Chapter 167. 2 Chron. 15. 16. King Asa’s Failure.
WHEN Asa returned from his victory over the Ethiopians, God sent the prophet Azariah to him to encourage him to go on and serve the Lord. The Lord will be with you while you are with Him, said he. If you seek Him He will be found of you, but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you. For a long time Israel had been like the nations, away from God, but now they had turned to Him. “Be strong, therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded.” These words encouraged Asa and his people, and they diligently attended to what God said. They offered sacrifices, and determined to seek God with all their hearts. That was a joyful day in Jerusalem. The people shouted and sang praises to God, and prayed for His help and blessing. God heard them, and gave them rest from their enemies.
Asa searched out every evil in his kingdom to put it away. Even his own mother he deposed from being Queen, because she had an idol and a grove. Asa destroyed the idol and burned it. In all these things he showed a perfect heart in all his ways. All the things which his father had dedicated—the silver, gold, and vessels—he brought into the temple for the service of the Lord. For thirty-five years he walked pleasing to God. He had now become an old man. During his reign there had been three different Kings on the throne of Israel. Jeroboam had died in the second year, and his son, Nadab, succeeded him. Like his father, the latter displeased God and worshiped idols, and was killed, and every one of the house of Jeroboam with him, by Baasha, an Israelite, of the tribe of Issachar, who conspired against him. God had warned Jeroboam that unless he forsook idols, his whole household would be wiped off the face of the earth, and thus it came solemnly to pass, as the word of the Lord always does. But Baasha, although the instrument of destruction in God’s hand, was just as evil as those before him. He came on the throne of Israel two years after Asa came on that of Judah. The two Kings were really never at peace between themselves, and now, after these twenty and more years, Baasha decided to build Ramah to prevent any of his subjects from going to Jerusalem to worship. When Asa heard of it, he sent presents to Ben-hadad, King of Syria. He sent him gold and silver, which he took from the temple, and asked to make a league with him, and to fight Israel. Ben-hadad agreed willingly, and attacked and took three cities on the north. Baasha had to leave off building Ramah and go to protect his border, and Asa, with all his men, quickly removed the stones and the timber that had been gathered and built two towns in Judah with the material.
God was not pleased with Asa, and sent him Hanani, the prophet, to tell him that because he had sought help of the King of Syria and not of the Lord, he had lost the opportunity of conquering Syria. God would have helped him against that country as He did against the Ethiopians, for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong in behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards Him.
God also ceased to give Asa rest from his enemies, and for the remainder of his reign there was war in the land. Poor Asa had been foolish in acting independently of God, but had he confessed his fault and turned to Him, God would have brought good out of it for him. Instead, however, Asa became very angry with Hanani, God’s messenger, and sent him to prison, and oppressed some of the people.
This rebellion brought God’s judgment upon the King. He became diseased in his feet and the ill increased steadily. Asa’s heart, now become hardened, would not turn to God, but looked to all sort of physicians for cure, but in vain. He died two years later, having reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem. At his death, as he was a descendant of David, he was buried with great pomp and burning of incense in a sepulcher he had had prepared for himself in the city of David.
O! that we may, like him in his early life, walk with a perfect heart before God, and take warning from his lack of faith and rebellion and say, “Preserve me, O God: for in Thee do I put my trust.” (Psa. 16:11<<Michtam of David.>> Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust. (Psalm 16:1).)
ML 11/26/1916