Remember Who Has Done All This!

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.”