Transcript
Kings 15:
Now in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam the son of Nebat, Abijam became king over Judah. He reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Maacah the granddaughter of Abishalom. And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him. His heart was not loyal to the LORD his God, as was the heart of his father David.
Nevertheless for David’s sake the LORD his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, by setting up his son after him and by establishing Jerusalem, because David did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and had not turned aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.
And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam all the days of his life. Now the rest of the acts of Abijam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam. So Abijam rested with his fathers, and they buried him in the City of David. Then Asa his son reigned in his place.
In the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Asa became king over Judah. And he reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem. His grandmother’s name was Maacah the granddaughter of Abishalom. Asa did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, as did his father David. And he banished the perverted persons from the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.
Also he removed Maacah his grandmother from being queen mother, because she had made an obscene image of Asherah. And Asa cut down her obscene image and burned it by the Brook Kidron. But the high places were not removed. Nevertheless Asa’s heart was loyal to the LORD all his days. He also brought into the house of the LORD the things which his father had dedicated and the things which he himself had dedicated, silver and gold and utensils.
Now there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days. And 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. Then Asa took all the silver and gold that was left in the treasuries of the house of the LORD and the treasuries of the king’s house, and delivered them into the hand of his servants.
And King Asa sent them to Ben-Hadad the son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, who dwelt in Damascus, saying, “Let there be a treaty between you and me, as there was between my father and your father. See, I have sent you a present of silver and gold. Come and break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel, so that he will withdraw from me.”
So Ben-Hadad heeded King Asa and sent the captains of his armies against the cities of Israel. He attacked Ijon, Dan, Abel Beth Maacah, and all Chinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali. Now it happened, when Baasha heard it, that he stopped building Ramah and remained in Tirzah. Then King Asa made a proclamation throughout all Judah. None was exempted.
And they took away the stones and timber of Ramah, which Baasha had used for building. And with them King Asa built Geba of Benjamin and Mizpah.
The rest of all the acts of Asa, all his might, all that he did, and the cities which he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? But in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet. So Asa rested with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the City of David his father. Then Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his place.
As most of you probably know, I used to call my grandfather and grandmother on my father’s side Momo and Pawpaw. I started that as a little boy, and they liked it and insisted on being called by that name from then on. And I continued to call them that even when I grew up.
But I remember one time going into a department store with old Pawpaw, and I think he guided me deliberately in the direction of the toy department. And in the toy department I caught sight of a black toy steam shovel that really enraptured me. And I expressed my rapture to my grandfather. And without the slightest nudge he bought it for me.
Now that was the way Momo and Pawpaw treated me. I was their first and oldest grandchild, and they spoiled me rotten, as you could tell. I remember spending a whole week with them one time, and by the end of the week I had a box of new toys which they had bought for me.
Now I’m very embarrassed to say this, but as often as I went into stores with Momo or Pawpaw and allowed them to buy things for me, I don’t ever remember going into a store with either one of them and saying to them, “What would you like to buy?” And I don’t remember saying to them, “I’ve got a few pennies that I’d like to give to you so that you can help you to buy whatever it is you would like to buy at the store.” Maybe that’s expecting too much of a spoiled brat. It probably is. But to my embarrassment I say I never remember doing that.
In the same way sometimes when we grow up we sometimes treat the Lord that way. Even when we come to a church, you know, it’s awfully easy to come to a church meeting and the basic question on our minds is, “What am I going to get out of this meeting?” I don’t know exactly what you think about when you sit down at the Lord’s table. Maybe you think, “I wonder if the food’s going to be good today.” Or maybe you think, “I wonder if the talk is going to be interesting or boring.” Or maybe you think, “You know, I hope we sing that were my favorite hymns today.”
I wonder how often, however, when we sit down at this table do we ask ourselves the question, “What is God going to get out of this meeting?” Or, “What am I going to give to God at this meeting today?” But don’t you think that would be an important question to ask?
And I want to think with you about that question for a little bit today based on the passage of Scripture that we read just a few minutes ago. And if I were giving a title to my talk this afternoon I would give the following title: The King Who Downgraded the House of God.
