PREACHING TO OBTAIN HUMILITY By William Farley

The seventeenth century Puritan preacher, Jeremiah Burroughs (1600-1646), wrote these provocative words. A minister

“Must speak in such a manner that it may gain fear and trembling, that the hearts of people may be struck with fear and trembling. [The minister] must not come to dally and play with men’s fancies, nor with their own wit; but when they come to speak the Word of God, in God’s name, they should labor to speak it so that the hearts of their listeners may be struck with fear and trembling.”[i]

Burroughs words do not rest comfortably on modern ears. Few pastors preach to strike their listeners with “fear and trembling.” Yet, the truth of Burroughs words were assumed by his peers and with these convictions they profoundly impacted their generation.

For them the glory of God was the goal of Christian ministry, and a clear understanding of sin, and God’s aversion to it, was the most important means to this end. It produced humility, and humble communities are the necessary precedent to God’s exaltation.

Only the man who clearly understands his sin and Christ’s cross will be “struck with fear and trembling.” Why they felt this way, and why it matters to today’s Christian leader, is the subject of this essay.

Assumptions
To understand the Puritans we need to explore their assumptions about God and man. I will list five of them.

First, the Puritans assumed that humility attracts God. “But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite and trembles at my word” (Isa. 66:2). If you want God to consider, look to, or focus on you, or your congregation, you must obtain and minister humility.

Second, they assumed that humility precedes spiritual fruit. “God gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). One grace that God gives the humble is power to conquer sin. “By breaking the heart,” writes John Bunyan (1628-88) “he openeth it, and makes it a receptacle for the graces of his Spirit.”[ii] One cannot love God or man without humility. One cannot walk in joy, peace, or patience without humility. God gives sin-conquering grace to the degree of our humility.

Third, they assumed that people are proud, that arrogance is man’s fundamental problem, and that we are all born into this condition. We come out of the womb convinced that the universe revolves around our wants, desires, and needs.

Fourth they assumed that men and women are blind to their pride. Like a spiritual catch 22, we can’t see the very sin that is our greatest burden. Confidence in my goodness blinds me to the sins that God, and everyone else, clearly see.

Fifth, they assumed that the world, the flesh, and the Devil will resist any minister operating from these assumptions. Not everyone wants to hear the truth about themselves. Therefore, the ministry that produces the humility that God so greatly esteems will be costly: It reduces people. It might split lukewarm congregations, make long-time members angry, or provoke outright hostility from others. The world “hates me,” noted Jesus, “because I testify that what it does is evil” (John 7:7). If you minister like Jesus, some will hate you.

With this process in mind Paul wrote. "For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task" (2Cor. 2:15-16)?

The Puritans ministered humility because they knew that it is foundational to Christian ministry. Men must humble themselves to embrace the gospel. They must stoop to enter God’s Kingdom. Without a deliberate attempt to minister humility few will be saved. Paul preached Christ crucified to define and apply sin. He did this because he knew that humility is the crucial and necessary precedent to gospel receptivity. Our job is faithfulness: God’s job is results.

Burroughs and his friends believed, therefore, that the faithful servant of God should do everything in his power to help his listeners grow small by expanding their vision of God. That is why they felt that every Christian leader should minister humility through example, preaching, and counseling. They believed that the effective Christian leader will aim every weapon in his spiritual arsenal at pride. It is when men are humble that the work of conversion and sanctification take place. For these reasons, enlarging the church’s view of God, while reducing their sense of personal goodness and self-importance, was a fundamental stated goal of most Puritan ministers. Summing up their ministry Erroll Hulse wrote, “A preaching ministry that does not result in a conviction of sin is useless. If it does not wound how can it heal? The Good News is only for sinners.”[iii]

If these assumptions are true, two important conclusions follow. First, humility is the most important virtue for every minister. Second, the preaching of the cross is the best means to stir up humility in our hearers.

Humble Leaders
The most important pre-requisite for Christian leadership is humility. Why? Because God gives grace to the humble. This means he empowers the humble preacher to search the hearts of his hearers. Conversions and growth in holiness are sure to follow.

When Charles Simeon (1759-1836) was asked for the three most important lessons that every minister must learn, he responded first, humility; second, humility, and third, humility.[iv]

For this reason God often humbles His servants before using them. God commissioned Isaiah only after he lamented, “Woe is me; for I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips” (Isa. 6:5). Christ commissioned Peter to “feed his sheep” only after the humbling that followed his threefold denial of Jesus (John 21:15-19).

“The man that understands the evil of his own heart, how vile it is,” noted John Owen (1616-83), “is the only useful, fruitful, and solidly believing and obedient person.”[v] If Owen was right, humility should be the first aim of both seminary training and pastoral apprenticeship. It should also be the first goal of any leader passionate for God’s service. Tragically, this is not always the case. Many leaders emerge from their theological training puffed up by their newfound knowledge rather than humbled by it.

The minister’s humility is also important for a second reason. Pride is Satan’s most potent weapon. Most pastors who are brought down publically are wrecked by sexual or financial scandals. But, privately pride destroys even more. Because it is a private sin, tolerated by the church, a proud man can minister for years, completely unaware of his sin and unchallenged by his peers.

