Pride Has Deceived You

Spiritual pride is deadly, it's destructive, and just to, I'll just, I was going to get to this point in the sermon in a minute, but my personal, a real brief testimony on this issue of pride, and I've said before, and I think it was here, that I am a prideful man. So people say, well you're just arrogant, yeah, I am, I'm a prideful man working on humility every single day. If anybody says they're not prideful, they've mastered humility, watch out, run for cover.

But because it's pride comes up every, it's almost like a weed. You know those weeds you pull out, they come back stronger, and it just keeps coming. That's why spiritual disciplines are so important.

Brokenness, humility, time in God's Word, church attendance, iron sharpens irons, be open for constructive criticism. It's not a bad thing. It's very not, very not, it's not a bad thing to take constructive criticism.

So my personal testimony is this, as I began to study God's Word in 1999, 2000, I read tons of books, theology, I was just bubbling over. I had lots of time, lots of, and just, it was just, I mean I could, you know, tell off everybody and anybody, I'd love to catch a Mormon missionary, boy I'd make him feel silly, and just Jehovah's Witness, please come to my door, please come to my door. And then, but the bad thing about knowledge is it puffs up, it puffs up.

I was probably mean, meaner, mean to my wife sometimes. I was mean to other people, because you can tell them off. And my mom said to me, I think it was 2005 or 2006, she said, Shane, nobody wants to be around you anymore.

And you think I wanted to hear that right then? No. Excuses come up. I'm just passionate.

No, you're arrogant. I'm just a defender of the truth. No, you're prideful.

And God had to use that confronting, where family members like, God, he's just telling us off, and this, it's one thing to preach, here's the secret I learned. How I preach in public is not how I preach to an individual. You talk, and you converse, and you listen.

Preaching is much different, much different. You don't preach to people, you talk to them, and it was a hard balance. So, I went through the filter of pride and arrogance, and still, I struggle all the time, but God had to use that process as part of the humbling process, because you use knowledge, not to beat people up, but to encourage them.

That's the whole point of getting knowledge, and that's really where God started working my heart on this area of humility, and that's why I speak about it a lot. So I just want to encourage you, as I'm going through this, just open your heart to what God is doing. See, I'm talking to the group now that is hungry for humility.

Here's what happens when I talk about humility. Some people say, I've mastered that, he's not talking to me, I'm one of the most humble people I know. Well, I'm talking to the group of people that know this is an issue, that they are, I'm hoping you're hungry for humility, because I am.

Humility would, during worship, we would be up here at the altar saying, Lord, I need to be broken, humble before you, I'm an arrogant man, I'm an arrogant woman, whatever it is, God, humble me, and that's very healthy, because a humble heart, God will bless. A humble heart, God will anoint. The humble, he teaches his ways.

It's all about humility, and having that broken heart, and spiritual pride is deadly. It's hard to spot. You can't spot spiritual pride, because it looks good on the outside, but on the inside, it's full of dead men's bones.

Spiritual pride is ugly, it's an affront to God. God said through the prophet Obadiah, the pride of your heart has deceived you. This is interesting.

Actually, pride deceives people. The pride of your heart has deceived you. Obadiah is interesting, because it's the smallest, quickest book in the Old Testament.

Read it tonight, you'll be done very quickly. Obadiah is writing in a time in Judah's history, by this time, the nation of Israel, the northern kingdom, the southern kingdom of Judah have been broken up. Israel, the top nation, the northern kingdom has already fallen to the Assyrians, 140 years earlier.

Obadiah is writing to Judah, in the southern kingdom, and they just were overtaken by Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem, and it lays in waste. There's this group of people called the Edomites.

He's writing to the Edomites. Does that name sound familiar? It's from the lineage of Esau. If you know your Bible, Jacob and Esau had a parting of the ways.

So ever since then, these two groups literally hated each other, not unlike Ishmael and Isaac. Just brief history lesson, Isaac, the Jewish nation comes from Isaac, the Jewish people. The Arab nations come from Ishmael, and that's why there's a lot of fighting in the land, in the Middle East.

