When I was a kid, scrap metal littered the hill behind our house. Piles of angle iron, drums, and even car parts, lay exposed to the corrosive elements the outside environment would put them through. There was one iron pipe that seemed to have almost been sprayed by acid. When I asked my dad what had happened to that pipe, he told me it was a drainage pipe that used to carry salt water. Salt is amazingly corrosive when it comes in contact with metal. We have all seen the cars that have been driven on the salt laden snowy streets of the extreme North. Rotten fenders, corroded bumpers, and doors that are paper thin;  a ll due to the corrosive nature of salt and metal when it is mixed. There is a substance that is to our soul, what salt is to metal. That substance is pride. What makes it most dangerous is its contact with our soul is not accidental. It is planted, placed, and transferred by the intentional efforts of our enemy.

When it comes to our enemy and his schemes,  perception is everything. Way too often Satan is connected with horror. I want to assure you his efforts are not to scare you. He would much rather you not even believe he exists.   That way he is able to get in close and unnoticed.   Only after the red rust forms would the damage of his presence be known. Even then, most would decide the wound was simply the result of… life.

Why is there such a relationship between Satan and pride? Satan was a created spirit being that God made to reflect His glory. He was not evil in the beginning. The angels were created around the second day of creation according to Ps 104, and Satan (Lucifer was his name at that time) was a part of that creation.  After the week of creation, on the sixth day, God says this: “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day”. Gen 1:31 (NAS) (Emphasis mine) So in the beginning Lucifer was good,  along with all of the uncorrupted creation at that time.  According to Job, Lucifer was singing along with all the other Angels when God created the earth: When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Job 38:7 (NAS) If you were to listen closely on that day, you would hear the most beautiful voice being that of Satan.  And by the way the “Sons of God” is a direct reference to the spirit beings God has created. In that day, he wasn’t the enemy of our souls but he was infact the worship leader of heaven. He was the Arch Angel of the Cherubim. This class of spirit beings were tasked with bringing worship to God. But something happened after he was created that altered his position in heaven and his relationship with God. The transformation happened that took a perfect spirit being and made him The Devil.

One word will sum up what transformed Lucifer…pride. He was the first to experience the rush and destruction of pride. He didn’t want to serve God,  he wanted to be God. It is pride that drives us to be the kings of our own universe, to want things the way we want them, to place ourselves at the center of attention. Paul, when writing to Timothy about selecting church leadership,  warned him about picking someone who might fall into the same temptation as Lucifer: 6 not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. 1 Tim 3:6-7 NKJV Paul realized that pride is so corrosive to the human soul that to over look a persons susceptibility would mean certain spiritual death for them. It was the toxicity of pride that turned Heaven’s worship leader into its enemy. Pride is a powerful thing, and in the hands of our enemy it can cause destruction beyond belief.  How many lives have been ruined because of pride?  How many marriages destroyed because someone wouldn’t say “I’m sorry”, or how many families broken because someone would not ask for help?  How about the mom that hasn’t spoken to her kid for so long that she doesn’t even remember why?  Or how about the man who gave up on church because he didn’t get the recognition or title he thought he deserved? The landscape of life is littered by the skeletal remains of those who submitted to the deforming power of pride.

The source of Satan’s pride is he wants God’s place, God’s position, and God’s power. So he encourages and even urges you to do the same.  He presses you to compete and compare yourself to others, and when you do your soul drips with the acidic coating that destroys you from the inside out. He whispers in your ear, telling you that it is alright to be bitter when someone succeeds instead of you. He loves to encourage your sour thoughts and feelings when you don’t get the reward you thought you should have. Each time you open yourself up to the damage of another coat of Hell’s destructive sauce.

Church leaders are most susceptible to pride. Church leaders love to talk about numbers, and successes, all the while giving opportunity for the spread of pride’s disease. We elevate our success and discredit others by any technicality we can think of. Satan loves it when we elevate the name of our church above the name of Jesus.

Pride puts us in the same transformation process Lucifer under went. The end result of pride is always the same… destruction.

“Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.” Prov 16:18 NAS