Hence his fame spread afar, for he was marvelously helped - until he was strong.

Through the years I have been privileged to meet some very interesting people. One of the most interesting was a lady trapped in a situation that should have left her very unappealing, it would seem. Her name was Grace. She was elderly - I don’t know how old. She lived in the home of the family of one of her adult children. She spent her days either indoors in bed or in her wheelchair on the back patio if the weather wasn’t too cold or too hot. Grace was rather unique because she was a serious Christian, yet all the members of her family were either non-religious or members of the Scientology Cult. She longed to attend a strong assembly of true Christians but was unable due to her crippling illness. She had advanced Muscular Dystrophy.

I don’t recall how I first met Grace. If my memory serves me well, her relatives were calling around to churches to find a minister who might come to the house to visit her. I do remember that I went figuring my role would probably be only one of offering encouragement in a declining situation. I was soon to be surprised.

What I found when I met this lady was one who was very much alive in Christ and to my surprise, optimistic. In fact, on several occasions, I found that I was the one who was encouraged after a visit with her. Yes, she was wheelchair bound and isolated, but her spirit was far from either. She had a confident view of her relationship with God and fully trusted in His provisions for her even though each day only brought more pain and less physical function.

Grace died less than a year after I first met her, but I’ll never forget her. When I preached her funeral I was able to point to her fine example in her last year as proof to her relatives that there is a God and that she was a servant of His Son. In preparing for the funeral service, her daughter brought me a box of notes Grace had written during her final days here. One of them was unforgettable and has served as an important reminder to me. It was a simple piece of white paper on which she had written in very shaky handwriting these words: "Don’t let the end erase the beginning." Reading that note I felt I was peering into this woman's soul.

Grace knew that a good beginning in Christ is not the end of concern. She knew, just as we should know, that we must continue to be faithful to Him unto death if we are to receive the crown of life.(1) We must not deny Christ and let the end erase the beginning.

This morning we’re continuing our series called The Character of the Committed. We’ve looked at some fine examples from Scripture of people who were deeply committee to God. But there are also some negative examples of commitment in the Bible. This morning we’ll deal with one of them. I’ve named this message Uzziah – Who Let the End Erase the Beginning.

His story is in 2 Chronicles 26:1-21. Please join me there in your Bibles.

This passage falls naturally into two parts – the great beginning this man made with the Lord and then the very sad end of the same. Part one describes King Uzziah’s humility and success and part two his pride and disgrace. As we look at his story, you’ll see that though he was among the better men in Judah’s succession of kings during the divided kingdom period, and he made a really great contribution at first, he squandered it all in the end. He died a leper, cursed by God and in disgrace. Let’s go first to the happier times of King Uzziah’s life, which I’ve called:

The writer of 2 Chronicles begins with a description of Uzziah’s family and the length of his reign.

A sixteen year-old boy king sounds strange to us today, but in a monarchy, a succession of the throne from father to son at a young age is not all that uncommon. Uzziah became king after his father was murdered in about the year 790 B.C.(2) We know nothing of his mother except what is mentioned here and in the parallel passage in 2 Kings 15. Our man Uzziah was the ninth king of Judah during the divided kingdom period in Israel’s history. His 52-year reign was one of the longest. He even outlasted the 40 year reigns of Israel’s most famous kings, David and Solomon.

A description of Uzziah’s spiritual life comes next.

Though that statement sounds good on the surface, note the qualifier: "…according to all that his father Amaziah had done." Uzziah was a good king if you used the standard that his dad had lived. And what standard was that? The most concise statement of Uzziah’s father’s spirituality is in the previous chapter, in 2 Chronicles 25:2, where it says, "And he did right in the sight of the Lord, yet not with a whole heart." When it came to the things of God then, Uzziah was the half-hearted son of a half-hearted father.

To you fathers and grandfathers, let me say that there is much more at stake with the intensity of your spiritual life than what pertains to you only. While your sons and daughters are free moral agents, unless they are exceptional, they will have a tendency to set you as a standard in their minds, and some will never grow beyond this level. Uzziah came up to the standard of his father’s example, but went no further.

May I ask you fathers candidly - If your kids or mine lived up to our standard, what kind of Christians would they be? Would they be the half-hearted kids of a half-hearted father?

I recall King David’s words to his son, Solomon, in 1 Chronicles 28:9: "As for you, my son… know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind…."

We need Christian fathers who serve God whole-heartedly! Back to our text…

I looked at that statement in 5 or 6 different translations and they all sounded about the same. Perhaps the Living Bible Paraphrase says it best the way it looks to me: "While Zechariah was alive Uzziah was always eager to please God." As long as Uzziah’s favorite preacher was around him, in this case, a prophet named Zechariah, of which we know nothing else, he did fine. But when that influence was gone, his spiritual life began to fall apart.

