We have been fellowshipping these days in the Book of Proverbs.
We used a verse in Proverbs which says:
Wisdom hath builded her house;
She hath hewn out her seven pillars.
Our wisdom is the Lord Jesus, and He is building His house, His church. As He builds His house, He builds it with seven pillars. These seven pillars represent the sevenfold character of the Lord Jesus.
He wants to deal Himself into us. He wants to transform us according to His image. That is to say, He is to build His character into us, that we may be characterized by Him, by His character. And this is the way He will build His church.
So far, we have covered three pillars:
You will find these things spread all over the Book of Proverbs.
Now this morning, we would like to go into the fourth one, which is the pillar of lowliness, or humility. So let us read a few passages.
Proverbs 11:2
When pride cometh, then cometh shame;
But with the lowly is wisdom.
Proverbs 13:10
By pride cometh only contention;
But with the well-advised is wisdom.
Proverbs 14:29
He that is slow to anger is of great understanding;
But he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.
Proverbs 15:25
The Lord will root up the house of the proud;
But He will establish the border of the widow.
Proverbs 16:5
Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord:
Though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.
Proverbs 16:18-19
Pride goeth before destruction,
And a haughty spirit before a fall.Better it is to be of a lowly spirit with the poor,
Than to divide the spoil with the proud.
Proverbs 18:12
Before destruction the heart of man is haughty;
And before honor goeth humility.
Proverbs 21:4, 24
A high look, and a proud heart,
Even the lamp of the wicked, is sin.A proud and haughty man, scorner is his name,
He worketh in the arrogance of pride.
Proverbs 22:4
The reward of humility and the fear of the Lord
Is riches, and honor, and life.
Proverbs 29:23
A man’s pride shall bring him low;
But he that is of a lowly spirit shall obtain honor.
Our Father, Thou hast spoken in Thy Word, and we ask Thee to speak again by Thy Spirit to every one of us, that we may learn the lesson that Thou dost want us to learn, that Thou mayest be able to build Thyself in us in all lowliness and meekness.
That Thy house may be built, and Thou mayest dwell among Thy people and receive all the praise and the glory. In the name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.
The word lowly, or humble, means the same thing. Lowliness means to lie low, to empty oneself, to take a low place, to think nothing of oneself, not to try to exalt oneself, and not to try to take advantage in order to promote oneself. That is lowliness.
The very opposite of lowliness is pride: haughtiness in spirit, exalting oneself, puffing up, trying to put everyone underneath oneself. That is pride.
Lowliness is more than an action; it is a disposition. Sometimes you may seem to act in a lowly way, but it does not necessarily mean that you have a lowly disposition.
Our Lord Jesus is lowly and meek in heart. When you think of lowliness, you cannot help but think of the Lord, because this is the Spirit of Christ.
In Philippians 2, you find that He, being equal with God, counted it not a thing to be grasped, because He is God. He is the Son of God. He is one with God. And yet, He emptied Himself.
After He had emptied Himself of His glory and of His honor, He took the form of a slave. In the likeness of men, He humbled Himself to God, even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.
The very Spirit of Christ is lowliness. He said:
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.
But lowliness, or humility, is not our natural character. It is natural in man to be proud, arrogant, and haughty.
We may think, if we have nothing, surely we will be lowly; surely we will not be proud. But the paradox of life is that the less you have, the prouder you become. You have to put out something to make yourself feel good.
You cannot afford to be lowly. You cannot afford to be humble. Why? Because if you do, that means you are nothing; you are nobody.
It is only the one who has much who is able to be lowly and meek. Lowliness is not a weakness, as we often think. Lowliness is strength. It is only those who have strength who are able to be meek, lowly, and humble, because they can afford it.
First of all, we have to see that lowliness is not in us naturally. You know, the problem of this universe is in this matter of lowliness—or, rather, in this matter of pride. That is the root of all things.
In 1 Timothy, Paul says that the root of all evils is covetousness, greediness. I agree with him because this is the Word of God. Probably pride is the root of greediness.
Think of the fall of that archangel, Lucifer. God created him with such beauty. God created that angel with such talent. God put him in such a high position. He was the anointed cherub that covered the throne of God.
And yet pride entered into his heart. He was not content to be under God—above all, but under God. He wanted to be equal with God.
Because the spirit of pride entered into him, it turned him into the devil. God did not make the devil. Lucifer, that archangel, made a devil out of himself.
