King Uzziah: Success, Pride & a Tragic Downfall | 2 Chronicles 26:1-21

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, everybody, we are just thrilled, I mean thrilled to our very core. Woo hoo. Yes that you are back and you have joined us and we have joined you for another episode of the Bible Gush. So, Chris, you know that we only bring the finest news, yes, and special interest pieces to our listener. Because everybody knows in our culture today, everybody is longing for the most trustworthy sources of news. Yes, and so you know, for us, after we comb the Internet with all of the news sources out there, we still think the Babylon b Satire website is by far the most accurate and most helpful it is. It is definitely one of the most funny. So today we're gonna give a little bit of marriage help. Yes, yes, and this might be useful. The headline says, wife helpfully explains to husband what he meant by what he said. It's hilarious. It's so good. At Manhattan, Kansas, local wife Denise Thompson graciously sat down with her husband Mike to explain what he actually meant by what he said, it's funny. After confusion arose as to the interpretation of what mister Thompson was trying to say, Missus Thompson helpfully explained to him the true meeting behind his words. Quote. I know you think you know what you were trying to say, said Thompson gently, but trust me, that's not what you meant. Let me help you out here. According to sources, Mike had responded that sounds good to a query about joining his wife for a trip to her parents' house. However, Denise informed that his true feelings were quite different. She said, I know you said that you're happy to come with me, but the way you said it, it's obvious that what you meant is that I spend too much time with my mom. Explained to Nise, you were really trying to say that I need more emotional separation from my mom because she takes up too much of the role that should belong to my husband. Of course, you don't want to go to their house and deal with it, even though you feel like it pulls us apart as a couple. Why won't you just say these things out loud? Mike at publishing time, Mike had had Denise if Denise could go ahead and tell him in advance what his follow up response would mean and if he needed to sleep on the couch. And all. He said he'd be happy to come with it. Yeah, he's like, that sounds good. Yeah, And apparently he meant way more than that sounds good. Did you ever find that out before? Oh? You know that you said more words than you said. I actually this is a little confession time. Okay, So, so my wife and I have identified a long time ago that she is a high feeler and I'm a high thinker, and I definitely want to be careful on the podcast and say one is not better than the other and one is not worse than the other. Right, Okay, okay, okay, right, I'll let you say it. Okay, thank you, because you're a high thinker as well. Right. But so, what often happens is I'll say something, well most of the time, I'll say something and it has no emotional value whatsoever. Right, I'll just say, like. Hey, you know, here's a question I just want to answer, right, question, you know whatever, And what happens is it comes back with she says, oh, you're just thinking this and I'm like, that's amazing how I was not feeling any of that. Right, So we have discussions all the time because I think what happens is just by the way we're wired. Is she hears it and says. Oh, he must be feeling this, But I'm like, it's amazing how I wasn't even close to feeling that, you know. So it's funny. We do have those discussions, believe or not at our house all the time. Yeah. I think women emotionally and in many ways mentally are far superior to men and are far more complex. Yeah. Yeah, I am, and in some way superior. I am not complex. Well, I usually are not any level, hardly any level, and so it's possible for me to say things without even thinking things. Right. Literally, my brain is empty. Words come out of my mouth. Right. Have you ever seen that community? They talked about the boxes and the brains? No, are you kidding me? It's wonderful. I'll sum it up. But basically he's not really a comedian as much as he is like a comic Bible teacher. But basically he says he's got. Like two mannequins and then there's two brains on two different pedestals, and he walks over to the uh women's brain. He says, it's all connected, like a ball of wires. He said, this thought is connected to this thought, this thought. This. He goes over to the men's brain. He goes. Men's brains are boxes, He goes. They're just different categories of different topics. He goes. In those boxes all exist together. He goes. In those boxes do not touch, he said, do not touch, he says. He goes. He goes, what men do? He goes. He goes. They go to one box, they pull it out, They open that box. There's a sandwich in that box. They think about what's only in that box? That's right, he goes. And then when that box is done, he goes. They put the box away. He goes, and then they make sure that the boxes do not touch. He goes. Now men's favorite box is there is a box of nothing. He goes. He goes. They take out that box. He goes. It is their go to box. We open it up, and the bifle saying, what are you thinking about? And he