For this third Pride Month post, I am sticking with Psalm 10, but this time going back a couple of verses from the one that I based yesterday's post on:
"The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined." (Psalm 10:2)
Pride is a major cause of persecution in the world. Really, it is the underlying cause of all persecution and oppression. Pride makes the adherents of one religion persecute those who follow another religion. In their pride, they think that they are superior and the people in the other religion inferior, and so they rationalise that they have a right to persecute them. Christians and Jews are most commonly persecuted, because Satan has a particular hatred for them, but there have been cases where say, Muslims persecuted Hindus, or Hindus persecuted Buddhists and so on. All of it has been based on the underlying pride of the persecutors ("Our religion is better than your religion, so we're better than you and therefore you deserve to die!") The same applies to racists, who are full of pride over their skin colour and scorn for people of a different skin colour. Ditto for political persecution. It is also pride that motivates the schoolyard bully or domestic abuser. They too think themselves superior to those whose lives they make miserable. In fact, the very reason for their persecution is to puff themselves up even more. Psychologists often like to say that abusers and bullies have low self-esteem, but the absolute opposite is true. They esteem themselves far too highly, and this hyper-inflated pride leads them to first disdain others with contempt and then actively persecute them.
It is very evident from the Bible that people who persecute others (whether in a religious context or otherwise) are not saved. Consider this for instance: "They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me." (John 16:2-3) When Paul was lost, he persecuted the early Christians (see Acts 8:3 - note that Paul went by the name of Saul initially). But after he was saved, he no longer persecuted the church, although he often suffered persecution himself. The word "wicked" as used in Psalm 10 always (or nearly always) refers to the lost in the Bible. As I mentioned in my previous Pride Month post, pride blinds people to the truth, and this is why lost people are generally so full of pride. The worse someone's pride is, the more likely they are to persecute others in one form or another. Born-again Christians, on the other hand, have humble and repentant hearts and so don't persecute others (again, Paul is the perfect example of this).
In the second part of Psalm 10:2, David wishes for the wicked to be taken in the devices they have imagined. Note that people who persecute others often spend time thinking about it, and plotting tactics. A great example of a proud person who was taken in the devices he imagined is Haman in the book of Esther. Haman was basically the prime minister of Persia. "After these things did king Ahasuerus promote Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him, and set his seat above all the princes that were with him." (Esther 3:1) As the next couple of verses show, King Ahasuerus commanded that everyone should bow to Haman and give him reverence. However, Mordecai, a Jew and man of God, refused to do this. We are not given an explicit reason why, but it is most likely that he did not want to transgress the First Commandment about only worshipping God. Well, even though everyone else was bowing and scraping to him, this one person who wouldn't really got up Haman's nose. It wounded his pride greatly. So much so, that he decided to kill not only Mordecai, but all the Jews in the empire: "And when Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence, then was Haman full of wrath. And he thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone; for they had shewed him the people of Mordecai: wherefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews that were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, even the people of Mordecai." (Esther 3:5-6) He wasted little time in putting his wicked plan into action, but shows all the cunning of the Devil by not actually naming the Jews in his request to the king. Instead, he just makes a vague reference to a certain people and then slanders them by accusing them of not obeying the king's laws. "And Haman said unto king Ahasuerus, There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from all people; neither keep they the king's laws: therefore it is not for the king's profit to suffer them. If it please the king, let it be written that they may be destroyed: and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the hands of those that have the charge of the business, to bring it into the king's treasuries." (Esther 3:8-9) Notice how he also bribes the king with money for his treasuries. Unfortunately, as the next few verses show, the king fell for Haman's tricks and authorised him to do as he saw fit with the Jews.
Moving ahead a couple of chapters, we see Haman's pride in evidence once again. After attending a special banquet that Queen Esther, the Jewish wife of Ahasuerus, had prepared, he was really puffed up, yet Mordecai continued to wound his pride. "Then went Haman forth that day joyful and with a glad heart: but when Haman saw Mordecai in the king's gate, that he stood not up, nor moved for him, he was full of indignation against Mordecai. Nevertheless Haman refrained himself: and when he came home, he sent and called for his friends, and Zeresh his wife. And Haman told them of the glory of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and all the things wherein the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king. Haman said moreover, Yea, Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king unto the banquet that she had prepared but myself; and to morrow am I invited unto her also with the king. Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate." (Esther 5:9-13) Haman had much in his life to be thankful for - wealth, lots of children, a very senior position in the Persian Empire - and yet his pride was so great that he ignored all that and just concentrated on his grudge against Mordecai. A grudge so bitter that he wanted to persecute an entire people with genocide. And it all came back to his pride. One guy out of thousands wouldn't bow to him. ONE. Yet that was enough to hurt Haman's pride so much that it produced this murderous hatred.
