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Hello my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Did you know there is a global pandemic much worse than the Coronavirus, and it’s been ravaging the human race since the days of Adam and Eve? You have it and so do I, and it kills a person’s character and reputation long before it kills our bodies. This pandemic is called sin and in particular today I’m focusing on the sin of PRIDE and it’s everywhere. We see it often in these days don’t we? We see it in politics and sports and business and education and even in religion. We see it in well educated people and illiterate people. We see it in every race, creed, language and generation. No one is exempt. It’s despicable and we hate it when we see it in others, yet, amazingly we often can’t see it in ourselves.
These days I’ve been leading us through the Kings of Israel to see what lessons we can learn for living our lives WELL in these very challenging and chaotic times. 2 Chronicles 26 has the remarkable account of Uzziah who was crowned king at the age of 16 and he reigned 52 years! Now think about that a moment… in our day that would mean he would have taken office in 1968!! Fortunately for the people of Judah, he led well much of his life and the nation flourished with his good, steady, wise leadership. The summary of his leadership reads: “He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD…He sought God during the days of Zechariah who instructed him in the fear of God. As long as Uzziah sought the LORD, God gave him success.” (2 Chron. 26:3-5)
Wow…did you hear it…God’s formula for a successful life? We don’t know exactly who Zechariah was, but clearly this is another example of God raising up a wise, God honoring mentor for a young man who bears the burden of significant leadership! May I ask… Are you a modern day Zechariah?
In 2 Chronicles 26 we discover Uzziah became a talented leader who effectively rallied the people around his leadership. Construction projects grew towns and towers. Agriculture projects dug wells and developed irrigation systems, so the land became very productive and large flocks and herds had ample grazing land. Judah’s military was expanded and significantly resourced so the people were well defended and similar to Israel today, could be mobilized and armed quickly if needed. It appears Uzziah was even an inventor who developed sophisticated military machines firing many arrows simultaneously, perhaps it was the machine gun of its day. (2 Chron. 15) This statement summarizes Uzziah’s rise to power and success in governing: “His fame spread far and wide, for he was greatly helped until he became powerful.” (2 Chron. 26:15)
It would have been a great time to be alive, running a business, raising your family in or around Jerusalem in this era! But sadly, as so often happens, Uzziah succumbed to the great pandemic of PRIDE. Listen to this brief but specific diagnosis: “But after king Uzziah became powerful his pride led to his downfall.” (1 Chron. 26:16) One simple statement, yet so many people’s hopes and dreams were shattered, so much positive momentum derailed, so much progress and success undone. How did it happen?
I’m a prostate cancer survivor. During a routine annual physical exam, 5 years ago, one simple test indicated I had an extremely elevated PSA #. A biopsy of my prostate a few days later led my doctor to say these words which I’ll never forget: “you have highly aggressive prostate cancer.” By God’s grace, due to several miracles, successful surgery and radiation, I am cancer free. I share that personal story with you for this reason: I had no idea I had cancer. I felt fine. I was shocked at the news, in fact I thought certain the doctor had confused my test results with someone else… he couldn’t possibly be talking about me when using the words “highly aggressive prostate cancer.”
My friends, that’s how it is with PRIDE. It creeps into our lives and we don’t notice. It begins to shade how we look at other people… critically. We often feel we see things more clearly, we have better answers to problems, than other people do. We listen more acutely for any sign of affirmation, in fact we begin to hunger for applause and accolades. We find ourselves thinking we could have done better when looking at the accomplishments of other people. We disregard any words of caution or constructive criticism from those who care about us. We may even start pulling back from relationships perhaps feeling those relationships are not going to help us achieve our goals. Sometimes we even start dressing differently, wanting to drive a different car, maybe even upgrade our home or sell it and move to an upscale neighborhood. All this and much more are evidence of the deceptive cancer of PRIDE. Do you recognize any of it, either in yourself or others?
