Well I thank you for your prayers and for just also for what a wonderful group you are. It's been good to get to know so many of you. Find out for some of you how many days you've been married and others how many years you've been married and and how many of you have almost as many children as we do. And it's just a wonderful group and it's a great privilege. to think about that this group, us together here, this group will never quite be together in this situation ever again. This is a unique moment in sacred divine history and God just drew this group together for this time and we're gonna all go in different directions and serve the Lord in different places. And I've heard about some of your churches and some of the ministries you're in. It's just thrilling. I mean, it's neat to be on the winning team, right? And what's really wonderful is to see how God is at work in so many lives. If you'd open to the book of Obadiah tonight, Obadiah, you know, that's not a real well-known book in the Bible. It's Hosea, you know, after Daniel, and then Joel, and then Amos, and then there it is, Obadiah, and it's right by Jonah. One chapter, one theme, and the theme is the deadliness of pride. The whole book is built around the character flaw that we couldn't see in Genesis in Esau's life. In fact, you remember Genesis 25, two boys are born struggling in the womb, and the elder is going to serve the younger, God says, and Jacob and Esau come into the world. Esau first, Jacob second. Jacob is the puller and the supplanter and the deceiver. In fact, if we were picking, we would have picked Esau. I would have. He had a suntan. He was an outdoorsman. He was a hunter. He was muscular. was handsome, and he was a winner in every sense. And then there's this little mealy-mouthed, pale mama's boy that liked to cook, and cheated everybody he could, and lied at will, and God picked him. You know, that's the wonder of redemption. God doesn't pick us on whether we're worth it or worthy of it. It's His plan, and it's hard to understand. But it wasn't until Esau had reproduced himself a hundred thousand times in a nation called the Edomites that God exposes why he says in Malachi, Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated. What did God hate that he saw in Esau's life? It's in this book, it's pride. Did you know pride is very dangerous? Pride is deadly. It destroyed Lucifer. It destroyed the human race because Adam and Eve thought they knew more than God. That's an evidence of pride. It's going to destroy every person that comes into this world that doesn't come to Christ because it says in Isaiah 53, all we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone what? To his own way. That's pride. Every time Frank Sinatra, who's still alive amazingly after all of his bouts in the hospital, every time he sings his song, I think of Isaiah 53. You know what he sings? I did it. My way. That's the theme of the human race. That's why people go to hell. Because if you go God's way, you go to heaven. If you go your way, my way, you end up in eternal perdition. But the short book of Obadiah presents a powerful message. It shows what happens to those who reject God's word, who spurn His grace, and who rebel against Him in the foolishness of pride. This book is about Edom's prosperity. and God's doom upon their pride. And while they were prospering and going upward, many Israelites probably said, God, how come you're blessing them? They're so arrogant. I mean, look at it. Look at Obadiah chapter 1, the only chapter, the whole book, verse 1. The vision of Obadiah, thus says Lord God concerning Edom. We've heard a report from the Lord. An envoy has been sent from among the nations saying, arise, let us go against her for battle. Behold, I will make you small among the nations. You are greatly despised. Look at verse 3. The arrogance of your heart has deceived you. Now, this is the group that lived in Petra, you know, the fabled rock city, impregnable, where a handful could defend it because of the narrow gorge. In fact, I didn't remember this, but just now, the last time I was in Petra, Bonnie was expecting too. Seems like, she told me once, seems like I've always been expecting, but I remember they wouldn't let us ride the donkeys into Petra. Because they said, no, no, no expectant mothers ride those donkeys. And so we walked all the way in through that narrow corridor. And you look up, and one kid with a BB gun or a handful of rocks could have held off our whole group easily. Because it's just a single file and so steep. And all you have to do is roll a few rocks. And these people, they said, you, the Lord said, you who lived in the cleft of the rock, in the loftiness of your dwelling place, you say in your heart, nobody's going to bring me down. That's the theme of the proud. God said, I'll bring you down. The deadliness of pride is presented in this book. Now it's interesting. History records. There's something to add to this