We ask you Lord to please be with
us now, take the service and let it
be in your hands.
Amen.
In 1 Peter chapter 5 we find our
text.
From verse 5 to 11.
Likewise you younger people submit yourselves to your
elders.
Yes, all of you be submissive to one
another and be clothed with humility for God
resists the proud but gives grace to the
humble.
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of
God that he may exalt you in due
time.
Casting all your care upon him for he
cares for you.
Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary the
devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking
whom he may devour.
Resist him steadfast in the faith knowing that
the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood
in the world.
But may the God of all grace who
called us to his eternal glory by Christ
Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect,
establish, strengthen and settle you.
To him be the glory and the dominion
forever and ever.
Amen.
Now this contains so much.
We can never hope to finish this off
even in a day.
We would need many days to go into
it.
But I would like to highlight four particular
points or subjects from this text.
The first point being humility.
Humbling yourself under the mighty hand of God.
Humbling yourself, submission is no small thing.
In the life of a child of God
there is no beauty as attractive as that
child of God being clothed with humility.
A person who is humble and submissive brings
about a sweet fragrance.
For God resists the proud.
Pride is the very first thing about the
devil.
Haughtiness takes a person and makes him to
belong in the devil's camp.
So that that person becomes one of Satan's
indeed.
But if you can humble yourself you are
a child of God.
A true child of God.
By lifting yourself up, exalting yourself, self
exaltation took Lucifer from being an angel to
making him into a devil.
Satan walked amongst the burning stones.
And he said to himself, I want to
be like God.
Through pride, through haughtiness, the first human beings
became children of Satan.
Adam and them.
For Satan had whispered to them, look, if
you take of this fruit you will be
like God.
Understand that haughtiness, puffing yourself up is a
wicked thing.
God has declared that he who exalts himself
will be brought low.
But he who humbles himself will be exalted
by God.
Even if we are in the kingdom of
Satan, but by humbling ourselves we find ourselves
in the kingdom of God.
And we will live and abide in God's
kingdom.
I don't know why a person made just
of dust can be proud about himself.
I remember clearly that when the Lord was
about to send revival as he was dealing
with me, the very first thing was my
pride.
When I saw clearly that God does resist
the proud.
You can make no progress if God himself
is against you.
Satan is
wicked,
he fights against and attacks the children of
God, but there is no enemy worse than
having God as your enemy.
Even if demons fill the whole earth, if
the Lord is with them, Satan will not
succeed.
So let's be especially careful of the sin
of pride because that haughtiness stops you from
repenting.
It makes you incapable of confessing your sin.
So let each one of us humble ourselves
beneath the mighty hand of God.
This sin has been around for a long
time, even among nations where one nation rises
and pushes itself up against another nation.
Heaven is a terrible place.
Because with many, even if God gave them
permission to go into heaven, they would run
out quicker than they had gone in.
For in heaven, the least here on earth
is the greatest up there.
And the greatest on earth is the least
in heaven.
And Jesus said on the day of judgment,
he'll take the one who is the very
lowest of the low in your eyes and
say to you, what you've done to him,
you've done to me personally.
A certain very wealthy lady who had a
very high position arrived in heaven and having
got there, she saw another lady, a black
lady in a mansion or house
bigger than the one she had on earth.
And as the story goes, when she was
shown her accommodation in heaven, it was just
like a hovel of an old aged home.
Like the shanty of that black woman here.
She said, no Lord, there's some mistake here.
And she said, Lord, I was far more
important and surely my dignity deserves something more
becoming to me.
But the Lord said, hey, you're not on
earth, you're in heaven here.
And the least on earth is the greatest
in heaven and vice versa.
Now that was a dream that that rich
lady had.
That dream turned her around.
Her life was radically changed.
She said, Lord, from now on, I want
to live as the least, not the first.
Do you see why I say that heaven
is a terrible place for many?
It will be so awful that they will
flee as quick as they can like rats
scurry out of a shed.
So pray and say, Lord, make me to
be the least of all.
So that even when I'm speaking to others,
I won't come across as being one who
is exalted and better than they are, but
be the least.
