MINISTER,
Rev. Thomas Scarborough.
2
Chronicles 14. King Asa (Part II).
Sermon Outline.
2 Chronicles 16. King
Asa (Part 2)
2 Chronicles portrays God as Almighty
We are going through the
book of 2 Chronicles at the moment. 2
Chronicles is a book
that sketches the spiritual history of the
nation of Israel -- in
other words, 2 Chronicles tells us what God
did in the nation of
Israel.
The Bible shows us a
mighty God who has power over nations -- and
power over personal
destinies.
That means not only that
God could have such power -- but that He
does have such power --
and He exercises that power from day to
day.
If God were not truly
Almighty, then God would not be God. You
cannot possibly conceive
of a God who is not Almighty. Who is He
if He is not Almighty?
The Bible describes God
as the sovereign God. It describes Him as
a God of mighty power.
It describes Him as the Lord of hosts. It
describes Him as the
ruler of all things.
*
* * * * * * * * *
Now one thing that we
need to understand about the book of 2
Chronicles -- and in
fact about the whole Bible -- is that the
Bible speaks about such
an Almighty God -- a sovereign God -- who
has personal power in
every event of life.
In this 20th Century of
ours, many Christians even have been
creeping away from that
concept of God.
You have many Christian
believers today who believe that the Lord
can save my soul -- yes
-- but can He rule the circumstances of my
life? Today?
But it is impossible to
have a faith in God, as the Bible
portrays faith -- it is
impossible to enjoy the real blessing of
faith -- unless you
believe in God as God.
And there is such a
peace, and such a power available to us -- but
we will not be able to
experience it -- until we discover that we
can put our trust in an
Almighty God.
You can be saved without
understanding the fulness of who God
really is -- but you
cannot really live a full Christian life
before you understand
that God is an Almighty God, who also needs
your trust from day to
day. This is the subject of our passage
this morning.
*
* * * * * * * * *
This morning we have
reached chapter 16 of 2 Chronicles -- and we
are part way through the
reign of king Asa.
Last Sunday we said that
Asa was a king who did what was good and
right in the eyes of the
Lord -- however, later in his life, he
strayed from the
rock-solid faith that he had in God in his
earlier years.
Last Sunday we saw how
King Asa, in his earlier years, faced an
army of one million men,
who marched against him from the south.
Asa himself had just
580,000.
And king Asa called upon
the Lord, and he 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."
Now we saw that Asa was
in a tremendously vulnerable position
from a human point of
view. He himself called himself "powerless
against the mighty".
But Asa didn't panic.
Asa didn't fear. He didn't go calling on
his neighbours for help.
He trusted in God as God. In fact he
abandoned himself to
God.
That is what trust in
God really is -- it is abandoning yourself
to God.
*
* * * * * * * * *
The Bible says:
"Cursed is the
one who trusts in man,
Who depends on flesh
for his strength,
And whose heart turns
away from the Lord.
He will be like a
bush in the wastelands;
He will not see
prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the
parched places of the desert,
In a salt land where
no one lives."
"But blessed is
the man who trusts in the Lord,
Whose confidence is
in Him.
He will be like a
tree planted by the water
That sends out its
roots by the stream.
It does not fear when
heat comes;
Its leaves are always
green.
It has no worries in
a year of drought,
And never fails to
bear fruit."
(Jeremiah
17:7-8).
And it was because of
such faith -- such trust in God -- that the
Lord God gave King Asa
the victory last week. The enemy was so
roundly defeated that he
was never heard from again. The Bible
says he was struck down,
and could not recover.
*
* * * * * * * * *
Also, not only did the
Lord give Asa a great victory -- but He
gave him peace and
stability throughout the kingdom. There was
peace around the
kingdom, on its borders -- and there was peace
within.
And let us notice in the
text that this peace and stability were
the making of God.
Let us look at chapter
15 verse 15 -- at the end of verse 15: "So
the Lord gave them rest
on every side." And He gave them rest for
the one great reason
that they relied on Him. Notice that peace
does not come through
human planning -- it comes when God decides
that it will come.
*
* * * * * * * * *
If we go back a little
to verse 5, we find that the Lord also
provided peace
internally.
In verse 5, we discover
how conditions were in the land before
the king and his people
came to trust in the Lord -- and we read
that the land was in a
condition of "great turmoil".
We read in verse 5 that
it was not safe to travel about in the
land -- does that sound
familiar? You couldn't walk the roads, and
you couldn't take
transport without risk to your personal safety.
That is what happens,
says this passage, when people cease to
trust in God.
Specifically, in verse 3, it happens when people
lose God -- when they
are "without the true God", says the text --
simply going about from
day to day without God.
It happens when people
lose spiritual teaching -- when they are no
longer taught about God
-- and about sin, and repentance, and
salvation. I am told
that one of the children in our Sunday
School didn't know the
other day who Adam was -- that is how
little our new society
is being taught today.
And then, chaos sets in
when people lose Biblical standards for
their lives -- when they
are "without the law", says the text.
When they don't know the
difference between holiness and sin.
