Please open up your Bibles to the Old Testament book of 2nd Chronicles. 2nd Chronicles, chapter 26. And if you are using one of the church Bibles, I'll help you out and tell you that this can be found on page 377. Many of the ESV Bibles have the same pagination, so that may help some of you out. We're going to read from 2 Chronicles chapter 26 and we're going to read the whole chapter. There's a self-contained story in this chapter that's going to be the focus of our attention this morning. So please read along with me. This is God's inspired word. And all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king instead of his father Amaziah. He built Eloth and restored it to Judah after the king slept with his fathers. Uzziah was 16 years old when he began to reign and he reigned 52 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jechaliah of Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord according to all that his father Amaziah had done. He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah who instructed him in the fear of God and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper. He went out and made war against the Philistines and broke through the wall of Gath and the wall of Jabner and the wall of Ashdod and he built cities in the territory of Ashdod and elsewhere among the Philistines. God helped him against the Philistines and against the Arabians who lived in Gerbau and against the Maonites. The Ammonites paid tribute to Uzziah and his fame spread even to the border of Egypt for he became very strong. Moreover, Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem at the corner gate and at the valley gate and at the angle and fortified them. And he built towers in the wilderness and cut out many cisterns, for he had large herds, both in the Shephelah and in the plain. And he had farmers and vine dressers in the hills and in the fertile lands, for he loved the soil. Moreover, Uzziah had an army of soldiers fit for war in divisions according to the numbers in the muster made by Jael, the secretary, and Massiah, the officer, under the direction of Hananiah, one of the king's commanders. The whole number of the heads of father's houses of mighty men of valor was 2,600. Under their command was an army of 307,500 who could make war with mighty power to help the king against the enemy. And Uzziah prepared for all the army shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows and stones for slinging. In Jerusalem he made machines invented by skillful men to be on the towers and the corners to shoot arrows and great stones. And his fame spread far for he was marvelously helped till he was strong. But when he was strong, he grew proud to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. But Azariah the priest went in after him with eighty priests of the Lord who were men of valour 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 go out of the sanctuary for you have done wrong and it will bring you no honor from the Lord God then Uzziah was angry now he had a censer in his hand to burn incense and when he became angry with the priests leprosy broke out on his forehead in the presence of the priest in the house of the Lord by the altar of incense and Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him and behold he was leprous in his forehead and they rushed him out quickly and he himself hurried to go out because the Lord had struck him and King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death and being a leper lived in a separate house for he was excluded from the house of the Lord and Jotham his son was over the king's household governing the people of the land. Now the rest of the Acts of Uzziah from first to last, Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz wrote And Uzziah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the burial field that belonged to the kings. For they said, He is a leper. And Jotham his son reigned in his place. Amen. This is God's Word. Please pray with me. Father, this is your Word to us this morning, inspired by your Spirit. We pray that by that same Spirit you would apply your Word to our hearts in whatever way we need it to be applied. May you do your holy will and may your son, our Lord Jesus, be exalted. For his glory we pray. Amen. There are few things in this world more dangerous to a Christian than success. Many of us fear failure. But I wonder how many of us have a healthy fear of success. Of course, there's nothing wrong with success. If we are involved in God-honouring endeavours, of course, we should strive for success. I mean, who strives for failure? But the problem is that success can be an occasion for pride, for thinking too highly of ourselves. And that pride places us on the edge of a precipice. And the higher the precipice, the greater the fall and the greater the damage to ourselves and to others. Just last month I read a sad article in World magazine about a successful Christian ministry that was destroyed through the marital infidelity of its founder and president. I'm not going to give you the names of the ministry and the man involved but obviously it's in the public domain. But the man in question had been carrying on an adulterous relationship for some years before he eventually confessed to it. and the most tragic aspect of it was that this ministry was founded to promote