I don't know whether you really understand this.
The trouble is that people come into the
service and demons must be in their ears
because they listen, but they go out and
one wonders, what have they heard?
And here in this text of Peter's, it
says, if you clothe yourself with humility, you
humble yourself, you will receive grace.
No one can enter into heaven except by
the grace of God.
There is no salvation outside of the grace
of God.
But who receives grace?
It is the one who humbles himself, who
lowers themselves to be submissive to all.
What is grace?
One who receives grace receives with it the
forgiveness and the cleansing from sin, and with
it the liberation from sin.
That person who humbles himself, he receives grace.
And no one in this world receives grace
without humbling themselves.
You see, it is difficult for a person
to admit that they are a sinner.
Remember Jesus spoke about the two who went
into the temple, the one was a Pharisee
and the one was a publican.
The Pharisee went straight to the front and
looking upwards he said, Lord, I thank you
that I am not like this tax collector
there at the back.
He is a thief.
He is immoral.
He swears.
But Lord, thankfully I don't do what he
does.
Here was this amazing Pharisee, he didn't drink,
he didn't do all these bad things.
He said, I am innocent of those terrible
sins.
He was a good man who doesn't flirt
around with other women.
Without lustful thoughts.
He said, I thank you God, for I
am not like that type of person.
But the tax collector creeping in at the
back, he beat his chest in remorse and
he said, Oh God, be merciful to me,
a sinner.
And he received grace.
And Jesus said, that tax collector left the
temple justified but the Pharisee went out with
his guilt.
Very difficult to humble yourself, to lower yourself
to admitting your sin.
This peacock spirit of pride in the heart.
Just to say, I have sinned.
But if it does.
But pride manages to apologize and keep its
pride by saying, well, I did sin, but
the reason is, and then the person justifies
what they've done.
Whereas it shows their real wickedness, a true,
truly humble person will not gather up excuses.
You heap sin upon sin.
If while you're saying, Lord, I have sinned,
you say, but these were the circumstances.
This is what pushed me into it.
You will just add to your sin.
But the one who admits completely and says,
I have sinned and doesn't bring about, bring
any excuse.
That one receives justification.
It is nonsense
for
a person to say, I've received grace.
I've got it.
If they have this pride.
If they haven't said that they really are
what they are and humble themselves.
Do you know what it is to humble
yourself, to cast yourself down, to lower yourself?
Now I'm going quickly on to the next
point.
When you humble yourself, you find that your
cares disappear.
For he says here, take all your cares
and cast them upon him.
When you see the face of a little
child, you see an expression of innocence.
It's carefree.
It doesn't carry anxieties.
And that's why there's the expression.
It's wonderful to be like a child.
And the one who humbles himself will find
riddance of their cares.
The problem is it's written upon our faces,
our anxieties.
What will I eat?
What will I drink?
Where will I get clothing?
I have no shoes.
I'm troubled.
Those are your cares.
Why?
Because that person is not willing to humble
themselves enough to trust in God to take
all their cares.
Cares are troublesome.
When you humble yourself, you find that your
cares disappear.
For he says here, take all your cares
and cast them upon him.
The wage earner says, how am I going
to make ends meet?
The end of the month is here and
I'm just into debt already.
The farmer says, where am I going to
get the rain from?
It's dry.
I've planted my crops.
Oh, there's too much rain.
That farmer acts as if the weather was
under his control.
Another person becomes so troubled because of the
cares of lack of goods in the house.
There's no furniture.
There's no table.
And they are then drawn into the sin
of stealing.
Some will even sell their bodies, prostitute themselves
to bring in money to buy goods for
the family.
And it brings in things that are an
abomination to God and the family.
But a child is carefree.
It knows, I can leave everything over to
my father, to my mother.
My parents will see to it.
Now we have a heavenly father and he
cares for us.
We mustn't try and lift ourselves up to
the level of God and act as if
all things are under our control.
Then the final point
is
that the person who humbles himself gets victory
from God over Satan.
It says in verse 8, be sober, be
vigilant because your adversary the devil walks about
like a roaring lion seeking whom he may
devour.
