Pride Before and After the Fall - Pastor Happy Caldwell - September 27th, 2026

Isaiah 14 with me, if you would please.

I don't know that my message tonight is going to match the beautiful song that Jeannie sang, but this is what I feel led to share with you, and then I've got a testimony to give you at the end of the message.

The title of my message tonight is Pride Before and After the Fall.

Pride and after the fall.

So let's go to before.

Let's go to Isaiah and let's pick up what Isaiah said about Satan.

So we can get a little history here.

Isaiah 14, and let's go to verse 12.

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning?

Art thou cut down to the ground which did weaken the nations?

For you've said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven.

I will exalt my throne against the stars of God.

I will sit also upon the mountain of the congregation and the sides of the north.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.

I will be like the Most High.

He had eye problems.

Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

They that see thee shall narrowly look upon you and consider you saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble that did shake kingdoms?

Now go over to Ezekiel and chapter 28.

Ezekiel chapter 28, and let's follow this story about Lucifer.

Ezekiel 28 · chapter mention

Ezekiel 28.

And I want to just interject this here.

Most of you will know.

But in Ezekiel 28, it's it's addressing an earthly king, the king of Tyrus.

And this comes under what I call the law of reference.

There is an earthly man that's being addressed, king of Tyrus.

But he's also addressing the spirit, who is Satan, Lucifer, behind him.

Paul tells us in Ephesians that we don't war against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, wicked spirits.

So keep that in mind, and uh let's go over to verse 11.

Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, take up lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, thus saith the Lord God, thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, perfect in beauty.

Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God.

So you'll see that it's clearly talking about Satan a little bit later.

He's not talking about an earthly ruler.

Every precious stone was your covering, the Sardis, the topaz, the diamond, the barrel, the onyx, the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, the carbuncle, the gold, the workmanship of your tablets and your pipes was prepared in you in the day that you were created.

You are the anointed cherub that covereth.

That's referring to Lucifer.

He was one of the three archangels.

I've set you so.

You were upon the holy mountain of God.

You've walked up and down the midst of the stones of fire, you were perfect in the ways from the day that you were created until iniquity was found in you.

The multitude of your merchandise, they have filled the midst of you with violence.

You have sinned, therefore I will cast you as profane out of the mountain of God.

I will destroy you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

Why?

Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty.

You have corrupted your wisdom by reason of brightness.

I will cast you to the ground, I will lay you before kings that they may behold you.

You have defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitudes of your iniquities, by the iniquity of your traffic.

Therefore I will bring forth a fire from the midst of you, it will devour you, and will bring you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold you.

I don't know if you ever heard of Bill Weast.

He's a young man that had an experience with God, second to no experience I've ever heard.

We had him at the church one time.

He he went to hell.

Now, Brother Hagin had that similar experience, but Bill Weist went there, and uh the Lord told him he wanted to share this, and that's what he does today.

He still travels and tells people what hell is like.

And he said he came up to a woman that was in uh a prison, like a jail cell, bars, and she was screaming.

And please help me, get me out of here.

I don't belong here.

Help me, help me, help me.

And he said I felt compassion for her, but I couldn't do anything about it.

So he said, the angel came up to me and I said, What's going on with this woman?

She says that she's uh loves God, and and the angel said, Yes, she says that, but she doesn't.

She was um in a she was a beauty pageant contestant, she was amiss something.

And said uh she was beautiful, but she does not know Jesus.

She's not born again, and she's committed all kinds of sins and whatever, and that's why she's here.

So he went back to her and he said, ma'am, I'm sorry, I can't help you.

I'm blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And when he finished, she blasted him with profanities and cursed him and cussed him and whatever.

And the angel said, See, her heart is not right.

She's beautiful.

Lucifer was beautiful.

But her heart was not right, and that's what God looks at.

Now, let's go back to Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Now that we know a little history about a Lucifer, and by the way, I'm sorry to tell some of you there is no there is no archangel named uh Michelangelo, or there is no, you know, I I stand amazed at how people get these things.

I don't know where they get them from.

I don't know whether they make them up or not.

There's no there's only three angels Lucifer, Michael, and Gabriel.

Okay, Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

And let's look at verse one.

And the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.

And he said to the woman, Hath God said you shall not eat every tree of the garden?

And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said, You shall not eat it, neither shall you touch it lest you die.

Now that's not a complete honest statement.

He didn't say anything about touching it.

