2021-6-6 AM, The Counsel of Ancient Kings: King Asa Teaches Us What Matters Most, 1 Kings 15:11, 2 Chronicles 14-16
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At the end of the time of the judges, the people of Israel rejected the idea that God was their King and they instead for a human king so they could be like the nations around them.
and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”
This was such a shame. Israel was a unique and special nation because the Most High God chose them to walk with Him in a personal way. But Israel leaned away from this and settled for less.
Of course, the monarchy did not live up to expectations. I’ll be frank, the journey through the monarchy of Israel is mostly depressing. However, there are some bright spots. There are certainly many lessons to learn along the way.
The first king, Saul, repeatedly disobeyed the Lord and did all sorts of evil like summoning the dead with witchcraft. The Lord ripped the kingdom away from him and gave it to the House of Jesse, to David. We often say he was no-hearted for the Lord.
David, was whole-hearted for the Lord. He characteristicaly loved and obeyed the Lord. Because of his faithfulness and devotion, the Lord promised him...
When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
David is the bright spot of the monarchy of Israel. He is an harbinger of Jesus Christ. Yet, David had some epic lapses in judgment, namely Bathsheba and the census. You finish the story of David a bit discouraged.
Solomon did well in the beginning, he built the temple and amassed incredible wealth for Israel, but he disobeyed the Lord by marrying a lot of foreign women who led him astray. Due to their influence, Solomon actually condoned and participated in the worship of false gods. What a shame and a wasted opportunity. However, most believed Solomon eventually rebounded as an old man. His assessment is as half-hearted for the Lord.
Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, listened to foolish advisers and despised mercy. The result was that he lost the 10 northern kingdoms who ceded to become a new kingdom under a man named Jeroboam.
Jeroboam, the king of new northern nation, sets up formal idol worship. He even has the nerve...
So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”
That was a real loser thing to do for the people fo God. Repeatedly through Scripture, God reiterates that He is the one who brought Israel out of Egypt. So this is a case of stolen valor. What is it with Israel and these golden calves?
In the south, Rehoboam dies and his son, Abijah, takes over...
And he walked in all the sins that his father did before him, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father.
So, we are on a pretty negative track, then comes one of the more refreshing lines in the book...
In the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Asa began to reign over Judah, and he reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Maacah the daughter of Abishalom. And Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as David his father had done.
In the southern kingdom, known as Judah, there were roughly seven kings (six whole-hearted and two half-hearteds) of whom it is said they, “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.”
This expression is used to describe the kings who characteristically walked with faith in the Lord and concern that God’s people Israel follow His ways. This doesn’t mean that they didn’t sin, but, like David, such sin was a deviation from the norm.
Some of the kings who did not get this accolade did some good things, Asa’s father Abijah is a great example, but we learn that for these men, the good things they did, were uncharacateristic for them.
What did Asa think and do that pleased the Lord? What did he do that was “right in the eyes of the Lord?”
First, he purged Judah of idolatry.
He took away the foreign altars and the high places and broke down the pillars and cut down the Asherim
and…
He put away the male cult prostitutes out of the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. He also removed Maacah his mother from being queen mother because she had made an abominable image for Asherah. And Asa cut down her image and burned it at the brook Kidron.
and...
He also took out of all the cities of Judah the high places and the incense altars. And the kingdom had rest under him.
Male cult prostitutes
Asherah poles
highplaces in the cities
incense altars
Asa had received a heritage of idolatry from his fathers. In Jerusalem was the temple of the Most High God, the Lord. Yet, as the Jews interacted and intermarried more with the peoples around them, they picked up very awful and disgusting religious practices which flagrantly violated the first and second commandments.
And God spoke all these words, saying,
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
“You shall have no other gods before me.
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Asa rebelled against these wicked practices of his fathers and submitted to the Commandments of the Most High God.
He decided that so long as he was king, he would do his best to expel these terrible things. He did a few things which took a lot of courage. For example, he deposed his own mom (well, grandmother) because she was contributing to the spiritual drift of the Israelites. He took the Asherah pole that she made and burned it up in the local dump.
Asa used his authority to steer Judah away from idolatry.