Now I’m not really thinking about the first king that we read about in our passage today. The first king of course was Abijam the son of Rehoboam. And when his father died he ascended the throne and he reigned for a very brief period of three years. Under Abijam things were no better than they had been under Rehoboam. And the writer of Kings tells us that Abijam walked in all the sins of his father. And his heart was not loyal to the LORD his God.
Now whenever the writer of Kings tells us that a king’s heart was not loyal to the LORD his God he is thinking apparently primarily of the issue of idolatry. If a king resisted involvement in idolatry and insisted on worshiping only the LORD he was loyal to God. If he compromised in the area of idolatry his heart was not loyal to the LORD his God. And apparently that’s what Abijam did. He involved himself not only in the worship of God but in the worship of idols.
Now fortunately the judgment of God did not fall on Abijam nor upon Jerusalem because of this, even though it could have. And we are given the reason for that. And the reason is because God remembered King David and He wanted David still to have a lamp in Jerusalem. He wanted David’s house to remain for a while. And remember that David too had been obedient to Him. He had done what was right in the LORD’s sight. He had not departed from any of the LORD’s commandments except in the matter of his adultery with the wife of Uriah the Hittite.
Now I hope you were impressed by this because by the time Abijam has finished reigning David has been dead for something like sixty years. Forty years Solomon reigned, seventeen years Rehoboam reigned, three years of Abijam. And yet although Abijam is his great-grandson God still remembers the commitment that David had to Him. God still remembers that basically obedient life that David had lived. And He is extending His mercy to the grandson and the great-grandson of King David.
I hope that comes as an encouragement to the parents, the grandparents. I think we have one great-grandparent at the meeting today. I hope that you keep in mind that if you live for God, if you’re committed to God, that God has a very long memory. And that good things can be expected to happen to your descendants because of your commitment to God. God would be merciful to your descendants or He will withhold His judgment where your descendants might indeed have merited it. And it’s very reassuring to know that even after we are dead and gone God remembers the life that we have lived. And that He continues to motivate God to be kind and merciful to our descendants.
Now that was a mercy to Abijam but an even greater mercy comes next because when Abijam dies he is succeeded by his son Asa. Now a relatively brief section of First Kings is given to Asa. But it is clear even from this brief section that Asa must stand as one of the greatest kings that ever ruled in the land of Judah. For one thing he ruled one year longer than David had. Forty-one years to David’s forty. One year longer than Solomon had. Forty-one years to forty. But not only that, in direct contrast with the behavior of his father Abijam, the behavior of his grandfather Rehoboam, and his great-grandfather Solomon, Asa undertakes to reform the situation in Judah.
One of the first things he does is to get rid of the perverted persons. We saw them remember when we studied the reign of Rehoboam. This is apparently a reference to homosexual people who were engaged in temple prostitution. It was common in the pagan world and had crept into the land of Judah. Rehoboam tolerated it. Abijam tolerated it. But Asa deals with it and he banishes these perverted persons from the land.
But that isn’t all that he does. He turns to deal also with idolatry. And we were very impressed to read of Asa that he removed all the idols that his fathers had made. That’s pretty impressive. That means all the idols that Abijam might have made, all of the idols that Rehoboam might have made, all the idols that Solomon might have made. He removed all of the idols that his fathers had made.
And in what I would regard as a particularly courageous act he deals with the idolatry of his grandmother Maacah. Now Maacah was the queen mother and apparently this was a position of some prestige in Israel. Just as for instance in England they have the Queen Mum. This is the Queen Mum. She’s his grandmother. She obviously has stature in the country and obviously he feels a respect for her because she is after all his grandmother. But she has made an idolatrous image of the female goddess Asherah. And Asa takes that image and he destroys it. He burns it by the Brook Kidron. By the way that was the brook over which the Lord Jesus passed in the night of His betrayal and arrest. And then he demotes his grandmother and removes her from being queen mother.