And the serpent said unto the woman, You shall not surely die.

That's a direct contradiction against what God said.

For God knows that the day you eat thereof, your eyes will be opened.

You'll be as God's, knowing good and evil.

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave unto her husband with her to eat.

So Adam was not off naming bugs, he was there with her.

And the eyes of them both were open, and they knew that they were naked, and they sowed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.

The three temptations that Satan offered Adam and Eve, the same three temptations that he offered Jesus in the wilderness, and we'll read that in Luke 4.

The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

She saw that the fruit was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise.

Now, for the sake of time, I'm going to condense all the other scriptures that refer to Satan, who wanted to be God.

And over in Thessalonians, excuse me, it's Paul says, writes to the Thessalonicans and says, Lucifer, Satan, and they give him a whole bunch of names in Revelation 7, the serpent, the dragon.

He wanted to be God, and at the last day he will sit in the seat of God and proclaim that he is God.

And then Revelation 7 talks about that's why he got kicked out of heaven.

He was thrown out of heaven for pride.

He was lifted up according to his beauty, and the pride is what got him kicked out of heaven.

So pride was before and after the fall.

Now go over to Luke chapter 4 and let's read verses 1 through 14.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

And this is where Jesus was tempted in the wilderness.

And you'll see the same three temptations that Lucifer used in the Garden of Eden to tempt Adam and Eve.

You'll see him tempt Jesus with the same three temptations.

And he's also going to show you how to address temptations when they come from the devil.

And you know, Lucifer, he told Adam and Eve they were gods.

And, you know, in the early 70s, 80s there were people that got off and, you know, they thought they were a god.

Because they said that God made Adam in his image and likeness.

But they didn't say it that way.

They said that God made Adam like himself.

Therefore, that made Adam God.

Not true.

There are cults that call Adam God.

Adam was not God.

There's only one man that's listed in the Bible that is legally, rightfully called God, and that's Jesus.

There's only one man that's that can qualify as being God in the flesh.

And that was Jesus.

What Adam was made is in the likeness of God.

He was a spirit being.

He was made in the image and likeness of God.

He was made spirit so he could fellowship with God.

Brother Hagin used to say, you know, you think you fellowship with your dog or cow or horse, whatever he said, but you don't.

They're in a different kingdom.

They're not in a spirit kingdom.

I know I've said this for years.

My wife always corrects me, I guess you could say.

You love your dog, your cow, your cat, whatever, but that dog is not going to be in heaven.

Brother Hagin says, you don't have any fellowship with an old cow.

Y'all are not in the same kingdom.

They're an animal kingdom.

You're not an animal.

You're not in the animal kingdom.

You're a spirit being.

You're in God's class of being, a spirit being.

And that's what God meant when he made Adam in his image and likeness.

Now there will be animals in heaven, but they may not be your animal.

And there are horses, they're, you know, references to animals.

In 35 years of pastoring, I experienced a lot of things.

Counseling people, marrying people, burying people.

And I went over to a lady's house one time to pray for her, and I noticed that she had a stuffed dog in a bed on the windowsill next to her bed.

And so I asked her what it was.

I mean, you could plainly see it was taxidermy.

The dog had died, and it was her dog, and she loved it so much.

She had it stuffed, taxidermed, and put right where it always slept, right beside the bed.

And you know you have to be delicate and sensitive when you talk to people like these things.

One lady uh had prayed for her for a while, and then a few months later they had family call and said she had had died, and they had her cremated and put them put her in an urn and put her up on the side table that used to be beside her bed, and brought a TV set in there and put it against the wall so she could watch TV.

I don't know how you can watch TV in an urn.

You're not you're not there.

It's just dust and ashes, which is perfectly scriptural.

But yet you have today, Jesus warned his disciples the first thing you're going to have to do is make sure you're not deceived into believing something that's not actually correct.

Now look at Luke 4.

And uh verse let's start in verse.

Well, let's go back and start in verse 1.

Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted to the devil, and in those days he did eat nothing, and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.

The devil said, If you're the Son of God, command that stone be made bread.

And Jesus answered him.

Every time Jesus answered the devil, he answered him out of Deuteronomy.

He quoted the word of God to the devil.

He said, It is written, and that reference is Deuteronomy 8.3.

That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

And the devil took him up into a higher mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world at a moment of time.

And the devil said, All this power will I give you in the glory of them, for it's delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will, I give it.

