| Back to Home Page | Back to Book Index
|
2
Chronicles Chapter Sixteen
2 Chronicles 16
Chapter Contents
Asa seeks the aid of the Syrians, His death.
A plain and faithful reproof was given to Asa by a
prophet of the Lord, for making a league with Syria. God is displeased when he
is distrusted, and when an arm of flesh is relied on, more than his power and
goodness. It is foolish to lean on a broken reed, when we have the Rock of ages
to rely upon. To convince Asa of his folly, the prophet shows that he, of all
men, had no reason to distrust God, who had found him such a powerful Helper.
The many experiences we have had of the goodness of God to us, aggravate our
distrust of him. But see how deceitful our hearts are! we trust in God when we
have nothing else to trust to, when need drives us to him; but when we have
other things to stay on, we are apt to depend too much on them. Observe Asa's
displeasure at this reproof. What is man, when God leaves him to himself! He
that abused his power for persecuting God's prophet, was left to himself, to
abuse it further for crushing his own subjects. Two years before he died, Asa
was diseased in his feet. Making use of physicians was his duty; but trusting to
them, and expecting that from them which was to be had from God only, were his
sin and folly. In all conflicts and sufferings we need especially to look to
our own hearts, that they may be perfect towards God, by faith, patience, and
obedience.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on 2 Chronicles》
2 Chronicles 16
Verse 1
[1] In
the six and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa Baasha king of Israel came up
against Judah, and built Ramah, to the intent that he might let none go out or
come in to Asa king of Judah.
Of the reign —
Or, of the kingdom of Asa, that is, of the kingdom of Judah, which was now
Asa's kingdom; or from the time of the division of the two kingdoms. Rehoboam
reigned seventeen years, Abijah three years, Asa had now reigned fifteen years,
all which put together, make up the thirty five years mentioned chap. 15:19, and in the next year Baasha wars against
him; and the ground of the war was the defection of many of his subjects to
Asa, chap. 15:9.
Verse 7
[7] 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.
Escaped —
And so reserved to be a scourge to thy kingdom and posterity: whereas if he had
joined with Baasha against thee, thou shouldst have overthrown them both, and
prevented all that mischief which that monarch will do to thy family.
Verse 8
[8] Were
not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge host, with very many chariots and
horsemen? yet, because thou didst rely on the LORD, he delivered them into thine
hand.
Lubims —
Either, the Lybians in Africa; or another people, possibly descended from them,
but now seated in some part of Arabia.
Verse 9
[9] 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.
Done foolishly — It
is a foolish thing to lean on a broken reed, when we have the rock of ages to
rely upon.
Perfect —
Upright and sincere, as thine is not. He was sincere in the general course of
his life, but some particulars, whereof this is one, his heart did not
perfectly cleave to God.
Verse 12
[12] 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.
Sought not — He
did not humble himself before God, but put his confidence in the skill and
faithfulness of his physicians. His making use of physicians was his duty, but
his trusting in them, and expecting that from them, which was to be had from
God only, was his sin and folly. The help of every creature must be used, with
an eye to the creator, and in dependence on him, who makes every creature that
to us which it is, without whom the most skilful and faithful are physicians of
no value.
Verse 14
[14] And
they buried him in his own sepulchres, which he had made for himself in the
city of David, and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odours and
divers kinds of spices prepared by the apothecaries' art: and they made a very
great burning for him.
Burning — Of
precious spices; thereby testifying their respect to him notwithstanding his
miscarriages.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on 2 Chronicles》
DOWN-GRADE-ISM
OF ASA.
2 Chronicles 16.
When anyone
gets on the incline of backsliding, he soon finds himself in the road of
departure from God. Thus it was with Asa; one step in the wrong direction
prompted him to take another.
Ⅰ. Asa sought help in the
wrong quarter (verse 2). Instead of going to the King of Syria for help, he
should have gone to the King of Heaven. The man who looks to man for assistance
is cursed (Jer. 17:5), but he who looks to the Lord is helped indeed (Psalm
121:2). The help of man, like water in a leaky vessel, is sure to run away,
whereas the help of the Lord is like a mighty tornado, before which nothing can
stand.
