Humble Thyself — Gbile Akanni

Good evening one more time, and we praise the Lord for bringing us back tonight, and for us to continue our seeking the face of God for a fresh and a closer walk with him. And as we were concluding our meeting yesterday night, and we were all praying and seeking the face of God, I went again with a burden in my heart.

Seeking God for a Fresh and Closer Walk

That what is it that will stop God from drawing close to us? What is it that will stop the Spirit of God from flowing? What is it that can block the river of living water from gushing over and over our hearts?

And I've been asking God to put his finger on it, and to show us his glory, that as we bring these services to this kind of conclusion, yet bring us a new beginning of a fresh seeking of God's grace and God's presence and God's face in our lives.

I've been just praying that the longing of our hearts individually to see the Lord walk afresh with us, moving the reality of his power. God himself will answer it. And these songs have been coming to my heart since yesterday night, and I thought I already sang it for myself, but as we sat here again, I felt the Spirit will ask us, may ask me to ask you to let's meditate on the hymn together before we turn to the Word of God.

Hymn 579, you will have it in our hymn book, 579. And I wondered why this would be a critical issue tonight, but more and more I saw the Holy Spirit pointing at an issue that I would like us to take to God in prayer.

Humility as the Condition for Walking with God

What drives the Spirit of God away from a man's life? What is it that will not allow the move of God to last? What is it that makes men to lose the presence of God in their lives? What is it that will not allow us to see the glory that we are looking for?

Therefore, 579 says, if thou would have the dear Savior from heaven walk by thy side from the morn to the evening, there is a rule that each day you must follow. Humble thyself to walk with God. Humble thyself and the Lord will draw near thee.

Humble thyself and his presence shall cheer thee. He will not walk with a proud or discomfort. Humble thyself to walk with God. If thou would have the Savior from heaven walk by your side, not once in a long while, not once in a whole week, but if you want to have the dear Savior walk by your side from morning till evening, if you desire to have an abiding presence of God at every moment of the day, you know the resident cloud of the presence of God and you know the out walking of the Holy Spirit in your spirit on a regular basis, there is a rule that each day, each day you must follow.

Humble thyself to walk with God. Humble thyself and the Lord will draw near thee. Humble thyself and his presence shall cheer thee. He will not walk with a proud or discomfort. Humble thyself to walk with God.

Just as the Lord in the world's early ages walked and communed with the prophets and the sages, he will come even now if we meet the conditions. Humble thyself to walk with God. Just as the stream finds a bed that is lowly, so Jesus walks with the pure and the holy.

Cast out thy pride and in heartfelt contrition, humble thyself to walk with God. We will sing that song, I think we will sing it about two times. We will sing it both thinking and meditating. I've been asking God to put his finger on what is it that put his faith away.

What is it that will not allow us to be in constant revelation of his power in our lives and in our ministry. And I'm feeling God giving me liberty tonight to look at the issue of pride that hinders the move of God.

Pride as a Hindrance to Revival

Pride that makes God to keep a man at a distance. I'm going to look at various manifestations of it as the Spirit of God kept saying to me. Many, many moves of the Spirit have been lost. Because the man that God wanted to use, they became self-conceited.

They became high, high-minded. They took the grace of God for granted. And we're going to be looking at the various manifestations of this dangerous, dangerous element that has turned the face of God away from many.

Has turned the presence of God away even from great works. Even the great works that God himself started. When man hijacked it with pride, God will have nothing to do with it anymore. And even though God had great interest in what he began to do, yet when he sees pride, when he sees arrogance that manifests itself in different, different forms, he whose eyes cannot behold iniquity, he turns away.

And he will have nothing to do with it. And no matter how mightily used a man of God has been, he can only continue to be used. For God says, my power is made perfect in your weakness. But when a man began to be strong in himself, when he begins to think highly of himself more than he ought to think, when he begins to think more of his own spirituality than the grace of God that has brought him to where he is, surely the grace, the power, the presence must have to withdraw.