And look at man. When God created man, man was innocent. God put man in the Garden of Eden. God made every provision for man.
Man was free to eat any fruit of the trees except one. He was not allowed to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because in the day that he ate thereof, he would surely die.
On the one hand, it was the love of God that prohibited man from eating that tree. On the other hand, that reminded man that, even if he was above all, he was under One. He was under God.
But how was he tempted? He looked at the tree. It was good to look at. And she was told that if she ate that fruit, she would be wise as God.
The pride of life! “Oh, if you can make me as wise as God, I will be equal with God. I do not need to be under God.” There was no spirit of lowliness, but pride and arrogance. That is the fall of man.
Man rebelled against God because there was pride in man. That is the root of all sins.
So, after the fall of man, brothers and sisters, we who are born of Adam inherited Adam’s life. We inherited that old nature. And in that old nature, you do not find lowliness or humility. You only find pride, arrogance, and haughtiness in the very fibre, in the very makeup of our being.
You will be surprised: the people that you think have nothing to be proud of are often the proudest persons. That is human nature.
Do not think that you are born humble, meek, lowly, and gentle. You may appear to be that way, but suppose some people touch your soft spot. What would happen?
The Bible says that pride brings in contention. Pride brings in anger and destruction.
I remember Brother Nee once giving a message on losing one’s temper. He said, “Why do people lose their temper? What is the reason behind a person losing his temper?” It is pride.
When your pride is touched, when your pride is challenged, when your pride is stepped upon, you lose your temper. By losing your temper, you are just trying to protect yourself, trying to preserve your pride.
So in Proverbs, you find that pride brings in anger.
This is something that is not in us. Lowliness is not in us. So, first of all, we have to acknowledge that lowliness, or humility, is not our natural endowment. We do not have that. It is the Spirit of Christ. It has to come from our Lord, because His very character, His very nature, is lowly and meek.
It is very evident that we do not have humility or lowliness in us. Look at the disciples. Our Lord gathered around Himself twelve disciples.
When the Lord called them, they left everything to follow the Lord. They loved the Lord to such an extent that they were willing to forsake all things in order to be attached to the Lord.
They must have been beautiful people. They had given up so much just to follow the Lord. They must have been very spiritual.
And yet, you find among these disciples how often they quarrelled with one another over one thing: who was the greatest among the twelve? Everybody wanted to be the greatest.
They did not know humility. They did not know lowliness. There was haughtiness of spirit. How often they quarrelled among themselves. Even toward the very end, our Lord Jesus was going to the cross; He was to be crucified, and He tried to share with them what would happen. Even at that very moment, they were still arguing among themselves who was the greatest.
You remember once our Lord Jesus, knowing what they were arguing about, took a little child and put him in their midst. He said:
Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
But they did not learn.
You remember that night before our Lord Jesus was to be betrayed. He had His last Passover feast with His disciples as a family. They entered into that upper room, and everything was ready for the Passover. But, strangely, there was no maid to wash their feet.
The water was there. The basin was there. The towel was there. The food was there. Everything was there but the maid.
I believe that the Lord prearranged that. I believe that the Lord told the host or hostess, “Prepare everything, but do not have the maid there,” because the Lord was going to teach His disciples a lesson.
They all came into that room, and of course, being Jews and according to the custom of those days, when you entered into a house to have a feast, you expected to have your feet washed first, to be refreshed so that you could enjoy the feast. So they entered into that room, and they saw no maid.
They looked at one another. “No maid? The basin was there, the water was there, the towel was there—no maid! What a terrible mistake the host had made!”
So reluctantly they all went to their seats. They reclined around the table. Everybody felt uncomfortable, but nobody even thought of doing something.
The Lord watched them. I think it was very amusing. The Lord just watched them. He sat down with them and watched. Nothing happened.
So the Lord stood up. He girded Himself with a towel. He poured water into the basin, and He began to wash His disciples’ feet.
To wash one’s feet, you have to take a very lowly position. You have to kneel down. You have to bow down in order to wash a person’s feet.
Nobody wanted to take that position. Everybody felt that he was too dignified, too worthy, to do such a lowly thing. But the Lord knelt before His disciples, bowed before His disciples, and washed their feet.
After He finished, He sat down with them and said, “Do you know what I have done? I am your Lord. I am your Master. But I washed your feet. Wash ye one another’s feet.”
