Church Meeting in Jesus’ Name
602 Oak Knoll
San Antonio, TX 78228
July 2012
Epistle
Event Calendar
Sunday, July 15 through Sunday, July 22
Annual World Evangelism Conference
Sunday mornings at 10:00 am
Every night at 7:00 pm
Morning prayer meetings at 10:30 am.
Friday, October 19 through Saturday, October 20
Men’s meeting
Sunday, November 25
Thanksgiving open meeting and dinner on the grounds
Exceeding Pride
3 Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.
1 Samuel 2:3
Hannah had the misfortune of being born under the evil practice of polygamy. While some cult-members under the umbrella of Christendom (Mormons most recently) have multiplied wives to themselves using the example of Old Testament saints (Abraham, Jacob and David among others), Jesus put brakes to the practice among New Testament believers when he censured divorce, by declaring that a husband commits adultery if he “marries another” (Mat. 19:9). Jesus did not limit his rebuke to the treacherous “putting away” in old age, as Malachi did (2:14-16). And he actually specified that the husband who marries another commits adultery against his wife (Mark 10:11). Think about it. In a polygamist society the only adultery a man can commit is against another man, never against his own wife. Naturally in the debate the Pharisees brought up the Old Testament also, which to them appeared to endorse divorce for any cause, but Jesus referred them to the beginning of the Book, declaring that God’s will was defined in Genesis (they twain shall be one flesh) contrary to the complications introduced afterwards, by which Jesus effectively dismissed the later practices (polygamy and divorce to marry another) as abuse of freedoms, and said they were owing to the hardness of their hearts.
But Hannah lived before Christ corrected such abuse of privilege, and as is the case in polygamist societies, women who are forced to share the same man do not become the best of friends. Hannah’s co-wife was an adversary to her, because Hannah was loved, and jealousy is natural and wholesome. But Peninnah had her own advantage in that she had many children, while Hannah remained barren. Hannah spent her time in weeping prayers for a child, to ease her sense of disgrace, and take away the sting of Peninnah’s gloating. When God answered her prayer, she was carried away with rejoicing, and a sense of vindication, that she was not rejected of God, nor anything else that barrenness implied in that age. We should notice, however, that in her rejoicing Hannah does not rebuke Peninnah for her perfectly understandable jealousy, that empty feeling of being less loved than another, itself a natural and unavoidable consequence of Elkanah’s hardness of heart. But Peninnah’s behavior went beyond jealousy. She had come to hate her rival, provoking her sore and making her fret. Hannah surely was aware of the role of jealousy in her rival’s behavior, but she saw Peninnah’s real error. Peninnah had gotten proud.
Pride is a sense of merit or superiority, which may or may not be accurate. Considering oneself to be better than another isn’t always bad, of course. Some people require more from themselves than from others, which makes for better people. But then better people tend to think of themselves as better, and that is what gives pride a bad name. Perhaps this is why Hannah mentions the excess of pride. A little pride makes a better person while a lot of pride makes a monster. This may be so, but one has to wonder how utter failures manage to be proud at all.
We cannot but notice, however, that Hannah’s song is more than that. She revels in the Lord’s overall judgment, looking forward to the coming of the Lord’s anointed, and his promise to make all things right in his time. The Holy Spirit turned a thankful prayer into a prophecy that gives us insight into the complaint God has against our own generation, stating that this promise of judgment to come is singularly aimed at the proud. Talk no more so exceeding proudly, Hannah says, because the Messiah is coming. As specifically relevant to her personal adversary as that may have been, the terminal generation shouldn’t let it pass unnoticed that the coming of the Messiah is linked to the overthrow of pride. It makes me think that the history of sinful man reaches its zenith in gross immorality and dismal failure, ironically coupled with exceeding arrogance. Hannah’s song brings out three facts that should make men pause, and even shut their mouths as the world ripens for judgment. First, the deceitfulness of appearances, that is, things are often not what they appear to be. Furthermore, the uncertainty of circumstances, that is, things are prone to change, one way or another. And finally, the futility of strength, which is to say, there isn’t much any of us can do about anything, anyway.
