Oppressive ideologies have harmful consequences for everyone, including the oppressors themselves, but God’s people (who sometimes find themselves particular targets) have a unique source of strength which should embolden us to resist even intense social pressures. Recently, England’s Premier League football teams were all provided with rainbow-coloured armband for the team captains to wear in support of LGBT+ inclusivity. Marc Guehi, captain of Crystal Palace, wore the armband but wrote his own Christian message on it. Without irony, he was reprimanded by football’s governing body because kit rules forbid religious or political messages. Although the backlash was swift and fierce, on this occasion no action will be taken against him (or the Muslim captain of a different team who refused to wear the armband at all on religious grounds). But why do ungodly political ideologies need to create a climate of such intense pressure to conform? Why is any pushback, even the most peaceable and loving, deemed so unacceptably offensive? Why does the refusal to comply bring down such harsh condemnation from all sides? This situation was familiar to the Covenanters, who were reviled for their rejection of the fashionable ungodly ideology of their day, and indeed suffered worse than social stigma for their loyalty to the Lord’s ways. In the following updated extract from a sermon by Archibald Skeldie, the blind Edinburgh preacher, Skeldie tries to analyse what links pride and oppression.

Pride is diametrically opposed to God-like humility

Humble saints are, compared to all others, most like God, because now that they have been effectually called, they are being renewed to His image, in holiness and righteousness. Also, they only are the loyal subjects of Jesus Christ, the King of Sion, in whom they rejoice.

So the first reason for the proud to become persecutors is, I say, because, more than all others, the proud are most similar to Satan, and are the chief in his kingdom. Seeing that Satan is the first proud creature, and the author of all the pride that is found in creatures, so the more proud anyone is, the more similar they are to Satan, the author of pride. The proud are likewise Satan’s most loyal subjects. He is a king over the children of pride. To him they do most acceptable service, being led captive at his will. They please him greatly in the plotting and performing of their proud and ambitious plans, whereby God is dishonoured, his people troubled, and Satan’s kingdom enlarged.

Therefore, as Satan himself would rather tempt one of the saints of God than a thousand others, so the proud, who are the slaves of Satan, take pleasure in troubling the saints of God. “The wicked with pride do persecute the poor,” that is, by mocking and scoffing, by harshly criticising and reproaching, and by harming them in their estates and bodies, as they find opportunity and occasion.

Pride cannot abide the goodness of the godly

Secondly, the proud become persecutors because they see some worth and excellency in the saints of God, which is not in themselves. They see in them some eminent grace or gift with which God has endued them, and this becomes not only the object of their envy, but likewise a spur to their pride. They cannot endure that anyone else should have the good which they themselves want, and cannot attain to. They would rather that those who are gifted should perish, and their gifts lost, than see God’s gift which they don’t have on display in someone else. So the powerful words and mighty works of Christ made Him to be persecuted by the proud rulers of the Jews, in case His fame would bring about their ruin (John 11:48).

Pride is an enemy to those who do not conform

The saints of God cannot be made to favour the opinions of the proud, and approve their doings, and go along with them in their wicked practices and sinful courses of action. The proud either think so much of their own knowledge, wisdom and understanding that they think they must be in the right, or else, even though they know they are in the wrong, they refuse to be won back to what is right. Sometimes they are so set on sinful courses, because they expect to take pleasure and profit in them, that either they think them to be lawful and equitable, or else, even though they know they are unlawful, yet they will stand to the defence of them, and obstinately maintain them as if they were most agreeable to equity and reason. So they become open enemies to all who refuse to walk alongside them, or any way disallow them,

There is a certain type of person who, if you flatter them, and please their whims, agree with their words, and approve their doings, they will respect you as their dearest friends. But if you find fault with their words, or censure their foolish behaviour, then they altogether abhor your company, and count you the basest fools and idiots in the world. No wonder, then, that the proud persecute the saints of God, who are so far from embracing their erroneous opinions and approving their wicked behaviour and lewd lifestyle that either they openly challenge and criticise them, or else altogether refuse to be of one mind with them in their erroneous opinions, or to walk the same way with them in their lewd and wicked courses.

Persecution by the proud is an opportunity to pray boldly

When proud persecutors who have great power and authority arise to trouble the peace of the church of God by grievous oppression and persecution, then the saints of God may make recourse boldly to God by earnest prayer in hope of a gracious deliverance.

Because the Lord takes the humble for His dearest friends

Consider how diversely the Lord reacts towards His humble saints, and towards their proud oppressors. He takes the humble for His dearest friends, and the proud for His rebellious enemies. Though He is near to the proud in the inflicting of His anger, He is far from them in the manifestation of His favour. The psalmist says, “Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly: but the proud he knoweth afar off” (Psalm 138:6). That is why Augustine says, “The Lord draweth near to him that is humbled, but He goeth far away from him that is exalted, except he be one whom the Lord hath first humbled, and afterwards exalted.”

The Lord multiplies His grace and His favour on the humble. When they humble themselves He promises to exalt them, and He exhorts them to humble themselves, in order that He may exalt them. To Him they may pray confidently, under the sense of their neediness and poverty. Bernard says, “As the Lord compasseth the humble with His favour, so He pursueth the proud with His wrath and displeasure.” Solomon’s saying is worthy of observation, “Pride goeth before a fall, and a high mind before destruction.”

Because proud insults are so hateful to God and hurtful to souls

The saints of God may confidently pray, when they consider the nature and outcome of the insults of proud persecutors, how hateful it is to God, and indeed how hurtful even to those whom it temporarily pleases. How comforting it is to the saints of God in the end, although at first it seems to be fearful and terrible. When the proud oppressors of the church of God have a purpose to trouble the peace of the saints by some grievous persecution, their untimeous folly is such that, as the proverb says, “They sell the bearskin before the bear is slain!”

They threaten to do whatever their malice can devise against the saints of God, as if their power were so strong that they cannot be resisted, and their wisdom so deep that it cannot be disappointed, and their purposes so sure that they cannot be overturned. But when they begin blaspheming, criticising, and threatening, then the saints of God betake themselves to prayer, and cry, “Lord, behold their threatenings!” This prayer prevails with God so surely that He makes a sudden change and alteration, for when the saints of God are brought lowest, and the pride of their enemies advanced highest, then it is time for the Lord to work the kind of change that declares the glory of His mercy, justice, and power together. Like the spokes of the wheel on the chariot of Sesostris, what was highest one moment becomes lowest, and what was lowest is advanced highest.

Truly the enemies of our church and kingdom may learn by sorrowful experience that such untimeous and proud insulting is an evident omen of their just confusion, and a manifest token to the people of God of their unspeakable comfort, and gracious exaltation. When the pride of the wicked and the prayer of the godly come together before the Lord, the one cries for speedy justice to punish the wicked, and the other for timeous mercy to surround those who put their confidence in God. We see this in the pride of Sennacherib and the prayer of Hezekiah (Isaiah 37).

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