biblical family values. It was a major player in the homeschooling world and its leader was regarded as a role model for Christian husbands and fathers. He was described as a hero in the culture wars and one supporter of his ministry said after these revelations we thought he was unsinkable. The ministry had a multi-million dollar budget. Two weeks after the public confession and resignation of its founder, the ministry was closed by its board. The article that I read went on to note that sadly this isn't a one-off incident. But what really caught my attention was the closing paragraph of the article and I want to quote from it. Other scandals reveal that fame brings danger and pride can infect anyone. The leader of this ministry hinted at that reality himself by noting in his resignation letter, I thought too highly of myself. He thought too highly of himself. And the problem with people who think too highly of themselves, who get infected with pride, is that they start to think that the normal rules don't apply to them. They think they have a license to get away with certain things. But you know this isn't a new problem. And in our passage today, we see another striking example of a successful man whose pride led to his downfall. Success put him on a precipice and pride put him over the edge. So let's begin our study this morning by seeing just how this happened before we draw some lessons from it. So start with this man Uzziah. Who was Uzziah? Uzziah was the 9th king of Judah who reigned during the 8th century BC, 750 years or so before Christ. You'll remember that King Solomon, after King Solomon, the Kingdom of Israel that he ruled became divided into the Northern Kingdom which became known as Israel and the Southern Kingdom known as Judah. The kings of Israel were wicked to a man with one possible exception. The kings of Judah were a mixed bag. Some were very good, some were very bad, and some were simply a mixture of good and bad, often starting well, but then veering off the rails later in life, rather like Solomon did. But in each case, the writer of Chronicles gives us a sort of a summary statement as he introduces each king to us to give us a flavour of his rule. So let's look at how he introduces King Uzziah. Chapter 26 here immediately follows the death of the previous king, Amaziah. This is what we read. And all the people of Judah took Uzziah who was 16 years old and made him king instead of his father Amaziah. He built Eloth and restored it to Judah after the king slept with his fathers. Uzziah was 16 years old when he began to reign and he reigned 52 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jechaliah of Jerusalem. And here comes the summary statement. And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord according to all that his father Amaziah had done. Well, that sounds pretty good, doesn't it? However, there's a catch. Turn back the page, just probably the previous page in your Bibles, to the beginning of chapter 25. Now read what was actually said about his father Amaziah. Chapter 25, verse 1. Amaziah was 25 years old when he began to reign and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jehodan of Jerusalem and he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord yet not with a whole heart. Amaziah had started well but later in life we read he fell into idolatry and God brought judgment on him through defeat at the hands of the King of Israel. And so even here at the beginning of chapter 26, we get a subtle hint of how things are going to eventually go with Uzziah. Nevertheless, the fact is that Uzziah begins well. Look now at verse 5 of chapter 26. He, Uzziah, set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God And as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper. Uzziah sought the Lord, he feared the Lord, and the Lord blessed him. And then what follows in this chapter is a detailed account of the ways in which Uzziah prospered. There are basically three areas in which he had success. First, in verses 6 through 8, we see that he had success in war. Success in war. He defeated various groups, various peoples who were oppressing Israel, threatening his people, and he brought them into subjection. So he had success in war. Secondly, verses 9 and 10, we see that he had success in building and in agriculture. He built fortified towers. He developed water supplies. He promoted farming. The economy in Judah was booming. And then thirdly, in verses 11 through 15, we see his success in military strength. Uzziah built up a huge army and he provided his soldiers with state-of-the-art equipment. This was a time of military strength and of technological innovation. Uzziah was successful both at home and abroad, which is more than can be said for a lot of presidents and prime ministers in our day, right? And now note the summary statement that comes right in the second half of verse 15. And his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped till he was strong. He was marvelously helped. Helped by who? Helped by God. This isn't a merely worldly success. This isn't like the success of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, someone like that. This is a God-given success and this is a king of Judah doing exactly what a godly king should do. Uzziah's success was the result of seeking God. In fact, this is emphasised