Now that was a genuine temptation.

And he had gotten his authority and power from Adam in the garden, usurped.

And Jesus, it had to be a real temptation, or Jesus' victory over it wouldn't have been real.

And again, he quoted out of Deuteronomy.

And he said, Me, Satan, that's verse 7.

For it is written, You shall worship the Lord thy God, and him only shall you serve.

He brought him to Jerusalem, set him on a pinnacle to the temple, and I've been there many times.

It's about, if you remove all of the debris that has been, you know, manifested there over 2,000 years, it's about 70 to 90 feet from the pinnacle of that old wall down to the earth.

So if you fell off of there, it'd certainly kill you.

And he said, Toss yourself down from here, if you're the Son of God.

And he said, um, verse 8, uh verse 9, excuse me, verse 10, for it is written, he'll give his angels charge over you to keep you.

And in their hands they shall bear you up, lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone.

Now, this is the second place I found in the Bible where Satan misquoted scripture.

Well, did Jesus know it?

Of course he did.

And Jesus answered and said, You shall not tempt the Lord thy God.

And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.

And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit unto Galilee.

Same three temptations lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

Now let's define pride.

Pride is arrogance.

Now, this is according to the scriptures.

Pomp, pompous.

You think more of yourself than you should.

Now there's nothing wrong, and this is humility, there's nothing wrong with thinking properly, according to the scriptures.

There's nothing wrong with you thinking proper thoughts about you the way Jesus sees you, the way the Bible says you are.

You're the righteousness of God in Christ.

You're an overcomer by the blood of the Lamb.

That's that's that's all humility.

That's not pride.

Pride is thinking more highly of yourself than you should.

Let's go to Proverbs 16.

There is so much to learn about pride and things in the Bible.

I used to, at one time, I used to read Proverbs every day.

There's 31 chapters, or you can, if the month's 30 or 31, you can read one of them twice.

But I used to want read one every day.

And I learned so much.

Proverbs, did I say 13, 10?

Proverbs 13, 10.

Or did I say Proverbs 16, 18?

Okay, let's go back to 16.18.

Proverbs 16 18.

Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

I tell this story, it's humorous, but it's embarrassing.

2020, the COVID, I was out in the back of our house, and it's a big steep hill that goes down pretty drastic.

And I was praying against COVID.

And you know, uh, quote, word of faith, folks, we feel like we can change anything.

So I was out there blasting COVID and cursing it and telling it head to leave, and other people were prophesying and all this kind of stuff.

And the Lord just didn't respond.

So I came, he went, told me to go in the house and read Matthew 24.

And I did, and my wife said, Read this verse.

And it says, after naming all the things that are gonna take place prior to the rapture of the church and after the rapture of the church, the tribulation, it lists the things that are gonna come on the earth.

And it says, These things must come to pass.

I said, must come to pass.

You mean we can't change?

He said, You there's some things you cannot change in the scriptures.

They're a Moed, they're set in time.

Jesus' return is a set time that reptures the Set time.

We always used to talk spiritually, oh, if Jesus delays his coming.

He's not going to delay his coming.

He doesn't even know when it is.

So it's it's a set time.

And he said, you can't change these things.

There are things you can change, but you can't change this.

Well, I was I had a garden down at the bottom of the hill, pretty good sized garden.

And I was going down there to, you know, weed eat and do whatever's necessary.

On the top of this hill, it's got some shale, and the shale was just kind of slipping under my feet.

And I knew if I didn't do something, I was going to fall.

Now Jeannie's sitting on the sun porch watching me.

And I always quote Psalm 91, where it says the angels will catch you up in their hands unless you dash your foot against a stone.

So that's what I quoted.

And I heard a voice say, Sit down.

Sit down.

I didn't want to sit down.

Now we're talking about pride.

Before and after the fall.

This was before the fall.

This was before I fell down the hill.

Because I didn't want to sit down.

I didn't want to rip my britches.

So, because I because that's he was trying to get me to sit down so I wouldn't.

So I thought I could outrun the the slope.

I mean it's it's pretty much.

If I cut it with a uh a tractor, I had to lean one way so the tractor wouldn't fall over.

That's dangerous.

So I started running.

Now this was in 2020.

This is only six years ago.

And I couldn't keep up with the momentum.

I was going faster than my legs could go.

And I have a fence around it, a wooden fence.

I hit that fence, whack.