But God wrote through the prophet Obadiah, and they were laughing at Judah's destruction. These are brothers and sisters. These are brothers.

Judah, and they're laughing at their destruction. And God says, the pride of your heart has deceived you. They said they were living in the clefts, in the rocks, in the southern area of the Dead Sea.

They were living in these rocks, and they would actually help Babylon defeat Judah, their brother. And they would go back, and they said, we live in the clefts of the rock. We are protected.

We will never fall to the ground. And God said, though you build your nest as high as the eagle, I, the Lord, will destroy you. I will bring you down.

The pride of your heart has deceived you. So it puts that verse in context. That's what pride does.

It deceives us. Folks, we've got to wake up. Pride deceives us.

You got to come with a humble, broken heart. It will deceive you. Here's a wonderful example.

Some of you from West Side will remember, but it's of the story of Muhammad Ali. He was on an airplane, and the flight attendant said, Mr. Ali, please, please put your seat belt on. We're getting ready to take off.

And he wouldn't do it. He was defiant. He said, Superman don't need no seat belt.

What do you say to that? So she looked at him and said, well, Superman don't need no airplane. But did you catch? Isn't that interesting? I don't need no seat belt. If you're Superman, you don't even need an airplane.

But see, that's what pride does. What a wonderful example of arrogance. I don't need that.

I don't need worship. I don't need this message. I don't need humility.

I am God's spokesman. I'm standing for the truth. I'm just passionate.

No, you're arrogant. I'm contending. No, you're fostering division.

I'm serious about my faith. No, you're prideful. The pride of your heart has deceived you.

Well, Shane, how do I know if I'm humble? Here's a quick test. Is love and joy and peace and long-suffering and gentleness and kindness flowing out of you? Do you foster unity or do you promote division? That's the test. That's the test.

The pride test is not hard to take. It's very easy. Actually, here, it's very simple.

Ask your spouse later today. And I'm being honest. Go to your... Morgan, am I prideful? She says, yeah, you can be there.

But I like your heart. I like your humility. I thank God you take it to the Lord every day.

Ask somebody. If you don't think you're prideful, ask somebody. It'll be a wake-up call unlike any... Ask me.

I will tell you. I know. I can tell.

I can tell pretty quickly how a person carries themselves and do they talk about themselves and their accomplishments and, again, all things I've struggled with before. Because coming from that broken home that I did, barely graduating high school with dyslexia and speech and all these learning, you know, and reading's hard and all these things I've already talked about, you come and you want people to know you're not stupid. You know, you want to... Well, look what I've done.

I've wrote books. Actually, I didn't write the books. God wrote the books.

You should see the first manuscript. What a mess. My mom tore that thing up like there's no... She basically wrote a whole new book, redlined everything, but that God used that and used that to fine-tune it and fine-tune it.

And the wonderful things about the books now is I can look back and people say, oh, it's blessed me as a God. For Shane Isleman to write a book is the most ridiculous... I hated reading. I couldn't even write.

You should read my letters. When I was a teenager, I can't even spell well. It's the foolish things that confound the wise.

And people, how did you write this without a seminary degree? How did you... God. Don't you understand? That's God. Once you submit to your life to God, watch what he does.

Because then he gets all the credit. He gets all the glory. You say, if it was not for the cross of Christ, if it was not for God's grace and his work, we wouldn't have any of this.

It's very important to be humble. Here's why. Without brokenness, we are all a danger to God's people.

This is serious. Without humility and brokenness, I am a danger to you. I will hurt you, and you will hurt me, and we will hurt each other.

Have you thought about that? Without humility and brokenness, we are a danger to each other. We will hurt each other. This morning would be a good time to even start and just say, I want to work on that.

You know, those at Westside or at Leona Valley, I want to work on that. I want to build each other up. I don't want to be prideful.

I don't want to hurt people. But you have to work on it. Because without humility, you cannot worship God.