book. It's true that the sin of Edom, long indulged, worked itself out into the very character of the people, and therefore it inevitably flowed into history. These proud people, though God destroyed them, he didn't destroy every last one of them. And there's a descendant of Esau, an Edomite, that comes on the arena of history at a very, very important moment. He was an Idumean, which is another way of saying Edomite. And his name was Herod. And he met Jesus. And the scriptures tell us about that moment because there was a day in history when two kings faced one another for the first time. One was an earthly king, a king of pride. The other was a heavenly king. The earthly king sat that day in the pinnacle of his power. His name was Herod Antipas. the son of Herod the Great, the grandson of Antipater, the father of Herod, who started the kingdom. Herod was an Edomite, or as the New Testament has it, an Edomian. Herod the Great, his dad, had slaughtered the babes in Bethlehem in his desire to exterminate Christ. His successor Antipas, with whom we are concerned, was no better. He had beheaded John the Baptist. He had been called a fox by Jesus in Luke 13.32. Antipas had everything he wanted. His income expressed in American money would have been in excess of $6 million a year 2,000 years ago. When most people earned a penny a day, he made $6 million a year. That doesn't sound like much now with the sports contracts we have, but in 1997 dollars, he would be like an oil sheet in the billions. Antipas had everything he wanted. All the pleasures of life were his. If anybody stood in his way, well, the life of that person meant as little to him as the lives of the innocents that his dad had killed in Bethlehem. The motto of his reign was, what will it profit me? A lot of people live that way, don't they? They live that way in their business life. They live that way in their family life. They live that way in their married life. They live that way in their church life. They look at the ministry opportunities. They say, well, is that going to help me? God says, no. Only what hurts you counts for me, only what is inconvenient for you, only that which cost you something will I accept. Well that day those two kings met, the other king was Jesus, and he was the king of kings. He was the one, according to the flesh, was the natural heir to David's throne. He was according to his divine nature the supreme king of kings, lord of this earth. He didn't look like a king that day. He stood in humble clothing. He'd been rejected. Within hours, he was to die as a felon. But if Jesus had wished, he could have called forth legions of angels. They would have vindicated him. Instantly, they would have swept the usurper Herod from the throne. Jesus didn't want the throne in that way. He didn't want the throne until you and I could share it with him. To make that possible, he had to die. You know, to share the throne with Christ, we need to die too. We need to die every day. We need to die to self. You know the middle letter of sin? What is it? S what? I. And what's the middle letter of pride? P-R-I-D-E. Yeah. Lucifer. L-U-C-I-F-E-R. That's just an interesting coincidence in the English language, but it's very true. That the heart of all of our problems is the big I. Self. Self. Backward is flesh. Self. Pride. Ego. Me. I. My way. Herod said, what does it profit me? Jesus said, what can I do that will be the greatest possible benefit to my brethren? God vindicated Jesus. Jesus went to the cross. He died, but his death was followed by a resurrection in today. He lives to enable those who believe on him to behave as he did and to bring a true supernatural brotherhood to this world. For his part, Herod went on with his revelry, but soon the Romans banished him to Lyon, France, where he died in misery. This is a choice before us tonight to go Herod's way, the way of pride, that deadly way, or to go the way of Jesus. We can't do both. You know what's amazing about pride is if we don't heed the warning, it'll ruin our life. It's that deadly. I've seen and I've been in the ministry long enough to see totally ruined Relationships. Lifelong ruined relationships. Because of pride. No, no, I won't say I'm sorry. They say they're sorry. I'm not going to say, no. And they just, people who haven't talked to each other for years. You know, I've pastored churches where people came in and one would sit over there and one would sit over there. And those people hadn't talked to each other for years. And they thought they were worshipping God. God didn't hear a word they said. If I regard iniquity in my heart, God won't hear me. Bitterness defiles the whole body. And bitterness is a result of pride. When my way is cut off, when my plans are thwarted, when someone snubs me, when I'm slighted, when my husband does this, when my wife or my children or whoever, my pastor, God says you're going to go Christ's way. You're going to die to self, the cross, or the way of