Genesis 11:4 (KJV) – “And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”
“Let us build us a city and a tower; let us make us a name” This phrases represent selfish ambition. They are in opposition to God’s word. Philippians 2:3 (KJV), “Let nothing be done through strife and vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.”
The people building the tower of Babel had a motive full of pride, and anything done out of pride is a sin. Pride started with Lucifer when he wanted to overthrow God’s kingdom. He wanted to kill God. He didn’t know that if he succeeded in killing God, he would die because all life comes from God.
Isaiah 14:13-14 (KJV) – “13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.”
Notice the Bible says the devil did not speak these words from his mouth. Instead, He said in his heart. In other words, this is what he was thinking. What did God do after the devil said this in his heart?
Isaiah 14:15 (KJV) – “Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.”
From being the highest angel, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty whom God made as close as possible to Himself (Ezekiel 28:12), Satan was cast down from the highest place and brought to earth. Ultimately, God will destroy him and all those who follow him in hell. Pride is very dangerous. Pride is wanting to exalt oneself above the other person. Proverbs 16:18 says, “Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Pride initiates all sorts of sin because it comes from one wanting to exalt oneself.
In Genesis 3, Eve partook of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil because the devil promised her that she would be like God. In Acts 12, Herod gives a powerful speech to the people, saying, “This man speaks like a god.” The Bible does not record Herod responding to those praises. He may not have responded to those words of praise; instead, he felt excited and felt a sense of exaltation in his mind. The Bible says God sent His angel to kill Herod immediately because he failed to give glory to God. That is how harmful pride is.
Therefore, when someone compliments you, you ought to glorify God. Someone may compliment you because of an achievement you have made. You need to praise God because it is not by your power that you have achieved that achievement. Someone may compliment you because you are good-looking. Give glory to God because you didn’t create yourself. If you fail to do that, you will be acting like Herod, and since God is the same yesterday, today, and forever who knows what may follow?
There are things we do that are full of pride that go unnoticed. For example, saying a statement like, “I’m a humble person,” is a statement full of pride. When you are driving, and the person in front of you is delaying, and you hoot due to impatience, that is pride. God expects you to have the same level of patience that He has. When someone wrongs you and you start wishing evil to befall that person because you want to feel compensated for the wrong they have done you, that is pride. Ask God to forgive you. When you are running a business to kick your competitor out of the market and remain the kingpin, that is pride. If you contribute to charity to get acknowledged, it is pride. That is pride when you are in politics and speak lies against your competitor to bring him down to appear better than him. Instead of speaking ill of your competitor, sell your manifesto.
God expects you to exercise righteousness that exceeds. What you are not able to do by human flesh, you should be able to do once you walk with Christ because we have been given grace, and grace makes it possible for us to act in exceeding righteousness.
In Daniel 4:30 – “The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?” In verses 31 onwards, the Bible says, the words were scarcely out of Nebuchadnezzar’s mouth; the Lord immediately sent His judgment upon Nebuchadnezzar and dethroned him, making him go to the forest and live like an animal. After seven years, Nebuchadnezzar was restored because he acknowledged God. He got converted and was able to write the whole of Daniel chapter 4.
Having discussed pride, it is essential to clarify that there is nothing wrong with being great because God wants you to be great. Genesis 2:7 (KJV) – “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” God formed man out of the dust of the ground, He created man out of dirt that is stepped upon, and after molding him, He breathed into his nostrils His breath and made man in His image. God wants you to be great but humble.
Genesis 12:1-3 (KJV) – “1 Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: 2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” God promises Abraham that He will make his name great if he obeys Him and goes out to the land that God will show him. Hebrews 11:8-10 (KJV) – “8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. 9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: 10 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” Abraham was made great. He was made to be very wealthy in terms of material possessions. Genesis 13:2 says, “And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.” And God fulfilled His promise of making him a father of many nations.
God wants you to be great not just in heaven but on earth as well. Deuteronomy 28:1 says, “And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all His commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:” He goes on to say in verse 2, “And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God.” Deuteronomy 28:1-13 lists the blessings that God will give you when you choose to obey Him. Let’s look at some of those blessings. Verse 3, “Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.” In other words, God wants you to be blessed everywhere you go. He wants you to build large mansions in Nairobi, New York, and your village. He wants people to see how blessed you are so that they can glorify His name.
Genesis 28:4 (KJV) – “4 Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.” God will bless your children, and your career will be blessed as well. Deuteronomy 28:5 (KJV) – “Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.” God will bless all your reserves. He will bless your bank account, and anywhere you store your savings. Nobody will succeed in stealing from it or tamper it in any way. They may attempt to, but they will not succeed. Deuteronomy 28:7 (KJV) – “The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways.” The Bible doesn’t say that you will not have enemies. It doesn’t say that they will not attempt to harm you. It says when they try to harm you, God shall cause more significant harm to them.
Deuteronomy 28:8 (KJV) – “The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and He shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” God promises that He will bless all you put your hand into. God can bless a company because one righteous man is working in it. Therefore, seek to evangelize in your workplace so there can be more righteous people. When investing in stocks, you don’t have to do a lot of due diligence to know which is most profitable because you cannot predict the future. Do a little due diligence to ensure whatever you are investing in is not conflicting with God’s commandments. For example, don’t invest in an alcoholic company, gambling company, or other companies that spread sin. God can make the stocks of a company rise because you are in it. When buying land, you don’t have to purchase land from a high-value place. You can buy land from a low-value area, and God ends up raising it and giving it a high value because you are in it. God blessed Ishmael because he was the son of Abraham (Genesis 21:13). The reason you don’t see the blessings of the Bible in the lives of current Christians is that very few people diligently obey the voice of God. Ellen White writes that true conversion is very rare.
