Religious Studies Talk

guardian Snow · Guest

I'd like you to take your Bibles and turn to Matthew 18. I'd like to
play off a statement Jesus Christ of Nazareth laid out for us here in
Matthew 18 to begin to work the concept of the sermon for today.

Matthew 18:1 – At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who
then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" That is the key point that
He is going to play off of now.

Verse 2 – And Jesus called a little child. . . He didn't ask for an
infant; He didn't ask for a teenager; He didn't ask for someone that
was a bit older. He asked for a little child, and what we recognize in
this particular case, it's someone that is of the age of innocence, as
we call it, someone in this particular case that was young enough, yet
old enough to have the ability to show a frame of mind and an attitude
that He was wanting to show them. And so He . . . set him (the child)
in the midst of them,

Verse 3 – (and) He said, "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are
converted and become as little children, you (will) shall by no means
enter the kingdom of heaven." Now I don't know whether you get the
feeling from this that I do; it's a simple basic parallel, but it is
such a strong statement that Jesus is making here that you get the
feeling that He's trying to tell us something extremely important.

Verse 4 – He said, "(Therefore) whoever humbles himself as this little
child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." So now He begins to
tell us, "Be converted." He tell us to become as little children, and
last of all, "He who humbles himself, like this little child."

Why? I have mused over this for fifty years, trying to figure out
exactly where He wanted us to go, and over the last six months as we
began to do some study for our pastoral training class, began to
realize that there's something that He wants us to understand about
this particular scripture. ". . .be converted," or as it means simply,
to be turned from and turned to, or as converted means, "turning,"
meaning a present progressive type of concept, and ". . .become as
little children." Ultimate end, you have to go from being an adult in
this frame of mind to being like this age of innocent child.

So we're going to play on this particular passage today and look at
something that I hope will be helpful to you as you go home, as you
watch little children, as you think about what Jesus said here,
because the body of the concept here of this sermon is to humble
ourselves as this little child. It's the key issue of being the
greatest in the kingdom of God.

My question is then, foundationally, why? Why? Why is this humble and
greatest in the kingdom so important? Let's look at it today.

In his essay entitled, "Pride, Humility and God," a religious writer
named John Stott wrote the following: "At every stage of our Christian
development, and in every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride
is the greatest enemy, and humility is our greatest friend."

Now if you want to think about that just a little bit, I think you're
going to find that his perception in this one case is profound. I
think it's important because he said, "At every stage and every level,
wherever we go, the greatest enemy, . . ." (The greatest enemy; he
didn't say it was one. He didn't say that it was part of all the
sinning of humanity.) He said that the greatest enemy is pride, and
the greatest friend is humility. I want to ask the question again,
why? And I want to try to answer that for us.

The sad fact is that no human being is immune to the logic-defying,
blinding effects of pride. It's just illogical sometimes. It's just so
foolishly stupid at times, and you say, "Wow!" This thought shows up
in different forms and in differing degrees. It infects all human
beings to one degree or another and it's going to be amazing as we're
going to look at several aspects of it from two sides today. But the
real issue here is that pride does exist, and pride is expressed, and
we have to understand how it is. As long as we can, we can deal with
it.

So today I would like to show you that pride is strongly and it is
dangerously rooted in every human being's life even far more than
sometimes we care to admit or even think about. We must be aware of
the greatest perils of pride not just occasionally or under certain
circumstances, but as Stott said, ". . .at every state and every
sphere." It sneaks up. It's an amazing thing how it sneaks up on a
human being.

So let's go back. Let's start all the way back to a creation that we
understand that was before Adam and Eve. Pride has quite a history,
one that precedes Adam and Eve. Pride was at the heart of the very
first sin. In his heart was the deepest part of motivation by this
spirit being. Let's go back there and read Isaiah 14 to begin our
study and look at this concept.

Isaiah 14:13 - It's interesting to note how this particular passage
opens up some words that flow one after the other and the attitude
that begins to show as what I call the root of all the sin of this
spirit being. All the sin at the root of this particular spirit
being's thinking, as we say, in the deepest part of his motivation.
Let's read the verse and then go back and emphasis a little bit what I
mean by that. It's talking about: Verse 12 ". . .how you have fallen
from heaven, Lucifer, you were cut down to the ground, you have
weakened the nations. . .

