6 Pride Comes Before the Fall
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READING Deuteronomy 8:10-14, 17-18 When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. 11 Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today; 12 otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, 13 and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God… 17 Otherwise, you may say in your heart, “My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.” 18 But you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. PRIDE COMES BEFORE THE FALL In his book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis called it “the great sin.” “There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which everyone in the world loathes when they see it in others; and of which hardly any people, except some Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. There is no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves; and the more we have it in ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.” What is Lewis talking about? PRIDE There is a reason that CS Lewis calls it “the great sin.” The Bible has a lot to say about pride. Proverbs 3:34 says that God “opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Several NT writers quote this proverb. Peter: 1 Peter 5:5 You younger men… be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. James: James 4:4-6 … whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”? 6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Jesus spoke a lot about pride. • He told a story (parable) of a wealthy man and Lazarus. • Eventually, both died. • Lazarus was carried to paradise and the rich man was in the torment of hell. • You can read the story in Luke 16. Jesus says it more positively… MattHew 5:5 “Blessed are the meek (gentle), for they shall inherit the earth.” Pride has been the great sin from the beginning. • Lucifer was the most beautiful of the created beings. • Looking in the mirror one day, he saw his great beauty. • Satan thought he should be in the place of God. He then appeared to Eve. Genesis 3:4-5 “You surely will not die! 5 For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Nearly every sin noted in the Bible can—in one way or another—is directly related to pride. • Because of pride, Adam and Eve thought they could hide from God. • Cain murdered Abel because of pride. • Ham made fun of Noah’s nakedness because of pride. The people built a tower into the heavens because of pride. Genesis 11:4 à They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” That’s just the first ¼ of Genesis. Throughout the Bible, in story after story, we can read about the great sin of pride. As we come to Daniel 4, we see a perfect example of Proverbs 3:34. The Lord mocks the mockers but is gracious to the humble. Nebuchadnezzar is about to learn a lesson. The lesson he learned is recorded in the last sentence of his testimony: Daniel 4:37 “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are true and His ways just, and He is able to humble those who walk in pride.” The lesson Nebuchadnezzar learned came from the worst experience of his life. But today from Heaven, he would tell you it was the best thing that ever happened to him. This historical account of Nebuchadnezzar can be broken up into 3 parts. We’ll look at them one at a time. THE DREAM AND THE DREAMER (4-27) • First, take a look at the man. • He was content and prosperous. 4:4 “I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at ease in my house and flourishing in my palace.” This man had enjoyed the good life. • He had grown up in and now was king of the greatest empire in the world at the time, Babylon. • He was at peace with his enemies because everyone was afraid to attack him. • He had hundreds of thousands of Jews in his kingdom. • Virtually, they were slaves. • They did all the work the Babylonian people did not want to do. • He had them under his thumb. Nebuchadnezzar was content. • His wife had given him a son, a wonderful boy who would be heir to his throne. • He was getting older, nearing retirement, and was considering giving his son co-regency. • Nebuchadnezzar was prosperous. • He had just completed a new palace and built a new capital in southern Babylon. • The place was called Tema, and later renamed Babylon. Life just does not get any better than this. Nebuchadnezzar was not what you would call a religious man. • He would bow his knee to no one — no human and no deity. • He would not worship Yahweh, the God of the Jews. • He refused to worship Marduk, the God of the Babylonians. • The man was content and prosperous and proud. In his pride he concluded that he did not need God. This is why Jesus said… (MattHew 19:23) “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” This king was Nabonidus, Nebuchadnezzar III. For years there have been proud people who tried to undermine the Scriptures and said this story of Nebuchadnezzar going into the desert for seven years was a mistake in the Bible. Their reason was that nowhere in Babylonian written history did Nebuchadnezzar ever leave his throne for seven years. There was no mention of that or of another king taking his place. • Some Christians hung their heads in shame over this. • Don’t join them… There is a very clear explanation for what Daniel has recorded here. The man referred to as Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel chapters 1 — 3 is a different person from the Nebuchadnezzar of Daniel 4. There were three Nebuchadnezzars in Babylonian history — well, actually four. The first king of Babylon was Nebuchadnezzar I. • He reigned from 625-605 B.C. • His name was also Nabopolassar. His son was Nebuchadnezzar II. • He reigned from 605-562 B.C. • He is the Nebuchadnezzar of Daniel 1-3. He had a couple of sons and relatives who reigned after him: • Evil-MerodacH (561-560 B.C.) • Neriglisar (559-556 B.C.) • Labashi- Marduk (556 B.C.) Then a new man entered the scene. • He was not a descendant of Nebuchadnezzar II. • His name was Nabonidus. • He overthrew King Labashi-Marduk. According to Babylonian historical documents, he ruled from 555-539 B.C. • He was the last king of Babylon. • Nabonidus was reigning when his kingdom fell to King Darius the Mede. • Darius is also known by his Persian name, Cyrus. But why would Nabonidus call himself Nebuchadnezzar? • It is because he was a usurper. • Nabonidus took the throne away from the family of Nebuchadnezzar. If he wanted the respect of the Babylonian people, he would have to identify himself with their greatest king; so he called himself Nebuchadnezzar III or just Nebuchadnezzar. I said there were four… • The fourth Nebuchadnezzar executed on December 30, 2006. • His name is Saddam Hussein, former leader of Iraq, modern-day Babylon. When the allied nations of the world fought against him after he invaded Kuwait in 1990, he referred to himself as Nebuchadnezzar the Second. • He used the name of the great king of Babylon. He just did not know history well enough to know he was actually the fourth man to call himself Nebuchadnezzar, not the second. There is one more probLem that needs to be reconciLed. • Daniel 5:30, 31 shows Belshazzar as king when Darius the Mede conquered Babylon. How can this be when ancient Babylonian documents show Nabonidus, Nebuchadnezzar III, as the last king of Babylon? Here again ancient history is helpful. After Nabonidus became king, he immediately wanted to build his own palace and his own capital in the Arabian desert, in a place called Tema, later called Babylon. • It was completed in his fourth year. When he left, he placed his son in the old city of Babylon as his co-regent. • But the Babylonian Chronicles record something strange in the fourth year. • Nabonidus was not heard from for seven years. • Those are the seven years Nebuchadnezzar III was insane. The Bible, once doubted by the proud, is proved to be historically accurate once again.