#1-THE DEVIL’S DEVICES--PRIDE [Lk 18]
Intro: I would like to begin a series of messages which I will entitle: The Devil’s Devices” which I take from the Apostle Paul’s words to those believers at Corinth in his second letter. “Lest satan should get an advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices”.
After re-reading that word “devices”..*Def: “A contrivance or an invention serving a particular purpose-a technique or means-A plan or scheme, especially a malign one”. There you have it-that’s what he is about! After one comes to Christ as their Saviour and Lord, he knows he can never again “have you” but he for sure can “misalign you”.
The longer I live the more keenly aware I am of how simple the devil’s are! And he uses them repetitively and yet we act as if we have never had him afflict us in such a way. I am convinced that the only way we will overcome his devices is to learn not to be “ignorant” and most of our ignorance comes from not knowing and appropriating God’s Word. You’ll recall that it was God’s Word which Jesus himself employed to overcome the devil in the wilderness temptation.
See-everyone has had or will have a problem with this thing called problem of pride-no one is exempt.
ILLS: A minister received a Christmas card with a note in it from a lady in his congregation. He said she was very complimentary about his preaching, & compared him with Billy Graham. She finished by writing, "I think you are one of the really great preachers of all time." Later that day, when he showed the note to his wife, she asked, "Who is that woman?" He replied, "She is a very intelligent woman in the congregation who loves great preaching." He then asked his wife, "How many great preachers do you suppose there really are in the world?" She replied, "One less than you think”. And I only tell that one to illustrate the truth that-everyone (including preachers) have a problem with pride.
Read once: “God pickles the proud and preserves the foolish.
Did you hear about the clever salesman who closed hundreds of sales with this line: "Let me show you something several of your neighbors said you couldn’t afford."
Pride is the only disease that makes everyone sick but the one who has it. What is pride? Pride means to act arrogantly; a high opinion of ones worth, self conceit. Mary Lewis once was quoted as saying: "Pride, the idolatrous worship of self, is the national religion of hell." Hear the words of Solomon: “Pride cometh before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall”. Prov.16:18 And what of the story Jesus told of the prideful farmer in Luke 12:16
Pride is very competitive by nature. Competitive in the sense that you’ll stop at nothing to make sure you are always on the winning side because you don’t want to look inferior. Or you’ll stop at nothing to make sure you are seen as the most important or the prettiest in the room.
ILLS:: A young woman went to her pastor and said, "Pastor, I have a besetting sin, and I want your help. I come to church on Sunday and can’t help thinking I’m the prettiest girl in the congregation. I know I ought not think that, but I can’t help it. I want you to help me with it." The pastor replied, "Mary, don’t worry about it. In your case it’s not a sin. It’s just a horrible mistake."
“Pride is the only disease that makes everyone sick but the one who has it.” God has some very explicit things to say about pride that we need to pay close attention to. Let’s look at those verses. Proverbs 6:13
SOME STATEMENTS I FEEL DEFINE PRIDE: “An inordinate amount of self-esteem, puffed up, stiff-necked and stuck-up”. When we think of pride we think of people that are loud-mouthed, obnoxious, and outlandish person. In reality most are very meek, mild, calm, cool, and very calculated. Pride blinds itself to its own presence.
Pride tells us that we have done all that we could, even though our walk doesn’t show it. Pride is the forerunner of all sins. Pride puts the “ME’FIRST” theory into play, whether it’s first in church, family, of even your job.
Pride whispers to the over-spender “You deserve it”, even though you’re maxed out on your credit cards, but “you deserve it.”
Pride whispers to the Alcoholic “go ahead you can stop anytime you want.”
Pride whispers to the drug addict: “Do a little bit more Cocaine, you can stop anytime you want.
Pride whispers to the Control Freak “If you don’t orchestrate their life who will.”
Pride whispers to the Blamer “It’s the Pastor’s fault”, it’s the Deacons fault for why you act like you do. It’s your parents fault, It’s your ex-wife, or your ex-husbands fault.
