God Loves… Himself

Habakkuk 2:4 “Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.

Isaiah 2:11 The proud look of man will be abased And the loftiness of man will be humbled, And the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. 12 For the LORD of hosts will have a day of reckoning Against everyone who is proud and lofty And against everyone who is lifted up, That he may be abased.

Isaiah 5:15 So the common man will be humbled and the man of importance abased, The eyes of the proud also will be abased.

Isaiah 13:11 Thus I will punish the world for its evil And the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud And abase the haughtiness of the ruthless.

Jer 48:29 “We have heard of the pride of Moab– he is very proud– Of his haughtiness, his pride, his arrogance and his self-exaltation.

Hosea 13:6 As they had their pasture, they became satisfied, And being satisfied, their heart became proud; Therefore they forgot Me.

James 4:6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”

In looking at what Scripture teaches us about pride, we can see that it is something that God opposes and has opposed for at least the history of humanity. It should send shivers down our spines to know that pride is the opposite of faith, and even more that without faith no one can please God. It should make us think and think deeply to realize that the proud person has a soul that is not right with God. It does not matter if people are religious and perhaps deeply religious, without true faith they cannot please God and He opposes them. It does not matter if these people are deeply moral, without true faith they cannot please God and He opposes them. It does not matter if a person gives large amounts of money to the professing church or to professing ministries, without true faith that person cannot please God and He opposes that person.

If we take Isaiah 2:11-12 at face value, which we should, it seems to be shockingly clear what will happen. The proud look of man will be abased. The loftiness of man will be humbled. God will have a day of reckoning against all who are proud, lofty, and lifted up. He will abase them all. Each day a person lives in pride and an unhumbled heart the closer that person is to a day when s/he will be abased and humbled. Each day a person lives in pride, loftiness, and lifted up in his own esteem is a day closer to when s/he will be abased by God. Surely it is obvious that God hates the proud and will humble the proud and abase them at His good pleasure. If that is true, and it is also true that those with faith are pleasing to God, then the deduction cannot be avoided. The proud person does not have true faith and is not right before God.

This should open up a few questions for us and then see the obvious answer. Can a proud person be truly saved? A proud person while proud cannot be saved. Is it possible for a proud heart to work up faith? The proud person cannot work up faith as that “faith” would be the work of pride. Can a proud person humble him or herself so that God will give that person faith? No, a proud person cannot humble self as that would still be the work of pride and self working humility in the soul. The clear conclusion in the matter is that God must humble the soul at His good pleasure and God alone can work faith in the soul. God alone can drive pride out of the soul and bring the life of humility in the soul as that life of humility in the soul is the life of the humble Savior.

The soul of man must be humbled in this life and given faith or it is not possible for that person to be truly saved. The soul of man must be broken from self and humbled into the dust or that soul is not saved from self and pride which God opposes. The soul of man must give up all hope of true faith apart from a deep humility worked in his soul by God who alone can defeat pride in the soul and give the grace of faith. Instead of man seeking to humble himself by the power of pride or seeking faith by the power of pride, man should seek this humility from the hand of God who gives it by grace alone. The only real act of humbling self that man can do is to seek humility from God rather than self. This humbling of the soul and driving our pride is not the work of man, but it is the method of grace in bringing faith and salvation to the soul. One is not truly converted until one is broken from pride which is the heart of unbelief.

Habakkuk 2:4 “Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.

Psalm 94:4 They pour forth words, they speak arrogantly; All who do wickedness vaunt themselves.

Proverbs 8:13 “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverted mouth, I hate. 16:5 Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; Assuredly, he will not be unpunished.18 Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.

Proverbs 21:4 Haughty eyes and a proud heart, The lamp of the wicked, is sin. 29:23 A man’s pride will bring him low, But a humble spirit will obtain honor.

