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But for some reason I have never been able to figure out, Asa in his old age did not continue to follow after the Lord. Like Solomon before him, he followed the arm of the flesh instead of holding tight to the arm of the Lord. Yet Solomon's fall was at least understandable. He couldn't stay away from ungodly women, and they turned his heart from following after the Lord. But what about Asa? Why did he, after so many years of blessing from God, turn away from Him? It happened this way: After Asa had been king in Judah for 36 years, Israel decided they wanted Judah as a prize, so they laid siege on it, to starve it out. Asa, the man who trusted the Lord thirty plus years earlier to turn the huge nation of Ethiopia back, this time instead takes money out of the treasury of the house of the Lord (read that, "the Lord's money") and gave it to the king of Syria to help him against the armies of Israel. Now Syria had been an enemy of both Judah and Israel for generations, and this act did not please the Lord at all! |
That is when he sent the prophet Hanani to Asa. He reminded him of the great victory the Lord had brought against the Ethiopians, just because Asa trusted in the Lord. He also told Asa that because he had asked his enemy to help him instead of the Lord, two bad results were going to happen. First, the king of Syria would not be delivered into Asa's hands as the Lord had originally planned. And second, Judah's thirty plus years of peace was over, and they were going to be at war constantly now. What was Asa's reaction? Did he repent, and ask the Lord to forgive his great sin? No! Instead, he was "in a rage" with Hanani, and put him in jail! Then to further his rebellion against the Lord, the bible says he started to oppress the people instead of blessing them as he had before! The Lord in His turn struck back by giving Asa a "disease in his feet," but still he did not turn to the Lord, but only asked the Doctors to help him. |