Pride says “it’s not me, but “it’s them.”
Pride whispers to self you can do anything, no one can live with out me. Me,Me,Me,Me,Me!!!!!!!!!!!
There are those who teach self esteem and say “you need to do whatever it takes to make you feel good about yourself." Well, just feeling good about yourself can included a multitude of sins.
A person can feel good about himself in a state of intoxication, self indulgence or rebellion.
Passengers on the Pride Ride feel pretty good about themselves. The synonyms for the word PRIDE are not pretty; they are conceit, arrogance, and boastfulness. Listen, Pride started a long time ago.
I. Satan started the pride ride-Isaiah 14:13-14 says
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
I will… I will…, I will… Five times this me-istic being named himself above God.
1.He was the first, first class passenger on the Pride Ride, an ego trip. And GOD cast him out of his presence. As God will do to all of those on the Pride Ride.
2.Then-Lucifer convinced Adam and Eve to take the Pride Ride. His foremost temptation to them was this; “you will not surely die! For God knows that in the day you eat of its fruit your eyes will be open, and you will be like GOD.” Note the parallel. Satan said, “I will be like the most high. He told Adam and Eve, “you will be like GOD,” his words are the very essence of pride. “I can be like GOD. I can make my own decisions, my own judgments, my own laws and rules. When Adam and Eve took the Pride Ride they took us along with them. And we had been struggling with pride ever sense
3. Then came the day when a people sought to build a tower to reach into Heaven
4. A certain king contracted leperosy once due to his pride
5. Another ruler saw a hand without a body write a message on a wall due to pride!
6. Jesus warns everyone about going to Hell and tells story about 2 men..
7. Another couple died after the offering they gave was exposed
>>>Jesus in this story tells of an arrogant man who went to church with pride…
Jesus was constantly carrying on a teaching ministry everywhere He went, usually by parables, almost always with a human example in the story. The story may point us to a good example to follow, a bad example not to follow, or sometimes, as it does here, to both. There were those present who, had Jesus not pointed out which was the proper attitude, would have identified with the Pharisee and would not have seen anything wrong with his behavior. These were the ones Jesus sought to reach (v. 9). The Pharisee in the story reminds me of a saying: “When someone sings his own praises, the tune is always too high.”
I would state to you today that there is probably no greater spiritual danger we face as God’s people than the temptation to pride, in all its various forms.
I. PRIDE OPENS THE DOOR TO A HOST OF OTHER SINS
When it comes down to basic descriptions, pride is an attitude that focuses undue attention on self.
**For example
• we give in to greed when we feel that SELF does not have enough
• we give in to envy when we feel that SELF has not received its due, and honor has gone to someone “less” deserving
• we most often give in to anger when SELF is offended
• we give in to a critical spirit when SELF-ESTEEM has been injured; we feel resentment when our own SELF is threatened by that of others. And, given the natural tendency that so many of us have to view life from an extremely constricted viewpoint (ours), it is easy to see why pride can be such a danger.
We are not left without remedy against pride, nor against any of the host of other sins. The remedy provided by Scripture is very simple: counter the vice with the opposite virtue. Pride is overcome by humility, greed is overcome by generosity, envy is overcome by praise of others, etc. Twice in Proverbs we find the statement “Before honor is humility” (15:33, 18:12). Peter wrote, “Be ‘clothed’ with humility” (1 Peter 5:5), a helpful turn of phrase when we consider that our clothes are often the first thing people see of us. “Overcome pride with humility” is the lesson Jesus teaches when He says, “Whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” It is a lesson taught throughout the New Testament, appearing twice each in Matthew and Luke, in 1 Peter 5, and in James 4.
II. NOT ONLY DOES PRIDE OPEN THE DOOR FOR OTHER SINS, IT TENDS TO DESTROY OUR GOOD QUALITIES
PRIDE DESTROYS ALL VIRTUES” (emphasis mine).(2) I found that to be a very profound and powerful statement, and I decided to check it out against what we can determine from Scripture. When I tried to decide where to begin looking for a list of virtues that we might seek for, the list of “fruits of the Spirit” came to mind, found in Paul’s letter to the Galatians: “Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control” (5:22-23).