Verse 13 – "For you have said in your heart:. . ." If you begin to
look at people, you begin to understand that you keep going down
deeper and deeper and deeper into their psyche or their logic or their
heart or their mind, and you'll find the deepest part of the word of
God saying that in the heart is the deepest part of motivation. In the
heart, as we read so many places in the scripture, so he said,
". . .you have said in your heart. . ." It was deeply embedded within
him, he said, "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on
the farthest sides of the north;

Verse 14 – "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be
like the Most High." Now did you note that the motivation behind
Satan's rebellion is exposed five times? Five times, it says, "I
will," and he's doing it. Five times he said he would do, he would do,
he would do, I will. It's a willful action with no recourse as a
result of that by this particular spirit being.

So we recognize then that pride not only appears to be the earliest
sin, but we're going to find that it is at the core of all sin. It is
at the core of all sin. Pride is more than the first of the seven
deadly sins as are written by some of your religious writers both in
the Catholic world and also in the Protestant world. We recognize that
it is at the core. It is the basis; it is the basis. Pride is more
than the first of the seven deadly sins that we read about. It is in
itself the essence of all sin. And when he said the last part of Verse
14, ". . . I will be like the Most High," you begin to realize what
his motivation was, and what he was trying to become to be, as we
would say.

Genesis 2:16 – Let's take it a little bit further. Let's notice very
quickly. I just want to lay some foundational aspect to the sermon
here and then move it on down a road that will help us understand what
I was laying out for you as pride being at the core of all sin.

Verse 16 – He said, And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of
every tree of the garden you may freely eat;

Verse 17 – "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you
shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely
die."

Genesis 3:1 – Now the serpent was more cunning than any of the beast
of the field which the Lord God had made. And he goes on to say: And
he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of
every tree of the garden?'"

Verse 2 – And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit
of the trees of the garden;

Verse 3 – "but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the
garden, God (has) said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it,
lest you die.'"

Verse 4 – And the serpent said to the woman, "(You will not surely
die.)" You won't die.

Verse 5 – "(For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will
be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.) For God
knows better, the Spanish translation. But that's the concept.
". . .that in the day that you eat thereof your eyes will be opened,
and you will be like God. . ." So you see the point was that he was
showing her that there was actually a way to get to what she wanted
much sooner, and you didn't have to follow the rules. You could do it
your way. And so what we recognize here is that they disobeyed and
they were expelled from the garden. Sin was not only in disobeying but
the motivation was inspiring to be like God their own way, deciding
for yourself. And that comes with two words: pride and arrogance.

Here we see, in the sense of the word of one of the aspects of human
nature, is the pride of life. So when Satan broadcast to Adam and Eve,
he pumped into their minds the essence of all sin. Pride, because
that's what he was full of when you look at the last part of Isaiah
14:14. You recognize very simply that this aspect of human nature is a
killer. It is a terrible thing because Jesus said, "If you want to be
in the kingdom, you've got to become as this little child." And the
reason He said that is because He understood the great effects that
pride have upon human beings.

Over in Proverbs 6. Let's go over to Proverbs for just a couple of
moments:

Proverbs 6:16 - These six things (the Lord hates) God doesn't care
for. He wish you wouldn't do it. It'd be better if you laid off this.
No, He says a word here. He says a word in the Hebrew which has strong
meaning. He said, ". . .these six things (the Lord) God hates." Then
He puts a second emphasis on it, and He goes on to say: Yes, seven are
an abomination to Him: He carries it beyond hate to abomination, and
He just knows the concept is that this problem degenerates, and if
you'll notice from God's perspective, the most serious one that He
notes first and foremost is found in Verse 17.

