Jeff Durbin: Pride & Destruction | Proverbs 11:2

Proverbs 11:2 and the Sin of Pride

If you want to open your Bibles to the book of Proverbs chapter 11, Proverbs chapter 11. We are, if you're new, in our series of working through verse by verse through the book of.

Proverbs.

This is God's book of wisdom. It is not just a book of knowledge filling our minds with abstractions and truths out there, but it's a book of how to apply that truth. Skillful living.

That is wisdom.

So we're in Proverbs chapter 11, Proverbs chapter 11 in verse 2. Hear now the word of the living and the true God. When pride comes, then comes disgrace. But with the humble is wisdom. Thus far is the reading of God's holy and inspired word.

Let's praise God's people. Lord, as we open your word today, God, we recognize that this is you speaking. These are the words of the living God. And Lord, with what we have before us today, the only way that transformation and renewal can happen in any of our hearts is through your spirit.

I do pray, God, that you would work on our hearts and minds even now to expose this, what is so central a sin, connected to so many others. This part of our heart and our lives that we guard and so protect.

I pray that by your spirit you would teach today that you would get the teacher out of.

The way.

I pray you'd move by your spirit through the proclamation of your word. Lord, for your glory, for your kingdom, for your purposes, and for your light in the world, deal with your people now. Help us, Lord, to put this sin to death and to pursue you and be conformed to your image, whether as fathers, husbands, men, mothers, wives, and women, or as children.

By your spirit today, convict, bring repentance, and bring healing and life and strength. In Jesus' name, amen. So this is a big one, human pride. When pride comes, then comes disgrace. But with the humble is wisdom.

Human pride is at the root, is at the root of so many of our sins. When we sin, we don't tend to sin just in isolation with just like one sin. Sin comes generally with a network of sins, holding hands, clasping, grabbing together.

And pride is often that sin that is at the heart of so many other sins. We generally sin with a network of sins that are grasping hands. Pride, arrogance, haughtiness, insolence is present within most.

Pride, human pride, arrogance, self-exaltation guarantees destruction according to Scripture. Pride, according to God, will bring disgrace always. Pride will keep you, God promises, from God's grace.

Pride will prohibit obedience. We won't be able to walk with God, to glorify God, to enjoy God forever with the sin of pride within us. Pride will ruin our relationships, our friendships, our church life, our marriages.

Pride will ruin all relationships. It's a disease that infects and then ends up killing. Pride will destroy your marriages. Pride will rob you of joy. The text says, when pride comes, then comes disgrace.

There's a causal relationship between pride and disgrace. And it says, but with the humble is wisdom. The Hebrew word here behind this, and we, of course, are reading the English translations, the Hebrew word for pride is variously translated throughout the Bible in English as insolent, arrogant, proud.

And this word and this sin is generally associated in Scripture with haughtiness, haughty eyes, being puffed up. Now, in terms of like getting to the core of like, okay, how do I identify with the pride?

How do I get a sense of it? How do I understand what God is aiming at here? I think a lot of it is instinctive for us, like when we hear it, we know, right? When we hear it, we know, we understand. Or when we see it in somebody, we tend to know.

We have sort of a symbolism attached to pride. Maybe it's a famous politician or it's a famous actor or it's somebody in your life. Personally, you have sort of a symbol attached to arrogance and pride in your own minds.

And oftentimes, we avoid putting ourselves into the symbol. But we generally recognize it when we hear it. Arrogance, haughtiness, pride, some quotes, all right? Just to sort of break the ice here and put it on somebody else.

We tend to hear it in something like from Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali, amazing boxer, of course, we understand that. Muhammad Ali is famous on record for saying, it's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am, right?

There we go, that's, goodness gracious, that's haughty. That's arrogant, that's prideful. Or for the young ones, Drake. Drake says, I'm allergic to coming in second, but I never sneeze. You'll get it, okay?

