In his distress he became unfaithful

Now in the time of his distress King Ahaz became increasingly unfaithful to the LORD. This is that King Ahaz. – 1 Chronicles 28v22

King Ahaz was not a good king. He was not only not a good king but he was a not good king in a not good time (note to grammarians: all those negatives are intentional) . The nation was in a terrible state. The enemies just kept coming. Ahaz tried to buy them off with the goods from the temple. That did not work either.

So Ahaz gave up. In his distress and despair and he ‘became increasingly unfaithful. He saw what he perceived as the success of the pagans so he worshipped their gods. He went into the temple, destroyed some of the furnishings, sold some of them, and finally locked the doors of the temple.

Whereas Uzziah stopped depending on the Lord in his strength Ahaz turned from God in his despair.

How are these two men alike?

Both of them got their eyes off of God and on to themselves. Human success and human failure are both dangerous because they tend to get our eyes on us and not on God. When we do that we are doomed to failure.

So how do we avoid the pitfalls that these two kings fell into?

In the days of our greatest success we look to the Lord.

In the days of our greatest setbacks we look to the Lord.

Only then can we have real and lasting success.