Of course, it is a lesson of love: “Love ye one another.” But one of the elements that make up love is lowliness. One expression of love is lowliness.
So here you find that, even toward the very end, lowliness of heart was not a quality of man. The Lord was trying to build His character into the character of these disciples, and the Lord is doing the same thing with us today.
He is trying to build His character into us. But how?
I believe the way that the Lord is trying to build His character into us comes by the combination of two things.
First, we have the life of Christ in us. This new life of Christ is a lowly life. In other words, it has lowliness in its very nature.
Therefore, as we walk with the Lord, from time to time the Holy Spirit within us illumines us. The Holy Spirit who dwells in us will teach us, expose us, and reveal to us what we are.
You know, the reason why we have no lowliness is, first, we do not know ourselves; and second, we do not know God. We do not know God, and we do not know ourselves.
The only way to know ourselves is to know God, because in His light shall we see light. You cannot see yourself without the light of God.
Without God as your light, when you see yourself, you see yourself as more than you really are, and also less than you really are—more glorious than you are. We always have high thoughts of ourselves. As the Bible says, “Be not high-minded.” We are high-minded. We think of ourselves more than we are in the sight of God.
But when we begin to know God, the more we know God, the more the light of God shines upon us. The more we are in His light, the more we are exposed by God, and we begin to know ourselves.
Take, for example, Job. Job was a perfect man. He was upright. He feared God and eschewed evil. In every sense, he was perfect.
But there was one thing in him: there was pride in him. He was proud of his being perfect.
That was the one thing he could not bear when people tried to argue with him. When his friends came to him and said, “You are not perfect. The reason why you suffer so much is because there must be some secret sin, and it must be a big sin too,” his friends misunderstood him. He did not have a secret sin.
When he was falsely accused by his friends that he must have some hidden grievous sin in him and should confess, he grew angry. He was patient in bearing all his pain and suffering, scratching his sores; he was able to bear it. But when his friends began to accuse him falsely that he was not as perfect as he thought he was, he lost his temper.
“I am perfect. I know I am perfect. If only God could be here, I would stand before Him and let Him show me where I am imperfect.”
Self-righteousness—pride in his own perfection.
God did not argue with him. God just revealed Himself to him. And when God revealed Himself to Job, Job said:
I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear;
But now mine eye seeth Thee:
Wherefore I abhor myself,
And repent in dust and ashes.
You can be proud if you have only heard of Him. But now, when you have seen Him, you cannot be proud anymore.
Brothers and sisters, humility and lowliness come from a seeing of God. When you see Him, you begin to see yourself. Even if you try to be proud, it just cannot work up. It is like a tire that is pinched: the air is out, and it breaks down.
So, brothers and sisters, how can we be of a lowly and meek spirit? We need illumination by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, from time to time, will bring to us a revelation of God. In that light, we begin to see ourselves. It humbles us. It humbles us.
But that is only one side. The other side is what we call the discipline of the Holy Spirit.
Not only will the Holy Spirit who dwells in us teach us and reveal Christ to us, so that we are humbled before Him, but the Holy Spirit will also arrange our circumstances to humble us—sometimes to humiliate us.
You know, brothers and sisters, because we are so proud in our nature, God wants to work His lowliness into us. How? He has to raise up circumstances. He has to bring you through certain experiences.
Sometimes these experiences are highly humiliating. You are humiliated, and that is one thing we hate. We do not want to be humiliated.
Sometimes God has to allow us to be humiliated. Why? Because He wants us to be humble. If we are not humiliated, we refuse to be humble.
Our Lord Jesus is so humble that He is beyond humiliation. You cannot humiliate Him. Why? Because He is so humble.
But we are not beyond humiliation. We need to be humiliated sometimes. It is a painful experience. We fight against it, resist it, resent it, and get angry. We do not want to be humiliated.
But, brothers and sisters, if we are still not beyond humiliation, our humility is in question.
You can put the Lord Jesus on the cross. You can try to humiliate Him. But He is beyond humiliation.
He is not affected evilly in any way. People may cry to Him, “Now, if Thou art the Son of God, come down, and then we will believe Thee.” They tried to humiliate Him.
The Lord accepted it with a spirit of humbleness. As the Bible says:
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.
Because He was humiliated, He did not try to speak for Himself. He did not try to do something to vindicate Himself. He just humbled Himself under the mighty hand of God: “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.”
