Esther 5:9 – 6:14 - Lawrence

How would you define “pride”? What is “humble pie”?
Pride, something in us that caused us to be proud of, usually in a bad sense, not allowing us to accept something or someone usually.
Humble pie, something that cause us to be humble, and having to swallow our pride.

Is there such a thing as “good pride”? Why or why not?
No! Pride is usually related to self. Luke 9:23 says to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily and follow Him. Pretty clear isn’t it?

What made Haman so proud? So angry?
Es 5:11-12 – his great riches, the multitude of his children, everything in which the king had promoted him, and how the king had advanced him above the officials and servants of the king. Queen Esther invited no one but Haman to the banquet that she prepared and the second one.
Hab 2:4 – Because he was proud, his soul is not right within him.
2 Tim 3:2-5 – For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.
Es 5:9 – Mordecai did not stand or tremble before Haman, and he was mad.
(verses to consider: Prov 11:2, Habakkuk 2:4, 2 Tim 3:2)

What were Haman’s expectations? What counsel did he receive from family and friends?
Haman expected everyone other than the king to bow down before him, to revere him, and that the king will grant him of his request, regardless of what it is. He has no reason to kill Mordecai yet he wanted to bring the request up to the king knowing for sure that he will grant it due to his position.
The family and friends told him to kill Mordecai, came out with a plan and ask him to involve the king. He wanted to involve the king; he must have thought that he could influence the king, adding to the pride he holds.

To what do you attribute the king’s sleeplessness? Why?
God causing insomnia as suggested by Macarthur. To add on, the king also happened to be alone, even with the number of concubines he could have had. There are so much a king can do, and he probably wasn’t tired, no thoughts of others, but to read the chronicles. If I’m a king, I would be able to come out with thousand of different things to do, visit concubine 103831297, get the servants to prepare a nice supper, have a lullaby played or sung, do the work that I haven’t completed, visit Queen Esther, exercise and so on. Okay, you get it. The list could go on… but God caused him not just to have sleepless night, he wasn’t in a bad mood and yet he can think of how to reward Mordecai after recalling what he had done.

What happened when Haman realized the king intended to honour Mordecai instead? What words do you think accurately describe Haman’s internal state?
He was shocked. Haman wanted to get the king to be part of the plan to slaughter Mordecai, but before he could say anything, all the nicest thing that he thought about, those that would even infringe the king’s glory, was granted to Mordecai instead. How else could he have felt? The very glory he was dreaming about was granted to his enemy, to worsen the situation, he was the one who suggested them. Argh, he must have felt stupid.

(Read Daniel 4:28 – 37)
In what ways were Haman’s and Nebuchadnezzar’s experiences alike? How were they different?
Haman and King N. alike, in their pride, had their glory taken away from them, and was brought to nothing. In the end, King N. extol God, but Haman did not.

Read Prov 16:18. If Haman had read this verse and applied it to his life, how would his actions have been different?
Opposite from the bad, from being proud, from bringing harm to the entire nation, he could possibly be normal, angry yet not doing anything wrong, could be okay with Mordecai and not plot against him, leaving things as it is, or even better, to be humble and aid Mordecai. Yes, it is hard to imagine because it has happened, but Haman could have changed, and became good friends with Mordecai, which in return, turns Haman to become part of God’s (good) story instead of this current one.

Read James 4:6-10. What does this passage say to those who are proud in heart? What does it promise to the humble?
To the proud:
• God opposes you
• Devil is near/in you
• To wash your hands, purify your hearts, loyalty is divided between God and the world
• Let there be tears, sorrow and deep grieve, sadness instead of laughter, gloom instead of joy
To the humble:
• God favours you
• The devil will flee from you
• God will come close to you because the humble go close to God
• God will lift you up in honour

Clearly God was in control of this harrowing situation from start to finish. He caused the sleeplessness of the king, He orchestrated the events which led to the king’s discovery of Mordecai’s earlier loyalty. Describe some similar “coincidences” in your past which prove God’s sovereignty over your life.
That I happened to join BB in primary school, to hear his gospel in primary 3, to not do so well in PSLE and ended up in GMSS, a Christian school, which I got to hear more about God and who He is, to join youth fellowship, to have met my seniors, to have come to this church, to have backslided, to coming back to church, to this group, to become who I am today. It could have been a nice story with just man working hard, wanting to be good, but if God hasn’t moved His hands, nothing today would be.

In what areas of your life are you most tempted to become cocky or arrogant? Why? Put another way, if God desired to humble you, where do you think He might focus His attention?
Work? Knowledge? Speech? I guess many times, in my desire to want to get things done, I am probably overly excited, and have said many things that sounds better than it really is.

What are some specific and concrete safeguards against a prideful spirit? How can you implement those practices today?
Pray, and I guess ask people around me to tell me if they knew of any. It starts from people who knew me and why I do things my way. A lot of people may think its just pride, but usually there’s a lot that backs up why I do the things I do, though sometimes I’m probably just proud. (:

Pride and humility in the bible

Taken from http://www.essortment.com/all/humilityinth_rbpx.htm

We've all heard the saying that pride goeth before the fall. What is it about pride that is so attractive? What is it about pride that trips us up? Is there good pride and bad pride? What does the Bible say about pride?

