Asa's Foolishness
by Pastor Jim Lincoln on July 1, 2007
In one of my Bible's, the heading of chapter 16 of 2 Chronicles is simply Asa's Folly. Asa is an obscure character of the Bible, and it's possible that he was not the first person you thought of when you woke up this morning. However, because we are susceptible to his foolishness, it's good for us to be reminded of his folly so that we can live with wisdom before God and with one another. Also, this is the weekend that we celebrate our national independence. He serves as an example to our nation as well of how not to be.
Asa put his hope in the abilities, skills, and ways of man instead of the wonder, goodness, and greatness of God. He took the means God gives us to get things done and made them the source of his hope. This morning, I want us to consider two reasons this passage gives why Asa was so foolish. Then I want us to think about how we might not repeat his folly.
Asa: A king of Judah.
When David was the king of Israel God gave him peace, unity, and prosperity. His son Solomon also enjoyed peace and prosperity. However, when his son Rehoboam became king, he levied enormous taxes on the twelve tribes. Ten tribes of the north refused to pay the heavy taxes and the people of God became two nations with a northern (Israel) and southern kingdom (Judah). Israel was made up of ten tribes and Judah was made up of two: Judah and Benjamin. When Rehoboam died, his son Abijah became king of Judah and he reigned three years. Asa, his son, became king after him and ruled for forty-one years.
Most of his reign went well. He removed many idol fertility shrines and encouraged the people to worship the Lord and for years the Lord gave Judah peace and prospered her in wonderful ways. But after many years of prosperity and blessing, Asa's heart turned away from the Lord.
In the thirty-sixth year of his reign, Bassha, the king of Israel, decided to lay siege of Judah. Many in Israel tired of worshiping the golden calves and idols in Israel and made the trip south to Jerusalem to worship at Solomon's temple. Many were starting to take up residence in Jerusalem and didn't return to Israel. In an effort to put a stop to this, Bassha built a small fortified city called Ramah, about two hours north of Jerusalem to block anyone from coming into or leaving Jerusalem.
Asa immediately turns to a scheme to get rid of Baasha as we see here in verse two.
"Asa, took silver and gold from the treasures of the house of the Lord and the king's house and sent them to Benhadad, king of Syria, who lived in Damascus..."
What did Asa do after God had so wondrously blessed all those years? He cleaned out all the treasure of the temple in Jerusalem and gave it to the godless king of Syria to attack Israel and force Baasha to leave Ramah and fight his war with Syria. Notice that his plan worked. Verse four says,
"Benhadad listened to Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel, and they conquered Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim, and all the store cities of Naphtali. And when Baasha heard of it, he stopped building Ramah and let his work cease."
Asa then tore down Ramah; Judah is safe; Baasha is humiliated and all is well...so it seems. However, things are never well when we have stopped hoping in the Lord and started hoping in what man can do. When we do, we miss the blessings of His favor and bring unnecessary grief upon ourselves.
Look at the end of v. 7. "Hanani the prophet says to Asa,
"Because you relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you."
Not only would God have protected Asa from Baasha, He would have also given Syria to him as well. But Asa threw that away by trusting in what his money, connections, and his cleverness could do instead of what the Lord could do.
Also, his peaceful life and peace for his country was over. Look at verse nine, "You have done foolishly in this; for from now on you will have wars." It appears that he carried his folly with him to the grave.
"In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet, and his disease became severe, yet even then he did not seek the Lord, but sought help [instead] from physicians."
For thirty-five years God blessed him and his nation with peace and prosperity. However, instead of accepting these blessings as the good gifts of the Lord, Asa gradually came to imagine that the cleverness of his mind, the power of his treasure, and the strength of his alliances were more able than God's help. Beloved the same can happen to us.
When he got sick, his first thoughts were not toward God who created and sustains our bodies. His first thoughts were of doctors and medicines. Trusting God, relying on God, hoping in God, and turning to God were no longer part of his life. Asa had become a nominal believer in God. He was a believer in name only. This is a description of foolishness. Now, the text gives us two reasons why this is such a great folly.
The first reason is that God had proven Himself helpful in the past when Asa put his faith in Him. Verse eight says,
"Were not the Ethiopians and the Libyans a huge army with exceedingly many chariots and horsemen? Yet, because you relied on the Lord, he gave them into your hand."