the flesh. I was reading a news account of what happened in the United States not so many years ago, it was May 18th, 1980. Most of us remember that day that Mount St. Helens exploded. When I think of Mount St. Helens, I think of pride building up and it's gonna just volcanically flow out the lava into someone's life, either in our anger, either on our impatience, either with a hasty word, perhaps with, you know, another evidence of pride is lust, because lust says, I want what I want when I want it and I want it now. And I'm not just talking about the, I'm talking about the higher things in life. That's why people get so far in debt. I just counseled a couple and they said they have $30,000 on their credit card. $30,000 on your credit card? Why? What did you buy? They said, oh, sweatshirts here and there. Went on trips and went out to eat and went on vacation and unexpected. That's a manifestation of the lust of the flesh, which has its root in pride. Pride is the first sin, it's the basic sin, it's the impulse that drives our flesh and our humanness, and it's deadly. Let me read to you about how deadly it can be using the metaphor of a mountain. Mount St. Helens belched gray steam plumes hundreds of feet into the blue Washington sky. Geologists watched the seismographs and wondered as the earth was literally dancing beneath their feet. Rangers and state police and sirens were blaring, herded tourists and residents away from an ever-widening zone of danger. every piece of scientific evidence being collected by the laboratories and on the field predicted that Mount St. Helens would soon explode with a fury that would flatten the Washington countryside. Warning, blared loudspeakers on patrol cars and helicopters hovering overhead. Warning, pleaded radio and television announcers, shortwave and citizens band operators. Warning, echoed up and down the roads of the campgrounds of the parks, through hiking trails, and through the woods, as all were emptied when people heard the warnings and fled for their lives. But Harry Truman, caretaker of the Spirit Lake Lodge, refused to leave. Harry was a caretaker at the recreational lodge five miles south of Mount St. Helens, Smoking Shrouded Peak. The rangers warned Harry of the coming blast. Neighbors begged him to join them in their exodus. Even Harry's sister called to talk some sense in the old man's head, but Harry ignored the warnings. From the picture postcard beauty of his lakeside home, reflecting the snow-capped peak overhead, Harry gained national attention as he grinned a toothless grin on the evening news. And he said, this old mountain ain't gonna blow up without old Harry's permission. On May 18th, 1980, as the boiling gases beneath the mountain surface bulged and buckled the landscape to its final limits, it was rising at the rate of 60 foot a minute during those last moments. As the scientists, in fact, the geologist died right on the edge. Many of them died, but the one was right there on the edge, and he was measuring it. He was reporting data as quick as he could. 60 foot a minute, the ground was rising, and he stayed and watched it and died with it. But as the mountain bulged and the surface buckled, the landscape to its final limits, Harry Truman cooked his eggs and bacon. He fed 16 cats to scraps. And picking up a big flat of petunias, he began planting them around the border of his freshly mowed lawn. At 8.31 a.m., May 18th, 1980, Mount St. Helens exploded. Did Harry regret his decision in that millisecond before the concussive waves, traveling faster than the speed of sound, flattened him and everything else for 150 square miles? Did he have time to mourn the stubbornness as millions of tons of rocks disintegrated and disappeared into a cloud that reached 10 miles into the sky? Did he struggle against the wall of mud, superheated, that raced at him at 50 miles an hour, burying his cabin, his cats, and that freshly mowed lawn? Or was he just vaporized like the 100,000 people of Hiroshima when the mountain erupted with a force 500 times greater than the atomic bomb that leveled that city? You know, here is a legend in the corner of Washington where he refused to listen. He smiles down today from t-shirts and beer mugs. Balladeers sing songs about Harry, the stubborn man, with his ear to the mountain, but he wouldn't listen to the warnings. You know, the book of Obadiah tonight warns us of something. It warns us that that little friend we have within us that we were born with is deadly unless dealt with, unless mortified, unless we learn the deadliness of pride. We'll never learn the wonder of humility. Verse 6 exposes this book and I want to show it to you. It says, Oh how Esau will be ransacked, his hidden treasure searched out. Now that's New American. Actually Ginsberg, Hebrew translator of the Bible, is the first one that picked up on this. The literal Hebrew word is, How are the things of Esau stripped bare? Not ransacked. It's not This