And I thought, oh no, I busted my fence.

But the crack that I heard was not the fence.

It was three ribs and a concussion.

Now I had to climb back up the hill and tell Jeannie and her sister Shirley, who were sitting on the back porch, would somebody drive me to the ER?

I need help here.

Long story short, but I got to the ER.

I sat out there four hours before they would ever even see me.

Finally, I just told them, I said, I'm I'm gone, I'm leaving.

I'll call an ambulance and have them come get me.

That way you'll bring me right in.

And that's when I found out I had three broken ribs and a concussion.

And I said, Lord, I confess Psalm 91 every day.

And you let me fall all the way down this hill and break three ribs and a concussion.

He said, Who do you think told you to sit down?

The angel was standing right there with you.

But you chose not to hear what the angel said.

That's pride.

You thought you could run faster than you could run.

You thought you could beat.

I told you to sit down.

So you can't blame me.

Moving right along.

Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Pride is arrogance, pomp.

It means to think more of yourself than you should, or to think you know more than God.

Humility, on the other hand, means to think properly of oneself.

I know who I am in Christ, and I know who I am not.

So humility, it's okay to think properly of yourself according to the Word of God.

Now go back to Proverbs 13, 10.

Proverbs 13, 10.

I got another testimony.

That's not the one I want you to get.

I want you to forget that one.

I'll tell you what.

I have I love to work outside and cut and trees and grass and garden and all that, but I've hurt myself so many times.

One time I was cutting with a weed eater out there and I hit a nest of ground bees.

They came out of that, I didn't even know they were there.

They came out of that hole and started stinging me.

And I was running up and down the hill like this.

They were all over me.

And I got to the top, and Jeannie, her sister sitting on the porch just laughing, said, Honey, that was the funniest thing we've ever seen.

I thanked them for their concern.

But anyway, after I broke the ribs and hit my head, Jim Grant, our office manager, he said, Pastor, said we think it's time for you to retire from gardening.

So I did.

Okay.

In uh Proverbs 13, 10.

Oh, here it is.

Only by pride comes contention, but with the well-advised wisdom.

Now, with that in mind, flip over to James chapter 4.

James 4 · chapter mention

James chapter 4.

James 4 · chapter mention

How many of you know that we're we're at war with Iran?

And you better be praying for our president, because he needs all the he thinks he's he thinks he knows everything, but he doesn't.

So you need to pray for him.

James chapter 4.

James 4 · chapter mention

From whence cometh wars fighting among you?

Come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members?

You lust and have not, you kill and you desire to have, and you cannot obtain, you fight in war, yet you have not because you ask not.

You ask and receive not because you ask amidst, that you may consume it upon your own lusts.

Wars don't just happen.

They come because of pride and contention.

I want what you have.

I want what is not mine.

And in verse six it says, He gives more grace, wherefore he saith, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Now, you the the scripture teaches us to humble ourselves.

And if you ask God to humble you, that's that's not his job.

He tells you to humble yourself.

I had a preacher friend that was adding on to his church, and he fell off the roof, fell down and stepped on a board with a nail in it, went right through his foot.

His wife called me and said, Oh, Pastor Call, we'll get up here to the hospital.

He's suffering, and he nailed through his foot, so I walked in there, and he had his foot in traction and all that, and I said, How you doing?

She said, God's got him right where he wants him.

I said, What do you mean?

She said, He's been trying to do all this himself and said, God just humbled him and put a nail through his foot.

I thought, oh man, I thought Jesus took those nails for us so we wouldn't have to.

They had a kind of a warped sense of redemption.

Okay.

Proverbs chapter 8 and verse 13.

Proverbs 8 · chapter mention

Proverbs chapter 8 and verse 13.

Proverbs 8 · chapter mention

I learned a lot in Proverbs because you can't deny the word of God.

You just have to say ouch or owe me.

Proverbs 8 and verse 13.

The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride, arrogancy, and the evil way, and the forward mouth do I hate.

Now we fit in there, I mean, you know, you've got to be honest.

Sometimes we have to deal with this.

The fear of the Lord is to hate evil pride.

Well, you've got to hate it in yourself.

I hate pride.

And I and I asked the Lord to reveal it to me whenever, and He does.

He showed me just something today that happened several months ago.

And I wanted to do something for somebody.

I I wanted to bless a young man, and so I went down and got a gift card to a men's store, sent it to him to go buy a suit.

