There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
As June arrives once more, so does Pride month. Veterans have a day. Martin Luther King Jr. has a day. The Pilgrim Fathers have a long weekend. The LGBTQ community has an entire month.
How a society marks time reflects what it thinks is important. And the 30-day allowance given to Pride is no exception. It is clearly considered very important indeed—30 times more so than MLK, although this does make somewhat implausible the claim that the LGBTQ community is somehow marginalized. English ex-pats like myself don’t even have a lunch hour dedicated to our contribution to the USA, though we did give America the ideas contained in the Magna Carta, the accent for myriad Hollywood villains, and Davy Jones of The Monkees. We are the marginalized ones, it seems.
But seriously, Pride month has become over the years a reminder to many Christians that we are strangers in an increasingly strange land. Values such as sexual continence, public modesty, and the need to protect children from garish displays of promiscuity have been in short supply for many years, and Pride month exemplifies that.
Yet there does seem to have been a shift. Three years ago, I was in Toronto in June. The Pride flag was everywhere, far more visible than that of Canada itself. The same was true when a week or two later I walked through Philadelphia. Any visitor from another planet could have been forgiven for thinking it was the values of the LGBTQ community that provided the unifying principle of the culture, not some shared national narrative. And yet in the two years since, the month’s sexual radicalism seems to have become much more muted.
One reason is likely the fact that the T, the trans issue, was always a step too far. It flew in the face of common sense, and it intruded into everyone’s lives in ways that gay marriage did not. The experiences of Target and Budweiser revealed the public relations problem. People who had no objection to two men living together in a sexual relationship might still have very strong opinions about their daughter’s privacy being compromised, sports being reduced to nonsense by third-rate male swimmers defeating top female competitors, and male rapists being allowed in women’s prisons like children given a free-hand in the candy store. Add to that the way in which the issue has been used to attack parental rights, and the presence of the T in the Pride alliance became a terrible public relations liability. Gay marriage did not destroy the world as we know it, but it did not do so because marriage had been destroyed long ago with the advent of no-fault divorce.
Whether the trend of Pride month being more low-key and less ubiquitous continues remains to be seen. We can only hope that it does so. But as Christians we must also ask whether some of this is due to developments that are less encouraging than a dose of sanity on the trans issue. It may well be that the sound and fury is dying down because so much of that which it was intended to achieve has been internalized by our culture.
Gay marriage did not destroy the world as we know it, but it did not do so because marriage had been destroyed long ago with the advent of no-fault divorce. That turned the institution into a sentimental bond, not a relationship designed for both companionship and procreation. It downgraded children, making them peripheral to any normative understanding of the marital union. And that made the necessarily sterile notion of gay marriage entirely plausible. It also reinforced the acceptability, even desirability, of IVF and surrogacy. All of these things are now normalized, and all raise very serious challenges for Christians.
As we head into Pride month, we can hope this year will continue the trend of the whole thing becoming more low-key. A less pornified public square benefits us all. But if it does so, it would be premature to assume that this is unmitigated good news. It might simply indicate that so much of Pride’s ambitions have become an intuitive part of our culture and that orthodox Christian attitudes are even more outlandish than they were before.
Carl taught on the faculties of the Universities of Nottingham and Aberdeen before moving to the United States in 2001 to teach at Westminster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. In 2017-2018 he was the William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in Religion and Public Life in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. Since 2018, he has served as a professor at Grove City College. He is also a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a contributing editor at First Things. Trueman is the author of the bestselling book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. He is married with two adult children and is ordained in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
As all of you should know, we are now in the month of June. And as many of you would know, it is declared to be a “Pride” month in many Western localities. The history of this is easy enough to trace. On June 28, 1969, police raided the homosexualised Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village in New York.
