Admonition Podcast

Good afternoon.

If you will, take your Bibles and open them to Second Chronicles.

Second Chronicles chapters fourteen through sixteen we are introduced and given the record
of the king whose name was Asa.

Asa is the great great grandson of King David, the great grandson of Solomon, the grandson
of Rehoboam, King of Judah.

And Asa is one who stands out in Old Testament history because he was one of the few good
kings of Judah.

Now we recognize that that statement is something of significance because Judah did not
have very many good kings, and yet is a stark contrast to the northern kingdom of Israel

that had exactly zero.

Good kings in the northern kingdom of Israel.

But Asa is one who will reign, and he's going to reign for about forty-two years.

He is going to have a long reign in Judah, and a number of significant events are recorded
during his time and his reign in Judah.

Now there is a difference between the record found in Chronicles and the record found in
the book of Kings.

Record is shorter, only just a portion of a chapter, and does not include all the details
that you find in the book of Chronicles, but we're going to examine the record from the

Book of Chronicles for that reason.

Chapter fourteen verse one So Abijah rested with his fathers, and they buried him in the
city of David.

Then Asa his son reigned in his place, in his days the land was quiet for ten years.

Now, something to remember is that Judah had previously followed the Lord.

Back in the days of David, when David was reigning and on the throne, Judah was following
the Lord.

They were worshiping in accordance with the commandments and the law.

They were keeping the things that they were supposed to do, keeping the feasts that they
were supposed to keep.

All of those things were continuing in David's day.

And then after Solomon came to the throne, Solomon continued in the beginning of his reign
to follow after the role of his father David, to follow after his example in both leading

the people and he also built the temple and established and consecrated the temple and the
worship continued under Solomon's reign and Solomon's oversight for a period of time.

But then Solomon began to accumulate great wealth, he began to accumulate great power, he
also began to accumulate many wives.

Through the course of that time Solomon's heart would be pulled away from the Lord by the
wives that he married, because these wives were not Israelites, these were not individuals

who he married out of love, these were contractual agreements and treaties with foreign
kings.

And so Solomon began to build houses for their gods and places for them to worship as we
know he did for the daughter of Pharaoh.

From the time that Rehoboam came to the throne, and during the time that his son Abijah
came to the throne and was reigning, we know that Israel had drifted away from the Lord.

They had drifted away from worshiping God in the appropriate way, and they had begun to
build altars and houses of worship and other things for these idols.

So Asa comes to the throne, and we read in verse two, Asa did what was right and good in
the eyes of the Lord his God.

One of the very first things we read about Asa is that he obeyed the Lord.

Now pause just for a moment and consider the lesson.

What if, if you could think back concerning your life, you could say, you know what?

Easiest way to sum up my life is I did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord.

That would be a successful life.

No matter how it turned out, no matter what your bank account looked like at the end of
your life, no matter

How the circumstances of your life worked out, if you could summarize your life in he did
that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord, then you could describe someone as

being successful in their life.

But notice the text, verse three, we read about some of the things that Asa did.

For he removed the altars of the foreign gods and the high places, and broke down the
sacred pillars, and cut down the wooden images.

He commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers and to observe the law and the
commandment.

He also removed the high places and the incense altars from all the cities of Judah, and
the kingdom was quiet under him.

As Asa comes to the throne, he begins to undo all the things that Solomon and Rehoboam and
his father had done.

He begins to put back into place the things that were right and appropriate.

Appropriate in accordance with the law.

The law had been clear that Israel was not to create a place to worship under every high
place.

They were not to create a place to worship on every mountain.

They were not to create their own places to worship where it was convenient for them.

Rather, they were to acknowledge that the Lord had put his name in Jerusalem, and in
Jerusalem they were supposed to come to worship.

And so Asa begins to tear down all these places of incense offering, all of these altars
that were built in every city in Judah.

But notice verse six he also built fortified cities in Judah, and the land had rest.

