(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, we're going to be doing kind of more of a Bible study this morning, and we're going to be going through and looking at the life of King Asa. King Asa is a really interesting character in the Bible. He was a good king, and I titled my sermon, The Rise and Fall of King Asa. Now, it sounds kind of harsh, but I just had a hard time coming up with a different title, so I mean, it is what it is, but I don't think King Asa deserves, you know, because it sounds pretty hard to rise and fall. He didn't just end his life disastrously, but he definitely made some mistakes, and at the end of his life, he was doing some things that weren't right, and he ended up not trusting in the Lord as he should have been, but it's not like he was that bad. I mean, overall, he's remembered as being a very good king. He was remembered as doing right. You know, for the vast majority of his life, he was serving the Lord and serving him fervently and righteously, and he did a lot of good things as a king of Judah. So, you know, right off the bat, I want to make sure that I'm clear on that because the title might sound a little bit harsh, but here's the thing, though, is that, you know, any sin is wickedness, and sin has a big impact in repercussion. We're going to end up seeing that a little bit later. I'm going to focus more on the negative parts a little bit later, but I want to focus now on the good things that he did, and hopefully you can gain some encouragement by this because, you know, while he may have been in a position of power, he was in a position of authority, being a king. He was able to institute a few things and do some things that not everybody, you know, has the authority or ability to do, but the thing is that, you know, whatever scope of influence we have or authority we have, it is what it is. We need to set our hearts right to serve the Lord and allow him to guide us and to lead us in whatever capacity that he has for us to be able to serve him, and it just needs to be 100% trusting in God to see you through all of that, and we see that, especially in the beginning of King Asa and the life of King Asa. 2 Chronicles 14, verse number 2, let's start reading there. The Bible says, And Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God, for he took away the altars of the strange gods and the high places and break down the images and cut down the groves and commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers and to do the law and the commandment. Also, he took away out of all the cities of Judah the high places and the images and the kingdom was quiet before him. So, what he's doing is he's getting rid of the idolatry. Now, the reign of King Asa is actually not that far, as far as years ago, after the split of Israel and Judah. So, you remember, after the reign of King Solomon is because he introduced all of this idolatry, right? Because his wives, the strange wives that he married, he married so many wives from all these different places, they turned his heart away from the Lord. He ended up satisfying them by building up these altars under these false gods, right? And there's another example of someone who is a great man of God, did all these great works, and then at the end of his life, ended up kind of ruining a lot of that and causing a lot of problems and causing a lot of sin. And you know, this is another reason why I want to do this study on King Asa, by the way, is because anybody is capable of falling, of sinning, of succumbing to the flesh, of getting themselves into sin, no matter how much good they've done in their life. You know, you can be doing decades of service to the Lord, but nobody is above backsliding, nobody is above falling into sin, and we need to be aware of that all the time and we need to take heed lest you fall, right? Everyone needs to take heed to themselves, everyone needs to maintain a humble and lowly mind and spirit and attitude, not get lifted up with pride to be able to continue serving the Lord with your whole life. And look, serving the Lord with your whole life is important. The more you do, the better your reputation is. The more service you do to God, it just multiplies how much good you can do in your service to God, but you know what, when you fall, when you make a really bad decision, that does a lot of damage. And the more service you've done and the higher of respect and position of people listening to you, that much more damage is going to come when you fall. So it's really important to keep yourself humble and pure and righteous all the way to the end, because you're going to end up causing a lot more damage when you fall. So we need to keep this in mind always, and also not to hold any person up in too high regard than what is proper and appropriate for someone who is serving the Lord. Now obviously we respect those, the Bible says the elder that rules well, he's kind of worthy of double honor and we should honor and respect and give heed to people who are doing a great work but nobody is above sin, no one is above falling short. So this is kind of a warning as well as encouragement as we start to go through what he did here. Now I started to say that King Asa, you had King Solomon ended up bringing judgment upon all of Israel because of his idolatry, so that's when God decided to split the kingdom, to rend most of the kingdom away from the house of David. And instead of getting rid of all of it though because of David, because of David's righteous, because of David's right heart and David's right attitude and God's promise then unto David, he still left that remnant, he still left Judah as that nation to be able to continue the line of the kings of the seed of David. But he ripped apart the majority of the kingdom and Jeroboam the son of Nebat was the one who he chose to become king over Israel and it was Solomon's son Rehoboam who ended up being king over Judah and then you have Abijah and you have Asa. So where we have with Asa here is Asa is getting rid of a lot of the idolatry that's crept in and if you remember also Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he was supposed to be the one to help set right everything else with the vast majority of the kingdom of Israel but because of his fear of people just going back to the house of David and he was fearful that he was going to lose his power and his authority and maybe be killed or whatever that he caused a great sin on the children of Israel by setting up the idolatry in Dan and in Bethel I think, where was the other place, Dan and anyhow doesn't matter for this context. He set up the idolatry and caused the children of Israel sin which put them on