In his sermon titled 'God Judges Pride,' Scott Brown focuses on Isaiah 2:10-22, emphasizing the theme of divine judgment against pride. Brown explains that pride is the root of many sins, leading individuals to elevate themselves above God. He uses various biblical examples, including the story of Lucifer's fall and Hezekiah's folly, to illustrate the destructive nature of pride. Brown highlights that God alone will be exalted and that the proud will be humbled. He discusses the difficulty of recognizing pride within oneself and the importance of humility as a remedy. The sermon calls for self-examination and repentance, urging believers to sever themselves from prideful ways and embrace God's grace and glory.

Isaiah 2 verses 10 through 22. Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His Majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, The haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything proud and lofty, upon everything lifted up, and it shall be brought low. Upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan, upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up, upon every high tower and upon every fortified wall, upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all the beautiful sloops.

The loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day, but the idols he shall utterly abolish. They shall go into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth, from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His Majesty. When he arises to shake the earth mightily, in that day a man will cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which they made each for himself to worship, to the moles and bats, to go into the clefts of the rocks and into the crags of the rugged rocks, from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake the earth mightily. Sever yourselves from such a man whose breath is in his nostrils, for of what account is he?" Let us pray.

Father God, thank You so much for Your Word. Thank You that as Scott comes that You will speak to us. Father, that you will open eyes, that you will open hearts, that you will help us to see our idols, help us to see those things that we have lifted up above their rightful place, where we trusted in ourselves, where we trusted in the work of our hands, Father, please expose these things to us. Show us this kindness and expose our idols. Drive us to repentance, that we might only lift you up.

Father, speak through Scott now. Let it be Your words. Let us hear from Jesus this day. In Jesus' name. Isaiah here in Isaiah chapter 2 verses 10 through 22 is prophesying that he's getting ready to judge the proud.

And he has already been judging them. He has said, why should I strike you again? You'll revolt more and more. He's been dealing with the pride God has of His people over and over again, but they're not listening. They're just not listening at all.

And here in this passage, what we learn is that God is going to judge all pride, and that He punishes pride. But he not only punishes pride, he also exalts himself. And in the punishment, there's also the medicine. This is the remarkable thing about the whole book of Isaiah, is that you find two things. You find the fact that God is going to punish sin.

You find the fact that man is sinful and falls short of the glory of God. But on the other hand, you always find a vision of heaven. You always find the glory of God. You always find the merciful Savior. That's what you see here.

And as we go through Isaiah, here's what you're going to see over and over again. Isaiah will take you to heaven and he'll show you the glory of heaven. And then he'll take you back down to earth again, and he'll show you who you really are. He'll show you what your society is like. He'll show you what the political environment is operating by.

He'll show you everything about the earth. And then he'll take you back to heaven again, and he'll show you heaven again. And this passage here is very much like that as well he takes us into the depths of our own pride and of course the pride of the nation that he's speaking to but their pride is our pride we should never We should never look at the nation of Israel and say, look at how stupid these people are. They should say, look at how we are like them. And this pattern is so visible here.

You'll see in verse 11 and in verse 17, this whole idea of God's exaltation is repeated in exactly the same words, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. And so in the medicine that He gives, He also gives the food. He also gives us a vision of His grace and His glory. With one hand, He smites us to show us our pride, to embarrass us before Him so that we would repent, so that we would turn from our pride. But with the other hand, he holds out his bread, the bread of life, and he shows us heaven, and he says, I'll take you there.

And that's the beauty of this entire testimony that we have here. And the heart of it is that God judges pride. The lofty looks of man will be humbled. Sever yourselves from such a man and he will be exalted. That's really the essence of everything that is here.

Now these verses in chapter 2, verses 10 through 22, are part of Isaiah's second sermon in the prophecy. The second sermon runs from chapter 2 to chapter 4. And at the beginning of chapter 2, at the beginning of this sermon, Isaiah first takes us to heaven. He takes us to the high hills where the people of God are streaming together unto the goodness of the Lord for the bread, for the wine, for every good thing. They say to one another, come, let us go.

Their hearts have said they want the Lord, and they're saying to their brothers, come, let us go, because He's so good, because He's such a good shepherd. The bread is so nourishing. The wine is so refreshing. It is so good. Come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord." And then after giving us this vision of happiness and hope that our gifts for the people of God, Then he brings the reader back to his own time, back into the dust and the mire and the smoke and the fire of the earth.

And he says the people are filled. He uses the word filled four times. They're filled with Eastern ways. They're filled with materialism. They're filled with this and that and the other thing, just filled to overflowing.

This is man's problem. He fills himself up with everything, except that which really nourishes his heart and saves his soul. And so he takes us back to this picture of idolatry, being obsessed with things, being filled, the senses just being filled with one ungodly thing after another, and how destructive that is. And then he says, but that's not a complete description of what's going on. And he identifies what is a devastating root cause that has gone wrong in their inmost being.

And it's something that you cannot see, sort of. It's a secret sin, sort of. It's the sin of pride. And the whole last part of this chapter has its focus on pride and exposing the nature of pride. One of the men in our Bible study this week said that the significance of pride was found in this statement, Pride is the mastermind of all the sins.