This resulted in the Stonewall riots (or Stonewall uprising). A year later in June 1970, pride marches were held in four American cities. Democratic presidents were quite happy to turn all this into a national celebration and promotion of homosexuality. Thus in 1999 Bill Clinton declared June to be Gay & Lesbian Pride Month. In 2009, Barack Obama declared June to be LGBT Pride Month. And in 2021, Joe Biden declared June to be LGBTQ Pride Month.
The Democrats of course have long championed and celebrated sexual immorality and perversion. While they hate on traditional marriage and family, they are fully in favour of all things pertaining to the radical sexual revolution, including more recently the entire trans agenda.
But there is a new sheriff in town – or at least a new President in the White House. He is a Republican, and he is not a fan of what his predecessors were up to in this regard. So Donald Trump has not gone on to make lengthy speeches praising the sexual militants, nor has he bothered to light up the White House in homosexual and trans colours. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “There are no plans for a proclamation for the month of June.”
And with his war on the woke agenda, and all things DEI, others are getting on board as well, with many of the major corporate giants who in the past went full tilt with the activists are now quietly pulling back. Common sense has prevailed – or at least the wallet has been impacted big time. They are catching on to the truth that going woke means going broke.
Yesterday’s Daily Telegraph in the UK had an article on this titled and subtitled: “How Trump killed Pride month. LGBTQ events across America face budget shortfalls as corporate sponsors duck out in fear of provoking Administration.” It begins this way:
Corporate America has fallen out of love with Pride month — and it’s because of Donald Trump. Businesses that used to smother their merchandise in rainbow flags for the month of June have dramatically scaled back this year, many wary of provoking an investigation by the Trump administration. Meanwhile, Pride events across the U.S. are facing budget shortfalls as corporate sponsors duck out.
Robby Starbuck, the anti-woke activist known for his pressure campaigns, believes a “massive” shift has taken place at some of the world’s biggest companies in the past year. Polling of 200 corporate executives by Gravity Research, seen by The Telegraph, showed almost two in five plan to pare back their Pride month celebrations this year.
Of those, the overwhelming majority — 60 per cent — said this was a result of pressure by Mr Trump. “It’s clear that the administration and their supporters are driving the change,” Luke Hartig, president of Gravity Research, said. “Companies are under increasing pressure not to engage and speak out on issues.” On his first days in office, Mr Trump issued a flurry of executive orders taking aim at diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in both the government and private sector.
Jeremy Tedesco, a senior counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), believes that most companies regard Pride as a “performative act” and are now unwilling to risk incurring the wrath of the administration by showing their support.
“In those orders are promises to use the department of justice and some of the other relevant federal agencies to investigate recalcitrant companies that are continuing illegal practices,” he said. “Companies are viewing this as a legitimate risk at this point.”
The piece concludes this way:
Mr Starbuck, one of America’s most vocal anti-DEI campaigners, said companies had belatedly realised they were going to “divide their customer base” by leaning too heavily into Pride events. The political clash over Pride and DEI causes has created an untenable situation for companies, he told The Telegraph.
“You’re going to elicit this yearly outrage where you’re a ping pong ball in the culture war,” Mr Starbuck said. “I think that when they talk to one side and they talk to the other side, what they find is we’re the rational ones. I’m not demanding that they take on my politics — I’m asking for corporate neutrality. The other side isdemanding total adherence to their ideology.
Hey, that sounds like good news to me. For all the critics of Trump, including the “Christian” ones, this move alone should be supported far and wide. We do NOT need all things sexually perverse being force-fed down our throats. Our children especially do not need this tsunami of immorality flooding over them.
The only good thing about past corporate sponsorship of the month was to alert concerned citizens about where these companies were at. As one person has correctly said, “June is when companies proudly let me know which ones I don’t need to support with my money”.
Quite so. If big business is going to promote things that most folks are not wildly supportive of, then the consumer can vote with his pocketbook and take his business elsewhere. The massive backlash against Bud Light beer and its utterly idiotic ad campaign featuring Dylan Mulvaney pretending to be a woman back in 2023 is a clear case in point. The company behind it, Anheuser-Busch is said to have lost $1.4 billion in sales!
