[0:00] chapter 10. Just as you're turning, just to remind you and recap, Moses has been called by God to return to Egypt, the place he was born, but from which he left at the age of 40. He's now 80, and God has called him to go back to Egypt and to face Pharaoh and tell Pharaoh, that's the king of Egypt, to let God's people, the Hebrews, go. They were slaves and had been slaves for 400 years, and God said, enough is enough, it's time for them to go, but Pharaoh kept saying no. He was rebelling against God, resisting God, and so God sent different plagues, different troubles in one sense, to show that he truly was God and that Pharaoh must listen to him, and again and again, Pharaoh kept changing his mind and saying yes, and then no, and he kept hardening his heart. So we're going to pick up from verse 1. We're going to read the whole chapter of Exodus and chapter 10.
[1:08] Then the Lord said to Moses, go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials, so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them, that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I doubt harshly with the Egyptians, how I perform my signs among them, that you may know I am the Lord. So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, this is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says, how long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go so that they may worship me. If you refuse to let them go, I will bring locusts into your country tomorrow. They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen. They will devour what little you have left after the hail, including every tree that is growing in your fields. They will fill your houses and those of your officials and all the Egyptians, something neither your fathers nor your forefathers have ever seen from the day they settled in this land till now. Then Moses turned and left Pharaoh. Pharaoh's officials said to him, how long will this man be a snare to us? Let the people go so that they may worship the Lord their God? Do you not yet realize that Egypt is ruined? Then Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. Go worship the Lord your God, he said. But just who will be going? Moses answered, we will go with our young and old, with our sons and daughters, with our flocks and herds, because we are to celebrate a festival to the Lord.
[2:44] Pharaoh said, the Lord be with you. If I let you go along with your women and children, clearly you're bent on evil. No, let only the men go and worship the Lord, since that's what you have been asking for.
[2:59] Then Moses and Aaron were driven out of Pharaoh's presence. The Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand over Egypt so that locusts will swarm over the land and devour everything growing in the fields, everything left by the hail. So Moses stretched out his staff over Egypt and the Lord made an east wind blow across the land all that day and all that night. By morning the wind had brought the locusts.
[3:23] They invaded all Egypt and settled down in every area of the country in great numbers. Never before had there been such a plague of locusts, nor will there ever be again. They covered all the ground until it was black. They devoured all that was left after the hail, everything growing in the fields and the fruit on the trees. Nothing green remained on tree or plant in all the land of Egypt.
[3:47] Pharaoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, I've sinned against the Lord your God and against you. Now forgive my sin once more and pray to the Lord your God to take this deadly plague away from me.
[3:59] Moses then left Pharaoh and prayed to the Lord and the Lord changed the wind to a very strong west wind which caught up the locusts and carried them into the Red Sea. Not a locust was left anywhere in Egypt but the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not let the Israelites go.
[4:20] Then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand towards the sky so that darkness will spread over Egypt. Darkness that can be felt. So Moses stretched out his hand towards the sky and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days. No one could see anyone else or leave his place for three days.
[4:40] Yet all the Israelites had light in the places where they lived. Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and said, go, worship the Lord. Even your women and children may go with you. Only leave your flocks and herds behind. But Moses said, you must also allow us to have our sacrifices and burnt offerings to present to the Lord our God. Our livestock too must go with us, not a horpice to be left behind. We have to use some of them in worshipping the Lord our God. Until we get there, we will not know what we are to use to worship the Lord. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart and he was not willing to let them go.
[5:18] Pharaoh said to Moses, get out of my sight. Make sure you do not appear before me again. The day you see my face, you will die. Just as you say, Moses replied, I'll never again appear before you.
[5:33] Well, may the Lord help us to understand his word and apply it. So as I say, we're back in Exodus and chapter 10. And if you have a Bible at hand, then please turn there. That'll be helpful as we consider this chapter and these events in the life of God's people and Moses and Aaron.
[5:58] Some years ago, when Calvin Coolidge was the president of the United States of America, America, he invited some people from his own hometown to come and have dinner with him at the White House. Naturally, they were a little bit apprehensive about such an auspicious occasion.
[6:15] They weren't sure how they should behave on such a formal setting. And they thought and talked together on the way there that the best policy would be simply to do whatever the president did.
