The scripture reading is Deuteronomy chapter 8. If you'd like to turn there and follow along with me, Deuteronomy the 8th chapter. We're going to be considering once again this morning that at least kind of an offshoot of it, that Jesus told in Luke chapter 13, the parable of the barren fig tree. And we've been looking at its lack of fruit. We've seen that love is the foundational fruit that the Lord comes looking for. But this morning, I want us to look at a rotten fruit. that will be found on the barren fig tree. And you see it described a bit here in the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy. So follow as I read beginning in verse one. The whole commandment that I command you today, you shall be careful to do. that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. This, of course, is Moses addressing the Israelites before they go into the land. And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you. and let you hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you, and your foot did not swell these 40 years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, The Lord your God disciplines you, so you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and fearing him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land He has given you. Take care, lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes which I command you today, lest when you've eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up. And you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you to do you good in the end. Beware, lest you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers as it is this day. And if you forget the Lord your God, and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. That is the word of the Lord. That ought to be plastered in a giant sign in Washington DC and all across the nation. That's precisely the pattern that not only happened in Israel, but has happened in our nation today as well. Well, as we come then to the ministry of God's word, let's ask him to bless his word to us and enable us to grow in our faith and trust in him. Father, we come to the scriptures now, which we confess and acknowledge before you are your word. not because somehow we declare them to be, but because they are. And we recognize your word as such, your word which you've spoken to us just as you spoke to the Israelites. And you have commanded us to obey your word and to stand against sin. and beware that we, lest we forget you. Thank you, Father, for Christ. Thank you that in him, as we are justified before you and are born again, your spirit dwells within us to lead us in the way that we should go. And we thank you, Father, for this great salvation. We pray, Lord, that you would teach us now and bless your word to our sanctification and your glory. And we pray this all in Christ's name, amen. Well, here's the parable again from Luke 13, just to refresh our memories here. Beginning in verse six, and he, the Lord Jesus Christ, told this parable. A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, And he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vine dresser, look, for three years now I've come seeking fruit on this fig tree and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground? And he answered him, sir, let it alone this year also until I dig around it and put on manure. Then, if it should bear fruit next year, well and good. But if not, you can cut it down. That tree, of course, had every benefit. It represented the nation of Israel in the day of the Lord Jesus when he was present there. You've grown many gardens. You know what he talks about when he's saying, let me put manure on it, right? And fertilizing it, that tree was going to be given every advantage. before the judgment of God fell. But the Jews, Israelites, did not repent, and that day came in 70 AD. Well, as I said, I'd like us to consider this morning a fruit that the barren fig tree produces in its barrenness. It's an evil fruit. which man's sinful heart inevitably bears, and which, and I hope to show us, as this is a very sobering topic, this is a rotten fruit that will be found hanging even on the branches of a Christian before being brought under the discipline of the Lord to repentance. And it will spring up in our own lives if we fail to put it to death by the Spirit. And that rotten fruit is, of course, pride. This is a huge topic, a huge topic. Just as love, as we've seen, is a kind of a foundational fruit of the Spirit from which other fruits of the Spirit proceed. Pride is a foundational rotten fruit from which other rotten fruits, sins, proceed. You've probably heard the phrase, the seven deadly sins, right? The seven deadly sins. properly come out of the Bible. It's not a biblical phrase as such. It was developed in tradition, primarily among the Roman Catholics. Here's an article that explains it, Seven Deadly Sins. There's one point here that I wanted to emphasize. The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, is a grouping and classification of vices within Christian teachings. And there again, I would say Roman Catholic teachings. Although they're not directly mentioned in the Bible, this list and called, the Bible doesn't use that phrase, seven deadly sins. There are parallels