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Good Morning! No matter how humble we think we are, we aren't as humble as we ought to be. Pride is such as awful sin; usually we cannot even see it's presence in our life.

Proud and haughty are two different attitudes. To be proud is "to think too highly of one's self". To be haughty is "to think to low of another or others". We know that before we ever become proud, we first become haughty. For the Bible tells us that "pride comes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall". Everyone knows that repetitive falls precede one's destruction.

So we see that before we will ever think to high of ourselves, that we will repeatedly think to low of others. We see this every day at RU. Our students who are destroyed from their sin come in thinking too high of themselves.

Yesterday I was doing a segment for our radio broadcast "Found and Unbound" and a gentleman was sharing his testimony. What he said was a shock to me.

This man had been a successful businessman, a military hero, a good father and husband. However, a simple mistake with a pain pill delivered him a very humbling experience. Two years later he was jobless, discharged, divorced and living in his only possession: his car.

He was invited to church and here is what he said: "I was too proud to go!" His statement knocked me across the room. Homeless and poor, this former military guru and blockbuster businessman was still a very proud man, though he had been destroyed.

You see pride will destroy you but being destroyed doesn't always destroy pride. Sometimes it remains to be destroyed again and again. People always ask me "when do you know someone hits rock bottom"? The answer is simple: "when that bottom rock blows a hole in their pride".

God is going to destroy every one of His proud children. But it is our realization and subsequent cooperation with that breaking that shows us the hand of God in it all.

In the Old Testament story of Isaiah, we are introduced to a proud, proud man. He was a self righteous prophet. That means he proclaimed right, like every prophet is gifted to do, but he did it in his own power, for he was proud and arrogant.

In the first 5 chapters of Isaiah he pronounced nearly 15 "woes" on God's "wicked" children. He was profusely upset with their behavior and was quick to point out their many failures to the God of Israel. But eventually God zeroed in on Isaiah and put him into a position of weakness that he might "see the Lord" and compare His righteousness to his proud and arrogant "self righteousness".

The passage begins in chapter six where the Bible says "in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord". Please understand that Uzziah was a very godly king and a close friend and confidant for Isaiah. This was a traumatic experience. Isaiah had learned to lean on this King for many things in life and God had taken this King from him. He was now dead. You know, we all have things in our life that reign supreme.

These "kings are the things" that develop our pride. It may be our financial prosperity, our professional security, our personalities or profession, it may be our looks or our lifestyle, it matters not in or on what or whom we trust, if God zero's in on it as a "pride producer" in our life-it's gone!

What am I saying? I am saying you will never see the Lord until your king dies. Who or what sits on the throne of your life? It's got to go, if you want to see the Lord: for seeing the Lord is the beginning of the humility that brings us stability in our Spiritual lives.

So, Isaiah's earthly trust was removed from his life and shortly thereafter the Bible tells us he "saw the Lord". This was the beginning of the transformation in Isaiah's ministry. God wanted to show himself real in Isaiah's life. Recognize this, when God is trying to show himself real to us, we will shortly thereafter see ourselves as fake! That's the purpose of the presence of the Lord. When light enters all darkness is expelled.

So as God began to show Isaiah his complete personification as the trinity (which I believe was being honored when the seraphim cried out "Holy, Holy, Holy" to each Portion of the Divine Trichotomy), Isaiah began to see his hypocrisy. He saw his self-righteous proclamations of "woe is the man" dissolve and become a righteous proclamation of "woe is me"!

At this time, Isaiah finally saw that he was undone. That he was a man of unclean lips. Why? He said it was because "mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts". Isaiah went from being "fit to be tied" with the failure of his people to being "fit for ministry" because he realized his failure to His people!

We will never say Holy is He until we first say Woe is me! And we will never say Woe is me, until we see the Lord. And we will never see the Lord until our king dies. And if our king is not the King, our pride is going to bring usdown: for it is not the Lord that is being high and lifted up. It is you!

Isaiah said "I saw ALSO the Lord, high and lifted up". Also?! That means "as well". He saw the Lord high and lifted up "as well"?! I wonder who else he saw that was high and lifted up.

May our "whoa!" keep us from "woe!"!

A QUESTION FOR TODAY'S MEDITATION: "What steps am I taking to gain victory over my defeats?"