Let's begin this morning by bowing
in prayer and asking our God to bless our time together. Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed holy is thy name. Lord, we come before you this
morning as mercy beggars, pleading that you might show thy great
mercy to us. That Lord, you bless our time
together as we attempt to worship the. Lord, we're so very grateful
for all that you've done for us. We lift up our children and
grandchildren before the and ask that now might have mercy
upon them. Lord, we lift up those that are
sick in body and at heart. And ask that you might bless
them according to that I will. Father, we pray this morning
for all men who stand to proclaim Christ and Him crucified. Father,
make this a great day where our Lord is exalted and that our
hearts are blessed. Now we give thanks in Christ's
name and ask forgiveness for His sake. Amen. Turn to Proverbs 6 with me. Proverbs chapter 6. I really
only want to talk to you for a few minutes this morning about
two things. First, I want to talk about pride
and its consequences. And secondly, I want to get to
the good news, which is forgiveness for pride in the Lord Jesus Christ. Modern religion tells men that
God is a God of love. And listen carefully, that in
of itself is true, but it is not the whole truth. God is not so much a God of love
as that God is love. There's a subtle difference there. And that difference is that while
modern religion would have you think that God loves everybody,
and has a wonderful plan for their lives. Tell that to those
who were in the water up to their chin as Noah's Ark went by. Can
you see that banner across the back of that ark? God loves you
and has a wonderful plan for your life. They'd know it was
a lie, wouldn't they? And we should too. The truth is, and what God's
Word teaches, is that God is love. And that does not mean
that God loves everybody. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Much less does it mean that God
loves everything everyone does. In fact, God gives a very specific
list of what He hates. Now, modern religion in the world
doesn't want to hear about that, do they? But you see here in
Proverbs 6, Look at verse 16. The Word of God says clearly,
these six things doth the Lord hate. It's going to give a list
of six things that the Lord hates. And then it says, yea, seven
are an abomination unto Him. And He's going to give us that
worst one first. Verse 17 says, a proud look.
God hates a proud look. More than anything else, He hates
a proud look. Now I'll read the rest of these. It says he hates
a lying tongue. He hates hands that shed innocent
blood. He hates an 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 pay attention
to the whole list. But I want us to look this morning
at the first thing on the list. A proud look. The top of the
list is a proud look. God hates pride and everyone
in whom he finds it. The sad truth is that every son
and daughter of Adam is full of pride. See if any of these
types of pride fits you like they fit me. Buddy, these go
on my hand like a glove that was custom made for me. These
types of pride. They may fit you too. The first
is pride of face. Now, any of you ladies ever do
this? You ever been somewhere where
one lady seems to be getting a lot of attention from the fellas?
And you ever catch yourself looking at her and thinking, I don't
know who she thinks she is. Ever been there? Or you look
at somebody else and you think, well, when I was young, I was
prettier than she was. Or, you know, my hair's better looking
than that mop she's got. Any of you fellas ever catch
one of these rock stars on TV or something or see a picture
of them and think, the guy may have all the money in the world,
but if I was as ugly as him, I'd get a facelift. Any of that stuff ever coming
in and out of your head? You know what it is? It's pride
of face. Because the truth is when we
look in the mirror, nobody's got my look. Pride of face. How about this one? Pride of
pace. Anybody ever been at work and you're working away and you
look over at that guy next to you and you think, man, he's
sloppy. I couldn't do any better than
that. I quit. Or did you look the other way
and go, that guy's just going so fast, he messes everything
he touches up. You ladies ever walked into somebody's
house, another woman's house, looked around and go, she ever
clean this place? What a mess. This place is filthy. Anybody ever done that? It's
called pride of pace. Here's one. Hot button in this
country. And it should be. How about pride
of race? You know, in my lifetime, now
I'm an old man, I've seen a lot, been a lot of places. You know
what I've seen in my lifetime? I've seen that the Japanese look
down their nose at the Chinese. I've seen the Chinese go to war
