04.10.15 

A fool’s lips enter into contention, and his mouth calls for blows. A fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul. - Proverbs 18:6-7 NKJV. 

By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life. Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse; he who guards his soul will be far from them. - Proverbs 22:4-5 NKJV. 

And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will. - 2 Timothy 2:24-26 NKJV. 

…not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. - 1 Timothy 3:6 NKJV. 

Everyone in Fairfield, Maine can now rest easy because the notorious police evader and social media poster, Christopher Wallace, has now been caught. The arrest was made thanks to his posting his exact location on Snapchat. Wallace was arrested on burglary charges stemming from theft of propane and wood stoves and violation of administrative release. The arrest of the man was made possible by the participation of many notifying the Sheriff’s Office of his social media posts.  

When Christopher posted on Snapchat that he was at his home in Fairfield, Maine citizens notified the Sheriff’s Office; deputies and police officers then responded going to Wallace’s house and searching it for him. Law Enforcement was unable to locate Wallace, until…he posted on Snapchat that police were searching his house, and he was hiding in a cabinet. Many citizens then called the Sheriff’s Office again reporting where in the house the man was hiding. The Sheriff’s Office posted this on their facebook page after the arrest: “Over the past few weeks, since our press release looking for the public's assistance in locating him, Mr. Wallace had become cocky. Which led to his downfall.” (Huffington Post 03.24.15; Morning Sentinel, Waterville, Maine via AP 03.24.15) 

On one of the trips we made in our country, I observed a couple of older High School boys say to another boy, “What are you doing acting like you are something?” I think it had to do with the way the boy was dressed, and he just ignored the other two boys. Apparently Christopher Wallace thought that he was, “something!” You could say that he was like the devil in that he was “puffed up with pride.” 

Have you ever thought you were “something?” Pride is a dangerous thing which blinds us to reality. It blinds us to our need for God, and as with the devil, pride can cause us to believe that we are almost a god ourselves. Because of whatever has made us think we are “something” we tend to think of ourselves as better than others, and smarter than others. As we see with Christopher Wallace, this can cause us problems just as pride resulted in the devil being kicked out of Heaven. 

Pride is an insidious thing, which is, as the Bible indicates a snare for our soul. Proverbs 22:5a says, “Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse.” “Perverse” in Strong’s Concordance means “distorted, false, crooked, froward.” The word “perverse” originates from Middle English meaning, “facing the wrong way.” Pride is the complete opposite of what God wants the attitude of His children to be, and with the devil, we can see the ultimate outcome of pride. Pride is literally “facing” away from God, and it is the sitting of a snare, a trap for our souls. We must as Proverbs 25b says, guard our souls against the snare of pride. The good news is as Proverbs 22:4 says, “By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life.” If we will humble ourselves before God, we will avoid much evil in this life, and He will lift us up (James 4:10; 1 Peter 5:6).