From His Heart

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There are some sins that are worse than others. But what's the big one? Here's Pastor Jeff Shreve.

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Listen, I want to ask you to search your heart to see, is there pride lurking within me?

And ask God, Lord, I want to humble myself before you, before your word. I want to get my life right.

There's an opportunity, there's a window to get right with God. Don't make him humble you.

Humble yourself under his mighty hand and he'll exalt you at the proper time.

Speaker 3

There is treasure. There is blessed love. There is hope that you always dream Love. He can heal every scars. Real truth, real love, real hope from his heart.

Speaker 1

The Bible says God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. But when it comes to pride in the lives of his followers, God takes a hard line against it. He desires to bless you when you are humble. However, if you choose to allow pride to rule in your life, humiliation is sure to follow.

This is from his heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve. Thank you for joining us today as we explore this difficult issue of deciding between humility or humiliation. And that's the title of the lesson, and it's part of the six-message series, "How to Live the Christian Life in an Unchristian World." You can download a free MP3 of this lesson when you go to promisheart.org and click the Listen link.

But right now, open your Bible to the fourth chapter of the Book of Daniel. Here's Pastor Jeff to begin the message, pointedly titled "Humility or Humiliation."

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Now, in our study in the Book of Daniel, which we've called this series "Shine: How to Live the Christian Life in an Unchristian World," we're going to see in chapter four a very interesting chapter about the conversion of the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful man on the earth, was an egotist to the nth degree. He was so stuffed full of himself. He's a guy that had some weird dreams. He had dreams in chapter two, where God spoke to this guy through dreams. Well, he speaks to him again through dreams.

And it's not a message for the nations; it's a message for Nebuchadnezzar that has implications for you and me today and for people who have ever lived. It's a message about pride and humility. If you're walking in pride, going your own way, then God says, "Okay, here's the deal. I can't work with pride, so I have a plan. Plan A is you choose to humble yourself. You choose humility. Now, if you don't choose humility, God has plan B, and plan B is that he chooses humiliation."

Now here's the question: Which plan are you choosing in your life? How are you walking today? Are you walking in pride or are you walking in humility? We're going to find that out as we look at the life of Nebuchadnezzar. I want you to notice three insights today from Daniel, Chapter four. Such a key chapter.

Insight number one: God wants us to hear and heed the message of warning. To hear it and to heed it. Daniel listens to the king tell his dream. When Daniel hears the dream, he gets the interpretation, and it alarms him because he sees what's getting ready to come upon King Nebuchadnezzar. King Nebuchadnezzar says, "Don't hold back, Daniel. Tell me what it is."

And he said, "Oh, I wish this interpretation would apply to your enemies and not to you." Here's the thing, King: You're the tree. You're the one that's grown so tall and so luxurious and so abundant. You're the monarch of monarchs, the king of kings. Babylon is the nation of nations, ruling the whole Earth. And God is getting ready to cut you down. You're going to lose your mind, and you're going to be driven from mankind, and you're going to be living like a beast for seven years.

And it is going to happen to you until you understand, verse 25, that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever he wishes. He says to him, verse 26, "And in that it was commanded to leave the stump with the roots of the tree. Your kingdom will be assured to you after you recognize that it is heaven that rules. You don't rule, Nebuchadnezzar. Heaven rules. And you need to learn that lesson."

And so this is coming upon you. Then Daniel says to him in verse 27, "King Nebuchadnezzar, please accept my advice. Stop sinning and do what is right. Break from your wicked past and be merciful to the poor. Perhaps then you will continue to prosper." Daniel, with love in his heart and concern for the king, no doubt Nebuchadnezzar knew that. He said, "Listen, king, here's my advice."

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You.

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You need to repent. You need to do what's right. Hey, God may be merciful to you, and so who knows? So you need to get your life right, because this is coming upon you. And you have a window of opportunity now to do something about it. You need to remember this about God. God is very compassionate and very gracious. And even when God says judgment is coming, if people will repent, so often God relents from what he said he was going to do. The scripture says this about God: Isaiah, chapter 30, verse 18. The Lord longs to be gracious to you, and he waits on high to have compassion on you. Daniel said, "Nebuchadnezzar, listen, I know God. And God is gracious and merciful. And if you'll get your life right, who knows what he'll do? Because he's skewed to the good and he's skewed to mercy and grace and forgiveness."

