Turn now to Proverbs chapter
six. I'm very grateful to your pastor
asking me to come and it's good to see all of you old friends
again and grateful to be here and I pray the Lord will bless
his word now in this hour. I really only want to talk to
you about two things in the next few minutes. I want to talk First
of all, about pride and its consequences. And then I want to talk about
the remedy, the remedy, forgiveness for our pride. Now, the religious world likes to
dwell very much on the fact that God is love, on the love of God. But, and that's a good thing
to dwell on, as long as we do not overlook or exclude in that
message or word the truth that's recorded here about the love
of God. That's not all there is here,
the love of God. God does not love everybody,
everything, everything everybody does. He doesn't love all that. In fact, he gives a very specific
list of what he hates. The religious world doesn't much
want to hear about that part, do they? They've even warped
the Word of God when it says, Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. And they say, well, that means
he loved him less. Oh, really? I don't think that's quite true.
You know, to love somebody, less enough to cast them into darkness. There's not much love in that,
is there? The simple truth is there's things God loves, there's
things God hates. There's love and there is hate.
And the evidence of that is God gives a list of what he hates.
You see in Proverbs 6, you got verse 16? These six things doth
the Lord hate. That's pretty clear, isn't it?
And then he says, yay, there's actually seven. There's one in
particular that's really unique. It's, I'd make a list of six,
but then I'd put number seven right up here. It's the first
thing. And do y'all see what it is?
Here's the list. Number one, a proud look. God
hates pride. Oh, he hates it. Now read the
rest of the list here. He also hates a lying tongue.
He hates hands that shed innocent blood. He hates a heart that
devises wicked imaginations. He hates feet that be swift in
running to mischief. He hates a false witness that
speaketh lies. And he hates he that soweth discord
among the brethren. Now we'd be wise to sort of keep
those somewhere in our mind and ask the Lord, whenever I do one
of those things or get headed down that road, tap me on the
shoulder and go, whoa, I'd like to be restrained from doing anything
that God hates. And I know you would do. But
the very first thing on the list is a proud look. And the sad truth is that every
son and daughter of Adam is full of pride. We're just stuffed
to the gills with it. You know, I'm going to give you
a list of pride, types of pride. Let's see if any of them fit
you like they fit me. First of all, there's pride of
face. Any of you ladies ever find yourself looking at somebody,
another woman, who's getting a lot of attention from the fellas
and you thought, I'm as good looking as she is.
Ever done that? Ever looked and gone, I don't
know what they like about her hair. Mine's better than that
mop she's got. Anybody ever done that? Any of
you fellas ever seen one of these rock stars on television and
gone, man, if I was as ugly as that guy, I'd get a facelift. Did you ever look at anybody
and just thought, they're ugly. One of the reasons we're saying
that is because we think so much of ourselves. We look in the
mirror and go, I like what I see. There's pride of face. Number
two, what about pride of pace? Anybody ever been at work and
watching somebody else alongside of you going, man, if I was as
sloppy as that, I'd just quit? Or turn that around, have you
ever gone, If I work that slow, I'd be a sloth. Thinking I work
just at the right pace. I get it done, and I get it done
quick, and I do it right. That's called pride of pace.
What about pride of race? Now there's one in this country
that's a hot button, isn't it? Let me tell you what I've seen
in my lifetime. I have seen the Japanese Try
to wipe out the Chinese. I have seen the Chinese despise
the Russians and go to war with them. I've seen the Russians
conquer the Scandinavians. I've seen the Scandinavians,
look at the Germans, they despise them. And then, you know, I've
seen the Germans, they got no use for those Italians. And the
Italians, look at those Africans and think, that lowlife bunch,
And the Africans got no use for the Frenchmen. And the Frenchmen,
parlez-vous Francais? You don't speak French, you're
nobody. And then I see the English look at the French, I mean the
Americans, and go, oh, they're just the colonies. They don't know the king's English. And us Americans, we're now looking
down at the Mexicans. They're a dirty lot. They don't
work hard. And then we look at the Mexicans
who consider the Mayans a bunch of crazy Indians. And the Mayans
have killed nearly all the Aztecans. They're nearly all dead. And
it just never ends. It just never ends. You know
what that's called? Pride of race. The simple truth is we hate everybody
who's not me. Got no use for them. Then there's
pride of place. Most of the kings and princes
of this world throughout history were in for a rude awakening
when they died, like everybody does, and found out that God
not only was not pleased, but hated them for looking down their
nose at the commoners. You remember that French queen,
was it? The peasants were starving to death. They had no bread.
