Pride Comes Before the Fall
The Writing is on the Wall • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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When me and Dani were planning our wedding. We went dress shopping. And yes I was with her.
We knew she wasn’t going to make decision on a dress that day, mainly because we didn’t have the money to get it.
She knew she wanted a white dress. So she went in and came out with this beautiful dress, and she loved it.
I said, That is beautiful, I wonder if it comes in white.
She was like this is white. I was very adamant that this was not white but eggshell.
She was sure she was right, and asked the lady helping us.
No ma’am, it is eggshell.
She probably should have known right then and there that married life would be hard with me always being right.
I know that is very prideful and arrogant.
I wanted to bring this up in this way, because the reason the modern church is in such a decline is because of prideful arrogance.
NEC is not a perfect church. We are a bunch of broken imperfect people worshipping a perfect Savior.
We should never lose sight of that fact.
Our favorite saying here is “You don’t have to be crazy to worship here, but it helps”
We see so many prideful, arrogant pastors falling. And the devil is loving it, because he gets to scream out “Look at what you are following. Look they are full of sin, and they want to call you out. Why listen to them?”
I am going to tell you up front, I am not a perfect person and please do not put in that position.
I am on a platform, not a pedestal.
I am nothing more than a flawed shepherd guiding a bunch of flawed sheep.
People ask...are we Baptist, Pentecostal, or non denominational. We are a church that follows Jesus Christ and the infallible Word of God...nothing more.
If we start to add to that, we start to put what we want in His church.
The day we start to think NEC is perfect, we need to close those doors forever, because it has stopped being a church that follows Christ, and has become a church that follows our own man made ideology.
Pride comes before the fall!!!
Pride comes before destruction,
and an arrogant spirit before a fall.
Getting into our verses today, the narrator switches from Daniel being the speaker to King Nebuchadnezzar.
He is giving first hand knowledge of what was going on and what happened.
This chapter has three people speaking in it. King Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel, and an angel of the Lord.
Today, we will see the danger of Pride, God’s Judgement, and the blessing of restoration.
Please take time this week to read Daniel 4. It is about a 10 minute read, but it is such a thought provoking story.
It starts with the king having a dream that scares the crap out of him. Daniel comes in and tells the king that the dream is about him and gives him the interpretation. And low and behold the dream comes true.
Now I will not spoil the rest of it for you, you will need to go read it for yourself.
Let’s start by getting Mrs. Sherry to stand and open us up in prayer.
The Danger of Pride and the Reality of God’s Judgement.
Let me start by saying there is a major difference between pride and being proud.
Biblically, pride is an arrogant state of the heart that places self above God, while being proud in a healthy sense means feeling a grateful, humble satisfaction in a job well done or in someone else's achievements while giving credit to God.
Let’s see the prideful side
the king exclaimed, “Is this not Babylon the Great that I have built to be a royal residence by my vast power and for my majestic glory?”
Old boy be sitting on his high horse.
Notice the pride and the arrogance in the tone of the king.
Let’s have an honesty moment right now.
Our president came into office and has done almost everything he said he would do. And I feel he has done an amazing job, but...he would be even better if he would learn to shut his mouth.
What really got to where I had to stop listening to him speak is when Charlie Kirk was killed.
The speech he gave was more about what he did than who Charlie was.
If we are completely honest, the numbers for Conservative Republicans would be beyond measure if he was not so prideful and arrogant.
The prideful side is posturing yourself, saying look at what I have done, I didn’t need God. I deserve the worship. I am lord and creator of my own success.
But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says:
God resists the proud
but gives grace to the humble.
So what happened to the king when he exclaimed what his dominance.
At that moment the message against Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was driven away from people. He ate grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with dew from the sky, until his hair grew like eagles’ feathers and his nails like birds’ claws.
God’s judgement against those who have a prideful heart is all over scripture.
Everyone with a proud heart is detestable to the Lord;
be assured, he will not go unpunished.
Your arrogant heart has deceived you,
you who live in clefts of the rock
in your home on the heights,
who say to yourself,
“Who can bring me down to the ground?”
Though you seem to soar like an eagle
and make your nest among the stars,
even from there I will bring you down.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
For a day belonging to the Lord of Armies is coming
against all that is proud and lofty,
against all that is lifted up—it will be humbled—
And when the end times come God’s judgement come upon the earth and will be there for all to see
As much as she glorified herself and indulged her sensual and excessive ways,
give her that much torment and grief.
For she says in her heart,
“I sit as a queen;
I am not a widow,
and I will never see grief.”
For this reason her plagues will come in just one day—
death and grief and famine.
She will be burned up with fire,
because the Lord God who judges her is mighty.
But what about being proud? Is that a sin?
No! If it is done in a humble and God glorifying way.
Like, I am proud of my daughters and the young women they are becoming.
I am proud that they have kept their faith in Christ and live to serve Him.
And I give honor and glory to Christ through it all.
Honestly, you have seen me and Dani...without Christ those poor girls had no chance.
I am very frank with you; I have great pride in you. I am filled with encouragement; I am overflowing with joy in all our afflictions.
Lennie and Leighann love to pick at me about me posting my gym picks.
And to some it may seem arrogant to post them.
I post them to encourage myself and others.
I do not do it out of prideful arrogance, I do it to give glory to Him, because without Him giving me the determination to better myself. I’d be well over 300lbs.
This is his temple, I feel I should make it the best for him.
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Now, this all well and good, but what if someone does fall into a prideful arrogant heart?
The Blessing of Restoration
When we left the king he was like an animal, the medical term is known as boanthropy. It means that they think they are like a cow.
God’s judgement against the king lasted 7 years, till one day
But at the end of those days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, looked up to heaven, and my sanity returned to me. Then I praised the Most High and honored and glorified him who lives forever:
For his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and his kingdom is from generation to generation.
All the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing,
and he does what he wants with the army of heaven
and the inhabitants of the earth.
There is no one who can block his hand
or say to him, “What have you done?”
At that time my sanity returned to me, and my majesty and splendor returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisers and my nobles sought me out, I was reestablished over my kingdom, and even more greatness came to me.
The blessing of restoration.
He has a plan for each of us and although the blessings may come after great trial, like far too long on a boat with smelly animals, they will come—in this life or the next.
John D. Barry; Rebecca Kruyswijk
So many Christians think that when they have fallen it is such a long track back to God’s grace. It is not. It is simply turning around.
Christ has never left you, you were the one running. Guess what Christ kept up with you, stride for stride.
My mother was a horror movie fanatic.
She would make me watch them with her and something that always confused me.
The victim would be running with all their might, and the killer would walk. Like he had not a care in the world.
And the victim would look back and then run right into the killer.
Like the dude had a teleporter or something.
It is like that with us and Christ. We become arrogant and prideful, and we start to run from Christ. We turn to look back to see how far we have ran, and bam He is still right there.
But instead of a manchette or a knife, He is there with grace and mercy and love for his child.
But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ ”
I am going to end with this, and it is dealing with this verse
And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven will also forgive you your wrongdoing.”
We as Christians are called to forgive, the Lord has given us that power and that as a command.
What is not in our power is restoration.
Restoration comes only through the power of Christ.
Only Christ can restore what was lost.
