Church discipline

Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility.”—Proverbs 18:12

Surely this repetition, like our Lord’s often-repeated parallel (Mar 10:31), was intended to deepen our sense of their importance. It is hard to persuade a man that he is proud. Every one protests against this sin. Yet who does not cherish the viper in his own bosom? Man so little understands that dependence upon his God constitutes the creature’s happiness, and that the principle of independence is madness, and its end is destruction (Gen 3:5-6). The haughty walk on the brink of a fearful precipice; only a miracle preserves them from instant ruin. The security of the child of God is when he lies prostrate in the dust. If he soar high, the danger is imminent, though he be on the verge of heaven (2Co 12:1-7).

The danger to a young Christian lies in an over-forward profession. The glow of the first love, the awakened sensibility to the condition of his perishing fellow-sinners, ignorance of the subtle working of inbred vanity, the mistaken zeal of injudicious friends—all tend to foster self-pleasing. Oh! let him know that before honour is humility. In the low Valley of Humiliation special manifestations are realized. Enlarged gifts and apparently extended usefulness, without growing more deeply into the humility of Christ, will be the decline, not the advancing of grace. That undoubtedly is the most humbled spirit, that has most of the spirit of Christ. The rule of entry into His school, the first step of admission to His kingdom, is “Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart” (Mat 11:29).

The spring of this humility is true self-knowledge. Whatever may be seen of a man externally to his advantage, let him keep his eye looking within; and the real sight of himself must lay him low. When he compares his secret follies with his external decency (what appears to his fellow-creatures with what he knows of himself), he can but cry out: “Behold I am vile! I abhor myself!” (Job 42:6). The seat of this precious grace is not in words, meltings, or tears, but in the heart. No longer will he delude himself with a false conceit of what he has not, or with a vain conceit of what he has. The recollection “Who maketh thee to differ?” (1Co 4:7) is ever present, to press him down under the weight of infinite obligations. Its fruit is lowliness of mind, meekness of temper, thankfulness in receiving reproof, forgetfulness of injury, readiness to be lightly regarded. No true greatness can there be without this deep-toned humility. This is he “whom the King delighteth to honour” (Est 6:6). “Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mat 5:3). “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people” (Psa 113:7-8).

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“An high look, and a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked is sin.”—Proverbs 21:4

Another stamp of abomination upon pride! We cannot mistake the mind of God so continually declared. Yet so many shapes does this sin assume, that, until the Spirit of God shows a man to himself, he rejects the idea of any concern in it. Nay, he will be proud of his very pride, proud of a high spirit; counting a Christian mean and cowardly, who in the true spirit of the gospel, yields up his right to a stronger hand.

But not only the haughtiness, but even the natural actions—the plowing of the wicked is sin. “This is an hard saying; who can hear it?” (Joh 6:60). How can the plowing of the soil, in itself a duty (Gen 3:19), become a sin? The motive determines the act. The most natural actions are inculcated for Christian ends. They become therefore moral actions, good or bad according to their own motives. The man, who plows the soil, acknowledging God in his work, and seeking his strength and blessing, “does it acceptably to the glory of God.” It is essentially a religious action.

But the wicked—who does the same work without any regard to God—for want of a godly end, his plowing is sin. His idleness is sin against a plain command (2Th 3:10). His industry is the sin of ungodliness, putting God out of His own world. The substance of his act is good. But the corrupt principle defiles the very best actions (Ti 1:15). “Every thought, every imagination,” of the natural “heart,” is unmixed “evil” (Gen 6:5). If the fountain-head be bitter, how can the waters be pure? Sin indeed defiles every motive in the Christian’s heart.

But here it is the substance of sin. In the one case it is infirmity of walk in the straight path. In the other, it is an habitual walk in a crooked path. With the wicked, “his eating as well as his gluttony; his drinking as well as his drunkenness; his commerce, negotiation, and trafficking, as well as his covetousness and inordinate love of the world, are all set down and reckoned by God for sins, and such sins as he must reckon for with God.” Fearful indeed is his condition. Would that he could see it! Whether he prays or neglects to pray, it is abomination. He cannot but sin, and yet he is fully accountable for his sin. To die is to plunge into ruin. To live in unregeneracy is even worse; it is daily “heaping up wrath against the day of wrath” (Rom 2:5).

Ought he then to leave his duties undone? “The impotency of man must not prejudice God’s authority, nor diminish his duty.” What then ought he to do? Let him learn the absolute necessity of the vital change, “Ye must be born again” (Joh 3:7). The leper taints everything that he touches. But let him seek to the Great Physician, Whose Word is sovereign healing (Mat 8:3), Whose divine blood cleanses from every spot (1Jo 1:7). Once his nature [is] cleansed, his works will be clean. His thoughts and principles, all will be for the glory of God; all acceptable to God.

Men of this stamp, “the king delighteth to honour” (Est 6:11). Their dignity begins on earth, and is crowned in heaven. “Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mat 5:3; 18:4). Poor they may be in station. But they shine forth as mightier conquerors than Alexander. Their real glory eclipses the glare of the pomp and “pride of life” (1Jo 2:16).

The elevation of the proud is often the step to their downfall. But God’s honour, put upon His own people, upholds them as witnesses for His name, as Joseph and Daniel in their high eminence. Meetness for heaven is that adorning clothing of humility, which leads us to ascribe all our grace to God, and all our sin to ourselves. This is the prostrate adoration of heaven (Rev 5:9-12). The Lord imbue us richly with this spirit.

Indeed all chastening discipline is for the great purpose, to “hide pride from man” (Job 33:17), and to bring us low in our own eyes, that His honour may “lift us in due time” (1Pe 5:6; Job 22:29)! It is with us as with our Lord—honour comes out of humiliation (Pro 15:33; 18:12). “Thou meanest to be not our Saviour only, but our pattern too. If we can go down the steps of thine humiliation, we shall rise up the stairs of thy glory.”