Pride and Anger: Satan’s Most Useful Tools

Text of a talk given by Donald A. Cazier in the Pembroke Pines (Florida) Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on August 9, 2026

When I was younger, I enjoyed puzzles which might be called, “What’s wrong with this picture?” One might expect me to notice that a cow was blue or that a bicycle had no handlebars. I have such a puzzle for you this morning, but instead of a visual picture it will be one I’ll describe for you.

The partly fake picture goes like this: Thousands of years ago, our Father in Heaven saw that we, His spirit children, needed to come to an earth to receive bodies and to have experiences to prepare for the eternal happiness He enjoys. He convened a great council, where He invited volunteers to become our Savior and to work out the details of a plan of salvation. Two of the greatest pre-mortal spirits stepped forward. One was Jesus Christ, who offered to come as our Savior, though He admitted He could only save some of us. The other was Lucifer, who promised to save everyone. For some reason, Heavenly Father chose Jesus’s plan. Not only did Lucifer suffer the disappointment of having his offer rejected, but he found himself kicked out of heaven, when all he was trying to do was to be helpful.

I hope you didn’t have to think too long about what was wrong with that picture. God did not invite those present to submit plans. He already had a plan which included Jesus coming as our Savior. Lucifer was totally out of order in arguing for his own plan. It would have been something like a few weeks ago, when our stake president invited us to sustain a new bishop, if someone had jumped up in the back and loudly shouted that he ought to be the new bishop instead.

Lucifer, of course, was lying. He could not exalt us to become like our Father in Heaven without giving us agency, which meant the possibility of failure. He was not trying to be helpful. He was trying to stage a coup.

Lucifer’s problem was pride. The Bible tells us, “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Lucifer’s pride and haughty spirit led to his fall from heaven and his eternal spiritual destruction. But that war which began in heaven, continues here on the earth, where Lucifer, whom we now call Satan, continues fighting against God and His plan, trying to make us miserable, as he is, by infecting us with the same pride and anger which led to his own fall.

In our Come, Follow Me study this year, we have seen example after example of people, often kings, whose pride and anger led to their downfall. The first was Cain. He became insanely jealous when Abel’s sacrifice was accepted but his own rejected. Just like Lucifer, Cain knew better. He knew the proper sacrifice was an animal without spot or blemish, symbolic of the promised Savior, not a pile of carrots. But he couldn’t humble himself enough to buy a sheep from Abel. Instead, he let his angry pride lead him to commit the first known murder on this earth and become the first mortal son of perdition.

Israel’s first king, Saul, is another example of one who started out well but ended up losing it all. We are told Saul was “a choice young man.” He was humble. Initially, the Spirit of God came upon Saul, and he even prophesied. When it was time to present Saul to the people as their new king, he was so bashful and humble he was off hiding and couldn’t be found.

But that humility didn’t last. It wasn’t long before Saul got frustrated with what he felt was Samuel’s slowness in arriving to offer sacrifice and took it upon himself to offer the sacrifice, though he had no priesthood authority to do so. Not too long after that, after David had killed Goliath and led the armies to military success, Saul didn’t take it well when the people cheered, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” For the balance of his life, Saul was persistently trying to kill David, whom Samuel had already anointed to eventually take Saul’s place as king.

David likewise started off well. He was called a man after the Lord’s own heart. He was humble, and the Lord blessed him. But after he became king, David thought he had the right to take Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, as his own and to arrange for Uriah’s murder. Modern revelation assures us that despite his later sorrow, David fell from what could have been his eternal exaltation.

David’s son, Solomon, followed a similar path. The Bible says, “Solomon loved the Lord.” It records that the Lord appeared to him twice, including once when He invited him to ask for anything he wanted. Rather than ask for wealth or earthly honors, Solomon humbly referred to himself as a little child and asked only for wisdom to lead the people well. The Lord rewarded Solomon with riches and worldly honors anyway, but they eventually went to his head. He did build a great temple to the Lord, but he built an even larger palace for himself. And he took 700 wives and 300 concubines, most of whom the Lord hadn’t authorized, and they turned his heart away from the Lord. The Lord told him that because of his disobedience, he would lose his kingdom to his servant, Jeroboam. Solomon became so angry he tried to kill Jeroboam, whom the prophet Ahijah had anointed to become king after him.

