psa 31v20 The Pride Of Man
"THE
PRIDE OF MAN"
Psalm 31:20
Of all the evils that reside in
and arise from the human heart, pride is the most abominable. Pride is the
ugliest monster that dwells in the dark den of our hearts. PRIDE IS THE ROOT
OF ALL SIN. It was pride that destroyed Lucifer. Pride led one third of the
heavenly angels in rebellion against the throne of God. Pride inspired Adam to
steal the fruit of God's tree. Pride but the curse of God
upon man, upon the beasts of the field, and upon the earth which God created.
And pride made the first son of Adam a murderer. Compared with pride all the
other evil passions of our hearts are easy to control. A man may control his
sensual lusts, otherwise all men would be rapists. He
may control his covetousness, otherwise all would be
thieves and murderers. He may even control his envy,
otherwise we would all be at each other's throats all the time. But where is
the man who can control his pride? There is nothing we detest in others so much
as pride. Yet, pride is the most persistent evil of our own hearts. And nothing
could be more inconsistent than "the pride of man".
As pride is the root of all sin, PRIDE IS THE ROOT
OF ALL HERESY too. Men utter false doctrine because they are unwilling to
bow to the revelation of God. Man thinks his own judgment, reason, or opinion
is superior to the Word of God. Just recently, I heard Jimmy Swaggart say,
"God limited his omniscience and omnipotence, so that man could be free.
God chose to limit himself rather than interfere with man's free-will."
What would make a man say such a thing? Pride! Pride is the root of Armenian
freewillism. The religion of this world, be it papacy or protestanism,
liberalism or conservatism, fundamentalism or atheism, is all one religion. Its
doctrine is the dignity, the supremacy, and the goodness of man. It makes man
his own teacher, his own ruler, his own savior, and his own god. And man eats
it up, because man is proud. He delights to hear that God is limited and he is
free. Proud man delights in hearing that God's power, knowledge, grace, and
wrath are all dependent upon him. I solemnly warn you: Beware of any doctrine
that promotes human pride. "Pride goeth before destruction."