Horror of Conceit - Charles R. Swindoll

it was my privilege to be with those who are attending our discovered Dallas earlier this morning and share with them a little bit about the legacy of the leadership and the history of Dallas seminary that we have enjoyed there was a time when I first became president when four out of the five presidents in the history of this institution had offices on campus dr. Walvoord dr. Campbell dr. swindle and myself as I interface with other presidents of other seminaries many of them are glad they never had that I would have been the loser had I not had that the history of Dallas seminary in the friendship loyalty the support that has come from each of the previous presidents dr. chafer died while in office but when dr. Wofford left the presidency he was given the title of Chancellor when dr. Campbell left the presidency the title chancellor was already taken and so he became the president emeritus when dr. Swindall decided to hang up the tennis shoes from being president and continue to devote himself to Pastoral Ministries writing and the insight for living radio broadcast there wasn't a title available and so dr. well words title was changed to Chancellor emeritus so he had Chancellor emeritus president emeritus Chancellor and I was just me but if you do that great kind of homework and detailed research on the internet and go to Wikipedia for those of you who don't know that's a joke okay in terms of its trustworthiness and its completeness but if you go you will find about six pages of how the word Chancellor is used in almost every country of the world and even in the u.s. it's used in academic institutions for an administrator well that's not how we use it we use it as a title of honor a title of designation for one who not only stays a friend of the seminary one who stays involved with us in writing as well as in speaking in personal encouragement and representation but as one who we wanted to honor for his unique contribution over the years not only as a board member for many years a graduate who has been faithful in the ministry a president who served well and whom we honor but also one who continues to stay as in touch with us as he could ever be and he is a dear friend a great encourager a great inspiration to all of us and I know who has been many of your radio pastor to you over the years it's a delight to introduce you not only to our guests who are here with discovered Dallas but to our student body and our faculty who love him to come back and minister the word so well to us Chuck we love you we thank you for your long-term faithfulness throughout ministry but especially your relationship with Dallas seminary and it is our privilege to call you Chancellor as well as friend would you join me in welcoming dr. Chuck Swindoll those introductions are getting longer every time I show up here very special welcome to you who are looking at us for the first time and making up your mind somewhere you want to get your theological training I got mine early in life it started when I was about three or four I remember hearing my first prayer from my mother god help you if you ever do that again does that recall the first prayer but a little more seriously about the time I was in my mid teen I I asked my first theological question let me give you a little background our family is a musical family and I'm the youngest of three I have an older brother and older sister she's in the middle and I'm the baby in the family we were a singing family were one of those families that's stood or run an old Baldwin up right in our living room and sang together patriotic songs and-and-and fun song songs we wrote and and songs we made fun of and sacred songs and all kinds of songs my brother could have been a concert pianist but the Lord called him into ministry and he was for 32 years a wonderful faithful servant and Buenos Aires and currently serves now in South Florida anyway my brother played piano and sang bass and my mother's saying beautiful soprano my sister's a contralto and sang even in the Dallas Civic Opera for many years and and are currently involved in women of faith and is at our church out and Frisco and we have a close relationship and I threw in a little tenor and sounds kind of like a country-western bunch doesn't it mother sang soprano sister sang Alto Bubba saying bass and I sang tenor my dad didn't sing he played two harmonica he called it to heart and we would sing and my brother be playing and my daddy be playing that harp and my mother got the idea one autumn that we ought to all audition down at First Methodist Church where the famous Walter Jenkins a wonderful conductor now dead but knew the score of Handel's Messiah by heart and she want us to sing there in that big choir and I thought that was the dumbest idea I'd heard and most of my life and but she insisted and when my mother insisted you said yes and so we all went down and amazingly they accepted all of us they had a reason to accept my mother and my brother and my sister but mine was Grace which has been the story of my life anyway I'll never forget standing for the first performance of the Messiah we had practice faithfully for weeks and then came the the night of the first of as I recall about four or five performances and the choir numbered about 200 most of them were were trained voices and here I was surrounded by these magnificent musicians about a 60 65 piece Orchestra and a grand pipe organ of about 80 ranks and and there stood Walter Jenkins leading us and and there I stood the youngest and clearly the shortest of the whole bunch and I never forget that tenor recitative begins or straight out of Isaiah 40 comfort ye comfort you my people this lyrical tenor voice and then moves into the Aria every Valley shall be exalted every mountain and Hill made low the crooked places straight and their rough places play and then we are told to stand and then we began right out of Isaiah 40 verse five and the glory the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and I I couldn't finish the opening chorus the ecstasy of that music was more than in that moment my little 1516 year old mind could handle and that's stuck with me all the way through the glory the glory of the Lord shall be revealed it was raining that night and I was sitting in the backseat with my sister and brother we were on our way home and I was looking out the window and