And you know what she said? She said, let them eat cake. Oh my, oh my. Pride of place. And then there's
even this one, this one's amazing. Do you know there's even pride
of grace? You say, even in this life, God's children cannot rid
themselves of pride, even after Christ has revealed himself to
us. And this is a very embarrassing illustration for me to give,
but I was a very young believer. and another man in the church
and I decided to start a business. And we got all the stuff we needed
and we rented a place. And the guy who was in there
was supposed to be out by eight o'clock in the morning on this
day. We showed up. He's not out. And we talked to him and he says,
well, I'll get it out here soon. 10 o'clock comes. Nah, I'm working on it. Noon
comes. Oh, this is a little harder than
I thought it was gonna be. Come on now, you can do it. Two o'clock
comes. He's not out. Three o'clock comes. Man, this is tough. And we walk
away. I said, well, come on now. And
we walk away and my friend says to me, my fellow believer says
to me, says, man, said, I can't believe how patient you're being.
He said, man, I'd have gone off on this guy a long time ago.
Now listen to what I said. I said, well, you know, there
was a time before I heard the gospel that I'd already gone
off on this guy. I would have just lost it. But
you know, since I've heard the gospel, I don't seem to have
as much trouble controlling my temper as I once did. Well, about 4.30 comes, and we
knock on the door again. He says, you know, I just don't
know if we're gonna be able to get that stuff out of here or
not. I grabbed this guy by the front of the shirt and went,
You'll be out of here in 30 minutes or I'm coming in there and I'm
gonna throw everything in there and you in the street, do you
understand? And he got it out of there. But the instant I let
go of his lapels and turned around, my friend is going, whoa, who
is that? That was pride of grace. And
to this day, every time I think about that dear man, I cringe
at myself and think it's a miracle I didn't kill him. We even have pride of grace. It taught me a lesson, but not
nearly enough. I still got so much pride in
me. And I hope everyone here realizes
you do too. You do too. But here's the real
danger in pride. Turn over to Proverbs 13, just
a few pages over. The greatest danger of pride
to us as believers is not that God will forsake us over it.
Now he may chasten us sore. I still grieve over that foolish
thing I did. He may chasten us sore, but he
won't forsake us for it. No, he won't. And I'll show you
why in a minute. But the greatest danger to us
as believers, as a church, and as the people of God, is in this
simple verse of scripture. Proverbs 13, look at verse 10.
It says, only by pride cometh contention. And that word contention
means quarrels, debate, or strife. And if you read that like I did,
this is one of those light bulb moments for a believer. It was
for me. I mean, I've been into scripture
and been preached to for nearly 40 years now. I had never seen
this, much less understood it until very recently. But this
is one of those light bulb moments. It's like when somebody does
something really evil to you and you go, where'd that come
from? It's not hard to understand. There's one verse of scripture
explains it always. The root of all evil is the love
of money. Somebody does something really
evil to you, just start tracking back the money and you'll find
out why it was done to you. And hear this, whenever there's
strife, contention, any kind of quarrel or trouble between
two believers, much less a family of believers, two groups of believers.
Do you read what I read right there? It says it only comes
for one reason. The only way it comes is by pride. Now we do well to understand
that. And when those things occur, to start looking first right
here, okay, where's the pride? Where's the pride? And if it's
not in me, which is unlikely, it usually is in me, but if it's
not in me, whoever we're having the fuss with, there's pride. It says only by pride cometh
contention. And I may be gone before contention
comes to Kingsport, and I pray it never comes to this place.
But if it does, remember what God's word says, the cause will
be pride, only pride. We all are born with it, we all
have it, and God hates it. Now let me show you an example
of it and how the Lord dealt with it in Luke 22. Turn over
there. Luke chapter 22. I want us to see this example
of what we read in Proverbs 13. We must be on guard and seek
God's protection from pride. It can break out anywhere. Our
Lord Jesus Christ had just conducted the very first Lord's table.
