Pride # 3

Pride # 3

II. The same spirit that exerts itself in opposition to God's providential dispensations as to our state and circumstances in this world, is found quarreling also with God's gracious dealings with our souls, especially in young converts.

Sensibly feeling the heavy load of guilt on their consciences, they become impatient in their distress, and cannot bear the yoke which the Lord has put upon them; but as Rachel said, "give me children, or I die!" so they cry, "give us peace, or we perish!" They being in a degree unhumbled, a secret but a stubborn rising of self-righteous pride will manifest itself in various ways - such as secret anger at heart, because they are thus - a sullenness, like a person disappointed, because they cannot be as they would - a desperate willfulness in complaining and in refusing comfort - and an aptness to fly in the face of God, and say, "why has he thus dealt, or why does He thus deal with us?"

And with these peevish and violent workings of pride, the devil joins at the same time with all his fore, setting forth everything in the most discouraging light, and insinuating, that there is little or no prospect of things being better.

In the mean time, unbelief is also raging; deliverance seems hardly possible; all the means of it seem insufficient; so many things stand in the way - such corruptions within,such difficulties without, and such guilt remaining. The soul is ready to sink under the burden, being almost determined to give up all for lost.

In such inward workings of our minds, there is more pride, and of an unhumbled spirit, dissatisfied with the sovereign pleasure of God respecting our condition, than we are apt to imagine! Being in such a spirit, do we not seek, and as it were, demand peace and comfort, as if they are our right - rather than the free and undeserved gifts of God? If not, why are we so fretful and uneasy under delays? Why do we presumptuously expostulate, "Why is He so long in coming?" If we narrowly examine our deceitful hearts, I doubt not, but that we shall find unhumbled pride at the bottom of all this impatience.

In proportion as this spirit prevails - is our utter unfitness to receive any gospel-blessing or comfort from the Lord. God never bestows His blessings, until He has brought us into a suitable frame to receive them. "God gives grace to the humble" - to those whom He has emptied of their pride and self-sufficiency. When effectually humbled, they are easily satisfied with His dealings with them. Then every mercy bestowed appears, as truly it is, great and undeserved - and the language of the soul is, "I deserve less than the least of all Your mercies."

We would be as gods; but the Lord will make us know, that He is Being to whom absolute sovereignty belongs; that He cannot be limited, nor have His ways prescribed to Him. He will have us to exercise absolute submission and acquiescence in all His dealings and dispensations towards us.

"O Lord," said David, "you are my God; my times are in your hands" - his times of trouble and of peace, of darkness and of light, he acknowledged with acquiescence and thankfulness, to be in the hand and at the disposal of God, and that it was his place humbly to wait the Lord's time and season for the enjoyment of His comforts and for the light of His countenance.

Nothing indeed can be well with us, until we are brought to this frame of mind - until we are satisfied that the Lord should carve for us both in temporal and spiritual things, until we are willing to bear His chastisements and thankfully to receive His comforts - when, and however He is pleased to send either the one or the other.

But when we are made willing, that the Lord should in every thing be God to us - we cannot but succeed in the end; and though we may have to wait for the vision - yet it will assuredly come, and will not tarry, and will fully answer our largest expectations. "Sorrow may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning." "You have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy."

Hence we see, how this spirit of pride and independence operates, with respect to spiritual as well earthly things - and that it can feed on one as well as on the other. It is indeed changed in its form, and pursues its end in a different course; but it is the old man still, setting up for himself, though he wears the appearance of the new man in Christ. It is still satan, though he is transformed into an angel of light.

~Thomas Charles~

(continued with # 4)