LORD JESUS, Deliver Us from Sin

"Thine heart lifted thee up to boast." -II Chronicles 25:19 [KJV]

How despicable, how contemptible does pride make a man look in the eyes of his enemies? Amaziah sets out with the first step to idolatry, confidence in an arm of flesh. He next falls into the most gross and absurd idolatry. Reproof leaves him under it. As he had forsaken the Lord, the Lord cast him off. His destruction is near. A haughty spirit goes before a fall. Let him who thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall. 

One sin brings on another. When the Lord leaves a man, He exposes his pride, and makes himself ridiculous. Amaziah, being flushed with success at his victory over the Edomites sends a message to Joash, king of Israel, saying, “Come let us see one another in the face.” A challenge to war. Face me, if you care. Alas! he little thought that the Lord was departed from him, that he was given up to hardness of heart, and to seek his own destruction. 

How different his language from that of David, to the boasting Goliath, “I come to thee in the name of the LORD of Hosts,” (I Samuel 17:45.) Joash, according to the custom of the Easterns, answers him by a proverb, “The thistle sent to the cedar, saying, Give thy daughter to my son to wife: and lo, a wild beast passed by and trod down the thistle.” Intimating that there was as contemptible a comparison between Amaziah and himself, as between that low, base weed a thistle, and a tall stately cedar. However what Amaziah wanted in strength, he possessed in pride, which proved his overthrow. 

Christian, learn to know thyself. Be not high-minded, though thy Lord gives thee to tread down all the power of the enemy, yet He says, “notwithstanding, rejoice not in this, that evil spirits are subject unto thee.” No. Why not? Is not this matter of joy? Doubtless. But take heed of vain glorying here. Beware, lest thy heart be lifted up to boast. The worst evil, pride, may be excited by the best of causes. Know thyself to be like that very contemptible thistle in Lebanon: that vile, prickly weed, in which dwells no good, and has no strength to stand against the foot of an enemy. 

But, the Lord points thee to incessant cause of joy. “Rather rejoice because thy name is written in heaven.” Therefore, the everlasting love of the God of heaven is fixed on thee. The invincible arm of the God of heaven is engaged to keep thee. And know, to excite thy humility, thou hast done nothing to deserve this. “Thou, O LORD God, art a God full of compassion, and gracious,” (Psalm 36:15.) 

 

Is this a time for us to boast, 

When sin within us dwells? 

Forbid it, O Thou LORD of hosts 

For ‘tis the pride of hell.

 

-preacher Wm. Mason (1724-1797 A.D.)

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