And I really wish this night we would just pray together. We just ask God to reveal to any of us, wherever it is, where this, this evil that would not allow God to walk with us, if it is located anywhere, if it is found in our hearts, let the Spirit of God put his finger on it so that we might not go without his blessing, so that he will not be turning his eyes away even when we need him most.

So I'd like us to take that song, we'll sing it gently two times, but we are doing so because we are praying and saying, Lord, put your finger on my life. What is it that will not allow you to walk with me?

What is it that will not allow you to reveal your glory? What is it that will not let you hand over your purpose into my hands? Lord, open my eyes that I may see. If thou would have the dear Savior, do you know it?

Right, please come. If thou would have the dear Savior from heaven, walk by thy side from the morning to the evening, there is a rule that each day, each day, it's possible to start walking with God in the morning.

And when the Spirit of God has moved, it's possible that the man of God may mistakenly grab the glory and begin to tamper with that which belongs to God. Even though in the morning he sends God, but now in the evening he has become an outcast because pride has pushed him out.

I want us to pray together tonight and say, Lord, wherever it is found, don't let it be located in my spirit. I want to walk with you. One more time, we do it now from the beginning to the end, and we're praying with a song.

If thou would have the dear Savior from heaven... Tonight, we don't want to be cast out of your presence. We don't want you, Lord, to look away from us. We don't want, oh God, to go away in dryness. We do not desire that that which you have begun to do in our lives, we suddenly become withered because we are separating ourselves from you.

Lord Jesus, we want to place ourselves in that condition where the water of life can find a bed that is lowly. We want to desire of you tonight, Lord, that whatever you will need to do to put your hand on our lives, to keep us in the place where you are eager and joyfully, pleasurably willing to walk with us, to walk in our midst, for us to know your presence.

Lord, we thank you for what you've done in the past few days. We thank you for the testimonies, oh God, in our individual spirits. But something is crying out in our hearts. Why can't we have more of you, Lord?

Why can't we have more of you, Lord? Why, oh God, are you going to leave us where we are? Lord, draw close to us. Draw us nearer to yourself tonight. Put your finger on every issue in us that scares your eyes away.

Holy Spirit, please put your hand on this matter. Not just that you are speaking to us as a congregation. Please speak to us as individuals and cause your will not to fail in our lives again. Thank you.

In Jesus Christ's name we have prayed. Amen. Please turn your Bible to that scripture that you already know. But it's okay for us to start by looking at the book of James. I want us to read James. James chapter 4.

James chapter 4. You will permit me to read very quickly from verse 1 very quickly to verse 10. James chapter 4 from verse 1 to 10. There are so many issues in this chapter. But then, we cannot presume to want to deal with all the various issues that the Holy Ghost is raising in that chapter.

I just sense that as we read the Word of God, the Holy Spirit will breathe upon His Word in our midst tonight again. From whence come wars and fighting among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts, that war in your members?

Ye lust and have not. Ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do you think that the Scripture says, in vain, the spirit that dwells in us lusteth to envy?

But ye give it more grace. Wherefore it says, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourself therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.

Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted, and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

And 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 5 and 6. Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be close with humility. For God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.

Humble yourselves therefore unto the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. May the Lord bless the reading and the study of his word in our midst tonight. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Pride as the Root of Unconfessed Sin and Hypocrisy

Amen. There are several issues that God will not tolerate. The book of Habakkuk says, Thou art of a purer eyes. Your eyes cannot behold iniquity. But, one of the things that I found is that even though every iniquity, every sin, will turn the eyes of God away from any man.

But the sin of pride, the iniquity of pride, God cannot tolerate at all. The reason is because the sin of pride is the secret behind every unconfessed sin. The sin of pride is the secret behind every hypocrisy.

The sin of pride is the quiet is the quiet root behind being unteachable. The sin of pride is what makes men snobbish and they do not tremble at the word of God anymore. The sin of pride removes contrition or a contrite and a broken spirit from God's people.