And when that happens --
in verse 6 -- God troubles a people with
every kind of distress.
But remember that God is
a saving God -- and so the purpose of
such distress is not
just to make people's lives miserable -- but
it is there to save. It
is there to show man: "You can't solve
your own problems
without God. You cannot forsake the Lord God
Almighty. You can have
the highest aspirations -- but without Him,
He will not permit them
to succeed."
In our own country, we
have never had more energy invested in
noble human aspirations
such as human rights and justice -- yet at
the same time there has
never been more turmoil.
It fits the Biblical
pattern perfectly.
Now as a result of King
Asa's trust in the Lord, we see in the
first verses of chapter
15 how the Lord gives him great peace
within his nation --
within his borders. It is the Lord God who
brings peace and
stability -- when people honour Him.
*
* * * * * * * * *
There is also a lesson
for us here personally.
King Asa won his battles
-- and he obtained peace on every side --
and he obtained peace
within his borders -- when he put his trust
in Almighty God.
Trust in God is what
will bring peace to your life on every side
- and peace to your life
within your heart.
It might not bring an
end to all battles and struggles -- King Asa
himself still had one or
two battles -- but he was victorious,and
he was at peace, as long
as he trusted in the Lord.
Put your trust in God --
and He will give you the gift of a life
that is stable and
peaceful and blessed. There are many, many
people in this world
whose lives are neither stable nor peaceful
nor blessed because they
do not know what it means to rely on the
Lord their God.
More of this in a
moment.
*
* * * * * * * * *
Let us continue this
morning by reading 2 Chronicles chapter 15
verse 19. We shall be
learning here a little more about trust in
God, and what it means.
King Asa, as we have
said, started out strong in the Lord -- but
as the years passed by,
we find that Asa faltered.
Chapter 15 verse 19 is a
pivotal point in the history of king
Asa.
Verse 15 says: "There
was no more war until the thirty-fifth year
of Asa's reign."
"No more war...
until."
What happened,
therefore, in the 35th year of Asa's reign?
The answer is that King
Asa ceased to trust in the Lord his God.
And this should be a
reminder to us that walking by faith in God
is something we need to
do every day. It is not something that we
learn once, and then we
do forever. It is possible to slip away
from that trust in God,
and to lose our first blessing.
We need to commit to God
every day of our lives. That is one of
the reasons why our
daily personal devotions are so important.
A victory of faith today
does not mean a victory of faith
tomorrow.
The peace and power of
trust in God today does not mean peace and
power tomorrow if we
slip away from the Lord -- which is quite
possible.
*
* * * * * * * * *
In the thirty-fifth year
of King Asa's reign, Asa now faces
another challenge.
It is not nearly on the
scale as when Zerah the Cushite marched
against him with one
million men. In this case -- in chapter 16
verse 1 -- the king of
the north -- Baasha is his name -- blockades
the routes in and out of
the northern border of Asa's kingdom.
It is not war -- but it
is a dangerous development. When people
start sealing off your
borders, you have reason to be concerned.
*
* * * * * * * * *
Now what did king Asa do
in this situation?
How did he respond?
Did he say, as he said
at first: "Lord, there is no one like You
to help? Help us, O Lord
our God, for we rely on You?"
Did he hand it over to
the Lord in prayer, and say: "Lord, I wait
upon Your answer to this
situation?" Did he wait for the Lord to
open up a way?
Well this time round, we
find Asa didn't even think of God. And
no doubt Asa's faith in
God by this time had already waned -- and
therefore God sent king
Baasha from the north to test him, and to
trouble him.
Let us see what King Asa
did -- it is in chapter 16 from verse 2:
"Asa then took the
silver and gold out of the treasuries of the
Lord's temple, and of
his own palace, and sent it to Ben-Hadad
king of Aram, who was
ruling in Damascus -- that is on the far
side of his enemy's
territory. and he said: "Let there be a
treaty between you and
me, as there was between my father and
your father. See, I am
sending you silver and gold. Now break
your treaty with
Baasha... so he will withdraw from me."
And we read, in verse 4:
"Ben-Hadad agreed with King Asa," and so
on.
And King Ben-Hadad of
the north troubled King Baasha on his
northern border, and
Baasha abandoned his blockade against King
Asa.
*
* * * * * * * *
Now the world might say:
"Wasn't this the obvious thing for Asa
to do? Wasn't it
politically obvious -- to avoid a declaration of
war -- to enter into a
treaty -- to buy peace with gold and silver?
And to do, in fact,
something that had worked once before?"
But the Bible says this
was the beginning of Asa's failure --
because Asa did
everything but rely on the Lord his God.
And indeed, this scheme
worked at first, and King Asa gained a
breather -- but then the
prophet Hanani appeared to King Asa -- the
prophets always knew
when to appear at just the wrong time for a
king -- and he said to
King Asa: "Don't you remember Zerah the
Cushite? He had a mighty
army with great numbers of chariots and
horsemen. Yet when you
relied on the Lord, He delivered them into
your hand."
