I just saw a video of a guy taking another guy’s car, carjacking, backs into a couple of cars on his way out, messing them up.  Standing right outside his cruiser, a policeman, just standing there watching it all happen and didn’t do a thing.  My brother lives out in California.  You can go into stores in California right now and if you steal less than $1000, nobody will even follow you out of the store.  If anybody does follow them out of the store and try to do something about it, they’ll find themselves losing their jobs.  It’s insanity, and it’s going to continue to escalate.

Can I tell you what all of this is?  It’s the secret power of lawlessness that’s at work.  It’s the spirit of antichrist promoting anarchy, lawlessness, to where people will finally be crying out for someone that can solve this, both domestically, in our civil lives, and also, as we see taking place in the Middle East right now, politically, nation rising against nation.  Somebody.  And that “somebody” is on hand right now and this is all preparation for the coming of the Lord.  What are you going to trust in?  To be the friend of this world is to be an enemy of God.  Are we going to look to the secular for the answers?  When everybody is so anxious and fearful today, where’s your peace coming from?  I found in my life that when I can arrive at those places of humility—now let me define something, here, of humility that will be helpful for us.  When I can come into that place of humility, which I believe is synonymous with rest, ceasing from our own labors; amen?  There is a rest for the people of God, ceasing from our own labors.  Ceasing from our own labors, not having confidence in the self, not trusting in the right arm of the flesh, not trusting in the broken reed of Egypt, but trusting in God, there’s rest.  The Beatitudes start off with “blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” amen?  Seek first the…

To seek first the kingdom, we have to seek first the spirit of humility.  Blessed are those that are poor in spirit, humble, for theirs is the kingdom, theirs is the kingdom.  We’re a people that have been blessed by God.  Many of us have seen that hand of the Lord in our lives in so many different ways.  So, let’s make sure that having begun in the Spirit we don’t begin to have confidence or look to the flesh to bring to fruition that Christlikeness, that maturity that’s so needed in our lives.  Proverbs, Chapter 16, verse 18 “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”  Let’s remember what pride is.  Pride is self‑confidence.  Pride is trusting in self.  Pride is saying, “I got this.”  Pride is saying, “Look what I’ve done, follow me.”  “I would rather follow Jesus, thank you.”  Amen?  We see that the consequence, always, of a self‑indulgent spirit, wanting the ease of life, fearful of everything, opposition to full submission to God’s lordship, will bring destruction and the fall in each and every one of our lives.  So, we need to continue to take a look at where we are today in our own lives.

Let’s go back and finish up this James passage.  “...God resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble.  Submit yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  Draw nigh unto God, and He will draw nigh to you.”  So, there’s our promise.  The mandate here is to submit ourselves to God.  People say, “Can we really humble ourselves?”  The answer is, “Yes.”  We can make the decision, in fact, we have to make the decision to yield our members as instruments of righteousness and unto God; amen?  We choose, by the gift of God’s grace coming into us.