with the seven things that God has said to hate in the book of Proverbs. I think that's back in Proverbs 6. Behaviors or habits are classified under this category if they directly give rise to other immoralities. According to the standard list, they are, and here's how it goes, pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. which are contrary to the supposed seven capital virtues. Now in all of this, of course, Rome is presenting this as a works righteousness, it's not the gospel, it's, you know, what's the correction for this? Well, you identify the seven capital virtues and do that, do that instead, you see, and then that's how you overcome this. A guy named John Cassian with his book, The Institutes, this is like centuries ago, brought this classification to Europe where it became fundamental to Catholic confessional practices as documented in penitential manuals, sermons such as the Parsons Tale from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, And artworks, if you look at medieval art, you can find art such as Dante's Purgatory, where the people there in Purgatory, the penitents, they're doing penance, right? So they can become perfectly righteous, works righteousness, of course. And they're grouped according to their worst sins. Some of them have to, be in purgatory a lot longer, you know, supposedly. Roman Catholic teaching especially focused on pride, which was thought to be the root of all sin since it turns the soul away from God. and also on greed and covetousness. The seven deadly sins are discussed in treatises and depicted in paintings and sculpture decorations on Catholic churches as well as in older textbooks. Well, the point that I wanted to show you here is that though we obviously disagree as it's a false gospel with Rome's teaching of works righteousness, we would agree with this point Pride fittingly comes at the beginning of the list. And it's not there then by mistake. Just some thought on your part if you think through this, you'll see how the other sins in the list and other sins as well proceed from the sin of pride. Pride can be seen bearing the deeds of the flesh. the listing that Paul gives us in Galatians 5. He doesn't mention pride there overtly, which is interesting, and it's not a comprehensive list of sins. Nevertheless, you can go through his deeds of the flesh, the sins that Paul mentions there, and it doesn't take a lot of thought to see how the sin of pride is at the root of all of these. Paul says the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things, who walk in those things, who are characterized by those things, will not inherit the kingdom of God. is an expression of the flesh. It's an expression of self. It is a worship of self. And we want to consider some more than this morning, this rotten fruit called pride. Listen to Jonathan Edwards on this. This is great. In fact, his whole article here, I might draw out of next week, and there's so much material in it that we should hear. This is just a sampling of it. What he's doing here, he was writing an article, Thoughts on Revival. And as you know, Jonathan Edwards, back in the 1700s, was right in the middle of, with George Whitefield and so on, the Great Awakening in this country, as he was a pastor there. And the Lord affected a tremendous revival of the church, of Christianity at that time. And so Edwards is just, here's some thoughts on this revival. And one of the things that he was thinking about when he writes about was this. The first and worst cause of errors that prevail in such a state of things, and what he means by such a state of things is the revival. These are great times, I mean the Lord's doing this great work, but he's saying you better be careful, you better be careful because The worst cause, the very first prominent worst cause of errors that is going to crop up in a time of God's blessing like this is spiritual pride. And we better look out. He goes on, this spiritual pride is the main door by which the devil comes into the hearts of who? Those who are zealous for the advancement of religion, the advancement of Christ, right? That's you. I mean, I hope that you are zealous for the advancement of the gospel of Christ, but what Edwards is telling us here, it isn't in this regard so much the pagan, it doesn't even claim to be a Christian, it's people who are zealous for the Lord like King David on his rooftop, right? That the enemy is going to target because he wants to stop this revival of religion. He goes on, spiritual pride is the chief inlet of smoke from the bottomless pit to darken the mind and mislead the judgment. This spiritual pride is the main handle by which the devil has hold of religious persons. And the chief source, it is the chief source of all the mischief that he introduces to clog and hinder a work of God. Over, I'm gonna sound like a broken record, over the past 30 years that we've been here, and many of you have been here even longer than that, I can tell you without hesitation, it has been spiritual pride that has hindered the work of God in this church for decades. Now, We see encouraging signs that he's worked to bring us out of that. But one of the chief things we can all do as we look back and consider our ways is to confess it and ask the Lord