JUST ONE LITTLE PROBLEM
TEXT: 2 KINGS 18-20
THEME: THE RISE AND FALL OF PRIDE IN LIFE.
Mike Duncan was the coach of Corey Brewer of Portland, TN. You might know Corey Brewer. He won two national championships with the Florida Gators in the last two years. It is predicted that Corey will go in the first ten picks of the up and coming NBA draft. Corey grew up in Portland, TN in a small trailer with his mother who worked as a teacher’s aid and his father who was on disability. Portland, TN is a small town. While Corey was there the high school students, Mike states, idolized him. It is rare for any high school player to be recruited by division I schools, nevertheless, Tennessee and Florida. But Corey was a premier prospect out of high school. He was the superstar of the high school basketball team. But during his senior year, Corey quit football because he basketball coached encouraged him to focus on basketball. When Corey quit, fifteen seniors quit with him. Corey was a tremendous influence over the minds of these young men. He was a local hero before he was a national hero. During Corey’s senior year, I asked Mike about this situation. “Does he have a chance to make it to the NBA” I asked. “Yes, if he does not let his pride stand in his way,” Mike said. Mike informed me that Corey was a wonderful young man, he was disciplined, and respectful, but he had a pride problem. Pride had entered his life. No one should be shocked. It is difficult for grown men to overcome pride in success. It is even more unimaginable for an 18 year old boy to not allow the accolades to overcome him. His peers idolized him, his community loved him, and coaches sought after him. Of course pride was in his life. Who could blame him for it?
So far Corey has been successful. He is going to sign a million dollar contract because he has pride in himself and in his game. His pride might have helped him to succeed. Because of his pride, he might have stepped up for the big game. Because of his pride, he has remained focused on improving his skills. He prides himself on being a success and the best. His pride might have been the launching point of his career. So is pride that bad.
We throw around the term pride a lot. Some times we use it in a positive sense. We say “I am proud of you” or “take pride in your work.” We use the term for motivation. “Where is your pride?” Taking pride in your work or in yourself cannot be bad. Sometimes our pride helps us to do that which is right. Pride in being a Christian or pride in being a good father—there seems to be some things that we must be proud of in life.
Look at Hezekiah’s life. He becomes King of the nation at the young age of twenty five. He reaps the position of power with limited knowledge and experience. And when he comes into power, Hezekiah is a strong man. The Bible indicates in 2 Kings 18:1-6 that He was a respected King. A king that was pleasing to the Lord. Because Hezekiah had pride in his nation and his God he was on fire to restore the glory of Israel. Look at his estimate in 2 Kings 18:1-6 “Now it came about in the third year of Hoshea, the son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah became king. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah. And he did right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father David had done. He removed the high places and broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel burned incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan. He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel; so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him. For he clung to the LORD; he did not depart from following Him, but kept His commandments, which the LORD had commanded Moses.” The text indicates that he destroyed the bronze serpent that the people turned into an idol. The same object that Moses used to save the people was used to destroy the people. The serpent was not the only idol that Hezekiah thrown down. It states that he removed the high places within the hills. These high places were spots of pagan worship. The people believed that going to the high places provided a closer connection to God. Many of the people in wanting to connect to the pagan gods would construct altars on the hills. Hezekiah in response to this step down from God instead of a step up to the gods rebukes the people and destroys the places of idolatry. Hezekiah does this because he is a bold king. He knows what he believes and his confident in his convictions. You can call it pride, God calls it honor.
Hezekiah continues to dismantle the idolatry in the land. In 2 Chronicles 29:3-6, it tells about how Hezekiah restored the desolate temple. Ahaz had installed a pagan altar in the place of the altar of the Lord. He removed the relics of paganism. He had the priests cleanse themselves and observed the Passover once again. 2 Chronicles 29:3-6 tells the account. “In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the LORD and repaired them. And he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them into the square on the east. Then he said to them, "Listen to me, O Levites. Consecrate yourselves now, and consecrate the house of the LORD, the God of your fathers, and carry the uncleanness out from the holy place. For our fathers have been unfaithful and have done evil in the sight of the LORD our God, and have forsaken Him and turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the LORD, and have turned their backs.” The people have fallen far from God and Hezekiah has the pride to place it back together. He is a man of conviction and courage. And if it takes some pride to accomplish this work, is that so bad?
Johnny Ramsey would think so. While I was at Brown Trail School of Preaching, there was a law enacted by Johnny that the word pride was not mentioned. You could not say “I take pride in my work” or “I am proud of that.” To Johnny, pride was always destructive. One can see his point, because pride is a double edged sword. Confidence and conviction are assets where pride can turn into a liability. One can certainly see pride starting to damage the great Hezekiah. For many years, the nation of Judah was under the dominion of Assyria. But Hezekiah started to become overconfident and stopped paying tribute to Assyria. This is the nature of pride. Pride tells you that you can handle everything in life. You are strong enough, smart enough, to overcome any problem. So Hezekiah rebels against the nation of Assyria. Maybe his plan would have worked, but when Assyria was knocking on his door, Hezekiah’s conviction turned weak. Instead of relying on God he attempted to solve the dilemma by paying off the ruler of Assyria a tremendous treasure. Because of this Sennacherib withdrew his army from the gates of Judah (2 Kings 18:15).
