Wednesday: The Price of Pride
Within Scripture, one can see two major predominant themes or motifs that are competing with each other. One is the theme of Salem, Mount Zion, Jerusalem, and the New Jerusalem, which represents God’s kingdom. The other is the theme of Babel and Babylon, which stands for Satan’s counterfeit domain. Several times God called His people out of pagan Babylon to serve Him in the Promised Land.
For example, Abram (later Abraham) was asked to move from Ur of the Chaldees to the land of Canaan (Genesis 11:31-12:9).
Image © Lars Justinen from GoodSalt.com
At the end of their long exile, the Jews left Babylon and returned to Jerusalem (Ezra 2:1-70). And in the book of Revelation, God’s people are called out of end-time Babylon (Revelation 18:4) to abide with Him eventually on Mount Zion and the New Jerusalem (Revelation 14:1; Revelation 21:1-3, Revelation 21:10).
Read Isaiah 14:12-15. What far-reaching consequences did Lucifer’s pride while in heaven bring to the universe and to this world?
In the Bible, the city of Babylon stands for a power in direct opposition to God and His kingdom; and the king of Babylon (with special allusion to Nebuchadnezzar) becomes a symbol of pride and arrogance. God had revealed to King Nebuchadnezzar that Babylon was only the gold head of the great image of successive empires (Daniel 2:37-38). Challenging God’s revelation, the king made an image entirely of gold — a symbol that his kingdom would last forever — and even required everyone to worship it (Daniel 3:1-30). As in the case of the king of Tyre (Ezekiel 28:12-19), the king of Babylon also became a symbol of Lucifer.
Isaiah 14:3-11 describes the fall of the haughty and oppressive king of Babylon. Then, Isaiah 14:12-15 moves from the historical realm to the heavenly courts and highlights that a similar proud and arrogant spirit generated the original fall of Lucifer. The text explains that Lucifer planned to exalt his throne above all heavenly hosts and make himself “like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14). This was the beginning of a new and hostile situation in which God’s altruistic love and cooperation would be challenged by Lucifer’s selfishness and competition. The enemy was not afraid of accusing God of what he himself was and of spreading his lies to other angels. Here are the mysterious origins of evil in the universe.
| Why is it so easy to become proud and boastful of either our positions or achievements, or both? How does keeping the cross before us prevent us from falling into such a trap? |
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Hi Family,
I am missing Maurice is he ok?
Maurice is still dealing with his family issues.
May God be with him!
Same here, really missing His contributions but needs to attend to other family issues. We should remember them in our prayers as they mourn the passing away of Carmel's Father (his Father In-Law). One Love Family.
Thank you everyone for your kind words. I have not abandoned Sabbath School Net, but my time is very limited for the next few weeks as we work through all the issues that a death brings to a family. One of the most difficult issues is that when a person dies at 97 years old you have to make lots of hard decisions about what to keep and what to throw out. So far we have thrown out 6 cubic metres of accumulated stuff that Carmel's Dad thought was important enough to keep.
I will be back shortly and will be commenting again. In the last few weeks I have become an expert on death and dying (not really, but I have had the experience to learn from) In the meantime keep studying and challenging one another with questions and ideas. Cheers, Maurice
As an executor of my father's will, how to resolve the matter of his possessions after his death was an issue that resulted in much family "discussion," the ramifications of which the family is still dealing with a decade after his death.
Maurice, I pray God's wisdom and strength for you as you work through all of this.
Hi Maurice, as much as we all missed you, please take the time and handle the family business. Please accept our deepest condolencesand give best regards to dear Carmel.
On a lite note if you should ever need someone to share the inheritance with, please choose me ok 👌you'd be glad you did Ronald Ashley.
Brother Maurice,
I’m in the process of cleaning out my own stuff (or junk), or fall cleaning. I can’t take it with me, as the saying goes; so, why am I holding on to all this stuff. I’ve already getting rid of all my old clothes; I donated some, and threw the rest away. If I haven’t worn it in the last two years (or a year before the pandemic), then I threw it out.