All right, there you go, okay. Or another famous quote from Drake is, his last name is greatest, his first name is ever. We recognize, so that's pretty prideful, that's pretty haughty. I'll give you another one from a famous false prophet, Joseph Smith Jr.

This is one of my very favorites in terms of identify what unbelievable haughtiness and arrogance. He says in History of the Church, volume six, page 408, he says, quote, come on ye prosecutors, ye false swearers, all hell boil over, ye burning mountains, roll down your lava, for I am come out on top at last.

I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I'm the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me, neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever.

Did it.

I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from him, but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet.

Whoo, girl.

That is, that's a big one, right? That's a big one. I'll give you some more quotes, and we tend to feel these again, we just sort of instinctively feel it, get a sense of it, we understand that's haughty, that's definitely arrogant.

I won't even tell you who the quote's from, I'll just read the quotes, okay? I think nobody knows more about campaign finance than I do. I know more about people who get ratings than anyone. I know more about ISIS than the generals do.

I understand social media. I understand the power of Twitter. I understand the power of Facebook. Maybe better than almost anybody based on my results, right? I know about courts more than any human being on earth.

Who knows more about lawsuits than I do? I'm the king. I understand politicians better than anybody. Nobody knows the system better than me. Nobody knows more about trade than me. Nobody knows the system better than I do.

I know more about renewables than any human being on earth. I think nobody knows more about taxes than I do. Maybe in the history of the world. I think you know who we're talking about. But generally we recognize it instinctively when we hear it, when we're watching it take place right in front of us, but oftentimes we won't be willing to actually do that self-assessment and to look into ourselves, the part of our hearts that we guard the most.

Pride is a central part of so many sins. Now, here's the deal. When we talk about this particular text, it's a consequence that says when pride comes, then comes disgrace. There is guarantee from God.

These are the words of God.

It's how he built the world. It's how it works. Babies are built a certain way to nurse from their mother's breast. That's how the machine operates. Human sexuality works the way it does because that's the way God built the world.

Gravity works the way that it does and you can get a sense of it all the time because that's how God made the world. Here's how God also made the world. When pride comes, then comes disgrace. It's a guarantee from God.

He spoke it. I guarantee you, disgrace. You are haughty. You self-exalt. You see yourself as the most important. Then God promises disgrace and all sin separates image bearers of God from God. However, this is really important to grab hold of as a Christian because we tend as Christians to say, well, all sin's the same.

Well, all sin will separate you from God, but no, not all sin is the same. There is a massive difference consequentially and in terms of God's hatred when you talk about the person that steals the number two pencil and the person who violates a woman.

Massive difference. And in terms of this sin of pride, yes, all sin sends you to hell. All sin separates you from God. All sin disrupts the peace of God with the image bearer. But the sin of pride holds clearly a special place in Scripture as God identifies it as something that he especially hates, loathes, and detests.

So as an example, in Proverbs six, you're in Proverbs now, just move back a few pages. We've already been here as a church unpacking the text in Proverbs six, but just to highlight what God says about pride, arrogance, haughtiness, he identifies this particular sin in a list of sin that he especially abominates and loathes.

In Proverbs chapter six, verse 16, it says this, there are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breeds out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.

We should pay close attention to God as his people, as his children, when he says, here's a list of things that I particularly loathe. These are the things that I really hate. We should hate what God hates.

We should love what God loves, amen? And so when God says, here's a list of things that in particular are loathsome to me, I detest these things, I hate these things, I resist these things, we should take special note of the fact that God says he hates and abominates haughty eyes.

He also says he abominates the one who is arrogant and guarantees that they will not escape punishment. Same book, Proverbs 16 now, go to Proverbs 16, verse five. God expresses this in another way. In 16, five, he says, everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord.

Be assured he will not go unpunished. So he promises that you will not escape my punishment. The haughty, the arrogant in heart, is an abomination to God, loathsome, detestable. And again, I like to emphasize this, and I know that I've done it a lot as we've been going through Proverbs, but it's important for us as Christians to really embrace the reality and not to be hypocrites.

