The last Newsletter ended with the thought that pride cannot deliver itself from pride and that it takes an outside power, that is, divine power to deliver a proud soul from itself. The proud soul does all that it does from its pride and so can never deliver itself from itself. All that the proud soul can do is from pride. It can do nothing but what is from pride. It loves itself and enjoys the feelings of its pride though it will try to hide itself behind other things out of that pride. Down deep we all know that obvious pride is wrong. The soul either lives by its pride and self-centeredness or by faith. This is why Christ the humble Lamb of God only lives in souls that are humble and the truly humble soul has faith in Christ rather than faith in itself by pride. God hates pride which is the stench of the devil and so opposes it at all points, but He dwells in the humble heart because the humble heart has been cleansed of its pride by the blood of Christ and the application of that by the Holy Spirit. Proverbs 16:5 tells us that “Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; assuredly, he will not be unpunished.” Notice that this verse does not say that everyone who does not attend church and is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD. It also does not say that all the proud except those who have prayed a prayer and are active in church are an abomination to the LORD. It says that those who are proud in heart are an abomination to the LORD. It also does not say that those who have an outward humility have hidden their pride from God, but that those who are proud in heart are an abomination to the LORD. It matters not whether the person is a preacher or an outward saint to others; if that person is proud in heart that person is an abomination to the LORD. Unless a person is turned from pride by grace, that person is an abomination to the LORD. There are no exception clauses in this verse.
We must be saved and freed from our sin and not just saved from a future hell while in our sin. Romans 6:7 and its context points to this: “for he who has died is freed from sin.” If Christ does not save His people from their sin He leaves them to the cruel taskmaster of pride that leads to misery and death. Christ, as absolute Lord, does not totally take away sin from His people but He breaks the slavery to sin. His people are no longer under total slavery to sin, but now they are free to serve and love Christ. The heart of sin is pride and until a person has been saved from that pride as ruler that person is not saved from sin. A true humility is needful for there to be true faith which is a sign that Christ dwells in the soul. Faith receives Christ by grace alone. A true faith merits nothing at all, but instead requires us to be broken of pride since all faith does is receive grace. It is only the humble soul that has been broken of pride and emptied of self that will relinquish all hope in itself and receive grace apart from any works or merit. It is only the humble soul that will look to Christ alone and stop working for salvation.
The heart that has Christ lives by faith in Christ. The heart that has pride lives by its pride as Proverbs 21:4 tells us: “Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, is sin.” The proud heart may be religious, but it trusts in itself to have faith. The light that the wicked follow is a proud heart, even if religious. The humble heart receives Christ and all that it has by receiving grace. The humble heart has nothing to be proud of but boasts in the cross alone. The truly humbled heart is emptied of self as the controlling power in the soul and now lives by the life of Christ in the soul. The proud heart is deceived about its pride. People go to church and hear that sin is bad, but they may never hear the real issue of the heart is pride. They may stop their outward sin and think they have repented, but if they have not repented of pride they are stopping outward sin because of their sin of pride. The very root of sin has not been cut off. When the heart has not been opened up and pride exposed, people will live in pride while it is hidden from them. They may even think that they are humble, but that is nothing but pride hiding itself under the mask of humility. They may become very religious, but that is to do nothing more than the Pharisees did. They may speak against the Pharisees while they have the very spirit of the Pharisees lurking in their hearts.
But, others may argue, we prayed a prayer, walked an aisle, made a decision, or something like that. Those souls may well argue that they go to a church where the preacher preaches the gospel and that one day they heard that message and turned from their wicked ways. Now, they would say, they are changed people that attend church on a regular basis and live moral lives. But have they ever been convicted of the sin of pride? Have they been broken from their self-sufficiency? If they have never seen their own hearts as full of pride and self-sufficiency, their prayers and their morality may come from pride. Indeed they may have repented from outward things, but they have not been delivered from the very root of sin which is pride and self-centeredness. That is the same mistake that the Pharisees made. We can become the nicest and most helpful people around and yet it is all from the heart of pride and self if we have not repented of our proud and self-centered hearts. We must be converted.