says, no, that nothing, And he's being honest, I'm not thinking nothing. Right, And so he goes. Wives are not that way. Yeah. So the ladies listening to the podcast right now, we're going, that's not true. You're thinking something, right, just telling you we're not that complex. Yeah, yeah, it's it's actually quite simple. Matter are quite simple, yeah, which is hilarious. So I have like my sandwich and hamburger box, like I'm hungry, let's go get that box, and I'm not thinking about anything else at that moment, just let's go eat. Then there might be like a football box, or then there's like a friends and co workers boxes, and those are separate boxes. And then there's the the I've got things I need to do at home box, and then there's the family relationship boxes. Right, keep all those things separate. They're not the same. And I didn't mean one thing by doing something else. I only meant the thing I was doing. Right, I'm not sophisticated. And I was gonna say, and we've described the majority of all your boxes. Those are all five of them. And then they got a stuff box like the box all my stuff in. Yeah, that by itself, ladies, was the price of admission today. That's right. Just to discover literally, it took us five minutes and fifty five seconds to explain how unsophisticated men are, and we read an entire article right right. But when David and Wilson taught this are good friends. And instead of doing like the ball of wires like they all touch, she did, you. Know pop ups on computer. She's trying to make it a big more modern and so she put on the screen like a computer that has a lot of pop ups. They keep up, pop up, up, up, up up, and she says, you know, one thoughts connected to the other, which is the other? And I leave the iron on and oh, by the way, you know her son and this and that is all. It is all. Connected and and then like I think you know the other? The other computer screen was like you know, one document and it had like five. Words on it. Right. Remember Brian Reagan talking about he went golfing with his buddy and we got home his wife as team goodness, how's Mike and his wife's marriage doing. He's like, how would I know that? I don't know? How would I know that? Said he ran the golf course with him for four hours. And he goes, he goes, I know he has a new driver, and he goes, is he daddy anyone? And he goes, A, would that ever come up? He goes, I can't even imagine how that would come up, And he goes, hey, Billy. Goes, we got about one hundred and fifty nine out. He goes, I think you ought to use your right arm. Are you dating anyone? It is so good? Same thing. You were with him for four hours on the golf course. You can't find out if he's it's so funny. Nope, those things are separate, two different boxes. Now, if this is a hey, I need to go call my friend he's hurting, I'll open that box. Sure, but it doesn't feel like that's a golf box, right, Okay, speaking of opening up boxes, Oh oh, King Uzaiah wound up having a problem and we're going to talk about that tomorrow. Yeah. I can't get there, man, I don't know. Okay, how about this speaking of differences, okay, it seems like we have a lot of differences of opinion in this next story. Ooh okay, yeah, okay, good John, there you go. Yeah, And differences of opinion for men means we're going to go to war right again again again. This whole book man first and sect, gigs first and tent Chronicles, all war, all the time, baskets of heads, right, that's what we're doing. That was last week's episode. Yeah. So in Second Chronicles, chapter twenty six, verse one, it says, and we're going to read through verse twenty one. It's all right, Yeah, yep. All the people of Judah had crowned Amazia's sixteen year old son Usiah as king in place of his father. After his father's death, Usiah rebuilt the town of Elath and restored it to Judah. Usaiah was sixteen years old when became king, and he reigned and drew some fifty two years. His mother was Jekaliah from Jerusalem. He did what was pleasing in the Lord's sight, just as his father Amaziah had done. Usiah 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. I love that sentence. It's one of my favorite sentences in the Bible. Yusaiah declared war on the Philistines and broke down the walls of Gath, Jabna and Ashdod. Then he built new towns in the Ashdod area and in other parts of Felistia. God helped him in his wars against the Philistines, his battles with the Arabs of Gur, and his wars with the Moonites. The Moonites paid annual tribute to him, and his fame spread even to Egypt, for he had become very powerful. Yusaiah built fortified towers in Jerusalem at the corner gate, at the valley gate, and at the angle in the wall. He also constructed forts in the wilderness and dug many water cisterns. Because he kept great herds of livestock in the foothills of Judah and on the plains. He was also a man who loved the soil. He had many workers who cared for his farms and vineyards, both on the hillsides and in the fertile valleys. Yusaiah had an army of well trained warriors ready to march into battle. Unit by unit. This army had been mustered and organized by Jail, the secretary of the army, and his assistant ma Asiyah. They were under the direction of Hanna and Ayah, one of the king's officials. These regiments