For a brief sermon before the communion service,
let me read verses from 1 Peter 5,
verses 5 and 6.
Likewise ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder.
Yea, all of you be subject one to
another, and be clothed with humility.
For God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace
to the humble.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of
God, that he may exalt you in due
time.
Now this was not specifically chosen for the
morning, but it is the next two verses
succeeding the last passage used here in 1
Peter.
This is a sort of verse-by-verse
preaching from the Bible, and it is appropriate
that we should this Communion Sunday have this
passage which exhorts us to humility and to
be subject one to another.
Now the form of a communion service would
I shock you very much if I said
that the form of a communion service is
probably not of very great importance to God.
I think that God cares very much less
than we suspect for the exact form that
a service is carried out in.
It is the spirit of the worshipper that
means everything.
I think that it would be impossible for
us now at this late age of the
world to discover exactly what happened that night
when our Lord with his disciples broke the
bread and gave it and blessed it and
they did eat.
Various denominations and schools of church thought have
settled on a certain way of having communion.
And occasionally this will be altered after a
generation or two of agitation.
They did it this way for 500 years
and now a very slight modification is made
and the older people who are worried and
saying, what are we coming to?
The younger people can understand it when changes
are made.
Take for instance, it is almost humorous when
even a word or two is suggested to
be changed in the Book of Common Prayer,
the great English prayer book, as if God
cared about that word or two.
As if he cared exactly how communion service
is conducted.
I do not know that I say that
it will ever be exactly known.
We know that the Lord was there with
his disciples.
We know that they sat down and they
took bread and the Lord blessed the bread
and he gave it and then later he
gave the wine.
But it says he broke it and gave
it to them, but it doesn't say how
he gave it to them.
Whether he carried it to them, whether they
came after it, it doesn't say how much
they ate, how much they cooked, whether it
was much or little.
It doesn't say what kind of bread it
was or even what kind of wine it
was.
The point there is not the mode, but
the spirit.
And to approach a communion service anywhere, whether
it is brought to you at your seat
or whether you go and kneel in the
front and take it as we used to
in the early lines, whether it is handed
around in individual cups, I think that is
of the least consideration in heaven.
But the spirit of the worshiper is of
utmost consideration in heaven.
God is not concerned so much with external
things as with our internal parts.
And he says here, be subject one to
another.
Now submission may be a virtue or it
may be a necessity.
An example of submission as a necessity might
be the polls, say, under the heel of
the Communists.
Those proud and strong-willed polls are forced
to submit to the tyranny of Red Russia.
But they're not submitting graciously.
They are submitting under pain of death.
And that kind of submission is not necessarily
a virtue.
It may be good sense, but I doubt
whether it's a virtue.
Now, the kind of submission that comes from
necessity very often embitters men and makes them
sullen and even revengeful.
And if they die without ever getting revenge,
they died with a vengeful spirit.
There is nothing in the Bible, at least
there's nothing in the kingdom of God, about
submission by necessity.
It is all submission by voluntary grace.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, says the
Holy Ghost, and blessed are the meek, and
blessed are the peacemakers, and blessed are you
when men shall persecute you, and so on.
This is submission, voluntary submission.
And this is, of course, a virtuous thing.
When I do not need to submit and
do really submit for Christ's sake, then it's
a virtue.
When I am forced to submit, then it
is a vice, or at least it is
not a virtue.
At best, it is a negative thing.
Now, the Bible says here we are to
be clothed with humility.
Clothed with humility, that's the good, strong, vivid,
biblical figure of speech.
They counted on their virtues as being worn.
It is, as a soldier, by the very
uniform he wears, indicates what he is.
The mailman the same.
He comes up the walk, you're not afraid
of him.
His gray uniform tells you that he's a
servant of the sack.
And it was so in olden times, men
dressed according to their status and place in
society.
And the Holy Ghost here says that we
are to wear the uniform that indicates to
everybody what kind of people we are, to
whom we belong.
We are to be clothed with humility, that
kind of uniform, the uniform of humility.
For you remember that it was Jesus Christ,
our Lord, who dressed himself in humility.
Being in the form of God, he thought
it not robbery to be equal with God,
nor did he consider that being the equality
with God something to be held on to.
But he humbled himself, you know the rest
of the story, down, down, down to the
death on the cross, wherefore God hath highly
exalted him and given him a name which
is above every name.