When God in his word speaks about a particular sexual perversion and he says this is an abomination, this is toi va, this is something that's loathsome to me, we can't as Christians highlight those sexually perverse things and say, well, that's an abomination.

We like to throw that word around because it's appropriate when we talk about what's happening in our culture around about us right now. But as Christians, if we're going to have integrity, we need to also recognize that God also abominates, detests, loathes, toi va, haughty eyes.

And he promises, guarantees, he says, rest assured you can take it to the bank, it will absolutely be the outcome. He says you will not go unpunished. The one who is arrogant in heart, you are an abomination to God.

He guarantees hopelessness for the proud. Go to Proverbs 26 now. Proverbs 26 in verse 12, God promises hopelessness for the proud. He says this in verse 12, do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes?

Wise in his own eyes. That's how he thinks about himself. He's wise in his own eyes. It's not somebody else attesting to the wisdom. It's not somebody else pointing it out. It's not somebody else experiencing the gift of this person's wisdom.

It's a person who is wise in their own eyes. It's their own assessment of themselves. He says, do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him, which is to say there's no hope.

There's no hope for the person who is wise in their own eyes. The arrogance, the haughty. And God also says that while the proud thinks that their self-exaltation is the path to being honored. Now, note this, very, very important.

While the proud thinks that their own self-exaltation is the path to being honored, God promises that they will ultimately be laid low. Proverbs 29, 23. 29, 23, it says this, one's pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor.

Now, this is particularly important today. Just as an example, let's take aim at one issue. Because of the wave of feminism, because of people denigrating manhood, destroying manhood, and because people have emasculated men in this culture, because we have so many malachoy men, effeminate men in our culture, there is this new wave of strange sort of like crazed masculinity happening today with popular talking heads like Andrew Tate and things like that.

And some of the things that a popular talking head like Andrew Tate has said are true. They're good things. And that's why young men are so attracted to them, because they get a sense of just what is so wrong and what they are robbed of in today's culture in the media in terms of people denigrating manhood.

And so young men hear someone like Andrew Tate and they go, he's saying good things. It's good to be a man. It's not wrong to be a man. But what they fail to see is that this is this inflated, arrogant, haughty manhood.

It's this overboard, abusive, overconfident, haughty manhood that thinks that if I think that I'm the best, if I exalt myself, if I am self-exalted, if I promote myself, then, then I will be respected as a man.

Then I'll be seen as a wise man, because I need to sort of like build it up in myself and sort of portray that and be wise ultimately in my own eyes. And Scripture goes the other direction. If you want to be exalted, if you want to be seen as wise, if you want to be in the top spot, then you must, like Jesus, the perfect man, be made low.

You must be made low to be exalted. And that's what the text says. That's the point. Proverbs 29, 23, one's pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor. One more text on this point, Proverbs 18.

Go back 1812. And I love the book of Proverbs because it's like Bonson said, it's like this, this bottle of pills of wisdom. You can take each one, put it into your system and let it do its work. Let it work its way through your system.

And we have all these different ways to say essentially the same principle. Proverbs 18, verse 12. The text says, before destruction, a man's heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor. That's another way of saying exactly the same thing.

There's a causal relationship. You want to follow the train? You want to see where it's headed? There's a causal relationship. It's pride, always pride, always haughtiness that is before destruction. But humility in God's world, the way he built the world is the way to honor.

That's what scripture teaches. And God promises us that there is a causal relationship between pride and destruction. Here's the famous one. You were waiting for it. Proverbs 16, 18. Proverbs 16, 18. It's the one that everyone knows.

It's the one passed around the most. This is the one that everyone has memorized. You know it before I say it. Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. There is a causal relationship in God's world in terms of destruction and fall happens as a consequence of and before the haughtiness and the pride.

That's the causal relationship. We all understand it. This is the way that God made the world. If I take this right now, I hold this up and I tell you I'm about to let go of my finger. What do you know is going to happen?