of mighty warriors were commanded by twenty six hundred clan leaders. The army consisted of three hundred and seven thousan five hundred men, all elite troops. They were prepared to assist the king against any enemy. Jaiah provided the army, the entire army with shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows and slingstones, and he built structures on the walls of Jerusalem designed by experts to protect those who shot arrows and hurled large stones from the towers in the corners of the wall. His fame spread far and wide, for the Lord gave him marvelous help, and he became very powerful. But when he had become powerful, he also became proud. That's one of the saddest verses in the Bible, 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. Azariah, the high Priest, went in after him with eighty other priests of the Lord, all brave men, and the confronted King Uzia and said, it is not for you, Usiah 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. Usiah, who was holding an incense, burned and became furious. But as he was standing there raging at the priest before the incense altered in the Lord's temple, leprosy suddenly broke out on his forehead. 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. So King Usiah 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. His son Jotham was put in charge of the royal palace, and he governed the people of the land. Wow. Yeah, so that was the part I was referencing with the he got himself in trouble. I just thought we were reading it tomorrow. I just realized we're reading the whole thing. So wow, that's too bad, man. I love the first half, hate the second half. Sure, sure, so yes, So he was he was great, and he followed God and he was blessed, and he spent many years doing very productive things. Uh. They were both practical and wise and uh, you know, uh prosperous, right. And it sounds like he was just a fantastic leader until he got too big for his breches. That's really what it was. And unfortunately he got too big for his breeches in the wrong area, which is he felt entitled. When it comes to what God says. Have you ever met? I know you have. But like somebody who they're a successful pastor, or let's just say they're not even a pastor, they're they're they're involved in the church. Perhaps they're like a main leader of a church, right, like a founder or a main volunteer or a main contributor or something like this, and they feel as if they have more authority than they have, like they like they want they want more authority, and they feel bigger. Beyond what they really are, right right, and. Uh and they feel important and uh and and uh and sometimes people have have even crossed the boundaries of like, well, I don't get paid enough by the church, so I'm just gonna, you know, take the church's money and do this. And you know, I've seen that all the time, and those are the dangers. Right. We don't like to talk about that too much because the Church has had enough black eyes in the. World, right, right, And we don't have to sit here and give the church another black eye. But we don't want to ignore it and be pretending either, because that's what it sounds like to me. It sounds like to me. Like here's a king who's supposed to represent, you know, God, and he loved God, followed God, was blessed by God, and all of a sudden he got so big for his britches. He goes inside the temple and he oversteps his bounds in the temple, right and and and obviously this man knew the assumed that he knew God's commands. He probably knew that. Well, he couldn't have been honoring God if he didn't know his commands, right, that's right, right, that's corret. So he followed after his father, who his father was a man that followed God. Right, you had to have known the God's laws in order to have followed him. And how we know that he knew is that the priest rebuked him and he got angry, yeh, right, So so you know, it's like, hey, I don't want to be challenged, I don't want to be talked to. I don't want to be corrected. And I got to tell you that there's a sermon right there in itself. You know, when somebody comes to you who's in authority, whether you like them or not, whether you agree with them or not, you have to be willing to hear something if it measures up to what God's word says, right, right, because it's not about the person approaching you. It's about the you know, it's about the thing that. You're being approached about. So somebody comes up to you, for instance, even if you don't like him, right, didn't you say didn't you say that you went on a you went on a trip and somebody approached you about something and then you push back and said no, no, no, no, you know, like you know, I think this, this is what the Bible says. And then and then they came to you, and what was the phrase they used? He said, He came back later and said, you have rebuked me, Yes from the Lord, and I receive it and received it, which is such a He was wrong, he was wrong in that, and that. It was such a nice thing to say a certain category people, certainly, but it was it was a funny response to me. It was a humble response, but it was a funny way to say. It, right, right. He could have just said for you and I we would have probably went back. If that was us, we would have