Pride Goes Before Destruction
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: Proverbs 16:18 reads, “Pride goes before destruction,
And a haughty spirit before stumbling.” That’s what the Lord says, and it’s true. It’s a principle that all of us need to be reminded of from time to time, for there is hardly a human being who is not susceptible to pride at one time or another in his life. C. S. Lewis wrote,
“There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which everyone in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves…. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others. The vice I am talking of is Pride.”[i]
Today we are in Isaiah 39, a follow-up account to last week’s message from chapter 38. If you were with us last Sunday you will recall that Hezekiah, the good king of Judah, experienced one of the great healing miracles of Scripture after God announced that he was going to die. But then because of his earnest prayer, God healed him and gave him 15 additional years of life. As a sign of the fact that he would be granted those additional years, God made the shadow on the staircase of the palace back up ten hours as if the sun were moving from west to east in the sky.
Tragically, however, God’s mercy was, in a sense, wasted on Hezekiah. In 2 Chronicles 32:25 we read, “he gave no return for the benefit he received because his heart was proud.” I want to just stop on that verse before we go any further. Wouldn’t it be tragic if that epitaph appeared on your gravestone or mine: “He gave no return for the benefit he received.” Think for a moment of the enormous benefits we all have received from the Lord—spiritual, material, family, friends, health, etc. What return has the Lord received for His investment in our lives?
The first thing we want to do with the text that was just read is to consider the historical background.
Historical Background
Chapter 39 opens with several proper names. We already know Hezekiah. He is the king of Judah, a good and godly king sandwiched between two of the most wicked kings of the Old Testament—his father Ahaz and his son Manasseh. The year is about 702 B.C. Jerusalem is being threatened by King Sennacherib and his Assyrian armies, who just 20 years before, destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and took her ten tribes into a captivity from which they would never return. But even with Assyria poised on the doorstep of Jerusalem, God gave Hezekiah a promise of deliverance from Assyria, as we saw in 38:6. That is an important factor in today’s story.
The new character we meet in verse 1 is Merodach-baladan, son of Baladan, king of Babylon. Babylon is just a third-rate power from the east, as afraid of Assyria as Judah is. In less than a century, however, Babylon is going to seize Ninevah, the capital city of Assyria, and King Nebuchadnezzar is going to expand the Babylonian empire beyond anything enjoyed by the Assyrians. But Hezekiah would have had no reason to expect that to happen.
The reason Merodach-Baladan sent a delegation to Hezekiah was that he had heard Hezekiah had been sick and that he had recovered. He sent letters and a present along with his envoys. My suspicion is the recovery was so astounding that he wanted to hear about it straight from the horse’s mouth. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if, in addition, he wanted to see that stairway clock and listen to eyewitnesses relate how the shadow moved backwards. After all, it’s hard to keep a miracle quiet, and the news had already spread over 1,000 miles east.
No doubt Merodach-Baladan had another motive for sending this delegation. Assyria was his enemy and he was interested in lining up as many allies as possible in opposition to Sennacherib.
But I find still another reason for the Babylonian delegation that even they did not know about. We’re told about it in 2 Chron. 32:27-31:
Now Hezekiah had immense riches and honor; and he made for himself treasuries for silver, gold, precious stones, spices, shields, and all kinds of valuable articles, 28 also storehouses for the produce of grain, wine, and oil; stalls for all kinds of cattle, and sheepfolds for the flocks. 29 He made cities for himself and acquired flocks and herds in abundance, because God had given him very great wealth. 30 It was Hezekiah who stopped the upper outlet of the waters of Gihon and directed them to the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah was successful in everything that he did. 31 Even in the matter of the messengers of the rulers of Babylon, who were sent to him to inquire about the wonder that had happened in the land; God left him alone only to test him, so that He might know everything that was in his heart.