Biblical considerations
Of course this is not just a secular matter but a religious and spiritual one. Anyone who knows anything about the Bible knows that there is NEVER a place for taking pride in that which is evil and that which is sinful. Indeed, what God calls an abomination is nothing to be proud of – ever.
The sin of pride versus the virtue of humility is of course a major theme in Scripture. Just a few – of many – passages:
2 Samuel 22:28 You save a humble people, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them down.
Proverbs 16:18 Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
James 4:6 God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
As Augustine is said to have put it: “It was pride that turned angels into devils.” But when folks take pride in that which is clearly wrong and opposed to the righteous and holy will of God, that is even worse. This is about shaking your fist at Almighty God and daring him to act.
Anyone who has seen this pride, debauchery and haughtiness on display at a homosexual or trans pride march knows exactly what a verse like Psalm 12:8 is all about: “The wicked strut about [in pompous self-importance] on every side, As vileness is exalted and baseness is prized among the sons of men” (The Amplified Bible).
And consider Isaiah 3:9:
The look on their faces testifies against them; they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! They have brought disaster upon themselves. (NIV)
God did indeed act against Sodom and Gomorrah for this sin, and before that we had the global flood. The rainbow of course was a sign of God’s judgment on sin – it was never meant to be used to celebrate immorality and promote evil.
And the Apostle Paul uses homosexuality as his primary example of those who the wrath of God will come down upon in Romans 1:18-32. Indeed, God has already given them up -“in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves” (v. 24) -“to dishonorable passions” (v. 26) -“to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done” (v. 28)
Those are very strong words indeed. People should not be exalting and taking pride in such things but getting on their faces before God seeking forgiveness and transformation. And that is something God is fully able to do. I know many people who have been set free by Christ, and now they take pride in Christ, not in their former sinful lifestyle.
American pro-family advocate Scott Lively put it this way:
Happy Natural Family Month!
It’s time for the world to reclaim the month of June from the Same Sex Attraction Disorder (SSAD) lobby and America can lead the way by celebrating the natural family, established by God upon the foundation of monogamous heterosexual marriage.
But a big part of that essential transition is ending the public disgrace called “Pride Month” which not only celebrates conduct and lifestyles that God calls an “abomination” but forces all of society to bend the knee to putative LGBT cultural supremacy through the entire month under pain of “social virtue shaming,” “cancellation” and other punishments by “woke” homo-fascists.
I recommend that you watch this 16-minute video put out by Australian/English Rev. Brett Murphy called “Don’t bow down to the pride idol – A Christian response to Pride Month”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlXcyj2i21k
I close with something posted recently by Shane Pruitt: “When the church is silent on issues that the culture is screaming about, then a whole generation only hears one worldview. The church must speak up, disciple up, and train up a generation to navigate through cultural issues with truth and love. Silence is not an option.”
Afterword
Someone just posted online this with the words: “The poor oppressed minority, if only there was a day that would acknowledge their existence”:
-Feb 19-25 – Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week
-March 21-25 – LGBTQIA+ Health Awareness Week
-March 31 – Transgender Day of Visibility
-April 6 – International Asexuality Day
-April 13 – International Day of Pink (Day Opposing Homophobia)
-April 14 – Day of Silence
-April 26 – Lesbian Visibility Day
-May 17 – International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia
-May 19 – Agender Pride Day
-May 22 – Harvey Milk Day
-May 25 – Pansexual & Panromantic Awareness Day
-ENTIRE MONTH OF JUNE – PRIDE MONTH
-June 23 – Stonewall Day
-June 28 – International LGBTQ+ Day
-July 14 – International Non-binary People Day
-July 16 – International Drag Day
-September 16-23 Bisexual Awareness Week
-September 23 – Celebrate Bisexuality Day
-ENTIRE MONTH OF OCTOBER – LGBT HISTORY MONTH
-October 8 – International Lesbian Day
-October 11 – National Coming Out Day
-October 17-24 Genderfluid Visibility Week
-October 19 – International Pronoun Day
-October 19 – Spirit Day (Support for LGBTQ+ Youth)
-October 23-29 Asexual Awareness Week
-October 26 – Intersex Awareness Day
-ENTIRE MONTH OF NOVEMBER – Trans Awareness Month
-November 5 – Trans Parent Day
-November 8 – Intersex Day of Remembrance
-November 13-19 – Transgender Awareness Week
-November 20 – Transgender Day of Remembrance
Yep, what an oppressed and persecuted minority this is.
