Why does pride lead to a fall?

In Ezekiel 26-28, God pronounces judgment on the proud, wealthy city of Tyre — and in doing so, gives a startling glimpse of the devil himself. In this study, Dr. Toby Holt traces the deadly path of pride.

Tyre gloated over Jerusalem’s fall and trusted in its wealth and island fortress. God judges the “prince of Tyre,” a human ruler who claimed, “I am a god.” Then, describing the “king of Tyre” as a perfect cherub cast out of Eden, the passage reaches behind the human king to Satan himself — whose downfall, like Tyre’s, was pride. Dr. Holt notes how history fulfilled the prophecy precisely: Tyre was scraped bare and left a place for fishermen’s nets, exactly as God said.

Questions this study answers:

1. Why did Tyre deserve God’s wrath? Because it gloated over Jerusalem’s fall and exalted itself in pride and greed. God humbles the proud.

2. How does this passage point to the devil? The “king of Tyre” is described as a cherub cast out of Eden — language that reaches beyond the human king to Satan, whose ruin was also pride.

3. What happened to Tyre historically? It was besieged and finally scraped to bare rock, becoming a place to spread fishing nets — exactly as Ezekiel foretold.

“Because your heart is lifted up, and you say, ‘I am a god, I sit in the seat of gods, in the midst of the seas,’ yet you are a man, and not a god, though you set your heart as the heart of a god.” — Ezekiel 28:2 (NKJV)

Speaker: Dr. Toby Holt is the President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, a Reformed seminary in Colorado Springs. He is known for clear, down-to-earth Bible teaching, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio.

Listen and go deeper: This sermon is part of the Ezekiel Explained study from New Geneva Theological Seminary. Find more verse-by-verse teaching across the Bible at newgeneva.org. To support this teaching ministry, visit newgeneva.org/give.