Pride: a Pricey Pitfall
I
Israel’s king Saul disobeyed God’s
command to destroy every trace
of the enemy during a battle. Saul
saved the best spoils from the
battle and when Samuel, God’s
prophet, heard the bleating of
sheep and tried to correct king
Saul, he began to make excuses by
blaming the people,saying:
“The people took of the plunder,
sheep and oxen, the best of the
things which should have been
utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to
the Lord your God in Gilgal!”
His unwillingness to receive
correction sprung out of his pride
and rebellious spirit.
When Naaman, captain of the king
of Syria’s army, who was a leper,
sought out Elisha, the prophet,
he arrived with great pomp and
circumstance with horses and
chariot and stood at the prophet’s
door. Elisha did not even come out
to greet him, but sent a messenger
out to tell him, “Go and wash in the
Jordan seven times, and your flesh
shall be restored to you, and you
shall be clean.”
Naaman immediately slipped into
defense mode because of his
great pride, and refused to obey
the Word of the Lord through the
prophet. “Are not the Abanah and
the Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus,
better than all the waters of Israel?
Could I not wash in them and be
clean?” So, he turned and went
away in a rage.
Thank God for the witness of his
humble servants! They advised
him to surrender his pride and
obey the Word of the Lord. So
he went down and dipped seven
times in the Jordan, according to
the saying of the man of God; and
his flesh was restored like the flesh
of a little child, and he was clean.
Pride blinds to the truth
Not many people can receive
correction from the Word of God
humbly. Jeremiah, the prophet,
lost his life preaching about
sin, righteousness and coming
judgment that was already
speeding towards Jerusalem.
Here was a patriotic man of God,
whose message was not borne with
sweet, positive words. While the
false prophets were prophesying
positive blessings upon Jerusalem,
he was hated and labeled a prophet
of doom and conspired against
by his fellow citizens, including
his own townsmen. Then he was
beaten and put in the stocks.
Nevertheless, he continued to
proclaim God’s warning of terrible
judgment about to fall upon a
nation that wanted to go its own
way. He was imprisoned several
times, and at one time thrown into
a stinking dungeon, where he sank
down into mud. After forty years of
ministry, he was stoned to death.
When John the Baptist rebuked
king Herod for his adultery with
his brother’s wife, he told him, “It
is not lawful for you to have her!”
Later, he was beheaded in prison.
Sin hardens the conscience of
many people so that they become
savages, controlled by their own
lusts, who will do anything to have
their own way.
When Stephen, one of seven
deacons in the early Church,
preached to unbelieving Jews, he
spoke plainly of their sins. “You
stiff-necked and uncircumcised in
heart and ears! You always resist
the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did,
so do you. Which of the prophets
did your fathers not persecute?
And they killed those who foretold
the coming of the Just One, of
whom you now have become
the betrayers and murderers,
who have received the law by the
direction of angels and have not
kept it.”
But being full of the Holy Spirit, he
gazed into heaven, saw the glory
of God, and Jesus standing at the
right hand of God, and said, “Look!
I see the heavens opened and the
Son of Man standing at the right
hand of God!”
Then they cried out with a loud
voice, stopped their ears, and ran
at him with one accord, cast him
out of the city, and stoned him to
death.
Solomon, to whom God gave
great earthly wisdom, once wrote,
“Because the sentence against an
evil work is not executed speedily,
therefore the heart of the sons
of men is fully set in them to do
evil. Though a sinner does evil a
hundred times, and his days are
prolonged, yet I surely know that
it will be well with those who fear
God, who fear before Him. But it
will not be well with the wicked;
nor will he prolong his days, which
are as a shadow,
By C Richard McCaw
because
he
author, music teacher
does not fear
and many years as a
Bible teacher
before God!” p
July - September 2016
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