POEM: A lion met a tiger as they drew beside a pool.
Said the tiger, "Tell me why you're roaring like a fool"
"That's not foolish," said the lion with a twinkle in his eyes.
"They call me king of all the beasts because I advertise."
A rabbit heard the talking and ran home like a streak;
He thought he'd try the lion's plan, but his roar was just a squeak.
A fox came to investigate - had luncheon in the woods,
So when you advertise, my friend, be sure you've got the goods.
That cute little poem sums up the problem with the people Sodom. Ezekiel 16:50 tells us “They were haughty.” They thought they had “THE GOODS” and so they were tried to roar because they felt superior. But like the rabbit in the woods… they paid a terrible price. God destroyed them.
Now, “haughty” is an interesting word. We often use it without giving much thought to what it actually means. So I did a study of the Hebrew word used here in Ezekiel and I found that it was a pronounced ‘gaw-bah’ and that it meant – “Lofty”, “High”, “Exalted.”
As I researched how this word was used in the Old Testament I ran across an oddity. Not only was “gaw-bah” used to describe haughty and arrogant people… it was also often used to describe God.
Psalm 103:11 “For as HIGH (gaw-bah) as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him”
Psalm 113:5 “Who is like the LORD our God, who is seated on HIGH?” (gaw-bah)
Isaiah 55:9 “For as the heavens are HIGHER (gaw-bah) than the earth, so are my ways HIGHER (gah-baw) than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
When Isaiah had a vision of God in the Temple he said “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, HIGH AND LIFTED UP; and the train of his robe filled the temple.” Isaiah 6:1
It seems to be a repeated theme in Scripture: God is WAYYYY UP THERE! Even pagans understood that concept. That’s why – when pagans offered their sacrifices to their pagan gods they seemed to always build their altars on the high places. They figured – the higher up they could get, the closer they’d be to their gods. So even pagans understood that God was higher than anyone else.
In fact, not only is HE higher than anyone else. but His WAYS and His THOUGHTS are higher yours (or mine). He’s wayyy smarter than we are. He’s wayyy more moral than we are. He’s wayyy more (pause) ANYTHING than we are.
Now, this idea that God is HIGH and LIFTED UP is an extremely important one, because unless we understand that God is higher than we are, and that His ways and thoughts are ABOVE ours, we have no foundation for our morality in our lives and in our society. There is no foundation for morality without a God who is higher and more exalted than we are.
ILLUS: I recently ran across this video that explains this really well (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxiAikEk2vU&t=70s entire clip)
Now, a couple of statements stood out for me in that video: The 1st was this “If atheism is true, there is no ultimate standard. So there can be no moral obligations or duties. Who or what lays such moral duties upon us? No one.” I mean – “Who says I have to do this or that? You?”
ILLUS: I was talking to a young lady a while back about this very topic. She said that on Facebook someone had asked the question “Would you date a porn star?” (Who comes up with this stuff?) It’s a bizarre question, but what was even more bizarre was that many of those who replied had no problem with that idea. Some replied: “They’re hot,” Or “They’re probably good in bed” etc. When this young lady (who was talking to me) objected to these statements she was met with derision: “Who are you to pass judgment on them? They’re just doing a job.” OR “Who do you think you are to condemn this lifestyle.”
My friend was incredulous… but she was only meeting up with people who had abandoned God’s morality. For these Facebook users, there were no ultimate standards (outside of someone's personal preferences and biases). They believed that whatever someone felt was right was right. And why? Because if God is not God… then someone else has to be. And since there is no God, I’m obviously the best qualified to decide what is moral and right in my life!
Let us be clear about something here: there’s only room at the top for one… and it ain’t you. And it ain’t me. Only God is high enough and holy enough to set the standards of what is right and moral.
The 2nd thing that caught my attention in our video was this thought: THINGS are not good simply because God wills it. Nor does God will something because IT is good. God commands something because HE IS GOOD. All morality is based on His goodness and righteousness.
So, the fact that God is HIGH and EXALTED means that it’s HIS righteousness that sets the standard for our morality. And that gets us to our text this morning. God has the right to be high/ lofty/ exalted, but no one else has that right. When other people try to do that… it’s called “haughtiness.” Sodom was condemned for being Haughty! They were being condemned for trying to TAKE THE PLACE of God.