It seems that Haman's wife and friends were not very much better than him: "Then said Zeresh his wife and all his friends unto him, Let a gallows be made of fifty cubits high, and to morrow speak thou unto the king that Mordecai may be hanged thereon: then go thou in merrily with the king unto the banquet. And the thing pleased Haman; and he caused the gallows to be made." (Esther 5:14)
So Haman, his wife and friends plotted to have Mordecai hanged with the king's permission. Haman would have been pleased since he thought he would finally have his revenge. However, God has His ways of humbling the proud, and we see a most glorious example of that in the next two chapters. It comes in two stages. Firstly, the tables are quite spectacularly turned:
"On that night could not the king sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles; and they were read before the king. And it was found written, that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king's chamberlains, the keepers of the door, who sought to lay hand on the king Ahasuerus. And the king said, What honour and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this? Then said the king's servants that ministered unto him, There is nothing done for him. And the king said, Who is in the court? Now Haman was come into the outward court of the king's house, to speak unto the king to hang Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him. And the king's servants said unto him, Behold, Haman standeth in the court. And the king said, Let him come in. So Haman came in. And the king said unto him, What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour? Now Haman thought in his heart, To whom would the king delight to do honour more than to myself? And Haman answered the king, For the man whom the king delighteth to honour, Let the royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head: And let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king's most noble princes, that they may array the man withal whom the king delighteth to honour, and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour. Then the king said to Haman, Make haste, and take the apparel and the horse, as thou hast said, and do even so to Mordecai the Jew, that sitteth at the king's gate: let nothing fail of all that thou hast spoken." (Esther 6:1-10)
For additional background on the earlier plot against the king that Mordecai helped to foil, see Esther 2:21-23. Mordecai was not honoured for his good deed at the time, but that was because God had other plans, as He did for instance when He allowed Joseph to languish in prison for two years after Pharoah's butler had promised to put in a good word for him, but then forgot about it. God's timing may seem odd to us sometimes, but He sees the big picture that we do not, and it is always perfect in the end. Anyway, just as the king was learning of Mordecai's good deed and deciding to honour him, who should turn up but Haman? And of course, Haman was all set to execute his evil plan to have Mordecai hanged. At this point, his pride was about as inflated as it could possibly be. So much so that when the king seeks his advice about honouring someone, Haman assumes it is himself. He is so puffed up that he does not imagine anyone else worthy of the honour. Further evidence of his colossal pride is then presented in the advice he gives the king. He thought all this fine clothing, and the king's horse, and the royal crown, would be shortly his, and then he would be paraded through the streets and everyone would think what a great guy he was. The kind of pride that Haman shows here is also the sort of pride that is inside the worst kinds of persecutors, abusers and bullies. But then Haman's prideful dream is shattered as he learns that he has to give all that honour to Mordecai! He does it too, as the next two verses show, then hurries home in shame.
If you thought that was a beautiful comeuppance, you ain't seen nothing yet. In the next chapter, Haman is invited to another banquet with the king and queen, one which will turn out to be his last meal:
"Then Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request: For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my tongue, although the enemy could not countervail the king's damage. Then the king Ahasuerus answered and said unto Esther the queen, Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so? And Esther said, The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman. Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen. And the king arising from the banquet of wine in his wrath went into the palace garden: and Haman stood up to make request for his life to Esther the queen; for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king. Then the king returned out of the palace garden into the place of the banquet of wine; and Haman was fallen upon the bed whereon Esther was. Then said the king, Will he force the queen also before me in the house? As the word went out of the king's mouth, they covered Haman's face. And Harbonah, one of the chamberlains, said before the king, Behold also, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman. Then the king said, Hang him thereon. So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king's wrath pacified." (Esther 7:1-10)
And so wicked Haman was ultimately taken in his own devices. The very honour and reward that he sought for himself, he ended up having to give to Mordecai. The very gallows that he built to hang Mordecai, the man he hated for the mere crime of refusing to bow to him, was the one on which he was hanged himself. And his humiliation didn't end there, because his house was given to Mordecai and his ten sons ended up being hanged on the gallows he had built.
So we see in Haman an example of a wicked man's pride leading him to persecute (or at least, attempt to persecute) others. But Haman's comeuppance also shows us that God will ultimately humble proud persecutors. Not all of them are humiliated as spectacularly as Haman, at least not in this life, but eventually they all have to face death, which is humbling in itself. And then judgement by God, followed by eternity in the Lake of Fire. Unless, like Paul, they repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.
Now in both yesterday's devotion and today's, who do we see pride being associated with? THE WICKED! Contrary to what the world teaches us, pride is not a virtue. It is in fact a great sin, one that underlies many other forms of evil. And as the month progresses, I will present further Biblical evidence to prove that. Suffice it to say though that pride is most assuredly not a thing to be celebrated.
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