Verse 17 – A proud look . . . A proud look . . . or as the margin has
it, a haughty look, or another word for that is arrogance. So it seems
that there is nothing God hates more than this. We're going to see in
other places in a moment that He begins to spell it out even more
fully. It is cause and effect. The cause is pride. The effect is sin.
And from this one particular sin flows all of the things that we see
in human nature. It is at the root cause because the devil was the
root causer and the pumper of that into the human mind. Not into the
mind of an innocent child, but as that child grew and as that child
became older, then you began to see as he interrelated with society
and with other human beings, then you began to see this beginning to
show up as they grow older, and have grown older.

God righteously hates all sin. Let's start right there. He hates all
sin, of course, but Biblical evidence abounds for the conclusion that
there is no sin more offensive to Him than pride. And the proud man's
haughty eyes or arrogance head up the list of things that are an
abomination to Him. Now we've not talked about that all that much in
the church in the years gone by in the same way that I think we're
beginning to understand it now. I'm really amazed that as we open this
up, we begin to realize how important, how important understanding
this concept becomes to all of us.

Proverbs 8:13 – Let's go to another one. Notice what Solomon is saying
to us. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil,. . . Again, you notice
the word. It is an extremely strong word in the Hebrew language. The
fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride and arrogance and the evil way
and the perverse mouth I hate. So God talks here, when He personifies
the wisdom of God in this particular eighth chapter, He says, "I hate
pride and arrogance." That's the NIV if you want to go back and look
at it. I hate pride and arrogance.

Proverbs 16:5 – Let's read another one. Notice what He says here. He
said, Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord;. . .
Pretty strong stuff. Hate and abomination, this is what He tells us.
He said it's an abomination, and it goes on to tell us: . . . though
they join forces, none will go unpunished. Ultimately, everybody sits
down to a banquet of consequences. Everybody does, and if pride isn't
extricated from a Christian's life, the Bible says that you will not
enter the kingdom unless you have become, and are becoming, like this
little child. That's how important it is, and it's a shocking
revelation if we have not come to that conclusion as members of God's
church.

Stronger language for sin simply cannot be found in the scripture. But
why? Again we come back to the question, why? Why does God hate pride
so passionately? It seems that, we've only touched on a few
scriptures, but why is it? I think there's a reason for that. Pride is
when sinful human beings aspire to the status and position of God and
refuse to acknowledge their dependence upon Him. I think this is what
you finally come down to. God is God and there is none else like Him
in all of the universe. But people decide they're going to do it their
way. If you remember the old song that Frank Sinatra sang, "I did it
my way?" And I think we recognize that this is a part of human nature,
but we must recognize that pride, when sinful human beings aspire to
the status and the position of God, and refuse to acknowledge their
dependence on Him, it is nothing more than a prideful act. It is
contending for supremacy with God. That's your bottom line. We've
never said that before that I can remember in any of the articles or
literature that we've ever talked about. It is contending for
supremacy with Him.

Pride takes innumerable forms, but only one end, self-glorification.
That motive and the ultimate purpose of pride are to rob God of
legitimate glory and to pursue self-glorification contending for
supremacy with Him. I'm going to repeat that again, because I think we
want to remember that. The ultimate purpose of pride is to rob God of
legitimate glory and to pursue self-glorification contending for
supremacy with Him. The proud person seeks to glorify himself and not
God, thereby attempting in effect to deprive God of something only He
is worthy to receive and can handle.

Why don't you go to the book of Job with me? I gave a sermon in the AM
church, and I'd like to just share one particular aspect of this out
of Job 9. I found Job probably one of the most interesting characters
in the Bible because he was one of the most righteous men, and yet he
had a flaw that needed to be humbled. He had a flaw that needed to be
dealt with. He had to learn some lessons along the way as he dealt
with his three friends which he argued with, and then with Elihu, he
didn't have an answer for him, but he still was there with Elihu and
having contention with him, and finally in the last few chapters of
Job, God says, "Okay, I'm going to contend with you, and I'm going to
start asking you some questions, and you tell me."

And I don't know you've ever seen this, but I remember one time
someone showed a big old garbage bag, and they took a hair dryer, and
they stuck it in there, and they blew this thing all the way up. And
they were describing going to the Feast. They put this hair drier in
there, and this big old garbage bag got so full, it could almost
burst. And then the person began to describe how as you go away from
the Feast, the first day, you let a little bit of air out. And five
days later, you let some more air out. Five days later, you let some
more air out until finally after about two weeks, you look at this
limp garbage bag. And they said, "This is what you are after you've
been through such a great Feast. You just end up looking like a limp
garbage bag."