Fortunately, Hezekiah bought his way out of this problem. But Assyria was coming back. This is the nature of pride. It blows people up. At first they may be able to handle the problems that pride brings, but with time, the pride becomes too overwhelming. Any time a man or woman believes that are too talented, too holy, too powerful, too important, or too rich, God has a way of humbling them. This is what God is doing with Hezekiah. He is reminding him to rely on God and not himself. Hezekiah would have been wise to listen to the advice that the mother whale gave to her baby whale. The mother said “when you get to the top and start to “blow”, that’s when you get harpooned.” God is harpooning Hezekiah because he is head is blowing up.
The king of Assyria, Sennacherib has already taken forty-six walled cites in Judah and now he is pressing against Jerusalem. The king sends in his men to secure the terms of surrender. The negotiator states that Hezekiah has lied to the people about being delivered by the hand of God, he says that if the people surrender they would be transported to another fertile land, and finally he mocks the God of the Hebrews by saying that he is not powerful enough to deliver the people. Fortunately, Hezekiah does not blow up in pride and in his own ability, but seeks divine assistance by sending word to the prophet Isaiah. Then Hezekiah receives another letter from Sennacherib, and Hezekiah goes to the temple to pray to the Lord. But he does not request or beg the Lord on his request. But asks the Lord to deliver the people to bring honor to God and not himself: the Lord hears prayers like this.
In every person’s life there is a point of change. Are you going to rely on your own power or the Lord’s power? The prideful man will look to himself for success. The prideful individual will believe he can solve the problem through his own talents. This is the temptation of most people. And maybe we have even taught this in the church. We sometimes teach a “try harder religion.” If you have a problem with sin, try harder to overcome it. If you want your congregation to grow, try harder to make it. If you want to be successful, try hard and you can. We sometimes make Christianity into a try harder religion. If you only try harder than you will be blessed, this mindset produces pride in man. You try harder and you gain success. Well it was not the Lord, it was me. I must have done it. I was the one who tried harder and succeed. I should gain the glory. When we make religion into a “try harder mindset” we are producing spiritual pride. Look at Paul’s attitude in 1 Corinthians 15:10 “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” There are some situations in life that take divine help. You cannot solve the problem, you cannot overcome the sin, and you cannot make yourself successful. It is God within you. It is a gift of the Lord. This way if you overcome, God gets the glory and not your pride.
This is why God delivers Hezekiah from certain defeat. To prove to Hezekiah that he has to rely on God. 2 Kings 19:35-36 records “Then it happened that night that the angel of the LORD went out, and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men rose early in the morning, behold, all of them were dead. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home, and lived at Nineveh. The angel of the Lord killed 185,000 of Sennacherib’s men in one night. No man could do this, but God could.
One would hope that this story would humble Hezekiah to a point that pride would not be a problem for him any longer. But pride has a way of returning against when life is going well. So when the Babylonians arrive to congratulate Hezekiah on his victory. Hezekiah decides to show off for them. He shows these representative alls of his treasures. He is puffing himself up with their praise. Because of this choice, Babylon will return to destroy the nation of Judah. The nation of Babylon will return in 606 and 586 BC and capture the city of Jerusalem and took captives back to their capital city. Though God promised not to allow Babylon to take the city until after Hezekiah’s death, it would have been better for the people if Hezekiah did not have a pride problem. But Hezekiah’s life was filled with success and blessings. Look at the summary of his life in 2 Chronicles 32:27-30 “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, storehouses also for the produce of grain, wine and oil, pens for all kinds of cattle and sheepfolds for the flocks. And he made cities for himself, and acquired flocks and herds in abundance; for God had given him very great wealth.” The story of Hezekiah ends with Hezekiah as a rich and powerful man, and the people heading towards slavery. This is the effect of pride. Pride can become the Achilles’ heel of leaders. Most of all the bad leaders in the world fall because of pride just think about Saul, Herod, Napoleon, and Stalin.
The college football coach was questioning a high school football star who was applying for an athletic scholarship. “I can run 100 yards with full equipment in less than 10 seconds,” the boy said. “I was named outstanding defensive player in five of our games. I scored 18 touchdowns and kicked every extra point. And I was on the dean’s honor list. The coach was awed. “Do you have any weaknesses?” “Well” the youth said, “I am inclined to lie a bit.”
Pride lies to us. Satan uses pride to take down successful people. Pride tells you that you are something that you are not.
