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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
‘Be not proud.’
Jer_13:5
I. How lightly we treat this sin of pride!—What is pride? It is the sin that leads me to look contemptuously, or, if you like, compassionately, upon those whom I imagine to be more feebly gifted than myself, forgetting how much higher than I they may be standing in the sight of God because of greater faithfulness. Pride, with its twin-sister vanity, is the sin that makes me so morbidly sensitive to human opinion; that keeps my ears so painfully open to every word of praise or blame. A pure heart is the home of the lovely grace that ‘vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly.’ How unseemly is pride of purse! How unseemly is pride of social rank! How unseemly when we cannot bear to hear others praised more warmly than ourselves! How unseemly is gratified pride, with its ostentatious boastfulness! And how unseemly is mortified pride, finding its solace in slander and detraction and spiteful censoriousness! ‘Love behaveth not itself unseemly,’ but is willing to take the lowliest seat, is ready to serve the humblest of God’s children, and has ever a generous word for those who have been swifter in the race or stronger in the strife.
II. But a pure heart is also humble before God.—What is this painful search in our own hearts and lives for somewhat to commend us to God, or to entitle us to pray? What is the discouragement because of unworthiness but pride? Humility thankfully receives all grace as a free, unmerited gift.
Illustration
‘As wine takes away the reason, so sin and the natural penalty it brings to heart and mind reduces the proud and rebellious sinners to collision with each other, as when a potter’s vessels are dashed one against another. Pride, panic, and mutual hostility are closely associated; but in the meanwhile the sad condition of the impenitent awakens the sincerest distress and pity in the hearts of God’s children, who realise how much they are losing in this life and the next.’