with the Russians. They want to kill them all. I've
seen that the Russians can't stand the Scandinavians, got
no time for them. I've seen the Scandinavians dislike
the Germans. I've seen that the Germans got
no use for those Italians. And I've seen the Italians look
down on the Africans. And I've seen the Africans who
they despise the Frenchmen with good reason. And I've seen the
Frenchmen look over at the English and go, parlez-vous français? You don't speak French? You're
nobody. And then I've seen the English look at the Americans
and go, well, they don't even speak the king's English. And now, what are we Americans
doing? We talk about those dirty, worthless,
lazy Mexicans. Does it fit? And you know what? If you've been to Mexico, you
know they can't stand the Aztecans, much less the Incans, who they've
just about killed them all. You know what the simple truth
is? If somebody's not like me, I can't stand them. Or mostly
like me. You know what that is? That's
pride of race. What about, we got pride of face,
pride of pace, pride of race. Y'all over here are pride of
place. You know most of the kings and
princes that have ever lived in this world throughout history
were in for a rude awakening when they woke up one day and
died and found out that God was not only not pleased with them,
but hated them for them looking down their nose at the common
people. What was it that French queen
said? The peasants were starving. They
had no bread. And she said, well, let them
eat cake. Let them eat cake. Is it any
wonder they took her head off? The little people. That's pride
of place. And then here's, this may be
the worst of all. How about pride of grace? Even in this life, God's children
cannot rid themselves of pride, even after Christ has revealed
himself to us. That pride is still with us.
I'm going to give you the most embarrassing illustration. I
was a young believer and had just moved to Ashland and been
under the gospel a short time. And another fellow in the church
decided that we decided we were going to start a business. And
we rented a place. And on this Saturday morning,
the fellow was supposed to have his stuff out. We were going
to move in and start. We got there at 8 o'clock. And the guy
said, well, I'll have it all out of here. And we said, OK.
We came back at 10. He wasn't out. We came back at
noon. And he said, why don't you all
get some lunch? I'm working on it. We came back
about 2.30. That's it. And we walked away. And this
brother in Christ of mine, he says, man, he said, I don't know
how you can stand it. He said, I'd have had it out
with this guy back at 1030. And listen to what I said to
him. I said, well, you know, before I heard the gospel, you
know, I used to really have a hard time controlling my temper, but
since I've heard it, you know, I don't struggle with that quite
as much as I used to. We went on. Well, about 430 came. He wasn't out yet. And we knocked on the door, and
he said, you know, I just don't know if we're going to be able
to get this out of here or not. I grabbed him by the front of
his shirt and went, you'll be out of here with all this stuff
in 30 minutes, or I'm going to throw you and all that in the
street. Do you understand me? He went, uh-huh. And he went
and got it out. But I turned around, and here's
my brother looking at me like this. Whoa. He'd never seen that part of
me. It was just pride and grace.
And to this day, I cringe. I'm embarrassed to admit this
stuff to you. And every time I think about that dear brother
and that man I grabbed, it embarrasses me because it was nothing but
pride and grace. So we're not immune to this despite
How long we've heard the gospel or what we know, who we know. It taught me a lesson, but not
nearly did it take all the pride out of me. Now, turn a page or
two over to Proverbs 13. The greatest danger of pride
to us as believers is not, listen carefully, is not that God will
forsake us over it. He won't do that. Now He may
chasten us sore over our pride because He hates it. And He'll
teach us to recognize pride in ourselves. He may chasten us,
but He'll never forsake us eternally over any of our sin, even pride.
And I'll show you why in just a minute. But the greatest danger
to us as believers, to any church or any group of believers, is
revealed right here in Proverbs 13 verse 10. And do you see in
Proverbs 13 verse 10 what it says? Only by pride cometh contention. And if you look that word contention
up, you'll find out it means that quarrels and debate and
strife, the only way they come is by pride. Do you see the only
there? That means if You have a fuss
with you, or you have a fuss with you, or this side has a
fuss with this side, or any group of believers has a fuss. You
want to trace it back? You got a quarrel? You got strife?
