When men have ridden the high horse
Back to Spurgeon GEMS volume 3
"Before destruction, the heart of man is haughty." Proverbs 18:12
The wise man teaches us, that a haughty heart is the prophetic prelude of destruction. Pride is as safely the sign of destruction, as the change of mercury in the weather-glass is the sign of rain; and far more infallibly so than that. When men have ridden the high horse—destruction has always overtaken them!
See Nebuchadnezzar, the mighty builder of Babylon, creeping on the earth, devouring grass like oxen, until his nails had grown like bird's claws, and his hair like eagle's feathers! Daniel 4:33.
Pride made the boaster—a beast; as once before it made an angel—a devil. God hates high looks, and never fails to bring them down. All the arrows of God—are aimed at proud hearts!
O Christian, is your heart haughty? For pride can get into the Christian's heart as well as into the unbeliever's; it can delude him into dreaming that he is "rich and increased in goods, and has need of nothing." Are you glorying in your graces or your talents?
Are you proud of yourself, that you have had holy frames and sweet experiences? Mark it, reader, there is a destruction coming to you also! Your flaunting poppies of self-conceit will be pulled up by the roots! Your mushroom graces will wither in the burning heat! Your self-sufficiency shall become as straw for the dunghill.
If you forget to live at the foot of the cross in deepest humility of heart—God will not forget to make you smart under His rod! A destruction will come to you, O unduly exalted believer—the destruction of your joys and of your comforts, though there can be no destruction of your soul. Therefore, "He who glories—let him glory in the Lord!"
Back to Spurgeon GEMS volume 3