Uzziah knew Israel’s history well and he should have remembered many others in the long line of kings before him, who had struggled with pride. King Solomon had warned “Above all else guard your heart, it is the wellspring of life.” (Prov. 4:23) but he didn’t mind his own advice, and his kingship crumbled around him in his pride. His book of Proverbs is filled with wise advice about the danger of Pride. King Saul, Israel’s first king, also had started well, but failed miserably in his pride. Do you remember God sent the prophet Samuel to Saul with this condemning message: “…rebellion is like the sin of divination and arrogance like the sin of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has rejected you as king.” (1 Samuel 15:23)
Can we apply the power of Samuel’s statement to our day, to ourselves? When we rebel against God’s Word, God’s leading, God’s commands… Samuel says we are in effect saying “I reject God’s Word to me and I want another opinion, any opinion, even a demonic divination opinion.” And when we are prideful or arrogant, we are saying in effect “I elevate myself above everyone else and even above God. In fact I declare myself to be my own god.” Friends, can you see the profound danger in the cancer of PRIDE? It will kill your relationship with God, your relationships with your friends and family, and lead you to despair, alone in your self-focus.
In Uzziah’s day, God had instituted a significant checks and balances system for the leadership of His people. In Israel God established the Priests to be the spiritual leaders who were responsible to lead the people and their king in their spiritual vitality and development. The temple, the sacrificial system, the special feast days, and of course the weekly Shabbat (Sabbath) were all intended to keep people and their King humble, aware of their own sin, and closely connected to God.
The Prophets were special men and women, selected by God to speak His fresh word to His people. Often God sent prophets directly to the king or the people with important wisdom at strategic times for the nation. When pride became a problem in the kings, God often sent His prophet to the king with clear warnings. Remember Elijah and the 3 year drought, and the Mount Carmel showdown with king Ahab and the 450 prophets of Baal?
The King was the governing leader of the people, responsible to lead God’s people to be a God honoring nation unlike any other nation on earth. While the King had many advisors and counselors, none were more important than the Prophet and Chief Priest if the King was going to be successful in leading God’s people in alignment with God’s plans and purposes for His people. Do you see how the three roles of Prophet, Priest and King balanced each other?
2 Chronicles 26:16-20 gives us the account of what happened when Uzziah’s pride overtook his respect for God’s leadership structure and the important role of the Priests. Uzziah entered the sacred Temple and he defiled the Holy Place. God’s balance of a trinity of human authority in leadership of His people was broken. As the priests confronted king Uzziah in his pride Uzziah’s anger boiled and he lashed out against the wise cautions of the priests. Instantly, God struck prideful king Uzziah with leprosy! “..the chief priest…looked at king Uzziah and saw he had leprosy on his forehead, so they hurried him out of the Temple. Indeed Uzziah himself was anxious to leave, because the LORD God had afflicted him with leprosy. King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he died. He lived in a separate house, alone and leprous, and excluded from the Temple of the LORD. Jotham his son had charge of the palace and governed the people of the land.” (2 Chron. 26:21)
King Uzziah who had begun so well, and led the nation effectively for so long, lived the last 10 years of his life in isolation and profound shame, as the contagious, degenerating disease of leprosy ate his skin away. Finally…“Uzziah rested with his fathers and was buried near them in a field for burial that belonged to the kings…” How very sad, that after 40 years of good leadership, Uzziah succumbed to his pride, and languished for 10 years before finally dying in shame. Due to his highly contagious leprosy, we can imagine his body would have been wrapped and quickly buried in a hole in the ground of the field, perhaps not even in a coffin, with a simple headstone that would most certainly have had a leprosy warning so others would not come near that place.
Now I’m asking you my good “Walking with Jesus” friends, do we all…each of us, you and me, have wise friends who will help us see PRIDE as it begins to grow like a cancer in us? Will we welcome their warnings? Will we thank them and prostrate ourselves before God repenting of pride and asking that He root it completely out of our life? If yes. . .then God can still use us greatly for His glory in accomplishing His great purposes in our world. If NO…then God must remove His hand of blessing from our lives and we may well find our lives consumed by the cancer of pride, as Uzziah did.
Oh friends, please join me in a time of personal prayer, right now, asking God to search our hearts for any evidence of this cancer… And then let’s join with this worship song video asking God to “change my heart O God, may I be like YOU.”
Click to read today’s chapter: 2 Chronicles 26. (At the top you can choose a different translation.)
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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