Last time we looked at the fact that “Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD” (Prov 16:5). It does not matter if the person is rich or poor; a proud person is an abomination to the LORD. It does not matter if the person is religious or not; a proud person is an abomination to the LORD. Whatever pride is, then, it is something that ruins and spoils all that a person does. We can see from the earliest book in the Bible that pride was hated then as well: “Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on everyone who is proud, and make him low. 12 “Look on everyone who is proud, humble him, And tread down the wicked where they stand” (Job 40:11-12). In verses 4-5 of the same chapter Job said this to God: “Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth. 5 “Once I have spoken, and I will not answer; Even twice, and I will add nothing more.” God then challenged Job and part of that challenge was in verses 11-12 quoted above. God challenged Job to do what He as God does. In other words, God looks on everyone that is proud and makes him low. God is the one that humbles the proud and treads down the wicked. God was telling Job that He was God and what He did as God. Since Job could not humble all the proud, He was not God and should not try to question the Almighty.
One thing the text does, regardless of whatever else it does, is show us God’s attitude and ways toward the proud. This fits very well with the declaration of Proverbs 16:5 that “everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD.” That which is an abomination is detestable and is an object of loathing. Now this is not the God of popular thought today. The God that we hear is the God that loves all and is pleading with all to simply pray a prayer and become His child. But these verses tell us that the proud are detestable and even loathed by God and so He will bring the proud down and even tread on them. But how does God fight the proud and bring them down? One way Scripture tells us is that He turns them over to their sin. In Romans 1:28 we see that when people do not want God in their knowledge or minds He turns them over to a depraved mind. They are then “filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed” and all sorts of evil things. They also become “slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil” (Rom 1:30) and many other things. Pride is a progressive evil and those that indulge it are given over to it and they become worse and worse. There is nothing a proud person will not do for self except to deny self and receive humiliation of the soul.
In Daniel 5:20 we see a way that God fights the proud: “But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit became so proud that he behaved arrogantly, he was deposed from his royal throne and his glory was taken away from him.” This text records Daniel speaking to Belshazzar the son of Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel told him that God had humbled Nebuchadnezzar greatly, but though Belshazzar knew this he had not humbled his heart (v. 22). These things are in the hands of a sovereign God and Belshazzar was killed that very night. God fights the proud by turning them over to their pride which will bring them down. At times He acts directly and the proud are killed. The pride of Belshazzar was such that he used the vessels of the Temple to drink and party with. In this, Daniel said, he had “exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven” (v. 23). While drinking wine from those vessels he praised the gods of various woods and metals and did not glorify the true God (v. 23). This is the true heart and result of all pride.
All pride is the lifting up of self in some way. Pride is the exaltation of self and the puffing up of self. Belshazzar gives us the real heart of pride in his example. Belshazzar used the things of the Lord to party with while he praised false gods. We can see how that is such an affront to the living God. He did not glorify God but lived for himself. Ah, but is that any different than the average church member? Do they really praise the true and living God or do they sing praises to the false gods of their imaginations? Are they really doing anything else but praising the false gods of their imaginations while they use the things of God (the Bible, preaching of sorts, singing songs with words about God, prayer in a manner of speaking) for their own purposes and pleasures? Does the average church member really do all to the glory of God or simply think of God as being at his or her beck and call? Does the average church member really pray or simply say words in order to get something from God? Does the average church member understand that s/he is an image of God and is to do all for God? That is also using something with God’s name and using for self. Pride, then, turns the use of holy things that should be set apart for God and uses them for the idol of self. It can and often does make attending church nothing better than what Belshazzar was doing when He was deposed and executed. Could it be true of us what God said to Amos? “I hate, I reject your festivals, Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. 22 “Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them; And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. 23 “Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps” (Amos 5:21-23).
God Loves... Himself 
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