The next verse in Isaiah 39 says that Hezekiah was pleased that these foreign visitors had come, and “he showed the Babylonians all his treasure house, the silver and the gold and the spices and the precious oil and his whole armory and all that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah did not show them.” I’m sure the Babylonians thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality of their host. They probably also took lots of notes.
But wait! This action of Hezekiah was not just a simple act of hospitality, not a simple open house for out-of-town guests. God said it was an act of pride which would bring great judgment upon the nation. So, let’s think for a moment about the various sources of pride.
The sources of pride
I have listed only four, though you could probably think of many more. Hezekiah exhibited all but the first one, but I include it because it is so common and because most of us have been watching an incredible display of it these past two weeks in the Olympics. Athletic ability is one of those physical areas which can readily serve as the source of great pride.
Physical (I Kings 20:11). It’s been interesting to watch the reactions of the various Olympic athletes. Some seemed overjoyed at the privilege of just being there, some wept humbly when they won, some gave credit to their teammates or their coaches, but there were also a few who let it be known that they were really somebody. The world better bow when they are around. One couldn’t help but consider it a touch of poetic justice when one of those lost his event, though he generally found someone else to blame.
Back in 1 Kings 20 there is an interesting statement made by an earlier king of Israel, Ahab by name. Now Ahab was a wicked man and I wouldn’t use him as an example of much, but I have always enjoyed his answer to Ben Hadad, king of Syria, who threatened to destroy Ahab’s capital city of Samaria with such thoroughness that there would not be enough dust left for each of his soldiers to have a handful. Ahab responded to that proud braggart, “Let not him who girds on his armor boast like him who takes it off.” In other words, “Put your money where your mouth is, Ben Hadad! If you’re going to brag, wait until the fight’s over.” That’s not a bad piece of advice. Physical ability, or beauty for that matter, is a frequent source of pride.
Social and political (2 Kings 14:9-10). We see this in our text today in that Hezekiah was undoubtedly proud of the fact that Merodach-Baladan would send envoys to check on his health. Nearly everyone is susceptible to pride when they meet important people. I talked to Sen. John Tower once and rode with him on the congressional subway. Man, I really milked that one—I told everyone who would listen about my personal friendship with John Tower. Somehow, we get to thinking that meeting important people makes us important. Our social and political contacts are a major source of pride.
Material (Deut. 8:11-20). Material possessions obviously played a large part in Hezekiah’s actions. He wanted to impress these visitors, and while he probably should have tried to impress them with his God, he instead tried to impress them with his possessions. Have you ever stopped to think about how much we use material possessions to impress other people? We wear clothes for fashion, not comfort. We buy cars for their style, not their performance. We build homes for their elegance, not their utility or energy efficiency. I know that there are exceptions to these generalizations, but if we weren’t trying to impress other people, we would never wear ties or high heels, we’d probably never buy a car more expensive than a Chevy Caprice, and we wouldn’t soak our lawns as if the water supply were unlimited and free.
I want you to turn back to Deuteronomy 8. This passage talks directly about the problem of pride which is such a temptation as we accumulate more and more things. Consider Deut. 8:11-20:
“Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God by failing to keep His commandments, His ordinances, and His statutes which I am commanding you today; 12 otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, and you build good houses and live in them, 13 and when your herds and your flocks increase, and your silver and gold increase, and everything that you have increases, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 15 He who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions, and its thirsty ground where there was no water; He who brought water for you out of the rock of flint. 16 In the wilderness it was He who fed you manna which your fathers did not know, in order to humble you and in order to put you to the test, to do good for you in the end. 17 Otherwise, you may say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.’ 18 But you are to remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, in order to confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19 And it shall come about, if you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and serve and worship them, I testify against you today that you will certainly perish. 20 Like the nations that the Lord eliminates from you, so you shall perish, because you would not listen to the voice of the Lord your God.
