Sermon Video: The Prideful Presumption of Uzziah - 2 Chronicles 26

One of the oldest and ongoing conflicts in human society is the struggle to define and maintain morality.  In the pride of the wickedness of the human heart is the presumption that we can overthrow or ignore that which God has decreed concerning righteousness and wickedness.  All those who attempt to do so, will fail, they must fail, for God has revealed what is holy and what is sinful in his Word, and all human attempts to circumvent this are but vanity.
As a king of Judah, Uzziah was a great success, both in foreign policy and domestic policy he was a wise and capable ruler.  Uzziah might have gone down as one of the greatest kings of the people of God, and he would have had he continued to walk in the ways of the LORD, but as his success increased so did his pride.  When God had granted Uzziah great blessings because of his obedience, Uzziah's pride brought about his downfall.  Uzziah decided to usurp the responsibility of the priestly descendants of Aaron by offering incense in the temple of the LORD.  While this might not seem like much of an offense to us, it was clearly forbidden in the Torah, making Uzziah's actions an act of rebellion against the authority of God.
God chose to respond to Uzziah immediately by striking him with leprosy after Uzziah had spurned the correction of the priest Azariah, a condition that remained with Uzziah for the rest of his days, days which he lived apart from his people and cut off from the temple.  It was a sad ending to a life of great accomplishments, but Uzziah paid the price for ignoring the Word of God by thinking that his will was above that of Almighty God.  For all those who follow in his footsteps, ignoring what they don't like about what the Bible says to them, the result will be the same: the judgment of God.

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