Up Is Down | Clip 1

• I’m going to speak to you tonight and tomorrow night, God helping me, about a spiritual law. All of us here, I’m sure, are familiar with what are called natural laws or physical laws or scientific laws. To take a very simple and obvious example, we’re familiar with the law of gravity. And none of us expect to operate in a way that’s contrary to the law of gravity.
• No one here, I think, this evening, would step out of a fourth floor window and expect to do anything but fall downwards. And there are, of course, other physical laws that we’re familiar with, the laws that govern crops and harvest and the fruit that’s gathered from the earth. And there’s a a science called agriculture which studies those laws in detail.
• But many people who are familiar with natural law have no vision or concept of spiritual law. But I believe that there are spiritual laws which are every bit as definite, as precise, as certain and as impossible to break as natural laws. People talk about breaking God’s laws, but that’s really a mistake.
• You don’t break the law of gravity. The law of gravity breaks you. And I believe the same is true with spiritual laws. People talk about breaking God’s laws, but that’s not the way it really is. And so, I’m going to be unfolding to you tonight a spiritual law which I believe operates throughout the entire universe.
• I believe it operated before the universe was created and I believe it will go on operating after time is no more. I believe it’s a law that affects every one of us here tonight. It has a definite bearing on the cost of our lives. In fact, to a large extent, it will determine whether we’re successful or whether we fail. The spiritual law that I’m going to speak about is stated three times in the New Testament. Each time it comes from the lips of Jesus himself.
• The first time and the only time we’ll actually look at is in Matthew 23:12. Matthew 23:12. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. You’ll see that that is an entirely universal law. Anybody anywhere at any time who exalts himself will be humbled. And equally universal, anyone who humbles himself will be exalted.
• As I said, there are two other passages in the New Testament where that law is stated, but we don’t need to turn to them tonight. There are a number of other passages in scripture which say the same thing with different words. Just look for a moment at two passages in Proverbs. Proverbs 16:18 which says, and this is probably one of the most familiar verses in scripture.
• A lot of people who don’t know any other verses of scripture know this. Pride goes before destruction, a horty spirit before a fall. As a matter of fact, most people say that pride goes before a fall. Well, that’s true in principle, but it’s not exactly what the scripture says. In fact, it says something much worse. It says pride goes before destruction.
• And then in the 18th chapter of Proverbs in the 12th verse, before his downfall, a man’s heart is proud. But humility comes before honor. So before a downfall, there is pride and before honor there’s humility. I believe that’s universal. I don’t believe there ever was a downfall in the experience of a living creature that was not caused by pride ultimately.
• Now I’m going to take the first and probably the greatest example of this principle which is found in a created being but not a human being. And I’m going to look with you tonight at a picture of what happened to this created being. Let me just make a few statements which are perhaps surprising to some of you.
• First of all, the first sin in the universe was what? Pride. That’s right. It wasn’t drunkenness. It wasn’t immorality. It wasn’t murder. It was pride. And yet many people who would be horrified by something like drunkenness or murder or immorality tolerate pride and scarcely see it as a sin. This sin of pride led to rebellion. And here we have a principle. The inner always precedes and produces the outer.
• So the inner condition was pride which was expressed in the outer action of rebellion. This sin took place not on earth but in heaven was committed not by a human being but by an angel. And the cause of the pride was beauty and wisdom that had been imparted by the creator.