a bad course for like almost their entire existence. That snare of the idolatry that he set up continued to plague them throughout the most of the reigns of the kings of Israel. Just to put it in a context where Asa falls in but Asa comes in and he's trying to clean up all that mess. He's cleaning up the mess of Solomon, he's cleaning up that mess and he's seeking the Lord God of the fathers to do the law and the commandment and verse number 15 says, we read that, verse 15 says, also he took away out of all the cities, excuse me, verse 5. Man, my eyes aren't seeing straight. Verse 5, also he took away out of all the cities of Judah the high places and the images and the kingdom was quiet before him so as he's getting rid of all this idolatry God blesses him with having no wars, without having all the stress of people invading and attacking and dealing with all these wars. He has a time of peace. Verse number 6 says, and he built fenced cities in Judah for the land had rest and he had no war in those years because the Lord had given him rest. Therefore, he said unto Judah, let us build these cities and make about them walls and towers, 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. So, what he's doing is he's taking advantage of the time of rest to get his defenses up, to get guarded, to get ready because you know when you're going to continue to serve the Lord there's going to be attacks that come. And what we need to do and one of the things we can learn from this is to take the time of rest when you're not having the battles, when you're not in the heat of things, when you don't have everyone coming at you. Hey, build on your foundation. Build on that foundation of Jesus Christ, your rock and build up and build up your defenses and get solid and get more grounded in your faith and get ready for the attacks that will eventually end up coming your way. And it's wise to take it. Look, our trust is in the Lord but this was a very wise thing that he was doing in building up defenses as well. Of course he's going to trust in God and we're going to see that, that his heart and his attitude, especially in these earlier years, he trusts in God 100%. But it doesn't make it wicked or sinful or wrong to build up the defenses while you're still trusting in the Lord. Right? And let's jump down to verse number 11 there. Because the war comes, actually let's just keep reading here. Verse number 8, it says, and Asa had an army of men that bear targets and spears out of Judah 300,000 and out of Benjamin that bear shields and drew bows 204,000. All these were mighty men of valor. So he kind of builds up this defense and this army. Verse 9 says, and there came out against them zero the Ethiopian with an host of a thousand thousand. So you see the difference here. He built up this army of 280,000 men. Right? That's a lot of people, a quarter million. But there came up against them this Ethiopian with a host of a thousand thousand. It's a million people. So there are numbered four to one. That's a very significant difference in forces. Right? If you have an army that has four times the amount of people that you have, that's a big deal. And 300 chariots and it says they came under Marisha. Verse 10, then Asa went out against him and they set the battle on array in the valley of Zephath at Marisha. And Asa cried unto the Lord his God and said, Lord, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many or with them that have no power. Help us. So where is his trust? And you know, he's relying on the Lord. But he also goes out to the battle though. He's prepared. He said, you know, this is the best prepared that we can be. This is what we've got. We've got 280,000 people. We've built up our defenses and we've done what we can do. God, we're completely relying on you. We need you to help us. And we know that you can win this battle and that you could get this victory. Whether it's many, whether it's few, whether we had two million, whether we had 250,000, we know that you can help us and get through this battle. And you see that total faith and trust in God. And you know what? God likes to see that. And God loves to work with people that have that faith, that are just willing against all odds. Against all the odds of the world saying, you know what? They've got four times the amount of troops we have, but you know what? I'm still going to fight and we're going to trust in God that God's going to see us through this. God will figure out a way for this battle to be won. We're here. We're ready to fight. The heathen, the enemy has come and attacked us and we're going to stand. And we're going to trust in God to fight our battles for us. The Bible says, continue reading there in verse number 11, it says, whether with many or with them that have no power, help us, O Lord our God, for we rest on thee and in thy name we go against this multitude, O Lord. Thou art our God. Let not man prevail against thee. So the Lord smote the, excuse me, the Ethiopians before Asa and before Judah and the Ethiopians fled. So God brings that victory. It's a great victory. Let's jump down to chapter number 15. Verse number 1, the Bible reads, And the Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded. And he went out to meet Asa and said unto him, Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin, and the Lord is with you, while ye be with him. And if ye seek him, he will be found of you. But if ye forsake him, he will forsake you. And this is important that we, you know, there's three chapters that we're looking at, chapter 14, 15, and 16 about the whole reign of King Asa and his life and all the details, all the verses that are included here are important to paint the whole picture, right? To get the full understanding. We see Asa being warned early on. He's got that great victory and now God sends a prophet. The Spirit of God comes upon Azariah, right? The son of Oded. We don't know much about him, but here he comes and he has a message from the Lord. He says, you know what? God's with you. As long as you be with him. Stay serving God. Stay down this path. If you seek him, he's going to, you'll find him. You know, he's there for you. He wants to help you. But if you forsake him, he's going to forsake you. Now, I've taught on this in the past. It's worth mentioning every time we kind of deal with verses like this. This isn't talking about your soul's salvation. This isn't talking about your soul being saved from hell. Okay, work salvation crowd like to take verses like this and yank them out of context. This is talking about his nation. This is talking about the physical protection from the Lord, you know, and fighting those physical battles on