It’s that time of year again, when the rainbows are flying everywhere you look, and super gay things are happening in more places than just Dodgers games. But what can you do to show your support?
The Babylon Bee has come up with the following list to help you find really, really gay things you can do as part of Pride Month:
Ride a bicycle: One of the gayest things you could possibly do.
Own a cat: Since owning dogs is a sign of heterosexuality, doing the opposite will show that you’re an ally.
Hug a male friend: There’s only one reason two guys would be hugging.
Express your emotions: Yes, it’s disgusting, but totally worth doing during Pride Month.
Binge-watch The Acolyte: The only thing in the Star Wars universe less masculine than C-3PO.
Chant “Free Palestine!”: All the cool gays are doing it.
Play soccer: Since it’s not Dallas Cowboys season, enjoy the favorite pastime of super gay people around the world.
Call your friend by his first name: This marks a stark departure from the proper, straight practice of last names and derogatory nicknames only.
Use an umbrella: Extra points if you skip and prance a little bit in the rain.
Cry during any movie other than Field of Dreams: Deviating from the only acceptable film men can cry at is a sure sign of gayness.
Engage in any of the activities listed above, and you’ll fit right in with all the gays. What other totally gay things can someone do to celebrate Pride Month? Post your ideas in the comments.
These British police officers are keeping the streets safe from dangerous weapons.
“… That no one of you might become arrogant in behalf of one against the other.”
1 CORINTHIANS 4:6
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Genuine humility among Christians will leave no room for arrogant partisanship.
The Corinthian church was a notorious illustration of the sin of partisanship among believers. Its partisanship—some members claimed allegiance to Paul, some to Apollos, and some to Cephas (Peter)—was essentially caused by pride. Paul, as author of 1 Corinthians, vigorously opposed such pride of divisions, as Apollos and Peter would have. The Corinthian believers did have reason to be thankful to God for sending them such quality leaders. And it was right for those in Corinth to respect and honor their spiritual elders. Scripture says, “Appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction” (1 Thess. 5:12). However, the Corinthians went far beyond God’s Word and exalted the leaders for the prideful sake of themselves, the followers, thus creating partisan sects. Such partisan spirit, even on behalf of godly leaders, always leads to hostility toward other faithful servants of God. And the motivation behind all this is pride, which is essentially having an inflated (arrogant) view of yourself, one that says “I’m for me.” When pride rules the operations of any church, humility is forgotten, and fellowship and harmony are inevitably torn apart. You can help prevent or counteract partisanship simply by considering that all the daily benefits you take for granted—food, housing, clothing, job, family—are yours because of God’s kind providence. And if you’re a Christian, you have eternal life, God’s Word, spiritual gifts, and many other blessings that are all of grace. The apostle James reminds us, “Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). So again we see that God gives us every reason to be humble and leaves no place for pride and partisanship. If you have a good pastor and good elders or deacons, humbly thank God for them. You and your leaders are all stewards of God, entrusted for a short while to serve Him with His resources.
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Suggestions for Prayer: Pray that the Lord would help you be a positive influence for humility and harmony, rather than for pride and partisanship.
For Further Study: Read Acts 14:8–18. How did the people of Lystra react to Paul and Barnabas? ✧ How difficult was it for Paul and Barnabas to correct the people’s errors?