And God responds to repentance even when he gives you a dream, which was really a nightmare, and he gives you that and shows you that he's getting ready to cut you down, pal. You big tree. And because you're so stuffed full of yourself, if you'll repent, God so often relents. Hey, I don't know what's going on in your life. I don't know what you're participating in. But listen, any sin that you're participating in is a sin that has a foundation of pride. It's you going your own way, doing your own thing. God has given you a message through me today: turn around. You're on thin ice, pal.

So the first insight God wants us to hear and heed is the message of warning. Insight number two: we tend to presume upon the mercy and grace of God. Now, here's the deal, okay? Daniel stands up, courage tells the king, "King, you need to repent." And Nebuchadnezzar listened to him and he pondered it, and he put it off. Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, and months turned into a full year. And he didn't do anything, and nothing happened to him. See, this is what we do. We presume upon God's grace. Because God, things don't happen just like that. And he is just stuffed full of himself. "Look what I have built. Look what I have done." But the problem was God's patience had run out.

And it says in verse 31, "While the word was in the king's mouth, a voice came from heaven saying, 'King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared. Sovereignty has been removed from you.'" Bam. When God's judgment falls, it falls like a hammer. Now, God is patient. But listen, the thing about God's patience is that it doesn't last forever. His love knows no limit, but his patience does have a limit. Now, the Hebrews would say this about God: they would say that God is slow to anger. The Lord, the Lord compassionate and gracious, slow to anger. That's what God said about himself. That's on his resume: slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth.

Slow to anger literally means you're long in the nose. And this is why they called that long in the nose. Because they said, "Hey, when a person gets angry, when an animal gets angry, you can tell because the nose begins to flare, the breathing starts to change, so you want to keep your distance." God is long in the nose. It takes him a long time before he starts to flare his nostrils, before he starts to breathe heavy. But eventually he does, because his patience doesn't last forever. And Nebuchadnezzar tried the patience of God. And God said, "Bam, that's it. Sovereignty is removed from you, Nebuchadnezzar. You think you're all that in a bag of chips. You've just lost your mind. You're gonna live like an animal."

And Nebuchadnezzar, you know, there's a medical term for this where people start thinking. They start living like an ox or like some kind of an animal. It's been documented how this has happened before. And, you know, the dream said that he was going to be encased about this root, was going to have a band of iron and bronze around it. Some people have interpreted that and say, "Well, you know what happened? They took Nebuchadnezzar and they put him in some private area in Babylon, like in a park, in a zoo where nobody could come in to see him. But he was eating grass, and he was living like a wild animal for seven years."

Why seven years? Because he's stubborn. It took him a long time to recognize that the Lord is the one that rules over mankind. Hey, God's judgment, when it falls, it falls like a hammer. Samson's another good example. You know, Samson, the Old Testament strongman, the guy that they... I mean, he whipped a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. This guy had incredible strength. But all the strength came from God. And Samson started to think that all the strength came from himself. When he revealed the secret of his great strength, which was the third strand of his Nazarite vow, which was his hair that he wasn't supposed to cut, he violated that vow and told Delilah his secret.

Then she shaved his head while he slept. And she had the Philistines come. She said, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you." And this is what Samson said: "I will go out as at other times and free myself." And he did not know that the Lord had left him. You think you're strong? You're on your own, big boy. He had no strength, and those Philistines came upon him. If you watch the Bible series, they showed how they gouged out the eyes, where they would just press until the eyes would burst and the blood would just run down their face. That's what they did to Samson. They took him to Philistia, and he became a grinder in the mill.

Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. Some of you are living in immorality and you're thinking nobody knows you have this secret life of pornography or whatever it is. Hey, listen. God sees and God knows. And you have an opportunity to get those things right. But if you don't get them right, you're just gonna keep treading on the ice as it gets thinner and thinner and thinner, and finally, it's gonna break.