Tell me. What's going to happen? Would you be unbelievably shocked if I let go of my fingers right now and this thing floated in the air? Right?

Right?

We'd be like, whoo!

Break out like the new revival or something. You'd be like something crazy going on, an apology at church.

You know what's going to happen.

This is the way God ordered the world. That's what happens.

You know what happened to me this morning?

This morning my lovely wife, who is like the most amazing cook in the world and is always finding some ways to perfect some new things she's going to make and be an expert in. She decides she's going to make bagels, homemade bagels, like from scratch, sourdough, like just, I mean, it's amazing.

She can pull like magic out of the air and do this stuff. She's like, I'm going to make bagels. It's going to be the bomb. She didn't say that. I said, they're going to be the bomb.

I already know it.

But what's amazing is my son, Augustine, he knows. He's three. He understands at this point that the stove is hot. It's hot, right? He's known that since he started crawling, like stay away from the stove.

The stove is hot. Augustine knows. Don't touch the stove. The stove is hot. The stove will burn you. We didn't neglect that. We're not terrible parents. We're not perfect parents, but we're not terrible.

He knows.

Don't touch the stove. And what happened is the stove is open. Augustine walks up with all of his experience in this world and decides to just put his hand inside of a hot stove that was like cooking for a while.

And what happens? What happened? What do you think happens? He burned his fingers. He burned his fingers.

It's a guarantee.

There's a causal relationship and everyone understands this is the way the world works. If A, then B. If you do this, here's the consequence. And listen, we understand it instinctively with the bottle.

We understand it with the stove. We understand it in so many areas of our life. We understand it. And here's where we generally don't get it and we won't embrace it. If you want destruction, if you want to be brought low, then this over here, the consequence of the fall, is going to be led first by haughtiness, pride.

It leads to destruction. All the time, every time, God says it will not go unpunished. Now what's interesting is that Scripture speaks so much. This I want to say, of all the messages that we've done so far in the book of Proverbs unpacking, this is one of the hardest ones to fit into a single sermon and just move on to the next because Scripture talks about this sin and this issue with so much abundance.

I struggled this week figuring out how do I condense all of this together into a single point, into a single coherent message because God says so much. You could literally from this day forward until we all go home to be with the Lord, two messages on what Scripture says about pride and humility.

It is that much. It's overwhelming. But there's a particular point in the book of Psalms. We did it. Tim did it right as we started here today. Psalm 10.

Go to it.

Psalm 10 gives you a divine insight into the inner workings of the arrogance in their various sins against God and against others. Psalm chapter 10. In Psalm chapter 10, listen to how it starts off again.

This is God's Word. Here's a divine assessment of the inner workings of the haughty.

Here's what it says.

Psalm 10 verse 1, why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? In arrogance the wicked haughtily pursue the poor. Let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.

For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul. And the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord in the pride of his face. The wicked does not seek him. All his thoughts are there is no God.

There is no God. His ways prosper at all times. Sometimes your judgments are on high out of his sight. As for all his foes, he puffs at them.

Puffs at them.

He says in his heart, I shall not be moved. Throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity. His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression. Under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.

He sits in ambush in the villages and hiding places. He murders the innocent. His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless. He lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket. He lurks that he may seize the poor.

He draws the poor when he draws them into his net. And then of course in verse 12, there's the turn of the song to God. Arise, O Lord, O God. Lift up your hands. Forget not the afflicted. The psalm of course turns into the judgment upon the prideful, the haughty, and the wicked.

Now, as a final point in terms of scripture dissecting down into the heart of the haughty, the heart of the arrogance, the heart of the prideful, the Lord Jesus in Mark chapter 7 addresses the sin of arrogance and pride.

You're familiar with this. It's a famous one. In Mark chapter 7, starting at verse 14, Jesus is dealing or engaging in his day with people.

Who are so focused.