Because all he wears is blue jeans and tennis shoes.

But he never bought a suit.

I don't know what he spent it on.

But I was mumbling about it.

I'm not going to do that anymore.

He said, Well, it's your own fault.

He said, You can't control what he wears.

You can't control his life.

He can wear what he wants to do.

It's none of your business.

You were trying to make him conform to your way of thinking.

That's pride.

Oh, Lord, okay.

So it's just those little things.

And the quicker you do it, the quicker you repent and say, God forgive me that you're right.

I mean, he's always right.

The better off you are.

Don't go to bed at night angry, pride, whatever the Lord brings to your remembrance, the Holy Spirit brings to your remembrance.

Just repent of it because He's right.

And then Philippians 4.12.

And I missed one scripture, but I'll go back and get it.

Philippians 4.12.

I'm getting close to the end here.

Philippians 4.12.

These are good lessons.

These are pastoral lessons.

And really, Pastor Philip ought to be teaching this, not me.

Philippians chapter 4.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

And verse 12.

Paul says, I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound.

So I know how to judge myself.

I know how to not think of myself more than I should.

And I know how to abound, and I know how to be abased.

I know how to keep myself low.

This is not self-condemnation, and this is not false humility.

False humility is not the absence of pride.

I was in a meeting with Roberts one time up at ORU, and he was preaching that night, and a guy jumped up in the middle of the congregation and just hollered out, O Roberts, you're full of pride.

And of course you could just hear a pin drop.

And the army of ushers was headed towards this guy.

And Brother Roberts just stopped and he said, wait a minute, gentlemen, he said, to my brother, before the ushers assist you to your car, let me tell you that I am the most humble man that you've ever known.

In fact, he said, it's only my humility that prevents me from telling you how humble I really am.

He had a way with words.

It was amazing.

But you have to deal with these things yourself.

You can know when to abound.

You know when you can be abased.

One more I want to get to.

1 John 2, 15.

1 John 2.

And verse 15.

Are y'all getting anything out of this?

1 John chapter 2, verse 15.

1 John 2:15

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.

If any man love the world, now he's talking about the world system.

You're to love the people, but not the system.

The love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, and here's those three temptations, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but of the world.

Learn to be sensitive to pride, self-centeredness.

Check yourself out.

Why did I do this?

Why did I allow this?

Why did I pray this way?

And I'll close with this.

I've forgotten how many years ago it was.

David, you can help me, it might.

You might remember this.

James Robertson had Robison had been to our church, and he was one of the first broadcasters on VTN.

And I think it was 88, I'm not sure.

James had, and it was a public, he made the announcement.

I mean, he wasn't ashamed of it.

In fact, he challenged people.

He had an issue in his life where he needed deliverance and he was suffering as a result of it, and he told the whole world about it, how he repented of sin in his life, and he got delivered.

Well, that particular year there were several ministers that had sinned in their life and confessed it publicly and so forth, and a lot of things went wrong, a lot of things got corrected.

But this particular Southwest Believers Convention in Fort Worth, James was there, and he he I had invited him to the conference that we used to have at OU, and I asked Orl if he could come, and he sat with me and said yes.

And so I was sitting with him at this Southwest Believers Convention.

He was on the front row.

And Kenneth stopped and he looked down there at James and he said, James, come up here.

You've just had a miracle in your life, and you just had a deliverance in your life.

He said, I'd like for you to tell everybody here, if you feel led to what's happened, because it changed his life.

He said it was like getting born again again.

He got delivered.

So James got up there, and if you've listened to James, he's not bashful.

Billy Graham used to tell him he was the greatest evangelist he'd ever seen.

I mean, he used to fill, he used to fill stadiums that Elvis Presley couldn't fill.

I mean, he was a preaching machine.

So he goes up there and he thanks Kenneth and he starts preaching.

Oh my lord.

Talk about a preacher.

Well, I'm sitting in the minister section, which is over on the right hand side, looking at the at the stadium, on the right hand side, there's all those preachers in there.

And when he got through ministering, he gave an altar call for everybody that had an issue with pride.

And boy, I tell you what, and I wasn't raised in a Baptist church, but I mean it was like he nailed our feet to the floor.

I mean, I even if there wasn't anything wrong, I'd have gone to the altar call because he made you feel that way.

So, and and none of the ministers would move.

He gave the altar call to the whole stadium.

Nobody would get out of the minister section and go up there.