You want to trace it back? It's only by pride. Start looking
for the pride in the first place is look right here. If I'm having
a problem with somebody of any kind, I need to look first and
go, where's the pride in me in this? It'll go a long ways towards
helping the situation. This is right up there with if
somebody does something evil to you, really evil, it's not
hard to figure out. You know the scripture you look
to? And you know this one, don't you? The root of all evil is
what? The love of money. Somebody does
something evil to you, start looking for the money and you'll
find out where it all's coming from. If there's a quarrel or
contention among believers, start looking for the pride. And I
may, you know, I'm not, I didn't come here thinking, well, I guess
they got a lot of contention there. That's not what it is.
I'm in a young group of believers right now, and there's no contention
there right now that I know of, and I hope there never will be.
But I saw this and thought, well, if there ever is, that's why.
It'll be over pride. We're born with it. We have it. And God hates it. I turn over
to Luke 22 with me and I want to show you an example of just
how pervasive, how much this is to be dreaded and how quickly
it can happen. Here's an example of what I just
read in Proverbs 13. Only by pride cometh contention. We must be on guard and seek
God's protection from pride. It can break out anywhere. Our
Lord had just conducted the very first Lord's Table. And don't
we think, do we ever find ourselves thinking, boy, I wish I'd been
there. I wish I'd been there when we're taking the Lord's
Table, we're to remember Christ. Or do we ever think, I wish I'd
been there when he instituted this whole thing, when he started
this ordinance. Man, I'd like to have been there. Well, the
disciples were there, and look what happened. Have you got it
there? Look at verse 23. of Luke 22. And they began, as soon as this
ordinance was over, they began to inquire among themselves which
of them that it should do this thing. He just warned them, somebody's
going to betray me. Now, you would think when he did that,
he said, somebody's going to betray me. We would think, well,
what happened was that as soon as he said that, Bartholomew
over here said, it'll probably be me. I'm the worst." Or we
think, Andrew goes, he actually says it, he says, will it be
me, Lord? Will it be me? It'll probably
be me. Or we think, you know, Thomas, he always had something
to say. Thomas probably said, Lord, it's
going to be me, forgive me for it. That's not what happened.
You know what they did? I'll show you in a minute what
they did. But before they could even get to that argument, okay,
that prideful part of this, look what else happened, right? And
that as soon as this was instituted, look at verse 24, what happened?
There was also a strife, and that's that word, only by pride
cometh contention. It's the same word. And there
was also a contention or a strife among them, which of them should
be accounted the greatest. Okay, let's picture this one.
We've just had the Lord's table here and I'm visiting and I'm
sitting in the back, you know, and I stand up and say this,
you know, I've known you folks a long time and I'm the greatest
one among you. You say, that wouldn't happen.
It happened here. And then somebody over here says,
what are you talking about? I've been here longer than you
have. And somebody over here says, I was here when this place
started. And somebody else says, well,
I'm young and I haven't been here long, but I'm going to be here
a long time. And somebody else has the good sense to keep their
mouth shut and just thinks, you bunch of fools, what are y'all
arguing about? I'm smarter than all of you. You see what happened
here? How pride got a hold of his very
disciples. in the midst of this solemn ordinance. And they broke out an argument
over who was the greatest. What's wrong with them? Pride. Pride reared his head. Now, it's hard to imagine, yet except
for the grace of God, exactly what we do are worse. This was
his disciples. If even the apostles are full
of pride, so are we. And God hates pride. Now, did
he instantly then say, well, I've had enough of y'all arrogant,
prideful bunch. I'm done with y'all. I'm cutting
y'all. Is that what he did? He didn't do that, did he? Not
at all. Do you know what he did? Right
away, he put their minds at ease. He was going to show them that
this was nothing but pride, but he showed them he was not going
to condemn them for it. Aren't we glad God doesn't condemn
us for our pride? Look down here at verse 29. Our Lord said to them, after
they had this big argument, He says, I appoint unto you a kingdom
as my father hath appointed unto me, that you may eat and drink
at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve
tribes of Israel. He said, even though you're proud,
I'm going to exalt you. I'm going to make you my own.
