Pride is one of the most dangerous attributes of the human heart. Some people wear pride as a badge of honor, yet it remains hidden in the darkest depths of both men and angels. Arguably, it is the primary reason for our sinful corruption and the downfall of the angelic and human realms. Few realize that Lucifer became ‘proud’ of his beauty and commenced an uprising against the living God, because of it (Ezek 28:17). In this broadcast, Carl reveals many examples of egotistical pride found in Scripture and how we can learn from the mistakes of those who have gone before us. Join him now…
Here is a complete transcript of the broadcast (below)…
Today friend we embark upon a subject familiar to us all, and that is PRIDE. Pride by definition is two-edged, it can be a form of self-respect or, instead, improper excessive self-esteem, conceit or even arrogance. Now, on the one hand we want to have a sense of pride about ourselves to some degree, pride in our work, appearance, pride in our character, pride in our family etc., so there is an argument that a healthy measure of pride or, self-respect, is a good trait. In fact, the apostle Paul even goes so far as, to express a positive kind of pride when speaking of confidence in Christians (2 Cor 7:4) or of strength in the Lord (2 Cor 12:5,9). However, it is the sinful meaning of pride, the egotistical form of pride, which most frequently appears in the Bible, both in the OT and the NT and that is our focus today.
It is interesting to note that Classical Greek and Roman cultures had a particular aversion to pride, stigmatizing it as hubris and making virtually all their literary tragedies a variation on the theme of the self-destructive effects of pride and its offensiveness to their gods. So even spiritually pagan cultures had picked up on this sin. In the Bible, likewise, such pride, we are warned, brings disgrace (Prov 11:2), breeds quarrels (Prov 13:10), goes before destruction (Prov 16:18) and brings humiliation (Prov 29:23). Pride is dangerous friend, so dangerous in fact, it caused the downfall of creation in the angelic realm. I’m not talking about Adam and Eve here, I am speaking of the prior fall, and the pride of Lucifer, which caused a rebellion in the heavenlies, spoken of in the Book of Isaiah chapter 14 and Ezekiel 28. The five I will’s of Lucifer, having been witness to God’s glory, caused him to make comparisons with God himself. He wanted a taste of the glory for himself, leading him to rebel with a third of the angels, and the five I wills of Isaiah 14, are testimony to his pride and exaltation. The most salient bible verse is perhaps, Ezekiel 28:17, where some translations use the term pride, saying, ”your heart was proud because of your beauty.” Evidently, Lucifer spent too much time in the mirror and was a possessor of a selfie stick.
You see, pride can cost us dearly friend, and scripture is testimony to this. In his pride, Moses lost his temper and was kept out of the promised land (Num 20:1-3). Pride kept Joshua from seeking God’s will at Ai, and he lost the battle (see Josh 7). King Nebuchadnezzar’s pride turned him into an animal, akin to a werewolf in fact, (Dan 4), Pride nearly prevented Naaman from being cured of leprosy, objecting to dip seven times in the dirty river Jordon, unlike the crystal clear waters of his beloved rivers of Damascus And finally, pride led to Peter’s denial of Christ (Luke 22:31-34). Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, “No matter how dear you are to God, if pride is harbored in your spirit, He will whip it out of you. They that go up in their estimation must come down again by His disciple.” And there it is, friend, the law of gravity and pride go hand in hand. What goes up must come down. Stay humble and flee from pride.
As C.S. Lewis declared, “Pride is essentially competitive—it is competitive by its very nature—while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good looking, there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone. And arguably, the sin of comparison is the first sin of all, it is a precursor to pride. The bible identifies pride as an attitude of the heart and spirit. Hence one reads, “Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin” (Prov 21:4). Ecclesiastes 7:8 speaks of “proud in spirit” and the psalmist declares, “O Lord, my heart is not proud, or my eyes haughty” (Ps 131:1 nasb). Pride is cited in the two lists of the most glaring sins in the Bible. Along with the sins for which God is going to judge the Gentiles, one finds insolence, arrogance, and boasting (Rom 1:30). Included with the sins that will be prevalent in the last days, Paul includes boasting, arrogance, and conceit (2 Tm 3:2, 4).
The thing about pride is, it’s hard to keep hidden in the heart. It can infect one’s speech; and boasting is one way by which this sin appears in one’s speech. Pride can also appear in the way one looks at another person. Hence the Scriptures speak of “haughty eyes” or, as some translators render it, “a proud look.” The psalmist speaks of a person with “haughty looks and arrogant heart” as one he cannot endure (Ps 101:5; see also Prv 30:13). Pride may also take the ugly form of contemptible treatment of others (Prv 21:24). One of the illustrations of this in the Bible is the way in which the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders treated and spoke of those beneath their social level (e.g., Mt 23:6–12; Jn 9:34). They especially despised tax collectors and sinners, who they thought were the lowest of the low. And let us not forget the tale of King Uzziah, which I read only yesterday in my devotional time. Pride was his downfall, who, because of this sin, dared to offer incense on the altar and was smitten with leprosy as his punishment from God (2 Chr 26:16). You see, a king must never cross the boundary into the priestly duty and vice versa, but old Uziah, paid a hefty price for this as did King Saul come to think of it, when he sacrificed in the stead of the prophet Samuel.
