The Venom of Pride, A little push downwards

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“He that is down needs fear no fall;
He that is low no pride;
He that is humble, ever shall
Have God to be his guide.”
—John Bunyan. Royal Insignia, p. 66


Many Christians will be familiar with these famous lines written by John Bunyan. Edwin and Lillian Harvey have included them in Royal Insignia, their compilation on humility, in the reading entitled “A little push downwards.” In the same reading they have included an epitaph written by William Cowper for his friend, Hooker:
“He that lay so long obscurely low,
Doth now preferred to greater honors go.
Ambitious men, learn hence to be more wise,
Humility is the true way to rise:
And God in me this lesson did inspire,
To bid this humble man, ‘Friend, sit up higher.’”
–William Cowper. Royal Insignia, p. 66

“In all the copious language of the Greeks,” says John Wesley, “there was not one word for humility till it was made by the great Apostle Paul. The whole Roman language, even with all the improvements of the Augustan age, does not afford so much as a name for humility.”—Royal Insignia, p. 69/em>

The above quote was taken from a reading entitled “The Venom of Pride.” In the same reading we have the following comment by Spurgeon on this “venom.” “There never was a saint yet that grew proud of his fine feathers, but what the Lord plucked them out by and by. There never yet was an angel that had pride in his heart, but he lost his wings and fell in Gehenna, as Satan and those fallen angels did. And there never shall be a saint who indulges self-conceit and pride and self-confidence, but the Lord will spoil his glories and trample his honors in the mire.”
—Royal Insignia, p. 69

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More truths from Zinzendorf

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“During the eight years that I labored in the Church as a lay catechist,” he Writes in 1735, “I never attempted expressly to interpret the Scriptures—that is to say, to positively declare that an apostle or a prophet meant to say such and such a thing when the matter was not so clear that every one, whether a Christian or not, would understand it in the same sense.

I confined myself, therefore, to well-known and incontestable truths, and this has always succeeded best with me. Indeed, although I was well aware that knowledge is not the essential thing, and although I had learnt fairly well to distinguish in theological principles those which are certain from those which are probable, and from those which are corollaries from both. I was, nevertheless, exceedingly afraid of falling into the slightest error, for I knew what influence it might have upon the will.
“Moreover, I regarded it as an extreme happiness not to fall into error myself or to lead others astray. By the grace of God, and by keeping to essential and fundamental and clearly and repeatedly revealed truths, this is not so difficult as one might suppose.”
—Published by, Harvey Christian Publishers Inc.
Obtainable at: www.harveycp.com

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More truths from Zinzendorf

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“Although,” says he, in a letter written in 1729, “I am and Wish to remain a member of the Evangelical Church, I do not limit Christ and His truth to any sect. Whosoever believes that he is saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus, by living faith, that is to say whosoever seeks and finds in Him Wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, he is my brother, and I regard it as a useless and even injurious task to examine into his opinions on other matters, and to sit in judgment on his exegesis. In this sense they are right who say that it does not much trouble me that some are heterodox, but only in this sense.”

Royal Insignia by Edwin & Lillian Harvey

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MALCOLM Muggeridge was a searcher after truth for many years. In the course of this search, he traveled to Russia in order to explore the possibilities of Communism, only to be bitterly disappointed and disillusioned. Finally, he found in Christ the End of his search and exhorts us thus: “Let us as Christians rejoice that we see around us on every hand the decay of the institutions and instruments of power; intimations of empires falling to pieces, money in total disarray, dictators and parliamentarians alike nonplussed by the confusion and conflicts which encompass them.


“For it is precisely when every earthly hope has been explored and found wanting, when every possibility of help from earthly sources has been sought and is not forthcoming, when every recourse this world offers, moral as well as material, has been explored to no effect, when in the shivering cold the last faggot has been thrown on the fire and in the gathering darkness every glimmer of light has finally flickered out—it is then that Christ’s hand reaches out, sure and firm, that Christ’s words bring their inexpressible comfort, that His light shines brightest, abolishing the darkness forever. So, finding in everything only deception and nothingness, the soul is constrained to have recourse to God Himself and to rest content with Him.” P. 35

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Royal Insignia, Edwin & Lillian Harvey, Harvey Christian Publishers Inc.

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Are we often tempted to think, in the depth of our hearts, that perhaps, after all, God is not quite enough. So many self-sufficient people seem successful while those who trust in the Lord often appear to be just that little bit behind the times. Is God really and truly sufficient for every situation and for every need? Our Lord died an apparent failure, discredited by the leaders of established religion, rejected by society, and forsaken by His friends. The man who ordered Him to the cross was the successful statesman whose hand the ambitious hack politician kissed. It took the Resurrection to demonstrate how gloriously Christ had triumphed and how tragically the governor had failed. —A. W. Tozer. p. 30

Since Pentecost, God’s instruments have become nothing through Calvary. They have learned that willpower or any other human force can never make a man small enough to be able at all times to let God have all the glory. It is a precious moment when a weary soul asks earnestly and in faith, “Lord, let me be nothing; let me die with Thee.”
—E. F. Harvey. P. 42

Too many are waiting for God to move upon them, when they ought to be prevailing upon Him. We may all sing, “God is still on the Throne,” but I wonder who is sitting upon yours? He stood in honor of His faithful martyr, Stephen, and, no doubt, would stand more often if we gave Him occasion to do so. It is not a matter of whether or not we have numbers— but do we have God? Someone has said, “If God be for us, what difference does it make who is against us?” Anyone plus God is a sufficiency. Some of history’s greatest conflicts have been decided by a minority of men in the hands of Divinity. —George Bowen.