Ⅱ. Asa relied on the wrong
person for aid (verse 7). The king was but as a broken reed for Asa to lean
upon; no wonder, therefore, that he came to the ground to his hurt. To rely on
the Lord is to have the arm of the Living God to uphold us, as Asa had
experienced when he trusted in the Lord on a previous occasion (verse 8). To
trust in the Lord is the secret of a holy life (Gal.2:20)；the spur to a separate life (Heb.11:8,9); the stimulus to
a useful life (Gideon: Heb.11:32); and the safe-guard of an active life (Paul:
1. Tim.4:10).
Ⅲ. Asa was angry with the
wrong man (verse 10). He should have been angry with himself; instead of that,
he was wroth with the prophet. They that are wrong are the first to do wrong.
Ⅳ. Asa’s oppression was in
the wrong place (verse 10). He should have oppressed himself by heartfelt
penitence and confession; instead of that he acted the part of a tyrant in
crushing some of the people.
Ⅴ. Asa consulted the wrong
physician (verse 12). “ He sought not the Lord” is a sad sentence to have
against one’s name. It tells out a life of self-will and self-reliance.
── F.E. Marsh《Five Hundred Bible Readings》
16 Chapter 16
Verses 1-14
Verses 1-10
Then Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasuries of the
house of the Lord.
The folly of bribery
Trust in man, not in God--
I. Led to
sacrilege in religious things. Gifts bestowed or promised with a view to
prevent judgment or corrupt morals abominable. Bribery a canker in constitutional
governments, a disgrace in all departments of life.
II. Brought down
Divine reproof.
III. Defeated its
own ends.
1. Asa missed the opportunity of a double victory. Possible by unnecessary and
improper alliances to hinder our good and prevent God from granting
deliverance.
2. Asa exposed himself to greater danger. Those who bribe and those
bribed not to be depended upon. For gold men will sell their votes, their
conscience, and themselves. Cato complained that M. Coelius the Tribune “might
be hired for a piece of bread to speak or to hold his peace.” (J.
Wolfendale.)
Verse 7
Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on
the Lord.
Asa’s want of faith
Sin like Asa’s has been the supreme apostasy of the Church in all
her branches and through all her generations: Christ has been denied, not by
lack of devotion, but by want of faith. Champions of the faith, reformers and
guardians of the temple, like Asa, have been eager to attach to their holy
cause the cruel prejudices of ignorance and folly, the greed and vindictiveness
of selfish men. They have feared lest these potent forces should be arrayed
amongst the enemies of the Church and her Master. It has even been suggested
that national Churches and great national vices were so intimately allied that
their supporters were content that they should stand or fall together. On the
other hand, the advocates of reform have not been slow to appeal to popular
jealousy and to aggravate the bitterness of social feuds. (W. H.
Bennett, M.A.)
Verse 9
For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole
earth.
Divine providence
We need not concern ourselves with the occasion on which these
words were uttered. Spoken by a prophet to Asa, king of Judah, they have been
“recorded for our instruction.” The representation sets forth Divine things
under human similitudes. Now it can hardly be necessary that we expose the
falseness of the opinion that having created this world God left it to itself,
and bestows no thought on its concerns. But whilst there are few who hold the
opinion, there are many who would limit the providence of God; and it is very
easy to put forward descriptions of the magnitude and the power of the Creator,
and then to set in contrast the insignificance of man, and to argue from the
comparison that it is derogatory to the greatness of God to suppose Him careful
of what befalls a house-hold or happens to an individual. But this is poor
reasoning; it would not hold good if applied amongst ourselves. If it were
possible that a great statesman or potentate, whilst superintending the
concerns of an empire, should yet find time for ministering at the bedside of
sickness, and be active for the widow and the orphan: well, what would you
say--that it was derogatory to him that, without neglecting momentous things,
he showed himself capable of attending to things comparatively petty? Nay, you
would admire and you would venerate him all the more. Neither is it
derogatory--nay, rather, it is essential to the greatness of our God--that
whilst He marshals the stars and orders the motions of all the worlds in
immensity, He yet feedeth the young ravens that call upon Him, and numbereth
the very hairs of our head. But now we will bring this truth before you in
greater minuteness, and show what is involved in the saying, “The eyes of the
Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth.”
