THE BOOK OF JAMES
PRIDE
DR. JIM DIXON
APRIL 28, 1985
JAMES 4:1-12
He was born in the year 1825. He lived in the West Texas frontier where the Pecos and Rio Grande rivers joined. He was a saloon keeper in a small, end-of-the-tracks town called Langtry( named after the beautiful British actress Lillie Langtry). But he was more than a bartender. He was also the town coroner and justice of the peace. He would hold court at one end of the bar and he’d use his guns to keep order. Sometimes his verdicts were a little bizarre—he was known to sentence dead people—but he was, as he said, the only law west of the Pecos. His name was Judge Roy Bean. Throughout history, there have been many judges. Some have been relatively just and some not so just, but all have been flawed. The Bible tells us there’s only one true and perfect Judge. There’s only one law under heaven, and that law is God.
James says there is one law-giver and one Judge. He alone is able to save and to destroy. In our passage of scripture for today, James tells us that there are two groups of people that will receive God’s judgment at the consummation of the age. First of all, James tells us that God will judge the greedy. He will judge the materialistic, those who live for the things of this world. James speaks of them as those who desire but never have enough, those who covet but can never possess enough. Jesus said, “Beware of all covetousness, for a man’s life does not consist in the sum of his possessions.”
There are 200 different species of monkeys in this world. Some of them are found in South America, some in Central America, some in Africa, and some in Asia. In Northern Africa, they have a very special way of capturing monkeys. They take a hollow gourd and they carve a hole in it, a hole just large enough for the monkey to reach its hand into the gourd. Inside the gourd they place nuts—which the monkeys love to eat—and then they tie the gourd securely to a tree. And as the evening comes, the monkeys gather in the jungle and they begin to smell the nuts inside of the gourd. And the monkey will come and reach his little paw—barely able to fit it through that hole—inside the gourd. And the monkey will grab the nuts and then he’ll try to withdraw his hand. But he cannot. He cannot because, as he holds the nuts, his hand is larger, too large to come out of the hole. And it never occurs to the monkey that if he would just open his hand and release the food, he’d be free. So the monkey is trapped for hours until the natives come and take him away.
The Bible indicates that the things of this world—money, possessions, even power and prominence—are exactly like those nuts inside of that gourd. We want these things. We may covet these things. The world wants them, but it’s a snare of Satan. The Bible gives us an incredible truth. The Bible tells us that it’s only as we’re willing to let go of the things of this world—to let go of all the possessions in our life—that we’re able to find true freedom. It’s only as we’re willing to let go of things and take hold of Christ and His kingdom that we can discover what life is all about.
You all know the story of the rich man who came to Jesus Christ and said, “Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said, “You know the commandments: thou shall not kill, thou shall not steal, thou shall not commit adultery, thou shall not bear false witness, and thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.” The man said, “All these things I’ve done from my youth.” Jesus said, “One thing you lack. Go, sell all that you have. Give it away. Give it to the poor. Come follow Me. You’ll have treasure in heaven.” The Bible says that the rich man went away exceedingly sorrowful. He went away exceedingly sorrowful because he was not willing to let go of his riches and make Christ the source of his life, security, provision, and protection. He tried to possess his riches and they wound up possessing him.
The message to us is very simple and very clear. It doesn’t matter how much you have. You might be a millionaire as you sit here today. You might be considered middle class. Maybe you are poor. It doesn’t matter. Whatever you have, God has the same message for you: give it up. Let it go. He doesn’t ask you to give it all to the poor, but He does ask you to give it all to Him. He asks you to use it in accordance with His will and to acknowledge that it doesn’t belong to you and that He is the owner. He is the possessor of all things. You are merely a steward. I am a steward. One day our stewardship will be evaluated. When we view all things as belonging to Christ, suddenly we’re free. We are free to trust Him in His provision and protection, free to receive the kingdom and to serve the kingdom above all else. Nothing in this world is more important than the kingdom of Christ.
Madonna, the rockstar, sings a song where she says, “We are living in a material world and I am a material girl.” The people of this world are very, very materialistic. But even though this world is material, God wants us to understand that people are not simply matter. We are body, soul, and spirit—soma, psyche, and pneuma. We are spiritual and the material things of this world are not capable of fulfilling the needs of humankind. If you’re a Christian, the Bible says if you give yourself to this world rather than to the kingdom of Christ then you grieve the Holy Spirit who has come into you. You anger God above. James says that God yearns jealously over the Spirit which He has made to dwell within us.