And in due time, He was exalted.
Brothers and sisters, nothing happens to us by accident. Do not blame men as if they have brought it upon us. By all appearances, they do. But it is the Holy Spirit who is ordering everything in order to bring you into humility.
The humility of Christ is to be built into you. During the process of its being built into you, there is pain. It is the growing pain of life.
Oh, dear brothers and sisters, if you can see this, you can see the love of the Father even in the most adverse situation. The Lord is trying to build Himself into you, that you may have lowliness in your spirit.
“I am nothing. I cannot do anything. I take no account of myself. I can afford to be neglected, to be forgotten.”
I remember Andrew Murray said, “What is humility? Humility is not thinking less of yourself; humility is not thinking of yourself.”
Sometimes we think being humble means thinking less of yourself. Actually, you think you are great, but you try to think less of yourself. You think that is humble. But all the time you think less of self, you remind yourself that you think less of yourself.
Humility is that you do not think of yourself. Selflessness. Selflessness. This is what the Lord is trying to build in us.
Not only in the Book of Proverbs do we find that to be lowly is wisdom. To the lowly there are honor, riches, and life. Pride is an abomination in the sight of God. Pride comes before a fall, and haughtiness before destruction. But whoever is lowly is wise.
Not only do we find this in the Old Testament, in Proverbs; when you come to the New Testament, you find that we are often exhorted to be lowly.
In the Sermon on the Mount, in the Beatitudes, the first word is:
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the poor in spirit. In your spirit, there is humility; there is lowliness. Not because you have nothing in your spirit, but because you have much. Therefore, you can be poor in spirit.
You are happy. You are very rich, because the kingdom of heaven is yours.
We have already said that in Matthew 18 the Lord said that unless you humble yourself as a little child, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. He who humbles himself as a little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. I hope that word will register with us.
You find in Romans 12 that we are again exhorted:
Be of the same mind one toward another. Set not your mind on high things, but condescend to things that are lowly. Be not wise in your own conceits.
Learn to be lowly, not to be high-minded, as if all the others are beneath your dignity. Go along with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own eyes.
In Ephesians 4, Paul says:
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called,
With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
Giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Lowliness is not only the secret of God’s blessing, spiritual riches, honor, and life. Lowliness is the secret of being united with your brothers and sisters.
How can we maintain the unity of the Spirit? With all lowliness and meekness. It is the secret of being knit together and joined together.
In Colossians 3, you find the same thing:
Put on therefore, as God’s elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering;
Forbearing one another, and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint against any; even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye.
And then in 1 Peter 5, Peter exhorts:
Likewise, ye younger, be subject unto the elder. Yea, all of you gird yourselves with humility, to serve one another: for God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.
What is God’s attitude toward the proud? God sets Himself against the proud. What is God’s attitude toward those who are humble? To the humble, He gives grace. He gives Himself.
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time; casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He careth for you.
So, brothers and sisters, we are exhorted to learn to be humble. But, as I said before, we cannot do it.
You may try to be humble. You may hunch your back and try to be humble, but there in your heart you rise even higher. It is not an outward thing. You may try to do a lowly, humble act, but that is not it. It is a character.
The life of Christ in you is a lowly and meek life. If you learn to walk with Him, and if you are willing to accept the cross, you will find that the Holy Spirit will develop that nature of lowliness—the life of Christ in you—until you are characterized by lowliness.
You cannot pretend. It must be Christ, Christ formed and developed in you.
Then, brothers and sisters, when it becomes a disposition, you do not even think of lowliness. It is lowliness.
If you have to think about being lowly, there is not lowliness yet. But when you do not even think of it, it just becomes so supernaturally natural. It has become a disposition.
Brothers and sisters, this is one of the pillars that God wants to build in this house. So may the Lord have mercy upon us.
Our heavenly Father, we do praise and thank Thee that Thou hast put Thy Son’s life in us. The very nature of that life is humble, lowly, and meek.
O Lord, how we praise and thank Thee that there is this potential in us. We do desire to see that being developed into a character that characterizes us. But, Lord, Thou hast to do it.
We just hand ourselves over to Thee and pray that Thou wilt illumine us from within, and Thou wilt discipline us from without. We are willing to deny ourselves by Thy grace, take up our cross, and follow Thee.
Let Thee work Thyself into us and work Thyself out from us. To Thee be all the praise and the glory, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.