Pride

Pride is one of the seven deadly sins.

General characteristics

Pride defiles a person and will bring him low, and then disgrace comes upon him, because the arrogance is an abomination to the God, and the haughty eyes, the eyelids lift and lofty words are among the things God hates.

Presumptuous sins are the base of great transgression. Conceit is the lamp of the wicked, and the fool is reckless (hotheaded) and careless.

Pride only breeds quarrelsand the proud man or the man with evil thoughts should put hand on his mouth because pressing anger produces strife.

True wisdom is incompatible with pridePride is present in the speeches of false teachers. There is more hope for a fool than for somebody that is ″wise in his own eyes″

Jesus criticized those who think they are right before God and boast about their moral performance, falling into the sin of pride. Pride often grows from the soil of fairness and humility often grows out of sinners’ tears.

Pride, along with many other sins, will dominate the hearts of many people in the last days

Types of proud man

Sometimes the proud man is boastful. Only good deeds alone may be a reason for praise (boasting), because the true reason for praising himself (boasting) (coming from others-) is what is in the heart, not in outward appearance. People often boast unreasonably about things they received (goods, noble origin, good health, high education, etc.)

Sometimes proud man is an atheist or cuts off some divine attributes

Sometimes the conceited man is a scoffer (mocker)If the scoffers are cast out, the strife, quarrels, insults (abuses) will cease.Mockers stir up a city. The scoffer causes suffering to himself and it is an abomination to all people. Whoever mocks the poor, insults his Maker, and he will be mocked by God The mocker does not listen to anyone reproving him , so the sentences (penalties, condemnations), including strikes (flogs), are reserved to them to be recovered. If the revilers remain the same, they will not see the kingdom of God There will be some scoffers in the last days.

Under the shelter of success, the wicked and proud man is contemptuous, a murderer and oppressor of the poor, boastful, atheist or blasphemer, his mouth is full of curses and deceit. Or, happy and untroubled by any suffering, he is prosperous, fat and sleek, oppressive, has a tireless tongue and become a stumbling-block for ordinary people.

Psalmist prays that God repays to the proud (people) God knows the conceits, and He stands against the proud (people), humble their heart (bowed down their hearts) with suffering (hard labor, bitter labor)

Sources of pride

Adam and Eve were cast out of heaven because of pride of knowledge.Lucifer fell from heaven because of pride becoming Satan (the enemy, the devil).Knowledge puffs up but love builds up.

Power and wealth are the second cause of pride: Assyrian king Sennacherib, Babylonian kings Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, Adonia, son of David, king Uzziah, king Hezekiah (see the following chapter)

The pride of rulers

Spoilt Adonijah turned up daringly against his father, king David, plotting to grab the power.

God punished the pride of Sennacherib, sending an angel that killed 185,000 soldiers in his camp, forcing him to abandon the fight against Hezekiah and return to his country. There his sons killed him while praying in temple.

Nebuchadnezzar received so much power so ″his heart was lifted up and ,,his spirit was hardened with pride″). As prophet Daniel had interpreted his disturbing dream, ″he was brought down from his kingly throne″ and ″stripped of his glory″. He was ″driven from among men, and his mind was made like that of a beast: his dwelling was with the wild donkeys and with the beasts of the field. He was made to eat grass like an ox and was wet with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird. Seven periods of time (years) passed over him until he admitted that ″the Most High God rules the kingdom of mankind and sets over it whomever he wishes″ and then the throne was returned to him.″

Belshazzar did not learn anything from his father’s history and did not humble his heart before God, so God's message, written by the fingers of a human hand on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, opposite the lamp stand, confirms ruthlessly (ascertains ruthlessly the truth of) Daniel interpretation: Belshazzar is killed and his kingdom will be given to Medes and Perses, Darius receiving it at the age of about sixty-two years.

King Uzziah, son of Amata, ″did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God, and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper″. Besides this, he became an influential regional leader, with a very large army and grew very strong. But when getting so strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the Lord and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense, that priests alone, who are consecrated for this, were allowed to do. Faced by Azariah, the chief priest, and other eighty priests, he became angry and God struck him and leprosy broke out on his forehead. King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death, and being a leper lived in a separate house.

Being sick to death, Hezekiah prayed to the Lord and the Lord healed him. Instead of ″making return according to the benefit done to him″, Hezekiah, abandoned by God who wanted to put him to the test, grew proud: Hezekiah welcomed Babylonian envoys and he ″showed them all his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his armoury, all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them″. Then God's wrath befell him and Judah and Jerusalem, but Hezekiah humbled himself along with the inhabitants of Jerusalem, making the wrath of God not to come upon them during his life. Isaiah told him that after his death the country would be looted and some of his children would be taken into captivity in the palace of the king of Babylon.

The pride of countries

God punished the pride of Jacob where luxury, injustice and lazy callousness became unbearable. God decided he will ″deliver up the city and all that is in it."

God punished the proud Tyr, who ″thinks (fancies) he is a god, the merchant of the nations”, that, heaped up silver like dust, and fine gold like the mud of the streets”, ″the bestower of crowns, whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the honoured of the earth, the richest of the people” in order to ″defile the pompous pride of all glory, to dishonour all the honoured of the earth”.

The proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim will be crushed. Judges and soldiers reel with wine and stagger with strong drink, priest and prophets too: reel in vision, stumble in giving judgment; in addition they are scoffing.

The pride of Egypt will be destroyed with the 'sword' Babylon. Egypt, which was like a dragon in the seas, which he burst forth in his rivers, troubles the waters with his feet, and fouls their rivers will be caught and crushed. Those ″who spread terror in the land of the living ", as Meshech and Tubal, will be killed by the sword.

Israel will be punished for his abominations (idolatry, greed, murder, violence) the worst people will take their homes and pride of the mighty will come to the end.

Pride is one of Sodom’s sins.

Isaiah prophesied to Judah and Jerusalem, reproving them for their idolatry and greed: when Jesus will come ,,the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low, and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day”.

God put the Moab’s pride to shame, because its inhabitants were idolaters, they mock the people of God and boasted against him.

Struggle against pride

The psalmist asked God to keep him back from the presumptuous sins. The Christian keeps away from the proud people. Christian love casts out pride for ever.

Sources

1. Bible, English Standard Version Revised, 1971
2. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/