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Advent Productions

Benjamin Ng

The King: Asa

Father in heaven, thank you so much for your watch care over us in this new year.

Thank you Lord for the ministry of the angels who continue to watch over and protect us.

Thank you Lord for the ministry of the Holy Spirit to to guide us and to lead us and to prompt us and to show us the right way in which we ought to go.

And thank you, Lord, for your Word, that as we come to study this morning, we pray you would speak to us so clearly from your word.

Guide and lead us, O Lord, with your Holy Spirit is our earnest plea and prayer.

Well, we are going to be looking at a series in this next few weeks as I share, we're going to be looking at the kings.

And we're not going to look at all the kings.

Because not all the kings are worth our time to study.

You know, we're going to be looking at the Kings that were the good kings that reigned during Israel and Judah after Saul, King David, and Solomon.

That'll be another series for another time probably.

But you know We're going to be looking at the northern and the southern kingdoms where the northern kingdoms were the 10 tribes that were called Israel then, and then it was Judah in the south, only 2 tribes.

And what's interesting, amazingly, that We're going to be focusing on the good kings.

And the amazing thing about the northern tribe, the tribes, the kings of Israel, there was not a single king that was good.

There were 20 kings on both sides that reign, 20 in the north, 20 in the south, but not a single 1 of the northern kings were good.

However, the the kings in the south, they fared a bit better.

Of the 20 kings, there were 8 good kings.

Manasseh seemed like he might be in heaven 1 day.

But it seemed like he repented at the very end.

So we won't be studying him but you know we'll just be focusing on the good kings and today we'll be looking at our first king King Asa.

We'll be doing them in chronological order in which they reign and when they came But we're going to start here in 2 Chronicles 16, verses 9-12.

The Bible begins by saying, For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.

Herein thou hast done foolishly, therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars.

Then Asa was wroth with the seer and put him in prison, for he was in a rage with him because of this thing.

And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time.

And behold the acts of Asa first and last.

Lo, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.

And Asa in the 30 and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet until his disease was exceeding great yet in his disease he sought not the lord but to the physicians." Now this is the end of the life of Asa but you're going to find that Asa was probably 1 of the best of the the southern tribe kings that would ever come on the scene.

But just to get a bit of a background of him before we jump into his his main ministry and life as he reigned, you know we're gonna look at his background.

What do we understand about his genealogy and his family tree?

Well, let's first have a look at his father.

His name was Abijah and this is what we read about him in 1 Kings 15 verses 1-3.

Now in the 18th year of King Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, reigned Abijah over Judah.

3 years reigned he in Jerusalem and his mother's name was Maka, the daughter of Abishalom, and he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him, and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God as the heart of David his father.

So Abijam, his father, his dad, was not a good king.

He walked in all the sins of the fathers before him.

And so you can see there that Asa, he really didn't come from a good family and you know there's an important point that we're going to make it about this but before we look at this application let's also look at his mother as well shall we?

So this is what we read about the mother in verses 10 to 13 of 1 Kings chapter 15.

And 41 years reigned he in Jerusalem, and his mother's name was Maka, the daughter of Abishalam.

And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did his father.

And he took away the Sodomites out of the land, removed all the idols that his fathers had made.

And also Maka, his mother, even her he removed from being king, because she had made an idol in a grove.

And Asa destroyed her idol and burnt it by the brook Kidron.

So his mother, Maka, I'm sorry, I forgot to change the slide there, but his mother Maka, she was an idolater.

She worshipped idols even though she was Jewish by background.

He walked in all the sins of his fathers before him.

He was not a good king at all, hence we're not studying him.

So you know, Asa really did not come from a good upbringing.

He did not have good parents that would raise him in the right way.

He came from a family that was full of idolatry.

And you know herein lies our first lesson when it comes to genealogy and family tree.

You know friends we have it within our own power to be better people.

Asa was a good king, although at the very end we'll see that it seemed like he turned away from the Lord, but he was probably the best of all the kings that we will study and that have ever come upon the scene to rule in Israel and Judah.

And so he really came from a bad background, but yet he was largely a good king.

He never used the excuse of my mom or my dad was wicked.

He never pointed to his mom and dad and said this is the reason why I'm allowed to be like this.

He was good in spite of his family upbringing.

Friends, it comes to this point in our adult life where we've got to stop blaming our parents for what we are, and we start taking responsibility for who we are in the decisions that we make, and what we do, and who we are ultimately in character.

You know, yes, upbringing from young child is important.

To have a good family is really important, but you know friends, Jesus, He can make a new thing out of nothing.

He's the 1 that can give us wisdom to make the right choices.

He's the 1 that can strengthen us to make those right choices as well.

And so friends, if we have Jesus, we have everything.

We ought to stop pointing to our historical family tree to say, my mom and my dad did not give me this or did not treat me the right way.

And so with that, let's now study about Asa the king.

Let's look at the beginning of his reign and throughout his reign and we'll see what he did and there the mistakes of men in the Bible have been put there for a reason and we ought to learn from them not to say, oh he was like that.

No, friends, the purpose of God to highlight all these mistakes is to be a warning to us that we don't repeat it, that we can become better men and women for Jesus as well.

But anyways, let's get into our first text about Asa and what we understand about him in his early years and his reign.

It says, But the high places were not taken away out of Israel.

Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was perfect all his days.

So even though he inherited a country full of idolatry that were burning things to other gods, to foreign gods that were burning in the high places.

Friends, it's so important to have a right relationship with God.

Yes, Asa was king and he wasn't king because God had just chosen him because he was the best man for the job.

No friends, he was in this position but he chose to rise up to that position in spite of whatever position he was in.

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The King: Asa

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