Look at v. 18 again: “It is He who is giving you power to make wealth.” You see, there’s nothing wrong with wealth, so long as it is obtained the old-fashioned way—earning it. Some people have the Midas touch. Everything they touch seems to turn to gold. That’s great. But the terrible temptation for those people is to begin to think that they are financial wizards, whereas the Book says that it is God who gives them the power to make wealth. How extremely important it is for us to gratefully give God the credit for the material blessings we have been given. Finally, there is the spiritual source for pride.
Spiritual (1 Cor. 4:6-7; 10:12). Hezekiah’s spiritual pride is hinted at in 2 Chronicles 32:25, a verse we have already referred to twice: “Hezekiah gave no return for the benefit he received because his heart was proud.” As I mentioned last week, it is my strong suspicion that he let his success in prayer go to his head. He had been sick, he had prayed, and immediately his request was granted. He assumed he had God’s number. I have known a few people who have had unusual success in their prayer life and who have almost become cocky about prayer. That’s a very dangerous point at which to arrive. God is never obligated to answer our prayers as we have prayed them, and if we get too demanding or presumptive, He may answer them to our own detriment, as we saw last Sunday.
To further expand briefly on the spiritual life as a source of pride, I want us to look at 1 Cor. 4:6-7. There was an unusual amount of spiritual pride in the church at Corinth and an unusual lack of justification for it. “Now these things, brethren, I have figuratively applied to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that in us you might learn not to exceed what is written, in order that no one of you might become arrogant in behalf of one against the other. For who regards you as superior? And what do you have that you did not receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” Those questions are good for each of us to ask when we begin to get a big head over our spiritual gifts. What do you have that God hasn’t given you? Name one thing. You can’t, can you? But if He gave it to you, why do you boast as if you had earned it?
You know, as soon as we become spiritually proud, we become vulnerable to a spiritual crash. That was the fate of the ancient Israelites described in 1 Corinthians 10. After leaving Egypt they experienced the protection of the divine cloud in the wilderness, they passed through the sea on dry ground, and they enjoyed a spiritual baptism and a spiritual Lord’s Supper, but nevertheless they blew it, and the conclusion is given in v. 12: “Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”
Having taken note of 4 common sources of pride, let us move on to:
The effects of pride
Our text indicates two key effects that pride had on Hezekiah. I believe they are common effects that many people experience when pride begins to evidence itself in their lives.
It causes people to do stupid things. I have been intrigued by the fact that Dr. Charles Ryrie, in his Ryrie Study Bible, entitles this chapter, “The Stupidity of Hezekiah.” Whether or not that is the main theme of the chapter is debatable, but the fact of his stupidity is not debatable. To show off all his wealth and his armory to a foreign power only making hints at wanting to be an ally is not smart in anyone’s book. It would be tantamount to the President of the United States taking the representatives of a nation like China, which has recently shown some signs of wanting to be a friend, and giving them a tour of Fort Knox, the CIA, the FBI and the Pentagon, and then, to top it off, letting them walk at leisure through the NORAD complex at Cheyenne Mountain!
Pride has a way of causing people to act stupidly. I have seen it motivate them to break good friendships, to split churches, to fire valuable employees, to resign in a huff, to buy things they couldn’t afford, to pursue relationships that were detrimental, and to starve themselves to lose weight. I think an argument could be made that pride has an effect similar to alcohol on a person’s judgment.
It would be bad enough if all pride did was to cause people to do stupid things. But it also causes them to do evil things as well. In fact, sometimes there is only a fine line between that which is stupid and that which is evil. If a person doesn’t use his God-given intelligence he can incur guilt for that fact.
It causes people to do evil things. Hezekiah’s stupidity had a definite touch of evil behind it. Notice the repeated use of the personal pronouns in verses 2 and 4. The King’s pride had caused him to forget that all his possessions were merely loans from the Lord; that God himself retained the title to all those “things.” In proudly displaying them to the Babylonians, it is obvious that Hezekiah did not say, “Now this is the Lord’s armory that He has put me in charge of; these are the treasures He has blessed me with.” No, he gave the impression that these things were the result of his brilliance as a king and as administrator—and that was a lie and a sin!