[6:26] And so all went well through dinner. Whatever fork or spoon or knife the president picked up, so did the guests as they watched him eagle-eyed. And then after the meal, it's time for some coffee, and the coffee was brought out. But to their surprise, the president poured the coffee into his saucer. Well, as soon as they saw him do that, they did the same. Then he poured in some milk and he added a spoon of sugar to the saucer and gave it a stir so all the others did the same, thinking for sure, now the next thing would be he'd lift it up to his lips and drink out the saucer. But as they had their saucers lifted up, he actually leant down and placed a saucer on the floor and called his cat.
[7:09] As Christians, we are called to be those who are imitators of Christ. In one sense of a name, Christian means to be Christ-like, to be followers of his. In Philippians chapter 2 and verse 5, we're told that our attitude is to be the same as Christ Jesus. Following Jesus, being a disciple of Jesus, is doing the things that Jesus did. Our lives are to reflect him. That's the very reason that God chose and purposed to save us. Romans 8, 29 says, for those God foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son. We're to bear the likeness of Christ before God, but also to the world in which we live. But unlike Calvin Coolidge's guess, we're not merely to mimic the Lord Jesus Christ, not merely to do those outward things that somehow externally bear his likeness. Our lives are to be like his, but it is that inward heart imitation which comes first and is to be our goal. That's why
[8:20] Paul wrote there that we are to have the attitude of the Lord Jesus Christ. That comes from Philippians 2, that very famous passage which speaks about the humility of the Lord Jesus. And in fact, the very emphasis of the passage is his humility. We're told there, later on in verse 7, he made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, being found in appearance, he humbled himself. Earlier in the passage, as Paul gives instruction to the Christian, he says, in humility, consider others better than yourselves, your attitude should be the same. Humility was one and is one of the supreme hallmarks of the character of the Lord Jesus Christ. When he invites men and women to follow him and put their faith in him, he says to them, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. The attitude of every person before God is one of humility. That's what it should be. That's what it's meant to be. And for that very reason, in Exodus 10, Moses, with the authority of God, rebukes Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, because of his refusal to humble himself. There, you can see it in verse 4. How long, sorry, verse 3, how long will you refuse to humble yourself before me, before God? It was the outworking, the product of the hardness of the heart, the proud heart, the stubborn heart, the unmoving heart of Pharaoh. And as we go through this chapter, as I want us to do, we can see and learn what true humility is, that humility which is
[10:17] Christ-like, that humility which we are to imitate, that humility which is to be characteristic of the Christian. And we see the danger, the warning of not humbling our hearts before God, and of not walking in humility before him. So the question is why? Why must we humble ourselves before God?
[10:39] The first answer is this, because of the attitude of God to the humble. In 1 Peter chapter 5, we're told that God gives grace to the humble, and that he exalts, he lifts up the humble in heart.
[10:54] And we see that, of course, as we've already thought, in the life of Jesus there in Philippians 2. The first part of the passage speaks about Jesus' humility, his humbling himself, his condescension, in coming into the world and going and dying on the cross. The second part, as you know, speaks about how God exalted him. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place. God delights in humility.
[11:26] It was the experience of God's Son who humbled himself before his heavenly Father. John Blanchard, the Christian apologist, wrote this, no man, speaking of Jesus, no man has ever humbled himself so greatly, and no man has ever been more exalted as a result. So we read, he has been given the name above every name.
[11:51] But the other side of God's attitude is this, if he is gracious and exalting to the humble, then he is quite the opposite towards those who are proud. For again in 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 5, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. He opposes, he sets his face against, he is at enmity with the proud. Now we know, quite honestly, don't we, that one of the greatest preventatives of a person becoming a Christian is pride. It's the chief sin we could put almost.
[12:29] It's the most difficult to overcome because it dwells every single one of us. And for many people it is pride that keeps them from trusting Christ. It's not because they're unconvinced of the arguments of the gospel. It's not because they don't know the truth of the gospel.