We threw away old furniture, beds, old books, just generally performed a good spring/fall cleaning on our house. There was so much stuff that we had to hire a local trash hauling service to take it all away (I’m really sorry, but yes, all that junk is now in a landfill somewhere). I want to throw away at least 70% of all my accumulated stuff by the end of this year. And I’m trying really hard not to replace it with more stuff. I just want space, nice clean space. So, I know what you are going through.
I want to encourage everyone out there, “Let’s do our own Spring and Fall cleaning”, while we have the strength, so that no one else will have to do it for us later.
God’s blessings to you all!
Take your time! We'll be praying for your duty...
What can I boast about? Once I cannot add a single minute of breathing to anybody's life, even my own! How blind I am when I think what I have is all the result of my sole strenght achievement. Perhaps this thought should permeate all of my consciousness! Can I have this sense all day long? Is it possible to cultivate this while building up self-confidence? Being truly self-confident is to know that all that I have is a gift, and the best gift I can accept is Jesus Christ LOVE (sacrifice) for me! I deserve nothing but death, and yet, the Creator of the Universe gave His life for me! How lucky I am... what would I give back?
While I'm not as well spoken as some of you, there are so many things that come to my mind. As a teenager, I was always told that I needed to love myself. I could not comprehend why or how. I do believe that we should love ourselves as well as others however, not to the point of self pride and being boastful, if that makes sense. We love all that God has created which includes ourselves. It took me being an adult to understand Gods love for us and loving yourself for what he created.
Ah, yes, Wendy, I well remember the first time I heard the "Love yourself first" admonition in a worship service in the girls' dorm in my senior year in high school. The argument was that to love others "as yourself" meant you first had to love yourself. But I don't believe that's what Jesus meant. He took self-love as a "given." Everyone born on this planet has the impulse to protect/look out for self.
Psychologists and would-be psychologists argue for self-love to combat "low self-esteem," which used to be called an "inferiority complex" in my youth. I surely had it, so I supposedly needed to love myself. But what I discovered at that very same school in approximately the same year was that "low self-esteem" was actually a result of self-focus. By the grace of God I learned to focus more on others and how to make their lives better. Somehow my "low self-esteem" pretty much disappeared. I was too busy thinking of others to think of myself very much.
Granted, I'm not nearly close to the way Jesus lived His life. An inspired writer wrote that "Jesus emptied Himself, and in all that He did, self did not appear." (Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings, page 14) Phil. 2:6 Too often, self still shows its ugly head. It doesn't want to stay dead!
That dorm incident was 60 or so years ago, and in the intervening years I have noted that bad results of "loving self first." I well remember a seminar making the rounds in Christian circles that was supposed to help people live more authentic lives. And I remember with grief the number of divorces that happened close on the heels of that seminar ... By contrast, I have also informally counseled (I am not a professional counselor) several people who suffered from "low self-esteem," and, without exception, when they learned to focus on serving others.
The aim of the Christian life is self-forgetful love invested in the service of Christ. Paradoxically, self-forgetfulness makes room for joy in Christian service. Jesus said, "Give and it shall be given to you," (Mark 4:24) and that is true in relationships as well as material things. Christ's instructions always minister to our happiness, and He said, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." (Luke 9:23) The cross is a symbol and instrument of death. But that death makes room for new life. (2 Cor. 5:17) And He fills that new life with joy, even in difficult circumstances. (Phil. 4:4)
I agree with Inge. One has to be loved—to experience and know love directly—to be able to love. That is why the love of a father and a mother for their child is so critical. If that love is perverse, defective or lacking, then the child will be incapable of truly loving unless there is a miracle of grace and a desire for healing.
True love has a source—God. We are loved by God and convey that love through our thoughts, words and actions to those we love and by that conveyance know we are loved.
