The Spurgeon Blog

In praying for revival each person that prays has some idea of God that drives him or her and some reason for wanting revival to occur. The question, however, is whether our idea of God is correct and whether our desire for revival accurately reflects the nature of God. If we think of God as essentially mean, sour, and severe then we think He would be reluctant to send revival. That is a different idea of God than One who lives in perfect pleasure within the Trinity and loves to see His glory manifested. That would bring the issue back to our own hearts. Perhaps human beings have to be conformed to His image for Him to send revival through us. Perhaps revival is not something that God is reluctant to send, but perhaps we are not like Him “enough” for Him to work His true glory through.

Isaiah 66:4 tells us that it is sin to choose that which God does not delight in: “So I will choose their punishments And will bring on them what they dread. Because I called, but no one answered; I spoke, but they did not listen. And they did evil in My sight And chose that in which I did not delight.” On the other hand, Psalm 37:4 commands us to “Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart.” We are commanded here and in many places to rejoice in Him and delight ourselves in Him. Are we to rejoice in a God who has no capacity for rejoicing in Himself? Can we really delight ourselves in God if He is morose and sullen Himself?

We must come to understand that God is a God that does as He pleases (Psa 115:3). In the context of the text this is what it means to be God. Not only does He do all that He wants, but He does all He is pleased to do. If God does all He is pleased to do, then He is pleased with all that He does. He tells us that part of His glory is to be gracious to whom He will be gracious (Exodus 33:18-4:7). He shows grace and saves sinners to the good pleasure of His will to the praise of the glory of His grace (Eph 1:5-14). God will send revival when it is His pleasure to do so. While the Lord hides behind frowning providences at times, our faith must learn to pierce the dark clouds and rest in the God who does all for His own pleasure. Scripture tells us that God has delight and pleasure in His Beloved Son (Mat 3:17), that the Son is the tabernacle of His glory (John 1:14), and is the shining forth of His glory (Heb 1:3). It is the very pleasure of God to shine forth His glory in Christ Jesus because He loves the Son who is the shining forth of His glory. Therefore, God will not be pleased to send revival until His people learn to seek Him for the emptiness of self needed to preach Christ crucified rather than themselves. He will not send a revival of His pleasure and glory until His people are humbled so that Christ will shine forth in them. That is His work of pleasure in them.

Until souls are praying with a true desire for His glory in the face of Christ (II Cor 4:4-6) they will not be praying out of love for the Gospel. Until souls love God enough that they want Him to be pleased and for His pleasure to be done, they will not be praying for revival with a heart that has the same reason that God will send revival. When we pray for revival we are to pray for what is the pleasure of God. It is not that God hates revival and it is not that He is neutral about the things we pray for. Rather than that, it is His pleasure to shine forth His glory in Jesus Christ and it is His pleasure to save souls to the praise of the glory of His grace.

We are told that whatever we do we are to do to the glory of God (I Cor 10:31) which is to say that we are to live to the pleasure of God. Instead of finding pleasure in the world, we are to find pleasure in His pleasure. This means we should seek revival simply because we seek His pleasure in Christ. We are to deny the sinful self in order to seek the pleasure of God which should be the pleasure of our spiritual self. If our spiritual self is what receives all from Him and is like Him, then we should have our greatest delight in spiritual things. Revival is God shining forth His glory in Christ and so spiritual things become the true delights of His people. Prayer is no longer a burden but a delight because it is a joy to seek those things which please the Father. Longer prayer becomes more joy. Colossians 1:19 tells us that it was “the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him.” Galatians 2:20 says Christ is our life. Psalm 149:4 tells us that “the LORD takes pleasure in His people.” Philippians 2:13 says that “it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” When God begins to work in His people to truly pray and seek revival, His good pleasure is working in them. When God shines out and manifests His glory in Christ to the delight and pleasure of His people, revival will be close if not here. Let us pray to hasten that day.