He had no wars in those years because the Lord had given him rest.

You can go back to the words of Moses, and you can go back into the promises of the Old
Testament, and you will find that God had told Israel as a whole, if you will walk in my

paths, if you will follow my commandments, if you will do the things that I tell you, if
you will keep my testimony and my covenant covenant, then will I give you peace.

Asa actually believed the Lord.

Asa actually trusted that the Lord would do exactly as he said.

Now you might notice that Asa, while he trusted the Lord, he also built fortified cities.

He considered the time of peace to be a time to prepare for a time when there wasn't
peace.

But he trusted God, and as a result of his trust in God, God delivered peace during his
reign.

Therefore he said to Judah, verse seven, let us build these cities and make walls around
them, and tower gates and bars while the land is yet before us, because we have sought the

Lord our God, we have sought him, and he has given us rest on every side, so they built
and prospered.

And Asa had an army of three hundred thousand from Judah, who carried shields and spears,
and from Benjamin two hundred and eighty thousand men who carried shields.

And drew bows, all these were mighty men of valor.

If you had numbered Asa's army, you would have found half a million people who were just
soldiers in his army.

That doesn't count all of the people who, as we would call it today, did the logistics for
an army of a half a million people.

And yet we're going to find out that while the army is large and while it is significant
in terms of the size of the nation, it's not going to compare to the size of their

enemies.

As you continue down in the text, you find Verse 9 Then Zerah, the Ethiopian, came out
against them with an army of a million men and three hundred chariots, and he came to

Marisha.

So Asa went out against him, and they set the troops in battle array in the valley of
Zaphath uh at Marisha.

And Asa cried out to the Lord his God and said, Lord, it is nothing for you to help,
whether with many or with those who have no power, help us, O Lord our God, for we rest on

you and in your name we go against this multitude, O Lord, you are our God.

God, do not let man prevail against you.

As this army comes forth out of the land of the Ethiopians, it comes forth a million
strong.

You know, I know we've seen battles and we've seen imagery, and if you've ever spent any
time up in Pennsylvania and you've walked the the fields of Gettysburg, to imagine and to

picture there in your mind armies of forty or fifty thousand men arrayed against one
another on those fields.

It's quite a an awesome image to imagine yet to consider.

That wasn't even a tenth of what would have been a raid between the Ethiopians and the
people from Judah.

And as they prepared to do battle, you might have come to mind the words of Jesus as to
when a king is considering whether or not to go to war, and is considering whether or not

he can go to war with 10,000 against an army of 20,000.

Or whether he should first sue for peace.

Here comes this army of over a million with three hundred chariots, which few chariots
make up for quite a few men.

And as they prepare to go to battle, Asa knows he doesn't stand a chance.

With one exception.

That it doesn't matter how many men he has if the Lord is with him.

Asa very much had the mentality of his great-great-grandfather David.

That as long as the Lord was fighting on his side, he didn't really care who was on the
other side.

And so Asa will go to battle against the Ethiopians, and he will pray to the Lord.

And essentially, as you consider that prayer, he will say, You are our God, do not let man

prevail not e not against us, but against you.

Sometimes we should be reminded that when we pray, Your will be done.

You know, Jesus taught his disciples to pray, Your will be done in heaven as it is on
earth, or it uh on earth as it is in heaven.

He also prayed there in the garden, not my will, but thine be done.

And when we pray that the Lord's will be done,

One of the things that we should be doing is looking at our lives and considering whether
or not we're on the right side of the Lord's will.

Because Asa was able to essentially pray, Your will be done, and I'm glad I'm on your
side.

So Asa prayed.

And verse 12: So the Lord struck the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah, and the Ethiopians
fled.

And Asa and the people who were with him pursued them to Gerar.

So the Ethio Ethiopians were overthrown.

They could not recover, for they were broken before the Lord and his army, and they
carried away very much spoil.

