“You rebuke the arrogant, the cursed, who wander from Your commandments” (Psalm 119:21).
We are looking at the sin of pride. It is the sin that blinds people to sin and to pride itself. By virtue of what it is it hides itself from the hearts of those who have it. It takes the light of the Word of God by the Holy Spirit to illuminate the soul to its own pride. The soul that is blind in pride can be very religious. It can be very committed and devote itself to Bible study and outward prayer. It might even have much joy in its external religion and so fool itself even more that it has true joy in God. But pride is such that it blinds self to all other evidence and puffs up just a little positive evidence to be great and overwhelming evidence in its own eyes. Perhaps the two worse things that pride does are 1) diminish God in our eyes regarding the nature of sin against Him and 2) hide the sin of the heart from itself. Pride will fasten on the outward actions and ignore the desires and loves of the soul. Pride will lift up the outward actions as things that are so great and then simply push the things of the heart aside.
In this BLOG we want to look at how the heart violates the First Commandment. In fact, it is the heart that is the source of all violations of First Commandment. While the modern world is much like the religious world in the time of earthly sojourn of Jesus and looks to the externals primarily, God looked primarily upon the heart than and now. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus went directly to the heart in His teachings. The Pharisees were concerned with the outward acts and were focused on the honor of men in what they did. In the Beatitudes Jesus shows us that the real issue is with the heart. The focus in the Beatitudes is the heart. It was, in one sense, a direct attack on the religious actions and attitudes of the Pharisees then and now.
Jesus then went on and dealt with a few of the commandments. In Matthew 5:21-25 He starts with murder: “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER ‘ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ 22 “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. 23 “Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. 25 “Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.”
The Pharisees were content and satisfied that they kept the Sixth Commandment as long as they did not take the life of another. However, Jesus takes this commandment and goes to the heart with it. He tells them that anger in the heart is the same as murder. He tells them that insults and attacks with the tongue are also violations of the Sixth Commandment. Even more, He tells them that before they worship God they must be reconciled to their brothers. This is a massive shot at the religious standards set out by the Pharisees and one that reached the depths of their souls. Even more, it should reach the depths of our souls in the present day.
What we can see from the teachings of Jesus on murder tells us a lot about the heart and the role of the heart in sin. In each act of murder, anger, insulting, and verbal attacking of others is an act of the heart. The act of murder starts off with some desire in the heart. Anger in the heart comes from a sinful act of the heart in most every case. Insulting another with malicious intent only happens as the intent of the heart is carried out. A verbal assault on another is also a display of a heart that desires the harm of another and is an attack on that person’s name or reputation. What we see, then, is the heart put on display. I John 3:15 tells us that “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” Hatred is murder and demonstrates that eternal life does not abide in that person. Clearly this is an issue of the heart. With each act of the heart the soul demonstrates what it really loves and who its master really is. The proud heart gets so angry when it perceives that it cannot get what it wants and another is responsible for that. The proud heart is offended when something is said that it does not like. The proud heart is one that hates and attacks others with insults and verbal assaults. That proud heart shows that it serves self rather than God. The proud heart that hates and goes after others shows that it is in the service of the sinful and fleshly self rather than the living God. Each act of pride in the heart is an act of choosing and living for self rather than God. Pride will call it something else, but the stench of pride is still seen by God for what it is. If we truly hate sin, we will desire God to humble us from it. We will pray against ourselves.
God Loves... Himself 
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