And that's why it doesn't matter how many, how terrible a sinner you are. That is not what bothers God. It is not that you are the violence of offender that bothers God. The truth of the matter is this.

It is not angels that Jesus came to help. If we were angels, we would not need a savior. But the truth of the matter is that He came for men like me, men like yourself, men that are weak, men that are sinners, descendants of Abraham.

But what does pride do? Pride makes a man to pretend as if he does not need help. Pride makes a man to speak and exaggerates a sense of his importance that will not make him to bow before God and to cry unto God for help.

That you are a sinner is not a problem because God is willing to forgive. But pride will make a sinner to deny that he is a sinner. Pride will make a sinner to explain away and to rationalize his misbehavior as if it was normal.

Pride will make a man to claim and to arrogate to himself what he was not the source of. Pride is always looking on how to share the glory. Pride is not every time that people walk up like this and do their hand like this that they are proud.

There are people that are proud not apparently. Sometimes they are proud of grace. There is what I want to refer to this night as the pride of grace. People that we boast about what God gave them by grace not by merit.

Yet they are proud about it. What God brought into your life not because you worked hard for it but you want to quickly add that to your credentials as if you had it because you worked. People are proud of grace.

They pride because of grace. A man is proud because of his gifts. There is a pride. I call it the pride of gifts. Pride of divine endowments. And Paul was saying to Corinthians he said what has made you different from another?

What did you have that you did not receive? And if you received it why do you behave as if you did not receive it? When a man looks down on another brother simply because the brother is less gifted than yourself and yet it was just a gift.

When God sees a man who exhibits any form of pride that's a man that God cannot even tolerate. And so tonight what I wish we would do before God while we are unable by ourselves please take note of this we cannot organize revival.

It is the sovereign work of God. Nobody can bring revival except God himself. He's the one that calls into existence those things that be not as though they were. God is the one alone who can make the dead to rise.

God is the one that can speak to dry bones and they will come together. But there is something that the Holy Spirit is pointing out that we can do. And if it is something that you cannot do God will not tell you to do what you cannot do.

And as we read this scripture again and again you see him say humble yourself. It means it is possible for you to do that. It means it is possible to fall on your face before God and say Lord what am I arrogant about?

What am I proud about? What am I boasting about? What is it that I have that you did not give me? Pride of grace? Pride of gifts? Pride of position? Pride of divine placement? Some of us were placed where we are placed not because we did anything about it.

Heaven just decided to put you in place where you are. And suddenly the pride of place the pride of placement or position will not allow you to work with God. Do you know sometimes the pride does not manifest out of anything else but pride of knowledge.

The Bible says knowledge. What does it do? It pops up. Sometimes it is not just the knowledge of science. It is not just the knowledge of some certain skills. Sometimes it could even be the knowledge of the word of God that has become the reason why you have become unteachable.

Such that you no longer tremble at the word of God. When anybody opens the Bible before he will open his mouth you already conclude in your heart what can this man say? Instead of receiving something fresh from the spirit of God because you are broken and you are a contrite hearted man and say Lord speak to me today.

Even if this man were a dog pass through his mouth to talk to me. But you have come to discover that not many people can speak to your life anymore. You came as a great analyst of the word of God. You sit down there to analyze Oh the man didn't preach well today.

Oh the man didn't say that properly. Oh this man why did he not quote this verse and quote that verse. I hope you are not beginning to cling onto an empty knowledge that will block you from the freshness of experiencing God.

Humbling Ourselves to Receive Revival

So as I look at the scripture here this night and I wish we can easily illustrate it as we go to God in prayer. We are going to say to God as individual Lord what is it that will not let you walk with me?

What is it? Sometimes you know even the confession of sin many people are unable to do so. Why? Because of pride of their own personality. They know that God is convicting them you must confess this and you must confess it openly.

But they say but a big man like me how can I do that? How can I appear in the presence of my wife weeping as a baby? You forgot that it's not in the presence of your wife you are in the presence of the almighty God.

