The Seven Deadly Sins
Introduction
It has been said time and time again “sin creates a desire to sin”. I have found this to be a very true statement. When I think of the lies that I told as a child, if I got away with the first lie, then it became easier and easier to keep lying. It was only after being caught that I began the process of learning that lying was not a habit that would get me the desires of my heart. When we get involved in sin, and the initial sin produces more sins, it becomes clear that over time the sin clouds our conscience and corrupts our ability to exercise sound judgment when choosing between good and evil. The very subject of sin takes on a different meaning depending on whom you are talking to. In some churches, there are weekly sermons on sin and the hell fire that awaits sinners. In other churches sin is rarely mentioned and the topics focuses on the positive aspects of Christianity. Then there are others who would rather not talk about sin at all since we are all saved by grace and it does not matter.
Inscribed in ancient times at the Oracle at Delphi is the simple statement “Know thyself”. Self-knowledge follows closely behind the knowledge of God and self-knowledge for anyone means knowledge of one own sin. Scriptures says that we are all sinners and for some as long as the sins are not mentioned, they are fine. Here begins the foundation for the history behind the Seven Deadly Sins. The Seven Deadly Sins never occur as a formal list in the Bible. These sins were identified as a group around the same time as the Bible was being translated into a single language. Rather than these sins being identified as a single list in the Bible, they are identified throughout the Bible. The title “Seven Deadly Sins” originated within the Catholic Church, at least back to Pope St. Gregory the Great and St. John Cassian. The letters of the New Testament mention all of these and many others as well. The Seven Deadly Sins are Pride, Greed, Envy, Wrath/Anger, Lust, Gluttony and Sloth. These sins are known as “capital sins” because committing them without repentance would certainly lead to an eternity in hell. Just as we have crimes today that could lead to capital punishment (death sentence) these seven sins would lead to a spiritual death sentence, hell.
As we go through this list one by one, it will be easy to recognize how some of these are inter-connected and can lead to other sins. Let us begin with Pride.
I. Pride
Pride is defined as “an unduly high opinion of oneself.” Seeing ourselves as we are and not comparing ourselves to others is humility. Pride and vanity are competitive. If someone else’s pride really bothers us, then we too have a lot of pride. Excessive pride, arrogance, and haughtiness are the ingredients of the making of a tragedy. Pride and vanity refuse the truth about who we really are and substitute illusions for reality. While vanity is mostly concerned with appearance, pride is based in a real desire to be God, at least in one’s own circle. I was watching an old movie “The Nutty Professor” starring Jerry Lewis on TV the other day. In the movie, he starts out as a nice, timid, goofy college professor. However, when he takes the potion that he created he becomes this loud mouth, arrogant, flamboyant lounge singer who thinks the world revolves around him. He plays this role so well that I begin to dislike him. When he was under the influence of his potion and his alter ego comes out, he begins to live a fantasy that under normal conditions he would be afraid to even contemplate. My point to this is that pride places us in a position where our reality does not necessarily coincide with the real world around us.
The first requirement for pride is spiritual blindness. Any glimpse of God reveals our frailty and sinfulness just as looking closely in a mirror reveals the flaws in our complexion. Operating in pride we can busy ourselves with career, family and even church work, thinking we are being driven by a strong work ethic, moral values or the fire of the Holy Spirit. In reality, we may actually be running away from God by running away from ourselves. Nearly everyone else can see that we are putting on a show except us. Our coworkers may hate us (they are just jealous), our children may self-destruct or leave us (they are ungrateful) and we may never truly pray but merely stand in the presence of a god we have created but still refuse to see. When we refuse to acknowledge God as being our source for everything we accomplish, it becomes about us and we begin to think we actually did something in and of ourselves. Consider the following Scriptures:
Proverbs 8:13 “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverted mouth I hate.”
Proverbs 26:12 “Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.”
Solomon writes that one way in which we fear (give reverence to) the Lord is through our hate of all things pertaining to evil. After he writes this, he transitions to give a couple of examples of things that fall into the category, pride and arrogance. Pride and arrogance is always linked to evil because the fruit they bear. Again, having reverence for God begins with having a defined hatred for all things that are evil. Also Solomon makes it clear that when we become lifted up in pride it impeded our ability to continue to improve. He actually says that a fool has more hope of improving than someone who is full of pride. In 1 John, we find another warning about being lifted up in pride.