in this passage because the three words that you see there, fame, strong and helped, famed, strong and helped. They function like sort of bookends to this section. This is what scholars call an inclusio. You may have heard that term here before. But these three words occur in verses 7 and 8 at the beginning of this section and then again in verse 15, underscoring that he became famous, he became strong because he was helped by God. But then comes the pivotal verse of the chapter as we transition from Uzziah's success to Uzziah's sin. Verse 16, But when he was strong, he grew proud to his destruction. Note the progression here. Success leads to pride, leads to destruction. The NIV translation puts it almost poetically, but after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. The Hebrew says, literally, his heart was lifted up. His heart was lifted up. And as we'll see shortly, the heart really is the heart of the matter. But what was this great sin that he fell into? What was Uzziah's great sin? I continue in verse 16. For he was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. Now on the face of it, that strikes us as quite confusing. Went into the temple to perform an act of worship. What could be wrong about an act of worship? Well, one important lesson to draw from this is that not every act of worship is pleasing to God. Good intentions are not enough. We must worship God as God himself prescribes, not as we see fit. But there's actually something deeper going on here and to understand it, we have to understand something of the background to this period in the history of Israel. At this time, there were basically three leadership roles. Prophet, priest and king. And these roles were kept separate because of their different responsibilities and to keep leaders accountable. No one was a prophet and a priest and a king. It's something of an analogy here with the separation of powers that you get in the United States government and in fact in other countries. But here in America you have three branches, don't you? The executive branch, the legislative branch and the judicial branch and they're meant to be kept separate to prevent abuses of power because people know that men's hearts are corrupt and so when you get judges who start legislating from the bench or you get a president who starts giving a lot of executive orders to change the laws, people start to get nervous. Well, something similar here. The three roles of prophet, priest and king were kept separate because of the sinfulness and the corruption of the human heart. And so as you read Old Testament history, you find sometimes the king has to deal with wayward prophets or with idolatrous priests. And sometimes you have priests or prophets who have to call out the king for his sins. Think, for example, of the prophet Nathan calling out, challenging King David for his sin. Or even in just the previous chapter of 2 Chronicles, chapter 25, we find a prophet challenging King Amaziah's idolatry. And so we need to understand that Uzziah's sin here was that he was usurping the role of the priests. His success had gone to his head and he thought that he would play the role of priest as well as the role of king. The proud man starts to think that the rules don't apply to him. And the priests call him out. Read verses 17 and 18. But Azariah the priest went in after him with eighty priests of the Lord who were men of valour 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. Go out of the sanctuary for you have done wrong and it will bring you no honour from the Lord God. You see this wasn't merely Uzziah outstepping his bounds. No, this was a fundamental disregard for the holiness of God. Only the consecrated priests were allowed to enter the temple and to burn incense. Do you see how Uzziah's pride had warped not only his view of himself, but his view of God? And so he receives this strong rebuke from Azariah and his fellow priests. And how does Uzziah respond to this warning, to this rebuke? Does he immediately say, yes, yes, you're right. I'm out of line here. No. As is so typical of the proud person rather than receiving correction, admitting his sin and repenting of it, he becomes angry. He loses his temper and he lashes out at those righteous priests. Instead of repentance, there is rage. And it's only when the warning is ignored, when the opportunity to repent has been spurned, that divine judgment falls. And what a judgment it is. Just try to picture the scene here, it's so striking. Uzziah enters the temple with the incense in his hand. Azariah and the other priests follow him into the temple, realizing what he's about to do and they rebuke him and they warn him of God's judgment. Uzziah lashes out in rage at the priests, probably threatening them with death for having the impudence to challenge, to oppose the king, but then looks of sheer horror appear on the faces of the priests because some kind of skin disease is breaking out on Uzziah's forehead and rapidly spreading. It's like a scene out of an Indiana Jones movie. Or if you don't know who that is, maybe a Harry Potter movie. The priest can see it and Uzziah can feel it. And suddenly the entire situation has changed because everyone knows who is in the wrong here, who is under God's judgement. Verse 20. And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and