When Success Becomes Dangerous

Recap

Last week we looked at the pattern that most biblical leaders who didn't finish well followed.  We looked at Moses and Solomon as examples and found that both started strong and both drifted after success.

This week, I want to show you another example. It's someone you might not have heard of, which is kind of the point. His ending completely overshadowed everything else.

His name was King Uzziah.

Uzziah's Beginning

We can read about Uzziah’s life in 2 Chronicals 26:

2 Chronicles 26:3-6 (NIV)

Uzziah was sixteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-two years. His mother’s name was Jekoliah; she was from Jerusalem. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father Amaziah had done. He sought God during the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God. As long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success.

That last line is really important. As long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success. 

And the rest of the chapter tells about his many successes.

He strengthened the economy, he restored cities, and he built a mighty military that took back territories that were lost by his fathers.

And then we get to verse 15

2 Chronicles 26:15b (NIV)

His fame spread far and wide, for he was greatly helped until he became powerful.

That sounds like the kind of story King Uzziah would have wanted to be written about his life. He had every success and he was known far and wide for how powerful he became. 

But Then

But maybe you noticed the word that was his downfall.

Until.

He was greatly helped, until he became powerful. 

Becoming powerful changed it all for King Uzziah, here’s what’s recorded after that.

2 Chronicles 26:16-21 (NIV)

But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the Lord his God, and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. Azariah the priest with eighty other courageous priests of the Lord followed him in. They confronted King Uzziah and said, “It is not right for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord. That is for the priests, the descendants of Aaron, who have been consecrated to burn incense. Leave the sanctuary, for you have been unfaithful; and you will not be honoured by the Lord God.”

Uzziah, who had a censer in his hand ready to burn incense, became angry. While he was raging at the priests in their presence before the incense altar in the Lord’s temple, leprosy broke out on his forehead. When Azariah the chief priest and all the other priests looked at him, they saw that he had leprosy on his forehead, so they hurried him out. Indeed, he himself was eager to leave, because the Lord had afflicted him.

King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he died. He lived in a separate house—leprous, and banned from the temple of the Lord. Jotham his son had charge of the palace and governed the people of the land.

It’s easy to think that failure would lead to our downfall, but across the Bible the most common story is that success is the precursor to finishing poorly. 

Somewhere along the line, King Uzziah lost the humility and holy fear he started with as a sixteen year old. He forgot what got him to power and influence in the first place - diligently seeking God.

The Action That Changed It All

But look at what action actually marked the beginning of the end for him. I first came across this question in the book Awe of God by John Bevere, it’s well worth a read.

King Uzziah is filled with pride - did that make him more or less spiritual?

We’d surely want to answer less spiritual, right? Pride gets in the way of us connecting with God.

But look, King Uzziah actually becomes more spiritual. He’s confronted as he is about to burn incense in the temple.

The problem was, it was the wrong kind of spiritual. It was religion but there was no relationship. 

Kind of like Saul, who couldn't wait for Samuel and burnt the offering himself. Or like the Pharisees in Jesus's day, who grew more distant from God but ramped up their religious activities.

Pride and religion go hand in hand. They strengthen each other by hiding each other.

My point is that pride actually fuels our religiosity. The pride part keeps us from admitting we've become religious, stops us admitting that we’re just going through the motions in our faith, doing things that look spiritual but ultimately our hearts aren’t in it. But the religiosity actually covers up the pride with spiritual behaviour.

From the outside we look full of faith. But really ticking boxes, and our hearts have disconnected from the discipline.

And when that happens, the discipline starts to matter more than God. It becomes all about performance.

The Confrontation

So Uzziah goes into the temple to burn incense. And it took courage, but 80 priests followed him in and confronted him.

These priests called out his unbiblical behaviour. 

And how did Uzziah respond? He became angry.

And there’s the sign of pride and religiosity - when someone confronts it, the response is defensiveness. When someone who truly fears God is confronted with truth, it leads to repentance. They’re hearts are engaged with the actions they’re doing.