James 4:6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”

As long as a person is full of pride and his or her life is guided by pride and that pride is the very light (the person thinks) by which a person lives, then it is not possible for that person to live by faith in Christ. As long as a person is controlled by pride there is no faith in that person and as such that person is unconverted. This is a vital point that perhaps cannot be stated too strongly. A proud person does not have a soul that is right within him or her. A proud person, which the text sets out as being in contrast with the righteous, cannot live by faith. In Galatians 2:20 Paul said that he had died and that he lived by faith in Christ. In that we see the two different springs that flow from human hearts. We have the spring of self and pride which Paul said that he died to. Then we see the spring of Christ which flows from the regenerate heart. It is the heart that dies to self and dies to pride that can now have the spring of true life which flows from Christ to His people.

Until proud hearts are humbled, people will live by the darkness of pride. Until proud hearts are humbled, the light of people that they follow will be the light of pride and self. Until proud hearts are humbled, pride and self will prevent any true righteous living. Until proud hearts are humbled, people with hearts like that are abominations before God. Until proud hearts are humbled, people with those hearts are on the way to destruction. Until proud hearts are humbled, those with those hearts speak arrogantly and exalt themselves. Until proud hearts are humbled, those with those proud hearts (at the least) have what God hates.

Those with proud hearts are in a desperate state. The Scriptures are clear what people are who have proud hearts. The Scriptures are clear about the states of unbelief that people are in that possess proud hearts. These proud hearts control what people look at, what people love, what people say, and all that they do. It is pride that people live by rather than Christ. Once again, pride is the opposite of faith and one must have faith in order to have Christ. Pride is the opposite of the humble Savior as well. The Lord Jesus had to humble Himself to take human flesh. The proud are exalting themselves and their flesh rather than Christ. The Lord Jesus, being found in human flesh, went to the cross and died in the place of sinners. The proud exalt self and live for self at the expense of others.

Those with true faith have Christ who was perfectly humble and He works His humility in them. The proud only have faith in themselves and their own ways. The proud can be quite religious, but all religious actions that the proud do are done for themselves and are done to obtain something from God and man. The proud are like the devil and live for themselves rather than God. The proud trust in self rather than God and that is a hideous sin against God. The proud love self rather than God and that is a violation of the Greatest Commandment of God. The proud, in doing all for self rather than God, are gods to themselves. The proud will think that s/he can trust Christ enough to be saved, but their trust is really in themselves rather than Christ. The proud do all of their religious actions out of self-love and that means that all of their religious actions are really the height of hypocrisy and wickedness. Dare we tell the proud that all they have to do is believe some facts when their hearts hate God and are opposed to Him in all they do? Do we really dare to tell the proud that they don’t truly have to be deeply humbled before they can truly believe?

Habakkuk 2:4 “Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.

Psalm 94:4 They pour forth words, they speak arrogantly; All who do wickedness vaunt themselves.

Proverbs 8:13 “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverted mouth, I hate. 16:5 Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; Assuredly, he will not be unpunished.18 Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.

Proverbs 21:4 Haughty eyes and a proud heart, The lamp of the wicked, is sin. 29:23 A man’s pride will bring him low, But a humble spirit will obtain honor.

James 4:6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”

In thinking through the issues of faith and pride, it should be quite obvious that the proud heart is not right before God and as such it does not have any true faith. It should also be unsettling to us to realize that throughout history many religious people have been deceived, though they thought they had true faith. Indeed they had faith, but it was really a faith in self and a faith that came from the natural man. If indeed pride goes before destruction, then we must ask ourselves with a great deal of seriousness about whether we are proud people or not. The very nature of true faith is surrounded by and consists to some degree with humility, but that is true humility and not something generated of the flesh and is in accordance with a proud heart. It may sound quite crazy, but a proud person who is a religious person may indeed think that s/he is quite humble.

