What Does God Hate the Most?

But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come. I like the way—Oh, let me stop for a moment and see if you can pass your examination. Now, don't be frightened if you don't agree with me, you can still go to heaven. But what is the one particular word or aspect of conduct or character that is singled out all the way through as that which ultimately provokes God's wrath? Pride. That's right.

God has been dealing with me personally on the subject of pride for nearly two years. I think maybe I should share this personally before we go any further. In 1990, November, Ruth and I took what was to have been a six-month sabbatical in Hawaii. We went to seek the Lord for His plan for our future. And we envisaged a nice, relaxed time in this beautiful setting, reading the Bible and praying and having fellowship with other Christians. And it didn't work out that way at all.

It was an extremely difficult time for many reasons. I became seriously ill with a disease that could have killed me, and Ruth was left looking after a husband who had no strength at all. And apart from that, God persistently dealt with us. I mean, I've seen God deal with my wife, who is a real saintly woman. And I've seen God say and do things to her that I wouldn't have dared to say. Not because I'm afraid of her, but simply because I wouldn't have the strength to do it. And I'm not going to lay bare any of her secrets.

But for about six months—in fact, we had to prolong our sabbatical because we hadn't arrived at the conclusion at the end of six months—God relentlessly and remorselessly dealt with us. He was always kind and always patient, never condemnatory, but He laid bare one thing after another in our lives which He insisted that we change. And of all the things that He dealt with, the one that was most, that was central to everything, was pride.

And you know, there's various ways of dealing with pride, but let me tell you one good way that we learned. That is to confess your sins. I think that's become old-fashioned, you know. The church today, we don't confess our sins. But the Bible says,

“Confess your sins one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed.”

Now, the King James Version, for some reason, says, “Confess your faults.” I think maybe they were afraid of being too close to the Roman Catholics. But the word in Greek is ‘sins.’ It's just the same word that's used for sin all through the New Testament.

“Confess your sins one to another.”

And you know, it's very hard to stay proud when you're confessing your sins. You try it. Let me recommend it to you. Especially for a husband to confess his sins to his wife. I mean, if there's one thing that a husband doesn't want to do, that's it. But I'm glad that I had a wife to confess my sins to. And I'm glad she listened so patiently. She confessed sins to me, too. What I'm saying is, I have a totally different view of pride from what I had before. There's one thing I'm afraid of, it's being proud.

I don't claim that I've achieved that. And when I see Christians, especially ministers, who demonstrate manifest pride, I tremble. I really do. See, it seems to me that in the church today you can get away with pride. It's not considered sinful. In fact, it's almost considered something to be emulated. But, you know what? There's a lot of people say, ‘Pride goes before a fall.’ That's not true. It says,

“Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

I don't want to end up in destruction.

I'm speaking to you out of personal experience. And please don't imagine that I think I have achieved it. But I will say, I'm a very different person from what I was two and a half years ago.