PRIDE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 24, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 12.

No TEMPTATIONS are more insidious than those of pride; none adapt themselves more skilfully to every stage of Christian life. Has some spiritual experience surpassed all former ones, the temptation follows to live upon it, to count one’s self as having already attained. Has an organization grown in power and in favor with the leaders of the church, the temptation comes to trust in numbers, or in great names, rather than in God alone. On the other hand, have failures in one’s spiritual life, or in organized effort, been most humiliating, the temptation is not far away to trust in this passing humility, and forget that reliance upon one’s own humility is, in itself, a most subtle and dangerous pride. Hezekiah had apparently learned true humility and entire dependence upon God through repeated dangers and deliverances, yet the sin that followed, the great sin of his life and reign, had its root in pride.

There is another treacherous snare that is set by pride, the snare into which Saul fell when the women sang:—

“Saul hath slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands.”

The very name of jealousy repels, but it does not thereby make one proof against its cunning. Let a committeeman be esteemed above the chairman, or one officer above another, and jealousy may begin to fill the mind with prejudice, almost unknown to its victim. It is not in man to cleanse his heart from pride, or from any of the evils that follow in its train. He alone who humbled Himself, and became obedient unto the most shameful death, can purify the heart. Those who forget to glory in the things that are behind, and who look always and only to Him, are transformed into His likeness. Only they rejoice to decrease that others who serve Him may increase.