behold he was leprous in his forehead. And they rushed him out quickly, and he himself hurried to go out, because the Lord had struck him." There's something almost comical about the way in which we're told that Uzziah himself hurried to get out of the temple. He knows what's going on now. Once he realises that the Lord has struck him, he doesn't want to hang around. He wants to get out of there before something even worse happens to him. But we need to understand the significance of this punishment on Isaiah. This skin disease wasn't simply a medical problem. It was a theological problem. It's not like when you or I get a rash and we think that's irritating so we go to the doctor or to the pharmacy and we get some medication that clears it up. It's a medical problem. Now the point here is that this skin disease rendered Uzziah unclean before God. In the book of Leviticus, out of the Law of Moses. Two whole chapters are devoted to dealing with skin diseases and the repeated refrain is that if anyone is found to have a skin disease, the priest is to pronounce him unclean. Let's look at a couple of the passages here. Turn to Leviticus chapter 13. If you have a church Bible, this will be on page 91. Leviticus chapter 13, verses 45 and 46, speaking about how you deal with someone who has a skin disease, leprosy or some other skin disease. It's what Leviticus 13 says, verse 45. The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, unclean, unclean. He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp. And then Turn forward about 20 or so pages in your Bibles to Numbers, chapter 5. The book of Numbers is after Leviticus, chapter 5, page 112 if you have, again, a church Bible. Read the first few verses of Numbers 5. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, commands the people of Israel that they put out of the camp everyone who is leprous or has a discharge and everyone who is unclean through contact with the dead. You shall put out both male and female, putting them outside the camp, that they may not defile their camp in the midst of which I dwell." And the people of Israel did so and put them outside the camp. as the Lord said to Moses, so the people of Israel did." And that's basically what happened to King Uzziah. As we read the final verses of this chapter of 2 Chronicles 26, let me read them again. King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death, and being a leper lived in a separate house, for he was excluded from the house of the Lord. And Jotham his son was was over the king's household, governing the people of the land. Now the rest of the Acts of Uzziah from first to last, Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz wrote, And Uzziah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the burial field that belonged to the kings. For they said, He is a leper. And Jotham his son reigned in his place. What a tragic legacy for an otherwise godly and successful king. He is a leper. He is a leper buried in a separate field from his royal ancestors. Uzziah, in his pride, wanted to play the priest. But in the end, he couldn't even play the king because he had to live in isolation. He wanted to play the priest in the temple. But in the end, he was excluded from the temple altogether even as a regular worshipper. And the chronicler leaves his readers to draw the sober conclusion that even the best kings, even the most faithful of human kings, are still tragically flawed. So what should be our response to this striking Old Testament story? Do we wag our fingers at King Uzziah and we say, well, he had it coming. That's what you get when success goes to your head. Do we say, Lord, thank you, I'm not proud like Uzziah. The reality, of course, is that all of us are susceptible to pride whether we admit it or not. This is not just a problem for kings and for people in high places. This is a human problem because it's a heart problem. It is a sin that is deeply rooted in the human heart. The fact that pride is a common problem explains why it's a recurring theme in the book of Proverbs. which contains repeated warnings against pride. Let me give you a sampling of these. Proverbs 11 verse 2, when pride comes then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom. Proverbs 16 verse 18, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 21 verse 4, haughty eyes and a proud heart The lamp of the wicked are sin. And Proverbs 29, 23. One's pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honour. In fact, one proverb is quoted twice, two occasions, in the New Testament, two separate books. You probably know this by heart. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. James 4, 1 Peter 5 Pride, like all sin, finds its root in the heart. Just consider the words of Jesus in Mark 7 as he speaks about what truly makes a person unclean. What is it that really makes a person unclean? It's what he says, Mark 7, 22. What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. Did you ever notice before that pride is in that list? All these evil things come from within and they defile a person. You don't need a skin disease to be unclean. Pride on its own defiles us. And so we need to do a heart check-up with the Word of God as our stethoscope. Each of us needs to ask, I think, what are the areas of success in my life? Where do I see myself as having succeeded? What are the areas of my life where I secretly compare myself favorably with others? Your career success, your reputation in the community, your financial health, your solid marriage, your parenting, your kids turned out well, so far. Your excellent grades at school or at college. Your success on the sports field. Your status in the church. Perhaps you're a deacon, an elder, a pastor. Perhaps you work at the finest reformed seminary in the world. You see, I have to preach to myself here. We need to ask, have our successes become occasions for pride? Some of us may be standing on the precipice. If so, it's time to back down. The danger is that when we take pride in our accomplishments, even our God-given accomplishments, we can start to think that the normal rules do not apply to us. And we start to justify our sins in ways that we would never allow in others. And I realize that there may be some here who are thinking, he's not talking about me. I don't have a problem with pride. If you don't think that you are susceptible to pride, watch out. You may be taking pride in your humility. Uzziah's pride was his destruction. His sin overshadowed his successes. And our pride is our destruction. It is a serious sin that leads to other sins and can invite God's judgement. As the proverb says, pride goes before destruction. Now those were the only two points in this sermon It wouldn't really be a sermon. It would just be a morality tale. There would be no hope. There would be no grace. We need a gospel perspective on this. King Uzziah was a flawed man. He was a sinner who needed a saviour. And we need a saviour no less than he did. And that saviour turned out to be a descendant of King Uzziah from the tribe of Judah, our Lord Jesus Christ. And so I just want to spend the final few minutes pointing us to Christ and thinking about what a perfect saviour Jesus is by comparing and contrasting him with King Uzziah. First, consider again those Old Testament roles of prophet, priest and king. They had to be kept separate because of the sinfulness of men. Uzziah was a king who tried to play the role of priest, but he showed that he wasn't even worthy to play the role of king. And in fact, every prophet, priest and king in the Old Testament failed to perfectly fulfill their role. But what we see in the New Testament is that Jesus, as the perfect saviour, perfectly fulfills all three roles together in one person. He is the perfect prophet, priest and king. As the perfect king, he delivers and protects his people. He conquers all his and our enemies and he rules with perfect righteousness. As the perfect prophet, he is the living and eternal Word of God who reveals to us the will of God for our salvation. And as the perfect priest, He mediates between sinful people like us and a holy God and he offers a perfect atoning sacrifice for our sins. He offers his own life. Jesus is the only one who could perfectly fulfill all three roles and he does. Secondly, Jesus is the only one who can take away our uncleanness. Just as he cleansed those ten lepers on the road to Jerusalem, so he alone can cleanse us from the spiritual sickness that keeps us separated from God. And he cleanses us by becoming, as it were, a spiritual leper for our sake. One who takes on our afflictions, who bears our shame, and who goes to his death outside the camp, as the writers of the Hebrews put it. And then thirdly, Jesus is the one who saves us through his humility. Our pride leads to our destruction. How fitting then that we are saved from our pride by the humility of Christ. Just compare for a moment the accomplishments of Uzziah and of Jesus. Uzziah had a pretty impressive resume. He defeated the Philistines and the Ammonites and all the other bad guys. He constructed great fortified towers and water supplies. He developed the economy. He built up a huge army and provided his soldiers with state-of-the-art equipment. That's pretty good. Now consider Jesus. Created the entire universe. Created the entire universe. Just consider what Paul says in Colossians chapter 1, By him all things were created in heaven and on earth, all things were created through him and for him he is before all things and in him all things hold together. You can't be that! Uzziah invented new weapons. Jesus invented Uzziah. And so, in light of who Jesus is and what he has accomplished, just consider again the impact of these words from Philippians chapter 2. Familiar words, you know them, you've heard them before, but just take them in afresh. Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. For Jesus the way up was the way down. Humiliation before exaltation. We must follow the same path as our Saviour. Just listen to this exhortation from the Apostle Peter, So let us heed the warning that the life of Uzziah presents us with. Let us confess repent of our pride, let us humble ourselves and put our trust in the perfect prophet, priest and king, whose humility is our salvation. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would humble us at those points where we need to be humbled. And we thank you and praise you for the perfect salvation by the perfect Saviour, our Lord Jesus, who humbled himself for our salvation, that we might spend eternity with you, the highest place imaginable. All glory to you. All glory to Jesus. In his name we pray. Amen.