MacArthur, J. (1997). Strength for today. Crossway Books.
Satan will tempt us to be proud of our abilities and accomplishments, but we must remember that every good thing we have is from God.
We’ve just studied three steps to humility. Let’s look at the issue from another angle: What kinds of pride threaten to destroy our humility? Where will we struggle to be humble? There are several areas in which Satan will attack us. The first area I call ability pride. We’re often tempted to be proud of our strong points, not our weak ones. I’ve never been tempted to boast of my fantastic mathematical ability because I have none. But I am tempted to be proud of my preaching because it is my spiritual gift. Thankfully, the Lord helps me deal with such thoughts. It might come in the form of a letter saying, “I was in your church Sunday, and I violently disagree with everything you said.” Or someone might tell me, “We came to hear you for the first time, but we like our pastor better.” Times like those help me keep the proper perspective. The key to overcoming ability pride is remembering that every gift you have is from God. All the credit belongs to Him. As Paul said to the Corinthians, “What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Cor. 4:7). Another temptation is verbal pride, or bragging. There is a tendency in human nature to tell people what good we have done or plan to do. People get into a conversation, and soon they’re trying to top each other with their accomplishments. In contrast, Hannah asserts, “Boast no more so very proudly, do not let arrogance come out of your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge; and with Him actions are weighed” (1 Sam. 2:3). God knows the truth about what you have done. Proverbs 27:2 instructs, “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth.” As a test, try to get through an entire week without talking about what you’ve done. Perhaps for a starter, try to last an afternoon. When people don’t talk about themselves, the absence of boasting tells volumes about their character.
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Suggestions for Prayer: Repent of any pride in your own abilities or accomplishments.
For Further Study: The apostle Paul had tremendous advantages and abilities but refused to boast about them. Read Philippians 3:4–11. What were Paul’s accomplishments? ✧ How did he consider them? ✧ What was most important to him?
MacArthur, J. (1997). Strength for today. Crossway Books.
The first step to humility is understanding our sinfulness.
I’ll never forget a meeting I had at my house with some seminary students. One student asked me, very seriously, “John, how did you finally overcome pride?” I said jokingly, “Well, it was two years ago when I finally licked it, and it’s never been a problem since then. It’s so wonderful to be constantly humble.” Of course, I have not completely overcome pride; it’s a battle I face every day. Satan makes sure we always struggle with it. Overcoming pride in even one area is difficult, but Ephesians 4:2 requires “all humility.” Having some humility isn’t enough. We must have total, complete humility in every relationship, every attitude, and every act. So we all have a lot of work to do. But where do we start? How can we become humble? Humility begins with self–awareness. We need to look at ourselves honestly. We can mask who we really are and convince ourselves that we’re something wonderful. But we are sinners and need to confess our sins daily before God (cf. 1 John 1:9). Even Paul called himself the foremost of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15) and realized he had not yet reached the goal of Christlikeness (Phil. 3:12–14). Whenever you’re tempted to be proud, remember you haven’t arrived yet spiritually. And don’t fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others. Paul said, “We are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding” (2 Cor. 10:12). If we’re to be honest with ourselves and with God, we need to evaluate ourselves by an outside standard—God’s standard. Humility starts when we take off the rose–colored glasses of self–love so we can see ourselves as unworthy sinners. We must recognize our faults and confess our sins daily.
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Suggestions for Prayer: Confess any known sins to God, and ask for help in overcoming them. ✧ Ask God to keep you from comparing yourself to others instead of to His perfect standard.
For Further Study: Many consider Paul to be the greatest Christian who ever lived, but he viewed himself very differently. Read 1 Timothy 1:12–17. How did he see himself? ✧ As he saw his sinfulness, what was his response to God?
MacArthur, J. (1997). Strength for today. Crossway Books.
Did anyone see this coming? Google is dropping Pride Month from its calendar.
For several years now, a slew of multinational corporations have spent the month of June making communal proclamations of Pride month everywhere.