I won't forsake you over this. Now hold Luke 22 and turn back
to Matthew 26 and let me show you Matthew's account of a part
of this so we can see something else. This all happened, and it's recorded
here as it happened before this thing about the greatest. As
soon as the Lord said, somebody's going to betray me, here's how
this really went down. Have you got Matthew 26? Look
at verse 31. Then saith Jesus unto them, all
you shall 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. But after I am risen again, I
will go before you into Galilee, And now look what Peter said.
Peter answered and said unto him, though all men shall be
offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended. Do
you get the tone of that? In the presence of the other
disciples and our Lord, Peter, the Lord, the Lord said, I'm
going to be betrayed. And Peter said, well, the rest
of them may betray you, but not me. And our Lord said to him
in verse 34, Verily I say unto thee, that this very night before
the cock crows, you shall deny me not once, Peter, not twice,
but three times, thrice. And Peter said unto him, Though
I should die with thee, Die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise also said all the disciples. It really wasn't just Peter that
said, the Lord said, somebody's going to deny me. Peter said,
not me. They'll have to kill me. I won't
deny you. Well, the other disciples said,
that sounds pretty good. Me too. Me too. You have to kill
me too. Does the pride just drip off
the pages here? Go back to Luke 22. And Peter's
boast was not without foundation. Pride is insidious. He meant
what he said. And when they came to take our
Lord, Peter did step up. You see what's recorded here
in Luke 22, verse 47. And while the Lord yet spake
to them, the Lord had just said to them, now picture this. He
said, somebody's going to betray me. And Peter goes, not me. They'll
have to kill me before they, I'll deny you. And the others
went, yeah, us too, us too. And they look up and here comes
Judas and a mob. Comes right up to him in the
garden. Verse 47, while he yet spake, behold a multitude. And
he that was called Judas, one of the 12 went before them and
drew near unto Jesus to kiss him. But Jesus said unto him,
Judas, betray us now, the son of man, with a kiss. which were about him saw what
would follow. They said unto him, Lord, shall
we smite with the sword? Get the picture now. Our Lord
is standing there in front of his, there's 11 disciples behind
him. And this mob comes over. Strong
men with weapons and all this. And they saw what was going to
happen. They were going to take him. And they said, Lord... Peter
has a little sword with him, you know. And he says, Lord,
should we smite him with the sword? Like the 11 were going
to kill this 200 or whatever, how many of them there were.
Now let's learn something here. When we ask the Lord something,
We'd be real wise to wait for an answer. Anybody ever been there? Oh,
Lord, I got this need, Lord. I don't know what to do. And
we don't get an answer. And we go, well, I'll do this.
And off we go. And it doesn't always turn out
like we think it should or would or whatever. When we ask Him,
let's wait. There's a reason that Psalm 27
says, wait. It doesn't just say, wait on
the Lord. It says, wait. I say, wait. Wait on the Lord.
It's because we're so impatient in our pride. It makes us impatient. It's a consequence of pride.
So Peter, you know, he said, Lord, should we smite him with
a sword? And it's not recorded that the Lord said a word, but
in verse 50, and one of them, this was Peter, if you read the
other accounts, one of them had drawn his sword and smote the
servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear. Do we
understand what was going down here? Peter said, Lord, should
we smite him? He didn't wait for an answer.
He drew his sword and went like that. And we do realize he was
not trying to cut this man's ear off. What he was trying to
do was take his head off. And this man, Malchus, who was
the high priest's servant, ducked. Like this, and the sword glanced
off his head and took his ear off. We'd be wise to wait. If the Lord had not intervened
here, you know what would have happened to Peter? They'd have
killed him probably on the spot if not taken him to be crucified.
But the Lord had other plans for Peter. Real soon he had plans for Peter.