And I thought it was most interesting because of the fact that this is
what happened with Job. He got all puffed up over, in this case, where
he was and what he was able to do in his own righteousness that he had
an argument for God. Now going to the Feast, that has nothing to do
with vanity. It simply has to do with how you're so filled with the
messages. But with Job, Job wanted desperately to contend with God.
Notice what it says here.

Job 9:2 – He said: Job answered and said: "Truly I know it is so, but
how can a man be righteous before God?

Verse 3 – He said: If one (wished) wishes to contend with Him, he
could not answer Him one time out of a thousand.

Verse 4 – God is wise in heart (and) mighty in strength. Who has
hardened himself against Him and prospered?

Verse 14 – "How then can I answer Him, and choose my words to reason
with Him?

Verse 15 – "For though I were righteous, I could not answer Him; I
would beg mercy of my Judge.

Verse 16 – "If I called and He answered me, I would not believe that
He was listening to my voice.

Verse 17 – "For He crushes me with a tempest, . . . This is what I
would describe as truly an interesting attitude, and we see that, as
we go through the rest of the section, we see that Job simply
contended with his three friends and he was telling them that he
wanted to find God and bring his arguments before Him to contend with
Him. You'll find that in this whole section of the book, a man had his
pride humbled by the end of the book because of Job 42. Let's turn
there for just a moment and show you what he finally became because he
had to learn some lessons. It wasn't that he wasn't a righteous man.
It wasn't that he wasn't doing many of the things that should be done.
He just simply had this struggle that he went through, this great
difficulty, and he did not know how to handle it, and he wanted some
answers, and he wasn't getting them the way that he felt he should.

Job 42:1 – (Then) Job answered the Lord and said:

Verse 2 – "I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of
Yours can be withheld from You.

Verse 3 – "You asked, 'Who is this who hides counsel without
knowledge?' Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things
too wonderful for me, which I did not know." So Job began to realize
that he was being shown where he was wrong. And he said:

Verse 4 – "Listen, please, (and) let me speak; You said, 'I will
question you, and you (shall) will answer Me.'

Verse 5 – "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my
eye sees You." Meaning he saw the creation of God, and he saw God as
the great Creator, Ruler, Sustainer of life and Law Giver. He said:

Verse 6 – "(Therefore) Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust
and ashes." But he went one step further. He went one step further
because when you go back to the tanakh, or the Jewish translation,
it's translated this way: "I repent. . ." And this is the true
translation from the Hebrew. "I repent seeing I am dust and ashes." He
humbled himself, or he was humbled, I should say, by what happened to
him.

It's no wonder God opposes pride, no wonder He hates pride. I think
that truth has to sink into us as members of the body as we begin to
look at the question of the very first sin and how that's been
perpetuated upon mankind for thousands and thousands of years.

There's a book that was written by Solomon Schimmel. The book is
entitled, The Seven Deadly Sins. He made some interesting comments.
I'd like to share just a few of them with you this afternoon in the
sermon. He said the following: he said, "Pride or arrogance
exaggerating our worth and power and feeling superior to others has
been recognized since ancient times as a root cause of cruelty and
evil." He said, "Pride is unique among the seven deadly sins in that
we are frequently unaware of our arrogance." We are frequently unaware
of our arrogance. ". . whereas we tend to know when we're angry. We
tend to know when we're greedy. We tend to know when we're gluttonous,
and so on. But moreover, like the other six sins when our pride is
pointed out to us, we often do not even realize that it's a vice."

It goes on to say, "It is because of this, this is because it is
difficult for us to admit that we are of less worth than we imagined
ourselves to be. And because our culture values high self esteem and
failed to appreciate modesty and humility. One last statement he made.
He said, "There are English terms for personality traits closely
related to the traditional sin of pride, arrogance, haughty,
conceited, egocentric, narcissistic, insolent, presumptuous and vain."
Those are words we all know in the church are things we are striving
to avoid.