I. We may first
alarm it evident that nothing can happen in any spot of the peopled immensity
which is not known to Him who is emphatically the Omniscient--indeed, it were
to deny the omniscience of God to suppose any the most trivial incident not
included within His knowledge. And it is far more than the inspection of an
ever-vigilant observer. It is not merely that nothing can happen without the
knowledge of our Maker: it is that nothing can happen but by His appointment or
permission, for we must ever remember that God is the first cause, and that on
the first all secondary depend. But how beautifully simple does everything
appear when we trace one hand in all that occurs! It is God whose energies are
extended throughout the earth and sea and air, causing those innumerable and
beneficial results which we ascribe to nature; it is God by whom all those
contingencies which seem to us fortuitous and casual are ordered, so that
events brought round by what men count accident proceed from a Divine and
therefore irreversible appointment. It is God by whom the human will is
secretly inclined towards righteousness, so that there is not wrought upon earth a single action such
as God can approve, to whose performance God hath not instigated. It is God who,
acting through the instrumentality of various and apparently conflicting causes, keeps
together the discordant elements of society, and prevents the whole framework
of civil institutions from being rapidly dissolved and broken up piecemeal. I
know that it is not the monarch alone at the head of his provinces and tribes
who is observed by the Almighty; I know that it is not only at some great
crisis in life that an individual becomes the object of the attention of his
Maker; rather do I know that the poorest, the meanest, the most despised, the
very outcast of society, shares with the monarch the notice of the Universal
Protector. Yea, and that this notice is so incessant and so unwearied, that
when he goes to his daily toil, or his daily prayer, when he lies down at
night, or rises in the morning, or gathers his little ones to the scanty meal,
the poor man is not unnoticed by God; he cannot weep a tear God knows not, he
cannot smile a smile God knows not, he cannot breathe a wish God knows not. But
whilst the universal providence of God is to the full as incomprehensible as
aught else that belongs to Divinity, there is nothing in it but what commends
itself to the very warmest feelings of our nature.
II. We come now to
the second doctrine laid down in our text--that all the motions of providence
have for their ultimate end the good of those whose heart is perfect towards
God. And you may examine this doctrine under two points of view--as referring
either to the Church at large, or separately to the individuals of whom that
Church is composed. With Scripture for our guide, we must see that God’s
design, in all His dealings with this earth, has been the glorifying Himself in
the redemption and final exaltation of a vast number of our apostate race.
Before Christ appeared amongst men, the whole course of human events was so
ordered as to prepare the way for the promised Deliverer. If God sent His own
Son to deliver man from the consequences of transgression, and to extirpate
evil from the universe, we cannot doubt the objects which engaged so stupendous
an interposition must still be those to whose furtherance the Divine dealings
tend. There can be no other objects commensurate in importance with those, for
no others have required so costly a process; and since these as yet have been
only partially attained, we must justly conclude that their thorough
accomplishment is the proposed end of all the dealings of providence. The globe
was partitioned out with a view to the Church, this land assigned to one nation
and that to another, with the set purpose of consulting by the distribution the
well-being of Israel. It is as though the Psalmist had said that God directs
all the tumults and confusions of the world, guiding the flood with holy and
merciful intentions towards His people, that the turbid waters may bring them
strength and peace. Why is it that the Church has outlived so many a fierce
persecution--that in the place of being vanquished she is only to be
invigorated by assault? We ascribe nothing to the native energies of the
preachers or professors of Christianity: we ascribe everything to the
protecting and fostering care of Him who so loved the world as to give His Son.
And it is not only in reference to the Church at large that we are warranted in
thus speaking of God’s providence. Of each member in this Church we may declare
that God watches sedulously over him with the express design of succouring him
with all needful assistance. You learn from various portions of Holy Writ that
God has a great interest in the righteous, so that the Lord’s portion is said
to be His people, and Jacob the lot of His inheritance. He now calls His people
His jewels, and declares that whosoever toucheth them toucheth the apple of His
eye. We know that many things may happen to the righteous which seem against
them, and that it is easy to find in their disasters apparent exceptions to the
truth affirmed by the text; yet who that knows anything of Christian experience
would deny that the trials which are permitted to overtake the godly serve as
means through which their spiritual well-being is advanced, and afford
occasions for such communications of grace as prove that God’s strength is made
perfect in weakness? It is no proof that the eye of the Lord is not on the
righteous that troubles may be found in their portion. When again this man is
visited with calamity, death may make inroads in his household, and disorder
may pervade his affairs; but the eyes of the Lord are incessantly on him, and
if he will but seek his comfort in God, God will show Himself strong by giving
him a peace which passeth all understanding. And if anything can encourage the
righteous man, and give him confidence amid the onsets of trial, it must be the
consideration that the providence of the Almighty is thus perpetually vigilant
in his behalf. (H. MeLvill, B.D.)