the earth when these people come against you that he's going to be with you. And if you turn your back on him, he's going to forsake you. This isn't talking about your soul being redeemed from hell. It's not in the context of this at all. Because once you put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, he saved you. He's redeemed you forever. He gives you eternal life. Eternal means forever. You can't lose that. Okay, it has nothing to do with your works. It has nothing to do with how well you serve the God and your righteousness. It has to do with whether or not you've trusted the perfect one, the just one who came and paid for your sins and died on the cross and rose again. That's all it's based on. This has to do with your earthly protection. This has to do with the nation serving the Lord. And this king said, hey, you know what, and you know what, not just a king or nation, but if you in your life, you know, forsake God as a saved person, yes, you can do it. And we see evidence of this all throughout scripture of good men of God. People do great things that are used of God, like Solomon, end up doing bad, wicked things. And it doesn't make them unsaved. It doesn't mean, oh, see, they were never saved to begin with. No, of course they were saved. But they still have the flesh. And they still could do sinful things. And here's the thing, God could be blessing you and protecting you, but when you forsake him, he's going to forsake you. And these are the verses that people don't seem to comprehend, especially in the New Testament. You know, the Catholics get this way wrong because they look at that going, oh, well, you could lose your salvation or you got to do something, you know, you got to do some works to keep your salvation. And it's not talking about your soul being saved from hell. It's talking about your physically being saved here on earth, right? Being saved from evil, being saved from people who would harm you. And that's an important truth that is found over and over again in scripture. You know what? Stay true to the Lord. Stay faithful throughout your life because otherwise bad things, and this is the warning that he gets and he gets this early on, right? Verse three says, now for a long season, he's continuing to preach unto Asa here. Now for a long season, Israel hath been without the true God, because they had all the idolatry set up, and without a teaching priest and without law. And this is, you know, back in the Old Testament, even the priest's job was more than just to offer up sacrifice and go through motions. They were supposed to be teaching out of the law of God. They were supposed to be teaching the Levitical laws and teaching the law of Moses and teaching people wisdom and understanding, and that wasn't going on. And there's a lot of problems as a result of that, and you know what? That job continues today. You need to have, you need to be going to a church where you can have a pastor or a teacher teaching the word of God and going through and explaining and expounding and teaching the law and teaching God, and teaching the word of God, and not just patting you on the back every week. This is what we all need. Verse number four, but when they in their trouble did turn unto the Lord God of Israel and sought him, he was found of them. And in those times there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in, but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the countries. So when they didn't have God, when there was nobody teaching them, they were left in turmoil. They were left in having no certainty. They had left with no security. He said, those that went out and came in, this is always a reference, those that go out and come in, to kings like going out in battle and going out and leading the people out, there was no safety, because safety is of the Lord. And when you don't have the Lord and we're not trusting in God, hey, it's a really dangerous world out there. There's all kinds of bad things that happen, and you have no security, you just have a bunch of vexations. Verse six, and nation was destroyed of nation and city of city, for God did vex them with all adversity. God does these things, why? Because he wants you to return to him. He wanted his people to come back to him. He wanted them to start trusting in the Lord again and realizing the folly of their way and going, man, maybe we should get rid of these dumb idols. Maybe we should get rid of these dumb gods. They're not doing anything for us. In fact, they're just bringing a curse on us. Let's go back to serving the Lord. Verse seven, be ye strong, therefore, and let not your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded. And again, we're kind of looking at a scope of a Christian life here. That's how we're applying King Asa's life to ourselves today. We need to be strong, and you need to stay strong through the whole thing. You're gonna have ups and downs for sure, but you need to stay strong and not lose that faith and that trust. Right now, we've got a whole church full of people who are zealous, who love the Lord, who want to serve God, and are sold out to doing so, and amen. But I want to see that continue on. I mean, we've only been here for a very short period of time, and we've already seen people come and go, I need, you know, you need to decide for yourself, I'm gonna stay through this all the way unto the end. So you could be like the Apostle Paul who says, hey, I've kept the faith. Right? I know that there's laid up for me, you know, these rewards and treasures in heaven because I've run the course, I fought the good fight, I've kept the faith, you know, I've done it. I haven't backed down. In all my adversity, I sought the Lord, and the Lord delivered me out of them all. That's the example we want to follow, and whenever we see men of God following that example, we see God coming through time and time again, which he just did with Asa here. On number four to one, what does he do? He delivers them. And we're gonna see a little bit later when he ends up forsaking the Lord, and then what happens as a result of that. Verse number eight, and when Asa heard these words in the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he took courage. And I also want to make note of this, too. When he's right with God, when his heart is right, and he hears this warning and he hears this preaching, you know what it does? It's an encouragement. It helps him. And he's receiving all of this well. He's not too lofty, he's not too proud. When he's being admonished here about, you know, hey, seek the Lord while he's with you. This is great. He loves hearing this. Asa heard these words in the prophecy of Oded, he