Pride is the mastermind of all the sins. He was right about that when he said it. Every sin is a sin of pride. Every sin is a sin that says, I'm smarter than God. Every sin is something that has preferred some other pleasure than the pleasures of God.

Every sin says I will do what I want to do." It's the sin of rejecting the goodness of God and replacing His ways with our own ways. That's what sin is. And it happens all the time. We do it every day. We're hopelessly caught in a pattern of preferring our own ways and setting aside the ways of God.

Which is why such a great sacrifice had to be given for sin, that Jesus Christ had to shed His blood for sin, that He would take the weight of the sin of all sinners upon Himself. Such a great sacrifice was given for such an enormous sin, such an unvanquishable sin, except with one thing, the righteous, perfect blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It needed perfection, and it got perfection. Our sins and our pride did. One of my favorite statements on the subject comes from the ministry of our friend Jeff Pollard of the Chapel Library.

Their purpose is stated on their website. Our purpose is to humble the pride of man, to exalt the grace of God in salvation, and promote real holiness in heart and life. I cannot find a better statement to describe this passage of Scripture, because it really takes us into all of these things that are mentioned in this passage. Again, I want to say, as I've said many, many times here in this congregation, you probably know exactly what I'm going to say. God has us here for a reason.

Why are we here? Why am I here? Why are these words ready to fall upon our ears? Well, God does all things well. He's wise.

He brings us the things we need at the time that we need them. And I pray that this will be such a timely moment for all of us. For me, it's been a difficult week, looking back at the many, many expressions of pride in my life, going back many, many years. And when we think we are so wise, when we think we are so godly, we think we are so biblical and privileged and thoughtful and gracious and sensitive, we ought to think again. And we have to ask ourselves, what is it that has created the life that we have, the words that we speak, the marriage that we live in, the business that we operate, the church that we live in, the friends that we have, the children that we care for, the parents that we have.

What is going on? What is going on in all those areas? Because with this particular area it is the mastermind of all the sins, of all the areas of life that we are experiencing. So why are we here? Well, we are here to examine ourselves.

God believes that we need to examine ourselves on the matter of pride, to search our hearts, to go back and review and ask ourselves, why are we saying what we're saying? Why are we doing what we're doing? Why do we live the way we live? John Calvin summarized the dangers of pride with these words, The Lord will take from you those things which so highly elevate your minds and put you in such spirits. Your confidence is foolish and groundless, such as the connection of what He says, cease therefore from man whose breath is in his nostrils." Let this be a holy moment together as a church, we're one body, we're a family.

We all are pretty well aware that there's not a lot of perfection around here. And so let's rest in the fact that God desires to enter into the inward parts and to put his finger in the wound. Let's move to the text. Verse 10. He begins with a sarcastic command.

It's actually a command that is absolutely impossible to fulfill. He says, enter into the rock, hide in the dust from the terror of the Lord and from the glory of His Majesty." He's speaking of this whole matter of those who have been filled up, filled up with Eastern ways. And he says, if you are filled up, then you had better think about hiding yourself. But the truth is, how do you hide in the dust? How do you hide from God?

You cannot hide from God. He's actually speaking something in terms of sarcasm. You cannot hide from God. No one ever could, no one ever will be able to hide from God. He plumbs the depths of our hearts, He reads our minds, He knows the steps that we take and the thoughts that we'll have before we take them and have them.

God knows everything. The Bible says, He hems you in behind and before. He knows your inmost thoughts. He knows everything. Nothing is hidden from His sight.

Man always wants to try to hide from God. Adam tried to hide after the fall. Aiken and Saul tried to hide, but they could not hide. It's getting more and more difficult to hide in our own world today. I read the other day that 85% of the American population is being tracked on their mobile phones.

It's getting harder and harder to find, to hide. Remember the Boston bomber? Remember how he was found? The thermal imaging camera is from above. Well, they are nothing compared to God's view.

A thermal imaging camera sees a body. God sees a soul. He sees a heart. He sees thoughts and meditations. He sees absolutely everything.

Psalm 14 says, He looks down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there are any who seek God. In Psalm 11 verse 4 we read, The Lord is in His holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes behold. His eyelids test the sons of men.

The Lord tests the righteous. So this command to hide in the rocks is impossible for mankind to fulfill, because God sees everything. You cannot hide. And if there is anyone who is pretending that he does not see. They need to remember the futility of it.

And know this, if you are pretending before God, you will want to hide. Because God judges pride. The lofty looks of man will be humbled. Sever yourselves from such a man, for the Lord alone will be exalted. And then we go to verses 11 and 12.

There's actually a maxim that's being delivered here by the Lord to the people. Remember, the conversation is directed to the people here. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled. The haughtiness of men shall be bowed down. And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

For the day of the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything proud and lofty, upon everything lifted up, and it shall be brought low." So the maxim is this, the lofty looks of man will be humble. That's it. The lofty looks of man will be humble. This is a maxim of God. It's an irrevocable principle of the world.

There are certain things about the world that cannot be overthrown. How about gravity? Well, this is another one. The lofty looks of man will be bowed down. And he begins with an illustration of one way that pride expresses itself.

