Proverbs 16:18 Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
19 Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.
God warns us several times of the danger of pride. Satan fell due to his pride. Since he is an angel, there is no recourse for him. The Bible teaches us that angels can choose to follow and serve God. They can also choose to reject God. Satan chose to reject God. He wanted to be in the place of God. When he fell, there was no way of forgiveness for him.
Since the fall of Satan, he has been busy trying to keep man from glorifying God. Man also has the ability to choose. One of the differences is that man can repent toward God and can put his faith in God. Man can be forgiven. Satan has been busy since his fall, trying to keep man from seeking God’s forgiveness.
Pride is the exaltation of man above God. It is when man chooses to assume that he is wiser and better than his Creator. It is an imaginary position, but it seems real to the person acting on pride.
God warns us here that pride goes before destruction. The proud person will make choices that are detrimental to his well-being. Hitler was a proud man. He was trained in evolution. He chose to believe that lie. Due to that, he assumed that his group of people, which happened to be caucasian, were smarter and wiser than all others. He believed the lie that man came from the monkey and he believed that the further from the monkey that man developed, the wiser he was. Thus he believed the lie of Charles Darwin — racism, rather than the truth of God.
As a result he developed his “Aryan superior race” theory. It was pure mythology, but not to Hitler. The result of his pride, led him to develop a scheme to overthrow the German government and establish himself as the Führer — dictator of Germany. He was not content with destroying Germany. Of course he did not believe he was destroying Germany. He believed he would improve the nation of Germany. He was not content with that. He wanted to take over the world. That is the result of pride. God allowed him to advance his wicked plan to a certain point. Interestingly, there were thousands of others who were also proud and they chose to yield to Hitler’s evil scheme, rather than oppose it. The end result was the downfall of Germany and the death of Hitler and many of his supporters.
The Jews suffered greatly under his scheme. The Jews had been warned years earlier, by God, that abandoning Him would be their downfall.
God raised up Abram to bless him and make him a blessing. God did bless Abram in many ways. He changed his name to Abraham and made many nations of him. Abraham’s descendants became proud and rejected the true God and that led to a progressive destruction of the nation of Israel. To this day, Israel is struggling to be recognized and respected as a sovereign nation.
The current impasse in their election process is evidence of that. The president of Israel has decided that the party alliance with less votes will have the first option to try to form government. Israel has 19 seats held by Arabs. What a tragic situation. Those who cannot see that are blinded by their pride.
Many more Jews will suffer and die yet due to their pride. Many Gentiles will also die due to their pride. Mr. Trump, Mr. Carney, and their supporters are equally guilty. They are pursuing a godless course that will lead to their destruction.
We do not know when the fall will take place, but Canada is certainly on a collision course. The recent proposed budget will continue to dig the hole deeper. The opposition parties have no answer to the corruption of the ruling party. They too are proud and haughty. They are not calling upon God to guide them. They love the same foul language the ruling party uses. They defend the same evil policies of the ruling party. They just have a different approach to staying the course. Thousands of citizens are content to support these corrupt politicians, but they will not darken the doors of a true church that honours the true God. Some of them have formed organizations that they claim are designed to combat the corruption in government. Yet they too have their own form of corruption. They reject the absolute and perfect authority of God.
The ecumenical movement along with the New Evangelical movement and the Catholics and the Muslims are equally guilty of being consumed with pride. Millions of people are headed for destruction because they have chosen to believe a lie rather than the truth.
God says it is better to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud. The groups mentioned above are all gloating in their share of the spoil. They think they have really accomplished something. Some of them will dare to invite the use of the name God in their rhetoric but they refuse to acknowledge Him in their actions. Millions will support these phoney attempts to “make the world a better place”.
Psalm 2 tells us that God sits in the heavens and laughs at the foolishness of the haughty. True saints will suffer under the oppressive nature of the haughty. However, true saints will only suffer there for a short time. They will end up in heaven. The haughty will end up in Hell. They know how to use that word now to try to impress people. They will not be impressed when they are in hell, in torment for all eternity.
Be sure you are not a proud and haughty person today. Humble yourself and submit to God’s Word. Yes, that will put you in the minority. It will also put you in favour with God. You cannot put a dollar figure on that reality.
Pastor Bartel