2 CHRONICLES 14-16 WHAT IT MEANS TO SEEK GOD2019 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: 2 Chronicles 14-16 What It Means To Seek God

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2019. Well, this morning as we look at the book of 2 Chronicles, I've titled the message, What It Means to Seek God.

We probably know that it's important to seek the Lord. And maybe we talk about seeking the Lord. We've been encouraged or would remind each other to seek the Lord as we have different conversations. But one of the things I appreciate about the Old Testament and working our way through these accounts as we have been, is it takes some of those concepts that we know about and those doctrines that we know are important. And then it puts them in a way that we can see what that looks like when it's lived out.

And here as we look at King Asa, we get to see and learn from his life. We get to see flesh and bones. What does it mean to seek the Lord? And how does that look in a person's life? And King Asa provides for us an example to consider with many important truths that we can understand and recognize as we look at that applies to us and the way that we live our lives and the way that we make our decisions. And so we want to talk about seeking the Lord this morning. And we know it's important to

But what does it really mean? What does it look like in our lives? And so we're going to start here in verses 1 through 7 of chapter 14 for point number 1. Here's what it means to seek God. It means that you stop disobeying and start obeying God. This is kind of first things first. And the very first thing that Asa does as he begins to reign is,

As he stops the disobedience and he puts in place the obedience to God and his word. Jumping into verse 2 again, it says, We see right off the bat that Asa was a good king. He did what was good in the eyes of the Lord. Now, at this time in Israel's history, Israel has been divided into two nations, right?

The northern kingdom kept the name Israel. It was the ten tribes, and they never walked with the Lord from the beginning. But the southern kingdom was called Judah. That's where Asa is king. And they had some good kings and some bad kings. Some kings that followed the Lord and some that did not. Asa is one of those good kings.

He does what is good and right in the eyes of the Lord. And so we find God's testimony of him is that he was good. He did good. And what does that look like? What did it mean that he was a good king? Well, it describes for us his actions in verse 3. It says,

He was a good king. He did what was good and right for, he says, here's what that looked like for him to do what was good and right. He removed the foreign gods, the altars to the different idols that people were worshiping, the wooden images and statues that were set up, the pillars and those high places where they would go to worship these other gods. Asa started his kingdom with a cleansing ritual.

removing things, cleaning things up, breaking things down, and getting rid of those things that were, well, part of their disobedience to God. And again, here, Asa shows us a good example. Here's what it means to seek God. He was a king who sought the Lord. It'll be described that way several times in these chapters. He sought the Lord. And how that looked, first of all, was that stopping of the disobedience, that cleansing of the things that were not of God.

And so I would look at the example of Asa and encourage you to consider, is there any area of your life where you are being disobedient to God? And I would refine that a little bit and say, is there any area of your life where you know you're being disobedient to God? There's always areas of our lives that we're disobedient to God and we're not even aware of it. But what about those areas that you know about? Sometimes we have those aspects of our lives that it's

well, I know I shouldn't be. I know I, you know, shouldn't be doing those things. I know I shouldn't be involved in those things. I know that doesn't really belong there. I don't, but then we tolerate it. We allow it. We don't deal with it for a variety of reasons. Maybe it's too hard or difficult. Maybe we love it too much. We don't know, but I don't know, but there's a continuing of that disobedience. And what it means to seek the Lord is to not allow those things to continue.

But that when you find those high places in your life, you find those altars and those idols and those false things in your life, that you remove them, that you get into action and you cleanse those things, you break them down, you stop practicing that obedience. The Apostle Paul puts it this way in Romans 13, "'Let us walk properly as in the day, "'not in revelry and drunkenness, "'not in lewdness and lust, "'not in strife and envy.'"

but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. Paul says, let's walk properly, not in these practices, revelry, drunkenness, lewdness, strife, envy. Let's not walk like that, but instead let's put on the Lord Jesus. And there's a really powerful concept that Paul hits on here in Romans and also in Ephesians and Colossians.

It's the concept of putting off and putting on. That we are to put off the fleshly practices, but it's not just don't do that and then stop there. In its place, you put on something new. And it's the new life that we have in Christ. And there's a need for us to put off, to stop the disobedience, but then in its place to put on obedience.