And what was the purpose of that? He said, do this in remembrance
of me. So when we come together like
this, whether it's the Lord's table or whether it's to worship,
it's all about Christ. That's what it should be, all
about Christ. I want us to leave here today
going, Christ is wonderful. Christ is so good. There wasn't
an ounce of pride in him. It's so simple to understand
Christ, Christ, Christ. That's what we want to go away
with. And this is he's instituted this Lord's table for the first
time. And he then warned his disciples
that somebody was going to betray him. And what happened? Now, we would like to think when
we let's let's just say that us men who are here right now
that we were there. And he institutes the Lord's
table says somebody's gonna betray me. Now, we'd like to think that
Tommy would go, well, it's going to be me. Sammy goes, no, Tommy,
it's going to be me. And so on. Every one of us is
going, no, it's going to be me. Is that what happened here? Oh, do you smell the pride coming? Do you? Look at what happened
here. Look at verse 23. As soon as he instituted the
Lord's table, they began to inquire among themselves which of them
it was that should do it. And it didn't go like, Bartholomew
didn't go, well, it's gonna be me. And Thomas said, no, no,
no, it's gonna be me, Bartholomew. And then John said, no, it's
got to be me. You know how this went? One of them said, it's
not gonna be me. And I think the first one to
do that was Peter. Peter said, it's not gonna be me. And somebody
says, it won't be me. No siree, not, no, no. Look at
verse 24. And there was also among them
a strife, a strife among them, which of them should be accounted
the greatest. And this strife here is the same
word in Proverbs about contention. Where'd this contention come
from? Between them. All right. So, The first thing
they do is the Lord says, when are you going to betray me? And
they start going, not me, not me, not me, not me, not me. That
wasn't enough. Now it breaks out. Can you imagine
us having had the Lord's table here and we're all done and we
stand up and are dismissed? And I'm sitting back here in
the corner and I go, you know, I must be the greatest Christian
in this room. And somebody else stands up and
goes, well, what about me? I've been here longer than you
have. And somebody over here says, well, I've been, my husband's
been here longer than either one of you. Somebody else says,
well, I know I'm young, but I got a lot of time to, I'm going to
be here a long time. And I got, I can do a lot. I
got time to do a lot of good things. And somebody who has a good sense
not to open his mouth is sitting there thinking, none of you are. It's probably me. I'm the greatest. Can you imagine the 12 disciples? If they did this, how prone are
we? How vulnerable are we to go,
I'm the greatest? By the way, there was a man who
died recently, and you know what he knows? He knows he never was,
he is not now, and he never will be the greatest. You all know who I'm talking
about? Let's not wake up to that one day. The greatest is the
Lord Jesus Christ. And pride's the only thing that'll
get between us and that truth. It's hard to imagine that such
a thing would happen. But I'm telling you, the apostles
were full of pride. And God hates pride. Did he therefore,
is this what he did when this broke out? It was right in front
of him. He'd go, well, I've had enough of you guys. That's the
kind of thing we do, isn't it? We'd say, well, I'm writing you
off. You can't possibly be a believer. Did he say he's done with them?
Well, look at what he did tell them. Verse 29, right away he
says, I appointed to you a kingdom as my father hath appointed unto
me. He says, I'm going to save you guys and take you to glory
despite this foolishness you're going through right now. I'm
grateful for that. That ought to assure us that
despite our pride, which we all have, He's gonna save us anyway,
all right? But then hold this and turn just
a minute to Matthew 26, and I want us to see the account that Matthew
wrote of this event. Matthew 26, verse 31. Then saith Jesus unto
them, All ye shall be offended. He said, no, it's not one of
you. He said, all of you will be offended because of me this
night. For it is written, I will smite
the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered
abroad. And they all were. But he said,
after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee. And
Peter answered and said unto him, notice, Peter didn't listen
to a thing he said right there. Peter is still stuck back on
somebody's going to betray me, somebody's not going to do what
they should do. And Peter answered and said to
him, though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet
will I never be offended. And our Lord said unto him, Verily
I say unto thee, Peter, this very night before the cock crows
in the morning, you're going to deny me not once, not twice,
but three times. And Peter still wasn't listening. He said unto him, though I should
die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. And then likewise,
all the other disciples said, well, that sounds pretty good.
I'll say the same thing. And they all said, we won't deny
you. And I'll turn back over to Luke 22. So what happened?
So what happened? In Luke 22, verse 47, And while the Lord was yet speaking
after the Lord's table, a multitude, behold, a multitude. And he that
was called Judas, one of the 12, went before the group. This is a mob and a group of
soldiers that went before them and drew near unto Jesus to kiss
him. He was going to kiss him to let him know this is who you
take. This is the leader. You take him. But Jesus said
unto Judas, Betrayest thou the son of man with a kiss? And when
they, which were about him, this is his disciples, saw what would
follow, that they were going to take the Lord, they said unto
the Lord, Lord, shall we smite them with a sword? Now everybody
look up here and listen and learn something right here. This is
so important. The Lord of glory is standing right there in front
of him. Judas just kissed him. And they know why this group
is there. And they said, they had their little swords with
them. And they said, Lord, should we smite them? This is 11 guys
going to take this mob. And you know what? They didn't
wait for an answer. Anybody here ever done that?