Then they defeated all the cities around Girar, for the fear of the Lord came upon them,
and they plundered all the cities.

For there was exceeding much spoil in them.

They also attacked the livestock enclosures and carried off sheep and camels in abundance
and returned to Jerusalem.

You'll notice as you consider the events that transpired, the Ethiopians come up from the
land of Ethiopia.

They come through and they

bring this this fight to Jerusalem and to the land of Judah and when Judah defeats them
they begin to give chase and they not only overcome the Ethiopians, they also overcome the

Philistines who are in the land of Gerar.

And so they didn't just win one battle that day, they won multiple battles against
multiple enemies that day.

And so great plunder comes back with them from the battle.

Verse fifteen Now the Spirit of God came upon Azariah, the son of Obed.

Excuse me, 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.

Just like we mentioned this morning in our lesson, as you consider what Moses said, Moses
told the people of Israel, When you get into the land and you get into the house you

didn't build, and you have the crops that you didn't plant, and the walls that you didn't
build for fortifications, and when you have eaten and when you are full, don't forget the

Lord.

So God sends a messenger out to Asa, to Benjamin, and to Judah to remind them as they come
back from this great victory that the Lord is with you while you are with him.

One of the lessons we learn from Asa and from the land of Judah at this time is that we
choose whether or not to be unified with the Lord.

We choose whether or not we will stay with the Lord, whether we will be on his side and be
unified and a unity with him.

It's not a question of him.

He's not going to move.

He's not going to change.

He's not going to differ from day to day, month to month, year to year.

He's going to be the same.

The question is, where will we be?

So this messenger from the Lord says, 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 has been without the true God, without a teaching priest, and
without law.

But when in their trouble they turned to the Lord God of Israel and sought him, he was
found by them.

And in those times there was no peace to

the one who went out, nor to the one who came in, but great turmoil was on all the
inhabitants of the lands.

So nation was destroyed by nation, and city by city, for God troubled them with every
adversity.

But you be strong, and do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.

God sends out his messenger and tells Asa, and tells the nation,

You carry on the way you've been going.

There was a time when Israel would not follow the Lord, when Israel had gotten rid of all
of their priests that would teach them the truth.

You remember what Paul said to Timothy?

Paul would write to Timothy in Second Timothy chapter four, verses one through two and or
one through five, and would encourage him to preach the word, be instant in season, out of

season, reprove, rebuke rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine, for the time
will come when they will not endure.

Sound doctrine.

But will heap up unto themselves teachers having itching ears.

Paul will tell Timothy, there comes a time where people don't want to hear the truth
anymore.

Well, Israel had gone through a time like that.

Israel had gone through a time where they no longer wanted to hear what the Lord had to
say, so they'd gotten rid of all the priests that would teach.

And they had no prophet, and they had no one who would hold fast to the law of God.

But now they do.

And they are reminded by God to not lose courage, not lose heart while He's on their side.

Verse 8: when Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Oded, the prophet, he took courage
and removed the abominable idols.

From all the land of Judah and Benjamin and in the mountains of Ephraim, and he restored
the altar of the Lord that was before the vestibule of the Lord, and he gathered all Judah

and Benjamin from Ephraim, Manasseh Simeon, for they came over to him in great numbers
from Israel when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.

And we often talk about the divided kingdom, and we often talk about the fact that from
the time of Rehoboam to the time of Jer and Jeroboam to the to that time forward, uh,

because Jeroboam had set up the altars in Dan and Bethel, and because he had built those
altars and told all Israel, listen, you don't need to go to Jerusalem to worship, that

your gods are right here.

That from that point forward the nations were basically divided, except there's an
exclusion to that.

For in the time of Asa

When it was apparent that the Lord was with Judah and the Lord was with the southern
kingdom, in spite of the fact that the northern kingdom of Israel was being led by an evil

king, the people from the north took observation of the situation in the south and they
said, I want to go there.

