Beware you Braggers and Bullies!

 

The Bible is clear about Arrogance and Greed. God is opposed to these traits, which are contrary to His Spirit. His people are to be the exact opposite: Humble and generous.

The bragger constantly praises himself for all the powerful and unique things he has accomplished. Exaggeration is key because his arrogance is based on a lie. He has no reverence or respect for God. All the glory goes to himself. He is a deceived, self absorbed, self-made man or so he would suppose.

 He never does anything wrong. I heard one such bragger say, when asked about sin in his life, and if he had ever confessed his sin, to which he replied essentially “I’ve never done anything wrong-what would I confess?”

This arrogance always leads to greed which drives a sense of entitlement. Because this man is so great he deserves anything he wants-so he will take it. Rules and laws are of no concern to this man because he believes might makes right.

The bible has many examples of this but one of the most glaring is the story of Naboth’s vineyard. You can find it in 1 Kings 21. The gist of the story is this king Ahab had a neighbor with a vineyard that he wanted. His neighbor would not sell it so the king began to pout. The king’s evil wife Jezebel said “You’re the king! We will get it”

She plotted to have Naboth killed and Ahab got the vineyard. It’s an ugly story but God’s justice comes in the end. Still this lethal level of arrogance is so destructive.

We can all likely remember the big and or extra aggressive kid in elementary school who was the bully. He or she walked around the play ground calling kids names, shoving or punching those that were smaller or weaker than them and taking whatever they wanted. Thankfully there was usually the playground monitor that would see these shenanigans and bust him or her. 

The Bible also gives us the story so many know, of David and Goliath. Most everyone knows this one, even outside the church. It has become legendary because of it’s enduring truth. Might does not make right. Goliath thought he was unstoppable. He thought he could take whatever he wanted by brute force. He was the big bully of the Bible in 1 Samuel 17.

But God sent a little playground monitor with a sling shot. Goliath’s violent aggression spews from his lips and flows in his actions. But before he knew it a stone sunk into his head. Perhaps only then, as his head was about to be cut off did he, and all his cheering crowd, now suddenly silenced, realized he was not fighting a boy but God himself.

This is the revelation all bullies and braggers will eventually encounter. Justice is coming for them. The moral God of the universe has established moral laws that may be bent but never broken. To quote the recent sermon I preached by MLK Jr:

In affirming that God is able to conquer evil we are admitting its reality. Christianity has never dismissed evil as illusory or an error of the mortal mind. It sees it as a force that has objective reality.

But it contends that evil does not have the final word. It carries the seed of its own destruction. There is a checkpoint in the universe. Evil cannot permanently organize itself. History, is the long and tragic story of evil forces rising high only to be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice.

There is a law in the moral world,—a silent, invisible imperative—akin to the laws in the physical world, which reminds us that life will only work a certain way. The Hitlers and the Mussolinis may have their day, and for a period they may wield great power, spreading themselves like a green bay tree, but soon they are cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb.

Go back to another century. Victor Hugo is describing the Battle of Waterloo in Les Miserables. He concludes his graphic account with these pointed words: “Was it possible that Napoleon should win this battle? I answer ‘No.’ Because of Wellington? ‘No.’ Because of Bluchen? ‘No.’—because of God. Waterloo is not a battle; it is a change in the front of the universe.”

In a real sense, Waterloo is a symbol of the doom of every Napoleon. It is an eternal reminder to a generation drunk with military power that in the long run of history might does not make right. And the power of the sword cannot conquer the power of the Spirit…

Let us gain consolation from the fact that God is able, and in our sometimes difficult and lonesome walk up freedom’s road, we do not walk alone, but God walks with us. He has placed in the very structure of this universe certain absolute moral laws.

No matter how much we try, we cannot defy or break them; if we disobey them, they end up breaking us. The force of evil may temporarily conquer truth, but truth has a way of ultimately conquering its conqueror. Our God is able. James Russell Lowell was right:

“Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, Yet that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown, Stands God within the shadow, Keeping watch above His own.”

[I marvel at how a great and Biblical sermon transcends time with it’s eternal truth! To see the sermon click HERE

Today we see vivid examples of this evil and as followers of Jesus we must reject the bragging and bullying way of living and even leading. We ourselves must not be infected with this mentality and begin to believe in some way this is God’s way. It is not.

Instead, we must live differently. We must be witnesses for humility and generosity. We know without Jesus we are nothing, that all the good we do is because of him.  We know we are tempted regularly and fall into sin too often. We confess and repent seeing it as the antidote to arrogance of sin and the way of freedom.

As followers of Jesus we see greed as a cancer that consumes all who practice it. Those who steal and hoard are heaping up treasure that will not last and will ultimately be plundered by the next bigger bully or time itself, by rust and moth that always consumes in the end.

So what do we do? Stand up for and practice humility and generosity. Reject all forms of arrogance and greed. Pray for the braggers and bullies we see around us. First that they would repent and let Jesus reform their lives into His image.

But then if they do not repent and only get worse-pray that justice would come on them. Pray that the moral laws of the universe, embedded in the Bible and enforced by God himself would bring them down. Like Ahab, Jezebel and Goliath those who refuse to repent will eventually fall. As Jesus once said of someone who’s life crashed without Him “and how great was the fall.”

The ancient words of Proverbs 16:18, still ring true which reads: "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Most know the King James paraphrase, Pride goeth before a fall. This is a clear warning. Beware braggers and bullies-repent or fall!