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LOOK AT ME, MA! #2

UNEXPECTED TUMBLES

Just a few months ago, Time Magazine listed some observations from wise men and women of science who had ABSOLUTE confidence in their opinions. Here's just a few of them:

"This ‘telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of NO VALUE to us."

That's from a Western Union internal memo dated 1876. Here's another:

"Heavier-than-air flying machines . . . are . . . IMPOSSIBLE."

That's Lord Kelvin, president of the Royal Society, 1895.

"Everything that CAN be invented HAS been invented."

THAT bold statement was made by one Charles H. Duell, commissioner of the U.S. Office of Patents, back in 1899.

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."

Marshal Ferdinand Foch, French professor of strategy. It gets worse. Notice this one:

"The wireless music box has NO IMAGINABLE commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"

Here at the Voice of Prophecy we think it's a good thing that David Sarnoff's associates in the 1920s were wrong about radio! But just 53 years ago, Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, stepped up to the microphone and said with absolute confidence:

"I think there is a world market for MAYBE FIVE computers."

And just 22 years ago, as recently as 1977, we got this memorable-but-now-shredded sound bite from Ken Olsen, the president AND FOUNDER of Digital Equipment Corporation:

"There is NO REASON for any individual to have a computer in their HOME."

Well, friend, maybe one enormous global OOPS! will suffice for all seven of these incredible bloopers. The next time I sit on an AIRPLANE with my LAPTOP COMPUTER and dial down to earth on an AIRPHONE . . . I'll remember to be a little less confident and arrogant when I'm tempted to say what's going to happen in the year 2000 or even next week.

But you know, there's a different kind of confidence that we're warned about here in the book of First Corinthians chapter ten. "Never say never," we're told, especially in this one area of human experience.

Yesterday we studied together the first ten verses of this fascinating passage, where Paul encourages us to benefit from the lessons of the past. You remember he was writing to a fledgling Christian church — but addressing himself to a great number of people who were very confident. Especially, they were SPIRITUALLY confident. When it came to some of the "gray" areas of Christian behavior, to disputable points, they were completely self-assured. Their maturity enabled them to eat meat previously offered to idols and not get tangled up in paganism. They could chart their own course in the church despite whatever struggles their "(quote) weaker" brother or sister might be experiencing. In fact, some of them were even confident that they could experience salvation despite the sexual dalliances that were an ONGOING thing in their lives. Hey, they were strong in the Lord! A little fling on the side wouldn't turn THEIR chariot over.

Now, here's verse 12, which goes right to that very condition of the heart. Listen:

"So, if you THINK you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall."

Many times, the THINKING that we're standing firm comes right BEFORE we fall. More on that in a moment, but first, let me read you the same passage from a couple of interesting paraphrases. Here's the Living Bible, same verse:

"So be careful. If you are thinking, ‘Oh, I would never behave like that" — let this be a warning to you. For you TOO may fall into sin."

And here's the Clear Word Paraphrase:

"But don't become overly confident and think of yourselves as standing so firm that you can't fall or that you can do anything you want and it won't affect your salvation."

I think all of us KNOW, deep inside of us, that we're weak in some areas. We have vulnerable spots and we KNOW it. But the flip side of that knowledge is that there are OTHER areas where we truly do believe we're safe. "The devil won't get me THERE," we decide. "I've got to watch out HERE, but over THERE I'm okay." And we see someone else fall into a particular pit, and we just can't relate to it. How did they ever do something so DUMB? We can't imagine THAT being a temptation. Thank God that particular desire has been left out of our makeup — we THINK. And friend, that's the very kind of thinking that leads to a fall.

C. S. Lewis wrote this bit of wisdom in Mere Christianity:

"When a man is getting better, he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still in him. When a man is getting WORSE, he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good; a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly; while you are making them you cannot see them. You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk."

You remember the famous line from the book of Proverbs, found in chapter 16:

"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."

And some of the most richly detailed stories in all the Bible illustrate this very principle, don't they? Of course, we have to immediately think of a great warrior named Goliath. "Come on over here," he shouted at David, "and I'll feed you to the birds." In fact, maybe you've noticed an interesting conundrum there in First Samuel chapter 17. Verse five clearly states that Goliath of Gath had on a bronze helmet to go with his six-hundred-shekel spear. But in verse 48, then, how did the shepherd boy David hit him in the FOREHEAD? Well, the Bible doesn't say, but some scholars have surmised that in his supreme confidence, and then fueled by his fierce rage that the Israelites would send out this twig of a KID to fight him, Goliath flung away his helmet before moving in to attack. And of course, David's little smooth stone hit that ONE unprotected spot, that vulnerable area left undefended.
Over in the book of Esther, a fellow named Haman was brimming with confidence and GRINNING with confidence. "I'm the only guy invited to the queen's house for dinner," he boasted. And you read how he was building a gallows to hang his enemy Mordecai on. Well, someone's pride went before a fall, all right — a fall through a trapdoor. Only his name was Haman, son of Hammedatha . . . hung on his own gallows.

In the last days of King Belshazzar — in fact, it was on October 12, 539 B.C. — this fading ruler was so confident, so absolutely sure of himself, that he had a huge party of all his friends and all their girlfriends. With the armies of Persian King Cyrus right outside the walls of Babylon, he wasn't worried. "We won't fall tonight; we won't fall EVER," he told his drunken friends as they toasted each other with wine in the glasses from God's holy temple. And God's servant Daniel had to be called in to tell him: "You're done, King. TONIGHT . . . you are done. You've had your pride, and now you're going to have your fall."

In the New Testament, Peter was a man whose self-confidence was exceeded only by his extensive vocabulary used to ANNOUNCE his self-confidence. If the busted walking-on-water story wasn't enough, he announced on that terrible Thursday evening in the Upper Room:

"Even if I have to DIE with You [Jesus], I WILL NEVER DISOWN YOU."

Well, the Bible kind of tells us, "Never say never," doesn't it? "THIS VERY NIGHT," Jesus told him, "you'll deny ME three times." Here's another story where the fall comes THAT VERY NIGHT. And sure enough, THAT VERY NIGHT Peter denies his best Friend.

"If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall."

Friend, what a terrible thing to fall as hard as Peter did! But self-confidence will do that, especially SPIRITUAL self-confidence. There's a great paragraph that we find in the Adventist commentary for this passage: First Corinthians chapter ten. Let me share it with you:

"All should heed the warning and be on guard CONTINUALLY, lest they be deceived by the suggestion that they have reached such a state of spiritual strength that nothing can lead them to sin. True safety lies only in the recognition of one's absolute helplessness apart from Christ, and the CONSTANT need of the indwelling presence of the HOLY SPIRIT to deliver from sin."

You know something? WE ARE HELPLESS! On our own, WE ARE HELPLESS! We're defenseless to resist the very temptations we're completely sure we CAN resist. And friend, that confidence, that pride before the fall . . . you can know where it's coming from. In a chapter entitled "The Great Sin," C S. Lewis writes this:

"Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are GOOD — above all, that we are better than someone else — I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil."

But you know, praise God — where the enemy works, God works more. In fact, it's interesting to track through some reference Bibles to the OTHER verses about pride and falling, and you actually find an indication that God Himself sometimes brings about such a fall . . . for our own sake. Here's Psalm 18:27:

"You save the humble, but bring low those whose eyes are haughty."

And friend, it's because of His love for us that God sometimes brings us low. I guess a Christian song title comes to mind right here: "I Need Thee Every Hour." And I really appreciate verse two, as penned by Annie Hawks. Here it is:

"I need Thee every hour, Stay Thou near by. Temptations lose their power when THOU art nigh."