And I see the Pharisee, and it's going, well, yeah, right. No, it's true. Without humility, you cannot worship God.

Jesus said, you draw nigh unto me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me. And in vain you worship me. In vain means absent of anything significant.

And I'm concerned that people come in, worship, we've got the lyrics down, we've got correct theology, but we do not have any humility. I mean, when God is really in a place, and I'm not just talking about here. Even Westside, we've not mastered this.

I've visited a lot of different churches. When God is truly in a place, you feel it. You feel the manifest presence of God changing hearts and changing lives.

You're not in a hurry. It's hard to explain, but you can cut it with a knife. And I think that humility opens the door for that.

I think that a lot of people, myself included, can come in prideful, and we think, I'm going to worship God. And we just worship God in vain. We just, because our hearts were not engaged.

Worship is heart engagement. It's not lip. It's heart engagement.

So when we sing, desperate for more of God, we just, Lord, I'm desperate for it. Are you really? Or are we just going, I'm desperate for more of you, and I'm hungry, and I hope Shane doesn't go long again. But we think that's worship.

We think because we sang some songs, it's worship, and that's not worship. I can go show you a crack addict who's off of crack for the last 30 days, who's crying in his room without any music, without any song, and he's worshiping more than the majority of the people in this room, because that's worship. That's worship, crying out to God, you are worthy, God, you saved me.

That would change our worship. What we have here is shoulders-up worship. I don't mean Leona Valley, of course, I mean church in general.

We have head-up worship many times. In other words, my mind's engaged. I see it, but my heart's not engaged.

And one of the things I hope God does at all the churches with Westside or Leona Valley is God give us a heart of worship. Andrew Murray said that pride must die in you or nothing of heaven can live in you. Did you catch that? Pride must die in you or nothing of heaven can live in you.

So the heart test, are you hungry for humility? The biggest burden I have is for revival. In case you want to know what I'm about, it's revival. I'm sick and tired of the enemy winning.

I'm sick and tired of going to church. You got a song, you got a few announcements, you got a few more songs, you got a quick message and we're off to lunch. I mean, we're all guilty of it.

I'm not pointing fingers. And I was praying, Lord, give us revival. God, please, give our nation.

That's our only hope. The Titanic has been struck. You realize? The United States of America Titanic has hit the iceberg and we are going down.

Without a national awakening, without God awakening his people, you think Trump has the answer? No. He might help on taxes and a few things, but that's not the answer because we will still reject, we'll still embrace gay marriage, we'll still abort millions of children, we'll still get rid of God's word. We need a national awakening.

That's my heart. So in case you want to know, what's this guy about? My heart is revival. That's when people say, won't you get weared out preaching? No, please let me preach.

That's how I get built up. That's what God has called me to do. When I formed you in your mother's womb, Diane Eidelman, I was going to call you to do this.

So that's my heart. It actually kind of broke my heart because this is true. I found myself saying, Lord, bring revival to our church.

But I was not ready for the response that followed. And I don't say God spoke to me, but I believe that he can and he does sometimes. Not this audible ooh, but sometimes deep within your spirit.

You know exactly what I'm talking about. When a scripture leaps out, hits you right here and you're like, God. Or sometimes you hear, it's like, Lord, God directs us and he speaks through his word primarily.

But I felt so impressed with these words that I just grabbed a Post-it note and just started writing them down. I haven't done that very often. And I asked God for revival and I felt that he was saying this loudly and clearly, and I think it's for us today.

He said, you don't want revival. It will ruin your schedule, your dignity, your image, and your reputation as a person who is well balanced. Men will weep throughout the congregation.

Women will wail because of the travail of their own soul. Young adults will cry like children at the magnitude of their sin. My presence will be so strong that the worship team will have to cease playing.

Time will seem to stand still. You won't be able to preach because of the flood of emotions entering your own soul. You'll struggle to find words, but only find tears.

Even the most dignified and reserved among you will be broken and humbled as little children. The proud and self-righteous will not be able to stand in my presence. The doubter and the unbeliever will either run for fear or they'll fall on their knees and worship me.