Insight number three: not only do we tend to presume upon the mercy and grace of God, but God works to teach us the valuable lessons of humility. I want you to notice four lessons as we read verses 34 to the end of the chapter. Nebuchadnezzar said this: "But at the end of that period, those seven years, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored him who lives forever. For his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing. He does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And no one can ward off his hand or say to him, 'What hast thou done?'"

At that time, my reason returned to me, and my majesty and splendor were restored to me for the glory of my kingdom. And my counselors and my nobles began seeking me out. So I was re-established in my sovereignty, and surpassing greatness was added to me. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt, and honor the King of heaven. For all his works are true and his ways just. And he's able to humble those who walk in pride. That's Nebuchadnezzar's testimony. God will break you down. He's able to humble those who walk in pride. How do I know? Nebuchadnezzar says, because he did that in my life. And now I praise him.

See, God doesn't do that because he wants to destroy you. He does it because he wants to win you back. And he won Nebuchadnezzar to himself. Through the humiliation, Nebuchadnezzar learned some lessons that God wants us all to know and to learn. Number one: God is the one and only God. He's the one and only God. Remember in chapter three, Nebuchadnezzar, when he sees God deliver Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace, he thinks, "There's no God like Jehovah." And now in chapter four, he sings, "There's no God but Jehovah. He is the God, the Most High God." All these other gods in Babylon, they're nothing. It's God who is God.

In Isaiah, chapter 44, the Lord says, "Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides me." He's it. You and I, lesson number two, are lowly servants who owe everything to him. Nebuchadnezzar had to learn that lesson. Man, so many of us have to learn that lesson. So many preachers need to learn that lesson. Because it's easy as a preacher to start thinking you're really something. Paul said, "When any man thinks he's something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself." Man, God is everything, and you and I are nothing.

And that's what he says in verse 35: "All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing." Isaiah, chapter 40, the prophet says, "All the nations are as nothing before him. They are regarded by him as less than nothing and meaningless." He says, "If you put all the nations on a scale, they're just nothing compared to God." We have to always remember that. Hey, you know what the Bible says? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and it's the beginning of knowledge. Fear of the Lord. That's the ABCs. You wanna start learning a language, you gotta start learning the alphabet. You gotta learn the ABCs.

What's the ABCs of this thing called theology? The fear of the Lord. God is everything, and you and I are nothing. So you remember who God is, and you remember who you are. And Paul said this: "I am what I am by the grace of God." He's everything, and I can do nothing without him. And I've learned that to fear the Lord. I love what Solomon says. The wisest man who ever lived. At the end of the book of Ecclesiastes, he said, "The conclusion, when all has been heard, fear God and keep his commandments. Because this applies to every person. For the Lord will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil." Hey, fear him. Recognize that he is God. Wow.

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You are God.

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Awesome God, mighty God. There's nothing that you can't do. You're the God who spoke the worlds into existence. You recognize who he is and who you are. As David said when he became king, "Who am I, O Lord, that thou hast brought me this far?" I'm a nothing, nobody, zero. I was a little shepherd out in the fields of Judea. And you raised me up to be the king of your people. Who am I, O Lord? And you keep yourself humble before God. Cause you know he's everything and you're nothing.

And Nebuchadnezzar learned that lesson, and it was a hard lesson for him to learn. Lesson number three: God is worthy of your praise and honor and total dependence. I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt, and honor the king of Heaven. For all his works are true and his ways just. God is worthy of all your praise. He's worthy of all your honor. Listen, he's worthy of your obedience.

Remember what we said. What is pride? Pride is you going your own way. Pride is not necessarily saying you shake your fist in the face of God. Pride is just you saying, "Yes, God, I'm gonna. I think I'm gonna do this one. I think I'm gonna go in this direction." Pride is confronted with a sin. And you say, "Well, I know God doesn't want me to do that, but I'd really like to do that. And so I think I'm gonna go my way." That's pride. And then you participate in that sin, whatever that sin is, and so you compound it. But the foundation of that sin is pride— you wanting to do your own thing.