Hezekiah also, after his healing by the Lord, became proud of heart and brought wrath upon himself, Judah, and Jerusalem (2 Chr 32:25, 26). Another equally famous example of pride is Haman in the book of Esther. He erupts in pride and plots revenge when his enemy Mordecai refuses to bow down and tremble before him. When the king desires to honor someone, Haman says to himself, “Whom would the king delight to honor more than me?” (Esther 6:6). Ego alert! He then proceeds to prescribe a pretentious show of glory for himself. Eventually, Haman is forced to lavish his display of glory on his enemy Mordecai, resulting in his own humiliation and disgrace, and eventually, the proud villain is hanged on the very gallows that he had prepared for his archenemy. God has a sense of irony friend. The Pharisee in the temple, praying and comparing himself with the humble tax collector, is another example (Lk 18:9–14) of pride. Herod’s refusal to give God the glory for his greatness brought judgment from God and he was eaten by worms and died for his pride (Acts 12:21–23). If you don’t think God takes this sin of pride seriously, friend, think again.
Like I touched upon earlier, Ezekiel 28, describes the pride of the leader of Tyre, and taken by many biblical scholars to refer, in a deeper sense, to the fall of Satan back in the beginning. Pride cannot only bring the downfall of individuals but also of nations. This was the sin which is specifically mentioned as leading to other sins and which ultimately brought about the removal of both Israel and Judah from the land of Canaan, the land God desired to give them in totality. It is also the specific sin which brought about the downfalls of the king of Assyria (Is 10:12, 33) and the king of Moab (Jer 48:29). Because of its deadliness, Israel is specifically warned against pride and the tendency to forget God which often stems from it (Dt 8:14). Our tendency to not want to bother God about certain things can often get us intro trouble and that is something I have struggled with down the years. “Oh I wil just proceed with this, I can do this, it will be easy, let me plow ahead, I don’t need to pray and oooops”. Later on, we come to find out all sorts of complications and permutations have ensued because we moved ahead presumptuously, which is the fruit of pride.
The biblical images of pride are most obviously of rulers and nations, but pride is a vice within reach of any individual with enough money or power to provide a platform for it. Isaiah paints a vivid picture of haughty women who “walk with outstretched necks, glancing wantonly with their eyes, mincing along as they go, tinkling with their feet” (Is 3:16 RSV). Similar vividness characterizes the portrait of the arrogant, and prosperous in Psalm 73:3–12, who are poised on the verge of imminent ruin (Ps 73:17–20). The psalms are replete with briefer vignettes of proud people-i.e., the violent (Ps 10), the slanderer (Ps 31:18), those who sin with their mouths (Ps 59:12), the oppressor (Ps 94:3–7), the scornful who are at ease (Ps 123:4), those with haughty heart and eyes (Ps 131:1). From Jesus comes the satiric portrait of the banquet guest who ostentatiously seats himself in a place of honor, only to be moved to a lower place, accompanied by the aphorism that “he who exalts himself will be humbled” (Lk 14:7–11 RSV).
And remember this golden nugget, Proverbs 16:18–19, “Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, Than to divide the spoil with the proud.” So technically the old saying, ‘pride goes before the fall’ isn’t strictly correct, as according to our beloved King James, pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. And of course, haughtiness is a brother or sister of pride. One definition of haughtiness is” to be blatantly and disdainfully proud” so you could argue haughtiness is higher or more lofty level of pride. You see, pride keeps some very bad company. It is associated with such varied vices as perverted speech (Prov 8:13), boastfulness (Jer 48:30), defiance of God (Jer 50:29), indifference to the poor and needy (Ezek 16:49), self-deceit (Obad 3), the lust of the flesh and of the eyes (1 Jn 2:16) and false trust in riches (1 Tim 6:17). Twice pride is placed in a catalog of highly charged vices (Mk 7:21–22; 2 Tim 3:2–5).
In the light of the preceding, it is no surprise to read that pride is one of the seven things which the Lord hates in Proverbs 6:16-18, “These six things doth the Lord hate: Yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, Feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, And he that soweth discord among brethren.” Let me reiterate, the Lord HATES , these traits, we are to have nothing to do with them. They are an abomination in His eyes and should be detestable to us. Bear in mind also, within the pages of the New Testament, it is also said by two different writers that “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (see Jas 4:6 and 1 Pt 5:5). These references by the apostles stem back to the book of proverbs, namely, Prov 3:34 and Prov 18:12, to which the Apostles, James and Peter may be referring.
But friend, do you know why God, has particular disdain for pride? It is because He wants the glory for Himself, as He should. God should be glorified in our day-to-day, not ourselves. It is God who gave us the breath, the talent, the smarts, the acumen, the good looks, etc. It is God who should get the glory. Pride takes glory for itself. 1st Corinthians 1:29, that ‘no flesh should glory in His presence.’ Any attempt to do so is of an antichrist spirit. This concept of glorification can be found in Jeremiah 9:23–24, “Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Neither let the mighty man glory in his might, Let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, That he understandeth and knoweth me, That I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: For in these things I delight, saith the Lord.” Stay away from pride friend, it will cost you dearly. It will circumvent or cut short the calling of God on your life or even life itself. Give God the glory and take none for yourself.