Taken from, “Royal Insignia,” published by, Harvey Christian Publishers Inc.

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Wisdom from the biography of Zinzendorf

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But it is with the human mind when God enables it to grasp some truth as it is with children or with savages when some one gives to them a compass or a watch. They are absorbed in it; they put it to all sorts of uses. They never rest till they have spoiled it. The human mind when in possession of some new truth is not content till it has turned it into an error. Every tendency, every school, every Church in this way parodies itself. In this way the pietiests exaggerated or rather falsified and denaturalised piety itself, just as the orthodox had exaggerated orthodoxy, and as we shall see the disciples of Zinzendorf transform into puerility that Christian simplicity which had been their most precious treasure.

The asceticism of Spener soon became in most of his disciples, a spirit of minute and pharisaic legalism. Starting from the plausible principle that there are no indifferent works, they came to magnify the importance of the most insignificant actions, to regulate everything, and to make the Christian life consist in the performance of certain acts of devotion, and in the renunciation of certain so-called worldly pleasures. The little devotional meetings, which Spener wished to be “little Churches within the Church,” came to regard themselves as the only Church, outside which there was no salvation. Hence a most intolerant spiritual pride which compensated the little for their lack of worldly position, and which in the great, became an aliment to their exclusiveness.
We shall see these aberrations of pietism manifesting themselves in deadly opposition to Zinzendorf and his work. At the moment of his birth, however, the revival was still in its pristine purity.
From, “Count Zinzendorf” by Felix Bovet, available from Harvey Christian Publishers Inc.

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Uplifting autobiography of Amanda Smith

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Amanda Smith’s autobiography is an inspiring story of a former slave who experienced a “double redemption,”—first from slavery and secondly from the bondage of sin. Although a humble washerwoman, God remarkably used her as His instrument to tell the story of the sanctified life to high and low around the world. Constantly struggling against prejudice and injustice even within the Church, her spirit of forgiveness and courage both challenges and convicts the reader, while her simple faith, absolute honesty, and remarkable answers to prayer, make her autobiography both gripping and challenging.
—Trudy Harvey Tait

Lillian Harvey’s first and only novel.

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The King’s Diamond is a “must” for all young people. Read how a Christian girl, facing many subtle pressures and fierce temptations, meets the tests put to her by a rich and skeptical young diamond merchant from South Africa. Exulting in his great “find”, this worldly young man discovers, to his chagrin, that Someone has outbid him! Read, and be encouraged that it is possible, even today, to prove that Christ can take our worthless ore and produce from it a gem of priceless value.

George Matheson, author of “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go.”

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Those of us who love singing hymns, will surely have sung, not once, but many times, this favorite, “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go,” written by George Matheson, the blind poet from Scotland. Matheson’s Christian path was not an easy one by any standards. And so when he writes about humility, we stop and take note and we realize that here was a man who used his blindness to bring light to many. He allowed his handicap to become a tool of blessing in God’s hands.


The following quotation is taken from the book, Royal Insignia, written by Edwin and Lillian Harvey:
“Lord, Thou hast arrested me on my Damascus journey. Thou hast transformed self-consciousness into humility. I set out on the road with boundless belief in myself; I felt no obstacle; I experienced no difficulty. Suddenly, at the turning of the way, my soul grew paralyzed. The confidence faded. The world no longer stretched before me as a pleasure-ground. There came a mist over the scene, and I could not find my way. It all happened in the meeting with one Man—a Man from Nazareth. Before I met Him, my pride of self was unbounded; I said in my heart, ‘I shall carve my own destiny.’ But one glance at the Man of Nazareth laid me low. My fancied glory became ashes; my imagined strength became weakness; I beat upon my breast and cried, ‘Unclean!’
“Shall I repine because I met that Man? Shall I weep because a flash of light at a street corner threw all my greatness into shade? No, my Father, for the shade is the reflex of the sheen. It is because I have seen Thy beauty that humanity has grown dim. It is enlargement that has made me humble. I have gazed for a moment on a perfect ideal, and its brightness has eclipsed my candle. It is not night, but day, that blinds me to my own possessions. It is light that makes me loathe myself.”
—Thoughts from Life’s Journey.

Royal Insignia is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their online bookstore.

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Our Own God—Chapter 2

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The things that God loves most, the devil hates most. Nothing is more precious to God than the everlasting, distinct personality of His creatures; but Satan and tyrants look upon men as only a bulk of “dumb driven cattle” to serve their greed and ambition.
God loves and prizes us in our individuality to such an extent that He has filled us with ten thousand private marks, in our souls, and bodies, and lives, and experiences, that never will be duplicated in any other creature.

It is a constant astonishment to my mind, how God can make hundreds of millions of human beings, and no two of them just exactly alike; no two faces, no two voices, no two pairs of eyes, nor pairs of ears, nor pairs of hands, nor pairs of feet, nor two sets of teeth in all the millions of men. In the structure of the bones, and sinews, and the wrinkles in the palm of the hand, and on the foot; in our individual walk, in the way we each learn our letters, or think, or talk, or write─in every part of soul, and body, there are peculiarities written in each individual, that never have existed, and never will exist in any other individual.
God could give an angel a description of our right thumb, or the particular way that we weep, or smile, and without any other mark to tell us by, that angel could fly from Heaven, and pick us out from hundreds of millions of other creatures with unerring precision. I stand bewildered at this inexhaustible fertility in the creative mind of our God. Any man who can look at these facts, and be an infidel, must be a consummate fool, who has sold his common sense to the devil.

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