THE LESSON OF THE LEPER KING – 2 Chronicles 26:1-23
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on March 20, 2011 under 2011 |
Preached Sunday, March 20, 2011
from
2 Chronicles 26:1-23
Theme: The danger of pride in God’s calling for us is that it might move us to intrude into His calling for others.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
This morning, in our study of the Kings of Judah, we come to 2 Chronicles 26; and to the story of a king who had ruled longer than any of the other kings who came before him. His name was King Uzziah.
He was a king who went by two names in Scripture. His name Uzziah meant "God is My Strength"; but he also went by the name Azariah, which meant "God Has Helped"1. Both of those names describe what it was that made Uzziah a great king. He was a king who found his strength in the living God, and who God Himself had made strong.
That’s something that we find often affirmed about him in this morning’s passage—that God was his Helper who made him strong. We’re told in verse five that, "as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper. "In the description it gives of his military conquests, we’re told "God helped him . . . " (v. 7); and that he became "exceedingly strong" as a king (v. 8). In verse 15, we’re told, "So his fame spread far and wide, for he was marvelously helped till he became strong. "
In this respect Uzziah was exemplary. So long as he sought the help of the Lord, the Lord made him exceedingly strong. And the same is true for you and me. The very same God that helped Uzziah and made him strong as a king is the God who welcomes us to Himself through His Son Jesus Christ. So long as we who have trusted His Son continue to seek His help in the daily matters of life, He will cause us to prosper in His good purpose for us and make us strong for everything He calls us to do. Our own personal testimony can be the same as that of the apostle Paul: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13).
But there’s also an important warning for us in Uzziah’s life; and it has to do with the very fact that God had so wonderfully prospered him. Verse 16 tells us, "But when he was strong his heart was lifted up, to his destruction . . . "God had called him to be king over His people; and in that calling, he was a good and godly king. So long as he remained in his particular calling—and trusted God for His help in it—he prospered and was made strong. But at the height of his prosperity and strength, he became prideful. His heart was lifted up; and he dared to step out of that area of service that God had called him to, and arrogantly intruded into a field of service that God had consecrated to someone else.
As a result, the story of this otherwise good and godly king ended in tragedy and loss.
* * * * * * * * * *
Now; Uzziah came to the throne during a crisis of leadership. His father, King Amaziah, was a king who walked with God—but not with a loyal heart. He started out well, but eventually fell deeply into sin and rebellion against God; and as a result, he was captured by the king of the northern kingdom of Israel and went into exile for many years.
And so, at the beginning of Uzziah’s story, we’re told,
Now all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king instead of his father Amaziah. He built Elath and restored it to Judah, after the king rested with his fathers. Uzziah was sixteen years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jecholiah of Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. He sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God; and as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper (2 Chronicles 26:1-5).
As these opening words tell us, Uzziah was only sixteen years old when he was placed on the throne in his father’s long absence. But it’s interesting to note that something is said concerning him that’s quite unusual. We’re told that "all the people of Judah" placed him on the throne. It’s possible that there was no other son of Amaziah, from the lineage of David, who could qualify to be placed on the throne. But whatever else may have been true about the situation, it’s made clear to us that Uzziah was ‘the people’s choice’; and that his ascendancy to the throne of his father was met with the hearty approval of his people.
One reason that the people probably felt so inclined to place him on the throne in his father’s absence was because he was said to do "what was right in the sight of the Lord"; and that he "sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God". We can’t be certain who this man Zechariah was2; but the fact that his name alone is give—that is, without any other descriptive information—suggests that he was someone who was well-known and highly esteemed in Uzziah’s day. He may have been a prophet; or he may have been a very insightful man who could understand the prophetic revelations that God gave to others. But in any case, he appears to have been an important mentor to the young king; because we’re told that the king "sought God all the days of" this man’s godly influence upon him. In this respect, he might have been the kind of mentor to Uzziah that the godly high priest Jehoiada had been to Uzziah’s grandfather Joash.3
The people made a good choice when they set Uzziah on the throne, and he reigned a remarkable fifty-two years over Judah. And almost right away, he began to show himself to be a great leader. We’re told, in verse two, that he "built Elath and restored it to Judah, after the king rested with his fathers. "Elath was a strategic port city within the region of the Edomites—at the northern shore of the Gulf of Aqaba. And as soon as his father Amaziah had died—possibly having waited out of deference to his father’s previous military failures—Uzziah secured that city and built it up both as a secure military outpost against Judah’s enemies to the south and as a seaport for commerce.