Bibliography:
Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Pride” in Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 1752–1753.
With the Word, Warren W. Wiersbe, The Chapter-by Chapter Bible Handbook (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1991).
Leland Ryken et al., Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 661.
Galaxie Software, 10,000 Sermon Illustrations (Biblical Studies Press, 2002).
https://www.learnreligions.com/the-sin-of-pride-according-to-the-bible-5080290
https://carljosephministries.com/podcast/do-you-love-this-world/
Title: The Peril of Pride
Related keyword searches:
Examples of pride in the bible
Is pride bad
Why is pride bad
pride in the bible kjv
Naaman pride
Pride comes before the fall kjv
What was Lucifer’s sin
Why did Lucifer fall
CS Lewis on pride
Six Frequently Asked Questions:
1. Is all pride sinful, or is there such a thing as “good” pride?
Not all pride is inherently sinful. A healthy form of pride, such as pride in one’s work, family, or character—what might be called self-respect (see 2 Cor. 7:4, 12:5). However, sinful pride—the kind that exalts self above others or above God—is the focus of Carl’s message. This kind of pride is rooted in arrogance, self-glory, and independence from God, and it is the pride that leads to destruction (Prov. 16:18).
2. Why is pride considered such a dangerous sin in Scripture?
Pride is spiritually dangerous because it is the root of many other sins and was the original sin of Satan. Lucifer’s pride in his beauty led to rebellion against God (Ezek. 28:17; Isa. 14:13–14).
Carl explains that pride can blind, deceive, and harden the heart, making people self-reliant instead of God-reliant. Pride precedes falls (Prov. 16:18), provokes God’s judgment (Acts 12:21–23), and even causes people to reject wisdom and correction. God resists the proud (James 4:6), but gives grace to the humble.
3. What are some biblical examples of pride leading to downfall?
There are numerous scriptural examples of individuals whose pride brought consequences:
- Lucifer: Pride led to rebellion and his fall from heaven (Isa. 14, Ezek. 28).
- Moses: Pride and anger kept him from entering the Promised Land (Num. 20).
- Nebuchadnezzar: Became like an animal until he humbled himself (Dan. 4).
- Peter: Proud confidence led to denial of Christ (Luke 22:33–34).
- Haman: Pride led to his public humiliation and death (Esther 6–7).
- King Uzziah: Took priestly duties upon himself and was struck with leprosy (2 Chr. 26).
These examples show that God judges pride severely—not just in individuals but even in nations.
4. How does pride manifest in daily life today?
Pride isn’t always loud and obvious—it often hides behind comparison, self-sufficiency, and a refusal to seek God. Carl warns against the “I’ve got this” attitude that dismisses prayer and God’s leading. Pride can show up in:
- Boasting or needing recognition
- Looking down on others (e.g., the Pharisee vs. tax collector in Luke 18)
- Refusing correction
- Resisting repentance
- Taking credit for what only God has done
Even spiritual pride—believing one is more righteous than others—can subtly creep in. Scripture warns that “haughty eyes and a proud heart” are sin (Prov. 21:4).
5. Why does God hate pride so much?
Pride robs God of the glory He alone deserves. Everything we are and have—our gifts, abilities, strength, and success—come from Him. Pride attempts to glorify the flesh and push God out of the picture. As Jeremiah 9:23–24 says, we are not to glory in wisdom, might, or riches, but in knowing the Lord. Pride is also antichrist in spirit, opposing God’s rule and authority. That’s why God actively resists the proud (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5). Pride is listed among the seven things the Lord hates (Prov. 6:16–19).
6. How can we guard against pride and cultivate humility?
Carl urges believers to stay humble before God and recognize our complete dependence on Him. Practical steps include:
- Daily prayer and surrender
- Giving God credit for every success
- Listening to correction
- Serving others without seeking recognition
- Keeping a low view of self, but a high view of God
Pride may be subtle, but humility is intentional. As Proverbs 16:19 says, “Better it is to be of a humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud.”
Carl is an authority. He is a biblical scholar, minister, author, husband, father, and life coach. In his mid-twenties he had a powerful encounter with God and saw miraculous healings as a result. Carl is a unique researcher who investigates current affairs, societal trends, prophecy, technology, cults, and end time events, all through a biblical lens.
Carl holds a Doctorate in Theology (Th D). His Alma Mata includes: Salford University, Manchester, UK, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London, UK, Rhema Bible Training College (Tulsa), and Southwestern Christian University (Oklahoma City).
Carl Joseph Ministries empowers believers in Christ to fulfill their God given potential. Join Carl every other Monday on the Lions Unchained Podcast, available on Spotify, iTunes and other mainstream platforms.
He currently resides in Colorado, with his lovely wife Amy, and their three children.