Secondly, he also used his leadership to drive Judah back to the Lord.
and commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, and to keep the law and the commandment.
Even more...
The Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded, and he went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: The Lord is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. For a long time Israel was without the true God, and without a teaching priest and without law, but when in their distress they turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, and sought him, he was found by them. In those times there was no peace to him who went out or to him who came in, for great disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands. They were broken in pieces. Nation was crushed by nation and city by city, for God troubled them with every sort of distress. But you, take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.”
Azariah’s words inspired him to keep removing the idols (vs. 8)
He also reformed the faith of the people. He repaired the altar of the temple which had fallen into disrepair (vs. 8)
Asa gathered all of Judah and Benjamin (and surprisingly the peoples of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who were living among the southern kingdom because of Asa’s righteousness, vs. 9) and they had a great big rededication ceremony.
They sacrificed to the Lord on that day from the spoil that they had brought 700 oxen and 7,000 sheep. And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul,
and...
And anyone who did not want to take part of this...
but that whoever would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, should be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman.
and...
They swore an oath to the Lord with a loud voice and with shouting and with trumpets and with horns. And all Judah rejoiced over the oath, for they had sworn with all their heart and had sought him with their whole desire, and he was found by them, and the Lord gave them rest all around.
Judah experience a revival in their commitment to Lord. Asa led reform and returned Judah to their special and unique calling to be God’s chosen people.
Asa’s faithfulness to the Lord and his national reforms set him apart as a success story in the story of the kings.
It’s interesting to read...
Now the rest of all the acts of Asa, all his might, and all that he did, and the cities that he built, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? But in his old age he was diseased in his feet.
Asa did a lot of other remarkable things which didn’t make it into the Biblical record. They made it into secondary records, but we don’t have these. This difference in documenting Asa’s works tells me that in God saw Asa’s actions , Doing what is right in His eyes matters more to God than any other achievement or project that he did.
King Asa teaches us an important lesson: What matters most in life is to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord and lead our households to do the same.
So then the question for us is, What is right in the eyes of the Lord?
We are like Israel in that we are a covenental people. Israel had a covenant with the Lord established on Mount Sinai. We have a covenant with the Lord established through faith in the cross of Calvary and the resurrection.
While He has related to different peoples in different ways, He is eternally consistant and unchanging in what He cares about and what He calls right.
First, God cares that we believe in Him and walk with Him in faith. In the Old Testament this looked like putting away idolatry and returning to singular faith in God who delivered them from Egypt. This faith was manifested by renewal and commitment of God’s covenant with Israel. This meant to live in obedience to His laws and commands.
For us it is not all that different, yet we live in a privileged time when we know about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. God cares that we believe in Him and walk with Him in faith. In the New Testament this is manifested by repenting of our sins (including idolatry) and coming to personal faith in Jesus Christ who delivered us from death. We believe in Him as Savior and Lord.
So doing right in the eyes of the Lord is
Admiting you are a sinner and idolator and repenting of it
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Believing
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Calling on Christ as Lord and Savior...
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
In the OT, God wanted to dwell with His people. You saw this in the nature of the tabernacle and the temple. In the New Covenant, it is no different
Abiding
And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
and...
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.
and...
And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching.
and...
Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
and...
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
The practical way we do this is to spend time spiritually engaging with the word.
Carefully obey his teachings.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
and...
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.
and...
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;
and...
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
It is good to grow more knowledgeable of the Lord and His commands, but we make a mistake if we never move from knowledge to obedience.
So, we follow His instructions and...
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
teach them to our children (at the very least).
How well do you know the commands of Christ?
This is the very simple purpose of our lives.
Unfortunately, most of us minimize the importance and value of doing good and right in the eyes of the Lord. We don’t treat it as the most important thing. No, we strive for earning those achievements, making that money, seeking the praise of others. We give so much time to these things. These are not necessarily bad things, but just like Asa’s projects like building cities, they are not as significant- stored away in some record of “not as important of things.”
What are you pouring yourself into that rising above abiding in Christ and obeying His will?
Imagine this as the Lord’s judgment in your life- “_________did what was right and good in the eyes of the Lord.” Such a description is not far from you.