But do we see here it says, and one of them, verse 52, smote
the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. And
Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far. And he touched his
ear and healed him." Now there's a lesson here. We ought to ask
the Lord what we ought to do and how we ought to do it. And
we ought to wait for an answer. But even when we don't, the Lord
makes it right. He knows what's best, and He's
going to do what's best. And even when we mess it up,
gum it up even worse, He has the ability. It doesn't say He
bent down and picked up the ear and put it back. No, He just
spoke, and the ear was right. Thank God He can make right the
messes we make. But, so the Lord fixes Peter's
ear, and they take him, and you know, did he need Peter's sword?
He had told him, he said, if I need any help, he said, you
see up there on that hillside? There's 10,000 legions up there. That's 144,000 people up there,
okay? Angels waiting. All he had to
do was just say them. It would have been over. But that was not his purpose.
He came for this purpose. He came for this moment. And
even, you know, Peter couldn't mess it up. So we see they took
him, and you know the rest of the story. Peter did deny the
Lord. Do you see verse 50? It says,
I'm sorry, verse 60. Turn the page to Luke 22, 60.
And Peter denied the Lord three times, and here's the third time.
Peter, this man said, ah, you're one of his fellows. And Peter
said, man, That sounds like something we would say, isn't it, in this
day and time? Man, you don't know nothing.
Isn't that a common thing? Peter said, man, I know not what
you're saying. And as soon as the words came
out of his mouth, immediately, while he yet spake, cock-a-doodle-doo. Just as the Lord said it would
happen. Is it any wonder that Peter was grieved, that he was
sick? He did deny the Lord three times. And you see here in verse 61,
as soon as the cock crowed, the Lord turned and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered. You ever
remember something that the Lord has told us? And we remember
it after the consequences have already occurred. Peter remembered the word of
the Lord, how he had said unto him before the cock crow, thou
shalt deny me three times. And Peter went out and wept bitterly. Has your pride ever gotten you
in a place that you wind up going out just weeping bitterly. Because
we didn't listen. We just didn't listen. And our
pride gets us, and I'm talking about me here now, maybe this
has not happened to you. I'm embarrassed and ashamed about
something that I've revealed to you this morning about myself.
Have y'all noticed all these illustrations I've given you
about pride? Have you noticed how well I do it? Any of you ladies ever look down
your nose? Any of you fellas ever been at
work and looked over at the other guy? I'm pretty good at this prideful
look, aren't I? I'm better than any of you at
it. That's just another example of pride. But the truth is I
am. There's so much, pride just oozes
out of our pores. It's who and what we are. And
by nature, God hates it. And by rights, He ought to hate
us for it. These proud looks. I didn't have
to rehearse any of this. Why? It comes naturally. The
minute Adam fell, he got proud. How proud was he? The Lord said,
what happened here? And Adam went, that woman, that
woman, she made me do it. Kill her. Hmm. Why do I make so much over this?
And God hates pride and a proud look and he does. And I'm so
full of pride. Here's the question of questions.
How can I ever hope to go be with him? Well, I'm going to give you the
answer to that. After the Lord, did you remember in that account
after Peter did this prideful thing, I'll never, I'll never
deny you. And three times to a little girl
who said, are you a Galilean? He went, no, no, not me. He quavered in the face of a
little girl. He denied him three times. And
after all this, after all this, okay. The cock crows, and Peter
goes, and who's over here? The Lord
Jesus Christ, who's already been beaten to a pulp. And what happens? The Lord Jesus
Christ, and I'm not going to pretend this part or even try
to act it out, but the Lord Jesus Christ gave Peter a look. Do we see that? In the midst
of being beaten, whipped with a cat and nine tails, having
the flesh torn off his back, he takes time to the very man
he warned about his pride, who now looks at him and our Lord
goes, looks at Peter. I can't describe
that look and don't want to. Here's why. That looks not in me. It's not
in Ruth. He can't give it to you. That
looks not in us. But I can tell you what the look
was not. You want to know what it was
not? Oh, Peter. Peter. Can't you do anything
right? There was no pride in him. He
took no pride in Peter's fall. Took no joy in it, no pleasure,
the way we do when we give a proud look. He didn't do that. In fact, let me tell you what
was going on there very specifically. The Lord Jesus Christ in that
moment was taking all the punishment his people deserved for their
pride of face. You know how he was doing that?