At the end of verse 10 it says,
after you have suffered a little, even if
you suffer, he will make you
as it says in verse 10, perfect, establish,
strengthen and settle you.
If you humble yourself, God will give you
victory over Satan and sin and death.
Some are very troubled, they say, well I'm
growing old now, how am I going to
die?
That's their anxiety.
And then another person is simply a slave
of sin.
Just look at the wickedness, the stealing, the
misery, the jails overflowing with people.
You can conquer all of that, there is
no sin that cannot be conquered.
Even Satan himself has no power to touch
your life because he is restrained by God
as you humble yourself beneath God's hand.
Today we are offered the secret, this is
the key to revival.
Humbling yourself, there is nothing that cannot be
conquered through humility.
So the first point, where God says, if
you humble yourself you will receive grace.
Even there where sin is powerful, God's grace
is much more powerful and abundant.
Even if you are under a load of
sin, say God I have sinned, forgive me,
you will find grace.
And don't be pharisaical about it.
A certain preacher went to visit an old
white lady in hospital.
When he walked into the ward, she was
so frail that she couldn't even shake hands,
she couldn't move.
And everybody saw that she was dying.
The preacher thought, well let me see her
quickly before she dies.
And then when she saw the preacher come
in, she said with a very faint trembling
voice, She says, oh I'm such a big
sinner.
There's no sinner like me in this world.
Why is that Tumfundis?
Oh so it's true what I heard about
you.
That's what the preacher said.
That old lady sat up in bed and
demanded, who's been spreading rumors about me?
What has been said?
Why is that?
And the preacher said, well I've heard you
say that you're a sinner more than all
the others, that you're the greatest of sinners.
I couldn't believe it, but I've heard it
from you, so it must be true what
I've heard.
A confession of sin like that is simply
pretense, hypocritical.
You're just remaining and clinging on to your
sin if you confess like that.
Her next words should have been rather, preacher,
you're right, I am a dreadful sinner.
You're
right,
I am a dreadful sinner.
Paul even as a mature Christian, an apostle,
a leader in the church, said before the
others in the church, I am the chief
of sinners.
I'm not worthy to be an apostle.
He says, for I persecuted the church.
You see what true humility is about?
And all that I've got is just the
grace of God.
So if you're a sinner, ask yourself, am
I truly remorseful?
Do I truly admit what I am, or
am I just messing around, being light-hearted,
or just playing around?
Do
I
truly
admit what I am, or am I just
messing around, being light-hearted, or just playing
around?
And you'll find that this is the answer
for your cares and anxieties.
They just melt away as you humble yourself.
This is a service for humiliation in that
you humble yourself.
Do it before you leave the service.
And humbling yourself brings you victory.
The Lord gives you victory over Satan, demons,
and your own sin.
If you find that you're not being victorious,
it's because pride still resides in you.
Next Sunday, I
will be preaching the Lord willing in Romania,
and they've asked me to speak about being
a victorious Christian.
And as I read this text, I said,
Lord, this is the answer.
This is what I can share with those
people in Romania.
This is how to be a true victor.
Now I close.
Is there still pride in you?
If there is, cry to God that he
would help you.
For if there is still pride, God remains
your enemy.
Shall we bow our heads?
We thank you, Lord, that we could hear
your word.
Lord, you've said to us today that we
have to be clothed with humility, humbling ourselves
underneath your mighty hand.
Not excusing ourselves.
Not protecting ourselves.
But truly humbling ourselves, admitting what we are,
saying, oh God, I am a sinner, so
that we might receive grace from thee.
And Lord, you have promised that if we
humble ourselves beneath your hand, you will lift
us up.
You will lift us up in forgiving us
our sins.
In washing us with your blood to be
snow white.
You lift us up in removing all our
anxieties.
Lord, grant that there wouldn't be a fool
in our midst who says I can't humble
myself.
But instead, may each one lower themselves, be
the least, humble themselves to receive mercy from
the oh God.
Lord, we've heard how being proud puts us
into Satan's camp.
Our haughtiness makes us to belong to Satan.
But Lord, we thank you that you have
shown us the way to receive grace.
Amen.