In fact, we should wonder if pride hamstrings more ministries than public sins like sexual immorality. Why? Because God resists the proud. He pulls back from the proud. He withdraws spiritual power from the proud. He withdraws revelation from the proud. Some chemical weapons are odorless and tasteless, but they are still deadly. A proud leader will attract followers to his “morality,” even while he infects them with the same proud, self-sufficient “moralism” that has rendered him impotent. This leader now has the form of godliness, but denies its power (2 Tim. 3:5). He travels across sea and land to make a single proselyte, but makes him twice as much a child of hell as himself (Matt. 23:15).

“Our very business is to teach the great lesson of humility to our people;” wrote Richard Baxter (1616-91), “and how unfit, then is it that we should be proud ourselves? We must study humility, and preach humility; and must we not possess and practice humility? A proud preacher of humility is at least a self-condemning man.”[vi]

The Cross and Humility
The plumber wields a pipe wrench, the surgeon a scalpel, but the effective preach wields “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (2Cor 2:2). No subject moves men and women to humility like the cross. Another lesson that we can learn from the Puritans is “Christ and him crucified is our theme.”[vii]

“We have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died” (2Cor. 5:14). Jesus died in our place. He died to satisfy His Father’s perfect justice. He took the punishment that we deserve—Crucifixion!

“The ultimate measure of evil is the wrath of God (Rom. 1:18ff),” notes D.A. Carson, “and that wrath is so resolute that it issues in the cross. We are all ‘by nature objects of wrath’ (Eph. 2:3): apart from the cross there is no hope for any of us.”[viii] Carson is right. The cross is the measure of sin’s horrors.

Crucifixion was the most heinous form of capital punishment devised by man. It was slow death by agonizing torture. It usually took several days. Providentially and sovereignly, God chose this form of execution for His Son. Why? To impress us with the horror of sin and what it deserves. Nothing cures religious pride like the message of the cross.

The cross is a window through which we see sin as God sees it. We deserve to be mocked, scorned, spit upon, slapped, scourged until the skin is ripped from our flesh, then crucified naked between thieves.

Paul came to Corinth determined to know nothing but “Jesus Christ and him crucified.” This means that he began by explaining what the cross says about humanity’s sin and God’s wrath, letting the message seep deeply into the conscience of his hearers. Then he laid down his hearer’s bankruptcy. No amount of human effort or virtue can change man’s status with God. Then he concluded with the overwhelming love of God. He died, not for his friends, but for His enemies (more humbling). Such is the measure of God’s love.

Paul illustrates this pattern in the first three chapters of Romans. First he presents the wrath of God (1:18-31), then he laborers to convince his hearers of the universal sinfulness of man (2:1-3:20), only then does he explain the gospel (3:21-26). He concludes with an admonition to forsake all boasting in human merit or goodness (3:27-31).

This message reduces us. Only one response remains. It is not try harder. It is believe and repent.

No other analysis of Paul’s message adequately explains people’s reaction to it. His preaching was the “offense,” or scandal, of the cross (Gal 5:11), the “stone” over which the Jews “stumbled” (Rom. 9:32-33), the source of his persecution (Gal 6:12), that which caused Paul to shake in “weakness, fear, and trembling” (1Cor. 2:3).

Ours is the generation of “I’m O.K.; You’re O.K.” We are a people saturated in the worldview of narcissistic self-love. Most North Americans believe that people are good, and that we get into Heaven by being at least average. Gene Edward Veith, noting a recent poll on religious beliefs, reports that most Americans believe that God exists, that he wants people to be “good, nice, and fair,” that God wants us to be happy, and that all good people go to Heaven.[ix]

Tragically, the beliefs of many professing Evangelicals are not much different. The humility that follows the preaching of “Christ crucified” is the antidote.

Prophets For God
An important assumption underlies all of this: The pulpit must disturb men to make them humble. The pastor’s mission is not to make people feel-good. His job is to glorify God by making people holy. Because true holiness and happiness cannot be separated, this is the most loving way to serve God’s people. People are happy to the degree that they are holy.

In fact, this result, true holiness, is the great divide that separates the true from the false prophet. The true prophet stands in the presence of God. The effect of this relationship is always accelerated hatred of sin and love of virtue. The Holy Spirit spoke to Jeremiah, "But if they (the false prophets) had stood in my council, they would have proclaimed my words to my people and would have turned them from their evil ways and from their evil deeds" (Jer. 23:22).

In other words, the Christian leader who really knows God will be growing in humility. That humility will make him increasingly holy, and the effect of His ministry will be to humble others and make them holy. This affect validates his ministry.

Because they pursued this end, the preaching of Jeremiah Burroughs, and the Seventeenth century Puritans, turned England upside down. It would turn America upside down also. But first we would need to discuss the wrath of God, the sinfulness of sin, the coming judgment, Hell, the fear of God, and above all, the cross of Christ which paves the way for a conviction about the infinite grace, mercy, and love of God the Father.

Conclusion
If you ever experience a humble congregation, humility would not be your first impression. It would probably be the joy, freedom, and passion for God that usually accompanies true humility. You would probably be impressed by their selflessness and flattered by their interest in you. You would sense the tangible presence of God, for His Spirit indwells the humble. In this environment God delights. He dwells there. He rests there.

We need humility. We need men determined to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified, that men might be humbled, that the tangible sense of God’s presence rest upon the church. A preacher from the generation after the Puritans, William Law (1686-1761), lamented that humility was then “the least understood, the least regarded, and the least desired of all virtues.” The church had lost its edge, its focus, and that which makes it prophetic, and Law was distressed.

I believe Law would say the same about this generation. By the mercy of God, may that change in the generation to come.