Looks, the way you look. The way you look at people, the way you look when you say certain things. You know, Sometimes you can detect pride in the way a person holds their mouth or the way that they say things. They speak in some aggrandized manner. They overcompensate.

And sometimes it's just so easy to see. But here is a look. There's a certain look of pride. It's one way that pride expresses itself, the way that we look at one another. The Bible uses various words to explain pride.

Conceit, arrogance, haughtiness, loftiness. The Hebrew word for pride is gi, and it means to lift up high or to be on high. And the word is used sometimes for physical things, like the rising of the smoke or the rising waves or the flying of an eagle up high or the altitude of the stars. This word for pride is often used for physical things, but it also has a moral meaning, obviously. And it always depicts the arrogant man who lifts himself up, who exalts himself.

That's what the Apostle Paul was referring to in a specific church, because this can happen in a church. This always exists at some level in a church. But Paul told us that the Corinthians were puffed up. The same concept, puffed up, exalted, lifted up. We also know that elders are not supposed to have this quality, but I can tell you from experience that this is not absent from elders, but it is one of the qualifications for elders.

And they shouldn't be novices. Why? Why don't you put a novice in as an elder? Because he might get puffed up. Not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride, he fall into the same condemnation of the devil.

Pride has to do with puffing oneself up, placing oneself in a place of visibility and prominence, of exalting one's words or position to make much of yourself, to think much of yourself. It's self-exaltation and self-promotion. That's why James tells us in chapter 4 that God is opposed to the proud. James says, but he gives more grace, therefore he says God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Here, pride is related to the devil. You flee from the devil because when you recognize pride, you have to recognize Who is the Lord of that pride? It's the devil alone. And God battles against it. He wages war.

He is going to do business with pride. He judges pride. And that's why verses 11 and 12 are so clearly written, the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day, for the day of the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything, proud and lofty, and upon everything lifted up, and it shall be brought low." Here are the two great propositions of this passage. God will be exalted. That's the good news.

The bad news is that pride will be destroyed. Well, that's actually good news as well. When God destroys pride, it unleashes the sweetness of God's blessing in your life. But God battles against it. That's the point here.

There's so many problems with pride. Richard Baxter listed many of the problems with pride. Here too that he lists, it's really hard to detect in yourself. While it's really easy to detect in others, It's very, very difficult to see it in yourself. And secondly, it's very hard to kill.

Here's what Baxter writes, pride is a deep-rooted and self-preserving sin, and therefore is harder to be killed and rooted than the other sins. It hinders the discovery of itself. Did you get that? It hinders the discovery of itself. This is why when you cry out to God and you say, Oh Lord, show me my pride and you don't see anything.

Because the pride blinds your eyes from seeing anything. It will not allow the sinner to see his pride even when he is reproved. Neither will it allow him to confess it, or if he sees it, nor to loathe himself and forsake it. Even when he recognizes all of the evidences of pride in others, he will not see it in himself. When he feels himself despising reproof and knows that this is a sign of pride in others, yet he will not know it in himself.

If you would go about to cure him of this or any other fault. You shall feel that you're handling a wasp or a snake. Yet, when he is spitting the venom of pride against the reprover, he does not perceive that he is proud. This venom is a part of his nature and therefore is not felt as harmful or poisonous. How hard it is to detect, how hard it is to kill, it won't let you kill it by not allowing you to see it.

Jonathan Edwards said he battled with his own pride. He said this, What a foolish, silly, miserable, blind, deceived, poor worm am I when pride works. He said that in his advice to young converts in a letter that he wrote. He viewed pride as the reason for the end of the great revival fires of the Great Awakening, that The pride of man doused it out. But pride is not all that complex.

It's thinking more highly of yourself than you ought to think. Thinking highly of your opinions. Thinking highly of your perfections. Thinking highly of your discernment and your ability to judge matters, thinking highly of your comforts, thinking highly of your privileges in your name. But God judges pride.

And I just had to think, you know, how often has God smitten me as a result of my pride? How many things have come to me? How many times have I been struck? Relationally, economically, different ways because of my own pride. How many times have I already been stricken and am I listening to God about my pride?

How many marriages have been hurt by pride? How many marriages in this room are being hurt by pride right now? How many churches become loveless, joyless institutions because of pride? How many churches have been split or destroyed by pride? About seven and a half years ago, this church was horribly split.

And I can just declare to you, without any qualification, that pride was at the root of it, and not just on the other side. There is also pride in those who stayed and the elders who stayed that contributed to it. How many businesses have been destroyed because of pride? The primary cause of business failure is what? Well, there probably are a number of Answers to that.

Often you can trace the failure of a business to the self-indulgence of the leader. Often. Not all the time, but often you can. I know. I've run companies before.

And I know how self-indulgence can cause you to hurt that company. I've done it myself. Once you get beyond the simplest reasons for business failure, you know, the math doesn't work, either the market's not big enough, or you don't have the right thing for it, or whatever. And once you just get beyond some simple things like that, you have to consider different other factors. You know, some people call it, you call it one of the factors, the Bathsheba effect.

When a man gets so successful and he's got time to walk on the heights of the buildings and look over everything, and he thinks he should have everything he wants, That's the Bathsheba effect. There's the time allocation syndrome where you start thinking that your time is really your own and you can do whatever you want. Some people think when they start a business that they're now their own boss. You know, that is so untrue. You become, everybody becomes your boss.

