Pride and Opposition

"God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6).

The sermon during a visit to a church in W Kansas while visiting family mentioned this verse and the pastor gave a few thoughts on the identity of these proud ones mentioned.
And it occurred to me that many of the proud of this world achieve even the very height of arrogance in that they twist the meaning of God's revelation into what they desire it to mean. It is exactly this sin that was at the center of the Fall when Satan slyly asked, "Has God truly said?"
Over the course of the last few years, I have encountered quite a few denizens of this category. America is such a melting pot that there are a wide variety of people and abuses of Scripture's meaning to be found.
Included in those abuses are assertions that the Scripture is full of contradictions, that homosexuality is really not so bad since it's only mentioned in a few places and never by Jesus, that certain parts of Scripture are more important than others (such as Jesus' words being more important than others', like Paul's), that the Scripture has assured perfect physical health for us if we will but claim it w/ enough faith, and that God is actually a really bad communicator so that the Scripture is by no means clear.

Thus, to the servant of God who listens to God's voice (John 10:14-16), it is comforting to rest in the words of the Redeemer, Who is faithful and true. For he who is willing to submit to the words of the Master (James 4:7), there will be grace rather than divine opposition. He who falls into the trap of this pride is conjoined to the enemy of his own soul, one way or another. For them, I pray for mercy, since there is opposition where they could have grace.