Rabbi Schneider - Let God Deliver You from Pride
What I'm doing is I'm helping to route you in the understanding of who God is in a way that can only be perceived by knowing the Hebrew Scriptures. You see, two-thirds of our Bible are what we call the Old Testament, which we refer to in Hebrew as the Tanakh. But many Christians only know the New Testament, and even at that many know it only shallowly. And so as a result, we come up oftentimes, unfortunately, with a wrong and faulty understanding of who God is. As we've been studying the life of Hannah, and how God dealt with her, and what type of experience she had in God's dealings with her, and how she responded to God's dealings with her, we can gain so much insight that will help us to know how to position ourselves to walk humbly under God's authority today.
I'm not going to go back and review, beloved. I wish I could. I covered so much theological foundation in the last two episodes. But out of respect for those that have already watched them, I'm just going to move forward. If you didn't see them, please go ahead and watch them. You might be able to get them on YouTube or you can find them airing on TV another time. Here we go. Picking up now in verse 3. Hannah had conceived after having her womb close for many years. She gave all the glory to God because she had been praying to the Lord, "If you only give me a child, I'll dedicate him to You". God answered her prayer. She brought forth Samuel who became one of the greatest prophets in Israel. And now she says that she's in the temple dedicating Samuel. She's in the middle of her song of praise to the Lord and she says, "Boasts no more so very proudly, do not let arrogance come out of your mouth".
I want to ask you a question. How often times are you and I letting arrogance come out of our mouth? People ask us a question or even worse yet we just feel the need to comment on something. And you know what? So oftentimes, our speaking and our commenting, and our giving our opinion it's rooted in haughtiness, it's rooted in pride. Because the truth is we don't even know what we're talking about. We talk about this person. Do we really know this person? Are we really in a position to criticize this person? Do we really understand the road that they've walked down? Do we understand where they've come from, why they do what they do? We don't understand. Only God sees the heart. And yet us in our pride, we don't have any fear of God, we just criticize this person, we criticize that person, we tell everybody what we think about this, we give everybody our opinion about what we think about that. And the truth is, beloved, so oftentimes we don't know what we're even talking about.
So Hannah says here, because she understands God in His power, in His Holiness, in His sovereignty, she says, "do not let arrogance come out of your mouth". You know, so many times people ask me a question. And you know what my response is? I don't know. I don't know. Someone asked me a question about this person. My response? I don't know. Who am I to cast judgment on this person? The Bible says, "Who are you to judge the servant of somebody else"? We give our opinion so oftentimes about what's happening in politics, about this or that. We don't know what we're talking about. We're getting misinformation. We're only watching one news network that has their own political bias. We're watching another news network, they have their political bias. We're taking what they tell us as if it's fact. We don't know the truth, beloved. Only God sees all things. We need to position our heart, beloved, to not speak proudly. The Scripture says, "Let your yes be yes, let your no be no. Let every man be quick to hear and slow to speak".
I want to encourage you, quit being so quick to give your judgments and opinions about everything because that is oftentimes rooted in pride. People, oftentimes they criticize me, they have no idea what they're talking about. They have no idea of what my life story is. And yet they, in their pride, think they can make a judgment about me. They have no idea even what the facts are. That's just arrogance, beloved. And I'm not picking on people that have criticized me. I'm applying that to myself to all of us. We need to be really careful about what we're saying. So Chana said here, "Do not let arrogance," in verse 3, "come out of your mouth". A wise man is few in words. "Do not let arrogance come out of your mouth for the Lord is a God of knowledge". He sees the end from the beginning.
You know, just to give an example of this, to stress it a bit deeper, I've already alluded to it, but a lot of times we perceive somebody's behavior as them having a certain heart. In other words, someone does something that offends us and we think that what they're doing that has offended us is out of their pride, which may be partially true. But what we don't understand is what's really motivating them is fear and insecurity and brokenness. But we don't understand their fear, their insecurity, and their brokenness. All we understand is that we've been offended because of our own insecurity. And in our own insecurity, which causes us not to be able to filter what's actually going on properly and fully, we reach back out and judge them and condemn them. And the whole thing is just the devil's brokenness.