And listen, God wants you to learn. Hey, I am worthy of praise and honor and obedience. And my ways are just. So when you run into that, well, here's God's way. He tells me to not have sex before I get married. He tells me to not have sex outside of marriage. He tells me that marriage is a union between a man and a woman. He tells me that homosexuality is wrong and it's sin. That is what God says. But here is what I think, and here is my way. And here is what I want to do.

And so when my way trumps God's way, then you've become God. You're sitting on the throne. You're calling the shots. We need to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God and say, "God, I may not understand it all, but you're God. And my response to you is to get in line and to do what you say." You're the king, the king of kings and Lord of lords.

Listen, in every human heart, there's a cross and there's a throne. When self is on the throne, Christ is on the cross, and you do what the scripture says in the book of Hebrews: you crucify afresh the Son of God, and you trample underfoot the blood of his covenant and you count it as unclean. That's when you're gonna call the shots. You're on the throne, he's on the cross, but you can get off the throne. And when you get off the throne and put yourself on the cross and you die to self, then Jesus sits on the throne of your life. And then he fills the life with joy and peace and power. And it's not your will, but his that you do.

Hey, he's worthy. Total dependence and total obedience. And fourthly, God rewards those who walk in humility. When Nebuchadnezzar humbled himself before God, God restored him and God blessed him and God rewarded him. Proverbs 22:4 says that the reward of humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, honor, and life.

Where are you today? I mean, be honest. Just as we close out, where are you today? You plan A, plan B? You walking in pride, thinking, "Well, you know, I mean, nothing's happened to me so far." Yeah, nothing happened to Nebuchadnezzar until month 12. God's given you an opportunity. Pride will ruin your life. Will ruin my life. God is no respecter of persons.

Now, listen, we have a choice today as we close out: Plan A, humility; Plan B, humiliation. Listen, our nation is choosing plan B because we won't humble ourselves before God. We've kicked God out. We say, "We don't want your will. We don't want your word. We don't want your ways." And God says, "All right, then. But there's a reason I tell you not to go in this direction." Man, we need to be praying. We need to get our own lives right, and we need to be praying because this nation is going down the tubes unless God's people start bombarding the gates of heaven and say, "God, you need to intervene."

Listen, I want to ask you to do business with God right now, to search your heart to see if there is pride lurking within me and ask God, "Lord, I want to humble myself before you, before your word. I want to get my life right." There's an opportunity, there's a window to get right with God. Don't make him humble you. Humble yourself under his mighty hand and he'll exalt you at the proper time.

Speaker 1

Make sure that you're with us tomorrow for the conclusion to the message "Humility or Humiliation." It's from Pastor Jeff Shreve's series "How to Live the Christian Life in an Unchristian World." Having a good life while being a Christian in today's world is not easy. There are opportunities and temptations all over the place to compromise everywhere.

Would you like to learn how to tear down the stronghold that's holding you back from a deep relationship with Christ and a strong testimony? Maybe it's the stronghold of pride in your life. By taking that captive, you can walk in freedom. Would you like to go deeper in understanding God's hope and plan for you?

Well, this month Pastor Jeff has been teaching us about the benefits of obedience to our Lord and His Word. And that is powerfully taught in a new six-lesson series called "This Is War: Overcoming the World, the Flesh, and the Devil." This series is also our gift of thanks to you for your support to From His Heart this month of any amount. To get yours on a USB flash drive, CDs, DVDs, or MP3 digital download, call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-BIBLE) or go online to fromhisheart.org to request the series "This Is War."

Hey, you know, you don't have to live in defeat. You don't have to have pride run your life. God will equip you to win. And when you make a gift to From His Heart this month, you're helping us share that good news with people around the world. Again, call 866-40-BIBLE to make your gift of any amount or go to fromhisheart.org.

We're out of time for this Wednesday edition of From His Heart, but we hope that you'll be able to join us tomorrow for part two of "Humility or Humiliation." That's when Pastor Jeff Shreve will open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope. From His Heart.

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There is truth. There is bless, there is hope that you always bring love. He can heal every scar. So real truth, real love real from his heart.

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From His Heart is the listener-supported broadcast ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve, speaking the truth in love to a lost and hurting world.

Remember, no matter what, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

Find out more. Go to fromisheart.org.