Hallelujah.  Amen.  The Lord’s good; amen?  We’ve been studying on the topic of humility.  How many of you are humble now, and you want to brag about it?  God’s good; amen?  As He’s bringing us into His likeness in these last days, as we’ve said, this teaching on humility is an end times message.  He’s coming for a church that is without spot or wrinkle or any such thing; amen?

The Scripture says we’re being conformed into His image.  We’re being made after His likeness.  First John tells us, “Every man that hath this hope, in that imminent return of the Lord, purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”  We’re going to see Him, and we’re going to be like Him, hallelujah.  And one of the greatest aspects and traits of Jesus was His humility.  “Come and learn of me;” He said, “for I am meek and lowly in heart.”  Amen?  We need to learn more about Jesus.  We need to become a little more meek.  We need to become more long‑suffering and patient with one another.  We need to be kind.  Oh, that’s 1 Corinthians 13.  “Behold, how they love one another.”  Amen?  That’s how we know, Jesus said—that’s how the world will know that we’re His disciples.

So, this humility, this desire to become lower—it’s unnatural.  It’s the fruit and the proof that you’re regenerated, that you’re born-again.  Preeminence—seeking to be the leader, seeking to be the head, seeking to be preeminent, is flesh.  It’s carnal‑mindedness.  It is surely not living and walking in the Holy Spirit.  So, He’s calling us into this Christlikeness.  He’s calling us into this heart of the servant so that we can help each other finish this race and be ready when Jesus comes.  Isn’t that what it’s all about?  Come quickly, Lord Jesus.  I’m tired of this.  I’m tired of this life and existence.  Oh, the trumpet of God’s going to sound; the dead in Christ will rise, and those of us who remain will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at that last trump, hallelujah.  But we’re to occupy until He comes.

So, as we’ve been looking at this topic of humility and seeing what God has said to us, we realize that in Proverbs 15:33 it says, “before honour is humility.”  We talked about the fact that many of us want to be humble, but we don’t want to be humiliated.  “Is there any way I can become humble and still be great in men’s eyes?”  We don’t want to be seen as less.  Less than what?  Less than we see ourselves to be.  Amen?  We’re not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think.  Let me remind you who we are today: we are a people bought out of depravity.  In us—Paul said, “(that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing.”