took courage and put away the abominable idols out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin and out of the cities which he had taken from Mount Ephraim and renewed the altar of the Lord that was before the porch of the Lord. Let's jump down to verse number 12. And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their hearts and with all their souls. So now he's leading this people to all have this revival of turning back to God. And we're going to see, you know, what the vow that they make here is more than what, you know, the Bible commands. So just be aware of that. That, you know, this is what they do. It's not always what God commands to do. Right? So but they've made this decision to make this vow. And what we see here, though, is their zeal and their fervor to serve God by making this vow. So look at what it says here. Verse 13 says that whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. Now I disagree with that because God didn't say that if you don't seek the Lord, you're going to be put to death. Now he did say if you go after these other gods and try to proselytize and bring these other gods, you know, that is the death penalty. And that's what the law of the Lord stated. Okay. And that is righteous. But when you start adding capital crimes on top of what the Bible said, I don't think I don't think that's the right way to go about doing it. Okay, but it is what it is. We see at least their hearts here of how much they really just want to cling and cleave unto the Lord. Right? This is where their heart is at. This is what they're trying to do. It says in verse 14 and they swear unto the Lord with a loud voice and was shouting with trumpets and with cornets and all Judah rejoiced at the oath for they had sworn with all their hearts and sought him with their whole desire and he was found of them and the Lord gave them rest round about. So we see that here. It wasn't just lip service. They weren't just saying, Oh yeah, we're going to make this proclamation is already. No, they meant it. I mean, they truly and sincerely were trying to seek the Lord and God bless them and God was found of them because they had that righteous heart and that right attitude to serve God. And were they doing everything perfect? No, but you know what? Their heart was right. And God looks on that heart and is going to bless them and keep them for doing their best to be in line with what he wants them to do. Verse 16 and also concerning Mayaca, the mother of Asa, the king, he removed her from being queen because she made had made an idol in a grove and Asa cut down her idol and stamped it and burnt it at the brook Caidron. So we see also the, you know, Asa's heart being right. He's not a respecter of persons even within his own family. Now it says here his mother, but it's probably his grandmother. And I'm not going to get into all the details of that, but you see also that Mayaca is also being listed as the mother of Abijah, which is Asa's dad, right? So many times in scripture when it's talking about relations with kin, with kindred, that, you know, people, the Bible refers to David being their father David, their father David, right? He's not their direct father. He's just in their lineage. And it's the same thing here with the mother, right? But just, but regardless, right? Whether it's grandmother or mother, which, you know, it's a grandmother, but he's not, and probably even more so maybe with the grandma, you say, you know what? You're not going to be queen. Now should she have ever been queen to begin with? No. Did God say that there's going to be a king and a queen to rule and reign? No. God didn't even want there to be a king, but they chose, they wanted to have a king, so God gave them a king. He gave them rules for a king. You know, he didn't give him any rules for a queen. There's only no queen in charge at all. And this wasn't just a title because he had to remove her from that office, from being a queen. Like he had to do that. So even when his family members were doing wicked and wrong, you know, his heart was right with God and he said, you know what? I'm going to do this. And you better believe that was a big deal for him to do that, not just within his family, but also just in the kingdom. I mean, he's, here's someone who was his grandmother who had been in this position of power throughout two kings, at least, that we can see through his father Abijah and then through Asa also. And he's saying, you know what? You're in this idolatry. You're not a queen. And he put that away and did what was right and he did it with a pure heart because he's serving God and not caring what the ramifications are with men. He's doing what's right in the eyes of the Lord. So we continue to see that, this service to God. Verse number 17, it says, but the high places were not taken away out of Israel. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was perfect all his days. And this is again, we see these statements. God looks at Asa as being a righteous guy, right? We're going to see where he falls and has that sin because we don't want to do the same thing. We want to guard ourselves from that. And it is wrong and it was wicked what he did. But overall, when God looks at the lifespan, he's saying, you know what? Asa served me with a good heart and that's how he's remembered. Verse 18, and he brought into the house of God the things that his father had dedicated and that he himself had dedicated silver and gold and vessels and there was no more war unto the five and 30th year of the reign of Asa. So he's serving the Lord. He's doing this. This is all the good things that he's done. Oh, and one more thing. I forgot to, I didn't put it in my notes, but in first Kings chapter 14 is kind of a pair, you know, in Kings and Chronicles you get a lot of overlap. You get a lot of the same stories. The first second Kings has the account and then for second Chronicles also gives you a lot of different information over the same time period of the reign here. And it's not listed in second Chronicles when we're looking at Asa. Maybe it's chapter 15. Yeah, it's chapter 15. Verse 11, and I've gone over this before recently, but I mean, I don't want to miss an opportunity to touch on the righteousness of Asa and how God just, I mean, how much have we been seeing how God is just happy and pleased and sends the prophets saying, hey, you know what? The Lord's with you. God's blessing all that you're doing. Verse number 11 here in first Kings 15, the Bible says, and Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord as did David his father. And he took away the sodomites out of the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. He