Not only that! It was also sinful for Hezekiah to seek an alliance with Babylon. We mentioned earlier that when he was promised recovery from his fatal illness God also told him that Assyria would not prevail against him. Since he had been given that promise, he had no business encouraging an alliance with Babylon against Assyria.
Pride is doubly dangerous in that it causes us to act both stupidly and sinfully. We come, then, to the third key issue relating to pride, namely …
God’s judgment on pride
If there were any doubt in our minds about whether God does indeed judge the sin of pride, those doubts should be immediately erased by reading James 4:6: “God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Many other passages, particularly in Proverbs, bear out that same truth.
I see in the story of Hezekiah at least three ways in which God carries out His judgment.
The very thing of which we are proud He often allows to turn to dust in our hands. (Obadiah 3-4; Zeph. 2:10, 15) Beginning in verse 5 Isaiah says, “This is what the Lord of hosts says, ‘Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and all that your fathers have laid up in store to this day shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left,’ says the Lord.” In other words, the very things that Hezekiah had so proudly displayed to the Babylonians were going to be theirs in less than 100 years.
I have seen this principle operate elsewhere the same way. I think of a pastor I knew who had a tremendous gift of oratory. He always preached without any notes whatsoever and the words just flowed from his mouth. When he did a wedding, he did it with no notes, not even a Bible in front of him. He would just quote the passage of Scripture and all the parts of the ceremony. Believe me, it was impressive. But, according to many who sat under his ministry, he became very conceited about his speaking ability, looking down on speakers who had to use notes (let’s see, where am I?), and as time went on, he more and more used flowery language when simple language would have sufficed. You know what happened? The Lord took his voice away, completely, for over a year. He could not preach, he could not talk, in fact, he was not even allowed to whisper—total voice rest for over a year. Talk about a judgment! That man would rather have been beaten and placed in stocks for a year than to lose the one thing that set him above all others. Could it be that because of pride God allowed it to turn to dust in his hands?
We can all think of others who were proud of their wealth and lost it; who were proud of their beauty, but it faded; who were proud of their intelligence, but they turned senile. God has His way of removing His gifts when we refuse to express gratitude for them.
I want us to look at a couple of biblical examples of this kind of judgment, and the first is in the book of Obadiah. I’m willing to bet that it’s been a long time since a preacher asked you to turn to Obadiah. Well, it’s right after Amos and right before Jonah. The book of Obadiah consists basically of a denunciation of the Edomites, who were enemies of O.T. Israel. In verses 3-4 God speaks through His prophet, saying to Edom: “The arrogance of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, in the loftiness of your dwelling place, who say in your heart, ‘Who will bring me down to earth?’ Though you build high like the eagle, Though you set your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down,” declares the Lord.” In other words, the very thing of which Edom was proud, namely her defenses in mountain caves, would be nullified by God.
Then over in the book of Zephaniah, the fourth to last book in the Old Testament, we read a similar denunciation of Moab and Ammon. After predicting that their land would be a place possessed by nettles and salt pits, the prophet states in Zeph. 2:10: “This they will have in return for their pride, because they have taunted and become arrogant against the people of the Lord of hosts.” Then in the fifteenth verse of the same chapter, speaking of Ninevah, the Assyrian capital, he says, “This is the exultant city which dwells securely, who says in her heart, ‘I am, and there is no one besides me.’ How she has become a desolation, a resting place for beasts! Everyone who passes by her will hiss and wave his hand in contempt.” The pride of these nations was in their security and their power. God was going to make short work of those assets. Their security would become insecurity and their power, weakness.
God has a way of taking the very thing of which we are proud and turning it into dust in our hands.