There’s a story out of the OT about a Jewish King who tried to do what Sodom did. His name was Uzziah. Uzziah had been a great and righteous King in Jerusalem for a long time, but that changed once he became powerful. “Uzziah’s … fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped (by God), till he was strong. But when he was strong, he grew PROUD (“gah-bah”), to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the LORD his God and entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense.” II Chronicles 26:14-16
Now – quiz time: Who were the only people allowed into the tabernacle/temple? Just the priests. Uzziah was NOT a priest, but he thought the rules didn’t apply to him. He thought he was important enough to have God move over.
As you can imagine, that didn’t go over real well with God and God struck Uzziah with the dreaded disease of leprosy. We’re told “And King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death, and being a leper lived in a separate house, for he was excluded from the house of the LORD.” 2 Chronicles 26:21
That was the kind of haughtiness that ruled the hearts and minds of the folks in Sodom. They saw themselves as too important for God. They saw themselves as SELF-righteous and their self-righteousness was the standard for them of what was right and what was wrong. They were like the folks condemned in Judges 17:6 which said “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
Sodom believed they could do whatever they wanted to do, because they were the gods in their lives. In fact, I’m convinced that whatever gods they may have worshipped, those gods approved of what Sodom wanted to do.
ILLUS: I love Sci-Fi. I’m big into Star Wars and Star Trek and various books and movies like that. A few years ago I read a Star Trek book that had a comment that intrigued me. According to this story, there was a race of super-humans who could live for centuries, and had – once upon a time – visited Earth. While on earth these super-humans were discovered by the ancient Greeks and had become the models for the pantheon of gods the Greeks embraced. Now, the crew of the star-ship Enterprise had stumbled upon one of these super-humans. He'd been worshiped in ancient Greece as Apollo, and it was what this “Apollo” said in the book that caught my attention:
“Our sins (as ‘gods’) were exalted, made the stuff of legend. I’ve always thought humans did so (glorified the sins of these ‘gods’) in order to make themselves feel better about their own shortcomings. They reasoned that if we, in our divinity, could be base in our actions, then that excused any sins they might commit. How could they reasonably expect more of themselves than they expected of us?” (“Gods Above”, Star Trek – New Frontier, Peter David, paperback p. 129-130)
In other words, this book was saying that the ancient Greeks had created their gods in their own image, with their ALL of their own shortcomings and faults and sins. They had done this because they didn’t want to have a god who would make them feel inferior or guilty or sinful. They created their gods in their own image.
But the Bible says you can’t do that. You can’t create God in your image. God isn’t created in OUR image… we are created in His. Thus OUR morality is NOT the standard of what is right and wrong - His is!
So, that’s the problem with haughtiness! People who suffer from that spiritual disease place themselves even above God.
Now that’s all well and good. But what difference does all that make to us? Why should I care?
Well, it makes a difference because – if someone as righteous as Uzziah can fall prey to this sin - we can too. We can all become haughty and sinful just like him. But how can we know whether WE have fallen into the “haughtiness trap”? How can we know whether or not we suffer from this spiritual disease?
ILLUS: Well, one of the signals of this sin, is that haughty people are often the most religious people in the room (or at least they’d like to make you think they are). I read the true story once where a man told about his Aunt Varie having a discussion with a neighbor lady at her home. He said his aunt and this other woman spent the afternoon trying to impress each other with how religious they were. Finally, the neighbor woman left, and Aunt Varie turned to his Uncle Will, and smugly remarked, "You know, Mrs. Sills is a good Christian, but I just believe I live closer to the Lord." He said his Uncle Will thought about that for a moment, and then replied, “Well, ain't neither one of you crowding Him any.” (Reader’s Digest 10/84 p.120)
Haughty people deceive themselves into thinking they are HIGHLY religious. And because they’re HIGH up on the religion ladder they tend to look DOWN on others who aren’t as religious as they. They often will feel it is their prerogative to “put people in their place” and “teach others a lesson” because they believe they need to bluntly impose their morality on lesser beings. That’s the mark of haughtiness.