was righteous and he took away the sodomites out of the land. He said, they have no business here. Hey, we're trying to serve the Lord. This is going to be a righteous nation. We're going to serve God. So you know what? We need to get these sodomites out of land. We can't have these children of Belial here while we're trying to serve God. They need to go. Get them out. Eradicate them. Gone. He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. Just saying, for those of you that don't read your Bibles and you want to know what God thinks about homosexuality, that's what sodomites talking about. If you're not familiar with that term sodomite, maybe you've heard of the place that God destroyed with fire and brimstone out of heaven called Sodom, where the word is derived from. That's how God feels about it and it hasn't changed. But that's not what this sermon is about. Let's go to chapter 16, 2 Chronicles, chapter 16. Now this is where we're going to see... some of the problem with Asa and it's later on in his life, later on in his reign. Early on he's fighting against this Ethiopian army, right? Just as total heathen army comes against him and he seeks the Lord, God delivers him, outnumbered tremendously. Asa's been doing a lot of good, getting rid of idolatry, serving the Lord and now it says here in verse number one, in the sixth and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah. So now he's been reigning for thirty-six years. It's a long time. I mean decades, right? So he's later on in his life and he's facing a new threat. Now this threat is from Baasha king of Israel. So it's a little bit closer to home, right? It's not coming from Ethiopia, it's coming from really close, from their neighbor, from Israel, from their brethren essentially. Now they were doing wickedly. Baasha's a wicked king. He was not doing that which was right in the eyes of the Lord. But Asa comes against Judah, they built Ramah to the intent he might let none go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. So what they're trying to do is lay siege to the city, right? They're trying to not allow any supplies, anything to come in and out. It says in verse two, then Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures of the house of the Lord and of the king's house and sent to Ben-Hadad king of Syria that dwelt at Damascus saying, there is a league between me and thee as there was between my father and thy father. Behold, I have sent thee silver and gold. Go break thy league with Baasha king of Israel that he may depart from me. So now his response to this threat, to Baasha, nowhere does it say he goes and seeks the Lord. Nowhere does it say, Lord, help us. We need your help. We need you to fight our battles for us. We've got, you know, this wicked king coming against us. He doesn't do that. What does he do instead? He turns to the heathen. He turns to the king of Syria saying, oh, you know, and now instead of thinking about it as saying, we just need to trust in God, God can help us by many or by few because that's the way he trusted in him with that first battle. Now he's saying, oh, I need to figure out how I can defeat them. And he's caught up in dealing with it the way that the world deals with problems. And this is his downfall because he's not seeking God. And notice when he was right with God, he's building up the house of the Lord. He's bringing dedicated things in. He's donating the silver and the gold and making all this stuff for the house of God. And now when his heart is turned away from serving the Lord, what's he doing? He's taking away from that. And he's actually taking the money, well, the silver and the gold, right, the precious things that he dedicated unto God and now saying, oh, no, God, I need these back for protection. I mean, what a slap in the face to God. You've dedicated these things to the Lord and now you're saying, nope, I need help now, so I'm going to go pay this heathen to break their treaty with Baashas so they can help me so I don't have to be troubled by the King of Israel. That's wicked. That's wrong. And what that is, is it's a lack of faith. He lost his faith and trust in God to see them through. Now, it works for the short term here. This works, right? His threat with Baasha, it goes away. But there's a repercussion for doing wrong, for not doing what's right. And we need to remember that, you know, you may find a quick, easy way to deal with something outside of going to God and it may work in the short term, but you know what? The problem is with the long term. The problem is the repercussions of your sin and going against, you know, having faith in the Lord. The Bible says, whatsoever is not a faith is sin. Verse number 7, jump down to verse number 7 there in 2 Chronicles 16. And at that time, Hanani, the seer, came to Asa king of Judah and said unto him, because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the king of Judah, and said unto him, because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand. So, Syria is not like, they had a league with them, they had a pact, they had a disagreement, but they're not going to be friends forever and they're going to turn on them as well. And he says, you know what? Now, they're escaped from you. I'm not going to deliver them into your hand when they fight against you. And he sends this prophet, let's just keep going, verse number 8, he rebukes him further, were not the Ethiopians and Lubims a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen, yet because thou didst rely on the Lord, he delivered them into thine hand. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Amen and amen. If you want to take encouragement in anything, you want to memorize a passage, memorize this verse. The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth. God's looking for somebody. God's seeking back and forth. He's looking to find himself to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. God is just waiting to use someone to do work, to do righteousness, to use, to be his workman. And you know what? That someone could be anyone. You don't have to be a king. God's able to lift up people from the most humblest of beginnings and lift them up to do great things. What about King Saul? He was meek, he was humble, he was of the least of the tribes, of the tribe of Benjamin. You know, he's just like, who am I? Who is my family in all the house of Israel? I come from nothing. But God liked his heart, God liked his humility, and God chose to raise him up. Now, there's another example of someone who did a lot of wicked things after he'd done a lot of righteous things and served the Lord, and again someone who didn't have all of