And James comes out there on the edge of the stage and he gives that evangelist.

He says, And you preachers are not exempt.

You preachers need to get up here just as much as anybody else.

And the Lord spoke to me and said, I want you to get up and go up there.

I was shocked.

I said, Why?

What I I don't have any, I don't have any sin in my life that I'm aware of.

Why do you want me to go?

I said, Lord, you know I'll go, but I want to know why.

He never answered.

And of course, James just kept on, man, and I thought, I gotta get up there.

I'm sweating now, you know, and I gotta get up there.

So I did.

I got out of my seat and I was right in the middle of the section.

And I got up and the Lord spoke to me and said, Now, you need to know that when you get up and go to the aisle, everybody in this minister section is going to see you.

And they know who you are.

So I got up and I had to walk through all of these men that were sitting there, and I had to ask them to excuse me.

And I say this lovingly, not contemptible, but it was, it didn't feel good at the time, but it's funny now.

And they all just, and when I went by them, they all patted me on the back, you know, like Lord bless him, Lord bless him, brother.

Lord bless him.

And I was thinking, yeah, you probably need to be up here too, but I'm I'm going.

I've made up my mind, I'm going.

So I got out in the aisle, headed up to the and then the the front is filled up.

I couldn't even get up to the front.

I got stuck in the aisle.

And James said, Now get on your knees and kneel down and repent to God.

And so I got on my knees and I felt this hand coming out.

I said, Bless him, brother, you know, like this.

And so James began to pray a prayer for us, and we all prayed a prayer of repentance.

And I said, Lord, I just want to know why you wanted me to come down here.

I really mean this in my heart.

I whatever it is, I repent.

And this is all he said to me.

He said, it was a pride buster, wasn't it?

Oh, it was a pride buster.

It was a pride buster to have to stand up in front of all of my peers, go out there, and knowing, they didn't know why I was up there.

And then the Lord told me, he said, nobody knows why you're coming up here and they're thinking all kinds of things, you know.

And I he said, it's a pridebuster.

I said, Lord, it certainly is a pride buster.

And I got to where anytime there was an altar call, and I had a glorious salvation.

February 11, 1972, 1105, in the Grand Old Opry Rhyman Auditorium, I walked the island, I got born again gloriously.

It was a transformation that I very few times I see people that had that.

I was delivered of alcohol, I was delivered of everything.

I got born again.

Told Gene, I said, I think our life is fixing to change.

I didn't know how it was going to change, but I was a new creature in Christ and have been for over 50 years now.

And so I was a different person.

But every time I was in a service where they gave an altar call, I'd go, I'd go.

Up to the altar call.

I wanted to go.

And Jeannie stopped me one time.

She said, Honey, you don't have to go to every altar call.

You're already saved.

I said, I know it, but I just want to.

And there were a lot of times they'd give altar calls at Southwest, mostly Jesse, and because Kenneth would call on him to give an altar call, and he'd give an altar call.

And I would walk up, I wouldn't go up to the altar where all the people were.

I just walk up and I'd stand behind them like this.

And one night I was standing there and a hand came into my hand and locked arms with me and pulled him close.

And I thought, who is this?

It was Mac Gober.

Mac was an outlaw biker.

He was an animal.

He got saved filled with the Holy Ghost.

And he was like me.

And we were just standing there, just tears coming out of my eyes.

And he looked at him and he looked at me.

It's like, ain't this wonderful?

And we're already saved and filled with the Holy Ghost.

But we just wanted to be there in the presence of God.

I mean, when Jeannie started taking me to church, to assembly God Church after I got saved, and they'd give altar call every Sunday night.

You had to go to the prayer bench.

That's where everything happened.

And that's where I got filled with the Holy Spirit because I thought I got to get down there.

God's down there.

And so I got to get down there because that's where it's happening.

And that's where it was happening.

And you get in the habit.

Now, you know, if you're not careful, you can get over into vanity and pride, and you can get over into unbelief and whatever.

I remember Brother Hagin one time, he was at our church, and there's this lady who came down to the front and knelt down and started bawling and squalling and just crying, and he'd walk by, and he'd look at her, and he was looking at everybody that was down there, the Lord ministering to him, and she would just say, Oh, Lord, take it away, Lord, take it away.

And he'd look at her and he'd go on down, he'd come back, and she'd still, Lord, take it away, take it away, Lord.

Finally he just stopped.