And if you don't serve them, they will kill you. There's the overspending syndrome, wanting the trappings of luxury. There's the greediness syndrome. There's the self-righteousness syndrome where you don't listen to anybody. There's lots of reasons that businesses fail.

Many of them have to do with self-indulgence. And if you want to find why a business is failing, you have to ask that question, or you will not find the right answer often. Yes, there are technical things. There are particular market-oriented things that have to be paid attention to. But if you miss the ones that are tied to pride, you'll never fix that business.

You know, several years, many years ago when I had an electronics company, I met with a group of CEOs regularly and we would lay out all of our financials and we would tell each other where our goals were and we'd sort of hold each other accountable for that. And we met and, but every time we met, every time there was at least one guy in the room that was in denial mode and he he couldn't see it he just could not see the self-indulgence see the self-indulgence that was killing his company. Pride is devastating. I remember somebody once said, he said, the success of a business, of a young business, is inversely proportional to the size of the entrepreneur's desk when he starts his company. But God judges pride.

God brings down the pride. And here's a question. Has God ever brought judgment, discipline against you because of your self-indulgent pride? Now, we have to really make sure that we understand what this text is saying. And one of the things that it is saying is that God is connecting man's pride with his specific judgment of it.

And we like to disconnect ourselves from consequences. And We don't want to connect our troubles with our sins. We want to see ourselves as different and I Just don't want us to get by this passage of scripture without asking without having us ask are any of my troubles related to my pride Anything trouble Anything troubling my marriage, anything troubling in my life with my children, in my business, in my life at church, anything that is, is there anything of the judgment of God that's connected with my pride. Well, after announcing that the day of pride will be judged, then Isaiah gives several examples of the way pride works. Because pride drives us to do things that are very specific.

That's why it's a secret sin, sort of. Because there are things that you do that are driven by pride. And so there are emblems of pride that are named in verses 13 through 17. You see it right there on the outline. Pride and impressive natural resources, the cedars of Lebanon, verse 13, upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, upon all the oaks of Bation.

This has to do with people becoming very proud of their region, the place that they live. They move to the coolest place in the world. They want to be in this place that's better than all the other places, so highly respected and it somehow makes them so highly respected. And it has different manifestations. It might be a region.

It might be your property. Its beauty is an emblem of pride. You look at it and you think how good it makes you look. When you move to somewhere, you don't want to move to a crummy place that would somehow shine poorly on your reputation. Well, this has to do with impressive natural resources and things on the outside, the natural wonders of nature.

Well, he sets aside the wonders of nature, and then he speaks of the works of man. Technical accomplishments. He speaks, in verse 15, upon every high tower and upon every fortified wall. These technical accomplishments are the works of man. They're not natural beauties, not natural resources.

They're the things that man builds, the things that man creates. They're the works of men's hands. Men love to build things. That's why Nebuchadnezzar stood back when he was absolutely the top of his game and he said, is this not great Babylon which I have built? It didn't go all that well after that.

As God turned him into a beast, and for years he was out in the dew and the rain and his claws grew and he started to look like an animal, but he was still a man. God did that to him. God brought down his pride. But then God was merciful upon him and restored him at his repentance. It's not over for the prideful.

It's not over. I'm so grateful it's not over for me. It is not over for me. I'm so thankful for that, and it's not over for you either. You look back and you see all the things that have happened as a result of your pride, it's not over.

You can turn. You can turn from that pride. These are the things that make you think and think you're so special. This was a line from Dan Horn from our Bible study. The amassing of these technical accomplishments and really everything having to do with pride is really all about the things that make us think that we're special.

We're just so special. You know, we deserve so much. You know, we deserve such praise from our wives. You know, we deserve such honor from our brothers. You know, We just deserve these things because of the things that we have done.

Hezekiah, who was one of the kings in the days of Isaiah, became obsessed with pride. And at one point, he was so taken with himself that he brought the Babylonians into the temple and showed them all the treasures of the temple. One of the most ridiculous, foolish things he ever could have done. And it wasn't very many years that those Babylonians came in. They knew who everything was.

They took pictures when they were there, and they ended up taking all of it home. Pride doesn't work out all that well, really. It feels good in the moment, but it doesn't do much for your future. God judges pride. The lofty looks of man will be humbled.

That's the essence of it. Sever yourselves from such a man, he says. And then there are these advancements in transportation, not just transportation, but beautiful transportation. Isn't it amazing how the transportation just gets more and more beautiful as the years go on? Some of the pieces of transportation that are being built today are absolutely astonishingly beautiful.

They really are. People get very obsessed with them. But here these, upon the ships of Tarshish, verse 16, upon all the beautiful sloops. And directly after mentioning these great advancements in being able to transport oneself around the globe Verse 17 comes crashing in the loftiness of man shall be bowed down and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low the Lord alone will be exalted in that day Advancements There were so many advancements. Uzziah himself, the king who died and really began the ministry of Isaiah.