There is a legend (it’s an old story that comes from Greek mythology) that tells of Hercules, who did battle with a giant. This was no normal giant. It was a supernatural giant from the continent of Africa. This giant drew its strength from the Earth. Now Hercules had greater power, and he would take the giant and he would cast the giant down to the ground. But every time the giant impacted the ground, it would rise up with greater power. It drew power from the Earth. Every time it hit the Earth, it rose up stronger again. And Hercules threw it down again and again and the giant got stronger and stronger until finally the giant was almost as strong as Hercules himself. And suddenly Hercules realized what was going on, and he picked the giant up and he held the giant towards the heavens. He would not allow the giant to touch the Earth, not even with its hands or feet. He would not allow the giant to touch the Earth and the strength begin to fade from the giant. Eventually the giant faded into death.
As Christians, we don’t draw our power from the Earth or from the things of this world. As Christians, we draw our power from heaven. We draw our power from Christ and from contact with Christ. We draw power from the kingdom of Christ. We are in the midst of a great battle. We have a great enemy. His name is Satan and he will do anything to keep us from touching Christ. He’ll do anything to keep us from touching the source of our power, which is the service of the kingdom of Christ and our personal relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. And Satan knows that he has won if he can get us preoccupied with the things of this world so that we are literally living for the things of this life rather than the things of the kingdom of Christ.
That is why the Bible says, “Do not love the world or the things that are in the world. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away and the desires of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever.” The Bible says those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. So we have this warning from James. God will judge the greedy and the materialistic, and in truth they’re judged already, for by their materialism they are not able to truly touch the power of Christ.
We have a second teaching from James this morning, a final teaching, and it is this: God will judge the proud. James says, “God opposes the proud, but He gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, before the mighty hand of God that in due time He may exalt you.” Augustine and Aquinas, two of the great leaders of Christian history, tell us that pride is the greatest sin in the world. The Bible never explicitly says that, but it certainly seems evident from the scriptures that pride was the great sin of Satan. From Ezekiel 28 and from Isaiah 14 it appears that Satan said in his heart, at the dawn of time, “I shall ascend above the stars of God. I shall set my throne on high. I shall make myself like the most high God.” We’re told that he was full of wisdom and perfect in splendor, but that he corrupted his wisdom for the sake of his splendor.
Satan’s sin was pride. God hates pride. The Bible tells us that Satan was then thrown out of heaven, cast down like a profane creature. In the 13th chapter of Proverbs, God says, “Pride and arrogance do I hate.” It’s very difficult to define pride. I don’t know whether you’ve ever tried to consider what pride really means. The Greek word for pride is the word hubris. It doesn’t refer to that good feeling we get when we do a job well. That’s not the meaning of hubris. It’s not a reference to self-love. God wants you to love yourself. It’s not even primarily a reference to an exaggerated opinion of yourself or an inflated ego. Sometimes hubris is used in that way, but that’s a far too obvious definition of pride. True pride is far more subtle than that. The meaning of the word hubris is simply this: self-sufficiency. Pride is believing that you can take care of yourself. It is believing that you know what’s best for yourself. It is believing that you are complete in yourself.
Self-sufficiency is the very essence of pride. You see, the Bible tells us there’s only one person in this whole universe that is truly self-sufficient. That person is God. He alone is able to take care of Himself. He alone knows what is best, and He alone is complete in Himself. The opposite of pride is humility. Humility expresses itself in dependence upon God. Humility expresses itself in obedience, but pride expresses itself in disobedience. Humility expresses itself in service of God and service of others. But pride always wants to be served by others.
God hates pride. And throughout history, God has judged pride. There’s probably no nation on this Earth that has experienced more persecution in its history than Israel. There is no people that has experienced more persecution than the Jews. The Jews began to be persecuted 3,500 years ago when the seed of Abraham was in bondage to Egypt in the days of Moses. But even when Joshua led the Jews into the promised land, they continued to be persecuted. They were attacked and plundered, abused by the Moabites, Amorites, Philistines, and many other peoples and nations. And ultimately, in the year 722 BC, the Northern Kingdom of Israel with its capital at Samaria was conquered by the Assyrians and by Sargon II. many Jewish men, women, and children were taken captive and went into exile in a foreign land. Many of those Jews died.
In the year 587, the Southern Kingdom (called Judah) was conquered by the Babylonians and the armies of Nebuchadnezzar. Again, thousands of Jews were killed and many Jewish men, women, and children were taken captive to a foreign land where they lived in exile. In the year 537, Israel was conquered by the kingdom of Medo-Persia and the forces of Cyrus the Great. The Jews became servants of the Medo-Persians.