The eyes of the Lord
I. What we are to
understand by the eyes of the Lord. This is figurative. It designs His
all-seeing providence; and that, as concerned in a special manner with His own
people (Zechariah 3:9; Zechariah 4:10). The eyes of the Lord, as
they are set upon His own people, are like the eyes of doves--expressive of
mildness, gentleness, tenderness, and love; but as they are set upon wicked
men, His eyes are as flames of fire--expressive of wrath and vengeance (Amos 9:4-8; Psalms 34:15).
II. In what sense
these are said to run to and fro throughout the whole earth. This is expressive
of His watchfulness over His people (Jeremiah 31:28). As those who are
watchful look here and there, and are very diligent in their observations, so
the Lord watches over His people.
1. To help them.
2. To counter-work the adversary (Job 1:7).
III. The end of
their running thus. To show Himself strong on the behalf of those whose heart
is perfect toward Him.
1. The descriptive character: “perfect toward Him”; that is, sincere
and upright. Where there is “love out of a pure heart and faith unfeigned” (1 Timothy 1:5) the heart may be said
to be perfect.
2. The exertion of Divine power on their behalf. (J. Gill, D. D.)
The eyes of the Lord
In Scripture these signify--
I. His knowledge (Job 34:21; Hebrews 4:13).
II. His providence.
1. For good (1 Kings 6:3; Psalms 32:8).
2. For evil (Isaiah 3:8). (S. Charnock, B.D.)
God’s providence-a description, and its end
I. The description
of God’s providence.
1. Its immediateness: “His eyes.” Not like princes, who see by their
servants’ eyes, more than by their own, what is done in their kingdoms; His
care is immediate.
2. Its quickness and speed: “run.”
3. Its extent: “the whole earth.”
4. Its diligence: “to and fro.” His care is repeated.
5. Its efficacy. His care doth engage His strength.
II. The end of
providence. (S. Charnock, B. D.)
The foundations of the doctrine of providence
I. God hath an
indisputable and peculiar right to the government of the world. This right is
founded upon--
1. That of creation.
2. The excellency of His being. Every man hath a natural right to
rule another in his own art and skill wherein he excels him.
II. God only is
qualified for the universal government of the world. God only is fit in regard
of--
1. Power.
2. Holiness and righteousness. All disorder is the effect of
unrighteousness.
3. Knowledge.
4. Patience.
III. There can be no
reason rendered why God should not actually govern the world, since He only
hath a right and a fitness.
IV. God doth
actually preserve and govern the world.
1. Nothing is acted in the world without God’s knowledge. The vision of
the wheels in Ezekiel presents us with an excellent portraiture of providence (Ezekiel 1:18).
2. Nothing is acted in the world without the will of God (Ephesians 1:11; Psalms 135:6).
3. Nothing doth subsist without God’s care and power. (S.
Charnock, B. D.)
The universality of God’s providence
I. It is over all
creatures.
1. The highest.
2. The meanest. As the sun’s light, so God’s providence, disdains not
the meanest worms.
II. It extends to
all the actions and motions of the creature.
1. To natural actions. How do fish serve several coasts at several
seasons? why do plants that grow between a barren and a fruitful soil shoot all
their roots towards the moist and fruitful ground, but by a secret direction of
providential wisdom?
2. To civil actions. Counsels of men are ordered by Him to other ends
than what they aim at, and which their wisdom cannot discover.
3. To preternatural actions. God doth command creatures to do those
things which are no way suitable to their inclinations (1 Kings 17:4; Jonah 2:10; Daniel 3:1-30).
4. To all supernatural and miraculous actions of the creatures. As when
the sun went backward in Hezekiah’s time, and when it stood still in the valley
of Ajalon.
5. To all fortuitous actions. The whole disposing of the lot which is
east into the lap is of the Lord (Proverbs 16:33).
