and it is one of the last enemies a Christian is able to conquer. It is an insidious and dangerously harmful enemy that casts us out of the hearts of God and people. God resists, and people despise, the proud. Although he is his own idol, a proud person is the scorn of others.337 Pride deprives us of spiritual comfort, spoils duty, and keeps us barren. A proud person is like the high mountains: there is little good that grows there; the lower ground is more fruitful. The proud person is like Israel, an unprofitable vine. “Israel is a luxuriant [or degenerate] vine; he produces fruit for himself. The more his fruit, the more altars he made; the richer his land, the better he made the sacred pillars” (Hosea 10:1 NASB). A proud person is empty for God; all his fruit is produced for himself.
A humble Christian has this advantage in his duties: he has nobody to please except God. Let God accept me, and let others think of me what they want. A proud person has his lust to please and the eyes and ears of others to gratify. God and his soul can have only a little of him since he has so many others to impress. Pride blasts all of the little good with which it is mingled. It is the fly in the ointment (Ecclesiastes 10:1). Christian, if you have nothing else to keep you humble, your pride might do it, and will do so if you duly lay it to heart.
Pride is one of the last enemies, and besides this, it is the longest lived with which a Christian must deal. It will rise up out of the ashes and ruins of other lusts. It is not unusual when people are proud that they are not covetous, spendthrifts, or intemperate. Yes indeed, it sometimes rises up out of its own ashes: people may be proud of their humility, proud that they are not so proud as they have been. And can you be too watchful against such an enemy?
Be humble Christians. Be humble if you wish to be holy. Humility is of the essence of the new creature. One is not a Christian who is not humble (Micah 6:8, James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5).
And yet, oh how much of this pride do too many of us have, pride of which we ought to accuse ourselves? Our eyes are so much on ourselves and so little on God in all we do. We are so tender and so touchy at anything that reflects on ourselves and so little moved by any dishonor to God. We may even abase ourselves in order to be exalted. When we confess to others the pride of our hearts, do we not sometimes hope that the way in which we do it will do more to advance our reputation than the revelation of the evil will impair our reputation? When we acknowledge our evils, we hope that we will not be believed. We cannot bear to be reproved or to hear from the mouth of another what our own mouths testify against us. We love to speak in our own praise, or if we have more wit than to be vainly boasting about ourselves, we still love to hear ourselves commended by others. We are envious of those who outshine us and so stand in the way of our reputation. We are so intolerant of being contradicted that that those who are not of our opinion are not of our company. Do not our habits, appearance, company, behavior, and the distance we keep from those below us sadly uncover what is in our hearts? Oh brethren, how is it that our hearts do not tremble more to behold this monstrous, devilish sin appearing in us? How can we take comfort in the best of all our life activities, duties, or enjoyments when they are so stained with this pride? With respect to any true worth that is in us or anything we do, pride is as a blister or carbuncle338 to a beautiful face. How is it that we do not often question whether such a measure of pride as we find in ourselves can be consistent with true grace. How is it that we are not more ashamed to draw near to God when our hearts tell us how false we have been to him in all our services?339 What an image of jealousy we have set up (Ezekiel 8:3–5), another god besides the Lord. We let this god, pride, have a share of everything that we have received from the Lord and of the fruit growing from the Lord’s gifts to us.
Christian, labor to know yourself more thoroughly. Among all the lusts of your heart that might bring you low if found and understood, take particular notice of this: your self-exalting spirit. And if this does not abase you, shame you, and lay your honor in the dust, then you are proud indeed.
337It is a sad indicator of the moral state of contemporary America that, in many cases, being proud and boastful is actually a cause of some people’s esteem for proud and boastful celebrities.
338carbuncle: a large infection similar to a boil, but with multiple sites of pus discharge and often tissue necrosis.
339Let such shame never for an instant deter the true believer from going boldly to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16) for forgiveness on the basis of the merit and sacrifice of Him who bore our shame and sin (Hebrews 12:2). Thus, knowing that he is forgiven, the believer can draw near to God in confidence (Hebrews 10:22).
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