Azariah’s Message
The Lord
is with you while you are with Him. The
content of that message completely depends upon the emotion of the
listener. On one hand, it could be taken
in an extremely childish way. It could
be heard in a sense of, “so long as you play by His rules, God loves you.” Or maybe even in a “If you don’t play by God’s
rules, then He is going to take His ball and His bat and go home.”
Neither
of these positions is correct. It isn’t
like God is looking to stop life from happening unless it happens according to
His desire. How long has sin been a part
of the world and God has yet to stop it from happening? If God truly wanted to take His ball and His
bat and go home, He’s sure had ample opportunity to do so!
Instead,
what is happening here is that God is making the point that a person can choose
to either live with God or to live without God.
To those who choose to live with God, then God will honor that choice
and be with that person. To the person
who makes it clear to God that they want to live apart from God, then God will
honor that person’s choice and live apart from him. It isn’t God saying, “My way or the highway,”
at all. Rather, it is God saying, “Choose
this day whom you will serve.”
Of
course, my last quote – from Joshua 24:15 – demonstrates that this is actually
how God always operated. When God gave
the covenant to Abraham there are promises for those who obeyed and there were
consequences for those who did not. When
God gives the Law and reinforces the covenant with Moses, there are clear
promises for those who obey and even clearer consequences for those who do not. God has always been a God of free will. God has always looked to us and said, “You
have the freedom to live life my way or the world’s way. If you choose my way, then I will be with
you.”
But we
are always free to choose the way of the world.
There is always a choice. God
never forces us to do anything. At best,
it is our conscience that forces us because our conscience knows what God’s way
looks like and our heart wants to follow our own desire. So we feel forced into obedience because of
our conscience. That’s not God forcing
our hand; that is our conscience reminding ourselves what obedience looks like.
Asa’s Response
Asa hears
the words and is empowered by them. We
spoke yesterday about the reforms that he did.
We heard about how he tore down all of the high worship places to the
foreign false gods. We heard how he
focused worship back upon God. We were
inspired yesterday by his witness.
Asa then
gathers the whole nation of Judah – and a healthy number of deserters from
Israel – and gathers them to him. They
reconstitute the sacrificial system.
They reconstitute their covenant to seek the Lord.
Let me
stop here for a second and look back upon the last few chapters where Abijah
was the subject. Remember when Abijah
stood before Jeroboam and his soldiers and pompously declared that they had not
forsaken the Lord? How is it that Abijah’s
claim could be true when his son has to rebuild part of the temple that had
been neglected (or intentionally destroyed)?
How is it that Asa would have to enter into a covenant to seek the Lord
if the people were actually seeking Him under Abijah’s reign? No, here we see the truth. Abijah put up a great façade of faithfulness
before Jeroboam. But there was no
substance behind the façade.
Now, Asa
understands the truth. When he becomes
king he sees behind the curtain and he doesn’t like what he sees. God has been neglected. Reform is desperately needed. Repair – physical, emotional, and spiritual –
is in grave necessity. Asa hears the
call from Azariah the prophet and he takes off and does it.
In fact,
one of the most telling verses of Asa’s kingship is verse 16. Asa even removes his mother from her
position. Can you imagine! Honestly, for a second, imagine how that
conversation would go.
“So,
yeah. Hey mom. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about God and
religion. And to be honest, your faith
is all wrong. In fact, God finds your
worship habits rather detestable. So you
aren’t going to be queen mother anymore.
All of the benefits that you’ve been enjoying as my mother – the mother
of the king – are going to be cut off.
And oh yeah. Just for the record.
I’m going to go out and personally
destroy your favorite worship spot. I’m
going to go out, cut it down, crush it, and then burn it.”
Honestly? Can you imagine the strength of character and
faith that such a conversation would have taken? I can’t help but give Asa a little credit on
that one. Here is a man who was able to
put God before family!
Looking
at the story, let’s make sure we see truth.
Asa becomes king, sees the whole picture, and calls out for reform. The first bit of reform has to be difficult,
but along the way Asa also picks up deserters from the northern kingdom who are
looking for a spiritual leader to lead them.
Through reform, a strong community is forged out of a community that
only a decade ago was a façade of faith.
That’s God at work. That is a
demonstration of what God can do when the people are genuinely focused upon God
and willing to follow Him instead of the desires of their own heart.
Chink in the Armor
Unfortunately,
at the end of this account we can see that Asa did have a chink in the
armor. While Asa did some great reforms,
not all the high places of worship were removed. Some of the false worship practices did
remain. It was a great age of reform,
but it was not a golden age of reform.
Asa had his moments, but like the rest of us he was not perfect. We’ll look tomorrow at some of Asa’s
imperfections and why it is that some of the high places remained even though
he had the courage to depose his own mother and destroy her place of worship.
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