The pride of creation.
In the insanity of his pride, Pharaoh is supposed even to claim the mighty Nile, that great work of nature on which the wealth and even the very life of his people depended, as a creation of his own imperial power. Such a foolish boast illustrates in an extreme form the common mistake of claiming to create what has in fact been received as a gift of God.
I. NOTE THE PREVALENCE OF THE PRIDE OF CREATION. This is seen with many kinds of success.
1. National greatness. The proud nation glories in having built up its own greatness. The mighty monarch regards himself as the maker of his empire.
2. Private fortune. One who has risen from the ranks regards himself as a self-made man. His success he attributes to his own ability and energy; and his ability and energy he regards as springing from himself.
3. Skilful inventions. Man does indeed seem to create with his brain. We say that Homer created the 'Iliad;' Phidias, the Elgin Marbles; Watt, the steam-engine; Stephenson, the locomotive. The thought that constituted or shaped these great works of genius was bred in the brains of the men who originated them.
4. Personal character. Men commonly regard themselves as the architects of their own characters. If there is growth in wisdom or strength, the strong temptation is to think that this growth is due to their own thought and effort. But—
II. CONSIDER THE FOLLY OF THE PRIDE OF CREATION. This pride springs from a delusion. Certainly it did with Pharaoh. He make the Nile! The Nile made him! Egypt was just the child of the Nile. Her wealth depended on the ministry of the mighty river. Floods gathered from melting snows on distant African mountains far beyond the territory or even the knowledge of the Pharaohs, swelled its waters so that they overflowed their banks and spread fertility on the narrow strips of river-side called Egypt. But this is but an evident instance of what is true in less conspicuous ways. All great things, all new things, all things that exist, come from God. They spring from God, and they depend on him.
1. In nature. God is the Creator and Preserver of nature. He not only made the stone that the sculptor chisels; he made the laws of matter and the fundamental principles of art along which the sculptor must work. National greatness largely depends on geographical and other physical conditions of Divine creation.
2. In providence. God is still in the world, ruling it according to his own thought for his own great purposes. He overrules the government of kings. In private life he helps one on to prosperity, and sends another needful adversity through those turns of events, those conjunctions of circumstances, which the wisest cannot foresee and which the ablest cannot modify.
3. In grace. For the higher good of life spiritual attainments are necessary. Without these attainments Fra. Angelico could not have painted his beautiful angels, Milton could not have written his grand epics, Luther could not have wrought his Titanic revolution. God's inward grace makes souls and characters good and great.
III. AVOID THE SIN OF THE PRIDE OF CREATION. This pride is positively wicked. It robs God of his rightful honor. It is distinctly ungrateful. Indeed, it is atheistic; and practical atheism of this character is far worse morally than the intellectual atheism that denies the being of God as a proposition in academic discussions. Such a sinful pride destroys a man's sense of dependence, his remembrance of obligations, his consciousness of responsibility, that admission of his own littleness which is necessary for humility as well as that feeling of God's greatness and goodness which is at the root of religion.