You know this. Religious people tend to do this. They're so focused on the outside. Looking on the outside. Just right. Just righteous. Putting on the God face. Doing all the right things so everyone sees me doing all the right things.

Staying away from this. Abstain from that.

Look holy.

Look righteous. Outside is everything. And in verse 14 it says,. And he called the people to him again and said to them, Hear me, all of you, and understand there is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.

And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart, but his stomach and is expelled?

Now this is important. Verse 20. And he said, What comes out of a person is what defiles him. Now notice what Jesus does here. He's dissecting the inner heart, the inner workings of a person. He's saying it's not the outside things that are the defiling things.

It's what's in you. And the list that he gives, he could give a list of a thousand sins, but the list that he gives looks like this. From within out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, and pride, foolishness.

All these evil things come from within and they defile a person. So for the Lord Jesus, who is God incarnate, he is wisdom literally walking among us. Wisdom walking among us. He addresses this core issue of pride as heart, heart.

Now here's the danger. Here's the danger. Right now with a message like this. The danger in a message like this is we often will hear this message and we start immediately thinking about the person that is arrogant, the person we know that's prideful, the person we know that's puffed up, the person we know that's wise in their own eyes.

Here's another danger. You could come in here right now and just be doing the religious experience. You're not even really listening. You're doing your time. Or you're a teenager in here, you're a child in a Christian home, and you're coming right now doing your time.

You're sitting in the pew doing your time. This message has no relevance to me. I don't need to listen. I can check out. I can talk to my friends. I can be indifferent to this because this doesn't really apply to me.

And the answer is you're prideful. You are so arrogant and haughty to think that this message isn't about you. It is about you. It's about all of us because this sin of pride and arrogance and haughtiness is in all of.

Us.

It must be continuously put to death until the Lord takes us home. And for some of us, maybe there's been sanctification in our life with haughtiness. I hope that's true. I know it's been true in my life.

But it's not completely vanquished. We have to continuously put this to death in our life. And let me just say, pride, arrogance, haughtiness is at the center of so many conflicts. In the family, in the church, in marriages, in relationships.

Pride is generally at times actually what creates wars. People are so prideful that they have to be right. They have to make the right move. And so they can be completely wrong at times about the facts.

It doesn't matter. We're going to kill. We're going to move forward. We're going to destroy lives. We're going to destroy livelihoods. And it doesn't matter if we're ultimately really right. We're saying it's right.

It's pride that is the heart of so much conflict. It's a heart issue, Jesus says, that we must all face. You see, here's the deal. Can we be honest? Take a breath and think through this with me for a second.

In terms of arrogance, haughtiness, pride, we know and they don't. When there's conflict, how do you generally think?

We know. I know.

They don't know what they're talking about.

I know.

We think we're smarter. We think we're wiser. We think we don't need instruction. We think we're better. We think we're more valuable. We think we matter the most. We think that nobody can tell me what to do.

Now, maybe there is a spectrum on how we actually express those thoughts. But those are the thoughts that are generally in our hearts to some degree. We don't need instruction. We don't need someone to tell us what to do.

And what's the core of that pride? We're wise in our own eyes. We're haughty. We're arrogant. We think we're better. We think we know. We look down our noses with personal favoritism at others because, let's be honest, we think.

We're better.

We think we deserve more honor than them. We think we're exalted above the person. And so when we show personal favoritism in conflict or just in life generally, it's because we're the center. Because we're the determiner.

We're the most important. We're the most valuable. And so that's the center, the core of the conflict. But remember what has God promised. Pride, arrogance, haughtiness will lead to what? Will lead to what?

Destruction.

Every time. God says, I promise you, it will not go unpunished. And so you can run on for a long time, but what? Sooner or later, what? God's gonna cut you down. Sooner or later, God will cut you down.

And this particular sin of haughtiness, arrogance, pride, being puffed up, this sin is present. And we are, understand this, we know the stories. You could probably already give me a list of them right now.

