Pride Goeth Before a Fall

We have all heard the Proverb, "Pride goeth before destruction (Proverbs 16:18)."  Many of us have learned this the hard way, haven't we?  We revel in our situation ... our victory ... our prowess ... our superiority.  And then something happens to bring us down from our pedestal.

A man was given a medal at a church.  The medal was "To The Most Humble Man In Our Congregation."  The next week they took the medal away ... he wore it to church! That is how pride and arrogance work.  They both tell us the lie that we are better, smarter, stronger, and superior.  A Rabbi died and was given the ability to come back for a day.  A friend asked, "What does heaven think is the worst sin?"  The Rabbi responded, "Thinking you are better than other people."

Samson (Judges 16) had plenty to be proud of. He killed a lion with his bare hands. He defeated thirty Philistines. He caught 300 foxes, tied torches to their tails, and burned the Philistine crops. He killed a thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey. He tore the gates off the city of Gaza and carried them away. After a while, Samson must have begun to believe he couldn't be touched. Enter Delilah.

By Judges 16, Samson isn't simply flirting with a woman. He is flirting with disaster. Delilah keeps asking for the secret of his strength, and Samson keeps playing games with her. First he lies. Then he lies again. Then he gets closer to the truth. And finally, Samson tells her everything. Why? Maybe Samson had become so confident in himself that he believed even Delilah couldn't hurt him. This brings Samson to "the destruction" the Proverb mentions.  His hair is cut, but Samson wakes up and says, “I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free! (Judges 16:20).” Pride creates failure to see what was really going on.  Scripture says, "But he did not know that the LORD had departed from him.” he apparently forgot where his power came from.  And while a blind, humiliated Samson went out in a blaze of glory, his end came quickly, not as a hero but as a fool.

Can we learn from this story?  Can we see ourselves clearly ... and see God's better path?  Can we understand where any true power we have comes from?  Can we repent and learn the humility that truth brings?  "The Church's one foundation is Jesus Christ our Lord," "Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:6-8)!"  AMEN