Idols 2

And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians. (2Chronicles 16:12)

I want us to look at Asa to get the point I was illustrating in the last post. This because the Bible talks of him as a godly king, and especially the fact that he had trusted on God when faced with a million strong army armed to the tooth. And his faith was vindicated.

In this chapter we see him faced with a weaker army. But then he had really prospered. He had enough money and so used it to hire another army to fight his battle.

Incidentally, when his backslidden state was confronted by a man of God, he, instead of repenting, imprisoned the messenger. He also oppressed some other people as well, probably people who were not willing to walk in his backslidden state.

In the verse above, we see him getting sick, and terribly so. Yet he did not seek the mercies of God or His intervention, resorting to using his resources to deal with his malady.

There is nowhere in all the narrations about Asa that we are told about him worshipping an idol or even seeking the intervention of one like we saw in Saul when studying rebellion. Yet it is very clear that he had deserted his earlier faith.

What is also clear is that it happened when God had prospered him.

Why pray to God when He has given me enough money to buy another army to fight for me? This must have been his guiding principle then.

Why get into prayer when my money can pay for the best treatment?

Why do I need faith when I have everything I need?

Allow me to requote our guiding verse.

For when I have brought them into the land which I sware unto their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey, and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxen fat, then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and provoke me, and break My covenant. (Deuteronomy 3: 20)

I might have to leave this post here so that you may examine your own life to see whether you have drifted ever so slightly from the faith that brought where you are. And this because it will eventually lead you to the point Asa got to.

We are not told he killed anybody or even committed adultery.

However, his latter life had very little relation with his former in terms of his relationship with God.

That is what God is addressing in the verse above. It is the reason God is talking about turning to other gods, gods that were nowhere near your system when you were on your journey.

That is the idol I am talking about. INDIPENDENCE.

No wonder it stifles prayer. No wonder it kills the great desire for God that was part of our makeup when we were searching.

That is why I have chosen Asa. Because he did not fall in all the depravities we associate with backsliding.

Sadly, many of us are always on that journey. I have many times seen myself leaning the Asa way when things are working. I have become like him when I have very solid networks. I have leaned his direction when my life is on solid ground. And I am a minister God ordered to leave everything and give Him a chance to sort me out on everything.

It is not easy to pray for provision when I have a team that will drop everything to meet my needs after my smallest prompt. It is not easy to pray for healing when I have hospitals all around me who have offered their everything to treat me or I have a very solid health insurance package. It is not easy to pray for security when my house is next to the police station and the chief is my personal friend or a member of my parish.

Yet we do not think of it like that. We will many times associate those freebies with God without realizing that they are actually the tools taking us away from Him.

I have been there, many times. It is actually a struggle to release myself to God wholeheartedly when things are smooth and predictable. It many times takes God rattling me to shake me back to sense.

Think about this. If a minister totally depending on God prompting His people to provide for all his needs can fall into Asa’s trap, how will it be for someone having a permanent and pensionable job that pays him very well? How about someone whose business is growing and growing without letup? How will it be for a person having a solid inheritance?

What am I saying?

God was not warning Israel for the fun of it. He knew it was a present reality that grows in intensity as the comfort level grows. Allow me to give us a related verse.

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. (Ezekiel 16:49)

The first time Sodom is mentioned it is likened with the garden of the Lord. It means that it was the perfect well-watered land.

This means that there was more than enough food from the smallest effort.

Then what happened?

They reached (or is it arrived?). They became independent. They became self-focused.

As a result, they became proud (of their achievement) and due to that neglected the needs of those around them.

That is how they became the way we know them today.

I hope you are getting me so far.

What I am saying in summary is that each of us is on that journey Sodom took. We are on the same journey Asa took. It is only that our journey has not gone as far as they got but will do if we do not make drastic changes to our lifestyle, first by reconnecting with the faith that brought us to the point we are at.

But it is also important to point out something that can easily get us back to where we have drifted from. And I will take us to another king.

Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity. (Daniel 4:27)

Why did Daniel not advise the king to just repent? Why did Jesus order the rich fellow to sell all he had and give to the poor?

The needs around us connect us to our faith if we reconnect with them. It is as we meet those needs that we are able to constantly remember the art of gratitude.

It is very difficult to be proud when you are dealing with someone who is up well before daylight to look for a job, works all day and at the end of the day does not make enough to feed his family.

Dealing with the downs and outs is a very humbling experience, an experience that will result in raising our gratitude constantly because we will know that we are not much better than they are but for the grace and mercy of God.

I hope this has offered us a solution.