And instead of walking in those ways, now we walk with the Lord instead, and we seek after the ways of the Lord. And the thing I would ask you to consider here in Romans chapter 13 is what Paul says there at the end of verse 14, where he says, make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. And that's really the issue that we're talking about. The high places were provision that they had made. They set apart this hill for the worship of these other gods. And

Paul is saying, don't let there be those kinds of areas of your life where you've set apart, you've made provision. Here's my sin budget, right? Do you have a line item in your budget? You know, this is the amount of money that I can spend on sin every month. Make no provision for the flesh in that way.

Do you allot a certain amount of time or energy that, hey, this is what I am able to expend in the pursuit of these activities and these avenues of my life? Paul says, no, make no provision. Don't leave room in the budget for sin. Don't leave room in your schedule for sin. Don't set apart those kinds of things for you to continue in things that you know are not good and are not of God. To seek God means...

that you stop disobeying. And those areas that you know about, you clean up those high places and you stop making provision for the flesh. But again, it's not just the stop doing that. It's also put something in its place. In verse four, we find that it says, he commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers and to observe the law and the commandments. I apologize. I'm gonna have to drink a lot during the service, but hopefully it won't disrupt too much.

What we see happen here with Asa, of course, if I talk about it every time I take a drink, then it'll be real disruptive, right? So I'll try to stop that too. What we see that Asa does is he stops the false worship, the worship of false gods, and in its place, he calls Judah to seek the Lord. And what does that look like? He goes on to say, to observe the law and the commandments. To observe is not just to look at, but it's to do, to put into practice, to live out what the word of God says.

And so he calls them away from these false things to stop the disobedience. And then he leads the way. Let's start obeying. Let's live according to what God says. James puts it this way. There is a need for us to hear the word of God and then be doers of the word.

We've talked about this for several weeks now on Wednesday nights, how Jesus, in giving the parable of the wise and the foolish builders, he said the wise man is the one who hears the words of the Lord and then does them. The foolish one is not someone who's never heard the words of the Lord, but it's someone who hears the words of the Lord and then doesn't do them. And sometimes we can be very foolish in that way, where we know what God says and

but we don't actually live it out. We don't actually do it. That's the condition of Judah when Asa becomes king. But now he says, no, no, let's not do that any longer, guys. Let's clean up the altars. Let's clear out those things of sin. And let's in its place begin to do what God says. And so the nation of Judah is now sent in this direction by King Asa. And God blesses that. He blesses them with a great time of peace.

And they build up and they prepare themselves for future battles. They fortify cities and walls and they have a great time of blessing as a result as they stop disobeying and start obeying God. That's what it means. That's where it starts to seek after God. And so again, I would ask you, is there any area of your life where you're being disobedient to God, where you're making provision for the flesh and allowing those things to continue?

Well, moving on to verses 8 through 12, we get the second point as we consider the example of Asa, and that is what it means to seek God is it means to cry out to God in overwhelming situations. If you are one who seeks God, then when you face the impossible, and when you're overwhelmed by the situation at hand, and the things that are going on are just too much for you, well, seeking God means that you cry out to Him in those impossible situations. Jumping into verse 8, here's what it says.

And Asa had an army of 300,000 from Judah who carried shields and spears. And from Benjamin, 280,000 men who carried shields and drew bows. All these were mighty men of valor. Then Zerah the Ethiopian came out against them with an army of a million men and 300 chariots. And he came to Mereshah. Verse 10. So Asa went out against him and they set the troops in battle array in the valley of Zephathah at Mereshah.

Here now Asa experiences his first big conflict. The king of Ethiopia comes out against him. Now Asa has a good-sized army. The nation of Judah was made up of two tribes of Israel, Judah and Benjamin. And in Judah he had 300,000 soldiers. In Benjamin he had 280,000 soldiers. So Asa has an army that's pretty good size, 580,000 men that are ready for battle and ready to face an enemy.

But here comes Zerah, the Ethiopian, leading an army of one million men, plus 300 chariots. That's kind of like tanks in our day. They were a massive army with heavy artillery. One million men. So they were outnumbered two to one. Asa had just a little over half a million. Now the enemy that comes has one million men.

So they're outnumbered two to one. Now, just try to think about it, what that would be like for a soldier in the midst of a battle. In basketball, you have the idea of double teaming, right? Whenever there's a strong opponent on the other team, you maybe take one of the defenders off of one of the other guys and you put two guys on that strong opponent. You double team him to try to hinder and hold back that opponent from scoring or doing what he does, right?