They had a little bit of some of the migration we've seen in this country.

I'd like to go where the Lord is, because he sure isn't here.

And so they would go over to the land of Judah and they would worship with the land of
Judah and they would worship God in Jerusalem because Asa had begun to remove all of the

false worship.

Now pause for a moment and consider what would happen in this land.

if we were able to convince people to remove false worship.

What a difference it would make in this land that we live in.

But because he had done so, and because he had taken courage, and because he had followed
the admonishment of the Lord, many from Ephraim, from Manasseh, and from Simeon came in

great numbers to worship the Lord in Jerusalem.

So they gathered together at Jerusalem in the third month in the fifteenth year the reign
of Asa, and they offered to the Lord at that time seven hundred bulls.

and seven thousand sheep from the spoil they had brought.

And then they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their
heart and with all their soul.

And whoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel was to be put to death.

Whether small or great, whether man or woman, they took an oath before the Lord with a
loud voice, with shouting and trumpets and ramshorns.

And all Judah rejoiced at the oath,

For they had sworn with all their heart and sought him with all their soul, and he was
found by them, and the Lord gave them rest all around.

They did exactly what Moses had told them to do.

They did exactly what the law had told them to do.

And remember that there was a God in heaven, and that that God was the one who had put
them in this land, and that God could grant them peace.

And so they made a covenant.

Now notice this is not just when the tribe of Judah is present.

This is not just when Judah and Benjamin are present.

This occurs when Judah

Benjamin, Ephraim, Manasseh, and others are present.

And they come together unified and say, we're going to follow the Lord and him only.

And if anyone chooses to do anything different, we're going to bring about the punishment
that the law said to bring about.

So they made the covenant.

Verse sixteen, and he removed Maka, the mother of Asah the king, from being queen mother,
because she had made an obscene image of Asherah, and Asa cut down her obscene image, and

then crushed and burned it by the brook Kidron.

But the high places were not removed from Israel.

Nevertheless the heart of Asa was loyal all his days.

He also brought into the house of God the things that his father had dedicated, and that
he himself had dedicated, silver and gold and utensils, and there was no war until the

thirty-fifth year of the reign of Asa.

Asa comes to the throne and is faithful to God, and is given victory in his tenth year,
and from the tenth year to the thirty-fifth year they have peace in the land.

And if you go back and you read much of the history of Israel, you'll find out that twenty
five years of peace in Israel's quite an accomplishment.

But then we read in chapter sixteen, in the thirty sixth year of the reign of Asa, Besha
King of Israel came up against Judah and built Ramah, and that he might let none go out or

come in to Asa, King of Judah.

Because of the people leaving Israel and going down to Judah, because they were departing
from Israel and going to worship in Jerusalem, the king of Israel eventually has to put a

stop to it.

He can't allow this to continue.

So he goes to build a fortified city to block off access to Jerusalem and to Judah because
of the migration that is taking place.

And notice what we read.

Then Asa brought silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of the Lord and of the
king's house and sent to Ben Hadad, king of Syria, who dwelt in Damascus, saying.

Let there be a treaty between you and me, and there was uh as there was between my father
and your father, see I have sent you silver and gold.

Come, break your treaty with Basha, King of Israel, so that he will withdraw from me.

So Ben Hadad heeded King Asa, and sent captains of his armies against the cities of
Israel.

They attacked Ijon, Dan, Abel, Maim, and all the storage cities of Naphtali.

Now it happened when Basha heard it that he stopped building Ramah and ceased his work.

Then King Asa took all Judah, and they carried away the stones and the timber of Rama,
which Basha had used for building, and with them he built Giba and Mizpah.

And at that time Hanani, the seer, came to Asa, king of Judah, and said to him, Because
you have relied on the king of Syria, and have not relied on the Lord your God, therefore

the army of the king of Syria has escaped from your hand.

Were the Ethiopians?