for forgiveness. And that's the route to blessing. But there's been so much of this, as he says, mischief. introduced by the devil that has clogged and hindered the work of God, spiritual pride. He goes on, this cause of error, spiritual pride, is the main spring, or at least the main support of all the rest of the errors and troubles among the people of God. He says, until this disease is cured, Until this pride is rooted out and identified, confessed, and repented of, all other medicines, all other cures are in vain applied to heal any other diseases. We look around, our church has this problem, and it has that problem, it has this problem, here's this issue, and here's this. As long as pride is entertained among the people of God, try all other remedies you want. It's like clipping off these rotten fruits up here, but the evil root is still in place, you see. That's what he's getting at. He says, it is by this, this pride, that the mind defends itself in other errors, other sins, and guards itself against light, against the truth of God, by which it might be corrected and reclaimed. Take that home with you. Think about that statement a lot. What he's saying is, what we're talking about this morning, this pride, he says, it is so dangerous because, well, think of it this way. Does a prideful person know they're prideful? No, they're proud of their humility, right? That's how it goes. And what he's saying is the devil knows this, and when he introduces pride and we fall to it, what's going to happen is the prideful man's mind and his thinking, he's blinded, and that pride is going to set up a big defense against any truth of God, any divine light that comes its way to reveal sin in the person's life. It's his defense, his pride's gonna come right up against him. It's like we saw this morning earlier with talkative. That's what was going on with him, you see. The spiritually proud man is, in his own eyes, full of light, full of God's truth and understanding already, right? After all, he's proud. Oh, I don't need any more truth, I understand it all. He doesn't need instruction. He's ready to despise any offer of it. But if this disease, if this sin of pride is healed, All other things are easily rectified. The humble person is like a little child. He easily receives instruction. Well, most of the time a little kid receives instruction, but you see the point. A humble person is jealous over himself, to guard himself. He is sensible. He understands how liable he is to going astray. And therefore, if it's suggested to him that he is going astray, he is ready, the humble person is ready to most narrowly, closely, and impartially to self-examine himself and repent. Nothing sets a person so much out of the devil's reach as humility. And so prepares the mind for a true divine light, for God's truth without darkness. And so humility so clears the eye to look on things as they truly are. Psalm 25.9, the meek he will guide in judgment and the meek will he teach his way. Therefore, we should fight neither with small nor with great, but with, and I think what he means here, but with the King of Israel, I mean, with yourself. Examine yourself. Our first care should be to rectify the heart, pull the beam out of our own eye, and then we will see clearly. As I said, I suggest you read that again through this week several times and think very much about it. Now we don't know the specifics of Satan's fall, but there are some Old Testament scriptures which are thought to be his own words as he rebelled against the Lord. You can kind of remember these because one's half of the other. You got Ezekiel 28, Isaiah 14. Okay, Ezekiel 28. Here's Ezekiel 28, starting at verse 11. Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, son of man, raise up a lamentation over the king of Tyre and say to him, thus says the Lord God. You were, and as you'll see, this has to be more than just the King of Tyre, right? This says the Lord God, you were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. And here it is, you were in Eden, the garden of God, the serpent, right? Every precious stone was your covering. Sargass, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle, and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created, they were prepared. You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you. You were on the holy mountain of God in the midst of the stones of fire you walked. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you. In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence in your midst and you sinned. So I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart was proud because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground. I exposed you before kings to feast their eyes on you. What appears to have been the most exalted of God's angelic creations fell to this sin of pride. What does that tell us that we ought to be guarding ourselves against? Isaiah 14, how you are fallen from heaven, O day star, sun of dawn, how you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low. You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven above the stars of God. I will set my throne on high. I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. And here's his punchline. I will make myself