James Nisbet Commentary - Luke 14:11 - 14:11

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James Nisbet Commentary - Luke 14:11 - 14:11


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

THE DOOM OF PRIDE

‘For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.’

Luk_14:11

When our Lord first began His ministerial work, and was, as it seems, looked upon as a less important person than His forerunner, His disciples were content to listen and learn. By and by His fame spread abroad, and the glory that attached itself to the Master was reflected upon the disciple, and when they were bidden even to the feasts of the wealthy, they vied for the post of honour, and one and all claimed the chief seat for themselves. Jesus saw, and as He saw He left us one of those Divine sayings which have become the heritage of mankind, and will remain such for all time—‘Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased.’

I. No reproof of healthy ambition.—Let us not allow ourselves to think that our Saviour intends to reprove a healthy ambition. No man ever did, or ever will do, any worthy work in the world without that. For a true ambition is nothing more than an instinctive desire to do our best, and to find a sphere in which we may have full play for all those powers with which God has endowed us, and that is good for us all to have.

II. But lust of supremacy condemned.—But ambition is one thing, and the lust of supremacy is another. The mere craving to be above somebody else, to have somebody else to tyrannise over, or to patronise, that is simply contemptible and bad; and that is what our Lord reproves here. Take heed how you mistake the vile counterfeit of a noble ambition for the true coin; there are some among whom to be first is to be abased; there are some places where to be chief is to be most depraved. Well for us if we bear in memory, at the right moment and in the right place, the Saviour’s words, ‘Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased.’

—
Rev. Canon A. Jessopp.

Illustration

‘Humble yourself that you may be exalted; surrender yourself that you may receive the vocation; yield yourself to God that He may move forward through you to His victory; in the name of Him, Who, by this same law of spiritual advance, went up so high because He had gone so low; and because He had emptied Himself of His Godhead and been found in fashion as a man, and had humbled Himself to death, even the death upon the Cross, “was therefore by God highly exalted, and given a Name that is above every name: that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” ’

(THIRD OUTLINE)

MAN’S ABASEMENT

‘Whosoever’ from our Lord’s lips is an awful word. When a man speaks thus of the moral world, in general and sweeping terms, we are apt, and with reason, to disregard his assertions. But when He thus speaks, Whose eye nothing escapes, Who sees all from the beginning to the end, the saying carries with it an admonition to solemn self-searching.

I. ‘Lord, is it I?’—Assuredly to the fullest extent of that His assertion so shall it be; and of those included in it none shall escape. ‘Whosoever’ exalted himself—not only the proud ruler of empires, whom He casts down, not only the nation, whose self-esteem He chastens in love, but the man, wheresoever or whatsoever he be, who unduly exalts himself, his own power for good, his own importance in the world, his own advancement in the spiritual life, or whatever else forms to men the subject of self-congratulation—every such feeling shall lead to abasement.

II. The whole process of our time of trial here below will be a continued succession of examples of casting down ourselves, and exalting God within us. If thou art His, expect this every day.