We have seen from Proverbs 16:5 that everyone that is proud is an abomination to God. We have seen what God did to Belshazzar because He brings the proud down. Something in our hearts leads us to look at those in Scripture and think that they deserved it while we do not. But surely we are a proud people and are using the things of the Lord in praise of idols and of the big I-dol of self. The Lord tells us in Psalm 101:5 that “No one who has a haughty look and an arrogant heart will I endure.” It is rather arrogant of us to think that He brings down all the proud and yet He will not treat us that way. It is our haughty looks at others who are in Scripture and perhaps others in the world that God will not endure. The prophet Jeremiah tells us in chapter 13 to “Listen and give heed, do not be haughty, For the LORD has spoken” (v. 15). When we do not give heed to the words of the Lord in Scripture, we are indeed haughty people. Who are we to ignore, not listen, turn our heads away, or even twist Scripture so that we can find an excuse not to obey the Lord? It is indeed arrogance and pride to do so.
Proverbs 16:18 tells us that “Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.” Do we listen and take heed to that verse? Proverbs 18:12 tells us again that “Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, But humility goes before honor.” Do we listen and take heed to that verse? Could it be that in the modern churches we have taken our definitions of pride and humility from the world rather than the Word of the living God? If our nation is indeed as full of pride and arrogance as I think it is, we are ripe for destruction. If the professing churches in our nation are as full of pride and arrogance as I think they are, they are ripe for destruction. In fact, the Lord may be deep in His process of turning both this nation and the professing churches over to their pride and to destruction. Sure that sounds very negative, but it is also much closer to what the Word of God describes than all those so-called positive thinkers that abound. Positive thinking is one thing, but it can never overthrow the Word of God. The Word of God tells us that “Pride goes before destruction” and that “before destruction the heart of man is haughty.” Those things mean something despite our active denials of them.
It has been said many times, accurately quoting Scripture, that “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). God does oppose the proud. He does stand in battle alignment to fight the proud. But that verse does not just mean all those secular people out there, it means all that are proud. It means that if I am proud and that if you are proud God stands against us and will fight against us and bring us down. It is not just something that is true for people in history and for all the other people, but it is true for me and for you. The Word of God gives us the way it is and we must quit fighting it from our pride or we will be destroyed. We think we can go waltzing into a building for an hour or so on Sunday mornings and things will be okay with God. We think that if we sing a few songs that speak of God and of course according to our own musical taste God will accept that as worship. We think that if the preacher says a few nice things about God and I listen to some degree that I have put forth the effort. We think that if we read our Bibles and say our prayers God will be pleased. But all of those things can be and certainly appear to be done out of pride rather than a humble seeking of the Lord. The professing Church is in trouble when even its religious things and activities are nothing more than expressions of its pride.
How we must begin to search our hearts and ask God to open our eyes to this beast of pride that lurks in us and spoils all that we do. Without love nothing we do is acceptable to God and yet with pride all we do is poisoned by those things which are an abomination to God. God sent fire to consume Nadab and Abihu for offering strange fire, so what will He do to a people that offer prayers and worship that are mixed with pride? It is not just that our nation has a lot of outward sin to repent of, but each and every person has a vast amount of abominable pride in the heart to repent of. It is not just that we have criminals that need to repent, but we have the professing Church that must repent of pride. How loathsome it must be to God to see the pride in hearts on Sunday mornings. What an abomination it must be to Him to see such pitiful prayers, songs, preaching, and other things that are done out of hearts of pride rather than humble hearts seeking His face. Psalm 138:6 tells us plainly that “though the LORD is exalted, Yet He regards the lowly, But the haughty He knows from afar.” Why is the power and presence of God not with the professing Church? It is because He is far off. We are more interested in getting people into our buildings rather than seeking God to come down in power. That is nothing more than pride and arrogance on our part. How desperately we need to remember that grace only comes to the humble and that our pride may be hidden under a guise of religious humility. We must be broken before we can do anything spiritual because Jesus Christ will not dwell in a temple full of leprous pride that is rotting our souls. We must cry out to Him to deliver us from ourselves and our pride because our pride cannot deliver us from our pride. It will, however, deceive and damn us.
God Loves... Himself 
Leave a comment