his trust in God. Because what happened with King Saul? Well, he decided to take matters in his own hands when Samuel didn't show up and decided he needed to offer the sacrifice, and he's the one who needs to do all this stuff. Instead of just trusting in God's word and God's ways and just letting it play out, and doing what he's supposed to do, instead of usurping other authority and doing things that he's commanded not to do, and then going and seeking the witch and everything. He did a lot of things, and he ended up having priests put to death, too. I mean, that's extremely wicked things. And that's what happens, though, when your heart turns from serving God and turns from trusting in God. You just go down and down and down and end up doing things that you would never think that you would have been capable of doing previously. I mean, when Saul was in his early days of being a king, and he was prophesying, and they were thinking, like, wow, is Saul also of the prophets? And the Spirit of God was coming on him, and he was doing these great things and getting these great victories. He would have never thought he would have ended up in the place where he was, ending up killing himself with his sons being killed in battle and just being degraded as low as he did because he was stubborn and rebellious and lifted up in his own pride. But God is looking for anyone to be able to show himself strong. And you say, well, I don't have much. I don't have anything really to offer. Well, that's going to show God's strength that much more. When you don't have anything, he likes lifting up people and using you, but you have to have that heart. You have to have that perfect heart to say, I'm willing to be used of you, Lord. I'm willing to give up everything to serve you. I'm willing to give it all up. I just want to be used of you. And that has to be in your heart. That has to be sincere. That has to be something that sounds good to other people. It doesn't have to be something you say because you know you should say it or you know that's what it should be because you really mean it. That's who he's looking for. Now look at Asa's reaction. Remember the first time when he was right with God, when he was serving the Lord, when his heart was right, when he was faithful and that preacher came to him and told him, hey, God's here. He's with you. Seek him and you'll find him. You know, but if you forsake him, he's going to forsake you. And he was encouraged and he was lifted up. He said, yeah, great. This is awesome. And they're going to serve God fervently. Now he's being rebuked. Now he's being told, hey, you're wrong. Why did you go to the heathen instead of going to God? Now you're just going to continue to have these wars. Look at the reaction of Asa in verse 10. Then Asa was wroth with the seer, meaning a lot of wrath, and put him in a prison house for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time. Asa was a saved man. Asa was a good man of God. Okay. And I want to, we just need to, to let this sink in of what even people who do great things are capable of doing then when you start to lose your faith in the Lord and you start backsliding and just, and just doing things your way and starting to get maybe lifted up in some pride and not following God's path and following God's way. It causes a lot of other problems when you're walking in your flesh. It just brings a lot more problems out to where here he's doing, you know, instead of being encouraged, instead of humbling himself and going, you know what? You're right. God's right. I was wrong. I shouldn't have gone to the heathen. I shouldn't have gone to Syria to help me in my battle. I should have just gone to God like I did before because he delivered me then. There's no reason he won't deliver me now. Instead of doing all that, he gets angry and he says, you know what? You're going to prison. Now, this prophet, he's just doing what God commanded him to do. He's trying to help him here because Asa could have been helped. All he had to do was humble his heart and say, you know what? You're right. Because if you think about it, all he was trying to do as king was defend Judah, right? He's trying to defend his country. He was trying to do what's right but he didn't do it the right way. And I think God would have showed a lot of mercy. I know God would have shown a lot of mercy and forgiveness which is why he was even sending his prophet to begin with if he would have just humbled himself and said, you know what? You're right. You know, pray that God will just have mercy on me for not doing what's right and we're going to move forward serving the Lord as we had stated before. But that's not what he did. Instead, because his heart was kind of hardened and he was stuck in this stubbornness and rebellion, that he does the exact opposite and he ends up being in this rage and it says Asa oppressed some of the people at the same time. And when people start getting into sin, that's where oppression comes too. He's starting to oppress people because he's lifted up in himself. I mean, no one's going to oppress and put other people down unless you think more highly of yourself than you ought to. Pride entered into the heart of Asa to where he thought I don't need God anymore. I can handle this. Oh, Bash is coming against me. Oh, hey, look, here's some money in the house of the Lord. I'll just use some of that. I'll take some of that money. Here we go. And we'll just pay off this guy and he'll just deal with this problem. And it's a lot easier than me having to face the fight. I'll just hire these other people to take care of the problem for me and oh, look, I'll just take this money that's sitting around. What is God needed for anyways here? He's lifted up in pride. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 4.13, better is a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king who will no more be admonished. You know, it's better just to be this poor kid, right? It doesn't have much of anything than to be a king having everything but being old and foolish and you're not able to accept correction. You're not able to be admonished. And that's where Asa ended up not being able to be corrected. We need to seek the Lord in all things of our life. And you know what? When you allow yourself to be lifted up with pride, that also will affect all areas of your life as well. It will negatively impact every area, not just your church, not just your service to the Lord, but every area of your life. Let's keep reading here. Verse number 11, the Bible says, and behold, the acts of Asa first and last, though they were written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel, and Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet until his disease was exceeding great, yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord but to the physicians. So not even just in this battle, not just when he's confronted with the enemy, you know, he's not trusting the Lord, but even now his own self, he gets his disease and does he go and seek to the Lord? No. He's still just seeking to man. The arm of flesh will fail you. And that's what he's trusting in. Unfortunately, after all this time, all these decades, all this great work, all the service to the Lord that he'd done, and near the end of his life, near the end of his reign, he's getting involved in just losing that faith and that confidence. David, turn around and pay attention. And, you know, as a side note, when we have problems, any problems, physical ailment problems, there's nothing that God can't help you with. Don't think, oh, yeah, yeah, I go to church for all my spiritual problems, things like that, but, you know, when I get sick, I'm just going to go to the doctor. Look, seek the Lord first. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with going to see a doctor, so don't take this and twist it out of context, what I'm saying. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with seeking other people to help you, but you know what? The first place to go to is the Lord. And really and ultimately our trust should always be in God. Always, to see us through. It's the same way that it's not a lack of faith to build up the defenses and be prepared for war and get ready like Asa was doing early on in his years. He was still trusting in God. When the battle came, he trusted in the Lord. Similarly, you know, with your health, we're going to go and seek God. God, I need your help. God, I've got cancer. God, I've got this. God, I've got this problem. I've got this, this problem with my health, Lord. I need you to help me. Please heal me. You're the great healer. I'm trusting in you, Lord. Please help me. And in the meantime, there's nothing wrong with seeing, well, what can I do to help? What things can I do to help my body or whatever? But you're trusting in God. And you're going to seek the wisdom and counsel of how to deal with things from the Lord and trust in God to be able to heal you. But you know what? When you're already not serving him, not doing things, it's a lot easier to lose that faith and that confidence in the Lord because you're going to be thinking, well, why is God going to help me now? And this is the trap that people in their minds can get themselves into when you start to backslide. And pay attention to this. Everybody is susceptible to backsliding. And it'll happen to every one of you at some point in your life. Remember this admonition. When you start to backslide, don't trick yourself into thinking, well, now you might as well just give up. Now I'm just going to harden my heart and just keep going this direction because I've already screwed things up. I've already done wrong. So I'm just going to keep on doing wrong. And I've been out of church for so long and I'm just going to keep on being out of church and I'm just going to keep on doing what I'm doing. And you know, woe is me, too bad, whatever, and having a bad attitude and a bad heart. That is the wrong, wrong thing to do. Just wherever, when you make that realization, when you hear the admonition, when you know, man, I'm not doing it, humble yourself. Confess and forsake and go to the Lord and say, God, I'm sorry, but now I'm going to do what's right. And the earlier you can catch your backsliding, the easier it will be. But don't fool yourself into thinking that now I just can't go to church. What are people going to think? I've been out for so long. And you know, if there's anyone who listens to this online, who's been coming to our church for a while and just hasn't been here for a long time, come back. Don't worry about what we're going to think, because when we see you, we're going to be happy to see you. So you're going to bring joy. We're not going to be looking down our noses going, oh, now you're coming back to church. Don't let that thought get in your head. We're going to be happy to see you. That doesn't apply to those of you who have been kicked out. For the wicked reprobate that is not allowed in the church. Everyone else though, if you've been coming here, you just kind of stopped coming to church or whatever. We want to see you. We want you to come back. We love you. And you know, whatever you've done, just get yourself right with God in your heart and come back to church. Because this is the pillar and ground of the truth. It's in the house of God. This is where you need to be. Okay? Humble yourself and get right. It's going to start, you're going to have to, you may have to, you know, you've slipped back and you've got to start moving forward again. Start moving forward. Don't let that dictate the rest of your life. God can still use you. If you're still alive, He can still use you. You're saved. You've got the Spirit of God. Get back in. Don't allow any of that backsliding to just pull you out and keep you out of the fight. But it's up to you. Just remember that. Okay? Asa allowed this stubbornness and this rebellion and this pride to kill him. Because he got this disease in his feet. And it ended up taking his life. He should have just sought the Lord. Like, okay, God's trying to deal with him. And he's plagued. Seek God. And you know, when you're backsliding, you're going to start to notice there's going to be a lot of things that stop working out for you. And you're going to have more and more discomfort. And discomfort may not be the right word. Because even living righteously, you may not be comfortable all the time. You're not going to have the love, joy, peace, etc. by walking in the Spirit when you're backsliding and walking in your flesh. You're not going to be comfortable either way all the time. But at least when you're right with God, you have peace. You may be uncomfortable because there's other things going on, but you have peace. You know you're doing what's right. And you can be encouraged. And you can have joy. You can still be happy. Yes, being uncomfortable, you can still have joy. But you know what? When you're in the flesh, you are not going to have that joy. You're going to be miserable. You're going to have a bad attitude. You're going to have a bad spirit. And life is not going to be pleasant for you at all. Take heed to what God is doing in your life if He's trying to get your attention. And listen to Him. Don't be obstinate. Don't just be stubborn and say, no, I'm just going to... Look, that's what Asa