[12:46] It's not because of anything else apart from a hard, proud heart that says, I'm not going to give up being the God of my life. But God's attitude towards the proud, like Pharaoh, is in fact to oppose them. And for Pharaoh, what God did was he made his heart harder. Notice in the end of chapter 9, we're told in verse 34, he, that's Pharaoh and his officials, hardened their hearts, so Pharaoh's heart was hard. Verse 10, go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart. One of the most awful things that God can do to any person is to make their heart harder than it already is. That's him opposing them. You want to be proud, in one sense God says, you want to be self-reliant, you want to harden your heart against me, then I will give you what you want. In fact, that's true in every case. The worst thing that God can do for anyone is give them what they want. We think that should be the opposite way around. If only God gave me what I want, then I'd be happy. If only God did what I wanted, then I would be pleased.
[13:55] But no, God giving us what we want is actually a curse, not a blessing. God fulfilling our selfish desires, our selfish interests, our proud longings is the worst thing that God can ever do for us.
[14:13] The man and woman who says, I will not have God in my life, is the person who God will not have in the life of eternity.
[14:28] An eternity bereft of God is the most awful thing, and yet it is the will of people. That's why people say, why does God send people to hell? In one sense, God sends people to hell because that's where they've chosen to go for themselves. And let me warn you, let me say again to you, dear, dear people, if you have not softened your heart to God, if you're still standing and resolutely declaring, I will not have God as the God of my life and Jesus as the Savior of my sins, then God ultimately, dear friend, the worst thing he can ever do is let you go to the grave with that desire and see it fulfilled. Oh, the Lord's hardened the already stony heart of Pharaoh so that he might show to him that there is but one God, not two. It doesn't matter how much you think that you are the God of your life, you're not. It doesn't matter how proud and stubborn you think you are and how you can manage without God, you can't.
[15:27] The attitude of God should cause us to humble our hearts before him because he is gracious. And because he opposes the proud. But as we see there, the reason that we should humble ourselves before God is because of the alternative, as we've already picked up. Pharaoh hardened his heart and Pharaoh would not humble himself before God and so these plagues were sent. They weren't the random acts of God. They weren't done without thinking. They weren't done with just sort of an outburst of anger against Pharaoh's cruelty. Each of those plagues was important. It was a response to Pharaoh's pride but it was also significant. It showed that the Lord God was greater than all the gods of Egypt. See, Pharaoh was a believer. He believed in God but he didn't believe in the Lord God. He had hundreds of gods, many different gods. Gods for the Nile and gods of frogs' heads and gods of bulls and cows. And if you go through those plagues that we're looking through and you understand something of the Egyptian gods, each one counters an Egyptian god. Each one stands in contrast. The gods that they would have prayed to for the Nile to keep it being flowing was defeated by the Lord when he filled it with blood. They prayed to locust-headed gods and frog-headed gods.
[17:00] But each of those plagues shows the failure of the Egyptian gods to help those who call upon them. Shows the impotence, the impotence of those who have not the Lord their God. The powerlessness of any other God. There is what one Lord God Almighty.
[17:15] that you may know, verse 2 of chapter 10, that you may know that I am the Lord.
[17:29] But these plagues also illustrated truth. They weren't just significant in that they opposed the very gods of Egypt but they were significant in there. They illustrated truth, particularly this last one, which we've come to here, the last but one, which is the plague of darkness. The greatest God in the Egyptian panoply, as it were, of gods was Ra, God of the sun. He was faithful and they worshipped him. But three days, no doubt, they probably spent sacrifices and prayed to Ra and nothing happened.
[17:59] But God was demonstrated physically, the darkness of mind and the ignorance within Pharaoh's heart and mind. He was blinded. He had no light. He was not willing to humble himself and acknowledge God's rightful rule over his life. You see, there is no light given by God unless there is humility first.
[18:25] Dear friends, if you want to know God, if you say, well, I want to believe in God, if God is there, I want to see him, I want to know what he's like, then first humble yourself before him and he will gladly reveal himself to you. Don't expect that he will, as it were, say you can keep your pride and you can keep your arrogance against me but you can also have my light.
[18:45] You can't have both. It must be that humility brings forth light and grace and salvation. The reason many men and women, again, do not know the Lord is because God has not shown the light into their hearts because pride has blinded and deafened them.
[19:07] So we are to be humble before God. Pharaoh is being called to be humble and we see that we are to be humble because of the attitude of God and what happens otherwise if we do not humble ourselves before God. The alternative of humbling ourselves, which is to be proud and to endure the consequences of our pride. But you might say, well, what is humility? What does it look like? What does it mean?