Well, says the deceived person, the Bible states quite clearly that God opposes the proud. God is for me and is with me in life and in all I do. What we must take into consideration, however, is that God gives many worldly things and many fleshly things to people who are proud and who are religious. However, worldly things and fleshly things are not signs of His blessing. God can oppose the proud and yet give them many riches and worldly things. In doing this, though, He is opposing their true spiritual good. He is blinding them with those things and all the while they are treasuring up wrath for the day of wrath. A proud and selfish heart is under a terrible judgment as it increases in its pride and selfishness as it appears to it to obtain natural things and worldly things because it is so religious. This is nothing but self-righteousness and self-righteousness is a proud heart.

When God opposes the proud, He opposes the proud heart as to its true and eternal good. He opposes the proud person by hardening them and allowing them to obtain many worldly and fleshly things, as He uses that to harden the hearts of the proud. He opposes the proud religious person by hardening their hearts and bringing them to a state of religious wealth (though not spiritual wealth) and working so that they will be more and more religious. The devil is certainly not opposed to people being very religious and obtaining many worldly benefits from their religion. After all, he is the father of the proud and hates them from his proud heart. He wants to deceive them and he wants them to think that they are converted when they are not. The more religious and proud they become the greater his deception is.

How impossible it is for a proud and selfish heart to make itself humble. How impossible it is for a proud and selfish heart to resist the power of God in judging it and turning it over to more and more pride. How impossible it is for a proud heart to have true faith because God only gives faith to the humble. Yet the proud heart goes on trusting in itself for faith and trusting in the faith of self to obtain things from God. It is hard and in fact impossible for a proud heart to see what it truly is as it sees itself through the eyes of pride and self-love. True faith beholds the glory of the true God, yet a false faith sees a false god and sees that false god through the eyes of pride and of a selfish heart. True faith sees that God loves sinners because of who He is, yet a false faith has a heart that thinks that God loves it because of what it has done or because it is lovable. A heart of pride is opposed to the true God and the true God is opposed to it. That is true even when (or perhaps more so) the person is devout and religious.

Habakkuk 2:4 “Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.

Psalm 94:4 They pour forth words, they speak arrogantly; All who do wickedness vaunt themselves.

Proverbs 8:13 “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverted mouth, I hate. 16:5 Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; Assuredly, he will not be unpunished.18 Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.

Proverbs 21:4 Haughty eyes and a proud heart, The lamp of the wicked, is sin. 29:23 A man’s pride will bring him low, But a humble spirit will obtain honor.

James 4:6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”

The attempt in this series of BLOGS is to look at the nature of faith and how impossible it is for a proud heart to have faith or live by anything but what comes from a proud heart. True faith works by true love (Gal 5:6), but pride works by self-love. True love comes from God and goes back to God, but self-love comes from a proud heart and is aimed at self. True faith comes from God and is aimed back at God, but the faith of self comes from a proud and selfish heart and is aimed back at self.

The natural man is full unbelief; it is not just unbelief that is located at one point. The natural man’s unbelief is a heart that is full of self and pride. All that a natural man can do comes from a heart that is full of pride and is aimed at his own benefit, whether than benefit is his own glory and honor or wealth or the esteem of others. Until that heart is changed in regeneration and that person has a believing heart, that proud and selfish heart will do all it does for self rather than for God. This is idolatry in all that the person does.

All the choices, thoughts, and words that come from a proud and selfish heart (unbelief) cannot be anything but against the living God. The proud heart is a lamp of sin which in that language it means that a lamp is what we walk by and directs us. A lamp is what gave light to people and they followed it. As such a proud heart that Scripture tells us is the lamp of the wicked is a proud heart. It is that proud heart that the wicked follow. It does not say that only the outwardly immoral follow proud hearts, but it tells us a proud heart is the lamp of the wicked and that proud heart is sin.

It would be quite a wise thing to do for each person start an examination of his or her own heart. It does not matter what we think of ourselves, what matters is what God thinks of us. This is to say that God sees us in the depths of our souls and knows us in ways we do not know ourselves. A person can be a very proud person and hate pride in others. A person can be a very proud person and think that s/he is quite humble. One reason for that is that pride and self-love blinds us to things about us and we simply cannot see the truth of our own hearts. We may think that we have faith and perhaps think that we have a lot of faith, but the truth of the matter may be that we have a lot of pride in our own supposed faith. It may be that all of our “faith” is really pride in self and our “faith” is really the work of self and all of our “faith” is really in self.