like the most high. There it is. Pride is a particularly satanic sin. You could say we are no more like the devil than when we are prideful, and that should cause us to shudder. It's not surprising that it was this arrogant being who brought the first man and woman under the curse. How'd he do it? He tempted them through pride. Here it is, Genesis 3. The serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Pride likes the sound of that. You will be like God, right? I will make myself like the Most High. You can make yourselves like the Most High. A lot of false religions around us today. Mormonism being an example is based upon that whole claim, you can be like God. This has been Satan's motive all along. You see that back in Isaiah and Ezekiel. He hates God. Why does he hate God? Because he wants to be God. He wants it then for himself. That's what his temptation of Christ in the wilderness then was all about. In his final grasping at self-glory, he's going to establish a short-lived kingdom throughout the entire world just before Christ then returns. But he's at it now, and he's been at it, ever since he was cast out of heaven by Christ's victory on the cross. Satan's anti-Christ efforts are at work in the world right now. We've been looking, we've been on Wednesday mornings going through the book of Revelation online, and you can find those on YouTube on our Light for Dark Times channel. But we've arrived at Revelation 13. And we read there in verses four to six, and they worshiped the dragon. You got this unholy trinity, the dragon who's Satan. You got the beast out of the sea and the beast, second beast coming up out on the earth, this unholy trinity. They, that is the earth dwellers, the wicked, the mass of humanity, they worshiped the dragon for he'd given his authority to the beast. And they worshiped the beast saying, who is like the beast? and who can fight against it? The beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name, his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. That's us. If you're in Christ, Satan hates us and his antichrist work is set against you. You see here then the ugliness of pride. It's the same spirit. Here he is, he's going to set up his kingdom, his worldwide kingdom. And God's going to allow it one time. And that time is yet to come. Nevertheless, Satan is trying his best, the spirit of the Antichrist is at work. It's the very same spirit that was work among wicked people back at Babel, Genesis chapter 11. Listen to this, then they said, come Let us build ourselves a city and a tower, with its top in the heavens, and here it is, let us make a name for ourselves. lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of man had built. And the Lord said, behold, they're one people. They have all one language. This is only the beginning of what they will do. Nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. And so, of course, Babel, and he confused their tongues. If you ever wonder, and I'm sure that you do, what is at the root of so many of these evil errors that we see at work today, which they have been ever since the beginning of time, and often these wicked movements that seem to be even increasing today, what they have as their goal, if you think about it, it really is true, is to establish a one world kingdom that is behind it. This is the spirit of the Antichrist that is energizing those kinds of efforts. It is a spiritual matter, not just some political matter, it's a spiritual matter when we recognize that the destruction of borders, the destruction of borders is a movement by Satan and by his king to establish a one world kingdom with no borders, that's what's behind it. That's why God put a stop to it at Babel. He said, this isn't going to go on. And so the peoples were divided into their nations. And that is God's will in a fallen world. Now that there not be some kind of one world economy and one world kingdom. Those are antichrist efforts. He's going to permit it once. Just one final time. And that is when the beast rises from the sea and Satan is permitted then to have, well, he's permitted to reverse Babel. That's what's going to go on. And the Antichrist, the man of lawlessness then will be revealed. Well, what's all this got to do with pride? Pride is everything here. That's what it is all about. It's the sin of Satan. And we have to be wise about it. You know what? If you're not wise about this, Certainly, if you're not born again, you don't know Christ, and you don't have his spirit in you, but if you could be a Christian, perhaps, and be careless, and easily be caught up in these kinds of deceptions. People that don't know Christ, when they're born again, The man of lawlessness is revealed and that final kingdom of the beast and false prophet and the dragon and so forth is set up. You're going to fall for it. That's what's going to happen. You're going to fall for it. And there's a very good, I came across just an excellent insight on this, this last week. I've had this book for a long time on my shelf, but I picked it up. It's called Behold, He Cometh. And it's written by Pastor Herman. Case, you'll have to, is it? Hoeksema, Herman Hoeksema. And he wrote it. It's excellent. It's excellent. And what he said was, and I'm going to cover