Now a second way in which God’s judgment comes upon pride is that …
Others are hurt when we are proud. (Isaiah 39:7). In verse 7 of Isaiah 39 the prophet continues with his message of God’s judgment: “And some of your sons who shall issue from you, whom you shall beget, shall be taken away; and they shall become officials in the palace of the king of Babylon.” And, of course, that prophecy, as remote as it must have seemed when uttered, came to pass just as it was spoken, when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came in 605 B.C. and took Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Obednego, along with many young men in the royal family, captive to Babylon. These had not been guilty of Hezekiah’s sin, but they suffered, nonetheless.
And how often today are our family and friends hurt when pride does its deadly number on us? I have seen pride destroy a home when a husband or wife was simply too arrogant to ever admit a weakness or a mistake. I have seen pride totally destroy a person’s effectiveness in the church, causing him or her to either leave the church or refuse to serve or give, thus depriving the Body of that person’s God-given talents and hurting the cause of Christ. Unfortunately, proud people rarely ever admit their pride; the very nature of their sin is that they think too highly of themselves to admit that they have done anything wrong.
So, a second way in which God judges the sin of pride is to allow hurt to come to others when we are proud. The third kind of judgment results in harm to ourselves. We have stated it this way:
We flirt with personal disaster when we are proud. This point is not quite so obvious in our text today, because for reasons known only to Him, God spared Hezekiah himself from the brunt of His judgment. This is readily apparent in the last verse of the chapter, where Hezekiah said, “The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good,” and then the words are added, “for he thought, ‘for there will be peace and truth in my days.'” Now Hezekiah has taken a lot of heat from this little statement. He comes across as the acme of selfishness to many Bible scholars, but I wonder if they are not being a bit too harsh with him. I suspect that he is merely acknowledging God’s mercy and expressing his gratitude for small favors. There’s not a one of us who, if judgment had to come, wouldn’t prefer that it come after we’re gone rather than while we’re still here.
At the same time, I don’t think we should assume that Hezekiah got off Scott free. It would be a hard person indeed who would not feel a good bit of mental and emotional anguish at the thought that his pride was going to bring about tragedy for subsequent generations. I believe Hezekiah considered God’s judgment a personal disaster. In fact, 2 Chron. 32:25-26 bear this out: “But Hezekiah gave no return for the benefit he received, because his heart was proud; therefore, wrath came on him and on Judah and Jerusalem. However, Hezekiah humbled the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord did not come on them in the days of Hezekiah.” These verses confirm that the Lord’s judgment did come on Hezekiah, and yet it did not come on him in the intensity that it came on his descendants.
How many today have brought personal disaster upon themselves because of their pride. One cannot help but think of a Muhammed Ali who can’t even recite his poems of personal greatness without slurred speech today. One cannot help but think of a Hollywood Henderson, a man whose bragging made Muhammed Ali look humble by comparison. Where is he now? In prison, a drug addict, penniless, a broken man.
Should these developments surprise us? Not if we have read the Scriptures. Listen to what the Lord says: In Proverbs 16:5 we are told, “Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; assuredly, he will not be unpunished.” Back in 11:2 it says, “When pride comes, then comes dishonor.” Over in 29:23 of the same book we read, “A man’s pride will bring him low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor.”
Yes, God will assuredly judge men for the heinous sin of pride. He may do it by allowing the object of their pride to turn to dust in their hands. He may do it by allowing others to get hurt because of their pride. Or He may bring personal disaster upon us for that pride.
Conclusion: The concluding thought I would like to leave with you today does not even come from our text in Isaiah. Yet I believe it is a fitting commentary on Hezekiah’s actions and on ours. The passage is Jeremiah 9:23-24: “This is what the Lord says, ‘Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,’ declares the Lord.”
The worst sin of pride, friends, is thinking you can save yourself. You cannot. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. I challenge you to place your faith in Him and receive the forgiveness of your sins.
DATE: August 12, 1984
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[i] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 94.