In the previous BLOG we looked at how pride/self is the heart of sin. It is the soul’s desire to be god to itself and to do all it does in its own power guided by its own wisdom. Humility is what the soul needs in order to be an instrument of God. However, as one thinks back through all the passages of Scripture it appears that Jesus saved His worst or harshest words for the Pharisees and some of His kindest words for those coming out of deep sin. The Pharisees were very religious and stringent in their writing and keeping of laws, yet Jesus called them hard names and directed His hardest teachings toward them. It would see that a proud heart in religion is even worse than a proud heart given over to open sin. One would think that Jesus would not be as hard on the religious people, but instead He was even harder on them. In modern language, what is up with that?

It seems counterintuitive that very religious people are worse than open sinners to Jesus in some way. But if we come to understand that pride is the heart and the fountain of sin, even making a person like the devil, then this opens a door to understanding the issue. This shows the utter necessity of a heart being changed and the life of humility being in the soul. It is not the religion and it is not the external works that God is pleased with, but it is a matter of the heart. The external sin is still not the worst of sin, but it is the degree of pride in the heart. So a person that prays thinking that it is a way to please God has a high level of the wickedness of pride to do so. Those who live in external sin do in fact sin against God, but they don’t assume that God is pleased with them and their actions. Those with pride in their religion not only displease God with their actions because they are not from Him, but their hearts are far from Him and they are proud of what they are doing and of their sin.

Another thing to consider is that the Pharisees thought of themselves as teachers. Indeed they taught, and even things about the Bible, but they did not teach the truth of God. They taught their own reprehensible system of trying to please God in their own strength by keeping the laws that they had set up. This is seen in Matthew 25:2. When a person uses the Bible to teach his own morality and religion rather than God’s, this is an attack on God Himself. It is to use His Law to set up one’s own law. It is to use His Word to establish one’s own word. It is to use His authority to establish one’s own authority. This is what a proud heart does. The humble heart wants to know what God’s morality and religion truly are and would tremble that others follow it rather than God. The humble heart wants people to follow God’s law and would tremble to change the least part of His law. The humble heart is established on the authority of God and only wants others to bow to His authority.

Another principle that is involved in this is that teachers will be judged with a harder judgment. What we see, then, is that those who claim to speak for God need to speak accurately or they misrepresent God. Those who claim religion in some way represent God and those who are leaders teach in a way that represents God. A proud heart that tries to represent God is actually trying to represent God by the heart and mind of the devil (pride). Teachers and preachers who try to teach about God and yet do so with a proud heart are serving themselves in the place of God and represent the devil teaching Eve about God. A proud heart is in no condition to take the covenant of God and try to teach about it. A proud heart has no business trying to speak of a humble Messiah. A proud heart knows next to nothing in reality about God and is doing the work of the devil. A proud soul takes the law of God and turns it into what the devil wants it to be. A proud soul teaches morality just like the devil wants it to be. A proud soul tries to establish the religion of the devil in the name of God. A proud soul uses the name of authority in an effort to establish its own authority which is the authority of the devil.

Christianity is the heart of true religion because in it the truth and glory of God are manifested in and through Jesus Christ. Christianity is the heart of true religion because it has the message of the glory of God and the Church is the very body of Christ to the world. A proud heart knows nothing of the truth of these things and whether the person tries to or not a proud heart is the devil’s effort at gaining control of a church and of the message of the glory of God. The devil can use a proud heart to deceive others about the Gospel. The devil can use a proud heart to distort the truth of the real God. The devil uses proud hearts to gain the service of many who think they are serving God.

There is no wonder that God hates the proud who are religious more than those who are simply openly sinning. Humility, then, is not just something extra, it is utterly vital in order to have the truth of God in the soul and for the establishment of true Christianity. God does oppose the proud even in their religion (ask the Pharisees), but He gives grace to the humble. The humble have God dwelling in them so He sees His own glory in them.