We know that King Uzziah, in his heart, he was a godly man. He did what was right in the sight of the Lord, so says 2 Chronicles 26. Uzziah built high towers in Jerusalem at the corner gate, 2 Chronicles 26, 9, at the valley gate and at the corner buttress of the wall, and he fortified them. He built towers in the desert. He dug many wells for he had much livestock, both in the lowlands and in the plains.

He also had farmers and vinedressers in the mountains and in Carmel, for he loved the soil. Moreover, Uzziah had an army of fighting men who went out to war by companies, according to the number of their role as prepared by Giel the scribe. But when you get to verse 16 in 2 Chronicles 26, here's what you find out. But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction. For he transgressed against the Lord his God.

And what did he do? He went into the temple to burn incense on the altar. And Azariah, the high priest, runs in after him, and he brings 80 men with him to drag him out of that temple. Because kings were not supposed to be offering incense. This is just for the priests.

Uzziah did not believe in the regulative principle of worship. He wanted to do whatever he wanted to do. And they were appealing to him. 80 of them, they withstood him. And they said, it's not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense, but for the priests and the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense.

Get out of the sanctuary! You've trespassed! You'll have no honor from God!" And as he was there, leprosy covers his head. And finally, they were able to get him out of there as God judged him. Uzziah was furious.

He was angry with the priests. And he was a leper until the day of his death. He dwelt in an isolated house because he was a leper, he was cut off from the house of the Lord. It didn't go well. It didn't go all that well for him.

God judges pride. The lofty looks of man will be humbled. There are a number of illustrations in the book of Isaiah about pride. And much is made of pride in this testimony of Isaiah. If you go to chapter 14, you really get a testimony of the root of it all.

It's the heart of Satan himself. Go ahead and turn to Isaiah 14 and look at verse 12. Isaiah 14, 12. How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning, how you are cut down to the ground, you who weaken the nations. For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven.

I will exalt my throne above the stars. I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High." The heart of Lucifer's pride was, I will, I will, I will. That's the heart of it all.

You're so impressed with yourself that you're going to do it. And God says, yet you will be brought down to Sheol, in verse 15, to the lowest depths of the pit. And one of the most amazing lines in the whole testimony of the doctrine of evil is what will happen to the devil when this takes place. People will gaze at this man and say, why were we afraid of you? Who did you think you were?

You really were nothing. Let's say, why did anyone tremble? You know, all of these I wills, these five I wills, they all have to do with just the self-congratulatory self-expansionism of the devil. He just wanted to make a name for himself, just like they did in the Tower of Babel. It's nothing but that.

You know, when you think of this desire of man just to get bigger and bigger and better and better, Contrast with the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ could have been the wealthiest man in history. I mean, after all, he can get his tax money from the mouth of the fish. After all, he can take five loaves and two fishes and feed thousands. After all, he has legions of angels.

Nobody has that. After all, he rules the economies of the world. After all, he rules the minds of men. He can make every single man and woman and child in the world to bow down in one nanosecond. He could have ruled the world, absolutely.

But what did he do? He walked with twelve men. He was a humble man. Pride says I can do anything. Holiness says I only want to do what pleases my Father.

Pride is expansionist. Humility is satisfied. I'm not making a case against multiplying your talents, not making a case against any of that at all. But we have to recognize that the Lord Jesus Christ could have done anything he wanted, but he really only expanded one thing, his family. He loved his family and he multiplied his family.

That's what he loved, that's what he spent his energies on. He could have done anything. And when we think about pride, we have to ask ourselves, what are we doing? And why are we doing it? And should we be doing that?

Because there are so many things you can do with your life and with your time. Some of those things are just driven by pride. And I want us to just ask ourselves the question, are there any sort of expansionistic things going on in our lives that's really just, it's just related to pride? It might not be, but it might be. In that way it is a secret sin, because no one can know your motives but you and the Lord.

Isaiah doesn't just speak of the devil, he also speaks of the daughters of Zion and how pride is manifesting itself, because pride manifests itself in young girls as well and older girls. Isaiah speaks of it in chapter 3. We'll be there soon. Where pride is expressed in the way that the daughters of Zion dressed and the way they strutted. I mean, we live in such a fashion conscious world.

It's almost impossible for a girl to think rightly about this because of the world we live in and the kind of clothing and the kind of imagery that's out there. It's very, very difficult. It's one of the greatest challenges for fathers particularly and for girls themselves. Isaiah 3, 16, moreover the Lord says, because the daughters of Zion are haughty, it's because they're haughty that they do the following things. It's all about pride.

They walk with outstretched necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, making a jingling with their feet. Therefore the Lord will strike with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will uncover their secret parts. In that day, again we're back to that day where God reduces all the pride, in that day the Lord will take away the finery, the jingling anklets, the scarves, and the crescents, the pendants, the bracelets, and the veils, the headdresses, the leg ornaments, and the headbands, the perfume boxes, the charms, and the rings, the nose jewels, the festal apparel, and the mantles, the outer garments, the purses, and the mirrors, the fine linen, the turbans, and the robes." I don't know what's not mentioned here. But pride is expressed in many different ways. In Isaiah chapter 16, there's the pride of nations.