And the Lubim, not a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen, yet because you
relied on the Lord he delivered them into your hand, for the eyes of the Lord run to and

fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is
loyal to him.

In this you have done foolishly.

Therefore from now on you shall have wars.

The messenger of God comes to Asa.

Asa's now been on the throne for 36 years.

They've had peace for 25 years.

And yet in this occasion, Asa doesn't inquire of the Lord.

Asa doesn't seek the Lord's help in this matter.

Asa decides to follow his own wisdom.

Jeremiah will tell kings that will be descendants of Asa It is not in man's heart to
direct his own steps.

Solomon, Asa's great grandfather, wrote that he we ought to be those who allow the Lord to
direct our paths.

Proverbs chapter three, verses five through seven.

But in this occasion Asa decides to solve this Asa's way.

And God will tell him because he's chosen to do this on his own, he's going to have more
challenges.

You know, the Hebrew writer will point out to the Christians in the book of Hebrews that
chastisement comes from the Lord when we don't do what we ought to do.

When we don't act the way we ought to act, because it is there to correct us, it is there
to build us up, it is there to correct our paths, and while we go through it, we don't

enjoy it.

But it is for our benefit.

And so Asa is going to face a time of war.

And note verse eleven that the acts of Asa, first and last, are indeed written in the book
of the kings of Judah and Israel.

And in the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa became diseased in his feet, and his malady
was severe, yet in his disease he did not seek the Lord but the physicians.

So Asa rested with his fathers.

He died in the forty-first year of his reign.

They buried him in his own tomb which he had made for himself in the city of David, and
they laid him in the bed which was filled with spices and various ingredients prepared in

a mixture of ointments, they made a very great burning for him.

Asa's great time as king, his reign, which is generally speaking lauded and applauded
throughout Scripture, ends on a bit of a sour note, because as Asa aged, Asa's dependence

upon God dwindled.

We need to be reminded some of the lessons from Asa, one of which is that in our older
years we ought to rely on God just as much as in our youth.

Yet sometimes we know that we lack wisdom and understanding in our youth, and sometimes we
forget that when we get older.

But also consider that this statement that's made concerning his feet, that he was
diseased in his feet, yet he did not seek the Lord in this regard, but the physicians.

You know, sometimes when you read a positive statement like that, he didn't do this but
sought the physicians, you're s perhaps supposed to understand that had he just sought the

Lord, the Lord had a solution.

We're reminded in the life of Asa the importance of trusting God, the importance of
trusting Him in insurmountable odds, but also the importance in trusting Him about the

small minutiae of life.

The small things and the large things are the things in which we should trust.

If you're here this afternoon and you're outside the body of Christ, you have the
opportunity to put Christ on, to trust in God's salvation.

To trust in God's deliverance, not from a horde of a million, but rather from sin.

If you're outside the body of Christ, you can enter into that salvation by hearing the
word of God and believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

By repenting of your sins and confessing the name of Christ and being immersed in water
for the remission of your sins.

But as children of God, for those who are his people, we are to be reminded by Asa and
others.

Number one, to trust God when we don't feel like we have a way through.

Number two, to trust God when He says

You set things right, and I'll deliver peace to you.

Number three, to trust God.

When those who have forsaken God in the past come back and repent and desire again to be
restored back to a right relationship with God.

Number four, to trust God when the small difficulties arise, and yet we've perhaps lost
touch.

With needing to trust God the way we did in our youth.

And number six, number five, I've lost track.

To trust God even with the small things.

Now, when we have hardships in this life, we shouldn't be imagining that God's going to
just miraculously take the sore feet away, or to take the disease away, or to take the

vanquishing, vanquish the army, but rather we are to trust that God can handle everything
that we deal with.

And we ought to humbly place it in His hands.

If you're one who has departed from your trust in God, why not repent and come back?

Why not be like those from Ephraim and from Manasseh that returned back to the Lord?

If you have need of the invitation, why not come now?