He said, Sister, what is it that you want the Lord to take away?

She said, That old snuff.

And Brother Hagin said, Sister, God don't want your snuff.

He don't dip.

But I guess my whole purpose tonight is to bring to your attention pride before the fall and after the fall.

And it's dangerous.

It's one of Satan's greatest tools and weapons because, and, and I'm not talking about self-confidence.

I'm not talking about people that are bold as a lion.

I'm not talking about people that have self-confidence and whatever.

I'm just talking about when pride comes in, you want to nail it just as soon as you can.

And it's so subtle.

You don't even know.

I got an invitation.

I get a lot of invitations, and I thank God for them.

Didn't used to get any hardly.

And I got an invitation to go to the governor's mansion to attend a particular function.

And uh they were going to have a lot of dignitaries there, and so I I got ready to call them and tell them, you know, reserve me a place, I'll be there.

And the Lord said, Why do you want to go?

I hadn't even thought about why I wanted to go.

He said, You just want to sit there at the table with the governor and everybody else and all the senators and representative.

I said, Well, that's true.

He said, That's the wrong reason.

So I canceled.

I mean, you got to guard it, you gotta watch it because it's it grows, it it you know makes you um think you're somebody that you're not.

But yet you don't want to go over to false humility.

Oh, I'm just a worm, and I don't deserve anything, and I'm just a poor old sinner, and you don't want to go there either, because that's not who you are in Christ.

You're an overcomer by the blood of the Lamb.

And and through Jesus, he made you deserving of every promise in the scriptures.

You can have it all.

Father, I thank you for your anointing tonight on your word.

Now I ask that you would minister to every person in here tonight.

And all of us have areas that we want you to deal with tonight.

So, Father, if there's any of us here tonight that are battling pride or any of the things, and we know, we know what they are because you've revealed them to us uh sometime or another.

And I'm asking you to just touch every person here tonight that has an issue that needs to be fixed, needs to be healed, needs to be delivered.

So can we all just stand up and lift our hands towards heaven and pray this all together out loud?

Just I'll lead you in it.

Heavenly Father, I love you so much.

I love you so much.

Thank you for sending Jesus for saving me, healing me, delivering me.

And Father, if there's any area in my life, in my mind, in my soul, in my body that needs to be changed, or judged, or delivered, I'm asking you to do it now.

I repent in the name of Jesus.

And I you said in your word that if I confessed my sin, you'd forgive my sin and cleanse me from all unrighteousness.

Thank you, Father.

I receive forgiveness, I receive deliverance in Jesus' name.

Now just praise him.

Praise you, Lord.

Praise you, praise you, praise you, Lord.

Thank you, Father.

Hallelujah.

Glory to God.

You can be seated.

I'm going to turn it back over to pastors.

I just want to say one more thing because this fits what we were talking about.

You know, in uh 1988, there were a lot of things that were going on in the church.

Uh that's when there were spiritual battles and wars between different ministry groups.

They were calling each other devils, or uh, you know, they were uh PTL was going through it, and Jimmy Swaggert was going through it, and there were a lot of hurts and so forth.

And Jeannie and I have known Jimmy and Francis for many, many years because we were on all of his radio stations and we go down to Baton Rouge and precious man of God, he's in heaven today.

But he uh publicly went on television with tears in his eyes, you probably saw it, and said, God forgive me.

I have sinned against you, and he took the lumps for it.

He lost his ministry, but today that ministry is three times what it was before.

Well, we were in a home of some friends of ours, and we were talking about these things, and the women were very unforgiving and unkind.

Yeah, but he he did it again, he's done it twice, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I said, Yeah, but you know, there's one thing that you always have to factor in.

He repented.

He knew he had, I called him on the phone.

I said, Jimmy, let me pray for you.

You uh he he he appreciated it, but it was something that he had never had to deal with before.

And he confessed it.

I said, You've got to give him credit for one thing.

He bared his soul to the world and didn't care what anybody thought about it.

I said, that that he deserves your forgiveness.

God forgave him.

Hallelujah.

So just remember that.

I mean, you don't have to go on national television and confess it to the world.

You can just do it in your prayer closet.

Nobody'll ever know about it.

Okay.

Pastor, I'm gonna turn it back over to you.

And thank you all for coming.

We enjoy ministering to you all.

Hallelujah.

Oh, the Lord's good to us, amen.

Let's stand up tonight.

Praise.