it this Wednesday in the study, but he said was essentially this, you're making a big mistake if you think that when the Antichrist comes to power It's going to be this, initially it's going to come across as this giant dictatorial, evil, Adolf Hitler type thing that is going to oppress and force everybody. And so they're going to have to reluctantly worship the beast or else, right? He said, not going to happen that way. It's going to be beautiful. It's gonna be alluring. It's gonna be this guy, this king, whatever you wanna call him, the Antichrist, this guy is solving every problem throughout the world in his kingdom. Who is like the beast, you know? Who is like him? That's how it's gonna be. And if you are not wise in Christ, you're gonna fall for it. And that's what most people then will do. And of course, if you don't worship the beast, then the beast will kill you. 1 John 2, children, it is the last hour. That's now, that's the church age. And as you've heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come, therefore we know it's the last hour. And again in 1 John 4, beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirit to see whether they're from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you, now get this, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. There are a lot of people who profess to be Christians, maybe some of them are and they're just careless, but others, They're so far gone that I can't believe they really know Christ. But we're commanded here, don't believe every spirit. Don't believe every spiritual teaching that comes along. Don't just assume that everybody that says that they're a Christian is. Test them. How do you test them? You test them against the word of God. That's how you test them, you see. I was talking to a person that said they were really, really troubled about some bad things that had happened to them. But subsequently, now they are at peace. Why are they at peace? Well, because they had visions. They had visions of things that People appearing to them and everything was okay and it was bright and so forth. Colossians 2, you know, look out, look out. Don't be taking your stand on visions that you've seen. You know, the Bible can't be any clearer than that. If you study history then, including church history, a large part of history is what? Wars. I mean, if you were to remove the accounts of wars from the history books, there wouldn't be much left. And specifically, wars that were launched by tyrants who lust to be the ruler of the entire world. These are efforts by Antichrist to establish that one world order, that one world kingdom. But God always says no. No, that time hasn't come. It'll come, you know. But think of the Egyptian pharaohs, Babylon, Assyria, Greece, the Medes and the Persians, Rome, of course. What other forces spiritually? It's all spiritual, but you've got the religious ecumenism. We're going to have a one-world church. The popes. Hitler's Third Reich. All the time wicked people are trying to jostle for, you know, it's like a giant chess game, power, power. And it would be really great if it's worldwide power. You see, well it's pride, it's self-worship, it's demonic. These are all manifestations of Antichrist trying to reverse Babel, but God is sovereign, and you never want to forget that. He's sovereign, it's going down according to plan, perfectly, nothing takes him by surprise. Paul writes in the 2 Thessalonians 2, let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called God or object of worship, and here it is, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. So it's a no-brainer, who is this? It's Satan's man, this is what Satan, always, always wanted. You know, Satan is a spirit. Satan has never become incarnate, right? Like, he's faked it, but he's never become, Satan always needs a carnal, a fleshly, a flesh and blood person in order to rule, then, represent him in this world. And that's who this man of lawlessness, the son of destruction, is, who will come. And right now, at this moment, his spirit is at work. All right then, that's looking outward at pride. But the real, and how it's functioning in the world, but the real challenge, and in some ways, most important, at least a place to start, is a look within. as we guard ourselves against pride. Psalm 139. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God. How vast is the sum of them. If I would count them, they're more than the sand. I awake, and I'm still with you. Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God. Oh, men of blood, depart from me. They speak against you with malicious intent. Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?" That's a godly trait, by the way. If a person says they're a Christian, but they want to reach out in love, right, kind of a twisted form of love or something about, and be buddies with those that hate the Lord, well, There's a problem there. And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with a complete hatred. I count them my enemies. And then he says this. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts. And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. See, there it is. What a great prayer, verses 23 and 24. Search me. Search me, God. The wicked, you know, the prideful person, oh, no, he doesn't want to be searched. He doesn't want to examine himself. The godly person, you know, we call on God to examine, search us out. If there be a hurtful, if there's pride in me, Lord, and guess what? There is. So show it to me. So I can hate it and turn from it. We require the Lord's searchlight within us to expose and root out this pride. Get this, here's another statement by Edwards. There are many sins of the heart that are very secret in nature, but spiritual pride is the most secret of all sins. That should kind of make us all shudder a bit, right? Pride is the most secret of all sins. He also says, there is no sin so much like the devil as this pride for secrecy and subtlety appearing to us even as an angel of light. That's how deceptive this is. And unless the Lord, by His Spirit, reveals this sin to us, chances are we'll never see it, you see. Here's one more. Pride will even use the exercise of good fruit and good gifts as an occasion to exert itself. Now let me give you an example of this, and if you think about it, you can think of some examples yourself, because if you're a Christian, you know this, you've had this happen. You can be praying, you can be praying, I as a pastor can be praying, or Kase or Mack, or any of us standing up here, praying with the congregation, with every intent of truly of truly praying, and in the middle of that prayer, all of a sudden a thought will pop into your mind, boy, that was a good turn of that phrase. You see how evil, that's what Edwards means, even in the exercise of the graces that God's given to us, Satan can come our way and introduce, fan the flame of that pride, you see. Oh, that was really a good sermon I preached. I really put that well. That thought, you wouldn't verbalize that, but that thought comes, and we need to recognize where it's coming from. It's pride and it's a devilish sin. Godly King Hezekiah. Hezekiah was a godly king, but he got snared by this pride for a time, 2 Chronicles 32. In those days, Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death and he prayed to the Lord and he answered him and gave him a sign that he would live. Hezekiah did not make return according to the benefit done to him, for his heart was proud. Somehow he didn't thank the Lord, maybe he had vowed to pay some vow or something, I don't know, but he didn't do it. His heart was proud, it was like he was taking credit somehow for himself. Therefore wrath came upon him and Judah and Jerusalem, but Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord did not come upon them in the days of Hezekiah. Hezekiah had very great riches and honor. And he made for himself treasuries for silver, for gold, for precious stones, spices, for shields, for all kinds of costly vessels, storehouses also for the yield of grain, wine, and oil, and stalls for all kinds of cattle and sheepfolds. And you can begin to see why he would be tempted toward pride there. But he repented of it under the chastening then of the Lord. But he was a godly man, and he fell. He fell big time to it. It is no exaggeration to say that all the evils within local churches, within the visible church of this world, are rooted in the sin of pride. I used to hate annual business meetings in the church. Now we have some pretty good annual business. We kind of forget to have them sometimes. We're about due to have one, I think. And pretty much it's, yeah, that's OK. Let's do that. OK. But I can tell you what it used to be like here. And I've experienced, well, there'd be little groups off in the corner. And they're lobbying with each other. This is how we're going to approach. This is what we're going to do here. And it was all this shameful pridefulness that was just wicked. And it was sin. This is what causes the conflicts within the body of Christ, you see. It's a rare church where you don't find trouble. Trouble in the kitchen, trouble in the sanctuary, trouble among the worship team. That's where Satan landed in the choir loft, they say. But you know what I mean, it's just egos and pride and diatrophies. I've written something to the church, says John, but diatrophies, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. There's the root of it. What is wrong with us if we if we insist, I've got to have my way in the church and I'm going to make sure, you know, what in the world are we, it's one thing to contend for the gospel, but if I'm just contending for Jeff so that I get my way, then I'm guilty then of pride. What is it that energizes heretics? I'm going to have a false god. Well, it's pride. My gospel is an improvement. I'm going to improve on God's gospel. If anyone still thinks that they're immune to pride, consider the Apostle Paul. Second Corinthians 12. I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether in the body or out of the body, I don't know. God knows. And I know that this man, and Paul's talking about himself, I know that this man was caught up into paradise, whether in the body or out of the body, I don't know, God knows. And he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. And how does this go then? Well, on behalf of this man, I will boast But on my own behalf, I'll not boast except of my weaknesses, though if I should wish to boast, this