How Pride Links To Oppression

Posted at Reformation Scotland:

Oppressive ideologies have harmful consequences for everyone, including the oppressors themselves, but God’s people (who sometimes find themselves particular targets) have a unique source of strength which should embolden us to resist even intense social pressures. Recently, England’s Premier League football teams were all provided with rainbow-coloured armband for the team captains to wear in support of LGBT+ inclusivity. Marc Guehi, captain of Crystal Palace, wore the armband but wrote his own Christian message on it. Without irony, he was reprimanded by football’s governing body because kit rules forbid religious or political messages. Although the backlash was swift and fierce, on this occasion no action will be taken against him (or the Muslim captain of a different team who refused to wear the armband at all on religious grounds). But why do ungodly political ideologies need to create a climate of such intense pressure to conform? Why is any pushback, even the most peaceable and loving, deemed so unacceptably offensive? Why does the refusal to comply bring down such harsh condemnation from all sides? This situation was familiar to the Covenanters, who were reviled for their rejection of the fashionable ungodly ideology of their day, and indeed suffered worse than social stigma for their loyalty to the Lord’s ways. In the following updated extract from a sermon by Archibald Skeldie, the blind Edinburgh preacher, Skeldie tries to analyse what links pride and oppression.

Pride is diametrically opposed to God-like humility

Humble saints are, compared to all others, most like God, because now that they have been effectually called, they are being renewed to His image, in holiness and righteousness. Also, they only are the loyal subjects of Jesus Christ, the King of Sion, in whom they rejoice.

So the first reason for the proud to become persecutors is, I say, because, more than all others, the proud are most similar to Satan, and are the chief in his kingdom. Seeing that Satan is the first proud creature, and the author of all the pride that is found in creatures, so the more proud anyone is, the more similar they are to Satan, the author of pride. The proud are likewise Satan’s most loyal subjects. He is a king over the children of pride. To him they do most acceptable service, being led captive at his will. They please him greatly in the plotting and performing of their proud and ambitious plans, whereby God is dishonoured, his people troubled, and Satan’s kingdom enlarged.

Therefore, as Satan himself would rather tempt one of the saints of God than a thousand others, so the proud, who are the slaves of Satan, take pleasure in troubling the saints of God. “The wicked with pride do persecute the poor,” that is, by mocking and scoffing, by harshly criticising and reproaching, and by harming them in their estates and bodies, as they find opportunity and occasion.

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