There can be no middle ground. The church will never be the same again. You don't want revival.

And you know what's sad? He's right. He's right. I don't want to be labeled some charismatic fruitcake.

I don't want people laying down, people crying, what's going on in that place? But folks, that's revival. I don't know if you've ever studied revivals. I went back 300 years ago to the Welsh revivals, to the revivals in Scotland, of America.

I've read all the accounts of Evan Roberts and Hal Davis and Griffith Jones, and I love God's... And in every single case where God brings revival, the church does not look like this. The church is broken before God. Time stands still.

People are weeping. They're at the altar. You can't even preach.

I've seen fake revivals. You ever wonder why there's fake ones? The enemy will always counterfeit the original. Fake truth, it's right down the street a half mile.

Real truth. Real worship, fake worship. Real revival, fake revival.

It's not emotionalism and acting weird. When God truly breaks your heart and brings revival, and that's what I want, Lord, bring your presence here. Can you imagine the little kids crying out to God and being saved and people being set free and we're just on our faces before God or at the altar? And this is coming from a very conservative person.

You know, it was very hard for me to go, okay, isn't this manly? I mean, manly is like bench pressing 400 pounds and beating people up and drinking beer. That's manly. Worship's not manly.

But that's wrong. So I'm a very conservative person, but when God brings revival, church, it's not pretty. We're not going to sit in our pew, sing our songs and go home as if nothing happened.

You will be completely broken before God. And that's why I said you don't want revival. And that's been my prayer for three years now.

I'm still praying, God, I do. But help me. I'm a little worried here.

I mean, what is it? You know, because so many people, and I love John MacArthur, but I do not agree with him on the power of the gifting and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. I do not agree with that sensation, this view that the gifts have ceased, that the power of the Holy Spirit has ceased. But I'm also not on this camp of weirdness, you know, where you're like knocking down with their jacket, and there they go, boop, boop, boop, boop.

I mean, that's mockery. I mean, when God visits a people, he visits them in a powerful way. I remember there was a preacher called Robert Murray McShaney.

He died at age 29, but he was one of Scotland's most anointed preachers. When he would get up to the pulpit, people would start weeping. People say that's fanaticism.

No, that's a man who spent six hours every morning in prayer. That's a byproduct. So you can't get away from weeping and worship when you truly feel the Spirit of God, because your heart breaks.

It's all I can do sometimes to not break down, and that's hard for me, because men don't cry. My dad said, boy, you don't cry. You never cry.

Get up. No matter what happens, you break your leg. Don't cry.

Your spouse cheats on you, never returns. Don't cry. Don't cry.

That's feelings. Well, Daddy, I'm hurting inside. I've got to cry.

I've got to let it out. That's why God has given us that ability. Let it out.

Let the tears flow. How often does God say, come to me with sackcloth and with ashes and with tears and with a broken and contrite heart? That type of sacrifice I will not despise, but that's what we don't want to give. Don't you see the whole point? The sermon's over now.

I can't even finish it. That's what God wants from us, that heart, that broken, pliable heart that he's going to visit and bring revival, but we have to say, Lord, I want it. I want it.

God, I want it. It's not pretty. I don't know.

Honestly, I don't really know what it looks like. But I've been in places. I remember I spoke at the Rock Church in San Diego at the men's gathering in the mountains.

Three hundred and thirty guys there. And it was, I just, you could feel, I almost couldn't keep preaching. And I was supposed to go up, and I was just crying in the back.

Man, we're back there. I'm like, I don't know what's going on. I have no clue.

I'm remembering. I go back to when I was seventeen, snorting crystal meth, getting drunk, and then going home and injecting steroids, and how I even got up and got where I was, and now I'm speaking to men. Oh, it just broke me, and I couldn't get up, and I thought, I've got to preach.

But from that moment forward, from that moment forward, the preaching changed. There was a mighty filling of the Holy Spirit. If you don't like that word, it's biblical.