Sometimes you look around and say the young combatants around the ones that I was one how can I repent in their presence? And you say quietly to yourself rather than do that I would rather lose the presence of God.

And now many men out of the pride of their position when they should have said sorry to their wives they prefer to use long theological arguments to avoid humility of heart. When God sees arrogance when God sees pride he cannot walk with it.

Many many great revivers are lost. Sometimes you may think a reviver came and it lasted only for one month or lasted for one year or lasted for two years and he stopped. And I say Lord why? Why do you stop a reviver abruptly?

And God says no it's not me who stops it. Fire never says it is enough. There are men that quenches the fire. And several times when you go through the history of revivers you will notice that some of it came to a broad end.

When the man that God is using or the man that God was using began to take glory to themselves. When they began to take things for granted when they began to walk into the pulpit as if they are experts they forgot that God picked them from the merry clay.

They forgot that God picked them from nowhere and brought them to where they are. They forgot that without him we can do nothing. This night I feel exercise in my spirit not just to speak about today but to speak about what will make us to walk with God in an enduring unbroken reviver that day by day it may start today.

And I do know that some of us we have longed, we have cried, we have desired that God will visit our land again but the spirit of God is holding back, is holding back, is holding back and is asking a question who takes the glory?

Who takes the glory? If I move again, who takes the glory? Who takes the glory? So tonight, tonight brothers and sisters I felt that we must bring ourselves before him we must look inside and say God why will you not go with me?

Why will you not visit me again? Have you seen something that is keeping you at arm's length from my life? Look at the way the word of God is coming. Now he says, you adulterers and adulteresses know you know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God.

Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world what did the Bible say is he? He is the enemy of God. I think it is arrogance. It is this kind of flagrant arrogance, pride of life that makes a man to keep company with the world that is the enemy of our God and walk here very boldly as if yes there is nothing God can do to me I can talk to him if not that arrogance and pride has come.

How will a man who has flagrantly disobeyed the word of God how will he dress up and come and sit down there as if he is challenging God to battle as if he is saying God I have done it whatever you think you can do come and do.

The Holy Spirit says don't you know that whosoever therefore be a friend of the world he makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the scripture has spoken in vain that the spirit that dwells in us lost it to envy.

Why do you provoke God to jealousy. Why do you dear God I say let him do whatever he likes. But when a man has begun to be proud he loses his sensitivity unto the holiness of God. You see for me pride is not just about lifting yourself up.

Sometimes pride manifests itself by bringing God down. I don't know how you get what I am talking about. Pride is not always only manifested when somebody is trying to beware he is not. But pride is also a manifestation of scumfulness.

That's why that song says he will not walk with the proud of the scumful. Even scumfulness is a desire a quiet deliberate desire to reduce someone else to bring him to your level and to prove that he is not different is arrogance.

When pride is beginning to manifest in a man's life even though he couldn't climb up there and say I am on top of everybody you see him. He disdains others as if they meant nothing. And sometimes the first attitude the first manifestation of an arrogant heart is criticism of anyone else whose life or whose ministry or whose manifestation of life reveals your weakness.

You are unable to stand where anybody else will manifest a greater grace than your life. You can't tolerate it because you always want to be the local champion when God sees this kind of spirit. When God sees this kind of manifestation look at the word of God.

Verse 6 say. But he giveth more grace. Where. For the scripture says God resisteth the proud but he giveth grace unto the humble. Now my fear comes here. This is where my spirit is very very overwhelmed that God resisteth the proud.

I don't know whether you have seen that that whenever a man is arrogant what he is calling for from God is what. Resistance not assistance. When the spirit of pride shows off in any man's life whatever divine assistance he should have received from God automatically becomes a resistance.

Where can a man go when God himself is the one resisting him. What progress will a man make when it is God himself that is stretching forth his hand and saying you will go nowhere you will go nowhere you will go nowhere.

