The Puzzling Life of King Asa

Asa, the King of Judah, "did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God." (II Chron. 14:1) He was a good king who removed idolatry from his people and commanded them to seek and obey the Lord. Asa even deposed his own grandmother because she had made a detestable Asherah pole (an idolatrous symbol)!! When he went to war, the Lord was with him and gave Asa the victory. Everything went well for Asa until his thirty-sixth year of reign.

Something changed. Asa changed. Asa and his men were surrounded, but instead of going to God for help, as he had always done before, he took silver and gold and bought help from a foreign king. God was not pleased!

Hanani, the seer, told Asa that, because he hadn't relied on the Lord, he would be at war from then on. Asa became so enraged that he put Hanani in prison! What happened to King Asa? The clue is in the famous line uttered by Hanani,

"For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those who hearts are fully committed to Him." (II Chron. 16:9)

Actually, the KJV is my favoite. "For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him."

So it seems the problem with Asa is that he had lost his wholehearted devotion to God. He had ruled Judah well for thirty-five years, but had allowed his zeal for the Lord to fizzle at the end of his life. This is a sad story!! It's sad because it didn't have to end this way. What made Asa lose his wholehearted devotion to the Lord? Bitterness? Unforgiveness? A spirit of anger? The Bible doesn't tell us exactly what happened, but let's learn a valuable lesson from the life of Asa. Let's keep ourselves aglow and burning with the Spirit!

The end of his life came in the thirty-ninth year of his reign. Asa had a disease in his feet, but he refused to seek the Lord for healing. Compare this to Hezekiah, who sought the Lord, and He added fifteen more years to Hezekiah's life. Asa sought the physicians only, but not the Lord, so he died. He had lost his wholehearted devotion to the Lord.