This big old soldier came up to him and our Lord was standing
there and he went WHAM and hit him in the face. And another
came up and grabbed him by the beard and tore the side of his
face off. And another cleared his throat
and spit in his face. And another came up with a crown
of thorns and jammed it down and made scars all down his face. You say, why did that happen? to put away all the sin of pride
of face that you and I have ever had. Our Lord, He lived just 33 years,
yet in that time, He accomplished everything that needed to be
done to create a perfect life, a righteous life, a holy life.
You know what? His pace was just right. You know what His pace was? It was never so fast. that when
he was walking down the road to Emmaus, that this man on the
side who cried, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. You
know what he did? He slowed his pace and turned
and had mercy on that man. He was going into a town in this
Man showed up, or woman was it, and said, my daughter's grievously
vexed. She's dying. Do you know what
I mean? He took the time to go aside,
go to that house, and lay his body on her dead body and raise
her from the grave. Do we see the pace he kept? He
was never so busy that he could not pause. And he never paused
on his way to accomplishing the purpose that God had sent him
for at Calvary. His pace was perfect. You know
why? Because that's the pace when
we go into God's presence, we go with not pride of pace, we
go with His perfect pace. You know, our Lord was born a
Jew. That's the most despised and
mistreated race to ever live. Yet he had mercy on God's chosen
people. Whether they were Jew or Gentile.
No matter what race they were. He even had mercy on those who
killed him. He said, Lord forgive them, they
don't know what they're doing. He put away our pride of race. And then, this was not some earthly
king or potentate that was crucified. This is the Lord of Glory. The
King of Kings. And do you know what this king
did? King Jesus Christ, what he did, he made himself a worm. That us worms, us wiggling maggots,
that we could be made kings. He put away all our pride of
place. And then finally, our Lord suffered
even for the pride of grace found in his people. He took on himself
all our pride, all our sin. If we read scriptures concerning
pride in that light, we can get great understanding. Proverbs
16 says pride goeth before destruction. You know what? He took our destruction
that we might go free. Proverbs 29 says a man's pride
shall bring him low. Our Lord became low that we might
be lifted up. Proverbs 11 says pride cometh,
then cometh shame. He endured the shame, even of
the cross, to put away our pride. Indeed, all the sin of all His
people." Well, you know, I want to give you this and then
we'll close. I can't tell you what the Lord's
look was like. I wouldn't pretend to try to
imitate it in any way. But I can tell you what happened
with the look. Our Lord conveyed to Peter in
that look, Peter, I know everything about you. I know everything
you've ever done, everything you've ever thought, everything
you've ever desired to do. Has anybody here ever gotten
that look? Now we don't see the Lord Jesus
Christ face to face the way Peter did. But I'll tell you where
he lives. It's in this book. And in this
book, if we're his, what happens is that one day, one prideful
day, He looks at us and we look at
him and realize he knows. He knows. He knows who and what
we are. And then he reveals to us. It's
OK, Peter, I'm taking care of it right now. And we come to
realize the Lord's already done for us all it needs to be done
to put away all our pride. He's put away our sin at Calvary,
but much more than that. That walk he had, which was perfect,
without pride, He's given us. So that one day we come into
His presence and we'll see His face again. And He'll give us
another look. And you know what that look is? My beloved, my friends, my bride,
my people, enter into that which I have prepared for you from
all eternity. Come on in. Come on in. Is there any reason that they
write, I can't wait to see him face to face. And get the look. Get that look. Won't be long. Won't be long. Alright, I pray
the Lord will bless his word. Craig, do you have a closing
hymn? Thank you all for having me.
I'm so grateful to be here.