Dear brothers and sisters,
someone once said, “Pride is the dandelion of the soul. Its root goes deep, only a little left behind sprouts again. Its seeds lodge in the tiniest encouraging cracks. And it flourishes in good soil: The danger of pride is that it feeds on goodness.” The danger of pride is that it feeds on goodness. This is so true. It feeds on the Lord’s goodness. The Lord helpes them, and they take the credit for it themselves. They Lord gives security and they become lethargic. The Lord give peace and people become complacent. The Lord gives strength and they start to take pride in their own strength.
Pride sinks deep in the hearts of Gods people throughout church history as well. It is the pride of the church that often stops people from seeing the need for Jesus. The church begins to take the place of Jesus. We start to think that theology saves, that the way we do things saves. That we can push Jesus to the sidelines. And before you know it is the theology, and the structure, and the beauty of reformed worship that becomes the good in which pride sinks its roots and destroys the church from the inside out. O may we always realize our total dependency and allow God to make us strong in our weakness. And never believe that we are what we are in our own strength.
Dear church we must be on the lookout for pride. Always remember the words, “If my people who are called by my name, humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” We are the ones called by his name! We are the ones who are called to humble ourselves and seek his face! Let’s not stop. Not today. Not ever! It is when things go well that we can lose sight of what this is all about. The roots of pride dig down into God’s blessing and give birth to destruction.
Pride that feeds on God’s goodness leads to exile.
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The goodness of God
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Leading to pride and exile
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The Goodness of God.
The antidote to pride – the fear of the LORD.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. To stand in fear of the LORD, and to know who you are before him is one of greatest lessons any person or any church could ever learn. Even the mightiest are humbled when they come face to face with the God. And what a beautiful picture we have of this sixteen-year-old.. We read in verse 5, “He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the Fear of God, and as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper.”
He is instructed in the fear of God! He sits at the foot of a teacher and learns what it means to fear God!
Here was a man who decided to set his face to seek God. it is deliberate and intentional. He knew that he needed God – and he sought out the fear of the LORD. This is not something automatic that falls into your lap. This is something that you grow in. And how does he seek the Lord? By seeking out someone that speaks the word of the LORD! In his case a prophet. This Word then leads to the fullness of life! Proverbs 14:26 says, “In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence, and his children will have a refuge. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death.
The fear of the LORD then gives great wisdom, knowledge, confidence, and courage!
And we see that wisdom, knowledge and confidence come through in this passage. This man started off as 16! He was young – but look at what he does! He set his heart on seeking the lord! O young men and women if you would do this! It starts with making sure you are setting your priorities right at the very beginning! Don’t wait. Find mentor, find a person that will sit you down to teach you the fear of the Lord. Here the word of the LORD. Do not be so arrogant as to think you do not need Gods word preached! And sit under the teaching of those who go before you. Whether it is you father, your elders, an older friend.
But the fear of the LORD does leave you sitting and studying the bible all day. It makes you active in the kingdom. It animate you in all your work!
You see, Holiness and humility do not lead to being passive. But to confident action. He makes war, he plants vineyards, in invents new machines. He builds armies! He doesn’t sit back and wait for things to happen; he does what God puts before him. He gets people to work the fields, soldiers to lead in battle, smart people to invent stuff.
We read, “As long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper.” What an encouragement to the people that returned to exile. God will cause you to prosper if you seek him. And God indeed blessed him. To learn the fear of the LORD does not mean do nothing. No! the one who fears the LORD is steady, firm, strong, and busy in the Lord’s kingdom. He knows who is sovereign. He knows who he belongs to!
As the psalmist says, “Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments! He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid, until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.” Because of his fear of God, he experiences success in battle, wealth from foreigners, and renown among the nations. He experiences dominance over the people of the east, the west, and south which opens trade routes.
The people of God must not sit back and relax. The instruction in the fear of the LORD motivates the people of God to be busy in the kingdom of God – doing what God has given them to do. Look at what he does. He goes to way, builds cities, strengthens the city Jerusalem, cultivate the earth by building cisterns, and hiring farmers and vinedressers, makes weapons for his whole army. And he invents new machines that protect the cities. The world knows about him. He becomes famous. He is now powerful and famous, and it all started with setting his heart to fear the Lord.
But let’s read carefully it is God who gave him success. The danger in the church and in our life is when we miss this, and we think we are doing it all. When we start thinking that if we don’t do it, no one will. At the beginning and end of this section the author makes that point this was Gods doing! God is the one who ultimately builds his kingdom! Who ultimately builds the church! In verse 7, it says, “God helped him,” and in verse 15 it says, “his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped!” WOW! Marvelously helped! How amazing is that when the infinite God of the covenant marvelously helps his people. Doing what their hands find for them to do! This was so that the world might know that God is alive and is coming to his people!
But rather than his fame and power leading him to deeper gratitude, and greater humility it lead to pride and self destruction. Pride that feeds on the Lord’s goodness.
