God warned conceited people through the prophet Obadiah. “The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home on the heights, you who say to yourself, ‘who can bring me down to the ground?’ Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the LORD. (Obadiah 1:3-4)” It warns that the arrogant heart deceives yourself. God never let the conceited people be destroyed. God surely brings them down to save them.
Let's see the story in chapter 73 of the Psalms.Asaph was the leader of Choirs. When he saw that wicked people went prosper, he compared himself with them and envied. In his eyes, conceited people lived wealthy, peacefully, healthy and with no suffering. But he was suffering and sad, even living a godly life, following the will of God. He ended up expressing his complains to God saying, ‘I wish I could live like them.’
However, when Asaph went into the sanctuary of God, he understood the final destiny of the conceited. He said this in the Psalms, “Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! (Psalms 73:18-19)” He realized that the arrogant looks happy but their spiritual destination will be death, getting slide down to the hell.
God does not allow His loved one to be conceited. God intervened to Asaph to have hard time so that he would not be conceited like the wicked people. There is one thing that we should keep in mind. God let some people being conceited, without any warning or punishment. Please remember that the Satan fell down and get suffer eternal punishment in hell, right after saying, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, I will ascent above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High(Isaiah 14:13).” We should be humble not be conceited.
Pastor Seok-Jeon Yoon
Extracted from Yonsei Newspaper #837