It is remarkably easy for a person to assume the best about self and assume the worst about others. This is the fruit of pride and self. It is also easy to be a positive thinking person regarding self and others, but again that is the fruit of self-confidence and pride. One can also be negative about self and that really be an effort to manipulate God, which again is nothing but pride. The work of pride is a work of self-love and as such it is not the work of God in the soul as true faith is. True faith, which comes from God, will always come from true love (God) and aim at the glory of God. True faith looks to God for faith and all things, yet false faith will look to self for the faith to look to God for whatever self thinks it wants. The proud heart is not right within that soul and is opposed by God regardless of how religious the person thinks that s/he is.

Habakkuk 2:4 “Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.

Psalm 94:4 They pour forth words, they speak arrogantly; All who do wickedness vaunt themselves.

Proverbs 8:13 “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverted mouth, I hate. 16:5 Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; Assuredly, he will not be unpunished.18 Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.

Proverbs 21:4 Haughty eyes and a proud heart, The lamp of the wicked, is sin. 29:23 A man’s pride will bring him low, But a humble spirit will obtain honor.

James 4:6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”

It is one things to tell people that they are in unbelief and that they must believe or have faith if they can do that in their own power, but it is quite another if we look at the nature of unbelief and then of belief. If the nature of unbelief is really a person full of self and pride, then it will change how we look at how a person can repent of that self and pride and believe (be a person of faith) completely and totally in Christ. This surely shows us that it takes another and greater power to work in the soul for this to happen. We can also clearly see that a person under the power of self and pride only has the ability to trust in self and pride. We can then see that the unregenerate person is a person that is under the power and love of self and pride and does not have the power to cast out pride and self. As long as a person is under the power of self and pride, that person has nothing to cast out pride and self with.

As long as people think of unbelief as simply a state of mind of which they have the ability to change their mind and make a decision to have belief or faith, then the issue of what it takes to be converted will remain lost on them. It is virtually an infinite difference between a person just making a choice to believe versus the need to have God drive out self and pride in order that a person may believe. If faith is far more than a simple belief which is the modern view and appears to be what Finney and those who follow him have practiced evangelism based on that, then things must change to be in accordance with the truth. It seems as if all of professing Christianity has bought into that version of things and as such people are being greatly deceived. The proud soul is not right before God and regardless of what that proud soul believes are practices that is all done from a proud heart and is not right before God.

Proverbs 8:3 tells us that God hates pride and arrogance. We must take note of that and not just let the words slide off of us. The true and living God hates pride and arrogance. This should chill us to the depths of our souls and let us know that a God of love does not love all and does not love all things. This teaches us something if we will take notice and pray for God to give us light. Proverbs 16:5 teaches us that all who are proud in heart are an abomination to God. How, then, is it possible for a person to simply turn him or herself from unbelief to faith and as such God responds and saves that person? The person is full of pride and self and yet from the power of that pride and self is able to turn self from unbelief to belief? The person has a form of faith that is the work of pride and self. Do we really think that God will save that person that is an abomination to Him because of their pride when He opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble?

The proud heart opposes the true God and the true God stands in opposition to the proud heart. Until that proud heart is broken and humbled, it is in bondage to its pride and can do nothing to please God and that includes coming up with a proud belief or faith. A natural man (non-regenerate) is under the power of pride and self and no faith or belief can come from that man that is not from pride and self. True and biblical faith (the kind of faith that a converted person is given by the power and grace of God) is a faith that is rooted in the soul of a person that has been delivered from the heart of unbelief that consists in pride and self. One has to be delivered from unbelief (pride and self) before one can have true faith/belief. Pride and faith (again) are complete opposites of each other.