MELVIN NEWLAND, MINISTER
RIDGE CHAPEL, KANSAS, OK
A. I think I can say without fear of contradiction that these are good days in the life of our congregation. We have had a spurt of growth with new families attending. There are also more children here, & there has been a marked growth in our Sunday School & Wednesday evening groups too.
We have experienced a renewed emphasis on prayer, & our giving to Missions continues to grow. It really is a thrilling time to be a part of Ridge Chapel!
But in the midst of all these blessings, sometimes a nagging thought arises, a voice from God speaking to our hearts saying, “Remember who has done all this. And don’t forget that your need for me hasn’t shrunk at all.”
B. If you have been a Christian for any length of time, that same voice may be trying to get through to you, too. Much has probably happened since that first rush of love & dedication for God filled your heart & life.
God has showered you with His blessings. You have seen & heard & learned a lot from those around you, & you feel ready to face any challenges that may come your way.
PROP. That troubles me, for there may be some great challenges coming our way. Let me show you what I mean by telling you about King Asa.
I. A GOOD START
A. King Asa was King Solomon’s great-grandson. And God must have had a reason for using 3 whole chapters of 2 Chronicles to tell us about him. I think his biography is an important one in Scripture, especially for us today.
Asa was not brought up to be a spiritual person. His great grandfather, Solomon, as you know, wandered from God for a while during his 40-year reign.
After that, Rehoboam - Solomon’s son who was Asa’s grandfather, & then Abijah, Asa’s father, also turned away from God & began to introduce the worship of pagan gods & goddesses into what was supposed to be a godly nation.
The god Baal & the goddess Asherah were worshiped as symbols of fertility; & people even offered children as sacrifices to the fire god Molech. In such a spiritual climate, who was it who got through to young King Asa & convinced him to seek the Lord? We don’t know.
2 Chronicles 14:2-4 tells us that early in his reign Asa “did what was good & right in the eyes of the Lord his God. He removed the foreign altars & the high places, smashed the sacred stones & cut down the Asherah poles.
“He commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, & to obey His laws & commands.”
In essence, Asa was saying, “Time out! We have a mess on our hands. The pagan altars & immoral practices must go. We’re going to clean house throughout the kingdom. We have to start obeying the Lord’s commands & call out to Him with all our hearts. We must obey Him in order to receive His blessings.”
B. Now please notice: The first step in any spiritual awakening is demolition. We cannot make headway in seeking God without first tearing down the accumulated junk in our lives. Rationalizing has to cease. We have to start seeing the sinful debris we hadn’t noticed before, which holds back the blessings of God.
I wonder if anyone said to him, “Excuse me, King Asa, but your father built that particular shrine…. Your grandfather dedicated that incense altar. Are you sure you want them demolished?”
If they had, Asa would have replied, “Tear them down – now! They’re wrong. This idolatry came from the Canaanites. And God will never bless us as long as these things remain in our land.”
Whenever people truly get hungry to know the Lord, the Holy Spirit puts a shovel & broom into their hands. Husbands & wives begin to deal with long-buried issues hurting their marriages. Adults take a closer look at their choice of TV programs & movies.
Church members begin to see the damage caused by gossip, racial attitudes, & criticism. Sin grieves the Holy Spirit & quenches His power among us. Without His blessing we miss out on what God has for us & wants us to be.
SUM. King Asa’s early years were marked by a national housecleaning. And God’s blessings were poured out upon the king & his people as a result.
II. A GREAT CHALLENGE
A. Unfortunately though, seeking the Lord wholeheartedly does not exempt us from attack, & Asa’s godliness did not guarantee him a smooth road for the rest of his life. After ten years of peace & prosperity, Asa’s kingdom was suddenly invaded by a huge Cushite (Ethiopian) army.
In such a moment of crisis, God’s people generally seem to have a reservoir of faith to meet their problems.
2 Chronicles 14:11 tells us, “Asa called to the Lord his God & said, ‘Lord, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. O Lord, you are our God; do not let man prevail against you.’”
Asa’s faith was not some kind of instant cake mix from the pantry shelf. For a decade now he & his people had already been calling out to God. Hence, there was no panic. They cried for the Lord to come to their aid – & He did.