Also, there is nothing wrong if you have a high ambition with the motive to glorify God, but if you have high aspirations with the reason of outdoing God or overriding Him, there is everything wrong with it, and that ambition will not go far. It may go for a while since God allowed the Tower of Babel to grow tall but stopped it after it reached a certain height. Anyone doing evil will not go very far. He may seem like he is succeeding for a while, but the empire he is building will surely come to ruins. Deuteronomy 28:30 (KJV) “30 Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: thou shalt build an house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof.” God may allow the wicked to prosper so that he can punish them in their prosperity and bring their efforts to vain. In Deuteronomy 28:30, he does not say the wicked will marry. Instead, He says they shall get wives, but she will not be of use to them. She will be of use to another man. It is not written, “the wicked shall not build a house.” It is written they shall build houses, but other people shall live in them. The Bible does not say that the sinner’s vineyard will not grow. It says they will plant vineyards, but other people will gather the grapes from the vineyard they have produced. Proverbs 13:22 says, “The wealth of the wicked is laid up for the just.” When the Israelites were leaving Egypt, God made the Egyptians give them lots of gold and silver. Before giving gold and silver to the Israelites, God had allowed the Egyptians (pagans) to possess all that material wealth. There is a common question among Christians, why do the wicked prosper? One of the reasons they seem like they are thriving in material possessions is for their wealth to go to the righteous. God may allow a wicked billionaire to prosper so that his money can be used to pay school fees for a righteous person.
Look at pop stars like Michael Jackson and R. Kelly and how their end has been. Michael Jackson ruled pop music. He was called the king of pop and sold almost a billion records when he was alive but broke when he died. R. Kelly was called the King of RnB but ended up incarcerated. Charles McArthur Taylor, former president of Liberia, is facing a 50-year sentence by the ICC because of his crimes. In Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s autobiography titled, “This child shall be great,” she talks about how children were given guns in the days of President Charles Taylor and ordered to kill their parents to make them heartless so that they feel nothing when they are commanded to kill other people. The examples are endless. Numerous international secular hip-hop and pop artistes have gone broke or ended in ruins. These were people who had empires worth millions of dollars. The kings of gangster rap, Tupac and Notorious B.I.G, were both assassinated at the very young age of 25 in 1996 and 1997, respectively. They glorified gangster life, influenced millions of young people negatively, and their lives ended the gangster way. Proverbs 26:27 (KJV) – “Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.”
Sin is very dangerous, and it all stems from pride. In the same way, righteousness is very beneficial no matter how small the act of righteousness is.
“From being one of the greatest kings that ever wielded a scepter, Solomon became a profligate, the tool and slave of others. His character, once noble and manly, became enervated and effeminate. His faith in the living God was supplanted by atheistic doubts. Unbelief marred his happiness, weakened his principles, and degraded his life. The justice and magnanimity of his early reign were changed to despotism and tyranny. Poor, frail human nature! God can do little for men who lose their sense of dependence upon Him.” – Prophets and Kings, Page 58.1, Ellen G. White.
God can do little for men who lose their sense of dependence upon Him means that God can do a lot for men who acknowledge their dependence upon Him.
“But when we give ourselves wholly to God and in our work follow His directions, He makes Himself responsible for its accomplishment. He would not have us conjecture as to the success of our honest endeavors. Not once should we even think of failure. We are to cooperate with One who knows no failure.” – Christ Object Lessons, Page 363.1, Ellen G. White.
When we cooperate with God, we will always succeed. Our failures will all be turned into successes.
Proverbs 3:6 (KJV) – “In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.”
We’ve learned about pride. The opposite of pride is humility. True humility is acknowledging that you are dependent upon God for everything. That is why the Sabbath is important because, from the Sabbath, we recognize that God is the creator, savior, and sanctifier, and as part of His creation, we depend upon Him in everything we do.
Make it a habit to pray in all the activities that you do. In the book business secrets from the Bible, Rabbi Daniel Lapin writes that the Jewish people have a custom of praying before they eat and after they eat. It is a good habit to practice that. Many students pray before doing exams, but it is also vital that you pray before you read a book because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Pray before you enter a bus and when you alight, pray. Pray after you wake up. Pray when you get to work and when you come from work. Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
Lastly, to shun selfish ambition, we must remember that we were created for someone or something else.
“There is nothing, save the selfish heart of man that lives unto itself. No bird that cleaves the air, no animal that moves upon the ground, but ministers to some other life. There is no leaf of the forest, or lowly blade of grass, but has its ministry. Every tree and shrub and leaf pours forth that element of life without which neither man nor animal could live; and man and animal, in turn, minister to the life of tree and shrub and leaf. The flowers breathe fragrance and unfold their beauty in blessing to the world. The sun sheds its light to gladden a thousand worlds. The ocean, itself the source of all our springs and fountains, receives the streams from every land, but takes to give. The mists ascending from its bosom fall in showers to water the earth, that it may bring forth and bud.” – The Desire of Ages, Page 20.2, Ellen G. White.
GOD BLESS YOU!
Author: Mark Alex
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