That monstrous creature within us!
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"I abhor the pride of Jacob." Amos 6:8
O cursed pride, that is ever lifting up its head in our hearts! Pride would even pull down God that it might sit upon His throne. Pride would trample under foot the holiest things to exalt itself! Pride is that monstrous creature within us, of such ravenous and indiscriminate gluttony, that the more it devours, the more it craves! Pride is that chameleon which assumes every colour—that actor which can play every part—and yet which is faithful to no one object or purpose—but to exalt and glorify self!
"I will make the pride of the strong to cease." "He shall bring down their pride." (Ezekiel 7:24, Isaiah 25:11) God means to kill man's pride! And oh, what cutting weapons the Lord will sometimes make use of to kill a man's pride! How He will bring him sometimes into the depths of temporal poverty, that He may make a stab at his worldly pride! How He will bring to light the iniquities of his youth, that He may mortify his self-righteous pride!
How He will allow sin to break forth, if not openly, yet so powerfully within, that piercing convictions shall kill his spiritual pride! And what deep discoveries of internal corruption will the Lord sometimes employ, to dig down to the root, and cut off the core of that poisonous tree, pride! The Searcher of hearts dissects and anatomizes this inbred evil, cuts down to it through the quivering and bleeding flesh, and pursues with His keen knife its multiplied windings and ramifications. "
The lofty looks of man will be brought low, the haughtiness of men will be bowed down, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day." Isaiah 2:11 "And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." Isaiah 2:17 "The Lord of hosts has purposed it, to stain the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honourable of the earth." Isaiah 23:9