God resists the proud but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourself therefore to God. Resist the devil. I was wondering why immediately the person to resist is the devil. Do you know why behind everything the devil brings to a man he tempts you to be proud.

If you know that the temptation that Satan brought unto Eve in the garden of Eden the long and short of it is that the Bible said Satan told the woman and said you will not die any day. God knows that the day you eat this thing you will become God.

You will be God yourself. You don't need anybody to come and be ordering you around. You don't need God to come down and be telling you what to do when you can know what to do by yourself. Nobody ought to talk to you.

Pride, Independence, and Resistance to Discipleship

And do you know the spirit of pride has wrecked the church. Can you imagine that in the days when revival was here those that God had put over us they did not receive any resistance each time they spoke.

Whether you understood why they said it or not, what did you do immediately you obeyed. But now call a young person and say go and do this, he said why I can't do that. Because I don't believe in that.

So to bring instruction even to our members in the church is becoming a big problem. Because people only do what they want to do by themselves. The spirit of pride. Where are those days when the elders will sit down and having prayed they just call you and say brother we have prayed and by the spirit of the Lord we felt you should not do this anymore.

And the young man the young member in the church simply said it's ok and he will do that in submission. But now there is a lot of arguments there is a lot of desire for independence for us to say something.

Somebody will argue it back and forth back and forth, back and forth back and forth. Do you know why discipleship that following in order to be made for God. Do you know why it has died in our midst. Individuals are saying no.

You don't have to tell me anything. I know what I'm doing. I don't need to talk to you about anything. And you can't order me about I'm a man of my own. And it is appearing as if that's our culture. It's appearing as if that is how to be educated.

It's appearing as if that's how to be matured. But may I say to you tonight that I see that as a temptation of satan against what God wants to do in our midst. That spirit of independence. That spirit that does not defer onto biblical instruction from elders and from those that God that plays over us.

That thing that says well he has said his own. He doesn't need to order me about that spirit that spirit you see it in the life of the young people. We're going to be calling on God. Where is it that.

This canker is eating deep into my own life. I need to lay it down. I need to lay it down. Resist the devil. Because that's what the devil will bring to you. The devil will say now you're a big girl. Now you can be on your own.

Now you can take your decision by yourself. Now you can go and stay on your own. Now you can get your own support. Now you can be this. Now you can be that. And arrogance that makes even discipline in the church almost impossible.

If you want to discipline somebody he walks out on you and say well your church is not the only church in the city. And he moves. He goes to join another place. Because he cannot be disciplined here. Arrogance.

Why we cry for revival. Why we cry that God will come back to us. Why we cry that the spirit of God will visit us again. We need to deal with that spirit of pride. The pride even of knowledge. The pride of what does he know that I don't know God.

God resists the proud but he gives grace unto the humble. Submit yourself therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands ye sinners and purify your hearts.

Ye double minded be afflicted and mourn and weep and let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up. Now before I leave this matter tonight I intend that we could look at how it works out how it works out.

Satan’s Pride and the Temptation of Spiritual Presumption

And I want you to know that Satan is so wicked because that was what pushed him out of heaven. Am I right. He was Lucifer. He was an archangel. He was of the rank of Michael of Gabriel. And Lucifer was that angel one of the cherubim that covers the Shekinah.

Glory. The Bible said he was made of perfection of beauty. There was no fault found in him. He was perfect perfectly made, perfect of beauty perfect of wisdom. Until pride was found in him. And from that height he fell down to the bottomless pit.

And he will not have any space in the presence of God anymore. Brothers and sisters there is no height any man has reached even in serving God. That pride will not bring him down. There is no amount of grace that a man had received when he begins to overstep his bounds and begin to share the glory with God he will come down and become nothing.

A bubbling wok that the glory of God that visited and the power of God that had been there will become empty will become a wilderness when men begin to share the glory. When men begin to be arrogant quietly in their spirit.