ice I asked my first theological question I said daddy what is glory and in great fatherly fashion he used those favorite three words ask your mother I've learned to do that in my years as a parent and so I asked my mother and she used those favorite words of a mother check the dictionary so we got home and I did and what I found out was an amazing list of words great honor and admiration fame renowned worshipful highest praise splendor radiant beauty magnificence and then ads circle of light which was intriguing it's a Grand Gallery of word pictures hanging along the walls of our thought as we think about glory to which I would like to address your attention for the next few minutes of time and I hope you will not ever forget the application of this message one of the earliest places that the word appears is in the last chapter of Exodus it's chapter 40 and it's it's verse 34 interesting term in the Hebrew kavod carries the idea of weighty or heaviness as in of this weighty reputation or or a sense of honored status now glory is used in exodus 40 verse 34 though the term kavod means heavy or weighty connected with Yahweh Yahweh kavod appears right here cover Yahweh literally cover Yahweh the glory of the Lord fill the tabernacle see the the house of worship has been built it's this temporary structure much of it covered with pure gold magnificent place of worship where the people of God would connect with the person of God but it wasn't complete and all of the the the craftsmanship and and and the working with tapestry and the and and and the woodwork and all that went into this somewhere between twelve and fifteen million dollars structure this temporary church if you will is tabernacle it isn't complete until there is that laser-like light from the heavenlies that breaks through the atmosphere and finds its way in that tiny spot on earth call the holiest of all and there the holy alway fills the tabernacle the presence of God the renowned the admiration the praise the splendor the radiant beauty immortal invisible God only wise and light an accessible hid from our eyes most blessing most glorious the Ancient of Days Almighty victorious thy great name we praise we just sang Walter Chandra Smith wrote that at an ethical moment in his life when those words described what had caught him up in in the realization of the greatness of his God the next verse reads on Moses wasn't able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud that settled on it and the kavod Yahweh filled says again filled the tabernacle now the word glory goes on to mean other things as we remove it from its vertical significance and and put it into everyday life our Rossano world the glory of God is the outward display or manifestation of his inherent perfection or attributes Wright's John Wahlberg but when you turn to Isaiah chapter 42 you come to a a realization that this glory is now to be displayed in our lives and he like the Sun emanates the light but we like the moon reflected he gives the glory he is the glory and as we reflect it we we become those who manifest those qualities in our lives now look at look at Isaiah 42 verse 5 thus says God the Lord who created the heavens and stretched them out who spread out the earth and its offspring who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it I am the Lord I have those words written over in the text of my Bible sometimes I'll take a very fine fountain pen and I'll literally write over the letters of a word to make them come off the page and in my Bible these are darkened I am the Lord and I've done it again in verse 8 I am the Lord so that somehow like shrapnel hitting the brain they'll land and sink in so I'll never forget it I am the Lord I have called you in righteousness I will hold you by the hand and watch over you I will appoint you as a covenant to the people verse 8 I am the lord that is my name and then literally the text reads my glory to another I will not give my glory to another I will not give we reflect it but we don't have it we are grateful for it but we don't create it we tell others of it but we don't act as though it is ours he doesn't give that to any other it is his and his alone this glory that only he can give someday that glory will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea in that Kingdom yet future but for now resides in him and we wait upon that ultimate day now for the next few moments we have the application of this lived out in misappropriation in the life of a man named Isaiah so turned from Isaiah 42 back to 2nd chronicles verse a chapter 29 I'm sorry chapter 26 second chronicles 26 I am the Lord and I do not give my glory to another how easy it is for us in ministry and for anyone in a position of authority responsibility influence and tragically as a result popularity for an individual began to believe his own stuff start reading his own clippings start taking the glory that still and will forever belong to the Living God that's the story of Uzziah the king in fact to go a little further with that thought sheäôs well sanders writes this the greatest curse in the spiritual life is conceit conceit us gibbous has written an excellent book called the call reason i say it's excellent it's the only book that oz guinness has written that i can understand so i enjoy reading it and i've read it more than once you need to read call this very bright man writes practical truth regarding conceit all truth in a fallen world is vulnerable to distortion in fact each truth has its own foreseeable distortions that are its shadow side isn't that good wording each truth has its own foreseeable distortions that are its shadow side he goes on the closeness between calling and conceit is easy to see after all to be called is to hear God whisper three things to you in a hundred intimate ways you were chosen you were gifted you are special let those three things sink in longer than the first few precious moments and they will and you will inevitably hear another voice honeyed and smooth yes you really are chosen and gifted and special all too soon if you are anything like most of us you will find yourself saying in response to the devil's echo of God to yourself of course never outloud I'm chosen I'm gifted I really must be special and before you know it the wonder of calling has grown into the horror of conceit tell me that isn't a battle for minds like these who sit around me today as