[19:33] Is it sort of this cowering sort of self-loathing? No, humility is not like that at all. If we look at the hardness of the heart of Pharaoh and we see the contrast that he is not humble, then we learn what humility truly is like, especially as we see it in the Lord Jesus, as we thought already, he is the prime example. What should humility be like? Well, first of all, it must be teachable.
[19:59] It must be teachable. We know this, don't we? Even as a child growing up in school, you soon begin to learn that a proud person is someone who is a know-it-all, even if they are five. They know it all about everything. And of course, as we get older, what we find out, there is only one thing worse than a know-it-all. It is a know very little but never admitting it all, isn't it?
[20:22] We don't, they don't change, or we don't change as we get older. We still think we know it all, but we know very little. Now, Pharaoh begins by showing almost a teachable spirit, doesn't he? Look at verse 7, his officials said to him, how long will this man ensnale us? Let the people go. They give him some instruction. And Moses again calls them, go worship the Lord your God. So it seems like he is being teachable. He's humbling himself and wishing to learn. He calls Moses back and gives him the command to go. But, there's always a but, isn't there? But just who will be going? Verse 8.
[21:05] He still thinks he's right. He still thinks that once again, he is in control of the country. Of course, once again, he brings another curse upon himself and the people. He thought that he knew better than his officials. He knew better than Moses. He knew better than God. And he was not about to be told what to do. But listen to the testimony about the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus, we're told, was someone in humility who was taught. In Hebrews in chapter 5, in verse 8, Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered. It doesn't mean that Jesus didn't understand obedience, but he learned the full extent of obedience by going to the cross.
[21:57] He knew it, but then he experienced it. And they're different things. We can know things and understand things, but until we experience them, we don't know them fully. He learned. Such was the humility of Christ. He was willing to be a learner, one who was taught. Yet as God, he knows all things.
[22:14] So the question to you and I is this, am I teachable? Not just do I recognize I've got a lot to learn, well, you can all say that, but am I willing to hear it from others? Am I willing to hear it from God and his word? Am I willing to be taught, corrected? Am I willing to change in my view and understanding of things?
[22:40] Am I? That is humility, as we see it in the life of the Lord Jesus, and in contrast, not in the life of Pharaoh. The second thing about humility is that it is total. It is total. It's uncompromising.
[22:54] It's uncompromising commitment to do God's will and to surrender to his will. Again, we've already noticed that in verse 11, that Pharaoh adds a but, but who will be going? And so to begin with, he says yes, but then he says no, let only the men go, verse 11. Later on in the chapter, he says, yes, you can go and take your children and take your wives and everything else, but you've got to leave your flocks behind. It's part of the way, isn't it? It's not total.
[23:22] He attempts to reach some sort of deal with Moses. That means he could save face. He could look as if he's doing the right thing for the country, but he could also save face and say, well, I'm still in command. I've still got control. They still can only do as much as I allow them. He wants to hold on to some of his pride. He doesn't want to yield to God's will in total obedience. But again, how different that is to the Lord Jesus, isn't it? The prime example, surely, of the humility of the Lord Jesus and his total commitment to do his father's will is Gethsemane. There, as he kneels and prays on three occasions, his disciples sleeping, Father, if it is possible, take this cup from me, but not my will, but yours be done. Jesus did not make a deal with the father, did not say, well, I'll go to the flogging and I'll have the crown of thorns and I'll have the beating and the mocking and the spitting, but not the crucifixion, Father. No, he didn't. It was total commitment, total, wholehearted sacrifice. And that's the way it is with God. God is all or nothing, dear friends. You can't just have him piecemeal. You can't just have a pick and mix. God. Moses knew that, but Pharaoh thought that he could still keep his pride. He could still have his own way and God's way. But there is no fence to sit upon. If you're a Christian, dear friends, then it must be total, absolute, wholehearted, full obedience, commitment to Jesus. You can't say, well, I'll have him on the Sunday, but Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are for me. Or yes, I'll do these things that God wants me to do, but, well, I'm not going to do that. I'll go so far, but no further. That is not the way that God dealt with us. God did not say to us, well, I'll save you so far. I'll save you from the big sins, but not the little sins. Well, I'll save you from this, but I won't save you from that. In his mercy, in his grace, he wholeheartedly and completely and utterly gave his son right to death on the cross.