"In theory our culture advocates an egalitarian ethos. All men are
created equal and no group or individual should dominate or serve
another. Humility suggests submission to authority, a sense of being
low in a hierarchy of merit and power." He said, "Such feelings go
against the grain of equality and so we under value humility as a
virtue."

Now, let's do something. I'd like to take us down a road that perhaps
we've not gone before. I want to show you how pride hides itself and
how it disguises itself. Pride is disguised, and can be disguised, and
it can actually appear as two faces of the same coin. Two sides of
that particular same coin.

I want to take you through some statements that were made by
Englishmen back in the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth
centuries, and show you how they felt about this whole concept of
humility. Humility tends to have a bad name, as we're going to see. In
fact very little was written until just probably the last four or five
years that we've been able to get our hands on in the same way that
we're doing right now.

It has a bad name. It may be self effacing; it may be self
denigrating, or running yourself down. Notice some attitudes going all
the way back to the fourteenth century. Notice the fourteenth century
attitude. The writer says, "In humility, one must feel unable to dwell
among men. You are unprofitable to your brother; you must judge
yourself more foul than any other creature." You can see why humility
has a bad name. Who wants to feel more foul than any other creature?
But I think what we recognize is that humility that he's talking about
here is actually connected with pride. It's actually pride disguised.
Man's humility is actually connected with pride and we don't even
recognize it. Humility is regarded as an aspect of pride, two faces of
the same coin.

Benjamin Franklin made this comment: He said in his autobiography, he
said, "Pride is hard to disguise. It is hard to disguise it because I
am proud of my humility if I can hide it." Aw, I tell you. This is an
interesting study, but it just makes you realize what we're just
beginning to scratch the surface of in some ways. Let's look at two
forms of what I call, "carnal humility," okay? It's been foisted off
on us in, whether it's the society now or the last four centuries, but
the point is it's a very interesting one. So let's take a look at it,
there are two of them.

Number One: Power Seeking Humility: There are various degrees of power
seeking. One can gain power by avoiding problems and getting on with
people. And the concept is, - avoid trouble. Act humble. A good
example of that: a police car pulls you over; what do you do? You'd
better play humble. You'd better not get into an argument with him.
You'll get on better that way, and if you're like my wife, she can
talk herself out of some things. I've seen her do it, and the answer
to that is, she was just being innocent, I think she was at that time,
she was innocent. She didn't know she had done something wrong. But
it's interesting that the policeman picked up on that, but the concept
is – avoid trouble, act humble and play humble. You'll get on better
that way.

Two people that I knew some years ago, one acted humble and contrite
when he was corrected. He told his friend, "Just say you're wrong.
Just say you're wrong. Act humble." And he said, "You really don't
change after getting caught, you just pretend. You pretend humility."
And this is what he would do in trying to get through the particular
problem that he was caught on.

Sometimes you see hostages are in what they call a – cringing
humility. But the real attitude is far from that particular frame of
mind as we realize.

The little boy when told to sit down and be quiet, later on he told
his mother very simply, "Well, I may be sitting on the outside, but I
am standing on the inside." But the concept is that you can outwardly
feign this humility. It's what we call, it's a part of power seeking
humility, and you get on better that way until you can get beyond that
situation.

This humility in many, many cases is really for self-advancement. He
plays on the other person's self-importance to advance in rank. Notice
the sixteenth century approach to humility. The writer said, "We must
debase ourselves, and when we did, we got awards for it, being humble.
Keep yourself down and let people feel above you. So again, it's a
wrong use of the concept, but it's the concept of power-based
humility. Disguised as humility, it's simply a fawning attitude. We
court favor by a cringing or a flattering manner."

This is not unusual in the business world. To give you an example:
when J. Paul Getty was still alive, the oil billionaire, or magnet,
purposely came up with a ridiculous business idea. He wanted to know
where his men stood. It was the most ridiculous thing some people said
that he ever suggested or proposed. Six men immediately approved the
ridiculous plan. "Wonderful, J. Paul, never heard anything quite like
this before. It is really great. I'm so glad to hear this."

