Pride Comes Before The Fall
Lessons from the stairway to Heaven
Genesis 11:1-9
Intro: A lady said to her doctor: "Doctor, take a look at me. When I woke up this morning, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my hair all wiry and frazzled up, my skin was all wrinkled and pasty, my eyes were blood-shot and bugging out, and I had this corpse-like look on my face! What's wrong with me, Doctor?" The doctor looked her over for a couple of minutes, then calmly said, "Well, I can tell you one thing... there isn't anything wrong with your eyesight."
. We all want to take a little pride in how we look don’t we?
. Pride seems to be in our DNA .
. In the comic strip peanuts, one day Linus is talking things over with Charlie Brown. He explains to him: “When I get big, I’m going to be a humble, little country doctor. I’ll live in the city, see, and every morning I’ll get up, climb into my sports car and zoom into the country! Then I’ll start healing people.... I’ll heal everybody for miles around!” Then in the last frame he winds it up, “I’ll be a world-famous, humble, little country doctor!”
. The desire to be world famous and humble seems to be an oxy-moron doesn’t it?
. One man said he owed his success to something learned from his Dominick rooster. That rooster was a powerful fighter. He could fly higher and cut deeper than any other rooster in the neighborhood. But he often lost fights against weaker roosters. His trouble was that right in the middle of a fight, he’d stop to crow. Any time we stop to crow about ourselves in life we’re headed for certain trouble.
. Pride always cometh before the fall.
. We are back in Genesis this morning.
. Chapter 11, as we look at the story of The Tower of Babel
. Genesis 11:1-9:
1At one time all the people of the world spoke the same language and used the same words.
2As the people migrated to the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there.
3They began saying to each other, “Let’s make bricks and harden them with fire.” (In this region bricks were used instead of stone, and tar was used for mortar.)
4Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.”
5But the LORD came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building.
6“Look!” he said. “The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them!
7Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.”
8In that way, the LORD scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city
.9That is why the city was called Babel, because that is where the LORD confused the people with different languages. In this way he scattered them all over the world.
. As we look at this story, what stands out more than anything else is the pride that had developed within the community and people.
.The people had migrated into the region of Babylonia and there they had established themselves.
. Things must have been going along pretty well because pride reared its ugly head.
.Look at verses 3&4 again:
3They began saying to each other, “Let’s make bricks and harden them with fire.” (In this region bricks were used instead of stone, and tar was used for mortar.)
4Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.”
. The KJV translation reads:
4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
. Let us make a name for ourselves.
. They were in direct conflict with God’s command to them.
. Remember, God told Noah and his children to be fruitful and multiply, they wanted to build a city, a tower that would reach to the heavens and stay right where they were in direct disobedience to God.
. If we can become great, we can be equal with God. We can build a tower, a stairway into the heavens. Into the domain of God.
. You see that’s what happens when pride takes over, it becomes all about us and our accomplishments.
. God saw that and said, this aint happening, your pride is going to be your downfall.
. He came down and looked around and said look at what they are doing. Look at the pride and arrogance and depravity.
. They think that they can build a tower to get into the heavens.
. Look at verses 5&6 again.
. 5But the LORD came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building.
6“Look!” he said. “The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them!
. Look at their disobedience, they have all banded together in their disobedience. If I allow this to go on, their disobedience and depravity will have no limits.
. If they will not do what I told them voluntarily, I will do it for them.
. Look at what He did in verses 7&8.
7Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.”
8In that way, the LORD scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city
. God miraculously made them speak different languages therefore making it impossible for them to work together and scattered them throughout the world by their language.
. Pride was the downfall of Babel.
. Pride has been the downfall of many people.
. Dr. Seuss wrote a poem titled “The Places You Will Go”, here is a portion of that poem.
. “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.”
. Dr Seuss is trying to instill into our children a sense potential, a sense that they can be successful if they work hard and use their heads.
. All of that is true but many carry that same attitude all through life.
. They are successful and believe that it is all about them and who they are and who they have become and how successful they are is on them and them alone.
. Their pride will not allow them to acknowledge that there is a God who directs our paths.
. You see, pride affects us in many ways.
. Pride will affect our view of life, just like it did the people of Babel.
. They said “ let us make a name for ourselves”.
. Many spend their whole life trying to make a name for themselves.
. Taking pride in their accomplishments or their appearance.
.You see, pride changes our focus in life. It affects our priorities.
. Abraham Lincoln had this to say about pride.
. In a speech made in 1863, he said, "We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."
. Our pride drives us to this attitude of self sufficiency that says we do not need God.
. That is what happened at Babel, they thought themselves to be equal with God.
. Pride is a subtle thing that will sneak up on us. It does not appear overnight. It is born in years of small accomplishments that create in us an attitude of superiority.
. One person observed this about pride.
. “Pride is so subtle that if we aren’t careful we’ll be proud of our humility. When this happens our goodness becomes badness. Our virtues become vices. We can easily become like the Sunday School teacher who, having told the story of the Pharisee and the publican, said, ‘Children, let’s bow our heads and thank God we are not like the Pharisee!”
. Pride comes before the fall when we focus more on things below rather than on things above.
. When we are more concerned with earthly things than we are with Heavenly things.
. Paul wrote this to the believers in Colosse in Colossians 3:1-4
. 1Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand.
2Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.
3For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.
4And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.
. The people of Babel had gotten their priorities out of whack.
. In their pride and arrogance, they focused on the city they could build, the tower they could construct that would take them to the heavens.
. Christians and churches must be careful that they don’t focus on things of this world, personal wealth and fame for individual or buildings or facilities for churches.
. They, we, must focus on things that are eternal, things that matter for eternity, not just the things here on Earth.
. D.L. Moody the noted evangelist and founder of the Moody Bible Institute, sais this about pride.
. “I believe firmly that the moment our hearts are emptied of pride and selfishness and ambition and everything that is contrary to God’s law, the Holy Spirit will fill every corner of our hearts.
But if we are full of pride and conceit and ambition and the world, there is no room for the Spirit of God. We must be emptied before we can be filled.”
. If we are not careful, pride will take the place of God in our lives.
. We must be emptied of our pride before we can be filled.
. More than anything else though, pride must be stripped away in order for salvation.
. Through the conviction of the Holy Spirit, we must realize that without God, we are nothing but a person separated from their creator by their sin.
. We must empty ourselves of this pride and arrogance in thinking that we control our eternity.
. That we are in control of our eternal destiny.
.Through their pride and arrogance, the people of Babel thought that they could reach God. They were looking for a gateway to God. A gateway to Heaven.
. There is only one gateway into Heaven, Only one doorway and it is entered through humility.
. Jesus said that the gate to salvation was narrow.
. Religion will not bring salvation.
. Religion is man trying to reach God. Christianity is God reaching down to people through the person of Jesus Christ.
. King Solomon wrote, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is the way of death."
. Pride will lead you to look at the world’s view of salvation.
.Pride will make you look at salvation from the view of the people of Babel.
.True salvation is found through humility, not pride.
. Pride comes before the Fall.
. Have you humbled yourself this morning and turned your heart to God through Jesus Christ?
. Invitation
*** To my Christian brothers and sisters, thank you for taking the time to read this sermon. I ask that you take another second and score this for me. I am always open to feedback so that I can continue to grow in the proclamation of God’s word.
May God bless you as you continue to strive to walk worthy of His calling.
Sources: The Holy Bible, NLT
Illustrations from sermon central
