One of the great puzzles that thinking on humility and pride brings is how religion can express a proud heart in ways that God seems to hate more than the openly sinful heart. When we see this, it shows the utter necessity of the soul having humility for salvation and then for sanctification. It seems as if God was more wrathful on the Israelites than He was on openly sinful nations. He would use openly wicked nations to punish the Israelites. Habakkuk 1:5 records the words of the Lord to the prophet about the Israelites: “Look among the nations! Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! Because I am doing something in your days– You would not believe if you were told. 6 “For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, That fierce and impetuous people Who march throughout the earth To seize dwelling places which are not theirs.” Habakkuk had been praying about the sinfulness of the nation of Israel just before, but this answer from God shocked his sensibilities beyond his ability to understand.
Habakkuk’s answer showed how he could not believe what he was hearing: “12 Are You not from everlasting, O LORD, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. You, O LORD, have appointed them to judge; And You, O Rock, have established them to correct. 13 Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You can not look on wickedness with favor. Why do You look with favor On those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up Those more righteous than they?” He could not believe that God would punish the Israelites with a people that he judged to be worse than the Israelites. He could no believe that God could and would do this. It was in the context of Habakkuk waiting on the Lord for a reply that the words of 2:4 are given us: “Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.”
God hates pride. When a person with pride tries to use the things of God to further his own pride and selfish heart, it appears to be a sin that is worse than other sins. Even the unforgivable sin seems to be something that only very religious people can commit. It was the Pharisees that Jesus warned about committing the unforgivable sin. The Pharisees also received the strongest and harshest words from Jesus for their religious activities done from a proud heart. We can see how God hates pride in Proverbs 8:13 and its clear teaching: “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverted mouth, I hate.” God is determined to fight the proud and to bring them down in His way and His time. “Thus says the LORD, ‘Just so will I destroy the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem” (Jeremiah 13:9). So it is clear from Scripture that God hates pride and there is an especial hatred of it in people who practice religion. The things of God, when in the hands of those who is proud in heart, are things that arouse His anger more because they are closer to Him than other things. It is the heart of a person who would dare use the things that He has especially made to be used to magnify the glory of His grace and people use them to try to earn something, bring Him under their control, or to earn merit from Him. It is a heinous sin that is directly against God in a closer way than even open sin. We must beware.
We must ask a tough question in light of God’s opposition to pride. Can a soul be redeemed from if it has not been delivered from pride? We tend to think of salvation in terms of eternity, but a soul is saved in this life and then enters eternity. If pride and self are the sin or perhaps the sin of the heart that is most opposed to God and He is most opposed to, can we really say that a person has been converted if that person has not been delivered from pride and has the life of humility? Habakkuk 2:4 tells us very clearly that the proud person does not have a right soul in him. Jesus tells us that unless a person is turned to become as a little child that person will not enter the kingdom of heaven. The proud heart must be broken or the religious person will remain under the wrath of God and even more of the wrath of God than the open sinner. We must beware of pride in the heart all the while knowing that pride in the heart hides our own pride to us. Apart from that pride being broken our use of the things of God will do nothing but bring more and more condemnation upon our souls. Apart from our souls being broken from pride all the religious things we do is treasuring up wrath for the day of wrath as set out in Romans 2:4-5.
But let us remember that we must hear the Word of God if we are going to have true faith. So we must not run from the things of God out of fear that they will increase our condemnation. Instead we must learn to use them correctly. They are only used correctly when with humility we seek God Himself in them. We must read the Word of God with humility asking Him to teach us spiritual wisdom. We must humble ourselves and pray and seek His face. We must know that the things of God are meant to teach us about God and to teach us to seek His face for His glory rather than things for our own purposes and pride. It is hard to imagine how a person can be saved if s/he has not been delivered from pride and self-sufficiency. After all, we are to trust and rest in Christ alone.
God Loves... Himself 
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