6. To all voluntary actions. (S. Charnock, B. D.)
The mysteriousness of God’s providence
I. His ways are
above human methods. Dark providences are often the groundwork of some
excellent piece He is about to discover to the world. His methods are like a
plaited picture, which on the one side represents a negro and the other a
beauty.
II. His ends are of
a higher strain than the aims of men. Who would have thought that the forces
Cyrus raised against Babylon, to satisfy his own ambition, should be a means to
deliver the Israelites and restore the worship of God in the temple?
III. God hath
several ends in the same action. Jacob is oppressed with famine, Pharaoh
enriched with plenty, but Joseph’s imprisonment is in order to his father’s
relief and Pharaoh’s wealth.
IV. God has more
remote ends than short-sighted souls are able to espy. (S. Charnock, B. D.)
The providence of God
I. The wisdom of
God would not be so perspicuous were there not a providence in the world. A
musician discovers more skill in the touching an instrument, and ordering the
strings, to sound what note he pleaseth, than he doth in the first framing and
making of it (Isaiah 28:29). All God’s providences are
but His touch of the strings of this great instrument of the world.
II. The means
whereby God’s acts discover a providence. He acts--
1. By small means.
(a) In the deliverance of a people or person. A dream was the occasion
of Joseph’s greatness. He used the cacklings of geese to save the Roman Capitol
from a surprise by the Gauls.
(b) In the salvation of the soul. Our Saviour Himself, though God, was so mean in
the eyes of the world that He calls Himself “a worm, and no man” (Psalms 22:6). The world is saved by a
crucified Christ.
2. By contrary means. God makes contrary things contribute to His
glory, as contrary colours in a picture do to the beauty of the piece. In some
engines you shall see wheels have contrary motions, and yet all in order to one
and the same end. God cured those by a brazen serpent which were stung by the
fiery ones, whereas brass (according to Grotius) is naturally hurtful to those
that are bit by serpents. (S. Charnock, B. D.)
A supreme providence the only explanation of many actions
and events in the world:--This is evidenced--
I. By the
restraints upon the passions of men. How strangely did God qualify the hearts
of the Egyptians willingly to submit to the sale of their land, when they might
have risen in a tumult, broke open the granaries, and supplied their wants (Genesis 47:19; Genesis 47:21).
II. By the sudden
changes which are made upon the spirits of men for the preservation of others (Genesis 33:4; 1 Samuel 24:17-18; 2 Chronicles 18:31; Esther 6:1-2).
III. In causing
enemies to do things for others which are contrary to all rules of policy. The
Jews in the worst of their captivities were often befriended by their
conquerors, to rebuild their city and re-edify their temple, and at the charge
of their conquerors too (Ezra 1:1-2; Ezra 1:7; Ezra 4:12; Ezra 4:15; Ezra 4:19; Ezra 6:4-5; Ezra 6:8-9; Ezra 6:11; Ezra 6:22; Nehemiah 2:8).
IV. In infatuating
the counsels of men (Isaiah 33:11; 2 Samuel 17:14).
V. In making the
counsels of men subservient to the very ends they design against (Genesis 11:4; Genesis 11:8; John 12:32).
VI. In making the
fancies of men subservient to their own ruin (2 Kings 3:22-23; 2 Kings 7:6; 7:19-22). (S. Charnock, B. D.)
The unequal distributions of providence-a question
If there be a providence, how come those unequal distributions to
happen in the world?
I. Answer in
general.
1. Is it not a high presumption for ignorance to judge God’s
proceedings?
2. God is sovereign of the world. Why should a finite understanding
prescribe measures and methods to an infinite Majesty?
3. God is wise and just, and knows how to distribute. If we question
His providence, we question His wisdom. We see the present dispensations, but
are we able to understand the internal motives?
4. There is a necessity for some seeming inequality, at least, in
order to the good government of the world. The afflictions of good men are a
foil to set off the beauty of God’s providence in the world.
5. Unequal distributions do not argue carelessness. A father may give
one child a gayer coat than he gives another, yet he extends his fatherly care
and tenderness over all.
6. Upon due consideration the inequality will not appear so great as
the complaint of it. A running sore may lie under a purple robe. As some are
stripped of wealth and power, so they are stripped of their incumbrances they
bring with them.
II. Answer more
particularly.