That episode is recorded in chapter 14:9. Zerah, the Ethiopian, "came out against Asa with an army and a multitude of chariots." And Asa cried out to the Lord,
"O Lord, there is none like You to help. Between the mighty and the weak. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on You and in Your name we have come against this multitude. O Lord, you are our God; let not man prevail against You." (14:11)
God didn't fault him for preparing his army to defend his nation. However, he was praying to God saying that armies aren't the decisive thing. God is! He says, we have an army and we will use this army as the means you have given us. But, Lord we're not trusting in our horses, strength, our weapons or our strategies. Lord our hope is in you!' There's nothing wrong with using the means God provides...Doctors, medicine, armies and strategic plans aren't necessarily wrong. But beloved, relying on them as a source of hope and severing our relationship with God is.
"So the Lord defeated the Ethiopians before Asa and before Judah and the Ethiopians fled." At the end of 15:1 the prophet says, "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." So, Asa and the people tore down the idols in Judah, tore down the Ashera poles, and repaired the temple. Asa even removed his mother as the queen mother of Judah who worshiped the goddess Ashera. Asa and the people renewed the covenant to seek the Lord with all their hearts and all of their souls and the Lord gave them rest.
So, why was it foolishness for Asa to trust in godless Syria, his money, connections, political schemes and in his physicians? It was foolish because God promised him early in his reign that the presence of His wisdom, wonder, and power would be with him if Asa would only trust Him, seek Him, and not forsake Him. And God proved Himself faithful to that promise in Asa's life. God had been amazingly good to him and helped him extravagantly in his battles with Egypt. But now, after thirty-five years of prosperity and peace... seeking the Lord didn't interest Asa anymore. This was foolishness.
The second reason our text says that Asa's decision was foolishness is found in verse 16:9. It is a verse that is worth memorizing. "The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show his might on behalf of those whose heart is blameless toward Him." What does God say about Himself?
Here God's eyes represent what God is looking at and looking for. When He says that God's eyes, "run," he means for us to understand that the Lord is eager to see and eager to respond. When He says that they run throughout the whole earth, He opens up the revelation of His blessing to anyone whose heart is blameless toward Him. And that includes any nation as well. So, here is God's covenant promise to any nation.
It's an amazing promise in its speed, reach, and scope. Look, the eyes of the Lord run. If a man can run a hundred meters in ten seconds, how fast can God run hundred meters? God created the light. How fast does light travel? Light travels at a hundred eighty-six million miles per second. Now, God doesn't have legs and he doesn't literally run. This is anthropomorphic language. He's taking words we know to give us something to relate to. When you call out for God's help how long do you have to wait? Beloved, a blink of the eye would be too long.
This is what He does. It belongs to His very nature. One preacher said that it's not something He does on the weekends. It's not something He does on Sunday mornings in church or in holy places. It's not something He does in Israel or in America. It's not His hobby or after hours recreation. This is what God is doing all the time and everywhere. His eyes are everywhere always, so that He never misses one single opportunity at anytime or anywhere to demonstrate His power on behalf of weak people who rely on Him and not on man. This is why Asa's unbelief was so foolish. He's relying on a broken reed instead of the Rock of Ages! Beloved, that's foolishness.
And what is God's promise in verse nine? He promises to show His might on behalf of those whose hearts are blameless toward Him. How much might can God show? Beloved, there is no limit and no rival to God and His power. Now, notice there is a condition. He promises to search out and reveal His might to "those whose heart is blameless toward Him." In this context a blameless heart is a heart that turns away from confidence in self, money, schemes, connections and strategies, and armies and alliances and turns to the Lord God.
What was Asa's folly? He rejected the God who had helped him in the past when he was weak and helpless against Egypt. He rejected the God who runs to and fro throughout the earth to give strong support to those whose hearts are blameless.
What was Asa's response to the prophet's good words? Asa put Hannani in the stocks in prison. This word stocks literally means to distort the body by binding the hands and feet. Asa hurt the prophet's feet. So, what did God do? God hurt Asa's feet. Asa's feet became diseased. But it still didn't touch his heart. What was Asa's folly? Underneath all of his sins, Asa's folly was his pride. He would not humble himself before the Lord so that the Lord would get the credit for his victories. He wanted a piece of glory that only belongs to God. And as a result, Asa only knew war the rest of his life.