Imagine if every player was double teamed on the basketball court, right? So, you know, all of a sudden you get twice the defenders and every guy has two guys on him. How difficult would it be for, well, for them to win the game? Or maybe you'd rather think about football. How effective would the Rams be in the Super Bowl if they had double the players on the field? Double the defense, double the offense, double the defense.

It might be the only way that in history, you know, the Patriots could lose a Super Bowl if the Rams could double their players on the field, right? Think about baseball, perhaps. You know, if the Angels could get double the outfield, would they then make it to the World Series if they had twice the players? If they were able to cover, you know, the territory much better? You get the point, right? That

Facing any of those games, facing this kind of battle where you're outnumbered two to one, it's an impossible situation. It would be overwhelming to be in the midst of that. And this is where Judah now finds themselves. And what does Asa do? Verse 11, And Asa cried out to the Lord his God and said, Lord, it is nothing for you to help, whether with many or with those who have no power. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rest on you.

And in your name we go against this multitude. O Lord, you are our God. Do not let man prevail against you. Verse 12. So the Lord struck the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah, and the Ethiopians fled. Asa shows or throws up a quick prayer to God. Not long and elaborate, but he just simply says, God, you can handle this. I'm overwhelmed by it. It's much bigger than we can handle, but God, it's not too big for you.

And so we're going out trusting in you. We're resting in you. Lord, would you do a mighty work? And God responds and does a mighty work. And he defeats the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah. And they flee and they were able to walk away with great bounty, with great spoil as a result of this victory that is accomplished. Asa cries out to God in the midst of this overwhelming situation.

And God responds. God moves. God acts. This is what it means to seek God. Not to face the overwhelming situation and run away or, you know, seek out other gods or other methods, but to cry out to God and trust God and go forward and say, God, I'm trusting in you in this situation that you have set before me. Well, continuing to consider what it means to seek God, we now move into chapter 15 as we continue in the life of King Asa. Here we get point number three, and that is strengthen your commitment to God.

What it means to seek God is not just a one-time victory where you trusted in God, but an ongoing commitment to God, a strengthening of that commitment to God. And there is great temptation in our lives. After there is this kind of victory, there's a temptation many times to relax in our commitment to God.

There's a temptation for us to relax and get lazy in our walk with God because we have just come over this great victory. And there is great stress that comes with that. Even though resting in God and trusting in God, there's still the stress, the anxiety, the pressure, the things that we go through emotionally. And so we get through that and then it's like,

Okay, now I can relax a little bit. I don't need to seek after God as much as I once did. I don't need to cry out to God with that same intensity. I can relax a little bit. I don't need to be so diligent. And God is preparing Asa so that he doesn't fall into that trap. In verse 1, it says, the Spirit of God came upon Azariah, the son of Obed. And he went out to meet Asa and said to him, hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you.

While you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you. But if you forsake him, he will forsake you. A prophet meets Asa and his army as they come back. And the prophet says, good job. You trusted in the Lord. Now continue. The Lord is with you while you seek him. You've seen what it's like now. You sought the Lord. He met you there. He provided for you the victory that you needed. This is always the case.

This is the rule that God lives by. If you seek me, you will find me, God says. All throughout the scriptures, he gives that promise. If you seek God, you will find him. But if you forsake him, well, he will forsake you. You will find yourself outside of the presence of God and away from God if you are not seeking after God. But God is not hiding. He's not, you know, far removed. He's right there somewhere.

but he presents himself in a way, right there and accessible, if you will seek him. In a similar way, this is why Jesus taught in parables. The message was there. The opportunity to hear and receive from the Lord was there. It wasn't God hiding or trying to be aloof, but it was there and available for those who were truly interested, who were willing to seek God. And if you were willing to seek God, then, well, he would speak through the parables.

But if you weren't willing, if you didn't want to hear, if you weren't open to what God has to say and you weren't really seeking after Him, then you would get nothing out of them. And the same is true for us as we spend time with God and His Word and spend time in Bible studies and you walk away and get nothing out of it. You could blame me or whoever is teaching that occasion, but reality is probably has more to do with your heart and where you are at and whether or not you are seeking God. If you seek Him, you will find Him. God promises that over and over and over again.