Two junior executives sat there, like that, glumly; they just were
very unhappy, and only one young man showed enough gumption to tell
him, "That is the worst suggestion I ever heard you give, Mr. Getty. I
cannot believe that you came up with that." He was promoted to a top
job just a few months later.

J. Paul Getty said he simply wanted to find out where his men stood.
And he said you really found out that they were just simply being
sycophantic loyalists, and they simply were not being honest with the
boss because that would not be humble, and so that is what you saw
there.

In reality you'll find that this humility often desires to topple and
replace people in power. Let's go notice over in II Samuel 15. Let's
take a look at a man by the name of Absalom. This is II Samuel 15:1.

II Samuel 15:1 - He said: After this happened that Absalom provided
himself with chariots and horses, and fifty men to run before him.

Verse 2 – Now Absalom would rise early and stand (beside) by the way
of the gate. So it was, whenever anyone (who) had a lawsuit they came
to the king for a decision, that Absalom would call (to) him and say,
"What city are you from?" See, he was appealing to this individual. He
was trying to get inside of the individual and so he simply said,
"What city are you from?" And he would say, "Your servant is from such
and such a tribe of Israel."

Verse 3 – Then Absalom would say to him, "Look, your case is good and
right; but there is no deputy (of the king) to hear you." You can just
see him oozing with awe, "I'm so sorry. Your situation is really
important. You know, you really should be heard but there's nobody
here to help you."

Verse 4 – Moreover Absalom would say, "Oh, that I were made judge in
the land, and everyone who has any suit or cause would come to me,
then I would give him justice."

Verse 5 – And so it was, whenever (anyone) anybody came near to bow
down to him, that he would put out his hand and take him (yuck) and
kiss him. I mean, how bad can it get? You know the feigning of
friendship? He slobbers all over his hand. You know, that type of
thing, just enough make you sick. I don't know if you run into people
like that, but it's a terrible thing. Notice Verse 7:

Verse 7 – Now it came to pass after forty years that Absalom said to
the king, "Please, let me go to Hebron and pay the vow which I made to
the Lord.

Verse 8 - "For your servant took a vow while I dwelt at Geshur in
Syria, saying, 'If the Lord indeed brings me back to Jerusalem, then I
will serve the Lord.'"

Verse 9 – And the king said to him, "Go in peace." And so he arose and
went to Hebron.

Verse 10 – Then Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes of
Israel, saying, "As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then
you shall say, 'Absalom reigns in Hebron.'"

Verse 11 – And with Absalom went two hundred men invited from
Jerusalem, and they went along innocently and they did not know
anything. Isn't that amazing? Here he was, disguising his true
intentions by feigning humility and making David appear as
incompetent, and then he was simply vaunting himself into the position
in the name of the Lord. It was nothing but treason. It was nothing
but absolute treason.

Many people reveal their true feelings when they finally get into
power. Power seemingly turns people into another personality. Some
people feigning humility are being so low in self-esteem and self-
worth that he's now drunk with his power. But that's the same
individual, two sides to the coin; it's the same individual. Give him
the job; give him some authority; and this person who would not hurt a
flea can become unreasonable, heard-headed and truculent.

In my early years in the ministry in Canada, we did not have what you
had down here. We had armbands for deacons. I don't know how many of
you had the armband, how many knew about the armband. But then we had
another armband for assistant deacons. And let me tell you that those
assistants really did their job. And I mean there were times, it was
really interesting because I remember Mr. Walter Johnson, who was a
member of the church in Kansas City, worked up in Canada for while,
his wife was dying of cancer, and they had a speaker outside so the
men who were watching the parking lot could hear the sermon. And so
what he did was he turned the station wagon around, his wife was in
the back of the station wagon, he opened it up and he's starting to
pull in so that he could get the speaker to speak to her so she could
listen to the sermon. She couldn't go inside. She didn't have the
capacity.

And so the assistant deacon said, "You can't park here."

And Walter said, "Yes, my wife is ill, I can't go in."

He says, "You can't park here!"

He says, "You know, my wife's ill, and it's the only way she can hear
the sermon."