Now, because Christ came to the world clothed
with humility, he will always be found where
his people are clothed with humility.
He will be found among the humble people.
There is an odd little passage back in
the Song of Solomon that I want to
take notice of right now.
I don't know whether this would stand up
under the rigorous criticism of the Bible expositor
or not.
But at least it is a good illustration,
if it is not sound exposition.
In fact, I don't know how anybody is
going to soundly expound the Song of Solomon.
It's pretty near what you say it means.
Well, the bride is talking, and she says,
I sleep, but my heart waketh.
I wonder if she was dreaming, or if
she was lying in that twilight catnap zone,
halfway in between asleep and awake.
I sleep, but my heart waketh.
It is the voice of my beloved that
knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my
love, my dove, my undefiled, for my head
is filled with dew, and my locks with
the drops of the night.
Now, whether that was a dream, or whether
he was actually there or not, I don't
know.
But she says, I have put off my
coat, how shall I put it on?
I have washed my feet, how shall I
defile them?
But my beloved put his hand in the
hole of the door, and my heart was
moved for him.
I rose up to open to my beloved,
and my hand dropped with myrrh, and my
fingers with sweet-smelling myrrh, upon the handles
of the lock.
Here she was, dressed up nicely and all
fixed up.
And when her beloved, who was out gathering
lilies and myrrh in the garden in the
night, and looking for his sheep, when he
came and called for her, she wasn't plumbed
in a manner that she could go out
and go with him.
She was fixed up and ready for the
night, and all with myrrh, and sweet-smelling
myrrh on her fingers.
Then she said, Too late, I opened to
my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn himself
and was gone, and my soul failed when
he spake.
I sought him, but I could not find
him.
I called him, but he gave me no
answer.
And here was the bride, and the bridegroom
was trying to get in contact with her.
He said, Come on, come on.
He was out among the sheep and out
among the lilies in the cool of the
night with the dew on his hair, and
he wanted her to go with him in
humility and service.
But she said, How can I go?
I put off the garment I would wear
out there, and I am dressed for the
evening at home.
I'm not ready.
And by the time she got ready, he
was gone.
Now, brethren, there is such a thing as
finding Jesus Christ where he is, and not
always expecting him to be where you are,
but finding him where he is.
And he is in the place of humility
always.
He humbled himself, and because he humbled himself,
we ought to humble ourselves.
For always remember this, God is always on
the side of the humble man.
Because, it says here, God resisteth the proud
and giveth grace to the humble.
God resisteth the proud.
Now, in this context, of course, it means
the man who is stubborn in his pride.
God accepts the resistance of the proud man
as being resistance to him.
But it's very rarely, I don't suppose once
in a hundred years, that anybody actually raises
his face to God and says, God, I
resist thee.
God, I defy thee.
I don't think people do it that way
at all.
We defy God by taking a side other
than the side God's on.
We resist God by resisting the side that
God is on, the ways of God.
And when a man resists God, God resisteth
that man.
The man who hardens his jaw against a
Christian, even though he may be right from
point of fact, nevertheless he's wrong in spirit,
and for that reason God resists him.
Many a quarrel, someone will justify himself and
snap his jaws together and the muscles will
stand out on the points of his jaw
and say, but I am right.
Yes, he is right in point of fact,
but wrong in spirit.
And God is more concerned with spirit than
with fact.
More concerned with how you take a thing
than what you take.
More concerned with your reaction to abuse than
the abuse you get.
Much more concerned.
It isn't difficult to abuse a man.
The average fellow with a good flow of
English can usually do a pretty good job
of abusing another.
And some are very eloquent in it.
But it isn't how eloquently you have been
abused, but it is what attitude have you
taken toward the abuse and how is your
spirit in the whole thing.
If your spirit is stubborn and you resist,
then you can only be sure of one
thing, God's resisting you.
Now it doesn't mean that God will take
the side of the other man, but it
just means that God will take sides against
the stubborn man always.
Always.
Because, though I repeat in point of fact,
he may be right.
In his heart he's wrong, and it is
by the heart that man lives.
Now when God resists a man, God resisteth
the proud.
When God resists a man, it won't show
itself in dramatic judgment as rule.
Rarely does God send his judgment dramatically.
It will not be a colorful and public
-wise judgment.