I don’t know what you think but I think this is an impressive series of reforms. Asa is obviously an outstanding king. He is a man who is committed to God and he is definitely hostile to idolatry. But there is one little fly in the ointment. For according to verse fourteen it says, “But the high places were not removed.” Nevertheless Asa’s heart was loyal to the LORD all his days.
As we mentioned last time the high places were by no means exclusively given to the worship of false gods. Apparently many of the high places were dedicated to the LORD God of Israel. And even though Asa is dealing drastically and dramatically with the problem of idolatry in the land of Judah he doesn’t do a single thing about the worship of the LORD in these high places. And yet as we read from Deuteronomy chapter twelve it was contrary to the express command of God that His people should worship Him in all of the places, whatever places they wanted. Because God has chosen the place where His worship is to be centered. They were to bring their sacrifices and their offerings to Jerusalem.
But in the midst of this remarkable and impressive spiritual reform in Israel Asa fails to make the house of God the proper center of Israel’s worship. Let me repeat that. Despite the reforms that he instituted in the land of Judah he fails to make the house of God the center, the unique and exclusive center of the worship of God in Israel.
May I make the suggestion that the modern church has also lost the center of its worship? The modern church, the American church has also lost the center of its worship. If you go to the New Testament I think it is obvious in the New Testament that the center of the worship of the early church was the Lord’s Supper. You go to Acts chapter twenty and you find the disciples gathering together on the first day of the week. Remember this was a work day in those days. It was not a holiday. And therefore they gather together at night and we find that they gathered together to break bread.
And in First Corinthians chapter eleven when Paul gets to the subject of the church coming together the first thing that he deals with is the issue of the Lord’s Supper and the proper observance of the Lord’s Supper. And he urges them to wait for each other so that they can eat the Lord’s Supper together. And in Acts chapter two which we correctly describe as giving us the birthday of the Christian Church when those three thousand converts are saved and baptized we are told about them that they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and in fellowship and in the breaking of bread, that is the Lord’s table, and in prayer.
Now I hardly need to tell you that there are not many churches around these days of whom it could be said that the center of their worship is the Lord’s Supper. The church that I grew up in in my young days was like many churches are today. They observed the Lord’s Supper very briefly at the end of a morning service maybe once a month. In other churches the observance of the Lord’s Supper is even less common than that. It may occur only once a quarter. The Supper which was obviously in First Corinthians eleven the center of the Lord’s table is usually been dispensed with and so the service can be gone through very rapidly with the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the cup.
And I think it’s a very important thing for us to realize that if we are going to be committed to the worship of God as presented in the New Testament that the Lord’s Supper does have to be at the center of our corporate and collective worship of Him. And I’m happy to say that here at Victor Street this is what we’ve been trying to do for quite a long time. Some of you will remember the time when we did not as yet have a Lord’s Supper. And I remember the discussions that went on among the leadership of the church at that time. And thinking of Mr. and Mrs. Gill, of Bob and Rosemary, as I am myself. And quite frankly as we saw the Scriptures this is the kind of meeting that we saw.
But we had never seen a meeting like this take place. Not exactly like this although we had been in churches that did remember the Lord on a regular basis on Sunday in a meeting that was not just simply a run-through of the elements. But at the same time we didn’t know how a meeting like this was going to work.
But now that we’ve been doing it for quite a number of years I think you will all agree there’s no big problem with a meeting like this. The women are tremendously helpful in bringing food to this. They assist very significantly in this meeting by doing that. The men have learned to participate in this meeting. There’s no great problem with it. We do observe the Lord’s table in the way that we do. One of the things that we just couldn’t predict was how a meal, an actual meal, despite the fact that the early Christians apparently had one, but how a meal would affect the atmosphere, the character of our gathering together.
Now that we’ve had a considerable time to observe it however I think probably most of us would agree that one of the things that this meal does is to create a sense of family during the church. We eat together just like families eat together.
Remember that in the New Testament Paul says,
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the fellowship of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the fellowship in the body of Christ?