verse, yes, they were pillaged and plundered when they were conquered, but this word, this Hebrew word, means something that's uncovered and thrown open. And what it's saying is that they're laid out in the open for us to look at for the first time under the microscope that Obadiah puts down on Esau's life is the very heart of his problem. When we look through the eyepiece of that microscope, we see Edom. And as we inflate a tire or tube to find a leak, and can't find that leak until it's inflated, just so Obadiah presents Esau inflated. A hundred thousand times over in a nation, and they're just full of arrogant pride. And God says, I can't stomach that. That made God hate him. The pride of your heart has deceived thee, it says in verse 3. Pride's deceived you. You know, the greatest plague on this earth is pride. Wanting her own way, as Isaiah said, The first sin is Lucifer challenged God. Pride is the ultimate sin. All conflicts and troubles have flowed downward from pride. Think about in your life. Every gossip has its root in pride. Every hurt feeling, every time we're hurt. What gets hurt? Our pride. Every church division starts with someone's pride. Maybe more than one person's. Every person that leaves the church. A little pride there. Other than a willful leaving over unorthodox doctrine, but how few people live or leave for that reason. Only in Christ is true relief found. His mind was that of a bondservant. If you can just put a marker, you also valiantly found Obadiah. Go with me to the New Testament, to John chapter 4, just briefly, because I want to show you how Jesus Christ proclaimed his ministry, what he confessed. And this is one of the great confessions of Christ's life. And I think it helps us because Jesus was the perfect man. Perfect human. He was all human and all divine. The hypostatic union, the amazing union of God and man into one. 100%, 100%. Not 50-50. 100-100. What a wonderful theological truth. But look what Jesus said in the Gospel of John, chapter 4, verse 34. Because this is his secret. This is how, I mean, we know how bad pride is, but how do you get humility? Well, Jesus is the perfect example because He perfectly lived the human life. And Jesus said to them, my food. Someone came to me tonight and said their only complaint for this weekend, Don, was there wasn't enough food. Believes that there should be four meals a day instead of just three around here, right? What a good problem. Well, Jesus said, my food. And we know a lot about food here. My food is to do the will of him who sent me. I want to finish his work. He said, that's what I just feast on. That's what I live on. That's what I live for. The food of my life here. Now, he didn't say it just once. Look at chapter 5, verse 30. My Bible, straight across the page. Jesus said, I can of myself do nothing as I hear I judge. My judgment is righteous because I do not seek my own will, but the will of my Father who sent me. Now, Jesus could have done his own will, but because of the perfection of his humanity, he had totally sublimated his will to God. And if he did, He gave us an example to follow, to yield. That's a regular thing we all should be saying. Not my will, not my way, not my life, not my plans, it's not my goals. His. Look at chapter 6 of John's Gospel. Next chapter, verse 38. I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him Who sent me? How do you get this kind of humility? Well, as long as you're in the New Testament, and I'm glad you asked that question. I knew you were going to ask that. Look at Colossians chapter 3, because I don't want to shock you too much, but I want you to know that this is not anything less than a cultivated, chosen habit to have humility or to be humble. You say, what? I thought it was something you just grew into, or it was a spiritual gift that just dropped on you. No, no, no. who wrote half the New Testament describes what we're talking about Colossians chapter 3 and so is those verse 12 as those who have been chosen of God holy and beloved now that's our standing we are in God's sight holy he I mean what a wonder we were formerly enemies and now are declared to be friends we were formerly strangers and now we're related to him we formerly were guilty and he declares us righteous I mean those are all the the big doctrines of justification and redemption and sanctification but listen to this we're holy and beloved that's positional but look at this you holy and beloved ones I love to call people saints yeah just rattle a few people walk up and say hi saint so and so especially here there's a lot more Catholics I lived in Rhode Island for six and a half years most Catholic state in the nation the highest percentage per capita Catholic population and I used to just I mean I'd be out at the grocery store at super stop-and-shop or whatever and I'd say hi st. Ray those people they'd ram their carts into the thing they were wanted to see a saint they never seen one hey we're Saints the