It became immediately evident to all that the blessing of God was upon his reign. And it truly was; because as verse five says, "as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper".
* * * * * * * * * *
And as we read on, we find that most of the details that we have in the Bible of the life of Uzziah have to do with his prosperity and success as a king under God’s gracious help. First of all, the Bible tells us of the story of his prosperity in warfare against the enemies of his people. Verse six tells us,
Now he went out and made war against the Philistines, and broke down the wall of Gath, the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod; and he built cities around Ashdod and among the Philistines (v. 6).
The Philistines were the long-standing enemies of the people of God along the southwestern region of the promised land. And Uzziah—with God’s help—conquered the major stronghold cities of the Philistines: Gath, Jabneh and Ashdod. We’re told that he "broke down the wall" of these cities; which meant, of course, that they were rendered defenseless before him. We’re also told that he built stronghold cities of his own "around Ashdod and among the Philistines"; so that, with God’s help, he made his people secure from their enemies on the west.
The Bible goes on to tell us,
God helped him against the Philistines, against the Arabians who lived in Gur Baal, and against the Meunites. Also the Ammonites brought tribute to Uzziah. His fame spread as far as the entrance of Egypt, for he became exceedingly strong (vv. 7-8).
The tribute from the Ammonites secured the northeastern region for his people; the building-up of the city Elath (v. 2) helped secure the southeastern region; the conquest of the Arabians and the Meunites secured the southwest; the conquest of the Philistines secured the southwestern shores; and the fact that his fame as a king had reached to the entrance of Egypt meant that he had secured western territory all along the way. His kingdom Judah had experienced an unprecedented expansion and security—to the east, to the south, and to the west—under his rule!Truly, God had made him to become an "exceedingly strong" king.
God also helped him to bring civic prosperity to his people. The Bible goes on to say;
And Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem at the Corner Gate, at the Valley Gate, and at the corner buttress of the wall; then he fortified them. Also he built towers in the desert (vv. 9-10a).
He built up the defenses of Jerusalem itself. And he managed to place settlements in the desert regions—which was a remarkable feat of engineering and agricultural technology that has proven to be a model to Middle Eastern cultures even into modern times!4
He also proved himself to be a remarkable farmer and rancher. We’re told,
He dug many wells, for he had much livestock, both in the lowlands and in the plains; he also had farmers and vinedressers in the mountains and in Carmel, for he loved the soil (v. 10b).
God not only helped him and prospered him in terms of the conquest of his enemies and the construction of the infrastructure of his kingdom, but also in the development of his military strength—something that is always vital to a king. We’re told;
Moreover Uzziah had an army of fighting men who went out to war by companies, according to the number on their roll as prepared by Jeiel the scribe and Maaseiah the officer, under the hand of Hananiah, one of the king’s captains (v. 11).
God gave Uzziah wise counselors and capable military leaders who were able to organize his army into effective divisions. What’s more, it seems that he was able to reinstate the roles of honor—"the mighty men of valor"5—that had once characterized the armies of his great predecessor King David;
The total number of chief officers of the mighty men of valor was two thousand six hundred. And under their authority was an army of three hundred and seven thousand five hundred, that made war with mighty power, to help the king against the enemy (vv. 12-13).