The Cushite army was decisively defeated, despite their overwhelming numbers, “for the terror of the Lord had fallen upon them” (vs. 14).
I cannot say it strongly enough: When we seek God & His will, He will bless us. But when we stop seeking Him … all bets are off, no matter who we are. It doesn’t matter how much talent we have, how many diplomas hang on our walls, how much others may praise us, or anything else.
B. 2 Chronicles 15:2 tells us that on Asa’s way home from the great victory, a prophet stopped him & his army to reinforce what had just happened:
“Listen to me…”, the prophet said, “The Lord is with you when you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.”
The more we seek God & His will, the more we see our need to seek Him. Asa, buoyed up by this experience, began to look around … & discovered some things that he had missed earlier.
The altar in God’s temple was broken down; so he immediately ordered it repaired. He also called a solemn assembly of the whole population, where he made a new covenant with God.
C. Then he was shocked to find that his own grandmother, Maacah, still had “a repulsive Asherah pole” where she worshiped pagan idols (15:16). He cut down the pole & deposed her from her position as queen mother.
Can you believe that Asa had the nerve to do that to his own grandmother! The people of the land could not help but say to one another, “This king is serious about pleasing God.”
Asa understood who deserved first place in his life. It was not his grandmother, his culture, or any such thing. It was God. What a wonderful example he presented of a whole-hearted commitment to God!
III. THE TRAGIC BLUNDER
A. I wish that I could tell you that Asa’s life-story ended that way. But it didn’t. Twenty-five more years went by. And somewhere along the way Asa stopped feeling a need to seek the Lord. We don’t know why.
Maybe he thought he had reached a spiritual peak & could relax. But the Bible teaches that we are always either drawing nearer to God or falling away. There is no holding pattern.
One day Asa received news that a small army from his northern neighbor, Israel, was starting to blockade his territory. This army was not nearly the size of the Cushite army 25 years earlier. So how would Asa respond this time?
2 Chronicles 16:2-3 tells us, “Asa then took silver & gold out of the treasuries of the Lord’s temple & of his own palace & sent it to Ben-Hadad king of Aram, who was ruling in Damascus. ‘Let there be a treaty between me & you,’ he said.”
The man who had built his success in life seeking after God was now dipping into the Lord’s money to buy off a pagan king!
B. And the king of Aram (Syria) was willing to be bought. He sent his army to put pressure on Israel, who quickly backed away from attacking Jerusalem. In other words, Asa’s plan “worked.”
Asa probably felt very proud of himself. “I used my head & figured my way out of this one. I’m smart,” he must have thought. But I’m afraid that such thinking is due for a rude awakening when we stand before the Lord.
C. While Asa’s court officials were congratulating each other on this brilliant maneuver…here came another prophet named Hanani. He began to speak, & their cheering suddenly stopped.
In 2 Chronicles 16:7 he told them, “Because you relied on the king of Aram & not on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand….”
In other words, there would be no way for Asa ever to oppose Aram in the future; he was now locked into a terrible partnership with a pagan empire.
In vs’s 8-9 Hanani continued speaking: “Were not the Cushites & Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots & horsemen? Yet when you relied on the Lord, He delivered them into your hand.
“For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those who hearts are fully committed to Him. You have done a foolish thing, & from now on you will be at war” (2 Chronicles 16:8-9).
SUM. I’m convinced that God still looks for those who seek His will, whose hearts are fully committed to Him. In His power we can face any enemy & win the victory. As we call upon Him, He will enable us to accomplish what we could never do alone.
IV. TOUGH TO THE END
A. I wish I could tell you that Asa fell on his knees & begged God’s forgiveness for straying, for thinking up his own political solution instead of calling upon the Lord. I wish I could say that Asa’s heart melted in confession resulting in a return to the fervent faith of his younger days.
But no, the very opposite happened. Vs. 10 tells us, “Asa was angry with the seer because of this; he was so enraged that he put him in prison. At the same time Asa brutally oppressed some of the people” (2 Chronicles 16:10).
Sadly, the king who had once led a whole nation in seeking God now became a hardhearted oppressor himself.
