Between husband and wife, minor irritations arise. Well, they should not irritate. Aggravations should never be responded to in temper or in pride. Faults and failings ‒ some of them you can regard almost as endearments. Always there should be courtesy, appreciation, and affection between us.
Pride is the great enemy of the Christian believer. There is not a single person who is not affected by fallen human nature, and the ugliness of pride. It is always nibbling away. The enemy of souls is constantly inflicting temptation to pride and self-consideration. So much originates in pride, and we will be battling with it, subduing it, mortifying it to our dying day. Is there any believer, any sincere believer in the Lord, who thinks that pride is a light matter and is not something which needs to be watched for within ourselves and rooted out, and fought all the time? Like the bailing out of a small vessel at sea. Anyone who thinks lightly about the battle against pride will soon be swallowed up by it. It was pride that caused the fall of Satan and a host of angels so that they became with him the demons of darkness. It is chronicled in passages such as Isaiah 14 which on the surface is about the king of Babylon, but more deeply considered is about the one who was behind the king of Babylon at that time and drove him and tempted him. Though it was he who was culpable, the King of Babylon, yet it was the devil who was behind him, and it is true of the devil also and his fall from glory, from heaven.
Today I notice there seems to be constant leadership conferences going on for pastors, particularly in the United States, but it comes over here too. And certain pastors who consider themselves to be strong and effective and good leaders give their addresses at these leadership conferences. Some of them are attended by thousands of pastors and leaders, shepherds within the church. And it seems to me they have never heard the words of Christ when it comes to leadership. They think the church is to be run like a business and it is to have strong leaders, people who dominate, people who have authority and so on, and this is what they want to encourage their fellow labourers to develop. But then in Luke 22:24-27 we read, ‘There was also a strife among [the disciples], which of them should be accounted the greatest. And he said unto them, the kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at meat? But I am among you as he that serveth.’ Pastors, elders, and officers are not authoritative. They proclaim God’s authority, they expound and show and apply the rule of God, not in their own authority, but they plead as the apostles did for obedience to the word. That authority does not extend to them personally to dominate individuals, to tell them what they should be doing, commanding this and commanding that. That is pride, that is just the indulgence of pride and it comes even into gospel churches sometimes and we need exhortation and the balance of Scripture constantly.