1 John 2:15-16 “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.”
John writes that we should not love the things of the world, which includes the “boastful pride of life”. What is the primary outcome of pride? Boasting. Having the desire to constantly share things about ourselves comparing what we have accomplished or acquired compared to others is the foundation of pride. I want to give you an analogy for consideration. If you have ever had an eye test, you will know what I am talking about. When you have an eye test, physicians often check your periphery vision – how well you can pick up things on your side as you are looking forward. This test rules out blind spots that can develop with some eye diseases. As you look forward, just notice what you can see to either side of you. When you focus on one thing, the other things that you can still see become out of focus. You notice that they are still there, but you do not see them as well. Pride has this same result on our relationship with God. When we are focusing on ourselves, what we do, accomplish and become, God, just like object in our periphery vision, becomes blurred. If you do this long enough, you will not be able to see God at all. Likewise, if we focus on God, then we become blurred and if we do this long enough, we will not be able to see ourselves at all, just God.
A second requirement of pride is that every time our pride is challenged it drives us harder to improve our illusion of productivity, sanctity or compassion. It has been said that the definition of a zealot is “one who has lost sight of his goal and so redoubles his efforts.” It might be said that a zealot works twice as hard to keep up appearances. As I stated earlier, one of the best pride detectors is how much we are bothered by the pride of others. A strong indicator of pride is competitiveness. Do not get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with playing to win provided the joy is in the act of playing. However, if our happiness depends on defeating others or knowing our child is the star of the team, we are building a world of illusion. Consider what Solomon says in Proverbs.
Proverbs 15:33 “The fear of the Lord is the instruction for wisdom, and before honor comes humility.”
Proverbs 16:18 “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before stumbling.”
Proverbs 21:4 “Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, is sin.
True honor can only come after one has humility and without humility, we are destined to fall. I remember someone saying be careful of who you step on as you rise to the top because you will pass each one on your way down. Pride precedes a fall and people love to see a haughty person be taken down a few notches. When we hear sermons or go through bible study lessons dealing with pride it is easy for us to default to “I know a lot of people like that – they really need to hear this.” Or we take a different stand and say something like “I am glad I am not as bad as this other person.” Pride is one of those things that we are taught. When kids are in schools, or even at home, we stress that they should be proud of themselves. They should take pride in their work, their accomplishments, etc. The problem that we often run into is that the only way to accomplish this task is to compare how well we did to someone else. This comparison is our first step to living a life filled with pride.
I do not want anyone to misinterpret what I am trying to relay so I will explain it this way. It is not a bad thing to do something to your best and be able to appreciate what you accomplish. It is okay to have and express joy in something that you worked hard at completing. As long as you are focusing on what you have accomplished knowing that you did it to your best, that is okay. However, when we begin to express this joy and then compare it to the accomplishments of others, we get into danger. When our own self satisfaction is not enough and we need others to pat us on the back and give us praise, we are in danger. When our joy comes only from the praise of others about our accomplishments and we feel forced to share our accomplishments in order to get this praise; our lives start a quick decent to destruction. There has never been a doubt as to whether pride is a sin, but the question becomes how can we have self pride without crossing into sin. How can we identify the line so as not to cross it?
How can we deal with pride since we recognize that its root is in our hearts (Mark 7:21-23)? Here are three simple ways to start the process of destroying the pride that leads to sin.
1. Be grateful to anyone and everyone. Treat even the things that people are expected to do as gifts. Be grateful for your food, clothes, home, family, and friends. Be thankful for everything that you experience, the sunshine, the rain, the cold and the heat. Never lose sight on God’s activity in your life – regardless of what others may or may not have. Treat others better than you want to be treated, always willing to give recognition to someone else.
2. Beg forgiveness of God for the sin of Pride. Go before Him in prayer every day or every few hours and implore His mercy. The more this offends you, the more pride you have. Pride is at the top of the list because it breeds so many other sins, but also because of its potential to completely separate us from God. You cannot grow in your relationship, understanding and appreciation of God when your focus in on you.
3. Ask God for a spirit of humility and gratitude. Read Philippians 2:3-11 and imitate it. Understand that without God’s grace, we will never cast away our illusions. Ask god to break your pride and vanity using whatever it takes. No accomplishment can outweigh the benefits of having a true relationship with God our Father.
One day each of us will pass from this world into the next. Everything that we have accomplished here will remain, except what we have accomplished for Christ. At our death, all illusions are stripped away. God’s judgment will not take into account our bank balances, how much we own, how smart our children are or how much self-esteem we have. All that will matter is whether He recognizes us (Matthew 25:12). When we stand before Him He will say, “Well done, My good and faithful servant” or He will say “I do not know you, depart from Me”. The question that lies before each of us today is what will He say to you and what He will say to me. I do not know about you, but I do not want my illusions based on my pride to set me up for hell because I do not know my Father and He does not know me.
If you, like me, have or are dealing with pride, this is the day that you can acknowledge it, repent from it and ask our Father to forgive us. This is the first step and if we truly get this right, the rest will fall into place. May God forever bless and keep you is my prayer.
(One of the primary resources for this message was the “White Stone Journal” website. I used and expanded on several quotes from their articles. To them I give my thanks.)