Or what should I do about this? Or what should I do about this?
And then not wait for the answer and just go, well, I think I'll
do this. I think I'll try that. Anybody here? I've done that.
It usually doesn't lead to the right conclusion. When we ask,
The psalm is a reason in Psalm 27. It doesn't say wait on the
Lord. It says wait. Wait, I say wait on the Lord. Because it means it. Wait. It
may take longer to get the answer than we would like. But if we
wait, we'll get these fellows didn't wait. Look what Peter
did. They said, Lord, should we smite
them? And before they got an answer. All right. Before they
even got an answer. Was it verse 49? But when they
which were about him saw what would follow, they said unto
him, Lord, shall we smite with the sword? And one of them, and
it's Peter in one of the other accounts, Peter drew his sword
and smote the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear.
Peter, what should we do, Lord? Should we should we smite him?
Should we get him? And before he can even answer,
Peter goes, I'm not waiting. And you realize he wasn't trying
to cut his ear off. He was trying to take his head
off. He drew that sword on and this servant, a high priest named
Malchus goes like this, goes, and that sword takes his ear
off instead of cutting his throat. Peter didn't wait for direction.
He took matters in his own hand. Why would he do that? He got
the Lord of glory in front there. Only one reason, pride. I said
I'd do it, I'm gonna do it. Well, look at verse 51. And Jesus answered and said,
suffer ye thus far. And he touched his ear and healed
him. He picked up the man's ear off the ground and put it back
on his head. Because had he not, and had Peter
succeeded in taking this man's head off, you know what happened
to Peter? He would have been taken immediately and if not
killed on the spot, He would have been crucified along with
Christ or something. And that was not the Lord's purpose.
If Peter had waited for an answer, the Lord would have said, Peter,
put your sword up. Don't draw it out. I've got,
don't you see, I've got 10 legions of angels standing here waiting
for me to go take care of this bunch. He said, I don't need
your little sword. And if you'll just keep it in
the scabbard in a little while, what's going to happen is you're
going to stand at Pentecost before thousands and preach my gospel
and convert men to me. Do we see the consequences of
not waiting? What they might be? But the Lord, He made it right. And even when we do foolish,
prideful things, He makes it right. It's no fun going through
it. What happened to Peter next is
evidence of what happens when we don't listen. The Lord fixes
the ear, so now it's like, okay, no reason to take Peter, just
take him. And they took him, and they took him into the hall.
Now, what happens next? They've got the Lord there getting
ready to take him into the soldier's hall, and nightfall comes, and
Peter's out there, This little girl maiden by the campfire says,
you look like one of those fellows that was following him. And Peter
goes, not me. And then somebody else says something
about Peter being a Galilean. Nope, nope, nope, nope. I don't
know. I don't know that man. And finally, the third time comes.
And look here in verse 60 of Luke 22. And the man again said, you're
a Galilean. And Peter said, man, I know not what you're talking
about. And the instant that came out
of his mouth a third time, the cock, the rooster went cock-a-doodle-doo, just like the Lord said it would.
And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered
the word of the Lord. And he had said unto him before
the cock crow, thou shalt deny me three times. And Peter went
out and wept bitterly. I tell you where pride is going
to lead us, to bitter weeping. It will not lead to him abandoning
us, his forsaking us, his condemning us. But I tell you what it will
lead to. we'll weep some bitter tears
over our pride. It'll come to us. And that's
a tough thing. Many have experienced it. I'm
embarrassed and ashamed about how often I've been that way.
Now let me point something out to you. Have y'all noticed as
I went through those kinds of pride there are, how good I was
at it? You know how many prideful looks
there are? Infinite. Infinite. Maybe somebody's better at it
than me. I can't imagine that can be the case, but I didn't
have any trouble making up a different face for this nation and that
nation or this face or that face or this kind of pride or that
kind of pride. It's so natural. It's like breathing
in and out. I didn't have to rehearse any
of this. because by nature we're good at it. Why do I make so
much over this? If God hates pride and a proud
look, and he does, and I'm so full of pride, how can I ever
hope to get past it? How can I arrive one day at judgment
and somebody not say, I remember that guy, he gave me a proud
look. The black man's gonna say to
the white man. The Chinese is gonna say to the Japanese man.
The Mexican is going to say the American. I remember him. What about him? Well, here's
the answer to that question. After the Lord looked at Peter. You all understand the situation?