O if only he had continued to be instructed by Zechariah. But alas we read, “When he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction.” How often does this does not happen. The pride of men gets in the way of success. The dandelion took root in the soil of Gods blessing and he started to take credit for all the good things. He got into the mindset that leaders can too quickly get into and say, “If I do not do it, no one can.” Even though he was the not the one who planted the vineyards, but he got people to plant them. He had famers to take care of his sheep. He had skillful men who built big machines. He had soldiers who fought for him. he forgot that he was not alone – and that it was not all his work!
Indeed, pride makes people think they are far more important than they really are. And do things which are not given them to do. He should of let the priest do their job. But we read, “He was unfaithful to the LORD his God and entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense.” The king had been given a specific task. He was not to do the work of the priest, just as the priest were not to do the work of king. God has ordained each his role and place. But his pride caused him to cross boundaries!
And what happens? A priest called Azariah along with 80 others go and confront him. This guy obviously didn’t want to go alone. He goes in with 80 priest and the Bible says they were men of valor! A good thing too! Think about the fame and power of this king! The memory of zechariah the prophet being killed there was still fresh in the peoples memories. These priests knew what happened to the priest who helped David escape from Saul.
Yet they stand up to power and fame, because they know whose side they are on. Gods. What a scene that must have been. This man was well loved, his renowned had spread throughout the world. He was powerful. And he felt like he could do what he wanted. And here are 80 people confronting him. And they tell him leave. You see how the fear of the LORD gives courage to do the right thing no matter what!
And this is also the grace of God to the king! God loves him and warns him to stop what he is doing! Notice he does not get leprosy right away; it is after he is angry that he gets leprosy. How beautiful it would have been if this king had listened to the rebuke and been broken before the LORD. What a lesson for the church of the postexile, and for our day. Don’t harden your heart against rebuke. Its hard, and its only possible if you know the fear of the LORD. Because the natural reaction of any person when confronted with sin is to defend themselves, get angry, or get even and start pointing out all the sins of the other. That’s pride. That’s unfaithfulness to God.
Dear church, dear brother, and sister, don’t you ever ever ever outgrow the fear of the LORD. Don’t do it. stay humble, and open to reproach. But this king gets angry – a response of pride to rebuke. But as he gets angry a skin disease breaks out on his forehead in the presence of the priest in the House of the LORD. The punishment is immediate, in keeping with the authors desire to teach the people that God punishes each for his own sin.
Angry people are prideful people almost all the time. The reason they get angry so much, is because they think the world revolves around them, and when someone insults, they get angry. Proverbs says, “Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.”
And indeed, he realizes again that the LORD has done this, and the fear of God falls upon him. But this time a fear that does not lead to great things, but a fear that causes him to leave the presence of the Lord in a hurry. He left about as quick as he came in. He came in confident, he left broken, and diseased. The mighty king had been humbled before the Lord. And his son took over. God is gracious in that we can learn from this, and not allow the dandelion of pride to take root. This is what his son Jotham goes on to do.
Success built on a humility and the fear of the LORD
The one thing that the bible makes clear on Jotham’s reign, is that he did what Uzziah did, except he did not enter the Temple of the LORD. In other words, he lived under the fear of the Lord, and made a point of not falling into the sins of his Father. Its as if the author is saying with this little chapter, please learn your lesson people of God! Know that the blessing comes from the Lord. And indeed, Jotham is blessed. He builds and fights like his father, and again we read he became mighty. God is good! He does not judge the children for the sins of the Fathers. We have a chance to take that which is good and leave that which is bad from those who come before as we follow Jesus.
God blessed Jotham. Why? Verse 6, “because he ordered his ways before the Lord his God.” This speaks of a certain intentionality and structure to his life. He did not just randomly live his live, he structured it in such a way that God came first. That is whole life would be lived before him. Dear church, lets learn our lesson. Prioritize God and his word. Stand in fear of him.
This is the lesson of scripture again and again. As Psalm 2 says, “Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.” Or elsewhere the Bible says, “My flesh trembles in awe of You; I stand in fear of Your judgments.” Are we still aware of the fear of the LORD? Is this what drives us. A deep experience of God and who we are before him. A knowledge that he says who he says he is, and he will do what he says he will do. A knowledge of his power that gives confidences, of his holiness that convicts of sin, of his love that gives security, of his awesome glory that gives a humility!
You see this picture of Jotham is what could have been for Uzziah. But it is not only a picture of what could have been, it is a picture of the future of what will be. For we know Jotham is not the end of the story. Indeed, the story must get darker. The pride of man is not yet full. Yet we do catch a glimpse here of the king we are looking for.
O how the people longed for a king would lead them in this sort of obedience. In this kind of humility. In this kind of fear. And we have such a king! He humbled himself to death even death on cross as a criminal! That is what he calls us to do! That we would humble ourselves! That we would truly know who we are before God! And live in the holy fear of his name! That we would rise up in Christ.
Our lord Jesus Christ. he lived perfectly in the fear of the LORD. He ordered his life perfectly, and still does so that the will of the Father is accomplished! And he is building the kingdom. The Lord has marvelously helped him. He is defeating all the enemies of the kingdom, and they are paying tribute to him. On every side the kingdoms of this world are falling as his kingdom advances. And this kingdom advances through he weakness of the cross, as people train themselves in the fear of God.
Amen.