In the year 337, Israel was conquered by the kingdom of Greece and by Alexander the Great. The Jews became slaves of Greece, and in subsequent years, the Jews were conquered by the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria. In the year 178, it was the Seleucid king Antiochus IV, sometimes called Epiphanes, who swept his armies over Israel, butchering thousands of Jews and desecrating the temple on the hill of David by setting up the desecrating sacrilege. And it was in the year 70 BC that General Pompey led his Roman armies over Israel and the Jews became servants of Rome. But when Jesus came, He told them that their suffering was just beginning and that they would be abused among the nations. And so it was to be.
When Christ died and rose again in the years that followed, 20,000 Jews were killed at Caesarea by the Syrians. And then a few years later, 40,000 Jews were executed in Silesia. Caligula, Claudius, and Nero all persecuted the Jews. And then in the year 70 AD Titus and his Roman legion swept over the city of Jerusalem and set the city on fire. They chopped down trees and they murdered 1,300,000 Jews. And from that point onward, the Jews were scattered over the Earth. In the next two centuries, Jews fled to Babylon. By the third century there were 2 million Jews living in Babylon. They were treated like second class citizens, but at least they were allowed to live.
In the fourth century, Constantine became emperor of Rome. He treated the Christians well, but he hated the Jews. He banished the Jews from the Roman Empire and he gave the command that Jewish ears were to be cut off. In the fifth century Jews lived in small communities and those communities were attacked. The Jews were plundered in Asia and in Europe. In the sixth century, in one attack 60,000 Jews were killed. In the seventh century, in the year 622, Muhammad founded Islam and the Jews refused to embrace the Islamic religion. And so the Jews were persecuted all over the Islamic world. And in Arabia, Muhammed’s homeland, three-quarters of the Jewish population was executed.
In the eighth century, the Jews were kicked out of Spain. They were set on fire in France. And the Muslim leader Al-Habib gave orders that throughout the Muslim world the Jews had to wear bells so they could be identified like cattle. In the Middle ages, Jews wore the badge of shame. They had red or yellow patches placed on their arms, shoulders, chests, or hats so that they could be identified as subhuman. They were herded like animals into ghettos where they were forced to dwell.
In Europe, Jews were outrageously plundered. They were outrageously taxed. They were not allowed to own property. They were excluded from schools and from universities. In the 11th century, the crusades took place. In the First Crusade, the crusaders fought the Muslims and they tried to repossess the holy land, but they also fought the Jews. “Kill a Jew and save your soul.” That was one of the slogans of the crusaders. In the year 1298, one of the greatest persecutions of the Jews in history took place and hundreds of thousands of Jews were executed in Europe. In the year 1350, the black death swept Europe. One-quarter of the population of Europe died in the bubonic plague. And through some twisted kind of prejudice, the Jews were blamed. One-half of the surviving Jews of Europe were executed.
In the year 1411, the Roman Catholic Church directed its inquisition at the Jews. They began to persecute the Jews and tens of thousands of Jews were killed. In the year 1492, the Jews were banished from Spain and 800,000 Jews were driven to the sea, most of whom died of drowning. Some died of exposure. In the subsequent centuries, Jews fled to Russia, particularly during the period of the Russian czars. And by the year 1881, there were 5 million Jews in Russia. But it was in that year that Alexander III declared the official Russian policy towards the Jews. One-third of the Jews in Russia would be executed, one-third would be forced to immigrate, and one-third would be forced to deny their religion and embrace the Russian Church.
This century, the 20th century, has not been much kinder to the Jews. In fact, this has been the century of the most blatant, grossest persecution of the Jews in history, for, in this century, we have seen Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany incinerate 6 million Jews in the ovens of Auschwitz—the Holocaust, one of the blackest pages in human history. And today there are three-and-a-half million Jews who have returned to Israel, and they are surrounded by 100 million enemies.
Yet the Bible says that the Jews are God’s chosen people. We might well ask what a people rejected by God would live like, what their history would look like. And yet God has not truly rejected Israel. Israel was reborn as a nation in 1948. They reoccupied the holy city of Jerusalem in 1967. Through miraculous victories, the hand of God was upon them. And yet the Bible would have us to understand that in this age of the world the nation of Israel and the Jews have been under a curse. They’ve been under the curse because of a sin of Israel.
And what is the sin of Israel? The sin of Israel is not materialism. They’ve rarely had much (although during the period of the united kingdom and during part of the divided kingdom there were some affluent Jews who abused their wealth). Their sin certainly is not polytheism. There were times in Israel’s history when the Jews partook in idolatry and they were punished. But the Jewish people have been more monotheistic than any other nation on the Earth. Their sin certainly has not been hedonism or sexual promiscuity. There have been times when Israel partook in sexual promiscuity and they were judged for that. But sexual promiscuity and hedonism is the great sin of the nations.
