Bible Commentaries

Asa: Life and Lessons

1 Samuel 17:45] against this multitude. O Lord, thou art our God; let not man [or, mortal man] prevail against thee" ( 2 Chronicles 14:11).

Having risen from their knees, they launched themselves against the Ethiopians, and were mighty as men who answer straw with steel. They fought in God's name and for God's cause, and the thousand thousand of the Ethiopians were as nothing before the precise and terrific stroke of men who had studied war in the school of God.

Asa, then, began upon a good foundation; he established himself upon a great principle. That is what all young people especially should take to heart right seriously. To such we say: do not make an accident of your lives—a thing without centre, purpose, certitude, or holiness. Regard it as a trust from God. Be right in your great foundation lines, and you will build up a superstructure strong, after the nature and quality of the foundation upon which you build. Do not snatch at life. Do not take out an odd motto here and there and say, "This will do for the occasion." Life should be deeply laid in its bases, strongly cemented together in its principles, noble in its convictions; then it can be charitable in its concessions and recognitions. On what is your life based? What is the point at which you are aiming? If you have no broad foundation, no solid rock, no complete purpose and policy, then you are adventurers, speculators, and the turn of the wheel will mean your present or ultimate ruin.

"And he [Asa] took courage, and put away the abominable idols [abominations] 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" ( 2 Chronicles 15:8).

Let us not trifle with the occasion by suggesting that we have no idolatries to uproot, no heathen groves to examine, to purify, or to destroy. That would indeed be making light of history, and ignoring the broadest and saddest facts of our present circumstances. The world is full of little gods, 2 Chronicles 11:16], when they saw that the Lord his God was with him" ( 2 Chronicles 15:9).

Such is the influence of a great leadership. If Asa had been halting, the people would have halted too. Asa was positive, and positiveness sustained by such beneficence begets courage in other people. "They fell to him out of Israel in abundance"—that 2 Chronicles 15:12-13).

That is the danger. You cannot make men religious by killing them, by threatening them, by inflicting upon them any degree of penalty. Do not force a child to church. Lead it; lure it; make the church so bright and homelike and beautiful that the child will eagerly long for the time to come when the door will be opened. We conquer by love. The Christian cause advances, not by persecution but by charity; not even by argument but by love. Controversy has done nothing for the truth compared with what has been done by holiness, purity, nobleness, patience, and the quiet heroisms which can only be accounted for by the existence of deep and real religious convictions.

Asa was impartial. There was a touch of real grandeur about the man. He would not even allow his mother to keep an idol. The queen had an idol of her own "in a grove."

"And also concerning Maachah the mother of Asa the king, he removed her from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove: and Asa cut down her idol, and stamped it and burnt it at the brook Kidron" ( 2 Chronicles 15:16).

Thus ruthlessly Asa disestablished that little royal church. See how burningly in earnest the man was; and what a man will do when his earnestness is fervent! He knows nothing about fathers, mothers, partialities, or concessions. He says, "Light is the foe of darkness, and you cannot have any little dark corner of your own. This light must find you out, chase away every shadow and purify every secret place in human life and thought." Many men fail to follow Asa just at that point. They are great reformers upon a public scale; but their own houses are stables that need to be cleansed. They are quite violent progressists in all national matters; but the moment they go home and shut the house-gate upon themselves they fall into all kinds of confusion and tumult and false relationship. "Now," said Asa, in effect, "what is good for the public is good for the individual; what is good for the subject is good for the queen. Cut down the queen's idol, cut down the queen's grove; and when you have got the little god, stamp on it, burn it, throw the ashes into the brook; and because the queen no longer repents of her idolatry, she must leave her throne." We want more men of that kind. They will have uncomfortable lives, they will not be popular men; they will be fools according to the world's arithmetic, they will be madmen in the estimation of cold minds; but they are God's sons, children of the light, born not of men, not of blood, but born of God, born in heaven.

Let us consider this man's case well, and apply it to ourselves. We must have no persecution, no threatening, no driving; only prayer, reasoning, hope, love; inform the mind, guide the reason, multiply the schools, double the circulation of all good books, inspire the affections, purify the very source and spring of the will; and our victories will not be so many coarse and costly destructions, but will be as the triumph of light over darkness, fair as the morning and beneficent as the summer.

Prayer

Almighty God, we pray thee for the true vision. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. We cannot see thee otherwise. This way is thine own, it is therefore best, and we pray to be led in it like little children. We want to see God. We would see thee every day, we would walk with thee, and talk with, thee, and be thy friends; we need not see death because of our companionship with thee, but breathe ourselves into heaven: but we do not understand what it is to see thee; our idea is wrong, our whole thought has gone astray, we are fools before heaven. Thou art in us, thou art round about us, thou art in every flower that blooms, and in every star that burns, and in every wind that breathes over the earth. Why do we not see thee, and love thee? wait for thee, and never go out without thee? The heart of man is stubborn, his eyes are blind, and his will has strayed away in deserts and foreign lands. Oh that some mighty one might be sent to us to speak the right word in the right tone, to hurl upon us the great thunder, or speak to our aching hearts in the still small voice,—anyhow, that we may see and feel the living God. Thou art in our life, thou art giving it shape and tone and colour and meaning; thou art raising up men, and putting down men, and altering the face of the earth; and behold we wonder, but seldom pray. This is the Lord's doing, all this shaping and directing and toning life, and it is marvellous in our eyes: but our hearts do not receive the revelation with openness and frankness and joy. We have heard of thee through Jesus Christ thy Son, who said if we saw him we saw thyself. This was wondrous, we did not know its meaning; but we listened, and read and thought, and lo, a new day dawned upon our minds, and before we were fully aware the. whole heaven was alight with a new glory, and from that time we have spoken of the marvellous light; we have said, Jesus Christ brought life and immortality to light; he has made everything beautiful with light; God is light. May we therefore continue to study the words of Jesus Christ thy Son, and may his Spirit be in us, and may we be led from the doctrine to the sacrifice, from the infinite gospel to the infinite atonement, which is its very centre and glory; may we be led to the cross of Christ, symbol of misery and weakness and yet made into the symbol of immortal victory and eternal rest. Lead us day by day; lead us into all truth; sanctify us by thy word: thy word is truth; may it dwell in us, rule in us, be a light in our understanding, and a fountain of consolation in our hearts, and may our whole life be shaped and directed by the Spirit of the living word. Help us to bear life's burdens, sometimes so heavy, sometimes too heavy; help us in the restless night to meditate lovingly upon God; help us in the long uphill work to put our confidence in the Almighty. Dry our tears when they blind us to any beauty, but multiply them like a river when they help us to see thee better. Amen.