He says, "You can't park here!"

And Walter said to him, he said, "You'd better move out of the way
because this car's coming back, and if you're in the way, I'm going to
run you down."

You know what happened? That assistant deacon moved. And the
interesting thing was he had that armband, and you weren't about
to. . . He was unreasonable, and this is what happens sometimes with
people who really want to be in power. They feign this humility, and
then all of a sudden, when they get into power, they do things that
are unreasonable. And that's not unusual to talk about some of those
experiences because we went through them in the early years of the
church. The carnal desire was for power in the first place, but
through outward humility.

Now there's the other end of the gamut is when power is diminished. It
causes people to leave because they really weren't humble, they were
just humiliated. I could name you on both of my hands people who had
that happen simply because when they were in power and they were
removed from the job, they couldn't handle it. They were humiliated,
and so they walked away from the church. They walked away from the
job.

Seventeenth century description of humility: Listen to what the writer
says. He said, "Pretended submission. Pretended stratagem or trick of
pride which abases itself to exalt itself. It is best hid under the
guise of humility. It's best hid under the guise of humility."

This is what I'm talking about when I said, "Power, carnal power,
humility."

Eric Hoffer, probably many of you know him as one of the writers and
well known men in counseling in the seventies and eighties. He said
this of this humility, or power humility, that it is one substitution
of pride for another. It is one substitution of pride for another.
Same coin, just the other side. The motivation is simple. It's man-
centered. The motivation is man- centered, not God-centered.

Point number two: The second form of carnal humility is what we call,
"Weakness humility." False humility was seen a great deal in years
gone by in the church. Self-respect or having proper ego strength was
seen in terms of a power, pride, or vanity.

I remember when I went to Chicago after I'd been on a baptizing tour,
and I came back there, and they had their first spokesman club, and I
was asked to give an evaluation of the speakers, the three speakers
that spoke that night, and they did a great job. They did a wonderful
job. And finally after it was all said and done, they asked me to
evaluate, and I said, "I think you know you did this well, this well,
this well, work on this one point."

And after the club was over, I had a whole group of them surrounding
me, and they said, "Why did you treat him so nice?" You know, "Why
didn't you really tell him where it was at?" As they say in Chicago.

And I said, "Well, he did a good job." I said, "He had one flaw in
what he was saying."

And the answer was, you know, because you're not supposed to treat
them nice. You're really supposed to run them down, get them worked
over, that type of thing and when they leave there, they should be
walking with their nose almost plowing, you know, the ground as
they're going out.

It's like I remember one man said to me, he was so humbled by what
happened to him, he said, "I was lower than a snake's belly." Now I
don't know what's lower than a snake's belly, but this is what he told
me. So the point is we saw back years ago that we were to only see
ourselves as I Corinthians 1:26. Not many wise men, not many noble,
not many, you know, of this type of individual. . . And we were
supposed to mentally remain that way, according to what some people
taught me. But it didn't happen that way. We began to realize that was
wrong.

That false humility is actually sometimes found in the word –
humiliation. People feel inferior to other people. But the God family
see and feel equal to each other. Philippians 2:6 says the
following: . . .he thought it not robbery to be equal with God. Christ
said equality with God was not a thing to be grasped at because he
already had it. He said He and His Father were one, not in authority
but They were one and there was a union and a working unity that was
there. So we didn't have this attitude and frame of mind that we see
that did occur in the early years of the church. Weakness humility,
weakness humility and man-centered human ego get all the credit
because he sees himself as being under other people. He doesn't see
himself as being inferior to God and God alone. He sees himself as
being inferior to man and taking, as we say, sometimes a lower rung on
the ladder.

Many times our estimation of ourselves is based on our relationship
with humans, not with God. And it becomes a totally, in some cases, a
whipped attitude, deeply ingrained humiliation because of comparisons.
II Corinthians 10:12 tells you the following. You don't need to turn
there, but He simply says, "They who measure themselves among
themselves and measure themselves by themselves are not wise." There
is no inferiority and superiority between us in the church. The only
thing that we have an inferiority to is to the great God of heaven and
earth because He is what He is and we are what we are.

