LET THE ONE WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD
Author: Sakkie Parsons
Translated from Afrikaans
Translator: Robin Barker
Someone wrote to me and asked if I would not share God’s view about glorifying, boasting and bragging about one’s self, with my readers.
Now I want to show you how absolutely destructively fatal it is to glorify, boast and brag about what our Lord is doing for you in your life, without giving our Lord the honour about what you boasting because all the honour and glory should be given to our Lord in sincerity pertaining to the magnificence, bragging and boasting from your life.
I truthfully say that I must never forget: Our Lord sees into the deepest parts of one’s heart.
Remember just as the Word teaches us; in the end nothing that I do or achieve, can be done or achieved without the Lord.
Because I love history, I want to begin by sharing a part of history with you:
Israel was continually disobedient to our Lord and then our Lord did what He had been warning Israel for many, many years if they, through their stubbornness, continually carried on in that way and He eventually used the Assyrian kingdom for that purpose.
First our Lord guided the Assyrian nation from nothing to become a powerful nation in the Middle-East.
After that our Lord used Assyria as His instrument to bring Israel back to order. Then king Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria took the tribes of Northern kingdom of Israel into captivity and transported them to Assyria:
2 KINGS 15:29 In the time of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came and took Ijon, Abel Beth Maakah, Janoah, Kedesh and Hazor. He took Gilead and Galilee, including all the land of Naphtali, and deported the people to Assyria.
The rest of Israel, who remained in the Promised Land, also did not learn from what had happened to the Northern kingdom and approximately 12 years later our Lord again sent the Assyrians, under king Salmaneser, except for the line of Juda, to capture all of the remaining Israelites and transported them in captivity out of the Promised Land:
2 KINGS 18:9-12
9 In King Hezekiah’s fourth year, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and laid siege to it.
10 At the end of three years the Assyrians took it. So Samaria was captured in Hezekiah’s sixth year, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel.
11 The king of Assyria deported Israel to Assyria and settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in towns of the Medes.
12 This happened because they (the Israelites) had not obeyed the Lord their God, but had violated his covenant—all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded. They neither listened to the commands nor carried them out.
Israel, however, continued living a wicked lifestyle and so our Lord sent the Assyrians, led by kind Sanherib to bring Israel back in line.
2 KINGS 18:13 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.
The Assyrian’s, however, through the mouths of their kings, kept all the glory for themselves and even thought that they were stronger than the God of Israel.
Amongst other things the following section was the message from king Sanherib to Israel:
2 KINGS 18:30 Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says, ‘The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”
What was the eventual downfall of the Assyrians, the mightiest nation of its time in the Middle East?
Well, king Sanherib was murdered by his own sons and the mighty kingdom of Assyria was destroyed and the Assyrian kingdom and nation disappeared into oblivion.
Because our Lord replaced the Assyrian’s as the strongest nation in the Middle East, to do what HE had said HE would do to Israel, this was undertaken by the Babylonian kingdom, which our Lord had made the strongest nation in the Middle East at that time.
Then the Babylonians, under king Nebuchadnezzar invaded Juda and the last of the Israelis, namely the tribe of Juda was then taken into captivity, but also king Nebuchadnezzar just like the Assyrian kings glorified, bragged and boasted about all that he himself had accomplished and you can see for yourself the outcome in DANIEL 4:1 onwards.
Pay close attention when you read DANIEL 4:28 and onwards.
The following that I want to share with you is how our Lord feels about glorifying / bragging / boasting and how He wants us to handle such situations.
Our Lord very clearly teaches us through the Word that in the end there is severe consequences that I will pay for bragging, boasting and forgetting who in actual fact is in control of what we are bragging and boasting about.
First our Lord shows us in the Word, that it is He who will use the Assyrians as His instrument. Then our Lord tells us that He will punish the Assyrians, because they bragged/boasted, that it is themselves, through their own strength that they accomplished what they accomplished.
ISAIAH 10:12 When the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the wilful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes.
ISAIAH 10:13 For he says: “‘By the strength of my hand I have done this,
and by my wisdom, because I have understanding. I removed the boundaries of nations,
I plundered their treasures; like a mighty one I subdued their kings.
ISAIAH 10:14 As one reaches into a nest, so my hand reached for the wealth of the nations; as people gather abandoned eggs, so I gathered all the countries; not one flapped a wing, or opened its mouth to chirp.”
Now our Lord asks the following about the bragging and boasting of the Assyrians that disappeared somewhere in the distant past of history:
ISAIAH 10:15 Does the axe raise itself above the person who swings it,
or the saw boast against the one who uses it?
As if a rod were to wield the person who lifts it up,
or a club brandish the one who is not wood!
What should you and my attitude be as a child of our Lord?
Our Lord teaches us, His children:
MAT 11:29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
How wonderful! If I am always humble, giving all the glory to our Lord that pertains to me; my emotional state will always be in a wonderful place.
Do you remember what you have just read?
Remember also when you read it again – The person who is talking here says: “I am gentle and humble in heart.”
This person is God who became flesh:
MAT 11:29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
I close off with the following sections from the Word that all true Christians should strive for in his/her life.
JER 9:23 This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches,
JER 9:24 but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.
If I live according to these guidelines, I will then in any case not want to glorify, brag or boast about myself – but our Lord, to put it that way, will be a fragrant scent to people around me through my lifestyle:
2 COR 10:17 But, “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
2 COR 10:18 For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.
Greetings,
Sakkie