In our relationships and communication with one another we face this problem: there is no way that we can communicate without Satan trying to get into it. There is always a reason for this, and the reason is found within us more than in anything else. Revelation 13:5 contains a key to our understanding of what Satan is doing in the last days: he gives his agents an arrogant mouth speaking great things.
And there was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies; and authority to act for forty-two months was given to him. Revelation 13:5, NASB.
The teaching about the Pharisees, including the message, “There’s A Little Pharisee In All Of Us,* indicates that there is something in our spirit which has to go one way or the other. We will either go the humble way, or we will go the proud way.
There is a Judas-arrogance in those who withdraw from their walk with God, and that arrogance opens the door for them to be deceived. Yet they will declare that everyone else was deceived, not them.
Then, as you read through the Scriptures, you see that this whole pattern is there, too. The book of Jude talks about the arrogant ones who come up in the last days and how they murmur and complain and do not respect dignity or authority (Jude 8, 16). There is an arrogance in them, and that arrogance comes up bold and strong.
Jude 16, NASB: These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage.
The last stronghold of position, which is being changed in favor of the true authority of commission, is in relationships. None of us have to worry about being deposed from an area in which we never wanted a position anyway. But now, some of the men who were exalted unduly as leaders in the churches no longer have that position. I believe that I personally have experienced this. And in some cases the difficulty was the fact that behind that pastor was a woman who assumed a position. Sometimes the arrogance of that woman was the key of the difficulties that the pastor had. So the Lord substituted Timothys for pastors, but often there was the same underlying problem, an arrogance in the women. That pride of position makes it difficult for one to step down from it. Therefore, God will keep on destroying relationship until exaltation of position is taken out of it.
Until that is accomplished, there cannot be any pure communication, because with pride and arrogance there is a certain amount of false revelation. That is where the false prophets and false Christs come from (Matthew 24:24). The difficult thing about them is that they all look exactly like prophets of God.
“And many false prophets will arise, and will mislead many. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.” Matthew 24:11, 24, NASB.
We could refer to many examples in this connection, but the worst is Judas. He had contended for the preeminent place in the disciples’ argument over who was to be the greatest (Luke 9:46), and afterwards he was the one on whom Jesus leaned at the Last Supper. It was in that arrogant position that Satan entered his heart.
Read this in John 13:18, 21–30, NASB: “I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen; but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.’ ” When Jesus had said this, He became troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you will betray Me.”
The disciples began looking at one another, at a loss to know of which one He was speaking. There was reclining on Jesus’ breast one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore gestured to him, and said to him, “Tell us who it is of whom He is speaking.” He, leaning back thus on Jesus’ breast, said to Him, “Lord, who is it?”
Jesus therefore answered, “That is the one for whom I shall dip the morsel and give it to him.” So when He had dipped the morsel, He took and gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. And after the morsel, Satan then entered into him. Jesus therefore said to him, “What you do, do quickly.” Now no one of those reclining at table knew for what purpose He had said this to him. For some were supposing, because Judas had the money box, that Jesus was saying to him, “Buy the things we have need of for the feast”; or else, that he should give something to the poor. And so after receiving the morsel he went out immediately; and it was night.
It will be on this position of arrogance and pride that every man, woman, and child who would walk with God will be tested. Jesus said, “Come and learn of Me; I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29). This opened the door, for He had just prayed, “Father, I thank You that You have hidden this from the wise and the prudent, and revealed it to babes” (Matthew 11:25). Just before that He had denounced the arrogant cities on the Mediterranean coast where He had done mighty works, and had prophesied that they would be cast down to hell (Matthew 11:20–24).
Persecution is one thing that Satan uses to come against you in your humility. He contests the fact that you are a bond servant, that you are broken and humble, that you love the Lord, that you are focused on His Word with a real disciple’s motivation. But any arrogance in us allows Satan to get through; it just opens the door to him.
When Michael the archangel came against Satan and disputed over the body of Moses, he did not pronounce a railing judgment against him. He simply said, “Satan, the Lord rebuke you” (Jude 9). This is what Jude referred to when he showed us the way we should walk, and there is great wealth of truth hidden in it. Even the angels exercised their authority by virtue of their humility. When Joshua the priest was clothed with filthy garments and Satan was standing at his right hand to accuse him, the angel of the Lord said, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan” (Zechariah 3:1–3). His authority had to be exercised in a certain way. This shows us how we also ought to do it.