Now Satan was very daring. He even came to Jesus even came to Jesus all the three temptations that were recorded for us in scripture. If you read it very very well you will know that the quiet issue behind it was the temptation to be proud.

Satan came and faced Jesus and said and if you are the son of God as a son of God you need to demonstrate that you are a son of God. Command this bread to become this stone to become bread. If you are the son of God do you know that he did not say if you are hungry.

Do you know that he was not asking him that if you are hungry no he was only saying prove prove your position. The pride of position. The pride of position. You know sometimes even as we begin to walk with God Satan comes quietly and tempt you and say if you are if you are a man of God do something so that people will know that you are around.

And the Holy Spirit is watching. When that strange stream enters the walk his presence must go. How wonderful it is that I saw this brother and her sister Rachel playing very beautiful. How I pray that God will protect your spirit from arrogance sometime.

Pride of Skill, Achievement, and Public Ministry

Pride of skill because you know how to play it very well. You see your hand moving on the keyboard on the thing. And the Spirit said look at this. This is no more for me. This is no more for me. This is no more for my glory.

This is a display of personal excellence to draw attention to yourself. And when we come into service where God was to be glorified and some certain persons among us are seeking to glorify themselves the presence of God quietly departs.

I am no more part of that singing. I am no more part of that orchestra. I am no more part of that program. They are taking it over. They are taking it over. Pride of achievement. When a preacher comes up and just want us to know that he has understood all the Greek and has understood all the Aramaic.

And instead of preaching the word of God simply he come and say well according to the Greek text of this passage did we need Greek. Does God want us to keep talking Greek. But because right in the heart he want to show that he has great knowledge.

So gradually the presence of God departed. Because simplicity of preaching the word of God is no more maintained the man of God has become sophisticated and he wanted us to know that he has gone to read many many books and that he had had his doctor of divinity and that he has finished the philosophy of religion and that he has learnt all the issues about traditional and new new logics and all of that.

And the Holy Spirit says I cannot walk with the proud or discomfort. I can't put myself here. I am bringing this word unto you tonight with trembling in my heart that God is saying if I am going to send you a reviver if I am going to visit you again if you are going to experience my presence please look at this matter.

Look at this quiet matter this thing that makes you not to tremble at my word again. That makes you feel that we have experience. Sometimes the pride manifests out of expertise and out of experience. But may I say to you experience as wonderful as it is is history.

If God does not come afresh your experience is ordinary history. Burnt ashes that can no longer produce fresh fire. But all those that God used mightily they put aside their experience. As Paul said one thing I do, forgetting what is behind.

I forget all that I am. I forget all that I have achieved. I forget all that I have seen before I am coming afresh. Lord, yesterday is gone. I need fresh grace today. I need a fresh touch of your spirit.

I cannot just build on what I used to be. The pride of past reputation. And the pride of power. The pride that authority and power brings to a man that makes him to make himself a bastard in the presence of God.

He said, if you are the son of God command the stones to be bred. Even though you can see that Jesus in time to come he is going by the grace of God to bring the miracle of bread. But it was not to show that he was the son of God.

He was going to give bread because people are in need. Am I right? How many times sometimes you want to see a miracle just to assert your importance. How many times you want God to move just so that he can confirm how important you are in the work of God.

May I say to you. Only Jesus went to the cross. Only Jesus died for us. Only Jesus is the worthy, worthy, worthy. Worthy is the Lamb to take glory, to take honor. None of us did. None of us died for anyone.

And our blood is not good enough even for our own deliverance. Talk less of the deliverance of someone else. Where is that arrogance coming from? And Satan was saying look at all the glory of the world.

You can have it. The pride that comes out of possession. The pride that quietly seeps into people's heart because of what they have. Maybe you are a farmer and your farm is big and quietly you sit back there even though you don't talk it but you are very snobbish.

You look at those that are struggling and say they are not serious. Maybe your business is doing so well and gradually you allow it to enter your head. You forgot that it is God that gives it increase and it is God that gives you power to get wealth.