And I think that eating a meal together which is bounded by the elements, the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the cup, is a reminder to us not only of how much we owe to the Lord Jesus Christ for His sacrifice for us but it’s a reminder that we all have fellowship with the benefits and blessings that flow to us from the cross. As a matter of fact as we eat the physical food that nourishes our physical bodies we are also taking in, hopefully, spiritual food that nourishes us spiritually.
And our pre-meeting on a Wednesday night, she doesn’t mind me saying this, Frances Martinez got the request to pray for the Lord’s working at the Lord’s table. And I was very impressed that Frances prayed about the family meeting. She used the word “family” once or twice. And I think that’s exactly right on target. That what we sense here is our oneness in the body of Christ. Our full participation in the eternal life that His sacrifice has made possible for us. And that we all participate in this type. We are brothers and sisters and we are sitting together as a family. And I think it’s very important for us to sense the family warmth and the family spirit that is a part of this meeting.
So I hope that unlike many of the churches around us that Victor Street will not lose the central place that the Lord’s table has in the collective and corporate worship of the church. But Asa didn’t do that for the house of God. And what follows next is an action on the part of Asa that is very, very shocking. Particularly in the light of the kind of king he obviously was. In fact it’s somewhat appalling.
Now we don’t learn this from the book of Kings but in the book of Chronicles we discover that the writer of Kings has entirely passed over a major event that occurred in the reign of Asa. Apparently in the early years of his reign there was an invasion of the land of Judah by the Ethiopian ruler Zerah. Zerah had at his command a million-man army and three hundred chariots. Now I need hardly tell you that an invasion of a tiny little kingdom like Judah by a million-man army with three hundred chariots was a very daunting prospect indeed.
But what we discover from the book of Chronicles is that Asa cast himself upon the Lord. And he said it is nothing with You to help by many or by few. And Judah surprisingly dealt a catastrophic defeat to this invading army and routed it completely. And then Asa had, according to Chronicles, peace for twenty years.
But then Baasha, the new king of Israel about whom we will learn more in the future, Baasha begins to engage in hostilities against the southern kingdom of Judah. And one of the things he does is to try to fortify the city of Ramah. Now apparently the purpose in doing this was because Ramah sat evidently on a strategic point in a trade route. So that the trade that came in and out of Judah had to pass by Ramah or through Ramah. So by fortifying Ramah Baasha was hoping to cut off some of the lifeline of the southern kingdom. And this definitely frightens Asa.
And it is here that Asa does something that is very shocking. Even though Asa had brought into the house of God the things that were dedicated by his fathers and the things that he himself had dedicated. Now in his crisis he reaches into the house of God and he takes the treasures that are in the treasuries of the house of God as well as those treasures that are in his personal treasuries in his palace. And he sends them as a bribe to the king of Syria who reigned at Damascus. The king by the name of Ben-Hadad.
And he says to Ben-Hadad, “Please break your treaty with Baasha so that he will withdraw from me.” Now this was a lot of treasure I can assure you of that. And Ben-Hadad is duly impressed and he does break his treaty with Baasha and he attacks some of the northern cities of Israel. And Baasha is forced to withdraw from Ramah to go back to his capital in Tirzah. And now Asa uses all of the manpower that he can muster and he tears down all of the building that Baasha was trying to do at Ramah. He builds some cities of his own. Striking success, don’t you agree? It worked. But at a tragic, tragic cost.
Because what Asa has done is to take the things that were dedicated to God and use them as part of a bribe to protect his security. And to get Ben-Hadad to assist him in his crisis.
Now once again the book of Kings does not tell us something that the book of Chronicles tells us. Chronicles tells us that God sent a prophet to Asa. And the prophet reminded him of the way in which God had helped him against Zerah and the Ethiopian army. And tells him that he made a mistake in that he relied upon the king of Syria instead of upon the Lord. And then the prophet in one of the great statements of the Bible says,
The eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are loyal to Him.
In other words to Asa, “You could have relied upon God. He’s just looking for the opportunity to show His strength on behalf of someone like you who is loyal to Him.” And Asa had failed to do that.