The last BLOG ended with some discussion over the root and heart of sin based on Genesis 3:5. It is the promise that Satan made to Eve and which she bought into. It was promised to her by Satan that she would be like God. The desire to be like God is pride and in some sense it is the root of all sin. It can be seen in Romans 1:18-32 very clearly. Much of the battle in the human heart is over who will rule over and in it. The battle, then, has to do with pride and humility. The proud heart wants to deny that which it does not love and so it suppresses the truth about itself and about God in unrighteousness (Rom 1:18). Verse 19 goes on to say that is true “because that which is known about God is evident within them.” Creation itself puts enough of the very character of God on display to render all without excuse. In light of that, the suppression of the truth (v. 18) occurs in the heart of man in suppressing the truth about God and not honoring Him as God or in giving thanks.

The very lie of Satan (be as God) is brought out and displayed by human beings who do not want this God to be over them and instead they want to run and rule their own lives which they think is their own to run. In these actions their very speculations become futile and their foolish hearts are darkened. When the God who is light is suppressed there is nothing left but to fall deeper and deeper into darkness. When hearts love their own wisdom enough to suppress the wisdom of God, the pursuit of that wisdom sinks those hearts deeper and deeper into foolishness and speculation. In this very drive for wisdom according to self rather than God that is exchanging the glory of God for an image of man. It is not that one has to bow down to a wooden or metal image, but in serving self one has exchanged the glory of God for an idol because self is an idol at that point. In doing this God hardens their hearts and turns them over to more and more darkness and foolishness. When they serve self rather than God, they have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. This is deep darkness.

When these proud souls that serve self do this, God sees it for what it is: “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper” (v. 28). The refusal to “acknowledge God” is really a suppressing of the truth about God and a rejecting of the knowledge of Him. The “natural” downward trend of this sin is that God turns a person over to a mind that is depraved and growing even more depraved by its rejection of Him. It is a mind that is being filled with all sorts of the sin that is really the soul being turned over to the love and service of self. It is a hatred of God (v. 30).

Humility is the only answer for such a person and such a heart as that. It is the proud heart that rejects God and it is by that pride that such wickedness enters the soul. A proud heart is one that rejects God and His sovereign rights over it. While it might be obvious at this point, it should be pointed out that the human soul is either descending into darkness and sin or it is descending into a deeper and deeper humility. On the one hand the proud heart rejects God and continues to reject Him and so it descends into deeper and deeper darkness and wickedness. The other side is the soul that God has delivered from its pride and so it is growing deeper in its humility. The proud soul is growing in being full of self and the so-called wisdom of self while the humble soul is being filled with God and His wisdom. The proud soul becomes consumed with self as Satan is and the humble soul becomes consumed with God and His glory as God is. The proud soul becomes more and more consumed with self and ends up in hell where the soul if hardened to self and given totally over to self. It is in hell that the soul hates all others and God. In hell the soul is given over to the wrath of God and to the total misery of hating all other beings. The humble soul becomes more and more consumed with God and ends up in heaven where it will be full of God for all eternity. For all eternity it will share in the love God has for Himself and all other beings in heaven.

Pride is the very heart of sin while humility is at the very heart of holiness and love. Pride is at the heart of sin because it is the suppression of the truth of God in the pursuit of self. Humility is the very heart of holiness and love because it is the emptiness of self and pride so that God who is love can fill the soul with Himself and His love. Humility is the heart of holiness since self is the very nature of sin and the heart that is emptied of self will be a partaker of the holiness of God (Heb 12:10). When the heart of sin is pride and self, it is obvious that when God humbles the soul He is taking out the very heart of sin. When God fills the soul with Himself, He is giving the soul that which is the very best which is Himself and He fills it with true love and holiness. Humility is so vital that a person cannot be saved apart from some humility and a person cannot grow in sanctification apart from it either. A humble heart is at the heart of the Christian life. After all, it is the life of Christ who was perfectly humble.