1. It is not well with bad men here.
2. Neither is it bad here with goodmen.
(a) Sensible experiments of the tender providence of God over them (Psalms 37:19; Psalms 37:39; 2 Timothy 4:17; 2 Corinthians 1:5; 1 Peter 4:13-14).
(b) Inward improvements, opportunities to manifest more love to God,
more dependence on Him, the perfection of the soul (1 Timothy 5:5; Job 22:10).
(c) Future glory.
(d) Suffering of good men for the truth highly glorifies the
providence of God (1 Peter 4:16).
(e) This argument is stronger for a day of reckoning after this life
than against providence. (S. Charnock, B. D.)
The unworthiness and absurdity of denying providence
I. The evil of
denying providence.
1. It gives a liberty to all sin. What may not be done where there is
no government?
2. It destroys all religion.
3. It is a high disparagement of God.
4. It is clearly against natural light. Socrates could say,
“Whosoever denied providence was possessed with a devil.”
II. The grounds of
the denial of providence. This is founded--
1. Upon an overweening conceit of men’s own worth. When men saw
themselves frustrated of the rewards they expected, and saw others that were
instruments of tyranny and lust graced with the favours they thought due to
their own virtue, they ran into a conceit that God did not mind the actions of
men below.
2. Upon pedantical and sensual notions of God. As though it might
detract from His pleasures and delight to look down upon this world, or as
though it were a molestation of an infinite power to busy Himself about the
cares of sublunary things.
3. On a flattering conceit of the majesty of God.
4. On their wishes upon any gripes of conscience. Those in Zephaniah
were first settled upon their lees, and then to drive away all fears of
punishment, deny God’s government (Zephaniah 1:12). Some men, upon a sense
of guilt, wish, for their own security, there were no providential eye to
inspect them.
III. The various
ways wherein men practically deny providence, or abuse it, or contemn it.
1. When they will walk on in a contrary way to checks of Providence.
2. In omissions of prayer (Psalms 14:2; 2 Kings 1:3; Job 15:4).
3. When men will turn every stone to gain the favourable assistance
of men in their designs, and never address to God for His direction or blessing
(Job 35:9-10; 2 Chronicles 16:7; 2 Chronicles 16:12; Proverbs 3:5).
4. When upon receiving any good they make more grateful
acknowledgment to the instruments than to God, the principal author of it (Isaiah 10:13-14; Daniel 5:23; Hebrews 1:16).
5. When we use indirect courses and dishonest ways to gain wealth or
honour.
6. When we distrust God when there is no visible means (Isaiah 51:12-13; Psalms 52:7)
7. Stoutness, under God’s afflicting or merciful hand, is a denial or
contempt-providence (Daniel 5:23; Hosea 7:9; Isaiah 22:12-13).
8. Envy is also a denial of providence.
9. Impatience under cross providence is a denial and contempt of
God’s government (Isaiah 8:21-22).
10. In charging our sins and miscarriages by them upon Providence (Proverbs 19:3).
11. Many other ways.
Belief in Providence a source of comfort
I. Man is a
special object of Providence (Genesis 1:26).
II. Holy men a more
special object of it (Psalms 33:18; Psalms 37:23; text).
III. Hence will
follow that the spirits of good men have sufficient grounds to bear up in them
innocent sufferings and storms in the world (Hebrews 6:10).
IV. Hence follows a
certain security against a good man’s want (Psalms 34:10; 1 Timothy 4:8). (S. Charnock, B.
D.)
Our duty in regard to Providence
I. To seek
everything we need at the hands of God.
II. To trust
Providence.
1. In the greatest extremities.
2. In the way of means.
3. In the way of precept. Let not any reliance upon an ordinary
providence induce us into any way contrary to the command (Psalms 37:5).
4. Solely, without prescribing any methods to Him.
III. To submit to
Providence: for--
1. Whatsoever God doth, He doth wisely.
2. God discovers His mind to us by providences (Luke 7:22; Acts 5:38-39).
IV. To murmur not
at Providence.
V. To study
Providence.
1. Universally.
2. Regularly.
3. Entirely.
4. Calmly.
5. Seriously.
6. Holily; with a design to that duty Providence calls for (Isaiah 22:12).
7. Ascribe the glory of every providence to God. (S. Charnock, B.
D.)
