Step 2. – Pride
The pride of Israel testifies to his face;
Israel and Ephraim shall stumble in his guilt;
Judah also shall stumble with them. (Hos. 5:5 ESV)
“Pride” is a word that is used much different today than in the Bible. For the most part, pride is looked on as a good quality:
- We take pride in a job well done
- We are proud of someone, especially our wives, husbands, parents, kids and grandkids
- Pride is defined as “a reasonable or justifiable self-respect”
However, as used in the Bible, pride is defined is conceit, arrogance and haughtiness. In Prov. 8:13, pride is used to define evil:
The fear of the Lord is to hate evil;
Pride and arrogance and the evil way
And the perverted mouth, I hate. (NASB)
The Message Bible translates it this way:
The Fear-of-God means hating Evil,
whose ways I hate with a passion—
pride and arrogance and crooked talk.
Another way to put it would be that if you fear the Lord, you will hate evil, (and therefore all its parts, such as pride). If you do not hate evil, then you must not fear the Lord.
Our country is full of arrogant people in leadership positions. In fact, it is almost a requirement to be arrogant in order to get elected. Every election season, the arrogance of the candidates go into full display as they attack each other in an effort to stroke their own pride. And we, the citizens, cannot escape it! It is designed for us to hear.
None of this pride and arrogance does our country any good:
Pride comes before destruction,
and an arrogant spirit before a fall.
Better to be lowly of spirit with the humble
than to divide plunder with the proud. (Prov. 16:18-19 HCSB)
Israel took a step down from lacking knowledge to pride, and the parallel to this country is uncanny. As a nation, we have gone from complacency in our knowledge of God to a place of being prideful in who we are. Israel’s pride kept them from repenting from their iniquity (guilt) and therefore, caused them to stumble.
This was just the 2nd step that Israel took on a downward walk from God. How many of these steps are we going to copy?
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