They had already beat him up pretty good. And the Lord is
standing there, and the cock crows, and our Lord turns. And I wouldn't pretend to know
the look. What it was, physically, doesn't matter. He turned to
Peter, and Peter looked at him, and something happened right
there. Something went on right there
between those two men. Let me tell you what it was.
Have you children ever done anything you knew it was wrong? You knew
it was wrong. And all you did was hope. I hope
mom and dad don't catch me. As a boy, I did something I knew
was wrong. And I spent probably 20 years
worrying my dad was going to find out about it. And one day
when I got older, I asked him, I said, Dad, you know, I need
to tell you about something. Remember when that boy Jerome
down the street? And he said, yeah, I knew about
it. He knew about it. He knew about
it. And I said, why didn't you do
something about it? He said, well, I would have had to beat you to death. He
said, I didn't want to do that. The Lord looked at Peter and
says, Peter, I know what you were thinking. I know what you've
done. I know everything you've ever
done, but I'm not going to beat you to death over it. What I'm
about to do is go into that soldier's hall and let them beat me to
death. I'm going to let them take me
in there. And I'm going to let them, for the sake of the pride
of face that you had, Peter, I'm going to let them spit in
my face. I'm going to let that centurion
take his hand and smack me in the face. I'm going to let him
grab my beard and tear my face off. I'm going to let him shove
that crown of thorns down on my head and scar up my whole
face. He said, Peter, for your pride
of race, I'm going to let them kill me instead of all my people,
instead of my people's race, whether black, white, Russian,
whatever they are. He said, Peter, because you walked
by at your pace every beggar you ever saw and had no concern
or care for them, Peter, I never in my 33 years walked by anyone
and thought, I'm too busy to stop and help that blind man. I walked the right pace all my
life, because you couldn't and wouldn't. And then best of all,
he's going to say, Peter, because by nature there's not an ounce
of grace in you, I lived my whole life full of grace and mercy. I never saw a situation I didn't
take pity on. That poor woman whose child died,
I went in and laid myself on that dead body and breathed life
into it. Gave my life for her life. And I'm going to march up this
hill in a few minutes and I'm going to let them kill me. Why? To put away all your pride. and every other thing you've
ever done, so that one day God can bring you into His presence.
And somebody's going to go, I remember that guy. He gave me the proud
look. And I'm going to, on my throne,
say, no, no, no, I'm the one that gave you the proud look.
Paid for it. Paid for it. And this person
over here is going to go, I remember when you called me that nasty
name. I remember you called me that
Word, Lord's gonna know, oh, nope, he didn't do it, that was
me that did that. And it's paid for. You see where this is going? The Lord, thank God, he's put
away our pride. And every other sin there is,
he died so that we might live. And that look that the Lord gave
Peter, told Peter, Peter, I know all about you. Know everything
about you, your pride, everything you've ever done. But you know,
it was just a few days later, our Lord arose from the grave,
and Peter, even though he now knew the Lord knew everything
about him, you know what he said? He said, I don't know what to
do about it, so I'm going fishing. And he and the whole bunch of
them went up fishing. And they're out there and they
didn't catch fish all night, didn't catch anything. And then this man on
the shore said, have you caught anything? And they went, nope. He said, well, throw your nets
off the other side. And they did, and they couldn't bring
the nets in. Well, there was a man in the
boat with him. He was a preacher. His name was John. And do you
know what he said to Peter? He said, he was ahead of the
curve with Peter here. And he said, Peter, that's the
Lord. He is risen. And Peter went,
oh, he's alive. And he just, who jumps into the
ocean with their fishing coat on? Puts on their fishing coat
and he sloshes his way to shore. And when he gets there, he found
the Lord has built a fire, got fish on it, sitting there and
he says, come here, Peter, sit down, sit down. And Peter goes and sits by him.
And the Lord says to him, Peter, do you love me? He says, yeah,
Lord. He says, Peter, do you love me?
He says, yeah, yeah, Lord, I do. And then the third time, well,
three times, cock-a-doodle-doo. After the third time, Peter says,
Lord, I now know you know everything. You know everything I've ever
done, all the pride, but you also have known me from eternity. And you came where I am, and
you found me. You gave me the look. And now
you're calling me to look to you." And he said, Peter, you
go preach that to my people. And it wasn't many days later,
he did. And 5,000 people went, it's the Lord. It's the Lord. Do we see even out of our pride,
the Lord makes glory. It's a wonderful thing that despite
our pride, he has mercy on his people. All right, y'all have
a closing hymn or you just dismissing prayer? Okay, let's stand together
and we will be dismissed.