Throughout the scriptures. And so here. The prophet gives him an exhortation. Good job. Now continue. For as long as you seek the Lord. He will be with you. So continue. To seek the Lord. Is the encouragement. Of this prophet. Pastor Charles Spurgeon says. The greatest faith of yesterday. Will not give us confidence. For today.

Unless the fresh springs which are in God shall overflow again. In other words, there needs to be a freshness that we trust in God again. And we seek God again. We might have had great, incredible victories yesterday. That really doesn't help us today. We might have been seeking God yesterday. But that doesn't mean that we can't, or we shouldn't, or we don't have to seek God today. Seeking the Lord is an ongoing, continual thing. And so instead of relaxing ourselves,

Our seeking of the Lord, our commitment to God. There needs to be a pressing forward and a strengthening of those things. The prophet goes on to speak in verse 3. He says, For a long time Israel has been without the true God, without a teaching priest, and without law. But when in their trouble they turned to the Lord God of Israel and sought Him, He was found by them. And in those times there was no peace to the one who went out nor to the one who came in. But great turmoil was on all the inhabitants of the land's.

So the nation was destroyed by nation and city by city, for God troubled them with every adversity. The prophet says, look, compare and contrast. Here you are having this great victory because you sought the Lord. But before this, you guys have been a people who have been without the true God. You've been far from God. You've been distant from God and you've been deteriorating. It's been tragedy after tragedy and destruction after destruction as you have been far from the Lord.

And so you have this comparison. You can compare and contrast. You can see the difference. And then verse 7, but you be strong and do not let your hands be weak for your work shall be rewarded. With this understanding, with this comparison right before you, here's what you need to do. Be strong. Don't let your hands be weak. There's going to be a temptation to let your hands be weak, to be lax in your seeking of God.

It is effort. It takes effort to seek God, to pursue after God. And you've had this great victory. And so you might be tempted to think, oh, I can just relax. I don't have to be so fervent in my pursuit of God. But don't. Don't relax in that way. Be strong. Strengthen your hands and be diligent in your walk with God. And he says, your work shall be rewarded. There's a reward there.

There's a value. There's a benefit. The apostle Paul puts it this way in 1 Corinthians 15 58. He says, therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. He encourages us to be abounding in the work of the Lord. There's a lot of work that we can be involved in that in the end turns out to be in vain.

Whatever we're working for, maybe we never actually can achieve it. It's impossible to achieve. And so all the work that we put into it is in vain. Or maybe we do achieve it. But then we find it's not as valuable as I initially thought. I chased after that. I sought that. I thought that would just like fix everything in my life. And I worked so hard to get there. And then, you know, it really didn't change anything. And afterwards, we can look back and say, wow, that was in vain. Really did nothing for my life. But Paul says, when it comes to the work of the Lord...

You know it's not in vain. It has great value for your life and for all of eternity. So make sure that you are abounding in the work of the Lord. Strengthen your commitment to God. Continue to invest in the things of God because that has great value for you for now and for eternity. The Apostle Paul tells Timothy that too. Exercise, he says, that has little value. But godliness is profitable for all things in this life and in the life that is to come. And you can pour your life into exercise.

And it has a little value. But in the end, in eternity, it's vain. It's not very profitable. But you pour your life into godliness and seeking after God, and it will have great value in your life. And so they respond to the prophet's message. In verse 11, it says, they offered to the Lord at that time 700 bulls and 7,000 sheep from the spoil they had brought.

Then they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the Lord God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul. And whoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. They respond to this exhortation from this prophet by recommitting themselves to the Lord. And they have a great sacrifice and they offer all of these animals of the spoil to the Lord.

They enter into a covenant and they say, we are committed to walking with God and seeking God. Notice it says in verse 12, with all our heart and with all our soul. We don't want to hold anything back. We don't want to be half-hearted in our commitment, but we want to give ourselves entirely and completely. Lord, my life is yours. I want to be about your business. I want to be seeking you. I want to be focused on you completely and wholly without holding anything back.

And so much so in verse 13, if anybody is not wanting to seek the Lord in our nation, they don't belong here. They don't have a place here. They need to be put to death. It was a strong and clear commitment to God and a call to seek God for all of the nation with their whole heart to be completely turned over and devoted with great seriousness and severity, if not.