Since humility is the emptiness of self which leaves the soul in utter dependence on God to work in it and through it by grace alone, this should instruct us on how to live to the glory of God. The humble soul will arrive at the point that there is nothing in it and of itself that can bring glory to God. As the humble soul knows that the command to love God cannot be kept other than to first receive the love of God from God, so the humble soul realizes that the command to glorify God cannot be kept unless one receives what is needed to do that from God.

Some older theologians (John Smith, Jonathan Edwards) spoke of God as having an internal glory (glory ad intra) and then that internal glory when expressed was referred to as the external glory (glory ad extra). Here, once again, we can see where the teaching on the character of God and true humility are parallel to each other. God exists in perfect love and glory within the Trinity. There is no one who has access to that glory unless God Himself decides to express it. So the command of I Corinthians 10:31, which is really an expression of the Great Commandment, is a command that the humble should hear and know that it can do nothing to keep it in its own strength. God commands us that whether we eat, drink, or whatever we do we are to do to the glory of His name. The proud soul sees that command and sets out to fill its head with knowledge and to do things which make God look good. But wait a minute, says the humble soul, how am I to reach into the Godhead and extract glory in order that He would be manifested? The proud soul simply smiles and says that if God commands it then it must have the power to do so. So it sets out to do all these external things while thinking that it is doing them to make God look good.

The humble soul cringes at the proud soul and knows that it is not really the glory of God being expressed by the proud soul but in reality it is the pride of the soul that is being seen. God will not give His glory to a proud person even if they say they are doing what they do to the glory of God. The humble soul knows that if it is going to keep the command to do all to the glory of God it must die to the desires and works of self so that it may be filled with the glory of God in order that the glory of God may be manifested through it. It has no illusions that it can do anything to make God look good or that any of the glory of God will shine in and through it apart from God filling that soul full of Himself. A soul only truly glorifies God when it is emptied of self and when the glory of God (Christ Himself is the shining forth of the glory of God, Heb 1:3) fills the soul and the Spirit fills that soul with the fruit of the Spirit (which is really the character of God). It is only then that the soul that is full of Christ and the
Spirit can glorify God because it is God who is manifesting His own glory through the soul.

With the previous thoughts in mind, it is easy to see how pride is the root of every sin and evil. It is only the humble soul that receives grace and so is used as a vessel and instrument to the glory of God. Romans 3:23 tells us that sin is to fall short of the glory of God. It is not as if they barely missed the glory or only did it on occasion, but the whole soul of the person has a bent away from the glory of God and don’t even aim at it. In all that the person does the person seeks self instead of God. People seek themselves in whatever they do and seek for glory and honor from others and in their own estimation. They do this in the things of religion as well. We have to be very careful or we will fall under the condemnation of the Pharisees. They prayed for themselves (though they used the name of God) and they fasted for themselves (Matthew 6:9ff). In other words, they were using what God intended as means of grace (grace always glorifies Him) to be ways to glorify themselves in seeking their own honor before human beings. They tried to use God to honor themselves. They tried to use what God intended as ways to glorify Himself and twisted them as means to bring honor to themselves. That is to be just like the devil.

The very root and heart of sin is in the soul’s desire to be like God: “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5). The soul wants to do its own thing and do it in its own wisdom and strength like God does rather than be emptied of self and wait on God to do what He wants to do in and through the soul. Self-righteousness is hated by God because it is the soul trying to be self-sufficient in its own righteousness which is an attempt to be like God. The humble soul knows that it has no righteousness in and of itself and knows that all righteousness needed to stand before God is granted it by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. It also knows that any righteousness it lives by is a righteousness that will come from the throne of God and be worked into it by grace. The devil wants to live by what it derives of self and not receive all from God based on self. That is what his children do as well, even if they are very religious. The humble bow in their own nothingness and receive all righteousness and all good by grace.