said, hey, you. Challenged me, and what you said was right, and I and. I think that what you said. I would say what you said was honest to me, I appreciate your challenge and I'm going to accept that. Yeah, because what you said was biblical, and what you said I agree. But he just used these kind of arcane words. You know, it was funny. You've rebuked me, brother, and I receive it. And I received it, which, by the way, at one point in time in my life, I would have said the yeah absolutely, growing up in my denomination. Yeah, but anyway, but hey, regardless of that's funny and not like us. Give it up for that guy. Yeah right, very humble, very humble in that one. And it takes humility to go back to somebody and say, you know what, you challenge me, and I think what you said was right, and I think what you said lined up with God's word. And I was trying to build a case, and I think you're right. Yeah, So I think it's interesting this area that it mentions that Usaiah. I mean, he's only sixteen years old. He reigns for fifty two years. The last ten years of his reign he's co reigning with his son Joe Ash because he has leprosy now, right, So he led as the authority from the time he was sixteen until also for what forty two years? So how old is that fifty eight? Yeah, and then ten more years after that with leprosy. But it talks about how he goes on. There's a few things he does, and I love this. First of all, he seeks God during the days of Zachariah, and there's a book in the Bible, we'll read it here Zachariah's time when Zachariah was the prophet right, and Zachariah taught him to fear God. And because of that, as long as the king sought guidance from the Lord, God gave him success, right. And the successes are victory over God's enemies and stability in his own kingdom right. And so he defeats the Philistines, he breaks down the walls of Gath and Jabna and Ashdod, which are all in what is so if you're trying to figure that out, Felistia was right on the Mediterranean and is in the area of what is now modern day Gaza. It's right in that area. So the Palestinians and the Philistines are the same rights. That's where this name came from, very very similar. It's just a modern version of that old thing. So they wipe out these towns and he literally tears down the walls in what is modern day Gaza, but only back then, and these were people that had fought against God all these things. The moonights, he comes and he gets tribute, so he doesn't wipe them out entirely, but he is getting taxes from them. His fame begins to spread. God's doing all these things right, and then he has technological advances, so it talks about how he builds these towers and the strategic spots on his wall, which you know the wall has been rebuilt. At this point, his father had lost Asia Aziah. Amaziah had lost to Jerebo in the second also in another battle, the King of Israel, he lost twice to northern Israel, but he was able to come back and rebuild all these things, get it all put back together. And only that now he builds it with advantage, with towers and all these things. And then there's a thing. I've always loved this. The New Living Translation translates it slightly different than some of the other translations. It says in verse fifteen, he built structures on the walls of Jerusalem designed by experts to protect those who shot arrows and hurled large stones from the towers in the corners of the wall. Some of the translations seemed to imply what he built were things similar to catapults, like what the Romans used. This was extremely advanced technology for the day. Right, because it says hurls large stones. But if you get down to where it says or to shoot rather than to protect, right, because it says experts to protect those, whereas in the original it may have said to shoot arrows and hurl large stones. So if that's the case, he literally has artillery. Right. And that's why they were so prosperous and so easily protected. Right, they were dominant, and the one he had three hundred and seven five hundred foot soldiers that were elite. And then he's got these apparently it looks like some kind of a catapult and arrow launching systems that could protect his his city. It's pretty cool. Yeah, it's very cool. All those things came because he was following God, is what I'm saying. Yes, yeah, God gave him advantages. Yeah, that's great. And uh and and by the way, that's uh, that's a principle for life, isn't it so that that's probably the biggest sermon in this whole thing. Yeah, you know, you understand that. You know. My my coin phrase that I've always said since I was in college is that when God gives us any command or invitation, either to live well or please him, he gives it to us for two reasons. Number One, it's always for his glory. Always. It's going to glorify him through your life. It's going to further his kingdom. God's endgame is to bring glory to himself. He has another choice to be stuck on himself, because who else is going to be stuck on? Right right, He's gonna He's gonna bring glory to himself. And that's God's end game always. And then the second reason is for our benefit and and and and by the way, uh. That's not to say it'll be easy. That's not to say it will always be you know, uh understandable or even on the surface beneficial. But it's always going to be for our benefit in terms of the rules and the commandments that God gives, because there's a big difference between like hardships come our way. I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about I'm not talking about like, you know, us having to you know, make hard choices and all of a sudden there's consequences that we face and we do what's right and it comes our way. That's just the evil of men. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about God places a rule, God places a commandment, God places a guideline. God gives a principle, God gives an invitation. All of those those are given, those are set in stone, those are universal, Those those are guidelines for life. And when God gives us those things. It's always for a benefit, right, right, and then when we follow them, then we will have prosperous success. And you know it was God that did it because it says, you know, it talks about those that shoot large hurl large stones and shoot arrows. The very next sentence, it's not even next verse, it's the next sentence says it's fame spread far and wide, for the Lord gave him marvelous help. Yeah, became very powerful. So God gave this technological advances. God gave wisdom, God gave great soldiers, God gave him. God did all those things. So a lot of times what we're hoping for is that God does some kind of like supernatural miracle where God just they don't have to do nothing. They don't have to do any work, they don't have to raise any taxes, don't have to train any armies. They're just zap zap, zap zap. That's what we want. But here, you don't want to be the most powerful manut of the world. Right, And instead, the marvelous help God gave was technological advances, good engineers, it literally says, experts, loyal soldiers who were elite troops right prepared to fight against any army, all those things. And then he had experts that helped him manage his soil. That he loved the soil, right. He was a man of the dirt, which is really great. There's the humility in that, I think a little bit. He's managing his vineyards, he's raising his sheep, he's doing all these things in God, all the work of his hands. God blessed. I think sometimes what we want God to do is doors apart from the work of our hands. Yeah, but God blessed him in this, and so because of that, he's outrageously prosperous. And then he begins to believe his own press. Yeah right, he begins to believe. Oh man uh uzaiah man. He is so smart and he's so powerful, and nobody can defeat him. And he he grows the best grapes, and he raises the best cattle, and he's got the strongest arm, and he's got the most technology, all this stuff blah blah blah, and it's all because God's blessed him. And so he's in there going, yeah, God has blessed me. You know what, I don't need these priests, right, And he goes against God's wills, God's willingness, and so what does God do. God goes, Yeah, you can't touch the holy thing. I've blessed you. But this holy stuff's not yours, right, right, that's the priest's job. And so God gives him the most feared disease on the planet at the time. Right, right, This would be like finding out you had AIDS suddenly, sure, right, this would be the most feared. It would be like finding out you had what's some one of your eyes bleed? What's that one? You know? You know I'm talking about Yeah. That's right, that's a just he immediately contracted the worst possible disease that they could have imagined at the time. And not only that, he kept it for ten years, right, the last ten years of his life, which is painful. Well, remember it said that people his fame spread fire wide and people came from all around to see him. Right, and now for his last ten years he's in isolation. He's literally, you know, away from everybody. What does it say? So King Zaiah had liprocine till the day. He lived in isolation in a separate house, for he was excluded from the temple. Of the Lore. Hey, by the way, just before we go, I just want to say for a little Bible study tidbit is that it seems like, you know, sometimes when you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and sometimes they record the same stories. Yeah, and have you ever noticed in the gospels. Sometimes in one gospel there'll be like a full length story and another gospel will reference the story in like two sentences. Yeah, that's right. That's what Second Kings does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Second Kings fifteen to five is like literally one verse and it summarizes, Oh, the Lord struck it with king leprosy until the day died, lived in isolation. And because we're reading a chronological Bible, the Bible we have, you know, in front of us, because that's what we're doing. We're going through the Old Testament chronologically. Uh. It just it flips back and forth sometimes. And it's interesting how Chronicles has all these passages and just one little verse. That's right. Yeah, so it covers the same same ground. There you go. Well, tomorrow is a big day. It is a big day. We're kicking off Jonah home, kicking off Jonah, Yes, Jonah, Jonah, Jonah. That's right. We uh, listen, I have we have that's our time. So we are going to have to sign off, so we will see you hopefully tomorrow for Jonah on the Bible. Guys,