“Woke” companies – from YouTube and Mercedes-Benz to Lenovo, Nestle and Sephora – updated their logos as June began.
Yet, these corporations are only force-feeding Americans and Europeans their pansexual, non-binary, transgender propaganda. Pandering businesses are careful not to promote their “pride” to Muslim countries.
Google led this movement for the past several years. And, for the record, Google did not include Pride month in Turkey and China. That was a bridge too far.
But now that is all going to change. The Google calendar app has stopped mentioning various cultural events like Pride Month, Women’s History Month, and Black History Month.
Users are accusing Google of bowing to the right-wing pressure campaign in the country today. They blame Trump.
According to the Kenya Times, Google Spokesperson Madison Cushman Veld, while confirming the changes, stated that Google reached the decision after it found it difficult to maintain observance of these events across different countries.
So, no more Pride Month from Google. Did anyone see this coming?
Pride goes before destruction,
And a haughty spirit before a fall.
C. S. Lewis spoke of pride:
In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that—and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison—you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you. The virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called humility … The utmost evil is pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that are mere fleabites in comparison. It was through pride that the devil became the devil. Pride leads to every other vice. It is the complete anti-God state of mind … If you want to find out how proud you are, the easiest way is to ask yourself, “How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or patronize me, or show off?… Is it because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise?” … Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.
The greatest struggle of a believer is with pride. All other sins flow from this one polluted stream. Ask God to free you from pride’s grasp. Boundless freedom awaits those who make the journey.
Dear God, free me from pride’s grasp. I want to walk humbly with You.
Stanley, C. F. (2000). Into His presence (p. 29). Thomas Nelson Publishers.
Humility is fundamental to spiritual growth and blessing.
It’s no secret that family problems are on the rise. Husbands and wives can’t get along. Children rebel against their parents. Unfortunately, most of the proposed solutions deal only with the peripheral issues instead of the central issue, which is pride. There will never be unity or happiness in a family without humility.
Humility is not only essential in families; it is also a basic ingredient for all spiritual blessing. The book of Proverbs is rich with such teaching. “When pride comes, then comes dishonor, but with the humble is wisdom” (11:2). “Before honor comes humility” (15:33). “The reward of humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, honor and life” (22:4). James tells us, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (4:6). Too often we forget how important humility is.
Did you know that pride was the first sin ever committed? An angel named Lucifer tried to exalt himself above God: “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High” (Isa. 14:13–14). He said “I will” five times, and God said, “No, you won’t” and cast him out of Heaven. Lucifer, “son of the morning,” became Satan, “the accuser.”
Every sin—whatever it is—has pride at its root, because all sin is defiance of God. What could be more prideful than saying, “I won’t follow God’s standard”? So in trying to overcome sin, we must also deal with our pride.
It is impossible to be saved without humility. God isn’t impressed with credentials; you must come to God and say, “I am a sinner, and I realize I am worthy of nothing.” There’s no other way into God’s family and no other way to walk once you’re there.
Though you may have read your Bible, prayed, gone to church all your life, or even founded churches, if you aren’t walking in humility, you aren’t walking a worthy walk. The worthy walk begins with “all humility.”
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Suggestions for Prayer: Consider how pride manifests itself in some areas of your life, confess those to God, and ask His forgiveness.
For Further Study: Read Luke 18:9–14. Compare the attitudes of the tax collector and the Pharisee. Which one pleased God and why?1
Joe Biden delivers remarks at a Pride celebration, Saturday, June 10, 2023, on the South Lawn of the White House. (Official White House photo by Adam Schultz)
Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) wants everyone to remember this important day in the American public calendar.
“Today on Pansexual and Panromantic Pride Day, everyone deserves to feel seen, respected, and supported—no matter who they love,” the HHS wrote in a post on the X platform.
“Create a world where everyone feels proud to be themselves!”
The post was met with immediate mockery and derision, including from X owner Elon Musk.