It was a mighty infusion, an anointing, a filling, an unction, whatever you want to call it. There was a difference. In that meeting, 150 men came forward on the altar.

The place changed. We couldn't get out two hours later. And God, I want that again.

That's where real change takes place. Woe be to the church that is normal. We've got to follow this routine.

We've got to get our services down to an hour for the next service. We've got parking problems. Who cares? Have we ever stopped to consider that we might have offended God? We're so worried about offending everybody else.

Have we ever stopped to consider that we may have offended God? I've been at Westside Christian Fellowship for a whole year. I let this bother me. People say, well, we've got to finish at 7, so we get our kids.

Oh, yeah, you're right, okay. And I succumb to that. I'll admit it.

Okay, I've got to hurry. They've got to go get their kids. It's late.

They're hungry. And I never felt good about it. Now, granted, we need a schedule.

We need, you know, I'm not being stupid, but I am being realistic that sometimes it's okay to seek God with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your mind, because everything else hangs on that. So I want to start the movement here from the pulpit and saying, I want to humble myself. I want to, if there's anybody in here that I've hurt or I've offended, I apologize.

I want God to, whether a vote is yes or no, I could care less. These two churches should be friends, not enemies. Where did that come from? No matter what happens, it should be brothers and sisters in the Christ building each other up, encouraging us.

So it starts from the pulpit. If it starts here, I'll be the first to admit it, that I want to get back on the track of humility and surrendering my will to the Lord's will and saying, God, whatever you want. Whatever you want.

Before I have the worship team come up, I just want to read one Scripture that is the key, really. I don't know where you're at and you walk with the Lord. I don't know if you're a seeker.

I don't know where you're at, but this Scripture has been on my heart all week. Isaiah 55, 6-7, seek the Lord while he may be found. See, there becomes a point when the time clock is over.

There is a point, men or women, there is a point where the time clock is over, when you can no longer seek God. And I wonder how many people later on in their years and they're dying on their deathbed saying, oh, God, if I could have just sought you the last 40 years, what happened? What happened? There's a time. The time is now.

Always the time is... God never says, seek me next month. It's always right now, immediately. Seek the Lord while he may be found.

Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy on him.

And to our God, he will abundantly pardon. Four words, seek, call, forsake, and return. Seek the Lord.

Call upon him. See, seek, I've talked about before, it's like losing a child. You're seeking God with all your heart.

If somebody came in here and said, we can't find your child. You think it's that easy to be okay. We'll wait until Shane's over.

No way. You would run out that door and guess what? The church would stop service and we would run out that door to find that child. That's the word in the Hebrew language, to find something valuable that is missing.

That's seeking God with all your heart and then you call upon him. You say, Lord, I need you. And then you amend your ways and you return to God.

That's the solution. Every single problem in this room can be... That is the foundation. That is the solution.

So let's end on that. I'll just have the worship team come up and you're not going to be able to hear part two. So you have to get it online.

But I would just encourage you guys, during this time of prayer and worship, the elders are going to open up those side exits. And this is interesting. This is people like, I don't want to go pray with people.

Who cares? Who cares if people see us go back there? I'm going to go back there. I'm going to pray. I'm going to have the elders pray with me.

Keep us humble. Keep my heart humble. Lord, keep this brokenness in my heart because I know it doesn't want to stay there.

So we're going to pray. The elders are going to pray. Why shouldn't most of this room be over there praying and contending for their marriages? Is there anybody in this room that doesn't know somebody who's on their way to hell? I guarantee everybody in this room knows somebody who's on their way to hell.

Why aren't we praying for them? Why aren't we interceding? Why aren't we contending for them? I mean, actually, we shouldn't go over time with worship and preaching. We should go over time with prayer. Hey, we've got to turn the lights off.

We've got to get people out of here. Let's stop praying. That should be a problem.

But it's not a problem. Rarely do people pray. And that moves the hand of God.

Prayer moves the hand of God. E.M. Bowne said, when faith ceases to pray, it ceases to live. That's why people are not living spiritually is because they're not on their knees crying out to God.