All of us, especially early in our spiritual walk, have mentors that we admire and look up to and depend on to keep us on track. This may be a parent or a special friend or a certain preacher or elder. This is as it should be. We find such a relationship in the New Testament that existed between Paul and Timothy – the former referring to the later as "my true son in the faith." But we need to be careful that we don’t put all our faith in the mentor rather than in God. Mentors can help us, but they cannot manage our lives for us. And they may not be around forever. As we grow we need to develop our own faith and not have the lazy tendency to rest our faith upon theirs.

It’s not uncommon to see a church shrink in size when a preacher leaves, especially if he is popular – and some of that attrition isn’t from people finding another faithful congregation. It’s from people dropping out entirely. "They continued to seek God in the days of (you supply the name)" but then they fell away.

Another place this is seen is when people move away from the strong influence of their Christian family and friends. Off they go to college or to the military or maybe just in a move across the country to take a new job. Suddenly they learn (actually, many don’t learn, but that’s another story) that the "faith" they thought they had was really not their own. They were too dependent. They didn’t do what was necessary to develop their own strength of character. Along this line, it is also not uncommon to see a mate fall away from the Lord when their strong Christian spouse who was really the backbone of the family’s spirituality suddenly dies.

I don’t know exactly when Uzziah lost Zechariah as his primary motivator. I do know that the day he did was the beginning of the end for him and it stands as an important warning to us. I sincerely hope that all of us will give attention to developing our own faith so that such a "beginning of the end" doesn’t come upon us. Verse 5c:

If that isn’t a clear-cut, cause-and-effect statement, I’ve never seen one! Seek God, Uzziah, and God prospers you. Stop seeking Him and He stops giving you prosperity.

Is such a cause-and-effect principle valid for us today? Will God prosper us if we seek Him? I believe He will, provided we understand that "prosperity" means much more than money and things and what the world calls "success."

In a statement reportedly attributed to the late Colonel Sanders, there is a good assessment of such a limited view of prosperity, and I quote: "There's no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery." Money alone isn’t prosperity.

The late Judy Garland once said, "If I'm such a legend, then why am I so lonely? …Let me tell you, legends are all very well if you've got somebody around who loves you."(3)

Prosperity in life involves much more than money or worldly success.

God put Uzziah on the earth to further the cause of His nation and bring security. For him, that was prosperity, and God lavished it upon this king. The writer of Scripture spells it out in the next verses of our text, beginning with his military prosperity.

2 Chron 26:6-15a

I think most of us appreciate a leader who can give us security in our way of life and from our enemies, and this military buildup did just that for the tiny kingdom of Judah.

God also prospered Uzziah in the areas we would today call "public works" and "agriculture." In the midst of the verses I just read about Uzziah’s military prosperity were the words of verse 10: "And he built towers in the wilderness and hewed many cisterns, for he had much livestock, both in the lowland and in the plain. He also had plowmen and vinedressers in the hill country and the fertile fields, for he loved the soil."

Uzziah was indeed a great and prosperous leader in his time. He did equally well in both foreign and domestic affairs. His exceptional leadership was especially relevant given the fact that this was the era of the divided kingdom and Judah consisted of only two of the original 12 tribes of Israel. Uzziah’s leadership, accompanied by God’s blessing, gave the tiny and vulnerable nation a place among the surrounding hostile people and prevented Judah from being overrun by its enemies. Those last words in verse 15 say it well:

There is a sudden stop in those words that all of us who serve God should flag as a warning. These words are like an abrupt black line that separates 2 Chronicles 26 into its two distinct parts – Uzziah’s marvelous beginning that made his name a household word in Judah and beyond, and his terrible end that would take all that away and cause him to die in disgrace. We’ve seen the first part, characterized by his humility and success. Now we’ll see the second:

Verse 16a:

Uzziah "did right in the sight of the Lord" in the first half of this chapter, and "was unfaithful to the Lord his God" in the second. And what was the motivation? It’s right there in verse 16: "…his heart was so proud that he acted corruptly."

Pride makes people do crazy things – things that humble, straight thinking people would never do. Pride blinds those possessed by it. It distorts their image of themselves. The Bible warns us many times about pride, both in principle and by examples like Uzziah here.

"Pride goes before destruction," says Proverbs 16:18, "And a haughty spirit before stumbling."

A little boy came to his mother and said, "Mommie, I am as tall as Goliath – I’m nine feet high." "Well that’s interesting, son," she replied. "What makes you say that?" "Well, I made a little ruler of my own and measured myself with it, and according to it I am nine feet high!"

That’s how pride gets started. People begin to measure themselves by their own measure rather than the measure that God uses. And they are usually most vulnerable when they have actually accomplished some things that bring a measure of security and cause them to stand out a bit from other people.

