April 11, 2011 (2 Kings 15, 2 Chronicles 26)

We see the following story over and over again in Scripture, just with different characters. This is the story of King Uzziah:

^{2 Chronicles 26:5} Uzziah sought God during the days of Zechariah, who taught him to fear God. And as long as the king sought guidance from the Lord, God gave him success.


^15b  His fame spread far and wide, for the Lord gave him marvelous help, and he became very powerful.

But is seems that fame and success are things that the enemy uses against people. He lies to them and tells them how wonderful and talented they are and takes their eyes off the fact that everything they have and everything they are is a gift from God. So he causes them to become proud and forget that God is the One who has brought them to where they are:

¹⁶ But when he had become powerful, he also became proud, which led to his downfall. He sinned against the Lord his God by entering the sanctuary of the Lord’s Temple and personally burning incense on the incense altar. 

My footnote says of this story -"When the roles of king and priest were combined, the king soon assumed that he was divine."

And as is usually the case, God in His grace and goodness sends someone to confront the person who has gone astray:

¹⁷ Azariah the high priest went in after him with eighty other priests of the Lord, all brave men. ¹⁸ They confronted King Uzziah and said, “It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord. That is the work of the priests alone, the descendants of Aaron who are set apart for this work. Get out of the sanctuary, for you have sinned. The Lord God will not honor you for this!”


Then it's all up to the response - repentance and changing of ways, or anger and stubborness. Here was King Uzziah's response:

¹⁹ Uzziah, who was holding an incense burner, became furious. But as he was standing there raging at the priests before the incense altar in the Lord’s Temple, leprosy suddenly broke out on his forehead. ²⁰ When Azariah the high priest and all the other priests saw the leprosy, they rushed him out. And the king himself was eager to get out because the Lord had struck him. ²¹ So King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he died. He lived in isolation in a separate house, for he was excluded from the Temple of the Lord.

It's sad that he made the choice that he did. Instead of having the favor and fellowship of God and His people, he lived in isolation. As is the case for us all when we choose our sin over repentance.