We have heard of the pride of Moab. He is very proud of his haughtiness and his pride and his wrath, but his lies shall not be so. Therefore Moab shall wail for Moab. Everyone shall wail. Surely they are stricken, they shall mourn.

Nations, Whole nations can be proud. You can be proud to be an American in the wrong way. The emblems of pride are everywhere, and Isaiah is mentioning them throughout his testimony. And remember what Isaiah is always doing. He's taking you down to the smoke and the fire of earth, the dust and the grime and the sin of earth, and then He takes you to heaven and He shows you the glory of God.

He bids you to come and give glory to God and God alone to stop exalting yourself. And then God's response to pride is announced in verse 18, but the idols He shall utterly abolish. In other words, He will put an end to them. They will be completely taken away. That means that so many people, their whole identity is going to be destroyed because Their identity is based on their houses and lands and their clothing and their image.

Who they're trying to present themselves before in the world by their pride. It'll all go away, meaning their identity will be destroyed. You can build on a good foundation. You can build on wood, hay, and stubble, even as a Christian. How much of your identity will be lost because you cared too much about yourself and not about the glory of God?

But God will take away the idols. This is why the prophets of God are always idol smashers. They are always tearing down the high places. You know, Gideon tore down his father's idols and it put him on the run. You know, one of the difficulties of being a pastor is that you are charged with the task of identifying the idols, the idols in the congregation, the idols in the society.

And if you don't talk about the idols and smash them, you're an unfaithful shepherd. I mean, That's what you get for ignoring what's really happening in the room. On the other hand, all shepherds still have latent pride because, as Baxter said, it's hard to kill. So every time a prophet reaches out and he points at the idol, he knows that there are always three fingers pointing back at him. Because idolatry is the problem of man, not just a few men.

And pastors must do this. Parents must do this, too. Parents are charged by God to throw down idols, the idols of pride, through discipline. How do you do that? You have to walk with them.

You have to walk with them through the disciplines. But you don't want to be the kind of parent who will nurture the pride and the self-indulgence of your children so much that one day their whole identity is going to be destroyed. Do you realize that's the consequence of it? Of you not dealing with your pride and you're not dealing with their pride, their identity will be destroyed and they'll have nothing. God will tear it from your hand.

He will abolish the idols. Calvin said, God cannot bear with seeing His glory appropriated by the creature in even the smallest degree. So intolerable to Him is the sacrilegious arrogance of those by praising themselves obscure His glory as far as they can. That's why Proverbs 16, 18 says, Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud.

God judges pride. There must be an accurate appraisal, verse 19. They go into the holes in the rocks and into the caves of the earth from the terror of the Lord and from the glory of His Majesty, when He arises to shake the earth mightily." The idols will be despised. Verse 20 says, they will be cast away. In other words, you won't care about them anymore.

You'll be convinced that they're totally worthless. There'll be a day that all the prideful things in your life, you will hate them. And you'll say they're worthless. You know they're worthless now, But you're holding on to them. You still want them you think they comfort you in the day and in the night They make you who you really are the way you dress your house your car Whatever it might be there you're holding on to them you you think they're shining on you But there will be a day when you'll look at them and you'll hate them.

You'll despise them, you'll throw them to the bats and to the moles. You'll throw them into the ground. You want to get them away from you. They'll be so despised to you. And then there's a call to action in verse 22.

Sever yourselves from such a man whose breath is in his nostrils, for of what account is he? Now, there have been many calls to action in Isaiah so far. You know, bring no more feudal sacrifices, that's one. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean. Put away the evil from before you in Chapter 1.

Come now, let us reason together. In verse 5, O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord. Now Isaiah issues another call to action. Sever yourselves from such a man whose breath is in his nostrils. I want to apply this in two ways.

There are two ways to understand this. First, sever yourselves from the thinking and the ways of men who nourish their pride. Don't be like them. Understand you must be different. You cannot throw your lot in with them and follow in their footsteps.

Building your reputation on your trappings, amassing things to shine on your pride. Don't amass the things the way that they amass them. Don't follow in their footsteps. Separate yourself from the men who are intoxicated with promoting themselves. Don't be like that.

Separate yourself. I don't think that means that you quit doing business in the world when you find prideful men. I don't believe that's what it means. I believe what it has to do with is separating your ways from those ways and not identifying with them, not looking to them as role models, not trying to be like them. Sever yourselves that way.

And the other way is this, remember too that you are that man. Sever yourself from that man. He's the old man, he's the man of the flesh, he's the man that must die. Sever yourself from anything that's high and lifted up and it's exalted against him. Sever yourself from that man.

It's so easy to be blinded and intoxicated with these things, but we have to separate ourselves from that man. Okay, I'm going to give you some applications. Question. How are we putting ourselves as the central, exalted consideration? Where, how do we judge everything just by how it's going to affect you?

Now, there are two, I'm going to speak of two different kinds of men. The couch potato father and the high achiever on the one hand. Now, either one of these can be just as driven by pride. The lazy man can be just as driven by pride as the active man. In boastful conversation, in self-righteous conversation, in our behavior in the Church, The proud man despises small people.

Romans 12 says, be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own eyes. James speaks about when a poor man walks in your congregation and you pay more attention to the rich man, you pay more attention to the wise and smart and interesting people. Pride happens in churches.