Bible says we're Saints if you're born again you're a saint if you're born again you're a saint in God's sight maybe not in your wife's or husband's or kids but you in God's sight you're holy and beloved And we just have to live it out, what we are. But if you're a saint, and if you're born again, verse 12 says, put on. That's a choice. You know, Gary Smalley wrote the book, Love is a Choice. Oh, more than love, humility is a choice. Look what it says. Put on, heart of compassion, kindness, humility. Put it on. I'll tell you another funny story. My wife wasn't able to be here, you know, as you know, this weekend. So she packed my bag. And she was so concerned because she knows me. I mean, if I have my way, I wear the same thing all the time. Never change my clothes. You know what I mean? Other than when I have to. It's a waste of time. I mean, I find something I like, I just wear it endlessly. So she just makes it disappear. Hides it from me. Something else is out. So I figure, oh, it's time to change. I mean, I just don't like, it's a bother to match colors and do all that. She, I opened that suitcase, everything was laid out. Everything I was supposed to wear. I had something different almost to wear every hour. I mean, she had them laid out for me. All wrapped up and I just took them out and they had tissue paper. It was just, it was really fun to unwrap all that. But you know, I had to make the choice to put them on. Did you know this morning when you got up and you had your quiet time with the Lord and you were opening your heart to his word and listening to his voice as we talked about this morning, He opened the spiritual closet for you. And he had the choice this morning to put on humility, as well as all these other good things, but a heart of compassion, gentleness, and patience, and kindness. But tonight we're talking about pride and the antithesis of pride, humility. And that's a choice we have to put it on. And you know what? Just like my children, they'll put on a nice outfit and right through a mud puddle they go. They got to change. You know what? We might have to put on that humility more than once a day. We have to keep clothed with humility. Look at Peter. Peter said the same thing Paul did. Look at 1 Peter chapter 5. And by the way, 1 Peter goes right into Obadiah, so just don't worry about it. We are getting back. We'll finish the book. But 1 Peter 5 and verse 5. At the end of his life, the Apostle Peter wrote these two wonderful little epistles. He already had written the Gospel of Mark, dictated it to Mark, and that's his beautiful picture of Christ the servant. But in 1 Peter 5.5, we find something interesting. He says, likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, and all of you be submissive to one another, and, now here, I mean, ding, ding, ding, ding, bzzz, this, notice this, underline it in your mind, in your heart, in your Bible, and be clothed with humility. Clothed. Same idea, put on clothing. It's interesting. The verse continues. Why? Because it's deadly. God resists the proud. You know what that says? God arrays himself. in offensive warfare against the proud. You having a hard time in your life? I mean, is everything going wrong? One of the things to check is, is there pride present? Pride says, you're not going to tell me what to do. Pride says, I'm going to quit. I'm going to leave. I'm going to give up. I'm going to, you know, we do, we just, the flesh just comes out and gets all smelly. God resists pride. Anywhere he finds it in our life. squashes it, beats on it. But he gives grace to the humble. This is an interesting word where it says, clothe yourself with humility. It's a Greek word, engkambouomai, which doesn't say much unless you're Greek. But you know what? It's a pretty picture. Let me read to you from the Greek dictionary. It says, this word means to knot something or tie it by a band. two things fastened together, to fasten or gird oneself. And here's the footnote. This word was used for the white scarf or apron of slaves, which was fastened at the belt of the vest that distinguished a slave from a freeman. Hence, in 1 Peter 5.5, when it says gird yourselves with humility and let it be your servant's garb, which is what it literally says, It means to put on humility, and by putting it on, show your subjection to one another. It also means the overalls, which a slave wore to keep him clean while working, an exceedingly humble garment. Do you want to have the most wonderful relationship? Wear the overalls of humility in your relationship with your loved ones. Do you want to have the greatest parenting you could have? Wear humility, and when you make a mistake, tell your children, Daddy, what's wrong? I can't count how many times I've said that to my kids. Pull them up on my knee and I say, you know what? You know how Daddy tells you when you're wrong? Well, Daddy's gonna tell you now. I was wrong. And I'd like to apologize to you. With big eyes, they