“At this point, I’m just confused. I have no idea what they even mean,” Musk wrote.
Other incoming Trump officials and conservative voices, including Stephen Miller, Vivek Ramaswamy and Indiana’s Senator-elect Jim Banks, also weighed in on the post.
According to Workplace Pride, pansexuality “is to have a sexual or romantic attraction not limited by gender, or gender identity, while to be panromantic is the same except without the sexual attraction.”
“Attraction is not dependent on gender; pan people are attracted to the person before anything else,” the organization explains. “However, this doesn’t mean they’re attracted to anyone and everyone!”
Meanwhile, another LGBT organization explains that “Pansexual and Panromantic Pride Day” is an “annual event to celebrate Pansexuality and Panromanticism.”
“It’s also a time to raise awareness of Pansexual and Panromantic people and highlight their life experiences,” The Rainbow Stores explains.
“It’s a time when the community can share stories and experiences and speak out around the issues faced.”
So there you have it. Who needs Christmas when you already have this annual event to look forward to?
God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
If there is a deadly sin, one that is more wicked than any other, it has to be pride. James 4:6 tells us, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” God resists the proud. The one thing that seems to turn the power of God off in a person’s life more than anything else is pride.
Pride is the original sin, if there is such a thing. It goes all the way back to when Satan was separated from God. Isaiah 14:12–14 says, “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ ”
And God said, “I have had enough of Lucifer!” Next thing we know, the separation has occurred and Satan and his demons are gone. With all of the difficulties and problems that God brings into our lives, things which we would never choose for ourselves, I wonder sometimes if they are simply God’s messengers to keep our feet on the ground and away from a proud heart.1
one of the reasons why the narratives of Daniel 4 and Daniel 5 are put side by side, even though they clearly come from two quite different periods of Daniel’s life, is that each serves as the foil of the other. Both are accounts of rich, powerful, arrogant men. The first, mercifully, is humbled and therefore spared and transformed; the second is simply destroyed.
Many critics doubt that the account of Daniel 4 is anything more than pious fiction to encourage the Jews. They note that there is no record of Nebuchadnezzar’s insanity in the surviving Babylonian records, and they doubt that the empire could have held together had the emperor himself gone mad for a period of time. Neither argument is weighty. Official records would not have talked much of Nebuchadnezzar’s period of insanity, and in any case records from the latter part of his life have not so far come to light. Moreover, we do not know exactly how long Nebuchadnezzar was insane: it is uncertain what “seven times” (4:16) means. Certainly the Roman Empire survived under Caligula, whose insanity no one doubts.
In our short space, we may reflect on the following:
(1) Nebuchadnezzar’s dream reflects his megalomania. He has a narcissistic personality: he is corroded by his own greatness yet is so insecure that his grandiose fantasies must be nurtured by incessant self-admiration. Unlike the egotist, who is so supremely self-confident that he does not care a rip what anyone thinks of him or her, the narcissist is often hypersensitive and emotionally fragile. Regardless of all psychological speculations, the man’s arrogance before God is unrestrained (despite the experience of chaps. 2 and 3), and God resolves to humble him.
(2) Daniel’s approach to Nebuchadnezzar, once he has heard the dream, should be studied by every Christian preacher and counselor. On the one hand, he is deeply distressed to grasp what Nebuchadnezzar is going through, or going to go through (4:19). On the other hand, once he is prevailed upon to give the interpretation of the dream, he does so with admirable clarity and forthright truthfulness. He neither maintains professional detachment nor resorts to mealy-mouthed indirection.
(3) The psychotic breakdown is probably a form of lycanthropy (which today is subdued by antipsychotic drugs). But once his sanity is restored (4:36), Nebuchadnezzar articulates the lesson he has learned: God is sovereign, he raises and abases whom he wills, none can withstand him, and every virtue or strength we possess we derive from him. To think otherwise is to invite rebuke, for “those who walk in pride he is able to humble” (4:37).1
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