I preach bright capable gifted they speak others right take notes on computer spit out tests ultimately that's probably not a good way to put it but you ultimately should my idea that stuff anyway ultimately you walk across the stage and you and you get a sheepskin and you're on your way and you're not master of theology already that conceit seeds are planted already and you're on your way to a PhD maybe to teach students that will sit in your class and take your notes and before long you're the authority so-called or you're gifted to stand on your feet and hold an audience if you will in the hollow of your hand as you shape words and communicate from a book that most people look at wondering what in the world it's saying and you handle it with aplomb trained here trained at the feet of the Savior your life shaped and gifted by His grace and before long you fall prey to conceit I've seen it more times than I want to remember and I always ache a little not only because of individual make such an ass out of himself by being conceited and frequently doesn't even know it but because it's such a rotten testimony to the cause of Christ its sting now your Ziya started so well who wouldn't be impressed all the people of jute look at that first word he's got the whole nation applauding his appointment to be king he was 16 years old when they made him King in the place of his father a messiah 16 crates God I don't know anybody that wants to be 16 again and those of us who've raised 16 year olds we're so grateful to God they weren't to president or the king of the land imagine that this kid is is is the king he's the hotshot he's the crown a victor he's the nation's choice 16 years old we're it's repeated in verse 3 when he became the king and reigned 52 years so he's got staying power does something right nobody's killing him and and there's victory that follows in his wake and well not only that verse 4 he did what was right in the sight of the Lord according to all and his father a messiah had done man verse 5 concludes very insightful II as long as he sought the Lord God prospered him don't ever forget that as long as he sought the Lord the Lord prospered him as long as he started his days saying lord I need you Lord I'm dependent on you Lord I can't leave these people they're all older than I most of wiser and and and far further down the road than I or maybe I ever will be Lord guide me Lord control me Lord decide through me and speak through me and lead through me it's for your glory Lord we all start like that you were there you who are thinking of where to go to seminary you you're half intimidated and you're somewhat bewildered and and you're in the midst of a decision that has other options and you don't see yourself as an authority not right now but later 20 years in it 30 years in it 40 years in it and a measure of success comes and you finish your academic working before you know it there there are people that pack rooms to hear you talk or of all things read whatever you may write or sing your songs or admire your art and so he's he's trusting his god and while he wins Wars verse six over the hated enemy of the Philistines broke down the wall of Gath a capital city in the land the wall of neck wall of Ashdod verse seven god helped him of course helped him against the Philistines against the Arabians and against the may unite verse 8 against the ammonites and gave tribute the ammonites gave tribute to two Uzziah his fame extended to the borders of Egypt beyond Beersheba down into Egypt word got out of you are you aware of this Isaiah he became very strong he's getting older he's getting more experienced he's the terms of the military's getting his ceilings he can he can handle it life isn't filled with more surprises as much as more challenges now he can meet him he built towers of Jerusalem and and the corner buttresses and fortified them he beat built towers in the wilderness and huge cisterns for he had much livestock the lowland I love the end of verse 10 he loved the soil that you like that he like the feeling of dirt under his fingernails he liked to mess around in the field and watch the crops grow the farmer at heart this humility in it didn't mind getting his hands dirty hit a heart for the land and what a fertile land it was and had an army ready for battle verse 11 and the total number you read in verse 12 and look at that a army of three hundred seven thousand five hundred could wage war with great power to help the King against the enemy this man's got it he's chosen he's gifted he's special Jerusalem he made engines of war vs. 15 and invented by these skillful men on his staff to beyond the towers and the corners and he shot arrows and great stones his fame spread afar his name was a household word word in the nation it wasn't the surrounding land or King that didn't know of Uzziah before I go one step further let me tell you what I fear the most for you I fear that kind of success for you that's what the world shoots for that that's what that's what the the big guys the big gals those up there upper ranks that's what they live for don't live for that if it happens it happens stay surprised live your life on tiptoe wondering what it is God may may plan to do next through you were with you or often in spite of you remember the glory he doesn't give it to any other it all keeps going back to him now don't mean that in a phony way I mean you really think like that and and he's now he's now famous he's like the professional athlete that Ray is raised in the ghetto and thanks to the sacrificial mother he he's able to handle the ball and put it in a hoop or maybe toss that thing 40 yards and right to the right to the receiver and before long a fine high school coach notices his skill and bind by a college you know lays out the carpet and he's a scholarship he's got it made before even finishes they look into him and maybe draft him into the ranks and he is suddenly not only famous he's a multimillionaire Alexander white in one of his great books and Bible character says we hang very heavy weights on very thin wires that man's life is hanging on a very thin wire of character which holds you under control when Fame sweeps across you and and before long and truth be told you kind of expect special treatment after all you know who I am when Muhammad Ali back then known as Cassius Clay became the heavyweight champion he really started believing