So, what we see is the same coin, two sides. We see superiority brings
pride, vanity, self-righteousness. Inferiority beings a lower opinion
of yourself and sometimes humiliation. But neither changes. That's the
sad part. But neither changes.

Let's go over to Luke 18. Let's take another scripture here in Luke
18. You've seen it. I'm not going to take the time to expound the
whole parable, but we simply see this carnality at work in this
example in Luke 18. We call it the Publican and, of course, the
Pharisee, I'm sorry, the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, I'm sorry.

Luke 18:9 – (Also) He spoke this parable to some who trusted in
themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:

Verse 10 – "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and
the other a tax collector.

Verse 11 – "The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself,. . . I
love that kind of prayer, pray with yourself. Did you ever do it? I
think if we were really honest, we could all say that we've done that
at times. We hear ourselves talking to ourselves, you know. That does
happen. He goes on to say, this particular man went up to the temple,
prayed with himself and said, 'God I think You that I am not like
other men – extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax
collector.

Verse 12 – 'I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.'

Verse 13 – "And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so
much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat on his breast, saying,
'God, be merciful to me a sinner!'

Verse 14 – "I tell you, this man went down to his house justified
rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself. . . in his
relationships with other human beings. . . that's what He's talking
about. . . is going to (will be) humbled, and he who humbles himself
in his relationship to God. That's the point." That is the point that
you finally come back to. The Publican was God-centered. He was
showing a basic humility in this case.

I thought it was interesting. Another religious writer made this
comment, and I want you to think about it for just a second. C. S.
Lewis once said, "A proud man is always looking down on things and
people. He's always looking down on things and people. And of course,
as long as you are looking down, you can't see something above you."
Think about that. Think about that. The person who's looking down
can't see something that is above you.

God is actively opposed to pride. You and I hate nothing to the degree
that God hates pride. His hatred for pride is pure. His hatred for
pride is holy, and God will not bear with seeing his glory
appropriated by man even in the smallest degree. It is sacrilegious
arrogance of those who by praising themselves obscure His glory as far
as they can. And because God cannot bear with this arrogance, He
reveals Himself in the scriptures as actively opposing pride, actively
in an ongoing way opposing pride. Notice James 4:6. I won't read the
second one, but James 4:6 and I Peter 5:5, but let's go over to James
because they both quote from Proverbs 3:34. Let's go over to James
4:6. Notice what it says. He says:

James 4:6 – But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:"God resists
the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Simply God resists. It's an
ongoing progressive thing. God opposes. Opposes in this statement is
an active present tense verb showing that God's opposition to pride is
immediate and a constant activity. The proud will not indefinitely
escape discipline. We are constantly warned against pride, especially
spiritual pride because it can bring such a premature ending.

Pride also, you will find, undermines unity, and it can ultimately
divide a church. Show me a church where there is division; show me a
church where there is quarrelling, and I'll show you a church where
there is pride. That's a fact of life. Proverbs 13:10 says the
following:

Proverbs 13:10 - By pride comes nothing but strife,. . . I have seen
it. Many of you have seen it. It will bring down pastors and leaders
as well. It is more insidious in the church than radon gas in the
home. It just is.

Proverbs 16:18 - Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit
before a fall.

I took you to Matthew 18. And I asked you to look at that particular
question that we see there, the greatest in the kingdom was to be
humble, or to become humble like this child. This is what Jesus said
that we should be looking at.

On this day of the blessing of little children, we should not forget
these words, an admonishment to us because He says, "Assuredly I say
unto you unless you are converted and become as little children you
will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever
humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of
heaven."

By unmasking pride as well as introducing us to humility, our greatest
friend, God lays out for us the path to true greatness, a path that we
see most clearly in our Savior, Jesus Christ's life, His death and His
resurrection. I hope this has been helpful to you to the degree that
you can see the concept that I was trying to get across today, how
great is the sin of pride.

Guest · Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:51 am Post subject: Re: Pride

On Jul 13, 8:27 pm, guardian Snow <phoenixhasri...@yahoo.com.au>
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