[This is part 4 in a series on “pride in the scriptures.” See part one, two, three, five, six, seven, eight).

Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

I have already tried to make the case that the sin of pride in the scriptures is more or less referring to (1) state rulers who have raised themselves up (pridefully) above the rest of the people, as well as (2) those who idolize these rulers and provide the patriotic support needed for them to maintain their plunder systems. 

Here I will try to provide a short summary of who “the proud” are in God’s eyes, so that we do not simply take some false prophets’ (e.g., a pastor’s) word for it that pride is all about an individual’s personality flaws rather than the political aspect that God’s word was surely driving at much of the time, and just so we’re clear on things.

“The proud” are the people who erect States and believe they’re gods. As the Lord said to the princes of Tyre, 

“In your great pride you claim, ‘I am a god! I sit on a divine throne in the heart of the sea.’ But you are only a man and not a god, though you boast that you are a god” (Ezekiel 28:2).

“The proud” are the men who exalt themselves to the heavens and raise themselves up above the rest of the people as if they were God (Gen 11:4). As with all the statists of Biblical history, it is men who rule over other men from towers and castles and congresses who are the men so proud of themselves they think they are gods.

“The proud” are the kings, presidents, politicians, tax agents, bureaucrats, central planners, police officers, soldiers, veterans, etc. They are the men who control “governments” and help administrate state plunder schemes and believe they can get away with it, without God’s judgment ever coming down on their heads.

“The proud” are “the violent men…who devise evil things in their hearts…[who] continually stir up wars” (Psalm 140:1-2). They are the people who run agencies like the “Department of Defense” and believe they have “the strongest military in the world,” which, in their prideful thinking, can’t be stopped.

“The proud” are those puffed up men who throw badges on and think they have a right to haul innocent men off to jail for traveling without a license from Pharaoh. As well as the ones who, in support of this kidnapping, shout that they “back the blue” in support of them preying on God’s people. These are proud men who, for being part of a gang that is able to legalize their crimes, believe they can’t be touched — that they are secure from God’s judgment.

“The proud” are those foolish “patriots” and idolatrous state-worshipers who trust in men—presidents, police, soldiers, legislatures, Pharaoh’s courts—to protect them. As another idolater said who chimed in to my argument with the proud-to-be-American (from part 2) who exempts patriotism as a form of pride, which is very typical of the mainline American attitude of thinking our Egyptian society is freedom, “It is the veterans and militaries in the West that allowed us to experience the freedoms we still do today.” Yet this is the very essence of pride: Thinking that your Egyptian rulers and their servants brought you freedom! It’s easy to see just how sinful pride is when it leads one to consider men—soldiers, police, presidents, etc—to be the lords and saviors. 

“The proud” are the men who wave government flags, sing national anthems, pledge allegiance to States, vote for false kings, and say stupid things like “this is the best and most powerful country ever.” It is these people who God tears down. 

“The proud” in the scriptures does not refer the relatively harmless individuals whose vanity elevates their ego (though this might be the individual sin that precedes the following), but to those who have the audacity to claim they have authority over other people whom they rule over. 

“The proud” are those who think they can socially-engineer or centrally-plan whole societies and that they are exempt from God’s law and judgment. They are the people who perpetuate the “schemes of men” (Psalm 31:20).

“The proud” are those who raise themselves up above everyone else, and who raise up courthouses, legislatures, bureaus, police stations, surveillance centers, and prisons with them.

“The proud” are the one who exalt themselves above the Lord by forming systems of legal plunder.

“The proud” are the socialists of the world who want to use the government to (attempt to) transform society into their personal vision with the means of political violence, only to kill a bunch of people and still not achieve their objectives (and then claim “it wasn’t really socialism” at all once things don’t pan-out as imagined).

They are the “haughty” (Isa. 24:4) people who dress themselves in suits, robes, and uniforms and do the bidding for the Egyptian plunder system. Pride and political plunder are bound-up with one another. 

“The proud” are, in short, the political plunderers and their supporters — the state rulers, and their worshipers. 

You won’t hear this from most (false) pastors, many who (pridefully) praise police, soldiers, veterans, and the American system of government in their phony Caesar-approved “churches.”