You may have heard it said that success can be more dangerous than failure. It's true.

We stumble more on mountaintops than in valleys. Today, on Insight for Living, Chuck

Swindall tells the story about a leader who

experienced 52 years of God's extraordinary blessing until pride crept in and everything unraveled.

So here's the question. When does blessing become a curse? And more importantly, how do we create

safeguards? Through this King's dramatic story,

Chuck delivers an urgent message for everyone in ministry, no matter how gifted, how useful,

or how many people follow your lead.

Isaiah 42, 5 through 8, I direct your attention to this significant section of scripture. I learned of the fear of God from my mother, but I learned of the glory of God from my God himself.

And I dedicate this message today to all of us engaged in ministry of any kind.

Ministry of the Word, Ministry of music, ministry of education, ministry of counseling.

This is a message for us to take and hold as a sacred trust.

I have a sense of timing in this that it is the right occasion to speak it.

We are watching these days with an ache in our hearts

as kingdoms of men are crumbling about them

that once were under the guise of ministry.

And we sorrow, we grieve as we watch fellow men and women falling in ministry

because of the failure to hold the glory, the heaviness, the splendor that belongs only to God.

And failing to give it all to Him, they've taken it and they've loved it.

And it's ruined them.

And it could ruin us just as well. Any one of us.

Isaiah writes of God's own word, 425, thus says God the Lord, who created the heavens and

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