Every Word of direction in a church should be confirmed by two or three witnesses. Confirmation is intended to establish authority and the initiative of humble faith among bond servants. It is never meant to be abused. Confirmation is abused when it involves seeking to support yourself in some assertive action; you get someone to back you up because in pride you have arbitrarily decided what is to be done. Confirmation was made for humility, not arrogance.
The humble, the repentant, the ones who can be guided are the ones who are always relatable. Whenever things of relationship are in jeopardy, it is because probably both individuals need to humble themselves before the Lord. If you look at the relationship of all the ministries, you find that it is based on a yoke. Jesus said in Matthew 11:29, “Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me.” “True yokefellow” is the way that Paul addressed the ministers in the Body (Philippians 4:3). A yoke was a mark of humility. Yokefellows served together; they received no other reward than that. There was just the privilege of serving together.
This applies to marriages. Problems of marriage will continue as long as one dominates the other, or one is arrogant and proud. This is a reason for the breakup of some of the marriages. It is impossible to relate, and it seems impossible to make a marriage work when the wife or the husband or both are arrogant and proud; that pride only succeeds in ultimately destroying it or their walk with God. The same thing is true of the family. If the father and mother take on a position of being more or less arrogant and dominating, the family relationship will not work. The Scriptures bring this out so plainly.
But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. James 4:6–7, NASB.
Have you been anxious to find out why you have not been able to overcome in the battle against Satan? Why can’t you overcome him? The authority is there in Christ Jesus; but one of two things may be standing in the way. Either there is pride in us that God resists; or else, if that pride is destroyed and we do not in humble faith take His authority and move into the place that God wants us to fill by commission, by His promises, and by His provision, then a virtual vacuum, a nothingness is created.
This is what I have been going through. I was assaulted to bring me into line with what God wanted. But after awhile, I found that I was not humble; I was devastated. Although I was devastated, there was still no initiative of faith. There was no true humility, because true humility is aggressive. True humility says, “I am nothing, but God is everything; so I stand on His Word, and I go ahead. The outcome will be right, not because I am capable; the outcome will be right because God is faithful, and I humble myself under His hand.” Of course, that leads to the greatest victory over Satan. You humble yourself under God; then you are something more than a crushed, destroyed person who approaches Satan. You resist him (James 4:7).
The same thing is mentioned again in I Peter 5. There Peter instructed: You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time. I Peter 5:5–6, NASB.
Then in the following verses he talked about resisting, and how we can overcome Satan. Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. I Peter 5:8–9, NASB.
Two of the most important passages for us to understand are that fourth chapter of James, and the fifth chapter of I Peter, because they are related to prophetic events. James 5 goes on about the end time, when the Judge stands before the door (James 5:9).
When Satan came to Jesus in the wilderness to tempt Him, he wanted Him to turn a stone into bread, to bow down and worship him in exchange for all the kingdoms of the world, and to cast Himself down from a pinnacle and command the angels to carry Him.
In each case Satan was giving a very true promise of God, but that promise as Satan was using it was not based upon the way God gave it. In each case Jesus replied by the Word with a submission to the Father, with a very humble worship to the Father: “Him only shall I serve.” Of course, the result is that He won, because He was meek and lowly in heart (Luke 4:2–13; Matthew 11:29, KJV).
This will have to be understood with a deeper perception than we have now. Perhaps this all seems too simple—there may be other aspects that have to be considered—but there are two approaches.
There is a humble approach to God in this whole thing, and there is a humble approach to one another that can help us to relate to one another. But it cannot be one-sided. It will have to be the humility of all of those who are to relate together—“All of you be clothed with humility,” the Word says (I Peter 5:5).
We do not understand this yet, but great authority is going to be resting upon the humble. For us to resist Satan, to bring down principalities and powers (Ephesians 6:12), and to have the meekness that will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5) means that there will be this humility in us. There will have to be a humble, broken spirit. This is what I have been concerned about trying to find. We must have that broken and contrite heart which God keeps looking for, where we love Him with all of our heart, because if we are not broken before Him, He cannot accept us. The sacrifice that God wants from the priesthood is a brokenness of heart (I Peter 2:5).
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise. Psalm 51:17, NASB.
What we are and what we do will not be the big issue. All of that can be an issue only in this respect: If we become inflexible wineskins, we thus become an enemy of the fresh Word God is bringing (Matthew 9:17). This would mean that God could not get around your inflexibility to do what He wanted; He could not use you to do what He wanted. You may have been a very good vessel that He had used in the past; but if somewhere along the line you lose the brokenness, if you lose the humility and the contriteness, you can lose everything.