Pride is often unreasonable, but how much more so when it is founded entirely upon the way things seem. Hannah spoke of a God of knowledge by whom actions are “weighed,” indicating good judgment requires a deeper investigation into things. Jesus said, “judge not according to the appearance” (John 7.24) and Paul said, “judge nothing before the time” (1Co. 4.5) simply because there are some things still “hidden.” Sodom was prosperous and beautiful and its citizens were proud, and even Lot was carried away with the impression. But Sodomites weren’t proud of their character, nor of their ethics, they were proud of their abundance (Eze. 16.49). And see how astonishingly proud the industrialized world has become now that they haven’t known real hunger for generations. They don’t seem to need God any more, and if it weren’t for tradition he would be ignored entirely. But hunger is not even a generation away, in fact, hunger is one foreseeable catastrophic week-end away, not from the third world, who grow their own vegetables in their gardens, but from the exalted western nations, whose breakfast tacos depend upon a long chain of production and delivery, any link of which broken would leave the rich begging overnight, or shooting it out at the grocery store. It isn’t surprising that 99 percent of westerners couldn’t grow a potato if their life depended on it (and it certainly might real soon), it is shocking that people that vulnerable would be proud.
But Hannah pointed out another reason to be humble. Things change. We’ve all seen sports players devise ridiculous dances to gloat in some fleeting moment of success in a game they will eventually lose, sometimes even trounced. It’s not that it simply makes no sense, it’s that it places the fool on his own idiot’s pedestal. Pride in something momentary is unreasonable. Even if you are strong now, you won’t be forever. Young people grow old, healthy people get sick, rain spawns tornados, friends turn enemies, husbands die, companies fold, retirement funds disappear, democracy turns into socialism, nations disintegrate, navies sink, stocks crash, dollars inflate and seeing-eye dogs go blind. And this is before God steps in. Hannah didn’t warn the proud of change alone, which is enough to warrant humility, she warned of God’s determination to thwart pride, to bring low the high, and lift up the low, because in Jesus’ words, “the last shall be first, and the first last” (Mat.20.16). Paul said that “base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence” (1Co. 1.28). God is purposely going to turn the world upside down, because as Nebuchadnezzar learned the hard way, “those that walk in pride he is able to abase” (Dan. 4.37).
But last, Hannah mentions the exceeding arrogance of men’s vaunted strength, resisting the Lord to the end. In any crowd we see at least one or two body sculptors, young men wearing a tight fitting vanity tank top designed to display their 4-hours-a-day shape. (In the same crowd we see hundreds of young women displaying their ten-minutes-a-day shape – and two or three more years left – just as proudly.) Insane as it is, men think of themselves as strong, powerful and in control. You would think the fact that they have to bend to relieve themselves every day would clue them into their true position in life, but somehow it doesn’t. Then get several of them together and they feel like an army, regular Attilas and Hannibals and Ghenghis Khans without having won so much as a skirmish against Brownies. How many times have we seen gang punks on the down side of town shoot an unarmed school girl in the back and then meet at their vacant lot calling themselves Street Jungle Warriors. It isn’t surprising that spaced-out dead-beats figure out how to use a gun, it is only surprising that they are proud of themselves, and that with their pants falling off.
Now look at mankind in the face of God at the at edge of the earth and the fullness of time. Peruse the cinematic releases of end of the world scenarios where human heroes save mankind from comets and aliens and ten foot tall spiders. Where are the intelligent script writers who have seen men jump at the sight of a mouse? Do these people not realize how small they are? It just shouldn’t be that difficult to get a bead on your own limits and desperate needs. What Hannah said was that “by strength shall no man prevail, so let not arrogancy come out of your mouth,” which in the vernacular is “if you can’t tie your shoe with one hand then shut up.” In short, what is coming, you can’t handle, and you should know it. Pride has no place in our vocabulary, at least not much of it. But God will keep the feet of his saints.