Integrity Is Humilty Before God Series

Illustration:

It reminds me of a story about a man who in the early 1960’s met and married his Bible college sweetheart. He began working with an up and coming evangelist and helped to develop a small Christian network in the upper Mid-West of the USA.

In the early 1970’s he moved to California and partnered with some friends and developed a Christian TV show that became a big hit. By the late 70’s he was on his own and he and his wife moved to Charlotte NC and started their own Christian TV Network and even built a theme park.

The man I am speaking about was the television evangelist Jim Bakker and the network was the PTL network and the theme park was Heritage USA. At one time in the early 80’s this theme park was on par with and was a rival of Disney World itself and the PTL network was the largest in the country.

At the peak of his popularity, Bakker was bringing in about 52 million a year in contributions and was ‘according to his own words’ doing the work of the Lord.

But early in 1987 a scandal broke about his illicit sexual affair with his secretary… this scandal opened the doors to further investigation and led to his arrest, trial and imprisonment on Federal Fraud and Embezzlement charges.

He was publicly humiliated and he was sentenced to 45 yrs in prison and in 1993 his wife divorced him to marry his former business partner.

The Rev Jerry Falwell proclaimed that Jim Bakker was, “…a liar, an embezzler, a sexual deviant, and "the greatest scab and cancer on the face of Christianity in 2,000 years of church history…”

Jim Bakker had gone from the peak of the mountain to the depths of despair in a short time. Richard Dortch, his former business partner said that it was pride and arrogance that led to the secrets and scandals. Dortch also said, “…they didn’t plan the scandal, but that it was the natural result of living for oneself rather than for God…”

This tragedy was a direct result of these people NOT recognizing God for who He was (Sovereign Lord and in control) and themselves for WHO they were (broken and fallen vessels in need of God’s help)

These people felt they were in total control, and their pride and arrogance revealed this… God brought them low because of their pride and arrogance… because of their lack of humility!

As believers, we must understand that if we continue to believe that it is our efforts and our doing that is succeeding… then God is going to humble us before this world.

As believers, we have a choice;

1) We can humble ourselves before God, OR

2) We can be humbled before the world BY God…

Which would you rather happen to you…

But even when we fall and fail God and we are humiliated before the world, all hope is not lost! God uses humiliation as a disciplinary tool to correct us and make us see the error of our way and the correctness of His way, so we can know that even when we fail…

3. True humility will restore you to God (v.34-37):

Here we see that Nebuchadnezzar had been humiliated by God before the world. He had been robbed of his mind and made to live like an animal for a period of time.