All prayers Prayers of Humiliation

If confession is an act, humiliation is rather a state of mind, in which one mourns for sins committed. It continues after confession. By humbling ourselves, we judge evil, having the same appreciation of it as God. We have constant reasons to humble ourselves in our prayers for our personal failings, our inconsistencies, our infidelities.

The Lord said to Elijah: “Do you see how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring evil in his days” (1 Kings 21:29). “Hezekiah humbled himself because his heart was lifted up, he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and the anger of the Lord did not come upon them” (2 Chron. 32:26). When Manasseh was in distress, “he made supplication to the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto him; and he was moved by him, and hearkened unto his supplication” (2 Chron. 33:12, 13). “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God” (1 Pet. 5:6). Such humiliation is necessarily accompanied by judgment of ourselves before God. This will lead us, not to discouragement, but to lifting our eyes to the throne of grace for help in time of need.

While we have personal motives for humiliation, there are also corporate causes for humiliation. By virtue of the fundamental truth of the unity of the body, especially developed in the first epistle to the Corinthians, all believers constitute one body of which they are members, so that if one suffer, all suffer with him (12:26). This is why we have humiliation meetings in which the assembly mourns, taking upon itself, before God, the sin of a brother or sister.

The one who committed the fault may have humbled himself personally, which is very desirable, but the assembly must be purified from the defilement that is in its midst, for the confession of the guilty cannot replace the action of the assembly. The evil in its midst is incompatible with the holiness that characterizes it. It is in solidarity with it and must confess it, humble itself by it and be purified by it, a work that may require the cutting off of the one who bears the character of wickedness. By removing him from its midst, it shows itself pure in the matter (2 Cor. 7:11).

When such discipline is exercised in the assembly, it is essential that it be preceded by a humiliation meeting. This important truth is demonstrated to us in type in the sin of Achan (Joshua 7).

One man had seen, coveted, yet the whole people are guilty. Verse 11 is very striking: “Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them, and have also taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and have also lied, and have also put it in their baggage.” What caused the Lord to turn back from the fierceness of his anger? It was the taking away of the evil. “And all Israel stoned him…” (v. 25).

The whole people join in this act of purification. Their affliction and the realization of the gravity of the evil produce the energy to act, for humiliation and action go hand in hand. We cite an extreme case, but let us remember that there is always reason to humble ourselves in our regular prayer meetings by seeing the easy abandonment of the gathering, the growth of worldliness, the increasing lack of spiritual needs, and so many other things. The Word also teaches us that the consciousness of our identification with the weaknesses of the whole leads us to bear them in our hearts, humbling ourselves also in our personal prayers.

​​​​​​​This is another aspect of the same truth. We will cite only one case mentioned in the Scriptures, that of Ezra, who, in solitude, with his mantle and robe torn, wept and mourned over the sins of the people, who had allied themselves by marriage to women who were strangers to the people of God. He can say in his humiliation, "I am confounded and ashamed to lift up my face to thee, O my God; for our iniquities are multiplied over our heads" (9:6). The attitude of this godly man touched the conscience of the guilty people, so that a very large congregation was gathered together, who with tears confessed their sin, and were thereby animated with the energy necessary to separate themselves from evil.

Let us be preserved from indifference in seeing the ruin of the Church and our infidelities which tarnish the testimony, but on the contrary let the ardent desire of the glory of the Lord and the love for His own lead us to suffer such a state of things, bearing it with humiliation on our hearts before God by our individual prayers, imploring His great compassions on that which is called by His Name (see Dan. 9:17-20).

Having enumerated many of the characteristics of the prayers by which we present our petitions to Him who can meet all our needs, it is beneficial to consider briefly the various actions by which our mouths are opened to offer to God, through the Lord Jesus, that which He has a right to expect from those who are the objects of His love. We cannot present in our prayers anything acceptable that has its source in ourselves. The fruit of the lips that is acceptable to Him is first of all the confession of the name of His beloved Son, as also that which His grace has wrought in us. (Heb. 13:15) “Open wide thy mouth, and I will fill it.” (Ps. 81:10)