June 10th

Today's reading from the One Year Bible Chronological Reading Plan is 1 Kings 15:16-22, 2 Chronicles 16:1-10, 1 Kings 16:1-34, 15:23-24, 2 Chronicles 16:11-17:19, 1 Kings 17:1-7. For less flipping read 1 Kings 15:16-24, 16-17:7, 2 Chronicles 16-17:19.

There are so many things that jumped out at me in today's reading.

One quick thing from near the end of the 1 Kings passage is a fulfillment of prophecy.

In Ahab's time, Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of his firstborn son Abiram, and he set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, in accordance with the word of the Lord spoken by Joshua son of Nun. 1 Kings 16:34
fulfills
Joshua 6:26 At that time Joshua pronounced this solemn oath:"Cursed before the Lord is theman who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho: "At the cost of his firstborn son will he lay its foundations; at the cost of his youngest will he set up its gates."
It makes me curious - did they forget about this prophecy? Did they think that it would no longer be binding because it was so long ago? Did they think God didn't really mean it? Did they think God couldn't or wouldn't do it? Did they not care? Whatever the reason, they went ahead and rebuilt Jericho despite Joshua's prophecy and they paid the price for it.

Another thing I found interesting in today's passage that will carry over as we go through the rest of the kings of Israel and Judah is that every single Israelite king was an evil king, and in general, their reigns lasted fewer years than the reigns of the good kings of Judah (Judah had evil kings too and they also experienced this same thing). God rewarded the good kings for their faithfulness to Him.

The very end of our passage introduces us to Elijah who had an incredible faith in God. This commentary has some amazing things to say from just one verse! (1 Kings 17:1)

At the end of our passage in 2 Chronicles I noticed something very impressive about King Jehoshaphat, another good king. Not only was his heart devoted to the ways of God, not only did her remove the high places and the Asherah poles from Judah - but he sent out officials to teach the people! Though the beliefs of the King are paramount in determining the direction the kingdom goes, King Jehoshaphat recognized that the people needed to be taught too in order for the worship of God to truly be kingdom-wide.

Now with all that being said, I really wanted to focus on King Asa in today's post. Mary DeMuth reminds us in this commentary that the reign of King Asa demonstrates once again how hard it is to finish well.

King Asa started out so well! When facing the mighty army of the Cushites, King Asa turned to God and God gave him the victory. Asa removed the idols from the land, he repaired the altar of the Lord, he even deposed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother!
Asa walked with God many years. It wasn't until year thirty-five that he stopped seeking God, instead relying on a man-centered shortcut. Walking with God is a tedious marathon full of sweat and grit and a rugged determination. Running a marathon means enduring all the way to the finish line. (from above commentary)

After that initial victory Asa had peace until year 35 of his reign. During times of peace or prosperity it is easy to become complacent. It is easy to forget exactly what happened and how God delivered you and it's easy to view things through self-tinted glasses. Perhaps Asa started to give himself and his strategic military thinking credit for his previous victory. Perhaps he just became complacent during those years of peace and instead of working on his relationship with God it drifted to the wayside and became irrelevant to his life, so that his first instinct when faced with new adversity was not to turn to God, but to rely on himself.

And it's not that he technically couldn't do it himself. In fact, his strategy worked.

And often, we fool ourselves the same way.

In John Piper's excellent sermon on Asa's Folly he says...
So many times when we rely on ourselves and our own resources, things seem to go well for a season. But things are not well when we have stopped hoping in God and started hoping in what man can do. We miss tremendous blessings and we bring unnecessary hardship on ourselves. Look at the blessing Asa missed in verse 7b: "Because you relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you." God would not only have protected Asa from Baasha and Israel, he would given the entire Syrian army into the hand of Asa. But Asa threw it away by trusting in money and intrigue instead of God.

And look at the hardship that will now come into his peaceful life. Verse 9b: "You have done foolishly in this; for from now on you will have wars." Now we know from other Scriptures (e.g., Romans 8:28) that if we repent after such unbelief, God will even take the chastisements of hardship and turn them for our good, and they will be fatherly discipline and not judicial condemnation. But it seems that Asa never did that. He carried his folly with him to the grave.

Did you catch how huge the repercussions were for Asa relying on self instead of on God?

He missed out on God's blessing and he didn't even know it. Not only would God have delivered him from Baasha, he would have given him Syria as well!

Not only did he miss out on God's blessing, he experienced God's discipline which unfortunately did not result in Asa's repentence.

John Piper describes two reasons why this was folly.
So the first reason Asa's trust in money and military might and political alliances and human physicians was folly is because God had made it so clear early in Asa's reign that he would do great things for him if he would simply trust him and not forsake him. Asa's failure to rely on God was folly because God had been so amazingly good to him and helped him in the past simply for crying out and trusting.

It is the same with us. God has proven to us time and time again that He is good to us and has helped us in the past for simply crying out and trusting. He has! And yet still my first instinct is not always to go to God for help. So many times our instincts are to do what we can on our own first and then go to God for help. But that is not how it should be.

Yes, we can often experience what we think of as success by relying on our own strength. But when we do so, we are missing out on the blessings of God and we don't even know it! God wants us to rely on Him, to hope in Him in every single area of our lives, both big and small, with peace, freedom, courage and power!

The second reason given in the text for why Asa's reliance on man was folly is that the very nature of God is that he is eager to show his power on behalf of people who trust him. (from John Piper's sermon)

For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. 2 Chronicles 16:9a NIV
For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His. NASB
The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. NLT

That verse is simply awesome. As John Piper says
This is not something God does on the weekends. It is not something he does just in church or holy places. It's not his hobby or after-hours recreation. This is what God is doing all the time everywhere (cf. Zechariah 4:10). God's eyes are everywhere always, so that he never misses one single opportunity any time, anywhere to demonstrate his power on behalf of weak people who rely on him and not man. This is why Asa's unbelief was folly.(emphasis mine)

May we rely on God more and more in every single aspect of our lives. In doing so, we will be strengthened by His power. And we will experience God's blessings in ways we never could have imagined.

Tomorrow's passage: 1 Kings 17:8-20:22 (look - no flipping!)