did. Unfortunately, for such a great reign, for such all the great things he did, just a little bit more, Asa. Just keep that faith. Maintain it in the end. And it could have been way better for him. Now look, he was a great man of God, did a lot of great things. We're going over this not to slam Asa, but to learn from his mistake, to learn from what pride can do, even to someone who's serving the Lord. And the way to keep pride at bay is to keep yourself humble. And it's easier and easier and easier to fall into the trap of pride with the greater work that you do, with the more that's being done. It's just, it's easier to do because you're going to start thinking more of yourself, even if God's using you greatly. The Apostle Paul said that the Lord had sent a messenger of Satan to buffet him, lest he should be lifted up with pride. Because he's been being used of God so much. He's got the word of God being delivered. I mean, look at the New Testament, how many of the epistles are Paul. He's been used mightily. He's going out and starting all these churches and preaching the gospel and seeing so many people saved. And it's being used of God mightily. And even him, he's saying, you know what, I need these things to help keep me humble. Because it would be easy to just get lifted up and wrapped up in yourself, oh, how great I am. When you start having that attitude, God's going, well, I don't want to really use you anymore because now you're thinking it's you, when it was never you. It was never you, Saul. It's not because you're head and shoulders above everyone else, physically. It's because I liked your humble spirit. And now you've been given this exaltation and being lifted up in a position. Don't let that get to your head. It's easier for us now to maintain the humility because we're small. We're nobody. We're nothing. I like reading the comments sometimes on the YouTube video. I've got a lot of action on the sermon I preach on John MacArthur, like however long ago that was. But it's just people get so upset about that because he has so many people that listen to him and follow him and stuff. And someone just put like, well, who are you? Who am I? I'm nobody. I'm nobody. And I don't care if I ever have a name on this earth. Doesn't matter. I'm nobody. You know who is someone? God. God's word. That's what it's about. It's not about being self exalted. It's about just doing and having the faith, doing what's right in the eyes of the Lord and following this. And this is where we all need to have our hearts. Just like the children of Israel, the people of Judah did. And they said, you know what? We're going to serve God with all of our hearts. David. Last place we'll turn. Look at 2 Samuel chapter 12. Because this is the right attitude to have. David had the right spirit. David had the right heart. Now was David perfect? No. In fact, from what we can read of Asa and David, David committed much worse sins than Asa did. Asa not having that faith and turning to Syria to help him with that battle, that wasn't good. But he didn't commit adultery and murder either. He still was protecting the people. You can still look at that and say, yeah, he was wrong. He was in sin. He should have just trusted in the Lord. And God tried to correct him and he got disease in his feet. He still didn't turn to God. But he wasn't going out and just harming people. He wasn't going out and killing people. David did. But here's the key difference. We don't see from this point on in 2 Chronicles of God referring to people, well, he did right inside the Lord but not like Asa did. We don't see him being that new standard of righteousness. What we do see is that David continues to be the standard of righteousness but not like David, his father, was. And you see that him being used as kind of a bar of someone who did good, someone who served the Lord with all his heart and did so in the integrity of heart. And yes, he had that serious sin problem that he did, that he committed. And without downplaying that sin, but the key is that even when he fell so grievously, his heart was right with God. He humbled himself and got right right away. As soon as he was exposed, as soon as he was admonished, he immediately humbled himself and got right with God. And that's why God showed him mercy and that's why he's being used as an example. He's not used as a great example because he was perfect. He was used as an example because he had the right heart and the right spirit and he maintained that throughout the course of his life. Second Samuel chapter 12 verse 7, this is when Nathan confronts David. It says, And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul. And I gave thee thy master's house, thy master's wives, and thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah. And if that had been too little, I would, moreover, have given unto thee such and such things. Wherefore has thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from thine house, because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbor, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this son. For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun." So he's saying, he's going to be judged. He's going to be punished for this, no doubt. God's going to come down on him and come down on him hard and say, here's what you're going to suffer. As a result of everything that's going on, you're going to have to go through all of this stuff. But look at what David does. Does he say, Nathan, you're going to prison now. I don't like what you have to say. He doesn't do that. That's what Asa did. And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, the Lord also hath put away thy sin. Thou shalt not die. That death, that death punishment that he did deserve was withheld and shown mercy because his heart was humble and he repented and was fully ready to accept the consequences of his actions and recognize his sin. We need to have that heart. Now hopefully you can keep yourself from committing such horrible sins. But let's keep ourselves and be focused on doing what's right. Let's have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for your word. I pray that you would please just help us all to do what's right. I pray that you would please watch over us and protect us, Lord, and that you would help us to have just the right spirit and right attitude, that right now while we're humble, Lord, that you would be able to just help us to maintain that humility and not to get lifted up in pride, dear God, but that you would see us through all of our trials and that we would continue to trust in you to fight our battles for us. Lord, we love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.