This was a fighting force that was only slightly larger than those that were under his father Amaziah. But it was much stronger than his father’s army, and accomplished far more than his father’s army did, because the blessing of God was upon him. 6
He was also able to supply his troops well. As the Bible goes on to say;
Then Uzziah prepared for them, for the entire army, shields, spears, helmets, body armor, bows, and slings to cast stones. And he made devices in Jerusalem, invented by skillful men, to be on the towers and the corners, to shoot arrows and large stones (vv. 14-15a).
God had called Uzziah to be the king of his people. And in that field of calling, Uzziah had learned to seek God. As a result, so long as he sought the Lord, the Lord prospered him with security from his enemies, prosperity for his people, and strength for his military forces. As verse 15 tells us;
So his fame spread far and wide, for he was marvelously helped till he became strong (v. 15b).
Under the blessing of God, Uzziah was well on his way to being established as one of the greatest kings in all the history of Judah.
* * * * * * * * * *
But it’s then—at the very height of his prosperity; at a time when the blessing of God seemed most to be upon him and when he had been made "exceedingly strong"—that his downfall came. And as a result, this great king’s life—whose fame had spread far and wide among the Gentile world—turned into one of the most pitiable of all the stories of the kings.
We’re told;
But when he was strong his heart was lifted up, to his destruction, for he transgressed against the LORD his God by entering the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense (v. 16).
Uzziah knew well the law that God gave through Moses. He knew that God had commanded that only the priestly sons of Aaron, born from the tribe of Levi, were to perform the task of burning incense in the temple. He knew that, as God’s word said, "the outsider who comes near shall be put to death" (Numbers 3:10b). But knowing this, Uzziah went into the very temple that God’s word forbade him from entering—past the outer court, past the priests, with a censor of incense in his hand, up to the altar of incense that only the priests were consecrated to approach—and sought to offer incense before God in utter disobedience to God’s holy law. This was, then, an unspeakable act of disobedience against God’s written word.
What could possibly have compelled him to such a thing?Well; we really don’t have to guess at it, because Bible tells us plainly that "his heart was lifted up"; or as the English Standard Version has it, "he grew proud". Pride over great success and prosperity in the field of God’s call—a pride that can so easily spring up and grow like a weed in any of us if we aren’t careful to root it out of our hearts—had taken control of him; and as a result, he dared to arrogantly step into a field of calling that God had most decidedly not given to him!
And I have to pause and call your attention to something important about the deceiving nature of this form of pride, dear brothers and sisters. Do you notice that it involved a very religious act?It involved offering holy incense at the altar, in the temple of God. To mere human eyes, this would have seemed like a great act of piety. After all, what could be more godly and noble than to offer incense to God in worship—just like all the holy priests did?But it wasn’t an act of piety at all. It was an act of bold disobedience and arrogant rebellion; because God’s law had decreed that only the priests were to do such a thing. As the Bible warns us elsewhere; “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD?Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry" (1 Samuel 15:22-23a).
Apparently the king simply walked into the temple all by himself—and perhaps to the utter horror of the stunned priests ministering nearby.
So Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him were eighty priests of the LORD—valiant men (v. 17).
The same word that was used to describe Uzziah’s most honorable soldiers—translated "valor"—was used to describe the priests at this time. And brave men of valor they truly were; because it had not been unknown for ungodly kings of that day to put the priests of God to death if they so chose. But God’s honor was at stake; and so—valiantly—after him they went.
And they withstood King Uzziah, and said to him, “It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Get out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed!You shall have no honor from the LORD God" (v. 18).
Imagine the scene!There stood the king before the altar of incense, with eighty-one bold priests facing him off—ordering him to stop and leave, and warning him that he would have no honor from God. And we see something of the nature of Uzziah’s heart at this time when we read,
Then Uzziah became furious; and he had a censer in his hand to burn incense (v. 19a).