look up and they go, mm-hmm. What do I do? And I say, well, when you apologize to me, what do I say? I forgive you. You forgive me. You know, children have to see the whole process, how it works, because they are not living with baby Jesus. with you. And they are not having a perfect brother, sister, or parent. We are fallen and sinful and prone to pride. And when it shows up, we have to gird on the overall. But boy, we need them in our marriages, don't we? To be humble. Back to Obadiah real quickly. And I'm going to read several portions of scripture here. But as you're turning there, I want to remember a dear friend from church history, William Carey. He was referred to as the father of modern missions. He was from England. He was a brilliant linguist. He personally translated parts of the Bible into no fewer than 34 different languages. One man. 34. And I had trouble learning French. And the other languages they made us learn when I was in high school. I mean, I don't know how you learn 34. But he was raised in a simple home in England. In his early manhood, he worked as a cobbler. He didn't work, I mean, he worked for a cobbler, he wasn't a cobbler. A cobbler's a step up from what he was. All he did was he nailed the nails in. He was a shoe repairman. That's all he did. When he got to India, he was often ridiculed for his low birth. You know, they have the caste system and where you're born, you're stuck for life in their mind. And at a dinner party one evening, a snob remarked to him and said, I understand, Mr. Carey, that you once worked as a shoemaker. Now listen to what humility responds. Oh no, your lordship carrier replied, I was not a shoemaker, I only repaired shoes. That's tying on the apron. Did you know when you have the apron of humility, egg con boulomide on you and tied tight that nobody can offend you? What does it say in Psalm 119, 165? Great peace have they which love thy law and nothing shall offend them. Now we're not perfect. But God offers us the perfect solution to what bogs us down in life, humility. A writer wrote not too long ago in Moody Monthly this very insightful column. His name is James Bornstad. He said, at one time, most Christians believed that to have a close relationship with God, a person should magnify God, deny themself, and seek the pleasures of God. These people worked strangely with Heroes such as missionaries and great saints who gave up everything to serve God. They love martyrs who had suffered because of their faith. Today all that's changed, he says. Today it's different. Many Christians believe that to have a close relationship to God, a person should realize how important they are. And they should see that they're important to God. And they should start pursuing their dreams. And they should live out their aspirations. And they should become affluent and successful so they can give more money to the church. Their heroes are those celebrities and self-made individuals who happen, let me underline that, who happen to be Christians. And a lot of people that are on the Christian glory glamour circuit are baby Christians at best. You know, the real heroes are the people that are sacrificing and behind the scenes and living on next to nothing and rejoicing in the Lord. Not the people that are making the six and seven figure salaries who can go on the Christian lecture circle and talk about how wonderful it is to be a Christian. I mean, it'd be wonderful too if you sat and had your fingernails done while your hair was being clipped every week and you wore a different pair of shoes and they were custom made. I mean, what's wrong with living like that? You don't need much grace for that. That's why, how hardly shall the rich enter the kingdom of God. They just don't need God. Behind this new gospel stands a variety, and this is quoting this article, of distinguished teachers and preachers and evangelists who proclaim a variety of ways to attain prosperity and success, but examining their theological models and points of emphasis, it is immediately revealed they have a common element. They're not biblical. Because God said, if anyone will come after me, let him what? Deny himself, herself, themselves. and let them take up their cross. And what is a cross? Is it supposed to be a piece of jewelry we wear around our neck that's gold and pretty and, you know, it's nice or earrings or something? No. It's alright to do that, but that's not what a cross was. That would be like carrying around a gas chamber around your neck. How many people do you see that wear a little gas chamber around their neck? Or a guillotine? Or a noose? Did you know a cross was the most excruciating, painful, protracted, elongated, horrible, ghastly, ignominious death that was conceivable. Do you know who invented crucifixion? The Romans didn't invent it. The Romans didn't invent much of anything. They copied everything. They were brilliant. The Phoenicians invented it. The Phoenicians also invented