1 John 4:7-21
Thank you, Richard. Yes, it is true that we cannot love without first being loved. That need to be loved cannot be filled by loving oneself first.
If there is no human source of love, God will fill the void. But God still needs a human to make the connection .... So, it seems to me that we are the conduit through whom God wants to love those around us so that they can love others ... and the love circle widens to encompass the world. It reminds be of a statement in Christ's Object Lessons that suggests that, before Christ comes, His character will be perfectly reproduced in His people. What a prospect! We can't do it on our own, but we can cooperate with Him by listening to Him and doing what He tells us.
Whenever I feel like boasting like a braggart about my accomplishments, I run to Jesus for help because I know that He is meek and lowly and can help me!
Pondering the targeted sin of pride I am thinking that pride is more of a destination than a spot at the beginning of that journey. Perhaps there are many roads. Surely, wanting to be helpful with the wrong attitude is one of them. Wanting to improve the lives of those around us. It may begin with a good thought. It is not overnight that sin develops, even in humans.
Yes, Priscilla. I was thinking along similar lines. Pride was the result of a wrong focus in thinking.
Would Lucifer have developed pride if he had continued to focus on the Creator - to worship, praise and serve Him?
It seems to me that self-focus precedes the sin of pride. Self-focus seems to me to be the polar opposite of God's other-benefitting love.
Inge - I also think and agree with your finding that when focusing on worshipping God – living/doing the Will of the Creator, implies that when living so - being grateful and humble, we can live safely, whereas self-focus develops the sin of pride.
Notice the focus of the covering angels whose wings enclose the space above the mercy seat: Exodus 25:20. Lucifer lost this focus (just as we can lose ours) and it defaulted onto himself.
Good observation! The covering cherubim had their gaze focused on the mercy seat which was over the Law of God, which is the Law of Love, an expression of His character.
I just noticed something today in Eze 28:18 "I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee; it shall devour thee." Other translations put it in the past tense, but I'm guessing the future tense is more accurate. (Hebrew is not a precise language.)
Another interesting thing I learned is this:
It makes total sense, seeing trading or business is not labeled as sinful in the Bible. But gossip/slander is.
To decide to serve the living God means true Life, to decide to serve self-exalting ‘self’, means certain destruction. I am eternally grateful to have been lead to God’s save harbor; letting Him form in me my heart’s desires and strengthening me to live according to His Will. What a wonderful assurance to know that those who believe have their lives safely tucked away in Christ Jesus our Savior. Our lives are forever covered by His Righteousness and forgiveness for our shortcomings.
I learned about the gravity of the consequences of sin and evil as I leaned to lean more and more on the strength of my heavenly Father. The most important aspect of my faith became Jesus’ assurance to never leave or forsake me. Rebellion against the living God - the usurpation of authority and powers not given to man – disturbs me greatly. Experiencing injustice expressed in all its ugly forms was to me like waving a muleta in front of the bull. I wanted to set things right, but I learn to control my impulses and wait upon the LORD..
There are no other laws in all the created Universes than those which the Trinity/Creator established to sustain all that exists; these spiritual, physical, and laws governing time are unmovable, unchangeable, forever – Matt.24:35. Lucifer’s failed attempt to establish himself as the author of other laws equal or above the ones our Creator established is evidence that nothing can assail or change the Sovereignty of the Power of the created Order; only its Maker, and He declared it 'perfect' when it was finished!
Isa.45:8-9 - Drip down, O heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness. Let the earth open up that salvation may sprout and righteousness spring up with it; I, the LORD have created it. ”Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker – one clay pot among many. Does the clay ask the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands?’ Isa.10:15; Jer.18:6; Rom.9:22;
The pride comes after fall the life of Jesus reveals the true life of success. Being Christian we are winner and not loose God has fought for us. He is our victorious
Pride comes before a fall. Let's humble ourselves the Lord so that God will exalt and uplift us. Happy Sabbath