Asa, again, provides a great example for us. Here's what it means to seek God. It means that you strengthen your commitment to God. You improve. You go forward. You recommit and re-covenant to seek God completely and wholly with all my heart, with all my soul. And if there's any aspect of my life that's not about seeking after God, it needs to die. It needs to be cut out.

It needs to be removed. We need to crucify the flesh. We need to not make any provision for the flesh. That if there's any aspect of my life that is not devoted to God, it needs to go. This is what it means to seek after God, to strengthen our commitment to God so that we are wholehearted and wholly given over to the things of the Lord. But we're going to move into chapter 16 now as we continue to look at the life of Asa and his example. Here we get point number four.

And that is cry out to God in manageable situations. Similar to point number two, right? But in point number two, we saw they were in the midst of a battle that was overwhelming. There was no way they could win. Now they face a different kind of battle. And this one might be a little bit more challenging for Asa, but also for us. Verse one, it says...

In the 36th year of the reign of Asa, Baasha, king of Israel, came up against Judah and built Ramah, that he might let none go out or come in to Asa, king of Judah. Here now Asa faces a new threat, not from Ethiopia this time, this time from their brethren, their neighbors, the nation of Israel. And this new threat from Israel was they were building a fortified city just right down the road from Jerusalem, so that...

They could control who goes in and out of Jerusalem so that they could cause Jerusalem and Judah to be weakened and to begin to deteriorate so that they might ultimately have victory over Judah. And so this new threat is in the process of being established. The city is being built. It's a direct opposition to Jerusalem and to Judah. How does Asa handle this threat? We find it in verse 2. Then Asa said,

Here we learn how Asa handled this threat. He looked at the treasuries in the house of the Lord and said, you know,

There's enough gold and silver in there. I think we might be able to hire the Syrians to come and attack Israel. So they'll be distracted. They'll not fight us. They'll be fighting with Syria. And we can resolve this whole situation. And so that's what he does. He pulls money out of the house of the Lord, out of the treasuries, and sends it to Ben-Hadad in Syria. In the next couple of verses, you can read that it was successful.

The way that Asa planned it is how it happened. Syria did accept that offer. They broke their treaty with Israel and they began to attack Israel. And Israel had to stop building the city that they were building against Judah and go deal with the Syrians up in the north. And so then Asa was able to gather his guys and go and dismantle that whole city and take the materials away and use them for their own purposes. And so everything worked out exactly the way Asa planned. Seems like a successful plan.

strategy until the prophet appears in verse 7. Look at verse 7, 8, and 9. It says, "...and at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, because you have relied on the king of Syria and have not relied on the Lord your God, therefore the army of the king of Syria has escaped from your hand. Were the Ethiopians and the Lubim not a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen?"

Verse 9. Similar to the previous time, after the battle, as they return, they're met with a prophet. Last time the prophet said, good job.

You sought the Lord, strengthen that and continue to seek the Lord. This time the prophet meets with them and says, you have done foolishly. He said that was not a good move. It worked. It appeared to be successful, but that was a foolish strategy. Here the prophet is saying, look, Syria is actually a worse enemy to you than Israel. And so what you've ended up doing is you've strengthened your enemy who's going to come at you later.

You've made things harder for yourself. You've made things worse for yourself through this. It looked like it worked temporarily, but in the long run, this is going to hurt you and it's going to cost you. You have done foolishly. And then he reminds him, remember how you won the last battle? You were facing a much more difficult situation, but you relied upon the Lord and God gave you victory. Here in this case, Asa, you did not rely on the Lord. Instead, you relied on Syria.

You looked to your own resources. You looked to what you could provide and you worked out your own plan. That is not what it means to seek God. That's not what it means to seek after the Lord. You are not relying upon him. You are relying upon something else, someone else, some other resource. Pastor Charles Spurgeon says, this was a smaller trouble altogether. And somehow I fancy it was because it was a smaller trouble that Asa thought he could manage it very well himself and

Sometimes I think the situations where we are completely outnumbered and overwhelmed, it's easier for us to trust in God and rely upon God than the situations where we have the resources. We have ideas about how we can handle the situation. So there's a great temptation for us to not seek the Lord, to not find out what God wants in the midst of the situation, but to trust in Him.