So the public will say, it won't be
that at all.
If it were, then it might be different.
If when a man resists God, God resisted
the man as one soldier another, with blood
and the clash of swords might be something
to think about then.
And a man might learn his lesson quickly,
but it never works that way.
When God resists a man, it is by
a slow inward spiritual degeneration that the judgment
falls.
An inward degeneration, a slow unwillingness, a slow
hardening, until hardness and fruitlessness and joylessness and
cynicism finally take the man over, and he
sours as a jar of fruit sours.
And thus a man literally sours in his
own juice.
Not because he was wrong in point of
fact, maybe, but because he was wrong in
spirit.
Well, it says over against that, God resisted
the proud, but he giveth grace to the
humble.
That is exactly the reverse of resisting.
He giveth grace to the humble.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of
God.
Now, if it were merely under the hand
of God, it would be a relatively easy
thing to do.
If God would say to me, now I'm
coming and I'm going to stand at the
front of the church, and dramatically I'm going
to expect you to come and kneel before
me and humble yourself, that would be very
easy to do, because God being God, nobody
would lose face.
He would feel altogether just as proud as
ever while he knelt before the eternal majesty
on high.
But, oh brethren, God doesn't do it that
way.
God sometimes sends people unworthy to black your
shoes and expects you to humble yourselves meekly
and take it from them, and thus you'll
be humbling yourself under the mighty hand of
God.
Look at our Savior himself.
The lash that fell on the back of
Jesus was not wielded by an archangel, it
was wielded by a Roman pagan soldier.
The abuse that was heaped upon our Savior
was not heaped by the deity or the
multitude of heavenly hosts, it was heaped by
wicked, blasphemous, dirty-tongued men who weren't worthy
to clean the dust from the soles of
his holy shoes.
So by humbling himself under the hand of
men, he humbled himself under the hand of
God.
You say, then, must we always humble ourselves?
The answer is, we must never violate morals
or truth in humility.
If in humbling ourselves it means a compromise
of truth, then we must never do it.
If it means a compromise of morality, we
must never do it.
But when it doesn't mean neither, then it's
perfectly all right.
Old Thomas Aquinas said that if we want
a peace in our hearts and want to
get along all right, we must often humble
ourselves and keep still, not only when we
were wrong, but when we were right.
I think he's right about that, provided, of
course, it doesn't enter the realm of doctrine
or morals.
No man is ever called of God to
degrade himself, morally or in truth, only to
humble himself and to let the other man
through to the rock throne.
Now, it says, if we humble ourselves under
the mighty hand of God, he will exalt
us in due time.
Now, due time here is a pretty good
expression.
He will exalt you in due time.
Due time means a time proper to all
the circumstances, a time best suited to perfect
us, and a time that will bring honor
to God and the most honor to God
and the most good to men.
That is due time.
Sometimes God will make us wait a long,
long time before he will honor us or
exalt us.
He will let us labor under humility quite
a while because it isn't time yet, it
isn't due time.
Teaching a child to drive before it's old
enough, giving it its own money before it's
old enough, giving it freedom before it's old
enough, may come out of kindness, misdirected kindness,
but it'll harm the child.
And to reward a man before he's earned
it will harm the man.
And for God to come to defense of
a saint before the saint has gone through
the fire will harm the saint.
You know that if some of the modern
books on fiction had handled Daniel, the book
of Daniel, we'd have had a vastly different
book.
I can just imagine how some of these,
Ken this or Cliff that or something, that's
writing the fiction of the modern hour, I
can imagine how that would have worked.
The Den of Lions, old, old Daniel.
He wouldn't surrender.
The den was full of lions licking their
chops and driving their angry tails or their
tails angrily.
And Edgar can take care of that.
And there he went into the lion's den.
But just before he entered the lion's den,
every lion dropped dead.
Voice out of the sky spoke and every
lion died.
Or they'd have worked it some other way.
I remember one man who wrote a book
of fiction, both be very great books.
And he, his locale was Canada and the
theme was communism and Christianity.
Some of you may have read it.
Well, he had a man on his hand,
this Christian author, but didn't know what to
do with him.
He had to get rid of him somehow,
just like the other writers, but he couldn't
kill him because he was a Christian.
He didn't, he just couldn't kill him.
You know, the regular writers of fiction, when
they want rid of a character, they just
have somebody to kill him.