And the prophet Hanani
says in verse 7 -- let look at chapter 16
verse 7 -- two lines
into the verse: "Because you relied on the
king of Aram, and not on
the Lord your God, the king of Aram has
escaped from your hand"
-- and then at the bottom of that small
section, in verse 9:
"You have done a foolish thing, O King, and
from now on you will be
at war."
King Asa reacts to this
with rage, and he throws God's faithful
prophet into prison.
And this shows us that he did not humble
himself again before the
Lord.
And with these words of
the prophet, the Lord brought to an end a
time of peace and
stability. From then on, things began to go
wrong.
*
* * * * * * * * *
Now this is a powerful
lesson for us today as Christian
believers. It is
written for our instruction today.
The Bible says that "all
Scripture is useful for teaching,
rebuking, correcting,
and training in righteousness". (2 Timothy
3:16).
Do you trust in the
power of Almighty God today?
When you have problems
and troubles, do you hand them over to the
Lord -- do you abandon
yourself to God, and say: "Lord, I rely on
You now? I trust in You
to open up a way? I wait upon You? My
hope is in You?"
Or do
you try to engineer a human solution? Do you fret and
scheme, and push and
cajole?
The human solution will
not be blessed.
I know that what I am
saying now must sound like complete
foolishness to someone
who does not believe in the power and love
of God -- the Bible says
that the things of God are foolishness to
the man without the
Spirit -- and the wisdom of the world is
foolishness in the sight
of God. (1 Corinthians 1-3).
But this is at the core
of our Biblical faith. God is Almighty,
and therefore we trust
in God, and we do not trust in man, or
depend on flesh -- but
our confidence is in the Lord.
There are three
important ways that we can trust in God.
*
* * * * * * * * *
Firstly, we can trust in
Him when we are completely powerless.
We have been at the
receiving end of injustice, and there is
nothing we can do. Or
we have worries, and have no practical way
to tackle them. Or, in
some cases, we are worried about others,
and have no real way to
influence the sitaution.
If that sounds like you,
then trust in Him, and wait for Him. Say
as King Asa did: "Lord,
there is no one like You to help. Help
me, O Lord our God, for
I rely on You."
*
* * * * * * * * *
Secondly, we can trust
in God when we could be calling on the arm
of flesh to help us.
There are some
situations in life where people immediately call
up their lawyer -- or
they start rallying all their friends -- or
they call the newspapers
-- or they start throwing their weight
around in various ways.
Some even resort to threats and bullying
and obscene language --
if not worse than that.
Before you start
reaching for all sorts of props like that, go to
the Lord in prayer.
Say: "O Lord, there is no one like You to
help the powerless
against the mighty. I want to trust in You
Lord, to see what You
can do."
That is what God's
people did in the Bible.
Notice, incidentally,
that when King Asa trusted in the Lord, he
didn't send his army
home. But he did understand that any effort
of his own could only be
blessed with the blessing of the Lord.
When we face challenges,
we don't do nothing. We do what is
reasonable -- and then
we leave the victory to the Lord -- we say:
"Lord, take what I
have, and You use that."
You might only have
something small to offer against great odds.
Then pray: "Lord,
You please use what I have to give -- and may
You have all the glory."
*
* * * * * * * * *
And then, thirdly, we
can trust in Almighty God to do His will.
What I mean by this is
that so often people don't want to do
God's will, because they
don't trust the Lord to bless them if
they do. They don't
want to lose by doing honest business. They
don't want to commit to
Biblical marriage -- or to commit to
Biblical tithing.
I was talking to someone
in the vestry this week who was
wrestling with whether
to give himself over to the authorities. I
said: "Ask the Lord
to bless that step, and to be with you."
In such situations also,
we need to say: "I trust in You, Lord. I
shall do what You desire
-- and I shall do it in faith -- I shall
do it abandoning myself
to You, and trusting in You."
*
* * * * * * * * *
In closing this morning,
our text says something very interesting
about the Lord God in
chapter 16 verse 9. It teaches us something
important about God.
Let us look at verse 9:
"For the eyes of the Lord range through
the earth to strengthen
those whose hearts are fully committed to
Him."
The eyes of the Lord
range across every country and city and
home, looking for those
who have dared to put their trust in God
in their situation --
and it is God's purpose to strengthen such
people in their hearts.
In other words, wherever God sees a
glimmer of faith, He
rewards that faith, and He strengthens the
heart of him or her who
exercised such faith.
If your heart needs
strengthening -- as we see here in the text --
then this means that God
strengthens hearts that are weak. He
doesn't require a strong
faith -- He requires some faith -- He
requires some reliance
on Him. He is basically saying here in the
Scriptures: "Try me
out -- and see that I am God."
*
* * * * * * * * *
Now the very first step
to knowing God as God Almighty is to know
Him as your Saviour.
First you must know Him as your personal
Saviour.
If you have not yet
accepted Him as your Saviour -- if you would
like to know how to
start a personal relationship with Him -- I
shall be handing out
this little booklet at the door this morning
which will explain to
you just how.
AMEN.