LOVE—We don’t have to look far to understand what pride can do to love. In fact, it would be no stretch to say that pride is an opposite of love—it is self-interest, while genuine love is best described as selfless interest in another.
JOY—Because pride is so easily offended, joy departs when pride is upset.
PEACE—Pride leaves us with little or no inner peace with ourselves, and certainly none with others.
LONGSUFFERING—Far from being forgiving, pride says, “I don’t have to put up with this!” Sometimes, of course, the same thing may be said without pridefulness being involved (in cases of abuse, etc.), but when pride IS involved in such a statement, the difference is obvious.
GENTLENESS—Pride is just the opposite, with all sorts of rough edges.
GOODNESS—When we are filled with pride, we tend to be good only to self.
FAITHFULNESS—Pride may often deny even the very Word of God, but Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him DENY HIMSELF. . .”
MEEKNESS—The effect is obvious here, as we have already noted.
SELF-CONTROL—Self-limiting is always challenged by pride: “Why can’t I have/do this if I want to?”
Let’s go back now for a moment to our text in Luke, and compare the actions of the two characters in our parable. The Pharisee uses the first personal pronoun “I” five times in his brief “prayer”; the publican uses it only once, and then it is “have mercy on ME”—the only time he spoke of himself, it was as the object of mercy, not the subject of every sentence. The publican also called himself THE sinner, as it would read with the definite article in the Greek; the Pharisee would die if you even mentioned the possibility concerning him. The Pharisee, we are told, “stood and prayed thus WITH HIMSELF” (literally, he “prayed to himself”); the publican was “standing afar off.”
The basic difference between the two is that they have different objects of their confidence for salvation. The Pharisee is depending upon having done righteous things; the publican depends upon the grace of God, crying for mercy. The Pharisee makes his claim, “I tithe, fast, and pray”; the publican makes no claim. Care must be taken here to distinguish between doing the things the Pharisee did in the right way, and doing them in the wrong way.
WHAT DOES PRIDE BRING WITH IT?
A)Bondage-[Psalms 73:6]
B)Shame- [Prov 11:2]
C) Arrogance-seen in our text
D)Vulnerablity to sin-hardens one’s sensitivity(more easily deceived)
E)False trust in self [Prov 16:18]
III. HOW TO AVOID THE TRAP OF PRIDE
1. Confess and repent. This ought to be the most obvious lesson from the parable. The publican got it right, and so can anyone else who is willing.
2. Don’t take yourself too seriously, as the Pharisee obviously did. We are not to think too highly of ourselves (Rom. 12:3).
3. Compare yourself upwards, and not downwards. The Pharisee compared himself by looking downwards and considering the publican to be lower. Paul says we are to “consider others better than (our)selves” (Phil. 2:3). When I was in my first appointment in Seneca, S.C., one of the members had a daughter who attended Rev. Charles Stanley’s church in Atlanta, GA. On one of the occasions when she would visit, she told me, “You preach as good as Rev. Stanley.” I considered it an extremely nice compliment, but I was quickly reminded of the words of Adlai Stevenson that “flattery is all right—as long as you don’t inhale.”(5)
4. Remember the example of Christ, who “took the form of a servant,” even washing the disciples’ feet. And servants are not above their Master.
5. ASK for cleansing, both for areas you know about and for that great unknown area that we all have, especially when it comes to this particular sin. David wrote, “Cleanse me from my SECRET faults” (Psa. 19:12). Remember that spiritual pride is one of the most unseen dangers of our Christian walk. Like an iceberg, the most dangerous part of it lies beneath the surface. We do not have it within ourselves to be able to cure ourselves, even if we could see the entire problem. The remedy must lie with our trust in the God who “looks at the heart.”