A person is not truly converted apart from being delivered from the ruling sin of pride, yet we hear little of this in our day. Jesus said very clearly and without equivocation: “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). While there may be some differences about what that means, the context does not allow us a lot of latitude. In Matthew 18:1, which is the start of the context, the text tells us this: “At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” The answer of 18:3 is an answer to the pride of the disciples of 18:1. Then we have the words of verse 4: “Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Mat 18:4). Whatever else conversion is, the soul must be converted from its pride to humility. There is no conversion apart from the soul being turned from its pride to humility. Unless we are humbled, we are still in our pride.
The teaching of Scripture on the conversion of the soul must be restored in our day. When the churches are being filled with proud people that have prayed prayers or walked aisles out of pride, that pride will not be repented of but instead will have found even more ways to hide itself from the eyes of people. We must always remember that the heart is deceitful above all else (Jeremiah 17:9) and is constantly deceiving. The proud heart does not want to admit that it is prideful. A proud heart knows that pride is wrong and does not want to admit to itself that it is proud and even more does not want to have others know that it is proud. It is possible, however, for some to admit that they are proud in order to get others to think that they are humble. How utterly deceitful the heart is.
People cannot cast out pride by their pride because all of their actions would be from pride. Pride cannot always be seen by a self-centered and proud attitude by others. Sometimes pride hides itself under the mask of an outward humility. Pride lives by the strength of self and its own sufficiency and can live by an outward deference to others and be very helpful to strangers. Pride is at home in church buildings and will do any and all religious actions that the Bible demands except repent of pride and be humbled. Without humility, however, a person will not have true love (I Cor 13:1-8) and so pride spoils all that a religious person can do. Without humility there is no true faith and so a person does not have Christ. This means that the person lives by faith, but by a faith in self. It is true that a person that is full of pride and self may live by what is called faith in Christ, but the reality of the matter is that the person trusts in self and perhaps even in its own faith which comes from self rather than Christ. Pride is an insidious beast that can turn the most beautiful creature God created into the devil. Pride is so awful that it can turn an angel into a demon. Pride is so wicked it can take two human beings made in the image of God and make them into fallen creatures with the image of the devil in them. Pride is so deceitful that it makes all the religious actions of a human being into things that are done for self and pride rather than out of love for God. One drop of pride ruins all that the soul can do. Pride is fueled by self-love rather than the love of God.
The devil (the father of pride) promotes the religion of pride and self-love because He loves Himself. All whose love comes from self are his children. To put it differently, the only true source of love is God Himself as triune. All that goes by love in the world is not love at all but is generated from the self. This love that is generated from the self as the center of all things has its father as the devil who does not want God to be loved and adored. The devil delights (if he had anything but utter misery) in religion that is focused on self because it does not come from God but is from him and his worldly schemes. The devil does not care if people take up with conservative religion, Reformed theology, and evangelize in the name of self-love and man-centeredness because that is doing his work for him. He is not concerned with the externals of religion but is involved in making sure that human beings love self. He is not just involved in satanic rituals, but instead is very involved in “Christian” rituals as well.
Surely it is clear that if souls are governed by pride, self-love, and are deceitful to self beyond all other things, then for true conversion to take place a soul must be broken from its pride, self-love, and self-sufficiency by a power outside of itself and become a humble soul. The only acceptable sacrifice to God is “a broken and a contrite heart” (Psalm 51:17). We must begin to think in terms of what the Bible teaches about conversion or we will go astray in evangelism, assurance, sanctification, and church membership. If we do not take Matthew 18:1-4 and Psalm 51:17 seriously, we will not do more than the Pharisees (Mat 5:17-20) but will instead be just like them. We will live by our pride, self-love, and self-sufficiency while we go on in our religious and possibly conservative ways. Let us close with two penetrating quotes from Jesus who told us about conversion: “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). “Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).
God Loves... Himself 
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