Friday, April 26, 2013

Strip Away the Proud

Zephaniah 3:11-12 KJV
In that day shalt thou not be ashamed for all thy doings, wherein thou hast transgressed against me: for then I will take away out of the midst of thee them that rejoice in thy pride, and thou shalt no more be haughty because of my holy mountain.
I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the LORD.

It is the nature of sinful man to rally around the proud thing. For Israel, that had become their city and especially their temple. Though they claimed to be the people of God, they had become in fact, the people of the Temple. God's business in their captivity was to
  • Strip away their pride[1]
  • Remove from them the reason of their pride and
  • Leave them an afflicted and poor, but faithful people

Americans have many more sources of pride than I can list. Suffice it to say that to trust in any of them is to sin against God and leave ourselves in spiritual peril. The wise thing, the holy thing is to identify our temples and remove them before the Lord does. We never grow humble from the study of humility. We become humbled by the removal of those workers of pride:
  • People
  • Possessions
  • Popularity
all must be plowed over if they have the effect of generating pride in us.

To trust in the name of the Lord; that is our sole aim.



[1] People

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