A Propensity to Moral Failure 4

The moral failure of the natural heart, its propensity to evil and perversion, inevitably becomes obvious in our behavior.

• As a result, we tend to focus our attention on our conscious attitudes and actions.

But God is not content simply to reveal the outward expressions of the fallen heart.

• He probes deeper to expose to us these two fundamental defects that underlie our conscious thoughts, feelings, and actions: pride and deceitfulness.
• Psalm 51:6 Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.
• The Imitation of Christ by Thomas À Kempis (German-Dutch canon regular, (age 90, died 1471)). Influences Augustine of Hippo, Paul the Apostle etc.

Pride

• We are going to start our study about Pride today.
• Deceitfulness of the natural-fallen heart flows directly from pride.
  • The proud heart can be easily deceived.
  • Believer or unbeliever can be deceived if proud, and thereby, deceived.
• Proverbs 16:18 Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.
• To be “proud of heart” is literally to be “high of heart.”
• Proverbs 16:5 Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; Though they join forces, none will go unpunished.
• We certainly don’t want to be an abomination to the LORD.

In the Old Testament, the heart is “lifting up” the person or the heart being “lifted up”.

• 2 Kings 14:10 You have indeed defeated Edom, and your heart has lifted you up. Glory in that, and stay at home; for why should you meddle with trouble so that you fall—you and Judah with you?”
• Deuteronomy 17:20 that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.
• The arrogant heart is also pictured and translated as “great” or “important” as well as “wide” or “broad” and in some cases simply literally “proud” or “insolent.”

Interestingly “pride” is never directly applied to the heart in the New Testament, but rather to persons.

• Romans 1:30 backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
• 2 Timothy 3:2–4 ² For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, ³ unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, ⁴ traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
• 1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.

Since the heart is the real person, proud persons obviously have proud hearts.

Pride is sometimes indirectly associated with the heart as in the reference to people who are “proud in the thoughts of their heart”

• Luke 1:51 He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
• Mark 7:20–23 ²⁰ And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. ²¹ For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, ²² thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. ²³ All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”

The most fundamental characteristic of the proud heart is its belief in Satan’s lie to Eve “you will be like God”

• Genesis 3:5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
• God = Elohim

The essence of the proud heart is that it dethrones God and replaces him with self.

In Psalm 10, we read the following:

• Psalm 10:3–4 ³ For the wicked boasts of his heart’s desire; He blesses the greedy and renounces the LORD. ⁴ The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God; God is in none of his thoughts.
• The person who lives his life without God may not consciously think of himself as being his own god.
• However, when one chooses to reject God’s authority and follow his own will, in reality he is choosing himself as his final authority and thus his god, even as Adam and Eve did in the beginning.

This is the charge that God brought against the arrogant prince of Tyre:

• Ezekiel 28:2,6 ⁽²⁾ “Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Because your heart is lifted up, And you say, ‘I am a god, I sit in the seat of gods, In the midst of the seas,’ Yet you are a man, and not a god, Though you set your heart as the heart of a god ⁽⁶⁾ ‘Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: “Because you have set your heart as the heart of a god,

The sin of pride, which is one of the seven deadly sins, must not be confused with a proper self-esteem.

• Proverbs 6:16–19 ¹⁶These six things the LORD hates, Yes, seven are an abomination to Him: ¹⁷ A proud look, A lying tongue, Hands that shed innocent blood, ¹⁸ A heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that are swift in running to evil, ¹⁹ A false witness who speaks lies, And one who sows discord among brethren.

Augustine of Hippo also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa.

• About 350 years after Christ
• He wrote a book of Christian philosophy in Latin called “On the city of God against the pagans”, often known as The City of God.

In that book, Augustine writes of a proper exaltation of our heart that comes through a right relationship of humility under God:

And what is pride but the craving for undue exaltation?

And this is undue exaltation, when the soul abandons Him to whom it ought to cleave as its end, and becomes a kind of end to itself.

This happens when it becomes its own satisfaction. (I am good enough)

And it does so when it falls away from that unchangeable good which ought to satisfy it more than itself….

For it is good to have the heart lifted up, yet not to one’s self, for this is proud, but to the Lord, for this is obedient, and can be the act only of the humble.

There is, therefore, something in humility which, strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in pride which debases it.

This seems, indeed, to be contradictory, that loftiness should debase and lowliness exalt. (Righteous while being a “sinner” and other seeming contradictions)

But reverent humility enables us to submit to what is above us; and nothing is more exalted above us than God; and therefore humility, by making us subject to God exalts us.

• Proverbs 18:12 Before destruction the heart of a man is haughty, And before honor is humility.
• 1 Peter 5:6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time,

In Christ, we can say deep within our souls, ‘I am comfortable with who I am in Christ. I’m confident in who I am in Christ. I’m content with who I am in Christ.’”

• Hebrews 13:5 Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
• 1 Timothy 6:6 Now godliness with contentment is great gain.
• Philippians 4:11–13 ¹¹ Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: ¹²I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. ¹³ I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
• 2 Peter 1:10–11 ¹⁰ Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; ¹¹ for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.