Theological Commentary: Click Here
This chapter
gives a little more detail on Asa’s reign.
Asa was a good king, as attested by yesterday’s reading. He did what was tight. He chased away the worship of false gods. He focused people onto the one true God.
It is
interesting, though, to hear the work that Asa did. He had to be told about the lawlessness of
humanity. He had to draw the leaders to
him to explain the worship of God. He
had to repair the altar of the Lord. He
had to tear down the Asherah poles that his own mother had set up!
Remember
that Asa is Solomon’s great grandson.
Solomon had Rehoboam, Rehoboam had Abijah, and Abijah had Asa. The time span between Solomon and Asa is
uncertain, but just based on human lifespans it couldn’t have been much more
than 75 or 100 years!
That is not
much time for the worship practices to go into absolute disrepair! In the span of 100 years or less, it is
almost as if God becomes a complete unknown in the Hebrew lands!
This speaks
volumes about several things. First of
all, it speaks about how quickly the sinfulness of humanity takes over. In less than a century a nation that is
rooted deeply in God’s Word can devolve into a nation that doesn’t even know
Him. It is hard to think about in those
terms, but it is absolutely possible. If
we are not diligent in teaching people about God, other things will take over.
That leads
to the net topic. The human heart desires
to find its own way. The human heart
longs for things to worship. If we are
not filling the void in our heart with God, human beings will fill it with the desires
of their own heart. There are some
things that never change: greed, corruption, self-preservation. There are other things that persevere only through
persistence. Faith is at the top of that
list.
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