some horrible worship to their gods. They're the ones who used to burn their babies alive in that big, fat idol that was hollow, and they'd build a fire inside, and they'd get it red hot, and then they would throw their babies into the arms and let them fry and burn to death. That was called Molech. They had developed such a hardened, inveterate, horrible populace that they had to think of a way to make them be afraid of crime. And so they thought up the most horrible way to kill someone, and they thought up crucifixion, a lingering death. The cross is a sign of a lingering death. Paul said, I'm crucified with Christ. He says, I have been nailed with Christ. And yet I'm alive. And yet in this process it's no longer me who is alive, but it's Christ who lives in me. And the life which I live now in the flesh, I live by faith. By faith of what? By faith that I can humbly clothe myself with the humility of Christ every day. Well, Obadiah teaches us something, and if you want to get back to Obadiah, verse 3, it says, your arrogance, the arrogance of your heart, has deceived you. You're saying in your heart, who's going to bring me down? Verse 4, though you build high like the eagle, though you set your nest among the stars, from there, God says, I'll bring you down. I'll bring you down. Let me warn you, as Harry Truman didn't learn, Pride is so deadly that if practiced very long, God will smite that life and bring it down. Especially if you're a believer. Now I don't say people get to live to the end, most of them, and they meet their day of reckoning later. God gives us ours now. Because if you're not illegitimate, if I'm not illegitimate, if I'm truly born from above, God will chase me. That's a proof of salvation. When someone is struggling, rejoice with them because God is refining. Just three points in a poem before I go, okay? That's a good Baptist sermon. I'm an ordained Baptist minister, by the way. I've never pastored a Baptist church, a fully Baptist church, but I am an ordained Baptist minister. I don't know how that works, but whatever. Three points in a poem. Point number one, Satan is the father of pride, okay? When you think of this book, think of the deadliness of pride. When you think of Ezekiel, think of the holiness of God. When you think of Song of Solomon, think of the loveliness of Christ. But when you think of the deadliness of pride, Number one, Satan is the father of pride. And when we have a proud look, a haughty spirit, when we're kind of intoxicated with how well we're doing or how good we look, remember we're acting just like Satan and looking just like him. And God doesn't like that. Satan's the father of pride. The first sin was pride. Every sin after has been in some way an extension of pride. Pride led Lucifer, the light-bearing, exalted one, to exalt himself above his Creator and Lord. He was a star of the morning. He continually said in Isaiah 14, I will, I will, I will. God said, you won't. And he cast him down. Pride is a supreme temptation from Satan because pride is at the heart of his own evil nature. Our only protection against pride, our only source of humility is a proper view of God. That's what Obadiah is trying to present. This whole book is trying to focus him back on God. They wouldn't. Pride is the sin of competing with God. Humility is the virtue of submitting to His glory. Pride can come in many forms. We can be tempted to be proud of our abilities. We can be proud of our education, of our possessions, of our social status, of our appearance, of our power. even of our biblical knowledge or our religious accomplishments. But throughout scriptures, the Lord calls us people to humility. What does it say in Proverbs? Proverbs 15, 33, before honor comes humility. Proverbs 22, 4, the reward of the humble and the fear of the Lord are riches. You want to really be rich? Be humble. The world says to get ahead, push people out of the way. God says the way up is down. The way the front line is the end. He said, let me put you forward. Humility always produces spiritual blessing. Just as every sin starts in pride, every virtue will begin with humility. Humility allows us to see us as we really are. It shows us as we are before God and we see God as he is. And just as pride is behind every conflict we have with people, every problem of fellowship we have with the Lord, so humility is behind every harmonious relationship. Humility is behind every spiritual success, and humility is behind every moment of precious fellowship we'll ever have with the Lord. It's a great thing to be humble. Now, when I was in school, I remember one of my friends said they were going to write a book about the ten most humble men in the world and how they trained the other nine. That's not the way to do it. It's not something, and true humility is not thinking little of ourselves. You know, some people do that. They actually, you can see it, they go like this. You know, they're thinking a little of