It happens in our church all the time. David said, I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. But we have to ask ourselves what kind of pride exists here. The proud men will not listen to counsel. Proverbs 13 verse 1 makes that very, very clear.

A wise son heeds his father's instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke. The word scoffer is the same word for proud. Next, let's ask some other questions and ponder them. What has been the effect of pride on my marriage? What has been the effect of pride on my friendships?

What has been the effect of pride in my counseling? What has been the effect of pride in my handling of my money? What has been the effect of pride on the clothes that I wear, in the car that I drive, in the house that I live in? What has been the effect of my pride in the way that I speak to and discipline my children? What has been the effect of my pride in my attitude toward my parents?

What has been the effect of my pride and my attitude toward my boss, my pastor, my president? These are the kinds of questions that we should be asking as a church to help us understand how to make our way forward. You know, some of you young men are seeking your career. You want to know what you're going to do Know this You'll be tempted here and you have to ask are you seeking your career because of vanity Because it will bring applause to you in the world Is it because it's because you're called to do something, or is it because you just vainly want the praise of man, those people who so esteem this particular profession, and you want that profession not because Almighty God has called you to do it, but because it makes you look so good. Young men, be aware of this.

Jonathan Edwards issued a number of warnings about pride. I'm going to read 13 of them to you. 13. Undiscerned pride is the chief inlet of smoke from hell. Undecerned pride.

See, this is the worst kind, isn't it? It's the kind that you can't see. It's the kind that your pride won't let you see. The first and worst cause of our errors that prevail in such a state of things is spiritual pride. This is the main door by which the devil comes into the hearts of those who are zealous for the advancement of religion.

It is the chief inlet of smoke from the bottomless pit to darken the mind and mislead the judgment. This is the main handle by which the devil has hold of a religious person. And the chief source of all the mischief that he introduces to clog and hinder the work of God. This cause of error is the main spring, or at least the main support of all the rest. Undiscerned pride.

Number two. Pride is the last thing revealed to saints. It is the last thing in as sinner that is over-born by conviction in order to conversion. And here is the saint's hardest conflict, the last thing over which he directly militates against God and is most contrary to the spirit of the Lamb of God and is most like the devil, its father. In a serpentine deceitfulness and secrecy, It lies deepest, is most active, and is most ready secretly to mix itself with everything.

And of all kinds of pride, spiritual pride is upon many accounts the most hateful and is most like the devil, most like the sin committed in heaven in the light of glory where he was exalted in high divine knowledge, honor, beauty, and happiness. Pride is much more difficult to be discerned than any other corruption because its nature very much consists in a person's having too high a thought of himself. Pride is often the last thing revealed to saints. Many of you have been Christians for a long time, many, many years. Don't think that God's not done with you on this matter of pride.

I think Edwards is right that the older you get, the more you see of your pride. If you're an older Christian and you're not seeing your pride, cry out to God that He would take the scales off your eyes. How many mistakes, how many broken relationships, how many financial problems have come from this already? Flee, flee from it now. Number three, pride is a secret sin.

Edward says, there are many sins of the heart that are very secret in nature and difficultly discerned. The psalmist says, who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. But spiritual pride is the most secret of all sins. The heart is deceitful and unsearchable and nothing so much in this matter, and there is no sin in the world that men are so confident in.

The difficulty with pride is that you can see two men doing the same thing and one is driven by pride and self-exaltation and the other is not. It makes it very difficult. It would be really easy if we could just go out and find the most expensive cars in the lot, wouldn't it? We could just find the most expensive cars and just name it. But it's not that simple.

It's not that simple. It's not that simple. Number four, pride has many lives. Kill it and it will still live. Pride has many lives.

Kill it and it will still live. It is the sin that has, as it were, many lives. If you kill it, it will still live. If you mortify and suppress it in one shape, it rises in another. If you think it's gone, yet it is still there.

There are a great many kinds of it that lie in different forms and shapes one under another and encompasses the heart like the coats of an onion. If you pull off one, There is still another underneath. Pride has many lives. If you kill it, it will still live and you'll find more. Number five, no one is out of danger.

Let no saint therefore, however imminent and however near to God, think himself out of danger. He that thinks himself most out of danger is indeed most in danger. If you don't think this is a problem, if you don't see this, recognize you are in the most danger if you don't see it. Number six, beware of a certain kind of pride, spiritual pride. Spiritual pride in its own nature is so secret that it is not so well discerned by immediate intuition on the thing itself as by the effects and the fruits from it, some of which I would mention together are contrary to the fruits of the Spirit.

Number seven, the spiritually proud speak of other people's sins. The spiritually proud speak of other people's sins. The spiritually proud speak of other people's sins. Spiritual pride disposes to speak of other person's sins, their enmity against God and his people, the miserable delusion of hypocrites, and their enmity against vital piety and the deadness of some saints, with bitterness or with laughter and with levity and an air of contempt, whereas pure Christian humility rather disposes either to be silent about them or to speak of them with grief or with pity. You know, how often has it been that with bitterness or with laughter or some kind of levity or contempt you've spoken of another person's sin?