But when pride has taken root, confrontation makes us angry and defensive. We justify our actions, and try to keep up appearances.

And then, there in the temple, leprosy broke out on Uzziah's forehead.

The Tragic End

The rest of Uzziah's life was heartbreaking. He had to live in isolation because of the leprosy so his son took over ruling the kingdom. And eventually, Uzziah died alone.

From the outside, if you were living in Jerusalem at the time, you'd just see tragedy. "Poor king, he contracted leprosy. What an awful way for such a successful reign to end."

But we get to see behind the curtain. It wasn't just a medical condition, it was the outward sign of an inward reality that King Uzziah had lost his holy fear and humility.

The Lesson

So what do we do with that pretty tragic story? We spot the pattern. King Uzziah walked in humility, he saw great success, but then he stopped depending on God, became religious to keep up appearances, and then he fell.

When we’re successful, and we hit our stride with great momentum, there will be a pull to start to depend on the momentum instead of Jesus. We’ll be tempted to change our thoughts from ‘what does God say about this?’ to ‘how can I keep this momentum going?’

And let’s just be honest about it, it’s easier to make the right decision when there’s less to lose. When we’ve built something, when there’s momentum, decisions become harder. Do we do the right thing and lose what we’ve built, or compromise our integrity and retain our empire - well there’s a lot more at stake then. The more we have to lose, the harder it becomes to choose integrity.

And our choice will usually come down to our relationship with Jesus. If we worship Him, not out of performance, but out of genuine love, we’ll understand that any success is because He has given it to us in the first place. Which means it isn’t up to us to keep it. But, if we start to lose sight of God, like King Uzziah did, and trust in our own strategy and tactics, we take the responsibility of keeping the success onto our own shoulders. It all becomes dependent on us. And we can convince ourselves into thinking we’re still relying on God just because we do the spiritual things - we go to church, or we give, or we lift our hands in worship.

I know this is harsh, I say it because I can see how easily I can fall into this pattern too. I’m constantly having to remind myself that the only thing I’m asked to carry on my shoulders is Jesus’s light and easy yoke, not the yoke of success, empire, influence.

Jesus’s words in John 15:5 come to mind: "Apart from me you can do nothing."

Not "apart from me, you can do less." Apart from me you can do nothing.

Success wasn't the problem. God blessed Uzziah with it. The problem was when success became the point instead of God. 

That's when we're in the most danger.

There's a detail in Isaiah 6 that I find really interesting. Isaiah is said to have been a friend of King Uzziah, although that isn’t explicitly mentioned in the Bible.

In chapter 6, Isaiah has his famous vision of the Lord, high and exalted, surrounded by angels calling "Holy, holy, holy."

The chapter opens with this line: "In the year that King Uzziah died."

If we are aware that King Uzziah represented pride and performance, we should pay attention to the fact that Isaiah received a fresh vision of Jesus after that pride and performance passed away.

As John Bevere puts it: the degree to which pride dies is the degree to which we'll have a fresh vision of Jesus.

Application

So let me ask you - and I mean this gently, with love -  where has success made you comfortable?

Or where have you started to rely on your own strength, your own wisdom, your own track record?

Or where has your religious activity ramped up while your heart has grown distant?

Are you reading your Bible because you love God, or because you should? Are you serving because you're partnering with the Holy Spirit, or because it's what people expect?

Pride doesn't always look like arrogance, sometimes it looks like really impressive spiritual activity that's become disconnected from the heart.

Question

Here's what I want you to sit with this week: Where has your spiritual activity increased while your heart has grown distant?

Prayer

Lord, search our hearts. Show us where pride has crept in, where we've substituted religious activity for genuine intimacy with You. We don't want to be like King Uzziah - successful on the outside but far from You on the inside. We ask for a fresh vision of you, a deeper hunger for You, a renewed humility and holy fear. Help us to remember that apart from You, we can do nothing and to therefore take up your easy yoke. In your precious name Jesus, amen.