According to verse 16, Uzziah began to change "when he became strong." All through the years of struggling with uncertainty and danger and risk, Uzziah had been humble and faithful to God. He had Zechariah the prophet on hand to help him and give him good advice. But when he got to a place where he could relax a bit and look out on the many accomplishments he had done with God’s help, pride began to raise its ugly, destructive head.

When we have to scratch and strive and struggle to make our way, it’s not hard to depend upon God. It’s not hard to pray. It’s not hard to acknowledge God and remember our place. It’s when we get ahead of the game that the temptation of pride comes. Maybe we have some money in the bank. We made some successful moves. People look up to us and respect us. We can slack off a bit and enjoy the fruit of our labors. That’s when pride comes. That’s when it’s much easier to forget God.

So is all pride bad? Is it wrong to feel what is often called "pride of accomplishment" or "the satisfaction in a job well done" – the kind we might feel at the end of the day after we have applied ourselves to a worthy task and actually made some headway?

Someone has said, "The proud man counts his newspaper clippings--the humble man his blessings."(4)

If you’re still counting your blessings, you’re probably doing all right. Uzziah stopped counting his blessings and began to believe that he alone was responsible for his success and that he could do no wrong. Here is how it came to the surface. Verse 16b:

What was the problem with burning a little incense? The problem was that Uzziah was a king, not a priest. Under Old Testament law, only the priests who were from the lineage of Aaron could enter the temple and burn incense. I know that sounds a bit strange to us today as Christians, because according to 1 Peter 2:9, we’re all priests and we can all offer up our own sacrifices. But it was not that way under the Law of Moses. There was a division of responsibility and you didn’t cross it. In the days of Moses, when a group of rebellious Levites under the leadership of a man named Korah tried to usurp the role of the priests and offer up their own incense, God opened up the earth and swallowed up 250 of them. This example was prominent in Israel’s history and contained in the Scripture for all to read. Uzziah had access to it, but by now his half-hearted attention to these things was taking its toll.

For whatever reason, the king stepped into the temple, picked up one of the fire pans, and started to offer incense himself. What was his motivation? The Bible says pride.

So what are the faithful to do when the unfaithful begin to desecrate the commands and principles of the Lord? They are to speak out, which is what we see happening next.

So he listened to the priests, apologized for his presumption, and immediately exited the temple, right? That is what a godly person does when he or she steps over the line. They listen to the rebuke of others, weigh it carefully against the commands of the word of God, and submit to it if those who bring the rebuke are correct.

But that isn’t what Uzziah did. Verse 19a: 19 But Uzziah, with a censer in his hand for burning incense, was enraged…

If ever you find yourself angry with someone for telling you the truth from this book of God, the Bible, beware. It is a flashing red light that signals pride. When you cannot listen to a concerned presentation of the word of God, even when it comes from someone you might consider beneath you, you are arrogant and on your way to a serious fall.

A godly person is easily entreated. No matter how long he or she has been in the faith, no matter how mature, if someone brings a charge from the word of God that concerns them, they will give it a fair and honest hearing. Because Uzziah was not like that, suddenly his physical health went south.

Uzziah’s obstinacy was suddenly gone in the face of this. The priests quickly whisked him out of temple and he put up no further resistance. God has a way of humbling the arrogant and bringing down the prideful!

21 And King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death; and he lived in a separate house, being a leper, for he was cut off from the house of the LORD. And Jotham his son was over the king's house judging the people of the land. 22 Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first to last, the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz, has written. 23 So Uzziah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the field of the grave which belonged to the kings, for they said, "He is a leper." And Jotham his son became king in his place.

Uzziah went from the limelight to the shadows in a few arrogant moments and that is the way he is remembered. How true it is that pride comes before a fall. What blight on a life that started out so well!

A fairly well-to-do gentlemen decided to take up fly fishing. Wanting to be well equipped and ready for any eventuality, he made his way down to the local Orvis Shop (that’s a top-of-the-line establishment for those of you who haven’t been initiated yet.) Then he headed out for the river, his multi-pocketed vest stuffed with tackle, waders and boots in place, designer labels showing, and wallet considerably lighter. And he proceeded to fish.

He fished. And fished. And fished some more, but nothing would take his brightly colored, feathered hooks. Soon it was lunchtime and he returned to his late model SUV for some refreshment. Suddenly, up from the trail walked a teen-aged by with a cheap fishing pole, a can of worms, and a big string of fish.

"Hey kid," he asked. "How did you manage to catch so many when I didn’t catch a single fish?"

"Well," answered the boy, "I just tried to keep out of sight so the fish wouldn’t see me."

If you and I want to keep the end from erasing the beginning because of pride, it’s best that we try to keep ourselves out of sight.

Footnotes: Please use your back button to return to your place.

1. Revelation 2:10
2. Old Testament History, William Smith – Revised By Wilbur Fields, College Press, 1970, p. 623.
3. Judy Garland (1922-1969)
4. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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