A Deadly Demon Duo?|Pride

A deadly Demon Duo

A Deadly Demon Duo

I was sharing some of my past as a boy and as a young man with my Christian buddy Mark one day not long ago. I had been thinking about a couple of areas that I had identified as strongholds in my early years. I had never really considered them or even identified them as a problem until now, some fifty years later. As I was sharing my thoughts with Mark, he was trying to interrupt me and finally broke in to say, “That’s me you’re describing!” After some discussion about how it was common to both of us I decided to share it on this web site, as others may gain some insight about it for themselves.

The first of this demon duo I want to discuss is “pride”.Here is what three different Bibles Say in Isaiah Ch 14:

(King James) 12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! 13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

(Living Bible) 12 How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground--mighty though you were against the nations of the world. 13 For you said to yourself, "I will ascend to heaven and rule the angels. I will take the highest throne. I will preside on the Mount of Assembly far away in the north. 14 I will climb to the highest heavens and be like the Most High."

(Message Bible) 12 What a comedown this, O Babylon! Daystar! Son of Dawn! Flat on your face in the underworld mud, you, famous for flattening nations!
13 You said to yourself, "I'll climb to heaven. I'll set my throne over the stars of God. I'll run the assembly of angels that meets on sacred Mount Zaphon. 14 I'll climb to the top of the clouds. I'll take over as King of the Universe!"

Lucifer was considered the most beautiful angel at at the top of God’s list. But that wasn’t good enough—he wanted to be top dog! His pride led to his rebellion and desire to overthrow Heaven.

Ezekiel 28:15 says, “Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.”

Iniquity is synonymous to sin, evil, and perversity.

Can you even imagine Lucifer trying to dethrone The King of the Universe? His pride got him thrown down from Heaven to the earth, and is now the “god” (little “g”) of this world. Because his pride failed him, he intends to use your pride to fail you as well.

It appears to me that pride is a “root” to sin in general; therefore it is a common problem for every human being in our everyday life. We obviously find many varying degrees and ways that pride creeps into or prevails in our life. The direct opposite of pride is humility. Where might you place yourself along the continuum from humility to pride throughout your everyday life? So, it becomes pretty evident how the “demon of pride” might be confounding our lives.

Let me suggest how insidious this pride demon can be. We can see obvious evidence in those who demonstrate arrogance, conceit, smugness, and self-importance—and we don’t really like what we see. Much less obvious is the person that tends to be less brash or those that even may be more introverted—in which case we don’t recognize or even attribute to them a prideful manner. This does not mean that pride is not their enemy also. I believe that I have been an example of this latter form of pride.

Let me expound on this less or even non-observable type of pride, as I have personal knowledge at least of my own. Perhaps a few of you will see yourself in some of these same ways. First, I have always had great disdain for cocky and arrogant people—in fact I am now aware how much I judged them. There is no doubt that I thought that I was better than them, and that I would not behave that way. Little did I know that my own pride was rising up in me right while condemning another for their more apparent pride. Is hidden pride any less destructive than obvious pride?

How about when someone wanted to help me and I could not receive their help. No, I can do this myself; I don’t need anybody’s help. I’d perhaps think to myself that I might be seen as a weak person if I couldn’t do it myself. It is now apparent to me that I either didn’t recognize my pride or was in denial of it—or maybe even both!

So pride comes in loud packages, introverted packages, and many and various forms in between. You must also be sure about this: they can all be deadly to a higher quality of life.

I can now evaluate my own forms of pride and have learned a simple and profound way of doing so. I simply have to ask myself if my pride and responses to the pride of others is from Heaven or hell. Of these two choices it should be apparent to you that my responses were certainly not from Heaven. It is now more obvious to me that I was walking in deception when this was going on. Am I a bad person? No—just a deceived person trying to cope with my shortcomings. A Heavenly response would more likely have been to feel sorry for the braggart or arrogant person, and to recognize that they were walking in their own form of deception. Well, enough on pride.

What other demonic force was I referring to in my title of “A Demonic Duo?” The other area of difficulty that Mark and I both found to be a problem in our lives was “insecurity”. Now I am not so sure it is the same for little boys as it is for little girls—the girls and women who read this will have to decide for themselves. Insecurity visited me early on. I was put into Kindergarten at age four. Needless to say I wasn’t ready for the difficulties in attending school. I was to physically and emotionally immature at that age to be very successful at much of anything. In my elementary school years I lacked confidence, and became timid—which in turn led to increased anxiety. After a while, anxiety leads to fear.

Fear that I couldn’t please my teacher, my parents, my coach, etc. I did not really overcome much of the fear and anxiety until I got to the Junior College where I Lived. My physical body finally caught up with my peers so athletics became my one area of confidence. Thank God for a Junior College—in my home town no less. The high school counselor told my mother that I should try a trade school because she could not see me making it in college. My mother did not accept that verdict. I may not have been able to go away to college and be successful as I was only 16 years old when I started my senior year. I went on to earn a Master’s degree plus an additional degree for School Administrators.

Now here is the essence of the point that I want to make. Insecurity and fear are also strongholds that are of a demonic nature. I can now understand the trap that I as a young boy was in—and it carried over into my adult life without me ever understanding it. I was always “striving”. Striving to please, striving to be loved and accepted, and striving to overcome all the areas and problems in my life; Always unsure of why I continued to fail in certain areas. My pride would keep me from letting anyone help me because I “had to learn to do it myself”. I was a man…I had to be a man…not a weak person! So this “duo of demons” had a heyday keeping me confused in certain areas of my life. Oh, by the way, “striving” is also from the pit of hell.

The Bible says things like “fear not”, and “be anxious for nothing” (it means don’t be anxious). It also calls pride a sin. So I am walking around on the earth carrying a load! It’s amazing to me that I have survived the weight of it all. But God still had a plan for me to succeed and I can tell you this day that it was only through “Revelation Knowledge” that I have come out of my stupor. The devil had confused a good portion of my walk on the earth for sixty years, but at about age sixty-one I began to get “revelation” as to the circumstances I was experiencing. Now, seven years later, I have my feet on solid ground for the first time. Better late than never—right?

The deadly combination of insecurity and pride tends to create a kind of double mindedness that often caused me to often be second guessing my self in making decisions. This did not affect my vocation as an educator, but did have a great affect on family relationships.

This all brings me to another additional point that I’d like to make. I had wonderful Christian parents, and grandparents.
I went to church all of my life, save for a couple of years of being apathetic. I was taught to be of good character and moral behavior. I was taught the truth so far as my parents, school and church knew it. So what was the problem? What they did not know, they couldn’t teach me. Most of what is in this commentary and what you will find on this web site is the revelation and teaching I received over the last seven or eight years. The Holy Spirit is our guide and teacher. It is through the Holy Spirit leading me to the teachers, authors and deeper understanding of God’s Word that has lifted me up from the pit in which Satan had me stuck. I’m out of the pit and heading toward the finish line. The enemy is still nipping at my heels, but more often than not he is getting kicked in the mouth a majority of the time. He doesn’t like it either. He doesn’t want you to be reading this stuff! It might help you kick him in the teeth as well.