Let me make some applications before we leave this. First, God's Word is always true. And because it's true, God is standing right here, right now ready to show His might to those whose hearts are blameless toward Him. And that is true for any nation as well.
However, this promise is only for those whose hearts are blameless. In the context of Asa, I take the promise to mean relative blamelessness. I say that because we know that Asa was not absolutely blameless and yet God would have still given Syria and Israel into his hands. By blameless here he means trusting God as the source of your wisdom, and the source of your hope. It means that you take all of the means of life, your money, talents, plans, connections, and opportunities and you say, "Lord, all these gifts and opportunities you have given us have come from You. They have a certain power. But, outside of Your will, Your way, and Your blessing they are nothing. Cut off from you we can do nothing. What we desire is Your will and Your way. So, use the stuff - the things - you have blessed us with for Your glory and to accomplish what You want to accomplish with them. Lord, we take all that we have and are and place them in Your hands for Your doing and for your glory. You are great! We are but dust."
I see no reason the promise of v.9 can't apply to any one or any nation. For a nation to be blameless means that it too must pursue righteousness. Proverbs 14:34 says, "Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a disgrace to any people." The Lord hasn't left us in the dark about what unrighteousness looks like. In Rom.1:18, the Word says that the wrath of God is revealed against all unrighteousness and against those who suppress the truth. He then lists what unrighteousness looks like: It shows up like this:
1. Knowing God, yet people don't honor Him as God (21)
2. Knowing that the blessings of life come from God and yet when people don't give thanks to God for what they enjoy, it is unrighteousness (21). Ingratitude is unrighteousness.
When people worship images they have created above God, they are unrighteous (23). When people put the ambitions and appetites of their bodies before God it is unrighteousness. Worshiping the creature above the creator is unrighteousness (25). When people reject and mock the way God has made them in homosexual relations it is unrighteousness (26-27). When people covet what others have it is unrighteousness (29) Malice and gossip is unrighteousness (29). Greed is unrighteousness (29). Envy, murder, and strife are unrighteousness (29). Slander and insolence are unrighteousness. When the people are haughty it is unrighteousness (30). When people are boastful or disobedient to parents, unloving and without mercy (32), beloved, it is unrighteousness. And to approve of such things is unrighteousness (32).
Should we be bold about declaring what is righteous and what isn't? Yes! We must... otherwise we will not know what blamelessness looks like. So, we must be clear about what is righteous and not shrink back from saying it.
Yet, this comes with the terrible warning of Romans two. The moment we point our finger in judgment over those who commit these acts of unrighteousness, we will have at least three fingers pointing right back at us. That is, if you read the whole list. "Therefore you are without excuse, every man of you who passes judgment, for in that you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things." (2:1) And when that happens you will realize that none of us can stand on the moral high ground and say before God that we are righteous and therefore deserve His blessing. David knew this and said, "If Thou O Lord were to mark our iniquities who could stand? [NO ONE] but there is forgiveness with Thee that You may be awesomely worshipped."
So, yes, we must declare that righteousness exalts a nation and we must be clear about what righteousness is. Otherwise the nation will not know its right hand from its left. We can't call the nation or ourselves to repentance unless we know from what to repent. And beloved, the gospel also calls us to say it with compassion as one sinner to another... who have come to know a gracious and merciful God who forgives us with a grace that none of us deserve. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Finally, the foolishness of Asa was the sin of pride. He became too proud to seek or want God's help. I suppose that it got in the way of his own glory. Underneath all the other sins runs the river of pride. So, to say that righteousness exalts a nation is to say that humility exalts a nation.
So, what do we do? Well, we must chose not to be foolish. Let's repent of our sins and receive the Lord's forgiveness and grace. Let's seek Him while it is the day. Let's believe that His promise of verse nine is every bit as true for us as it was for Asa. That God's eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth (right here and right now) to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him."
Let's do what Asa surely knew from God's promise to Solomon. "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land.. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place". If that was true for Solomon could it be less true for us the redeemed of the Lord? Don't be foolish. He, who calls upon the name of the Lord, will be saved. Jesus died in our place to make us absolutely righteous in His eyes and did for us what sinners like us could have never done for ourselves. Be wise...call on Jesus today.