Daily Devotional – Sept 24, 2020

Spiritual Pride and the Censor's Chair

Your week is going well and getting a lot accomplished in your calling, whatever that calling might happen to be, and I trust you're seeing the Lord blessing you and meeting your needs in some very clear ways.

Well, several years ago, I pastored a church down south, and there was a man in the church who was a very intelligent man. He was very gifted mathematically. He was a whiz at math. He was actually a chemical engineer at a nuclear plant in Tennessee.

So the guy was pretty intelligent, and he knew it. He knew it. He kind of had a way about him, if you get what I'm saying. Well, there was one occasion where we were trying to make a decision about something, and I did a lot of research on this particular subject.

We had a meeting. The man was one of the deacons in our church, and we had a meeting about this matter. I laid out what was going on with it, and I made the recommendation, because this is so, this is what I think would be a good idea for us to do.

This guy replied and said, oh, that isn't so. I said, well, yeah, it really is. He said, you don't know that. I said, yeah, I do know that. I did a lot of checking, and I did some research, and this is the way it is.

No, that's not right. That's not the way it is. I said, yeah, it really is. You don't know that, he says. I said, yes, I really do know that. Then he said, oh, you don't know nothing. You don't know nothing.

Whoa. Really? I don't know nothing? Robert Leighton, one of these old guys who passed away many, many years ago, was also a prolific author or pastor, preacher. He made this statement. He said, quote, an overweening esteem that men naturally have of themselves mounts them in the censor's chair.

You know what that means? It's talking about this guy who just had this natural esteem for himself that was very high. He had a very high esteem of himself, and he had it because of his natural gifts.

Those gifts were well-endowed. He was well-endowed with these gifts mentally, intellectually, but that self-esteem that he had put him in the censor's chair. It put him in the chair of thinking that nobody knew more than he knew.

If there's something that somebody proposes that they think they know, and he doesn't think it's so, then they don't know nothing. They don't know because he knows better. He sat in the censor's chair.

Now, we can do that in all kinds of areas of life. Through the years of my pastoral experience, I've seen professing Christians who had a pretty good sense of themselves about their own spiritual maturity and their own success at defeating sin in their lives.

They didn't do all kinds of nasty things and all kinds of terrible things that other people did. They didn't use the wrong kind of language. They didn't listen to the wrong kind of music. They didn't go to the wrong kinds of places, etc., etc., etc.

They had the right look. They went to the church three times or four times a week. They were always at church whenever the doors were open. They had their devotions every day. They read their Bible and prayed every day.

They were just really Mary Poppins Christians. You know what a Mary Poppins Christian is, don't you? One that's practically perfect. And they knew it. They had this pretty high esteem of their own spiritual level of maturity, which translated into a pretty condescending attitude and sometimes a very caustic judgmentalism toward somebody who wasn't there where they were or somebody who had gone astray and when they were trying to come back and they wanted to do the right thing, they were really standoffish and wouldn't give them a second chance.

This is the problem that Leighton talks about, an overweening esteem that he has of himself that mounts him in the censor's chair there is no hope for you. There is no second chance for you. There is no welcoming back for you because you are not like me.

The Parable of the Lost Son in Luke 15

Jesus told a parable that illustrates that very problem and you're probably familiar with it. In some Bibles it's labeled the parable of the lost son. It's in Luke chapter 15 in that chapter that talks about the lost coin and the lost sheep and then the lost son.

But the parable is really about two lost sons. The one that we naturally think of is the prodigal son and he's such a bad guy. He tells his dad he wants his inheritance right now and he gets it and then he goes off in the far off country and he wastes it and spends it profligately until he's spent everything he has.

He doesn't have any friends anymore and now he's out feeding pigs and doesn't even have anything to eat and he's starving. He finally comes to himself and he realizes how good he did have it back home and he comes to his senses and he says to himself, I'm going to go back home and tell my dad I'm not worthy to be called your son.

Just make me one of your hired servants and let me have a place to stay. And so off he went back to his dad back to his home and his father saw him coming down the road and when his father saw him coming down the road he was overwhelmed with joy and he ran down the road to meet him and he embraced him and he said get a robe for this guy get the ring for my son he's back home let's kill the fatted calf let's have a party my son is home.

That was a wonderful wonderful reunion. The son of course tried to tell his dad ask his dad for a job he told his dad said I'm dad I'm no more worthy to be called your son and his dad is like he didn't even wasn't even able to get out the words can I have a job but what his dad said let's kill the fatted calf my son has returned home.

Well that was the one lost son. The other one is the person that Robert Lighton was talking about the elder brother the older brother who had an overweening esteem of himself that made him sit mounted him in the censor's chair.

He heard all the commotion he heard all the laughter and the carrying on and as he came back from the field and he said what what's going on out there and one of the servants told him your brother's returned your brother's returned we're having a party and here's where the story picks up in.

Luke 15 says he was angry and he refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him but he answered his father look these many years I've served you and I've never disobeyed your command yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends but when the son of yours came who has devoured your property with prostitutes you killed the fattened calf for him.

Do you hear what he's doing? Do you hear his attitude? Do you see him sitting up mounted high on that censor's chair? What's his problem? He has an overweening esteem of himself and he fails to see his own sin.

He fails to see his own horrible attitude that he has toward his father. He fails to see his slavish serving of his father not because he loves him. Not because he wants to not because he wants to please his father.

No no he's just doing it out of a slavish slavish obedience that he has to do it and he's resenting it. Let me encourage you beware of that overweening esteem that causes you to think so highly of yourself that you can't be instructed by somebody else or that causes you to think so highly of yourself that you look down your nose at the sinner who is repenting and wants to get right with God and you push him off you hold him away.

Oh no don't be like that elder brother don't have such a high esteem of yourself that you mount yourself in Jesus' chair Jesus the judge not you not me. So as we pray together today let's ask that the Lord give us an accurate view of ourselves to think soberly of ourselves to not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think as Paul exhorts us.

And to that father we pray help us to think soberly. I pray that you'd help us to have a clear perception of our own sin whether it's the sin of pride of envy of some other some other thing that is even worse considered to be worse in the eyes of men.

How easily we can develop the sense of spiritual pride when we're looking at the flagrant sins of others. Oh deliver us from that we pray now. I pray that you would bless the remainder of this day and help us to live for you and to walk with you in it.

We ask in Jesus name amen all right. We'll have a good rest of your Thursday. And as we wind down this week just a just a note that tomorrow Friday will be the last daily devotional for a while my wife and I are going to be getting away for a time of some rest and refreshment and kind of need it.

It's been a long haul and so we'll resume these devotionals when we get back. But we'll be here tomorrow and then taking a hiatus so God bless you the rest of this day have a good one.