some stuff that happened early and he set out in the first-class section of airplane and the flight attendant walked by and said you need to snap your seat belt he said Superman don't need no seat belt she said Superman don't need no airplane snap up the seat belt there won't be too many flight attendants who talked to you like that when you're as famous as Uzziah unfortunately unless you cultivate good friends who have a way of jerking you on your coattail and tapping you on the shoulder and telling you to sit down shut up and listen some things you need to hear right now or maybe a very faithful partner in life your wife will tell you those things unfortunately when you get to snotty you won't even listen to her his fame spread afar he was marvelously helped until he was strong that's a epical turning point in the whole story of Uzziah until he was strong or 16 you're gonna watch the erosion of a life when he became strong his heart was so proud that he acted corruptly and was unfaithful to the Lord his God he entered the temple of the Lord wait stop what the world is the King doing walking in the temple that's the priest place unless of course you're King Uzziah and you say get out of my way who do you think you are standing in a way of the king I mean what turn of my thumb your history back in 1991 Leighton Ford evangelist wrote a wonderful book called transforming leadership in the book he tells an interesting story he begins with this principle power can be extremely destructive in any context but in the service of religion it's downright diabolical when we are convinced that we what we are doing is identical with the kingdom of God anyone who opposes us must be wrong several years ago I had lunch with Richard Dortch who had just been chosen to become the executive vice president the PTL Club a multi-million dollar religious television televangelism Network Dortch had headed his denominations work in Illinois and had annexed an outstanding track record I was frankly very impressed with what he had to say in with his seeming sincerity and competence he planned to recruit a strong financial director in several MBAs to establish him fiscal sanity it's going to be like turning the Queen Mary around with a teaspoon he said it won't be easy but I plan to do it I wished him well and watched from a distance eventually Jim Baker the board the head of PTL resigned in disgrace over a sexual liaison and its cover-up both he and Dortch were convicted for the misuse of funds how I wondered could a man with such seemingly good intentions go so wrong so I read with interest a later interview in which he described how the managers of PTL came to define success listen carefully quote it's all tied to how many stations we have on our network or how big our building is it's so easy to lose control to compromise without recognizing it at PTL there was not time taken for prayer or family because the show had to go on we're so caught up in God's work that we forgot about God he also talked about the impact of television on preachers quote a television camera can change a preacher quicker than anything else those who sit on the sidelines can notice the changes in people once they get in front of a camera it turns a good man into a potentate it's so easy to get swept away by popularity everybody loves you cars are waiting for you you go to the head of the line that is the devastation of the camera it has made us less than what God wanted us to become in ptl's case the TV cameras the show eventually the ministry itself became ends in themselves and were powers which could have been creative but which in the end actually became destructive keep the television cameras out of your churches keep them out of your churches you don't need them you're not that great anyway only those around you that are mesmerized by you will tell you you are there's a place for it and of course when handled appropriately certainly there's a reason you pastor a church you're there for that congregation you're not there for the world at large minister to them serve them be lost in wonder in love and praise and the worship with them handle very carefully what the world handles with great skill they know how to do it because ego is their bottom line if not greed that's not ours he marched into the temple the priests followed look at this courageous man Azariah verse 17 entered after him and and and with him 80 priests of the Lord picture that valiant men is the reason the writer adds that you had to be valiant to confront a man like Isaiah they opposed Josiah the king and said to him it is not for you yours I to burn incense to the Lord but for the priest the sons of Aaron who were consecrated to burn incense get out of the sanctuary you have been unfaithful and you will have no honor there it is from the Lord God but Uzziah with a sensor in his hand for burning incense was in reached look at that he is enraged how dare you stand in my way this is the same man who earlier in the chapter for 15 verses sets new records in so many areas but conceived has taken over and the glory has become his and while he was engaged in enraged with the priest the leprosy broke out on his forehead before the priests and the house of the Lord beside the altar of incense verse 21 King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death lived in a separate house being a leper he was cut off from the house of the Lord 22 the rest of the acts of Uzziah first to last the prophet Isaiah son of a Hamas has written Uzziah slept with his fathers and they bury him in the field of the grave which belongs the king and they said look at the epitaph he is a leper Lord God of whatever it will take and for however long it will take you to do it we invite you to break us and mold us and change us and humble us and keep us there and hold us there develop within us a heart that's contrite a spirit that's teachable a love that's genuine and pervasive and a gentle spirit of humility our Father regardless of how you may use us or whatever role you may have us filled to you be the glory and to you be the praise for ever and ever

Channel: Dallas Theological Seminary

Views: 16,572

Rating: 4.7966104 out of 5

Keywords: conceit, success, pride, God, glory, humility, leadership, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dr. Charles Swindoll

Id: sv7K4GQ4_ag

Length: 39min 5sec (2345 seconds)

Published: Tue May 22 2012