Lucifer did not get kicked out of heaven for homosexuality.
He did not get kicked out of heaven for fornication.
He did not get kicked out for adultery, or gluttony or any of the other sins religious people like to point out.
Lucifer was guilty of the one sin that God hates.
Pride.
God hates pride. He detests it.
Lucifer had a heart filled with the arrogance of pride. God described it like this…
Isaiah 14:11-15 (Easy to Read Version)
Your pride has been sent down to Sheol. The music from your harps announces the coming of your proud spirit… 12 You were like the morning star, but you have fallen from the sky. In the past, all the nations on earth bowed down before you, but now you have been cut down.
13 You always told yourself, “I will go to the skies above. I will put my throne above God’s…14 I will go up to the altar above the tops of the clouds. I will be like God Most High.” 15 But that did not happen.
Pride. It is one of those words we pass over. We don’t pay attention to the significance of it. But it is a big deal to God. Pride is more than self exaltation. Pride has a lot of crap packed in it including arrogance–the exaggerated sense of self importance. “I’m better than you and you should love me for it.”
God created humanity equally loving us all. But PRIDE has one love —“itself.” Pride cares for nothing and no one except itself. Pride is the highest form of narcissism. It looks to the admiration of its own beauty and flaunts its own nature to the detriment of others.
Pride is being cynically insensitivity to the needs of others especially those who are different from it. It just doesn’t care about others. Pride goes on about its business being oblivious to the impact of its attitude and actions upon other people. Pride always places its own needs at the front of the line.
Pride presumes its own place of superiority by boldly assuming that it is better than others and as such, should be treated better. Pride. It stinks. God hates it.
God hates all pride.
He hates religious pride.
He hates self-righteous pride.
He hates church pride.
He hates feminist pride.
He hates male pride.
He hates black pride.
He hates white pride.
He hates intellectual pride.
He hates physical pride.
He hates perfectionist pride.
And yes, he hates gay pride. Pride is pride.
Many Christians proudly flaunt their position on gay rights by pointing to Sodom and Gomorrah and saying how God hates the “abomination.” And yes he does. Just as he hates 1) an arrogant attitude, 2) a lying tongue, 3) hands that kill the innocent, 4) a heart that plots evil, 5) feet that race to do wrong, 6) a false witness who lies and 7) a person who gets brothers to fight. God hates all of that stuff. But I think he hates pride more.
Consider Ezekiel 16:49-50…
49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom: 1) pride, 2) fullness of bread, and 3) abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she 4) strengthen the hand of the afflicted and 5) needy. 50 And they 6) filled themselves with arrogance and 7) committed abomination before me…
This passage reminds me of a food packaging label. The most important and abundant ingredient is listed first. “This was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom…” (Notice what comes first) PRIDE. Next is FULLNESS OF BREAD. I think our obesity crisis would attest to the fact that we as a nation have too much to eat with too much time on our hands.
And with all that abundance, we are a callous society that has in some ways stopped caring about those with special needs, the unborn, the elderly and the poor. We have become immune to caring about 3 and 4 year old children being sold into sex slavery.
We are focused on idleness playing with our newest tech devices where we invest hundreds of dollars. When for the price of a date and movie night we could buy a slave their freedom.
And they filled themselves with feelings of self important vain egotistical pride. What was the last item on the label…
“And committed abomination before me” is almost written as an afterthought.
So all that being said… what is the answer to the PRIDE problem? The answer is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. KJV
Wow! Did you see that?!
Prayerlessness is PRIDE! People who don’t pray are filled with pride.
So the answer to defeating a spirit of pride– All PRIDE — is humility. It is seeking the face and heart of God. The act of seeking God reflects humility in and of itself. It says,
“God I know you are bigger than me. I honor that. I need you. I know I have issues that only you can fix. Please Lord, help me cultivate a humble heart so I can let you help me with my self centered, egotistical, selfish, arrogant self. Amen.”
With an attitude of humility, God has permission to do the rest. Yes, he is big enough and BAD enough to do it.
Job 22:26-29 For then shall you have your delight in the Almighty, and shall lift up your face unto God. 27 You shall make your prayer unto him, and he shall hear you, and you shall pay your vows. 28 You shall also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto you: and the light shall shine upon your ways. 29 When men are cast down, then you shall say, There is lifting up; and he shall save the humble person.
Psalms 10:12 Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up thine hand: forget not the humble. KJV
Psalms 9:12 he forgets not the cry of the humble.
Psalms 10:12 Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up your hand: forget not the humble.
Psalms 10:17-18 LORD, You have heard the desire of the humble: you will prepare their heart, You wilt cause your ear to hear: 18 To judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress.
Psalms 69:32 The humble shall see this, and be glad: and your heart shall live that seek God.
Proverbs 29:23 A man’s pride shall bring him low: but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit.
Isaiah 57:15 For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
Matthew 18:4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 23:12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
James 4:6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
James 4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
1 Peter 5:5 Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble.
That’s enough talk about PRIDE. Gonna go humble myself…