January 18, the remedy for pride. Come now, you who say,

today or tomorrow, we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and

make a profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life?

For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say,

if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogance.

All such boasting is evil. James 4, 13 through 16. James is talking about pride and arrogance

and how they show up in subtle ways. You boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

When you take three categories of temptation to self-reliance, wisdom, power, riches,

they form a powerful inducement toward the ultimate form of pride, namely atheism.

The safest way for us to stace to preem in our own estimation is to deny anything above us.

This is why the proud preoccupied themselves with looking down on others.

C.S. Lewis said, 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.

Miraclescianity. But to preserve pride, it may be simpler just to proclaim there is nothing

above to look at. In pride of his face, the wicked does not seek him. All his thoughts are,

there is no God, Psalm 10, verse 4. Ultimately, the proud must persuade themselves that there is no God.

One reason for this is that God's reality is overwhelmingly intrusive in all the details of life.

Pride cannot tolerate the intimate involvement of God in running the universe, let alone the detailed

ordinary affairs of life. Pride does not like the sovereignty of God. Therefore, pride does not

like the existence of God because God is sovereign. It might express this by saying,

there is no God, or it might express it by saying, I'm driving to Atlanta for Christmas. James

says, don't be so sure. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and we will

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