No, the Bible tells us that the great sin of Israel was pride. In fact, when God called forth the Jews and made His promise to Moses 3,500 years ago, God gave Moses a promise and a warning. God said, “If you walk in My ways, if you obey My statutes, if you give heed to My commandments, I will indeed bless you. I will multiply you. I will bring forth the rain in its season and the earth shall bring forth its produce. You will have victory over your enemies. I shall be your God and you shall be My people.” But God gave this warning, as recorded in Leviticus: “If you will not walk in My ways, if you will not obey My statutes, if you will not give heed to My commandments, I will not bless you. The rain will not come forth in its season and the earth will not bring forth its fruit. You will be scattered among the nations and I will shatter your pride.”
Pride. You can’t read the major and minor prophets of the Old Testament without noticing that the prophets constantly bring up this subject of pride, warning the people of pride. The Israelites viewed all their blessings as having come from their own hands. And in the midst of their disobedience and iniquity, they said “Is not God in the midst of us?” They were self-righteous and there was pride.
The history of Israel is meant to be a warning to the world. The Jewish people are no different than any other people on the Earth. We’re all the same. God loves Jews and Gentiles alike. He loves us all very much. But God hates pride. And there’s pride in all of us. We’ve all viewed our blessings as having come from our own hand. We’ve all been self-righteous. We’ve all viewed ourselves as maybe just a little bit better than other people. God warns us. The Bible says, “All flesh is like grass and all of its glory is like the flower of the grass. The grass withers, the flower falls, but the Word of the Lord abides forever.” There’s no reason for pride in our flesh. Jesus said, “Apart from Me, you can do nothing.” If you’re a Christian, in humility you came to the point where you acknowledged that. Jesus said you must become like a little child if you would enter the kingdom of heaven.
Isaac Watts wrote more than 760 hymns. He was an English clergyman 250 years ago. His preaching was good, but his hymn writing was better. Some of my favorite hymns were written by Isaac Watts and he wrote “Joy to the World,” one of my favorite Christmas hymns. He wrote, “Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past,” one of the great majestic hymns of the faith. And he wrote that hymn we sang this morning, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”… “on which the Prince of Glory died; My richest gain, I count but loss; And pour contempt on all my pride.” Isaac Watts understood that you can’t approach the cross unless you allow the pride in your life to be shattered. In order to come to that cross, you must acknowledge that you needed the Son of God to die for you. You must acknowledge that you need a savior, that you needed Him to take the sin of the world upon Himself.
As you come to that cross, you see what true humility is. You see what true love is. We see the One who is the Prince of Glory, the One who is the creator of the worlds and the Son of God. We see Him willing to die for you and for me. So much does He love us. So much does He want to serve us. And we who love Him and have come to Him and have embraced Him as Lord are now called to go forth into the world and to give our lives in humility and the service of other people.
In closing, I’d like to read a quote from one of the great political leaders of our nation: “We’ve been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We’ve been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We’ve grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We’ve forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied, enriched, and strengthened us. We have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace. We have become too proud to pray to the God that made us.” Those words weren’t spoken yesterday or even the day before. They were written 120 years ago by Abraham Lincoln when he was president of our United States. And I marvel how little things have changed. We’re still a nation of people who are incredibly blessed to the point of being materialistic. We still view those blessings as somehow having come from the work of our own hands.
We have a warning from James. It’s given to Christians, really. God hates materialism. He hates greed. He wants us to let go of the things of this world. We should do our jobs responsibly, but for the sake of serving the kingdom of Christ better. Let the kingdom of Christ be your highest purpose, not the things of this world.
And we have this exhortation from James: that we are not to be prideful. We are not to be proud. We are not to view ourselves as self-sufficient. We desperately need a savior. We are nothing without Christ. “Humble yourselves before God,” he says, “and give yourselves in the service of others.” Shall we pray?
Lord Jesus, we confess that You are the Prince of Glory. You are Lord of Lords. You’re the creator of all life, the Son of God. And we do, Lord Jesus, marvel that You would go to the cross and die for us. We who have come to the foot of the cross and accepted You as Savior and as Lord have entrusted all of our tomorrows to You. You’ve said You would not fail us or forsake us. Just as You clothe the lilies of the field and You provide for the birds of the air, so You will clothe and provide for us. You’ll feed us. So, Lord, this day, we commit ourselves to You anew. Help us to live for You and for Your kingdom and not for the things of this world. Help us to view all things as belonging to You. Nothing is belonging to us. And Lord, help us not to be proud. Before You, all of our righteousness is as filthy rags. We desperately needed You to die for us. Help us not to view ourselves as better than any other, but help us to present ourselves as wholly dependent upon You and to give ourselves in the service of people, in order that people might see Your love and come to know and love You as Savior and Lord. We pray these things, Lord Jesus, in Your great and matchless name. Amen.