is a little confusing as he puts it here, but I would be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth, but I refrain from it so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. What he's saying is, God gave him the great privilege of seeing a glimpse of heaven. We'd like to ask him a whole lot more, for a lot more details, but we don't have it. And he acknowledges here that it would be common for a person to boast. You see this all the time, you know? Oh, near death experience, I saw heaven. One guy saw hell. and then he came back to warn us. Nobody comes back from hell. We know that from scripture, but at any rate, there's temptation to boast. So, to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me. Why? To keep me from becoming conceited. Paul needed the discipline of the Lord to keep him from becoming conceited. And he pleaded with the Lord to remove it, and the Lord said, no, my grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness. And so that's one of the reasons that the Lord brings suffering into our lives, to keep us humble so that we don't fall to the sin of pride. Pride is always there in our flesh. Oh, here's another one by Edwards. I wrote these in. You don't have them there. I just started reading them this morning. I've got to include that. But Edwards said this. Pride is like an onion. If you pull out one layer, there's another one right underneath. We must call out to the great searcher of our soul for his help in dealing with this sin of pride. And Edward Zanzi says, whoever trusts his own heart is a fool. And so it is. How many professing Christians today have been, down through history, been snared by false gospels and false prophets all because of pride. We've found something better, something better. I put in your handout, Colossians 2. It's a great passage to apply to this. Here's a person who's inflated without cause by his fleshly mind. Oh, I had this vision, you see. Don't listen to such a person. He's inflated without cause. Pride becomes the devil's open door into our minds if we are not wise about it and if we don't do battle against him by the spirit. Pride prefers Broadway, not the narrow way. Broadway has lots of people on it to praise you and so forth. Oh my, what a wonderful Christian and so on. And everybody's headed to hell while all this is going on. Let me close by just, I'll just read a few of these. I listed numbers of scriptures from Psalms and Proverbs here that address this sin of pride that we have to have the Lord show us and we battle against. Psalm 10, in the pride of his face, the wicked does not seek him. All of his thoughts are, there is no God. You'll see as you read these scriptures, how pride leads to another sin. In this case, the atheist, what an arrogant person the atheist is, there's no God. Psalm 18, for you the Lord save a humble person, but the haughty eyes you bring down. Remember Nebuchadnezzar? And he is able to humble those who walk in pride. He found that after going out to pasture for seven years. Psalm 25, he leads the humble in what is right and teaches the humble his way. But forget it for the prideful man. Psalm 31, let the lying lips be mute which speak insolently against the righteous in pride and contempt. Love the Lord, all you His saints. The Lord preserves the faithful, but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride. Psalm 34, my soul makes it boast in the Lord. Let the humble hear and be glad. Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord. Don't let the mighty man boast of his strength, or the rich man boast of his wealth, right? But let him who boasts, boast in this, that he understands and knows me. We boast in the Lord. Psalm 73, therefore pride is their necklace. Now look at this, what's it lead to? Violence, violence covers them as a garment. If it weren't for pride, there wouldn't be any violence. There wouldn't be any wars, any fights. The Lord lifts up the humble, and he casts the wicked to the ground. One of the most familiar one is, oh, I don't know if I put the most familiar one in here. No, here it is. It's not Proverbs 6, it's Proverbs 16. Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. You can be sure of it, you can bank on that. Somebody's walking in pride, going down. There's going to be a fall. Of course, in all of this, as always, we want to look to the Lord Jesus Christ as our example. Here he is. Philippians 2 describes it. He's God. From all eternity, he's God. But he humbled himself. And what do we see in Christ as we read about his earthly ministry in the gospel or read about him in Isaiah 53? He comes to us humble, mounted on a little burrow, right? He's humble, Christ is humble. What a horrible thing for a creature to walk in pride. Father, thank you for all of these warnings and promises and blessings and connection with these truths from your word that we've looked at. We confess our pridefulness before you. We pray that you would reveal any pride, any boasting in ourselves that's in us, that's lurking behind the scenes, perhaps driving other sins in our lives. We pray that you would send your spirit, search out our hearts, show us those sins, those evils, that we might repent of it and walk with you humbly. And we pray this all in Christ's name, amen.