Trust Who or What?
[2 Chronicles 16:9] For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have wars." When God's blessings manifest themselves in our lives materially in the form of more money, secure financial stability, success in business, employment promotions with wage/salary raise and all kinds of favours, it is wonderful and coupled with His peace it becomes an awesome dynamic combo for a 'great life', but, in our fallen world, it can be a recipe for arrogant pride and disaster if we do not continue to walk with God. This is the case of the King Asa (a significantly lovely name) who started off very well and experienced a revival in his kingdom during and after the reformation (2 Chronicles 15:11-15), which brought peace from God and in turn prosperity for the king and the kingdom. King Asa had peace and no war for quite some time.
Then one day in 36th year of his reign, trouble came and unfortunately the first place King Asa goes to deal with this trouble is silver and gold (or money in our modern day). [2 Chronicles 16:2-3] Then Asa took silver and gold from the treasures of the house of the Lord and the king's house and sent them to Ben-hadad king of Syria, who lived in Damascus, saying,3 "There is a covenant between me and you, as there was between my father and your father. Behold, I am sending to you silver and gold. Go, break your covenant with Baasha king of Israel, that he may withdraw from me." He chose the material over the One Who provided the materials. We can see the results of the action he chose had an immediate effect but making covenant with another man especially one who has no covenant with God is like legally giving the devil a place in one's life. If only King Asa knew what the future of his alliance with Ben-hadad would do to Israel he may have not been so quick to run to silver and gold for help but rather wait on God for His instructions on the situation. KIng Asa's decision cost him dearly but by now it was too late. He no longer revered God in his life and even became arrogant at the rebuke he received from the prophet. Even with the demise of his health he still would not call on the Lord for help. His heart grown cold towards God and he rather, at the end of his life, preferred the counsel of men even though it did him no good. This is the case of the world we live in especially in the West. So sad to come to such a tragic and painful end. Reading about King Asa is a painful one for me (and at times brings tears to my eyes) because he really was a great guy he loved God but somewhere in those years of peace and prosperity he lost his heart to something else and never went back to God. His death was greatly mourned and rightly so because it was a tragic one.
Created 12 months ago
