You Ain't All That

Everyone knows that the lion is the king of the jungle. And they are very prideful. In fact a group of lions are called a pride. One day the lion being filled with pride decided to make sure all the others knew it. He was so confident that he by-passed the smaller animals and went straight to the panther.

"Who is the king of the jungle?" the lion pride fully asked. The panther replied, "Why you are, of course" The lion gave a mighty roar of approval.

Next, he pride fully asked the tiger, "Who is the king of the jungle?" The tiger quickly responded, "Everyone knows that you are, mighty lion”

Next on the list was the elephant. The lion pride fully faced the elephant and addressed his question, "Who is the king of the jungle?"

At first, the elephant ignored him. So the lion roared, “Who is the king of the jungle?” Now this particular lion did not know scripture very well so he hadn’t read Proverbs 13:10 “Pride leads to conflict; those who take advice are wise.” The elephant immediately grabbed the lion with his trunk.

Nor had the lion read Proverbs 16:18 “Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall.” The elephant whirled him around in the air five or six times and slammed him into a tree. Then he pounded him onto the ground several times, dunked him under water in a nearby lake, and finally dumped him out on the shore.

As the lion--beaten, bruised, and battered--struggled to his feet in front of all the other animals I would guess he wished he had read Proverbs 11:2 “Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.”

The animals watched as the lion stood before the elephant and waited to see what his reaction would be. He looked at the elephant and whined, "Look, just because you don’t know the answer is no reason for to get mean about it!" He hadn’t read

Proverbs 29:23 “Pride ends in humiliation, while humility brings honor.”

Let’s talk about pride and what it is. In Hebrew pride had mean meanings that was best explained as examples. Pride was much like an ocean wave. Pride was akin to a surging wave breaking over rocks with force and pounding the shore. It was a picture of waves in the midst of a storm. Relentless and damaging. It was a type of pride that was destructive as each prideful moment becoming greater. The word also referred to a tallness, like a lush bush that was growing upward. Pride grew steadily everyday, ever reaching new heights of self-exaltation, climbing to block out the sunlight from all the other plants under its branches. It was destructive also, robbing the other plants of their nutrition.

In Ezekiel we see a picture that many scholars believe to be Satan before his fall. The Bible says he was the model of perfection, full of wisdom and exquisite in beauty. He was in Eden, the garden of God. His clothing was adorned with every precious stone all beautifully crafted just for him and set in the finest gold, given to him on the day he was created.

He was ordained and anointed to be the mighty angelic guardian of Eden. He had access to the holy mountain of God

and walked among the stones of fire. He was blameless in all he did from the day he was created until the day evil was found in him.

What was that evil found in him?

Ezekiel 28:17 “Your heart was filled with pride because of all your beauty. Your wisdom was corrupted by your love of splendor. So I threw you to the ground and exposed you to the curious gaze of kings.”

Satan, whom God says was a model of perfection, full of wisdom, and exquisite in beauty, allowed pride to enter into his inner being. This pride became destructive, desiring to destroy God’s relationship with his creation so that he could gain worship. This pride grew like a bush, blocking out the truth from man and leading him to sin, thus robbing him of his spiritual nutrition

Where did this pride come from? It was placed there by God as a test. So God will test us?

Moses wrote to the children of Israel, Deuteronomy 8:2 “Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands.”

Yes, God will test you to expose your character, your weaknesses. He does it to expose your failings, to humble you, so you will repent. He exposed Satan’s weakness of pride. But rather than repent he became prideful in his beauty and in his role of the guardian of Eden, thus his wisdom became corrupted. Because of this, he was banished and thrown to earth.