themselves. And they're very, very, you can just see it in them. Humility is not thinking little of yourself. It's not thinking of yourself at all. And you say, that's impossible. That's why it's something that God offers. And we clothe ourself with his humility. Point number two, Satan's a father of pride. God is the author of humility. How do we get humble? Well, here's a lesson in godly humility that's about a thousand years old, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who wrote, Jesus, the very thought of thee with sweetness fills my breast, and sweeter far thy face to see and in thy presence rest. That guy knew how to worship the Lord. This is what he wrote. This is from his journal. Humility will begin with a proper self-awareness. That virtue of humility by which a man becomes conscious of his own unworthiness begins with an honest, unadorned, unretouched view of themself. He had time to think about it, didn't he? And he got the message. You know, the scriptures, the Apostle John says, if we say we have no sin, we're deceiving ourselves. Humility starts in daily confession of sin. It's a very humble thing to agree with God and say, God, you're right. Pride was evident when I covered for myself there. Pride was evident when I, you know, got, I mean, it shows up in so many places. One of my favorite things to do, I'm a people watcher and you can do it too. to watch how people express their pride. One of my favorite ways, I don't know if I can quite do it tonight, but you know, someone will be walking along and they'll trip and they'll go and look around to make sure no one saw them. And they walk on, you know, or the person that's sitting in the car next to you and they're busily irrigating their nostrils and they see you and they, You know, pride just makes us, we cover for ourselves immediately. We just don't want anybody to see we do anything wrong. That's not confession. Confession is acknowledging before God who sees everything that we are what he saw us as. It's not admission. It's agreement with him. And asking him to go to the very root of our being and to root out that pride. You know what else John says? We're not, I mean the Apostle Paul says, we're not bold to class or compare ourselves as some commend themselves, but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, 2 Corinthians 10, 12 says, they are foolish. You know another manifestation of pride? We go, I'm not as bad as him. And you know, sin compared with sin doesn't look very bad, but sin compared with God looks horrible. We have to have a proper awareness of ourself. God, the author of humility, tells us we have to have a right awareness of Christ. As we already saw in John 4, 5, and 6, that Jesus said, I came to do the Father's will. Jesus was spoken to by the Father at his baptism in Matthew 3, 17. And God the Father said, this is my beloved son. I'm well pleased in him. God is not well pleased in our business success, our fame, our education, our wealth, our personality, our good works, or anything else we have. The more we rely on glory and such things, the greater barrier they are to communing with God. We should be like Christ. Also, humility involves the proper awareness of God. We need to see, as I talked about this morning, we need to see Jesus Christ as Isaiah saw Him, sitting on a throne, Isaiah 6, high and lifted up, lofty and exalted. We need to cry out with a seraphim that He is holy, holy, holy. And we need to be like Isaiah to say, woe are we. You see all this is interrelated. You look at the lovely Christ. As you're looking at Him, you see how holy and perfect He is. Then we look inside. We see how unholy and imperfect we are. But we don't stop there. I just read an interesting account of how the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Essenes and the Herodians began. Interesting book. And one thing I remember out of that book just struck me deeply. Pharisee comes from the word separate. That's the word, Pharisee, separate. Pharisees only separated from things. And anybody today that only separates from things, when you talk to them, I don't do that, I don't do that, I don't do that, I don't do that, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. That's Phariseeism. What is grace? Grace is separating to something. And if you ask me about my life, I'm an absolute separatist. I'm separated to Christ. And anything that displeases Him, I am in the process of ditching from my life. I want those blood-covered ears, and blood-covered hands, and blood-covered feet, and blood-covered mind. And anything that does not measure up to Him is in danger of jettison. But I won't give you a litany of everything I don't do, because you might not be there yet in your spiritual life. But I can tell you up front that I'm separated to Jesus Christ. I hope tonight that you want to be separated to Christ. And anything that has to fall off the way to preserve His humility in you, that you will willingly embrace.