Remember what Yeshua said when He was on the cross. His accusers, His perpetrators, those that condemned Him and put Him on the cross, what did Jesus say as He was about to die and breathe His last? He said, "Father, forgive them," listen, "for they don't understand what they're doing". You see, Jesus didn't just get offended. He understood that they were broken and didn't even understand at the deepest level what they were doing or who they were doing it against. So let's be quick to hear and slow to speak, and stop being so quick to judge everything and to judge everybody, and to give our opinion, and walk around in our own self-righteousness. Hannah had the self-revelation. Quit speaking proudly.
Once again, as we move on, "Do not let arrogance come out of your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and with Him actions are weighed". What is she saying? The Lord is a God of knowledge, and with Him actions are weighed. You know, one of my favorite responses is when someone oftentimes asked me a question, as I said, a lot of times I'll say, "I don't know. I don't know". Why do I say I don't know? Because I don't want to be in a position of being judged before God because I'm speaking in pride, and I'm speaking something that I don't understand, and I'm speaking about something that I don't have full knowledge of or I'm giving a verdict that's coming from my own self-righteousness and limited knowledge. And that's pride. And as a result of speaking in pride, I'm going to be judged. And so I say, "I don't know," to keep from being judged.
But you know what other phrase I love that I oftentimes use? "God knows". Someone will ask me a question. and they're looking to me for a response and my response is, "God knows". Look what Hannah said there. "For the Lord is a God of knowledge, and with Him actions are weighed". What is she saying? God understands what's going on. He's the God of knowledge, and with Him a person's actions are weighed. In other words, what's going on at the surface has much deeper roots than simply what's going on at the surface. In other words, let me give you a very basic elementary example. Take a prostitute. It's easy for self-righteous people to condemn a prostitute as being the worst among sinners, as being the most defiled moral person, as being someone that's supposed to be just totally, you know, just written off of part of the species of humanity.
And of course, prostitution is a vile sin. But when God looks at a prostitute He just doesn't see the sin of her sexual immorality. God is the God of knowledge. And listen now. As Chana said, with Him actions are weighed. What does that mean? God is not just looking at the woman in the moment of time. He's not just looking at her in a given hour where she's out on the streets. The Lord weighs her actions. And what the Lord oftentimes sees is a woman that when she was 2 years old, her mother was a crack addict. And this little girl at two years old did not have a father. The little girl saw men coming into her mother's house, abusing her mother. Of course, I'm just creating a hypothetical situation, which oftentimes is the case. This little girl that became a prostitute was raised by a mother that didn't nurture her, didn't mother her, was a crack addict. Out of her mind as a zombie, most of the time, the little girl growing up, saw her mother being abused by men to support her crack addiction.
So this little girl had no foundation built into her life. And of course, now she's on the streets broken herself, selling herself. See, God does not just see this woman as a vile sinner. God sees her actions as being weighed as to where she came from, why she's this way. And His love goes out to her. And so we need to be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to pass judgment upon people. This is why Jesus said: "Judge not and yea shall not be judged". This is why when they wanted to condemn the woman that was caught in adultery, Jesus said, "But he that has not sinned cast the first stone".
God is the God of knowledge, and with Him actions are weighed. So beloved, we need to look at our own life and our heart and ask ourselves, what is our way? What's the way we're living? What's our personality like? What's our disposition like? What's our lifestyle like? Are we people that are walking around always giving our opinions about everything when we have no right to do so, speaking about every person, every situation, pronouncing our judgments as if we know? We don't know. We have no idea what was really going on, the depths of what's going on. We don't have the heart of God to judge the matter. We don't have the mind of God or the thoughts of God to make an accurate judgment about a person or circumstance.