B. Compare Asa with his great-great-grandfather, David, who committed adultery & murder. But when rebuked by the prophet David broke down. “I have sinned greatly in what I have done,” he confessed (2 Samuel 24:10). And he turned his life around. No wonder he was called “a man after God’s own heart.”
People who have a seeking heart still make mistakes. But their reaction to rebuke & correction shows the condition of their heart. It determines what God is able to do with them in the future.
If only Asa, like David before him, had repented of his sin & humbly sought God’s forgiveness, who knows how differently his life-story might have ended? But he didn’t, & the closing picture we have of Asa’s life is pitiful.
As an old man he developed a very painful foot disease. He hobbled around his palace, every step one of excruciating pain.
The Bible says, “Though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the Lord, but only from the physicians. Then in the forty-first year of his reign Asa died” (2 Chronicles 16:12-13).
Everything is possible with God if we approach him with a contrite spirit. We must humble ourselves, get rid of the debris in our lives, & keep leaning on Him instead of on our own understanding.
The blessings we receive & then pass along to others all testify to this truth: “He rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
C. But what about those who have never sought Him? The message this morning is two-fold. God not only wants those who have quit seeking Him to seek Him once more. But also that Jesus came to seek & to save those who are lost.
We need to remember that there are no sins that Jesus cannot forgive. There is no life that he cannot change if given the opportunity.
When Jesus reached out he didn’t just speak & heal the lepers from a distance. He touched them. And that is what He still does & expects us to do today.
ILL. A few years ago Ethel & I had the privilege of attending a service at the Brooklyn Tabernacle church in NY. The minister, Jim Cymbala, has written many inspirational books about the ministry there. He says that people pay attention when they see that God actually changes people & sets them free.
In one of his books he tells this story: “I shall never forget Easter Sunday 1992 – the day that Roberta Langella gave her dramatic testimony…. A homeless man was standing in the back of the church, listening intently.
At the end of the evening meeting I sat down on the edge of the platform, exhausted, as others continued to pray with those who had responded to Christ. The organist was playing quietly. I wanted to relax.
I was just starting to unwind when I looked up to see this man, with shabby clothing & matted hair, standing in the center aisle about four rows back & waiting for permission to approach me.
I nodded & gave him a weak little wave of my hand. I thought to myself, “Look at how this Easter Sunday is going to end. He’s going to hit me up for money. That happens often in this church. I’m so tired…”
When he came close, I saw that his two front teeth were missing. But more striking was his odor – the mixture of alcohol, sweat, urine, & garbage took my breath away.
I have been around many street people, but this was the strongest stench I have ever encountered. I instinctively had to turn my head sideways to inhale, then look back in his direction while breathing out.
I asked his name. “David.” He said softly.
“How long have you been homeless, David?” “Six years.”
“Where did you sleep last night?” “In an abandoned truck.”
I had heard enough & wanted to get this over quickly. I reached for the money clip in my back pocket.
At that moment David put his finger in front of my face & said, “No, you don’t understand - I don’t want your money. I’m going to die out there. I want the Jesus that red-haired girl talked about.”
I hesitated, then closed my eyes. “God, forgive me,” I begged. I felt soiled & cheap. Me, a minister of the gospel…I had wanted simply to get rid of him, when he was crying out for help of the Christ I had just preached about. I swallowed hard as God’s love flooded my soul.
David sensed the change in me. He moved toward me & fell on my chest, burying his grimy head against my white shirt & tie. Holding him close, I talked to him about Jesus’ love. These weren’t just words; I felt them. I felt love for this pitiful young man.
And that smell…I don’t know how to explain it. It had almost made me sick, but now it became the most beautiful fragrance to me. I reveled in what had been repulsive to me just a moment ago.
The Lord seemed to say to me in that instant, “Jim, if you & your wife have any value to me, if you have any purpose in my work – it has to do with this odor. This is the smell of the world I died for.”
David surrendered to the Christ he heard about that night.
INVITATION: If you are here this morning & need to seek the Lord once again, I pray you will begin to do that. But, if you are like David & need to surrender yourself to Christ this morning, would you come as we stand & sing?