ILLUS: Now I did that once. I was back in Bible College years ago and there was a guy there I didn’t particularly like (he was probably a nice guy, I just didn’t like him). I had been reading a book on “intimidation” and one of the observations in that book was that – if you wanted to exercise authority over someone – you needed to be a in a physical situation where you were “higher” than that person. For example (it taught) you should make sure the other person was seated and that you stood over them. I thought that was interesting so I decided to try it out. The guy I didn’t like came into the bunk area where we slept and I was seated on my bunk – which was the top bunk. Now, if I’d have liked him I would have gotten down off the bunk and we’d have talked like friends. But I didn’t like him – so I stayed on my bunk and talked “down” to him. And it worked! I could tell he was uncomfortable and I had succeeded in being superior to him.
I remember that incident often… and each time I remember it – I’m ashamed of myself. It was wrong for me to have done that to him. I sinned against him.
But that’s the nature of haughtiness: the desire to LOOK DOWN on others. But someone once observed “Only God is in a position to look down on anyone.”
ILLUS: But haughty people do that… they look down on others. And they don’t want to hang around people who aren’t as “perfect” as they are. In High School we called groups who engaged in this kind of mindset CLIQUES. You know – all the Cool kids, or the Preppy kids, or the Athletic types and cheerleaders. Now, there wasn’t really anything wrong with these kids hanging out together. I mean – they all shared common interests and it is only natural that people of common interests would spend more time together. But when these kids shunned others from their groups, and when they made fun of kids who were not like them, that’s when things got nasty. That’s when they became the hated thing called a CLIQUE. And why did we hate that kind of thing? Because those kinds of kids were haughty.
This kind of “cliquishness” can happen to Christians too and we have to be on guard against it. In fact, God gives us a couple pieces of advice on how to avoid the sin of haughtiness.
For example Romans 12:16 tells us “Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be HAUGHTY in mind, but ASSOCIATE WITH THE LOWLY…”
What that verse is saying is this: If you want to protect yourself against becoming haughty spend some time with people you wouldn’t ordinarily talk to. Get out of your comfort zone: Ask them questions about their lives and pray for the things that concern them.
And Jesus takes it one step further when He says we should so far as to find ways to serve others.
"You know that the rulers of the Gentiles LORD IT OVER them, and their great ones exercise AUTHORITY OVER them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Matthew 20:25-28
Haughty people look for ways to rule over others, to have authority over others. So… don’t do that! Don’t look for ways to be OVER others! Don’t look for ways to be HIGHER and more PROMINENT than others. In fact, humble yourselves as servants of one another and…
Wait a minute. Isn’t there a verse about that? How does it go again? “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord… (and what’s the rest of that?) That’s right “… and he shall lift you up. James 4:10
Haughty people think that if they don’t exalt themselves it won’t get done. But God says – if I want you to be exalted and lifted up and important… I can do that. Just humble yourself and let me do the rest.
CLOSE: This type of mindset was best shown by a man named Booker T. Washington. For those of you who don’t know who he was Mr. Washington was a famous professor, author, speaker back in the early 1900s. He was even an advisor to presidents of the United States.
Because of his wisdom, and his drive and his personality Booker T. Washington made Tuskegee Institute a very famous black college. Soon after he took over the presidency of the Institute he was walking in an exclusive section of town when he was stopped by a wealthy white woman. Not knowing he was a prestigious professor, she asked if he would like to earn a few dollars by chopping wood for her.
How do you think he responded to this? Well, what he did was - he smiled at her, went to her home, rolled up his sleeves, chopped the wood and then carried the logs into the house and stacked them by the fireplace. And then he went on his way as humbly as he’d come.
But a maid in the house recognized who he was (this is a true story, by the way) and she told the woman about who it was she had paid money to do this menial task. The woman of the house was humiliated that she had treated such an important man in this fashion, and the next day she went to see him at his office and repeatedly apologized for insulting him.
Washington’s reply was worth noting: "It's perfectly all right, Madam. Occasionally I enjoy a little manual labor. Besides, it's always a delight to do something for a friend."
She shook his hand warmly and not long afterward, showed her admiration for him by persuading some of her wealthy friends to join her in donating thousands of dollars to the Tuskegee Institute.
INVITATION