So let's again, beloved, not be hasty to let quick words come out of our mouth. Because if we do, what's going to happen is judgment is going to come into our own life. Hannah was a holy woman that was living under the fear of the Lord, which we need to capture in our own life. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Without the fear of the Lord, beloved, no man will see Him. The fear of the Lord is clean and converts the soul, and it will deliver us of pride and speaking empty words that are in reality filled with the devil.
So once again, Hannah said, "I will not let arrogance proceed out of my mouth, for Yahweh is God. He's the God of knowledge, and with Him actions are weighed". She continues. "The bows of the mighty are shattered, but the feeble gird on with strength. Those who were full hire themselves out for bread, but those who are hungry cease to hunger. Even the barren gives birth to seven, but she who has many children languishes". What he's simply speaking about here is a reverse order. It's the same thing that Yeshua taught when Yeshua said many that our first shall be last. The last shall be first and the first shall be last. That the kingdom that is going to be manifest is going to be an upside-down world. And many that were despised in this world, many that were looked upon as lowly in this world, they are going to be the ones that are exalted and shining with the most glory in the kingdom to come. And many that were most celebrated in this life, most esteemed are going to be most despised. Or I should say, not despise, but have the lowest places in the world to come.
See, Paul told us in the Brit Chadasha (the New Testament), "Look amongst yourself". He's speaking to the Ecclesia here. He's speaking to the church. He said, "There's not many famous among you. There's not many noble among you. There's not many super rich among you, because God has chosen the lowly of this world in order to raise them up at the end of the age to confound the wise and the prudent". And this is what Chana is saying here. That look, all the people that you see around you now, those in high places, those that are making the most money, they're going to be last in the age to come. And so let's live, beloved, with an eternal perspective. Because if we don't have the fear of the Lord now living for an eternal reality, and instead of going after being someone in this world, we're going to be sorely hurt and disappointed in the world to come.
We need to be servants. Those who were full, in other words, the wealthy of this world, hire themselves out for bread. In other words, they're full now, but in the world to come, they're going to hire themselves out for even a morsel of bread. They're going to be poor in the world to come. Those who are hungry in this world will cease to be hungry. Even the barren, those who are barren in this world, will give birth to seven in the world to come. You might be empty now, but as long as you're clinging to Yeshua, the end of your story has not been written. Those who are barren give birth to seven, but she who has many children languishes. In other words, you may have had many children in this life, but in the world to come, if you didn't live for God, you're going to be empty.
So once again, the whole point here of this divine revelation is not to live for this age alone. You see, we're living in the age of me. We're living in the age of materialism. We're living in the age of the now. We're living in the age of the temporal. But the Bible says, "Set not your eyes on things that are below, but set your gaze up where Messiah is at the right hand of God".
You see, we read that Moses rather than leading a comfortable life in Egypt as an Egyptian chose instead to be exiled into the wilderness because he wanted to stand with the people of God. And Abraham left his home where he was comfortable to pursue God for the eternal kingdom, for something that was going to be so superior to his temporal comforts. And you and I, the Bible says, are to live as aliens and pilgrims in this world. We're not setting our hope for a culmination to happen in this age, but rather we're living in this age, picking up our cross daily, fighting the fight of faith, knowing that our eternal reward is in the kingdom to come.
You see, the Bible says, "where your treasure is there your heart will also be. Therefore set not your eyes on this world, but set your eyes on the kingdom and the fact that Jesus is coming again, and will reward to every man according to what he's done". This is what Hannah is referring to here. That many right now that are living lives of ease, living lives of wealth, leading lives that seem to be so fulfilled because they're not living for God, the time will come where they will be empty, and the humble of this world that were living for God will be exalted and be made exceedingly glad. Beloved, this is not just rhetoric. This is a word from the Lord for you. I want to ask you to look at your life in the way that you're leading it. And if you need to reprioritize your priorities in the way that you're living, do it now for time is short, the kingdom is at hand.