But for us to just handle it, I have that in savings. I can take care of that. You know, before I have to pay this bill and it's twice as much as I have in savings. So I have to cry out to God and rely on God and how am I going to pay this? And Lord, would you provide? And I have to, but then the bill comes and it's half as much as I have in savings. And you go, well, I have that much in savings. So I can handle that. And I don't cry out to God and I don't seek God the same way I would when the bill was twice as much as I had on hand.

You know, I think this is something very practical for me and my wife. We've gone through a season of where I was self-employed and there was a lot of situations where we had to cry out to God because we were overwhelmed because what we needed was, you know, twice as much as what we had. And then now I have a job. Now the income will be more consistent and ongoing and we don't have to wonder about that. So will we stop seeking God?

Well, we don't have to, you know. I don't need to seek God and cry out to God and rely upon God because now I have it in savings. Well, that's a foolish thing to do. The situations that are manageable, sometimes we think, oftentimes we think, in fact, many times it's not even a thought. We just automatically handle the situation in the best way we know how without giving God an opportunity to direct. Now, it's possible, it's potentially there that, you know, you could seek God and God say, use the money in your savings. That's why I gave it to you.

But it's also possible that we could seek God and God says, thank you for seeking me. Good job. I want to resolve this. I want to provide for this. I want to handle this a different way. And we need to give God that kind of opportunity in our lives. Not just when we have no idea what to do, but even when God, I think I know how to resolve this. But what do you want? What do you think is the best way to resolve this?

I think if I have this conversation, I tell this person this thing, then we can resolve this friendship or this personality conflict. I think I know how to resolve this and fix this. But I'm going to cry out to you and recognize there's a bigger picture that I'm not aware of. There's more going on here than just what I understand. Lord, what do you want to happen in this situation? What's best for the things that we're facing? To seek God means that we cry out to him, not just in the impossible situations, but

but in the ones that we know how to solve and the ones that we can take care of and that we have the resources for. Well, finishing it up with the fifth point here in chapter 16, still verses 10 through 13, what it means to seek God is to repent after failure. Here Asa gets this rebuke from the prophet and how does he respond in verse 10? It tells us, then Asa was angry with the seer and put him in prison for he was enraged at him because of this.

And Asa oppressed some of the people at that time. We have the saying, don't shoot the messenger. What did Asa do? He shot the messenger. Hanani wasn't the problem, but he delivers a message that Asa doesn't want to hear. Asa is the problem. He did not seek God. Hanani's message hurt, but instead of repenting, acknowledging his failure, acknowledging his sin, and turning to God, instead of repenting,

Asa imprisons Hanani. But notice what happens after that at the end of verse 10. It says, and Asa oppressed some of the people at that time. There's a real turning point here in Asa's kingdom and Asa's reign. He was a good king. He sought the Lord. He led the people in removing sin and following after God. He was a good king. But here as he's faced with his failure, with his sin,

He rejects the word of the Lord. He refuses to repent. He doesn't want to humble himself before the Lord in that way. And that started him down a path of greater sin and greater destruction. And now he begins to oppress not just the prophet, but some of the people. He begins to oppress his own people. He begins to move in a direction that's further away from the Lord.

This is what sin does. And this is going back to point number one, stop disobeying and start obeying God. This is why whenever there is an issue of disobedience that we become aware of, we need to deal with it. We need to repent of it and clean out those things and remove those things from our lives. Because if we allow that to continue, there's a hardening of our heart. There's a darkening of our heart that takes us in a path away from the things of God.

And it may not appear that bad at first. It may not, you know, seem that way. But what's the big deal to imprison one prophet? But then that took him down this path where now he's oppressing innocent people. And he's transitioned from a good king to a bad king because he was not seeking after God. Jumping to verse 12, it says, in the 39th year of his reign, Asa became diseased in his feet.

And his malady was severe, yet in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but the physicians. So Asa rested with his fathers. He died in the 41st year of his reign. Asa reigned for a good time. 40 years is pretty long, actually, for most of the kings of the nation. They didn't last that long. He lasted longer than most, but he ended poorly. And the end of his life comes with this disease.

some kind of disease in his foot that was very severe and he ends up dying from it. But the implication here is that he didn't have to die from it. The implication here as you read it is that he could have sought the Lord and it is likely that God would have healed him. He could have repented and turned back to the Lord and there would have been a restoration and a healing in his life and his kingdom would have continued. But it tells us he did not seek the Lord.