Two weeks ago, we saw how King Asa, of Judah, started out doing what was right. When the Ethiopians came against him with an army of one million, Asa’s faith and humility led to the Lord’s giving him the victory in spite of the odds. Asa even removed his own grandmother from being queen, because she had made a pagan idol to worship. But in later years, Asa’s pride led him to take the silver and gold out of the temple and bribe the Syrian king to help him fight against the kingdom of Israel, rather than depend on the Lord. When Hanani the prophet rebuked Asa for it, Asa got angry and threw him into prison. At the end of his life, Asa was crippled by a disease in his feet. But he relied on primitive doctors rather than seek the Lord’s help to be cured.

Jehoshaphat, Asa’s son, also got off to a good start. He took away the places of pagan worship out of Judah, and the Lord blessed him with peace. But Jehoshophat’s riches and pride led him to join forces with Ahab, the wicked king of Israel, tolerating Ahab’s putting the prophet Micaiah in prison, and leading to his being rebuked by the seer Jehu. After a temporary turn back to righteousness, Jehoshophat later allied himself with another king of Israel, Ahaziah, who also, we are told, “did very wickedly.” He died in his pride without ever achieving the consistent greatness for which he could have been known.

Uzziah was another king of Judah that the scriptures say “did that which was right in the sight of the Lord.” But the record tells us, “When he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction,” as he went into the temple to burn incense, without authority. When the priests challenged him, he got very angry and was smitten with leprosy, which continued until the day of his death.

One of the great talks given in the Church in my lifetime was given by President Ezra Taft Benson, back in 1989, entitled “Beware of Pride.” He called pride “the universal sin” and pointed out that it is the root of all others. He said:

The central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. Enmity means “hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition.” It is the power by which Satan wishes to reign over us.

….

Our enmity toward God takes on many labels, such as rebellion, hard-heartedness, stiff-neckedness, unrepentant, puffed up, easily offended, and sign seekers. The proud wish God would agree with them. They aren’t interested in changing their opinions to agree with God’s.

…

President Benson continued:

Pride is a sin that can readily be seen in others but is rarely admitted in ourselves. Most of us consider pride to be a sin of those on the top, such as the rich and the learned, looking down at the rest of us. There is, however, a far more common ailment among us—and that is pride from the bottom looking up. It is manifest in so many ways, such as faultfinding, gossiping, backbiting, murmuring, living beyond our means, envying, coveting, withholding gratitude and praise that might lift another, and being unforgiving and jealous.

This week’s Come, Follow Me material tells of another whose pride proved his downfall. Haman was the right-hand man of the king of Persia, with all the honor and wealth that came with that position. But he was angry that Mordecai, queen Esther’s cousin, wouldn’t bow down to him. Clearly his pride had been wounded. He concocted a plan to destroy all the Jews in the entire kingdom and specifically to hang Mordecai on 75-foot-high gallows. If you read the story, you cheered when you saw how Haman suffered the humiliation of having to lead Mordecai, dressed in royal robes, through the city on horseback at the king’s direction, saying, “Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honor.” And you know how through Esther’s bravery and the Lord’s intervention, Haman’s pride eventually led to his being hanged himself on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai.

But notice the progression:

• It started with Haman’s letting himself be offended by one man.

• He then exaggerated the offense by constantly thinking about it.

• He recruited others into his anger, namely his wife and friends.

• He developed a plan for revenge

• And, finally, he became the victim of the very gallows he had built.

How often do our resentments follow that same pattern on a smaller scale? Is it worth asking, who are the Mordecais in our lives that we let wound our pride and lead us into jealousy and desires for revenge, which lead only to misery and never the happiness the Lord wants us to have.

The Bible does tell of one king who consistently resisted every temptation to be lifted up in pride. I am referring to the King of Kings, the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the opposite of Haman.

• Haman demanded honor.

• Christ accepted humiliation and taught that the meek will inherit the earth.

• Haman sought revenge.

• Christ prayed, "Father, forgive them."

• Haman wanted others destroyed.

• Christ offered Himself to save others.

I pray that we may each focus on what the Lord would have us learn from this week’s Come, Follow Me chapters and those which have gone before in this Old Testament year about pride, anger, and the danger they present to our eternal happiness. I testify that the Lord loves us and wants very much for us to do those things which will bring us peace in this life and eternal joy in the world to come.