There are several words you can use to describe this—asking, appropriating, humble, broken, a bond servant, loving the Lord, focused on His Word, worshiping, living with a real disciple’s motivation—and it seems that there must be a common characteristic in all of them. This is the key in the book of Revelation: all of the great creatures and wonderful beings that govern and rule in heaven are continually falling down and worshiping the Lamb who sits on the throne (Revelation 4:7–11; 5:8–10; 7:11–12). There cannot be anything else that they see. They see the Lord, and they humble themselves before Him.
This has to be the prelude to breaking futility, as we read in Romans 8:21, NASB: … the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
The arrogance of the world is not breaking futility. We have said, “We are devastated so that we will lose our position,” but that does not show us God’s positive purpose. “We are devastated so that we can finally accept a commission.” But that is not a complete answer either. What is the purpose in God’s dealings with us? We are not yet humble enough.
A humble relationship to the Lord opens the door to oneness with Him, and we cannot relate to one another on any other basis than humility.
As long as there is an antagonism in our spirits when we relate to each other, we know that there is still an arrogance, and we do not have enough love to overcome the antagonism.
I do not think we can truthfully confess our pride without going into another factor, “How will I become humble?” When you go through the dealings of the Lord, you can wind up with a vacuum in your heart, and that has not been the answer. If it stops there, you can be worse off than you were at the beginning. At least you were functioning in some measure before; now you are functioning in much less measure. At least of myself this has been true.
Our revelation and our authority and our faith all depend upon the humility of our heart. That root of evil, pride, is so deadly that God resists it (James 4:6).
I know I have a course of action for myself, and that is to seek the face of the Lord with humility. In the Old Testament, people sought Him in sackcloth and ashes (Esther 4:1; Daniel 9:3; Jonah 3:5–9). That is where Job sat (Job 16:15).
Job’s friends gave answers and reasons to Job for the desolation he was going through, but it was of God (Job 1:8, 12; 2:3, 6). He was a man perfect in all of his ways (Job 1:1), but he had to be brought to the place where he said, “I abhor myself” (Job 42:6). Then God could give him a double portion (Job 42:10).
When God wanted to give authority over devils and diseases to the seventy, He told them how humbly they should go forth, carrying no money, no knapsack, nothing. Whatever house they entered, they were to bless; they were to eat what was set before them, for the servant was worthy of his hire. But the Lord said when they returned, “I saw Satan fall” (Luke 10:1–7, 18).
We would like to see Satan fall. We would like to see these principalities and powers and nephilim spirits broken (Ephesians 6:12). They have come against us, and our response to them has shown, not humble faith for the Kingdom of God’s sake, but defiance, self-interest, and many reactions which indicate that the real, deep, overwhelming love for the Lord has to be a basic ingredient of our humility. If we do not love Him that much, we will still look to exalt ourselves and find our place. We will be preoccupied with our place or position in our relationships.
When we love the Lord, we accept His devastation knowing that it is to accomplish more humility in us. When He strikes us, we fall on our face before Him. In the Old Testament, no matter what came against Moses, no matter how often Israel murmured and complained against him, he fell on his face (Numbers 14:5; 16:4)—except for one time. That one time when the people murmured, he became angry at them and struck the rock; and he missed it then (Numbers 20:11–12). He was meek above every man on the face of the earth (Numbers 12:3), but that one time his humility was challenged and he lost the right to go into the land of Canaan.
Many a man is being tested now. The way that we humble ourselves before the Lord will be the key of our deliverance. If we do not humble ourselves, we will only be beaten down more. Maybe this is a simple answer, but what would happen if we set ourselves on a course that every time we are confronted and we get upset and angry, we could recognize the symptom for what it is: We do not yet have the humble faith and humble love that will win the battle.
Scripture Readings:
Matthew 5:5, KJV
Matthew 11:25–30
James 4:6–10
I Peter 5:1–10
I Thessalonians 5:23–24
Kingdom Proverbs
With pride and arrogance, there is always some false revelation or deception. This is the spawning ground of false prophets.
Confirmation is vindication of God’s Word to the humble; but when the arrogant seek confirmation of their arbitrary decisions, deception is inevitable.
Position is identified with pride; the bond servants’ yoke, with humility.
Our spiritual relationships are based on a humble approach to God and a humble approach to one another.
A humble relationship to the Lord opens the door to oneness with Him, and we cannot relate to one another on any basis other than humility.