[25:31] How can we give anything less and call ourselves Christians? Dear friends, you know, as I know in my own heart, that there are those areas and aspects of our lives that are not given over to the Lord, and we're holding back. Let me urge you, as I urge myself, be total with God.
[25:57] And perhaps that's for some of you who are not Christians this morning. Your thought is, yes, I want Jesus as my Savior, and I want to know the assurance of heaven, and I want to be happy and free from the guilt of my past, but I don't want Jesus to be the Lord of my life so that I have to obey him in everything. Let me say to you, you can't separate Jesus. You can't split him down the middle. If you are going to be saved from your sins, if you are going to have life everlasting, if you're going to enjoy the blessings, then you've got to take him as your Lord and your Savior.
[26:31] Take the whole package. If I can use an illustration, which has just come to me, so it may not be very good. When you get married, you take all your wife. Yeah, you do. And she takes all of you. Yes, she does. Even those bad habits and all those other things. You love the whole person. You take the whole person. You say, well, I'm going to be married to you in the weekdays. The weekend's my own. Of course not. Or I'm going to be married to you, but nine till five is for me, and you can have a few hours in the morning, and you can have this. Or, no, of course not. It's a total. It's all that I am I give to you. All that I am is yours. So when we enter into this wonderful relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, we're saying, Lord Jesus, you gave everything of yourself to me, and I'm going to give everything of myself to you. It's the only way to live the Christian life. Please, let me urge you, if you haven't done already, to surrender, to give up. You see, we sing that hymn. We don't sing it very often, don't we? All to Jesus,
[27:41] I surrender. Perhaps we should sing it a bit more, but we need to echo the meaning of that hymn daily. It needs to be our thought, our attitude in all that we do. The reason that we don't pray it is because we think it's too dangerous. If I entrust everything of myself to God, where will it lead? What might happen to me? You see, faith goes with humility. If we trust God completely, then we shall entrust ourselves completely to him. If we trust him fully, we know that we will trust him and have faith in him completely. That's why Jesus did surrender to the Father his whole life, even the cross. Why? Because he utterly trusted the Father. He utterly trusted him. Faith and humility are hand in hand. We see also here, thirdly, that faith is not only teachable and it's not only total, but it's also temperate. In other words, it keeps its temper. Pharaoh threw a paddy, didn't he? He threw his toys out the pram when Moses didn't do what he wanted him to do. First of all, we're told there in verse 11, he drove Aaron and Moses out of his presence. Then verse 27, 28 rather, get out of my sight. Make sure you don't appear before me again. The day you see my face, you'll die. He threatens them. He blows a gasket.
[29:17] The reason that we lose our tempers at time with others is because we're proud. It's our ego, isn't it? That ego that gets in the way. But humility is temperate. It doesn't lose its temper. Humility is willing to let things go and not hold on to things. You see, again, in Pharaoh, there's this sense in which from time to time he felt sorry, didn't he, for what he'd done. There we have it in verse 15.
[29:50] No, sorry, verse 16. I've sinned against the Lord your God and against you. Now forgive my sin once more. Well, he is a believer, isn't it? Wow, he's prayed this prayer of repentance. Surely Pharaoh is a real believer. He's not though, is he? Don't be too quickly convinced that you are a Christian because you've prayed a prayer, my friends. You may have prayed a prayer when you were a child or even as a young person. You may have prayed a prayer that says, Jesus, be my Savior and come into my heart. But let me ask you, where are you today? It's no good praying a prayer like this and then not living it. It's no good praying, I've sinned, Lord, forgive me, but actually now I'm going to still do what I want to do and live my life. I want to live it because it's just good for me at the time.
[30:41] Once he was out of the problem, once he was out of the stew, then of course he's unrepentant again. He's back to his old self again. And again, many people do pray, sometimes very sincerely when they're in a big mess, when their life's in danger. God help me and I'll follow you and I'll trust you. But once they're out of the danger and God's answer the prayer, then he's forgotten.