We know the stories that are present in the scriptures about all the greatest failures. The biggest face plants you know in the Bible are motivated to some degree by pride. So let's just take some names.

Let's pull out Peter. Now let's be fair to Peter. Apparently he really learned his lesson. He's sanctified just like you're being sanctified. But how would you like your failures to be on the pages of like divine writ for like throughout eternity?

Peter's there. You know the scene. Matthew 26. What happened? Jesus said to Peter, you will all fall away on account of me. So he's warning them. He's about to be crucified. And he says, now this, goodness gracious, that's Jesus.

It's God. Like, this is such a weird thing for me to even think that this actually took place. But it did take place. Jesus who is God in the flesh says to Peter, you're all going to fall away on account of.

Me.

And what's Peter's response? What's Peter's response? Even if all fall away, I, what? Never will. It's like you just, it's like that, it's like you'd catch the cringe off the page, right? You're like, ooh, bad move, Peter.

So Jesus lets him know, okay, actually, before the three times, you'll deny me. You know the story. This is the perfect example of pride. Here's God telling you, this is going to happen. He says, never happen.

Never happen. God can't lie. Jesus is the righteous one. He's holy and blameless and perfect. Everything he says is true. And you're going to actually confront the Lord of glory? What arrogance as a creature to speak to the creator in that way.

But Peter does. And Peter learns his lesson. You know the stories. We don't have to illustrate them in detail, but the story of Nebuchadnezzar, the arrogance, the insolence, the haughty King who ends up where?

On his face, chewing the dirt, right? Story of Nebuchadnezzar. He was literally brought low. Also, real quick, Nebuchadnezzar is like the king of the world. King of the world, right? He is everything.

He owns everything. He is the most popular, the greatest, the biggest. He's better than Trump. He's better at everything than Trump, okay? Now question, who on a map, can you show me today Babylon, the Babylonian kingdom?

Does it exist anymore? Is there a Babylonian kingdom anymore? It's gone. It was brought low. It was destroyed, exactly as God said. That pride and arrogance brought him low and his kingdom low, and it is erased from history.

Or how about Exodus chapter five, verse two? You know the story of Pharaoh. The Pharaoh over Egypt. Moses comes to Pharaoh and he says what? What God, the eternal God, says, let my people go. And what is the arrogant, haughty, prideful, pagan Pharaoh doing?

He says this, who is the Lord that I should obey him? The arrogance in the Pharaoh, the pride in the Pharaoh brought him low and he was destroyed. Who is Yahweh? Who is this God that I, Pharaoh, king over Egypt, should obey him?

I'm a God.

What God is this that tells me what to do and what did God do? He sent right into Egypt all the plagues that represented the powers of their gods. The water, the flies, the cattle, everything. And then he takes the firstborn.

And so we know the story of the arrogance and the haughtiness of Pharaoh. Or how about this one? And I want you to go back to this one because it's relevant where we're at today. Go to Genesis 19, nine.

If you haven't heard it, I highly encourage you to go back and listen to Pastor James's message on Sodom and Gomorrah and the angels in Sodom. In Genesis 19, nine, famous scene. Go ahead and get there.

Here's a moment where the men of Sodom are confronting the young and the old. The young and the old. They want the men that came to Lot, in verse five, where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them.

And Lot's response is to beg them, do not act so wickedly. But in verse nine, they said, stand back. And they said, this fellow came to sojourn and he has become the judge. Now we'll deal with worse with you than with them.

And so what's their response when Lot says to them, don't be wicked. Don't act so wickedly. Don't sin in this way. The arrogance of the young and the old men in Sodom is, who are you? Who are you to tell us how to live?

Who are you to judge us? Who are you to act more righteous than us? Who do you think you are? The haughtiness and the arrogance of this apparently early pride festival in Sodom and Gomorrah. And led to what?

The absolute full destruction. The absolute full erasure of those people from history. It was fire from heaven for all their pride. They puffed up. They were haughty and exalted. They got made low. They were destroyed because that's the consequence.