But that’s not exactly the spin that the writer of Kings gives to it, is it? The writer of Kings doesn’t tell us in so many words that Asa had failed to trust the Lord although that’s fairly obvious on the face of the story. He doesn’t tell us about the prophet that came to rebuke Asa. He announces the actions of Asa to stand in all of their horror before our eyes. Here is a man who treated the treasures that had been devoted to God as if they were no different than the treasures in his own house. He feels free to take them out of the house of God if it will mean that his security, the security of his kingdom, will be enhanced by that. And he turns them over to a pagan king.
You see why I’ve called Asa the king who downgraded the house of God. The house of God is impoverished by the use that Asa makes of the treasures that it contained. Isn’t this, are you struck by the contrast here? I mean here is Asa the greatest reformer in Israel so far who has dealt with the immoral perversion that goes on. He’s dealt with the idolatry. And yet he has failed to put the house of God at the center of Israel’s worship. And now he impoverishes the house of God by using its treasures to protect his security.
May I make this final suggestion? It seems to me that this meeting is perhaps the single greatest treasure that Victor Street Bible Chapel has. Now we are all grateful to God for giving us this building and we often thank God for that. We have a building that’s paid off. We bought it for less than eleven thousand. We all recognize the hand of God in that. But we also recognize, do we not, that we’re not meeting in the most plush and elegant church in the city of Dallas. There are a lot of churches much more expensive and impressive. And this particular building is, we sometimes have a struggle meeting our financial needs. And certainly we are grateful to the LORD that through the years He’s been faithful to us and He hasn’t made us materially rich. But He has sustained us through the years of our meeting here.
But as important as this building is, as important as God’s sustaining of the material needs is, this building is not our greatest treasure. It’s this meeting which is the New Testament meeting which is the kind of meeting that was established by the apostles and engaged in by the Christian Church. That brings me back to my steam shovel, my toy steam shovel. When I went into the store I was thinking of what, you know, you remember Kennedy’s famous statement, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” For me it was, “Ask not what your grandfather can do for you. Ask what you can do for your grandfather.”
And if we realize the importance and centrality of this meeting then it becomes all the more relevant to ask, “What does God want from us at this meeting?” May I suggest to you that the answer is God wants our worship. God wants our worship. Remember the interview that Jesus had with the Samaritan woman. And He begins again to get a little too close to her personal life. She kind of switched the topic to worship. She says, “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain. You say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.”
And Jesus said to her,
Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall you worship the Father. The hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit and they who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.
If we ask the question, “What is God seeking?” one definite answer is He is seeking worship. And He has given us this meeting in the Scriptures of the New Testament as the focus of our corporate worship. And I think that one of the most relevant questions we can ask every week as we sit down at this table is, “Will God get from this meeting the worship that He wants to receive from us?” Or to get more personal, “Will God get from me the worship that He is looking for from me?”
Now we certainly hope that the meetings are profitable in other ways. That you learn things from the scriptures. That you enjoy the music. Even enjoy the food. But at this meeting I’d like to ask you to ask yourself, “Has God already gotten worship from you?” And before the meeting is over, hopefully as you sing songs, as you join in the prayers, pray that God will receive additional worship from your heart and from your lips.
You know about over a year ago I came very close to leaving this planet. And I think I told you that in the hospital out there in Irving one day the nurse who had apparently heard that my heart had stopped in the emergency room said to me, “God didn’t want you.” And I couldn’t resist saying to her, “Well, I would rather say God didn’t want me yet.” And she said, “Well that’s what I meant.” And I’m sure she did. But if the Lord tarries eventually God will want me. And one of the questions that I’ve very frankly asked myself is after I am gone will Victor Street preserve the treasure of the Lord’s table? As long as it exists as a church that will depend on the leaders who succeed me and the leaders who succeed them. And it will depend on the support and the commitment of the congregation. May the Lord help this church to preserve this treasure and to remember this meeting is not for us. This meeting is for Him. The Lord’s Supper is the Lord’s own personal treasure.
All right, let’s have any questions or comments the men might wish.