[31:05] Pharaoh's up and down and back and front, he's a yo-yo, isn't he? Dear friends, as Christians, we are to have perseverance. Humility makes us patient, makes us patient with others around about us. Remember Jesus, again, just read through the Gospels and you see the immense patience Jesus had with the disciples, arguing. Who's going to be the greatest? Arguing about calling down lightning from heaven and fire from heaven. Doubting him and distrusting him and how patient he was and kept on being patient with them and persevering. Let me assure you of this, dear friends, that if God has been patient with his disciples of old, he's patient with you and me today. Infinitely patient and long suffering with us. Here's Paul in Romans, the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience.
[31:58] Just think how God has to put up with, with me and you. Just think how he's to put up with us, up and down. One day we're prayerful and zealous, the next day we're, we're indifferent and worldly.
[32:09] One day we're singing his praises, the next day we're, we're blaming him and saying, why God have you done this to me? Why is it so important to us that people agree with my point of view?
[32:22] Why is it that we argue? Why is it that we disagree? We may say, well, because God's glory is at stake and his honour is being diminished and his word is being upheld. But dear friends, God is big enough to cope with those things. He's big enough to deal with that person as he dealt with you. He will lead them into the light. He will rectify their understanding or he'll leave it until we get to glory when we shall all learn a great deal.
[32:47] Am I patient or am I angry? Am I forceful or am I gentle? To be humble is to be temperate.
[33:00] Well, one last thing, dear friends, and surely it's a question upon our minds and hearts. If humility is so important, if humility is so necessary, how can I be humble? How can I be humble? And let me assure you this, that humility is something that we have to take charge of ourselves. James says in chapter 4 verse 10, humble yourselves before the Lord your God.
[33:25] We're responsible for it. It's no good saying, well, it's his fault. He aggravated me, upset me by what he said. That's why I flew off the handle. No, your humility is your problem. You have to deal with it.
[33:36] One of the Puritans by a man by the name of John Flavel, a wonderful godly man of centuries past, but he wrote this, very helpful. They that know God will be humble, and they that know themselves cannot be proud. I'll read it again. They that know God will be humble, and they that know themselves cannot be proud. How can we humble ourselves? Well, we can humble ourselves by spending more time with the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember how the disciples, when they were called before the ruling Sanhedrin of the Jews in Acts chapter 4, they noticed that these men had been with Jesus.
[34:19] There's something about them that set them apart as spending time with Jesus. And when we spend time in prayer with the Lord Jesus, when we spend time in his word with the Lord Jesus, what we're doing is we're placing ourselves in his light. He said, I'm the light of the world. And that light of the Lord Jesus, as it shines upon us, shows up his beauty, shows up his loveliness, shows up his greatness, shows up his humility, his example to us, but also it illuminates our own hearts. It shows us those deep sins, those recesses, those, that pride that's there, that still needs taking to God in prayer.
[34:58] And so the second part, they that know God will be humble, and they that know themselves cannot be proud. As we come under the word, as we come to the Lord in prayer, as we meet with God's people, and again, that's so important as well, isn't it? Then we find ourselves being exposed. It's one of the things we don't like, isn't it? We don't like being exposed for who we are. We don't like people really getting down inside us and knowing what we're like, but God does. Can't hide from him.
[35:24] But he really wants us to be those who see ourselves for who we really are, know ourselves for who we are. Again, not that we might beat ourselves up, not that we might put ourselves down and grovel on the floor in some self-pitying way, but that rather we might see our sins for what they are. Here's the Apostle Paul. Three occasions, many more we could turn to. This is what he says about himself, and there's no self-pity in it. There's no, as it were, condescending attitude in it. 1 Corinthians 15, I'm the least of the apostles. Ephesians 3.8, I'm the very least of all the saints. 1 Timothy 1.15, I'm the chief of sinners. This was a man of great intellect, great gifting, great grace, grace. But as he got to know Jesus more, he knew himself more, and that humbled him.
[36:18] When we know ourselves, dear friends, when we're willing to be open and honest with ourselves before God, we'll recognize that we cannot change ourselves. We'll see that we need the Lord's grace. That's why he gives grace to the humble, grace to change, grace to transform, grace to be molded and shaped into the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we pray, Lord, humble me, change me, make me more like Jesus. Well, let's pray together, shall we now?
[36:52] Let's just spend a few moments in our own hearts before God in prayer. Let's respond to his word to us, where there's repentance needed, where there's faith needed. Let's come to him.
[37:10] God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your care on him, because he cares for you.
[37:27] Amen.