Making a Differencewith Pastor Phil Erickson

May 20th, 2022 Trust in the Lord

Today’s Reading – 2 Chronicles 13 – 17 (Click on the references to listen to the audio – Click here to view the passage from Blue Letter Bible)

(Second Milers Read – Acts 13 – 15; Psalms 96 – 100; Proverbs 20)

Listen to this morning’s Scripture song – Proverbs 3:5 & 6

Read the “0520 Evening and Morning” devotion for today, by the late Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Read previous posts from this passage – “Asa – He Started Well But Finished Poorly“; and “Don’t Shoot the Messenger”

“Thus the children of Israel were brought under at that time, and the children of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon the LORD God of their fathers.” (2 Chronicles 13:18)

“And Asa cried unto the LORD his God, and said, LORD, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O LORD our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O LORD, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee.” (2 Chronicles 14:11)

“And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the LORD thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand. … 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. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars.” (2 Chronicles 16:7, 9)

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.“ (Proverbs 3:5-6)

In our reading today we learn about two kings of Judah, Abijah and Asa. In chapter thirteen we see that King Abijah and the people of Judah relied upon the Lord in a war between themselves and the northern kingdom of Israel, and the Lord gave them a great victory. In chapter 14, we see King Asa, the son of Abijah, in a war with the Ethiopians. Asa, like his father before him, also “rested” in the Lord, and the Lord delivered the Ethiopians into his hand. However, when we get to chapter 16, we discover that King Asa paid the Syrians to help him in another conflict with the northern kingdom. He “relied” upon the Syrians, instead of trusting in God.

As you might expect, God was not at all pleased with Asa for not trusting in Him to bring the victory against the enemy. God sends Hanani, the “seer” (prophet), to Asa to rebuke Asa, but Asa becomes very angry and throws the prophet into prison. The Bible goes on to report that Asa became “diseased in his feet”, but again, instead of going first to the Lord, Asa trusted in the physicians. He died two years after he contracted this “exceeding great” disease. (See Note Below)

There is a lot that we can glean from this passage. Too many times Christians are trusting in the philosophies of the world, or the security of their possessions, instead of trusting in the Lord. Many times, we are given clear instruction from God, but we hesitate our obedience because it goes against human reasoning. We need to be very careful to obey the principles of the Word of God, even when they do not seem to make sense to us, humanly. We must walk and live by our faith in God; and we need to continue down that pathway of faith. Asa started out walking by faith, but eventually he started walking by sight, forsaking the faith that he once possessed. We can trust God. He has never let us down, and He never will forsake us.

Note – there is nothing wrong with going to physicians, after you have prayed to the Lord. The Lord uses physicians, but our trust needs to be in Him, not the physicians.