- God gives grace to the humble, but He resists the proud (James 4:6).
- Humble people have God as a partner.
- Prideful people get God as an opponent.
- Backstory - Hezekiah was a good king, but he got sick and was going to die.
- So he prayed and asked God for healing.
- God responded and gave him another 15 years.
- Then Hezekiah got comfortable.
- This grew into pride.
- A sense of desperation keeps you humble.
- The King of Babylon sent messengers to him with gifts.
- Hezekiah showed off in front of them - displaying all his wealth.
- Pride is often revealed by your need for approval from others.
- Isaiah rebuked him for his pride.
- vs 5-7 - “Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord Almighty: 6 The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. 7 And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
- What if someone told you this would happen to your kids?
- How did Hezekiah respond?
- vs 8 - “The word of the Lord you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “There will be peace and security in my lifetime.”
- When pride enters your heart, discernment disappears.
- The king no longer had good reasoning capacity because his eyes had been shut.
- Pride does this - it blinds you to wisdom.
- Prideful people do not think generationally.
- KEY - either choose humility on your own or be humiliated.
- Every decision of a prideful person moves them closer to humiliation.
- It’s a principle as true as gravity.
- Notice the punishment for his pride. It was two-fold:
- 1) Possessions - All the stuff he showed the dudes from Babylon would end up in wicked hands.
- God is in the business of transferring wealth.
- He either transfers it to the righteous or the other way around.
- Choose to be in the “right relationship” with God, and what you have will be yours forever, not to be possessed by the wicked.
- 2) Posterity - He would lose his kids to the enemy, and his sons would be emasculated. (vs 7)
- Pride ruins families.
- If you are a prideful parent, you will lose your kids.
- Is anything worth losing your kids?
- Please don’t be prideful!