Wow, a week of June has gone already! It has been quite an eventful week for me, with a couple of refresher driving lessons followed by a tummy bug! (Praise God, I think I have now made a full recovery from the latter). However, this blog is really not about me, so I will cut the small talk and get on with today's Pride Month devotion. I have now managed a week of these - just another three weeks to go, the Lord willing. Today's key verse makes an interesting contrast between pride and humility:
"A man's pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit." (Proverbs 29:23)
Many people, in their pride, seek elevation in life. They have ambitions to become company CEOs, or Prime Ministers, or Presidents, or whatever it might be. Or perhaps they want to be a star athlete, musician or actor. They may have lofty dreams of becoming a best-selling author (I had such a dream once). But whatever their ambition is, they are usually seeking their own glory. (Certainly, when I entertained fantasies of being a famous author, I was all about my own glory and puffing myself up.) Now some of these ambitious people succeed, and they may enjoy some worldly success and adulation for a while. But if pride is their primary motivation and driving force in life, sooner or later, they will be brought low. The Word of God teaches us: "For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." (Luke 14:11) There are no exceptions to this. And we see it play out time and again. Think of all the celebrities who have died premature deaths. Some died tragically, while others died sad and alone. Or celebrities who fell from grace after having some major sin of the past exposed. In the end, their pride brought them low.
But anybody can be brought low by pride. God has many different ways of humbling those who exalt themselves. A few can be found in the Bible. Harking back to the first Pride Month post I did, consider the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. The men of Sodom were proud and haughty, just like the homosexuals of today. They committed abominable sin before God and were as bold as could be about it. Everything was out in the open in Sodom, just as it is today. Yet the fate of their city, along with Gomorrah and one or two others in the same area, was to be destroyed with fire and brimstone from God. In the end, their pride brought them low. The great empire of Egypt was brought low by the pride of its Pharaoh who refused to let the children of Israel go. It was initially brought low with plagues, and then brought even lower by the Egyptian army being drowned in the Red Sea. The Philistine giant Goliath was brought low - after all his boasting, he was killed by a boy with a slingshot. Haman, one of the most prideful men recorded in the Bible, was brought low by firstly having to honour the man he hated, and then by being hanged on his own gallows. And there are many other examples, mainly in the Old Testament, but also some in the New, of people being abased, or brought low, by their pride. Examples abound in real life too. Many tragedies have, in one way or another, been the result of pride, such as someone showing off to their friends by driving too fast, only to then lose control and suffer a terrible crash, or a person putting themselves in a precarious situation to take a selfie (solely to impress their friends or Instagram followers) and then falling to their death. Or, less sadly, a sportsperson or team losing to an opponent that no one thought had any chance of winning. (Have you ever noticed how many sportspeople will carefully avoid boasting about their prospects in an upcoming match and even talk up their opponent? In their conscience, they understand the principle of the humble being exalted and the proud being humbled, but they have probably also learned the hard way that arrogance and complacency is more likely to result in a shock defeat.)
People who are proud often get ideas "above their station". And quite often, they will be put in their place, while other more humble people may be promoted above them. The Lord Jesus Christ gives an excellent illustration of this:
"When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee." (Luke 14:8-10)
Among the things Jesus rebuked the prideful Pharisees for was that they "love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues" (Matthew 23:6). They loved those rooms and seats because sitting in them meant being admired by others. They were all about their own pride and their own glory.
As I have touched on once or twice already in this Pride Month series, the enemy of both God and mankind, Satan, is also full of pride (this is why those who are still in his snare tend to proud in one way or another). But the Bible prophesies that in the end, he too will be brought low: "Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit." All proud people, if they do not repent, will be brought down to the same place. Incidentally, the Bible tells us exactly when Satan will be cast into Hell - it will be after the Millennium when Christ rules the earth. Satan will be released from the bottomless pit (where he will be locked up during the Millennium) and try to lead a worldwide rebellion against Christ, with the first one having failed at Armageddon (this will be the defeat of the Antichrist and False Prophet; Armageddon will end the Great Tribulation and usher in the Millennium). Of course, this final rebellion will be soundly defeated, just as the Armageddon one a thousand years earlier, and the prophecy in Isaiah will finally be fulfilled:
"And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." (Revelation 20:10)
This then will be the final end of Satan. This is where his pride will ultimately get him. It is where the pride of the Antichrist and False Prophet will get them too (albeit a thousand years earlier). And if you persist in your pride, sinner, you will end up being brought down as low as the Lake of Fire too. You may well be humbled in this life, but it is the humbling in eternity that you really have to worry about.
But now let's look a bit at the second half of that verse, which talks of how honour shall uphold the humble in spirit. Those who seek God's glory rather than their own, and who do not actively seek honour, will often have it unexpectedly bestowed upon them. Joseph, for instance, had no ambitions to achieve a high role in the government of Egypt. Yet within the space of a few hours, he went from being a prisoner to the Pharaoh's second-in-command! Gideon was the least important member of a poor family, yet God chose him to deliver Israel from the Midianites. David was the youngest member of his family and looked after sheep, yet God made him Israel's greatest king. It should be noted also that when David had the opportunity to kill Saul, his predecessor, he did not do so, even though it would have meant that he would immediately become king. You see, David was motivated by a desire to serve God rather than his own ambition, so he was content to wait on God's timing. The humble in spirit in the Bible are also saved people who have repented and believed on Jesus. Their desire, as new creatures in Christ, is to serve God and please Him. Hence they no longer seek their own glory. But they will receive honour and glory anyway, although not always in this life. Many of them will go unsung until eternity, but others, like Joseph and David, may be elevated to positions of high honour and wealth in the present world too. And Christ Himself is the perfect illustration of the humble receiving honour. He humbled Himself to become a man, to live His life according to His Father's will, and to be crucified, but was then exalted when He rose from the dead and ascended to Heaven.
So just as the final destiny of Satan shows us the ultimate end of pride, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ shows us the great reward of humility and putting God's will above ours. Those who live according to their pride will be brought low - with misfortune in this life and eternal damnation in the next. Born-again Christians who give in to pride (sadly, it can happen) don't have to worry about their eternal souls, but God can still bring them low in various ways as He chastens them for their sinful attitudes. But those who are truly humble in spirit, who seek God's glory and lay aside any ambitions for their own glory, will be upheld by honour. Just as God has all sorts of ways to humble the proud, so He also has many ways to honour the humble in spirit. Not only can the proud be surprised by the speed of their downfall, but the humble can also be surprised by the speed of their honour (Joseph being a case in point). The proud may prosper for a while, but sooner or later, they will be brought low. Repent and humble yourself today, because tomorrow might be the day God decides to bring you low!
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