But this brother, being a good Christian fundamentalist,
he couldn't kill his character, so what's supposed
to happen?
He had to look out of the dark
and tear him up.
Now I can imagine how these fiction writers
would have handled Daniel, but what happened actually?
Daniel was permitted to enter the den of
lions and stay there all night, because the
night before wasn't the due time.
The next morning was the due time.
Now, I'd like to have our modern fictioneers
also handle the three Hebrew children and the
fiery prince.
Brother, that would make a whole book.
That chapter could be expanded into a 482
-page book with illustrations.
And they also would have had, just before
they went into the furnace, the fire miraculously
went out, or they'd have handled it some
other way.
But that would have been putting the fire
out too soon.
It wasn't due time.
In order that God should have his way,
those saints had to go into the fire
and stay there all night.
You will exalt you in due time, but
remember, it's his time and not yours.
Some of you that are in the fiery
furnace right now don't think that I am
not preaching to some people in the fiery
furnace.
I am.
You'll shake my hand after the service and
you'll smile straight at me and I won't
know who you are, and you won't let
anybody know that you're in the fiery furnace.
And you say, why doesn't God get me
out?
It isn't due time yet.
When it's due time and you've cooked enough,
God will get you out.
But there won't be a smell of smoke
on your garment, and there won't be any
harm done to you.
The only harm can come from your insisting
on God getting you through sooner than he
should.
Relax and take it.
And the Lord will exalt you in due
time.
Always he exalts his people in due time.
Brethren, you can always afford to wait.
Wait is the thing that you can do,
and time is the thing that a saint
has the most of.
A sinner has no time.
He's got to hurry or he'll go to
hell.
But a Christian has eternity.
And you've got all sorts of time.
So if you are in a furnace, don't
try to get through too soon.
Wait it out, and God will exalt you
in due time.
Time proper to the circumstances.
Time properly designed to glorify God and bless
you.
Now I point out that this time is
God's time, and the great weakness of Christians
is insisting upon getting vindicated before the trial's
over.
You let God try you, and when the
trial's over, he'll bring in the verdict, not
guilty.
Now I notice two phrases, one used by
Paul and one used by Peter.
In the fulness of time was used by
Paul, and in due time is used by
Peter.
In the fulness of time has to do
with the coming of Christ, and in due
time has to come with the return of
Christ.
In the fulness of time Christ came, that
he might die.
And in due time he will return.
So we are in between the fulness of
time when he came and due time when
he will return.
I only pray that we may be very
wise in knowing how to conduct ourselves.
And this morning in our communion service, fitting
very graciously into Peter's little exhortation, we celebrate
the time that he came and the time
that he will come.
We do show forth his death till he
come.
This is the interim.
This is the bracket in between yesterday's coming
and tomorrow's coming.
And in the meantime you and I are
to humble ourselves, take a lowly and charitable
attitude toward everybody, friend and foe alike.
And when we do, and as we do,
the Lord will let us bake a while,
and let the fire burn a while in
the bush to get rid of all the
larvae and bugs.
And when he has us properly purified, he
will return.
Or he will exalt us and honor us
even now on the earth before the coming.
But mainly it is reserved for that hour
when the Son of God returns from heaven
above to earth below to reward the saints.
I pray, I pray that we may get
the lesson.
Could we pray again?
O Father, anoint us, Lord, this busy, nervous
age in which we live.
Wheels are under us and wings overhead of
us, but they are not the wings of
angels, but the wheels of the holy chariots
of God.
They are the wheels of Henry Ford and
the wings of Wilbur Wright.
And the buzz and the roar and the
haste and the speed and the excitement, all
of this works against saintliness.
O Lord, in this hour drawn near to
us, even now, O Lord, Thou art here.
Let us adore and own how dreadful is
this place that all within us feel Thy
power and lowly bow before Thy face.
Save us, we pray, from time and civilization
and the cares of this life.
Help us to set our affections on things
above where Christ sits at the right hand
of God.
And as we enter into the communion service,
we pray that we may receive the commune
as becometh saints.
By nature, we're not worthy, but we can
be Christians and in a worthy manner with
reverence and faith and humility celebrate Thy coming
until Thy coming.
The coming that brought salvation until the coming
that brings deliverance and glorifies.
Graciously bless us as we wait in Thy
holy presence.
We ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.