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Pride - The Original Sin
August 9, 2006
Greetings in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ,

This message is to the Assemblies of God about the perils of PRIDE.

In my last article, I addressed an issue that is making our Pentecostal fellowship lose its power with God—pornography. However, pornography isn’t the only impurity in our “jet fuel”! Another impurity that is plaguing our fellowship, as well as the American body of Christ, is the original sin.

What was the original sin? No, it wasn’t Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It was Lucifer, being filled with PRIDE regarding his superior position, gifts and beauty over all the other angels, decided that he would take God’s place on the Throne. See Isaiah 14:12-15. Pride is a sin that has invaded the American church like a cancer. Spreading slowly and surely, no one realized how prideful we had become until the American Body of Christ was eaten up with PRIDE. Of what are we proud?

We are proud of our people! God said in Isaiah 42:8 that He will not share His glory with man. This is the danger of the expert marketeering, big numbered church of 21st century America. We are so concerned with numbers that we have used man’s ways to achieve those numbers. God will give us what we want until we find ourselves cozying up with pigs in the pen. Most conversations about big churches that I’ve been party to don’t center around God. Rather, they center around the man who “built the church.” People speak in hushed and reverent tones when discussing a man who has a church of 5000, or 10,000 or 50,000 or more. We read the books that these men have written in hopes that we too can build a church with their exalted numbers. While there is nothing inherently wrong with a large church, there are inherent dangers with bigness in general. Read Jesus parable about the rich man who was going to build new barns to hold his big harvest. What to do? For one thing, maybe we ought to ask God about the right time to split our church and send off a young pastor to plant a new church. And we should repent of our pride and covetessness!

We are proud of our projects! Armed with the money that huge numbers can bring (What happened to waiting on God for the miracles that only He can deliver?), there are the mighty projects that we do. We issue news releases about the great emergency for which our Fellowship is providing great relief (our fellowship is not unique on the press-release-about-how-great-we-are account). Jesus said in Matthew 6:1-4,

Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet [modern equivalent: press release] before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, ‘They have their reward.’ But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.

Results: we get our reward here—air time and the jealousy of other denominations that don’t pack our resources! No “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” in Heaven from Jesus Himself! We are being disobedient every single time we issue a press release about our great deeds and they show up in the local newspaper or even national news. What to do? Perhaps we ought to check our motives for doing the things we do. And then we should be obedient to scripture. No man should know the charitable deeds we do except those taking the glass of cold water from our hand or putting on the clothes we give them or being ministered to in jail. And we should repent of desiring some of God’s glory!

We are proud of our pedigree! We are worshipping at the altar of education in the Assemblies of God! What else can call it when we establish Bible colleges that turn into liberal arts universities? We have subordinated the shepherds to the sheep! And my reading of A/G history and up close, personal experience says the rationale for the change was because we could attract more students. More students meant more money. More money meant greater achievements at each school. What did Jesus say about the love of money? And what else can we call it when, at those same bible-college-turned-universities, we pursue accreditation while sacrificing our Bible-based training to do so. The original rationale for A/G universities was to train Pentecostal professionals to reach the working world for Jesus Christ. So, how can we say that we’re still doing that when our Christian college kids are having their faith undermined with the great lie of Evolution in their freshmen science classes? In their very first science class at a so-called A/G school, their so-called Christian professor is telling them that God didn’t really use the right words in Genesis Chapter One. Or, God didn’t inspire the right words in Hebrew nor did He inspire the nearly 50 Old Testament language experts employed by King James to put the Bible into the King’s English for the common man. Instead, the professor inserts him or herself in the place of God and is interpreting either the original text or the interpreted text for the student. And I’m curious why this is the one exception to the highly touted academic philosophy of giving the students the facts and let them interpret the facts for themselves [Note: this accepted version of teaching in secular universities is directly contrary to God’s Word with regard to training our children]? Do we teach Evolution so that we can remain accredited along with Harvard, Berkeley and other like models for the “virtue” of higher education. What to do? Tell our leadership that we would gladly cough up the accreditations for a return to Bible-based education and trust God for the results (jobs for our children). And we should repent for teaching our children the same concepts in which the heathen believe!

We are proud about our palaces. There are two churches just off one of the major highways that passes by my hometown. One is A/G and the other is from a fundamental, evangelical denomination. Let’s be real. Aren’t we so proud that we have the capability to build such giant churches that are so visible to all passers-by? Jesus told a parable in Luke 12:18-21 about the rich man who was going to lay up treasure for himself instead of being rich towards God. Verse 20 says, “And God said unto (the rich man), “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?” Are we building monuments to ourselves? How many souls will perish in the fires of hell because millions of dollars were spent on building programs rather than on missionary work? Of course, by itself, that could be a circular argument. However, did we ever bother to test God to see that He was in our building program? If we borrowed money from a bank or requested and received a gift from a rich congregation member, then we don’t really know whether God was in it or not do we? The only shepherd who knows whether God was in his building program is the one who let God know about the desire of his heart in secret and waited for God to answer in public in a miraculous way. But, waiting on God is so hard. And it’s so un-American to wait on anything! What to do? How about offering to give our buildings back to God? Ask Him if He would like us to put them up for sale and give the money to the poor in His Name. Can we stand the answer? God could stand such humility and trust!

So, what are we to do? As always, God’s commands in Scripture provide plenty of remedy; just as it does for all sin. Again, the theme verse of this web site should be applied. We need to repent! If we have any secret places in our hearts where we really would like to share God’s glory, then we need to confess to God and “turn from our wicked ways.” We need to “turn” by filling our minds with Scriptural exhortations. Consistent personal devotions are a must.

Here are some scriptural passages to remember in our DAILY walk: humble ourselves (like young King David did); give God ALL the glory (like King Solomon did when he dedicated the temple to the Lord); wait on God (like Abraham’s servant did when searching for Isaac’s wife-to-be); don’t get ahead of Him (like Abraham did when he took Hagar as his wife); don’t HELP him (like Abraham did siring Ishmael—see where that has gotten the world!); use real faith not fads (real faith is only found during trouble or with trouble on the horizon [see Hebrews 11] NOT in the you-can-make-God-your-personal-genie-by-quoting-His-own-Scripture-at-him stuff that emanates from certain central Oklahoma television personalities and a so-called Bible school of the same geography); AND finally, allow yourself to be in circumstances where only God can provide the answer (then you can’t possibly share the glory). Truly, as Jesus said in Luke 18:25, “For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” How often we used to hear this verse in A/G younger days and how rarely we hear it now. Why? I say it is because we know we are all rich. Even the poorest in most of our churches are fabulously wealthy by the rest of the world’s standards. And yes, we even have very wealthy preachers. Who needs God when we have so much money laying around? When we can do everything under our own strength?

In order for our fellowship to return to a position of knowing God in all His Glory and Majesty, we must be passionate about putting down pride before His Holiness. The Old Testament stories of Moses’ disobedience, Samson’s dalliances with the world, King Reheboam’s pride, King Uriah and the unauthorized incense, and the Children of Israel being carted off to Babylon convey that God is passionately against the sin of pride. James 1: 14-15 says, “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth DEATH.”

We must humble ourselves Christians or God will pass us by. God can only use the man who says, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” To be proud is to be a rebel like Lucifer. God equated rebels with witches (seeking supernatural power without going through God). And God commanded witches to be executed. Please repent A/G members before we are discarded by God and He chooses another!

For Our Own Sake and the Sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,

Brother Mike

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