Number eight, spiritual pride is suspicious. Spiritual pride, he says, is very apt to suspect others. Whereas a humble saint is most jealous of himself, he is so suspicious of nothing in the world except his own heart. Number nine, the spiritually proud find fault. Edwards says the spiritually proud person is apt to find fault with other saints, that they are low in grace and to be much in observing how cold and dead they are, and being quick to discern and take notice of their deficiencies.

But the eminently humble Christian has so much to do at home. He sees so much evil in his own heart and is so concerned about it that he is not apt to be very busy with other hearts. He complains most of himself and complains of his own coldness and lowness in grace. He is apt to esteem others better than himself. Number ten, the spiritually proud use harsh language.

He says that the most harsh and severe and terrible language is used. They look upon it as a virtue and a high attainment to behave themselves that way. Oh, they say we must be plain hearted and bold for Christ. We must declare war against sin wherever we see it. We must not mince the matter in the cause of God when speaking of Christ.

And to make any distinction in persons or to speak the more tenderly, because that which is amiss is seen in a superior, and they look upon as very mean for a follower of Christ when speaking of the cause of his master." What a strange device the devil uses to overthrow all Christian meekness and gentleness. Number 11. The spiritually proud are distant. Spiritual pride disposes persons to affect separation and stand at a distance from others as being better than they, and loves to show an appearance of the distinction. On the contrary, the eminently humble Christian is ready to look upon himself as not worthy that others should be united to him, to think himself more brutish than any man and worthy of the society of God's children." Number 12, The spiritually proud hang on to injuries.

Spiritual pride takes great notice of opposition and injuries that are received, and is apt to be often speaking of them and to be much taking notice of their aggravations, either with an air of bitterness or contempt. Whereas pure and unmixed Christian humility disposes a person rather to be like his blessed Lord, when reviled, dumb, not opening his mouth, but committing himself in silence to Him that judges righteously. How easy it is when somebody disappoints you or dishonors you just to write them off, or write them off forever. How easy that is, to close the door when you know that God did not close the door on you. Number 13, Christian Humility is not rough or bitter.

Pure Christian humility has no such thing as roughness or contempt, or fierceness or bitterness in its nature. It makes a person like a little child, harmless and innocent, that no one need to be afraid of like a lamb, destitute of all bitterness, wrath, anger, and clamor, agreeable to Ephesians 4.31." As Edwards goes through this list of dealing with pride, he does say one thing that I want to say. He says that at the same time, ministers must appeal with all of their hearts and all of their souls for the consciences of men, and they should not be over-gentle in wrestling with the consciences of men. But they should deal as if in battle. All of this not to say that we don't help one another or don't ever confront one another.

But we have to ask, is it pride? That's what we have to ask. Okay so, all of what we've been dealing with today is a slight against pride. Everything. Everything we've been doing.

We came here, we gathered, and we prayed, our Father in heaven. It was a slight against pride. We were hallowing the name of God. Everything we were doing here is to turn away from pride, to say, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Your name be lifted up, O Lord." We've read the scriptures and put ourselves under His authority to dampen our pride, to help us to think His thoughts and not our own.

That His thoughts are better thoughts than ours, and to replace His with ours. We've done that. Our whole gathering together is an act of humility. When we take the Lord's Supper here in just a few minutes, We're celebrating the Gospel. The very nature of the Lord's Supper is an act of humility.

We're admitting that we're sinners. We're examining ourselves. It's here that we are saying that we were hopeless without Jesus Christ. It's here that we are saying that we were hopeless without Jesus Christ. It's here that we are saying that we needed to be washed.

It's here that we're saying that we needed to be fed from heaven. It's here that we were saying that we are nothing and He is everything. Our whole gathering really is designed by God to dampen the pride of man and to exalt His grace and to bring us into a fellowship of love where we can learn how to love one another and put our pride aside by degrees as the years go on. This is one of the great things that God has called us together for. And every single time we come together, we are declaring that the pride of man is so bankrupt and so horrible that we pray and we sing and we read and we hear preaching and we take the Lord's Supper.

All of these things are to say that Jesus Christ is Lord. All of these are saying that our sins are a scarlet. Oh Lord, make them white as snow. Every single thing we do is to declare the glory of the gospel and to lift up Jesus Christ and to say that He is exalted and to say that the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. And so here Isaiah meets us at another crossroads, the crossroads of his great and wonderful kingdom and our pride.

And the big question is, will we arrogantly continue to trust ourselves in our marriages, in our businesses, and in our church life and in everything that we're doing, or will we humble ourselves and follow Almighty God? And here we find again that Isaiah, he both brings us medicine and he brings us food. Medicine to kill the poison and the food to bring us back to life again. That's why God has brought His people together. That's why we exist, is to exalt His name in humility.

Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, oh Lord extend your hand of mercy toward us sinners, poor, naked, wretched, blind. Oh Lord, that You would overthrow the works of the devil in us that have made us so blind. We speak words full of pride. Oh Lord, if we could see our pride, it would be everywhere.

Oh Lord, that you would come and give us such a heart within us to turn unto you. Thank you for your Son. Thank you for His work that has covered all of our unrighteousness, all of our pride, all of our pride in the past, all of our pride in the present, all of our pride in the future, atoned for by the blood of the Lamb of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, We thank you. Amen.