Pride is a conceited superiority. It is a part of our mind that tells us we are better than, greater than, more important than, more deserving than or more qualified than anyone else. It is an arrogance that deceives us and tries to make us believe that we don’t need God or others, we only need ourselves. Pride was the sin of Adam. When he took the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge from Eve, he knew what he was doing. He wanted to be the equal of God and already believed he knew better than God.

Another face of pride is self-righteousness “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.” (Luke 18:11) Self-righteousness is the arrogance that says, “My way is right, no other way is right.” It’s setting oneself above others and proclaiming oneself as better than others.

Pride hardens the mind and refuses to hear the wisdom of anyone. It closes us off from others and from God; it rejects all other wisdom. This closed mindedness brings consequences. “But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him:” (Daniel 5:20) Egotistical stubbornness demands a price and that price is often steep.

There are many spiritual consequences to pride. It retards our spiritual progress. Pride says, “God, I can do this better than you.” Or, “God, I can take care of this, I don’t need your help.” This kind of attitude keeps us from the intimate relationship that God wants to have with us. “Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him.” (Proverbs 26:12) Pride throws up a wall between God and us and rejects His help and guidance.

Rejecting God’s help and direction hinders our spiritual growth, making us less useful to Him. “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.” (Psalms 10:4) Rejecting God also hinders His ability to bless us. When were disobedient children, our parents didn’t reward us for that disobedience. So it is with God. When we refuse His direction, leaning on our own arrogance, we are like disobedient children and cut ourselves off from His rewards.

Arrogance and pride that run on for a lifetime unchecked lead to the hardening of the heart that condemns those who refuse to accept anything greater than themselves. When pride becomes so engrained as to be habit, it takes devastating circumstances to overcome it. Pride blackens the soul, making it an ugly thing to behold even to the owner of that soul. Many a person has come to the end of a lifetime and discovered a terrible fear of what lies beyond this physical life. While there is breath in us, it’s not too late to repent of any sin, but so much life has been wasted on the belief that we are a power unto ourselves.

One only has to look at the miracle of the human body to realize that a genius beyond man is at work in the universe. So intricate and complex the body is and so easily it operates. Most of our functioning requires no thought at all. With all of human intellect combined through the centuries, we have not come close to creating the miracle that is our own body. The very best we can do is copy it using the creation itself as the starter. What arrogance it takes to believe that it was all cosmic accident that created us, and a greater arrogance still to believe that we can master all of creation.

It is this kind of pride that leads to ruin and the damnation of the soul. It’s not God’s will or doing that anyone should be damned, but the mind that continually denies anything greater than self chooses that damnation. “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18) Pride brings us such misery. Why are we so attracted to the idea of the supreme self?

I believe that arrogance and pride are the vain attempt to fill a hole left by a lack of self-worth. Self-worth is something much different than pride. It’s the comfortable knowledge that we have been gifted with talents that are useful and please God and other people. A rapier wit or a gift for painting, a way with people or a knack for cooking, all of us have God-given talents that when practiced can astound. Self-worth recognizes these talents as having value with out the need to make them seem better than anyone else’s talent.

What is that thing that drives us to need to feel better than others? I suspect it is an obsessive need to be loved. The very nature of pride says, “I don’t need you.” This drives people and God away, leaving the proud alone and lonely. Not just humanly lonely, but spiritually lonely, too. This cripples the spirit and drives it deeper into pride. It is almost as if the proud spirit is crying out desperately for us to notice it is special when we already knew that it was. It’s the owner of the proud spirit that doesn’t know and can’t seem to understand that indeed he is special, but not better than the rest of us.

And before we all get a little puffed up with the idea that ‘we’re not like that!’ lets remember that we all are like that to one degree or another. No human has driven pride completely out. Many of us have our own little hidden prides. Hidden prides can be the most dangerous kinds of all because they are often disguised as what we believe to be virtues.

It is easy to recognize the big prides, the ones that say, “I’m bigger than, better than, more than, smarter than, wiser than anyone else. “ Inverted pride is a hidden pride that says, ‘I’m less than, worse than, uglier than, more useless than anyone else.” This kind of pride is disguised as the virtue of humility but it’s not humility at all. This too is a deflated self-worth but this one says that God made me wrong. God doesn’t do anything wrong. It is we that warp what He has made so perfectly. There are many kinds of hidden pride and our job is to sniff them out and be rid of them. They are no better than the visible prides and will do the same kinds of damage to our spirits.

Pride is a difficult thing. Most often we use the word pride where we really mean value. We tell our children, “I’m proud of you.” We really mean, “you have great value to me.” All of us want to be valuable and loved but when we become so desperate for these things, we often develop an unhealthy pride to mask our desperation. What we really must understand is that no matter what anyone thinks of us, God loves us and made us just right. We are not perfect by any means but we are all gifted. He knows it; we must learn it and get beyond the need to let everyone know about it. Focus instead on thanking God for the great job He did.