Think of it!—Furious at God’s priests, with a censor filled with holy incense in his hand!Perhaps he was about to open his mouth against God’s priests in the very temple itself. Perhaps he was about to boast to them over how God had made him exceedingly strong, and over how God had blessed him and prospered him above many of the kings that came before him. Perhaps he was about to say to them, "Don’t you know who I am?Don’t you realize that I have as much right to offer incense to God as you do?—and perhaps even more of a right?"Perhaps he was about to say to them what Korah once dared to say to Moses and Aaron: “You take too much upon yourselves, for all the congregation is holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?” (Numbers 16:3).
But he never got the chance to say anything of the sort:
And while he was angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead, before the priests in the house of the LORD, beside the incense altar. And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and there, on his forehead, he was leprous; so they thrust him out of that place. Indeed he also hurried to get out, because the LORD had struck him (vv. 19b-20).
Perhaps you’ll remember that something similar happened to someone else once. Moses’ own sister Miriam once stood against him and said, "Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses?Has He not spoken through us also?" (Numbers 12:2). As a result of this, the Lord struck Miriam with leprosy. It’s a terrible thing to pridefully intrude into the place of ministry that God specifically consecrated unto someone else.
God, in mercy, healed Miriam of her leprosy. But He didn’t show a similar mercy to Uzziah. As the Bible tells us;
King Uzziah was a leper until the day of his death. He dwelt in an isolated house, because he was a leper; for he was cut off from the house of the LORD. Then Jotham his son was over the king’s house, judging the people of the land. Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, from first to last, the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz wrote. So Uzziah rested with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the field of burial which belonged to the kings, for they said, “He is a leper. ”Then Jotham his son reigned in his place (vv. 21-23).
Uzziah went from being a king who was made to prosper by God in the field of service to which God called him—a king that God made to be "exceedingly great", and that God "marvelously helped till he became strong"—to being a poor, lonely, isolated, pathetic leper who was utterly cut off from the house of God until the day he died. And when he died, they couldn’t even bury him in the tombs of his fathers. Instead, they buried him in a nearby field, because he was a leper.
* * * * * * * * * *
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; let’s learn some lessons from the life of Uzziah. From him, we can learn that we can be richly blessed in the place of ministry to which God has called us if we will be careful to seek Him and rely on Him in it. By His marvelous help, we can be made to be "exceedingly strong" in His service. Let’s learn to trust Him in the fields of service that He has given each of us. Let’s prosper in them to His glory.
But let’s also learn from Uzziah how dangerous it can be when—in the midst of God’s rich blessings and help—we take our eyes off Him and become arrogant over the way God has prospered and used us. Let’s beware of ever thinking that we have been made so great in our own field of ministry that we don’t need the ministry of others, and that we can dare to trespass—against God’s clear will—into the field of ministry that He consecrated to someone else.
Pride is the great enemy of those that God wants to use greatly. So, let’s be careful to conduct ourselves as the apostle Peter has written to us;
Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for
“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble. ”Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time . . . (1 Peter 5:5b-6a).
1Leon Wood, A Survey of Israel’s History (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1970), p. 351.
2There has been varied speculated as to the identity of Zechariah. Some, for example, have thought that he was the son of the priest Jehoiada who was mentioned in 2 Chronicles 24:20. But this doesn’t seem likely, since that Zechariah was stoned to death during the time of Uzziah’s grandfather Joash; and Uzziah—if alive at that time—would have been too young for the son of Jehoiada to have had a significant influence on Uzziah. Some have speculated that he was a descendant of the Zechariah of Joash’s time; but while this is possibly why only his name is mentioned, we can’t be sure. It would be extremely unlikely that he was the king of Israel that went by that name, since that king only reigned for six months during the thirty-eighth year of Uzziah’s rule (see 2 Kings 15:8-12); and because he was a part of the lineage of Jehu that ruled Israel, a godly influence from him wouldn’t have been expected. It seems best to simply say we don’t know who this ‘Zechariah’ was; but that we can appreciate the positive influence he had.
3See 2 Chronicles 24:2, 14.
4Eugene H. Merrill, Kingdom of Priests (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2005), p. 377.
5See 2 Samuel 23:8-39.
6See 2 Chronicles 25:5-10.
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