He deliberately, he purposely did not. He ends up at the end of his life completely opposite of where he started. Having the need and the opportunity to seek God, but refusing to do so. And so it says in verse 13, so Esau rested with his fathers because he would not seek the Lord, because he would not repent and deal with his heart after it was exposed, after it was revealed that he had relied upon man instead of God.

It takes him down this path where ultimately he dies refusing to seek God. This, again, provides a really good example for us. Very clear. Puts real, you know, meat and bones on this concept of seeking after God and the importance of it. It's important to be wholehearted and to give ourselves over to seeking God, to strengthen our commitment to God. Because if we don't, we very easily can find ourselves like Asa at the end of our life, even though it's tough to imagine.

Just like it'd be impossible or tough to imagine Asa ending his life in opposition to God from where he started. It's tough for us to imagine, oh, I would never do that. I would never, you know, have that attitude. I would never have that heart. You know, I love God and we can say all those kinds of things. But if we do not strengthen our commitment to the Lord and seek after God and deal with disobedience in our lives and put ourselves on the path of obedience, if we don't, we fail.

we'll very easily find ourselves in this same position. We need to learn to repent after failure, to acknowledge our sin, and to turn back to God. Pastor David Guzik sums it up this way. All in all, Asa was a good man who did not finish well. The last years of his life were marked by unbelief, hardness against God, oppression against his people, and disease. He says, age and time do not necessarily make us better.

They only do if we continue to follow God in faith. Boy, there's some good truth to meditate on there. Age and time do not necessarily make us better. This is something especially for those who have been believers for a long time. You've been around the church for a long time. Listen, age and time don't necessarily make us better. You've been around for a long time. Great. You believed in Jesus a long time ago. Great.

But that doesn't actually mean that we are better Christians today, that we are closer to God today, that we know God better today, unless we are continuing to follow God and seek after God today as we did at the beginning. It's not a one-time thing giving our lives to the Lord, but it's a daily and ongoing thing giving our lives to the Lord, seeking after God, surrendering ourselves and committing ourselves to be wholly devoted to Him.

inevitably we're going to fail in that. We're going to mess up. We're going to fall short. That's part of who we are. That's part of our nature. And so repenting after failure, that's not, you know, some weird, rare occasion. I can't believe, you know, that person would have to repent. Of course, it's to be expected. We're all called to repentance because we all fail and fall short. But the good and amazing grace of God means that what God says, if you seek me, you will find me. So even after failure, even after like Isa, you know, you've been

imprisoning God's messengers and oppressing his people and disease. If from there you will seek after God, you will find him. The amazing grace of God is that we can come back again to seek the Lord, even if we haven't been walking in these things and been seeking him previously. I want to encourage you this morning to consider your heart. Where are you at? Especially if you've been around for a long time. I've been a Christian for 20 years, yeah? But you're less Christ-like now than you were 20 years ago. That shouldn't be the case.

Seek after God. Give yourself over to the things of God. Pursue his heart and seek to know him. Amen? Amen. Let's pray and Ronnie's going to close us in a time of worship that we can seek the Lord together in worship. Lord, we lift up our hearts to you, God, and you know what we're facing, what's happening within. God, I pray that you administer to us and bring clarity and revelation. Just as you sent the prophets to Asa, Lord, to Asa,

give warning so that he wouldn't go down the path that he went down, but you gave him that opportunity. I pray that, Lord, you would give us clear warnings and reminders to strengthen ourselves in our relationship with you, that we wouldn't go down that path. But Lord, also, I pray that you would bring us clear rebuke. Lord, if there's areas of our lives, if there are high places and altars and things that are set apart for our flesh and disobedience, God, would you bring that kind of clarity and send those messengers.

or that we might hear your perspective on the things that are happening in our lives. I pray, God, that you would give us the humility, the willingness to repent, to cleanse those things, and to give ourselves over to you once again. Help us to cry out to you in the impossible situations we face, but also in the ones that we think we can handle, or that we would recognize how much we need you in every aspect of our heart and lives.

Teach us, Lord, to seek after you, we pray. In Jesus' name. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of his word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.