Amaziah’s Pride

Synopsis     2Chron 25:19-26:3     4/24/2020 

King Amaziah defeated the Edomites. However, he was ensnared by the beauty of Edomite idols. And so, he began to worship their false gods. 

After this, Amaziah provoked a fight with Joash, who was the king over the northern kingdom. As a result, Joash and his forces invaded Judah. And the two kings fought with their armies at Beth-shemesh. King Amaziah was defeated. And King Joash plundered Jerusalem. 

Although Amaziah remained in power for more than another decade, many Jerusalemites hated him because he had turned away from God. As a result, several men conspired against him. So, Amaziah fled to the city of Lachish. But, assassins pursued him there and killed him.  

In the end, Amaziah’s son Uzziah became king in his place. He began his reign at the age of sixteen years. 

Amaziah’s Pride 

Something happened when Amaziah defeated the Edomites. For, not only did he adopt their system of worship, but not long afterward, he unnecessarily provoked the northern kingdom. 

Amaziah’s imagination seems to have swelled with his victory over the Edomites. And so, rather than following God’s plan, he imagined great military conquest. 

Pride 

Too big too fast. The ancient Greeks called overreaching ambition hubris. And it’s best understood as the kind of pride that blinds a person to real danger. 

The tendency to overreach comes any time I imagine that I am the cause of my own successes. The moment that I forget service to God as my principle motivation, I am a candidate for ruin.  

“Pride goes before disaster, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Prov 16:18