Providence follows the rule of Scripture
Whatsoever was written was written for the Church’s comfort (Romans 15:4); whatsoever is acted in
order to anything written is acted for the Church’s good. All the providences
of God in the world are conformable to His declarations in His Word.
I. All good things
are for the good of the Church.
1. The world.
2. The gifts and common graces of men in the world.
3. Angels.
II. All bad things
are for their good.
1. Bad persons.
2. Bad things.
(a) A man’s own sin. Onesimus runs from his master, and finds a
spiritual father. God makes the remainder of sin in a good man an occasion to
exercise His grace, discover his strength, and show his loyalty to God.
(b) Other men’s sins. The revengeful threatening of Esau was the
occasion of Jacob’s flight, which saved him from possible idolatry (Genesis 27:43; Genesis 27:46).
Providence glorifies God’s grace in Christ
I. All the
providence of God is for the glorifying His grace in Christ (Ephesians 1:10; Ephesians 1:22-23).
II. God hath given
the power of providential administration of things to Christ, for the good of
the Church.
III. God in the
Church discovers the glory of all His attributes. What wisdom, power,
sufficiency, grace, and kindness He hath is principally for them.
IV. There is a
peculiar relation of God in Christ to the Church, upon which account this
doctrine must needs be true. God is a father to provide for them (Isaiah 64:8); a mother to suckle them (Isaiah 49:15); Christ is a husband to
love and protect them (Ephesians 5:29); a brother to counsel
them (John 20:17).
V. The whole
interest of God in the world, lies in His Church and people.
VI. It cannot be
but all the providences of God shall work to the good of His Church, if we
consider the affections of God.
1. His love.
2. His delight (Zephaniah 3:17).
VII. The presence of
God in His Church will make all providences tend to the good of it.
VIII. The prayers of
the Church have a mighty force with God to this end; because--
1. God delights in the prayers of His people.
2. Prayer is nothing
else but a pleading of God’s promises.
3. They are the united supplications and pleadings both in heaven and
earth.
Use
I. For
information.
1. God will always have a Church in the world.
2. God will, in the greatest exigencies, find out means for the
protection of His Church.
3. The Church shall, in the end, prove victorious against all its
adversaries, or Providence must miss its aim.
4. The interest of nations is to bear a respect to the Church, and
countenance the worship of God in it.
5. We may see hence
the ground of most of the judgments in the world.
6. What esteem, then, should there be of the godly in the world!
7. It is, then, a very foolish thing for any to contend against the
welfare of God’s people.
Use
II. For comfort.
1. In duties and special services.
2. In meanness and lowness.
3. In the greatest judgments upon others.
4. In His people’s greatest extremities (Isaiah 43:2; Psalms 91:4; John 6:17-18).
5. In fear of wants.
6. In the low estate of the Church at any time.
Use
III. If the
providence of God is chiefly designed for the good of the Church--
1. Fear not the enemies of the Church.
2. Censure not God in His dark providences.
3. Inquire into providence and interpret all public providences by this
rule.
4. Consider the former providences God hath wrought for the Church in
past ages.
5. Act faith in God’s providences.
6. Wait upon God in His providence.
7. Pray for the Church.
8. When you receive any mercy for the Church in answer to prayer give
God the glory of it.
9. Imitate God in His affection to the Church.
10. Look after sincerity before God. (S. Charnock, B. D.)
The look of God
I. God looks upon
all things distinctly. He looks upon every parcel and opens the whole pack of
human affairs.
II. He beholds
every thing and person perfectly, fully, quite through.
III. In seeing he
governs everything effectually, and works it to His own ends.
IV. He seeth all
things together. (J. Caryl.)
God’s loving providence over His people
There is something sadly natural in the conduct of Asa as
described in the context. It is so hard for us to feel that our interests are
secure unless we are manipulating them ourselves. A soldier in the battle
seizes yonder knoll, driving off with his superior valour the enemies who were
holding it. It is nobly done, and it will be well if the plan of his general
includes the capture of that knoll. But if not, when the tide of battle rolls off in another
direction, the valiant soldier will be left unsupported in the midst of the
returning enemies. How many men have been utterly undone by the accomplishment
of their own plans, through their own vast industry and heroic enterprise, simply
because they had not made their plans subordinate to the purposes of God, the
supreme commandant of every life. Keep your eye upon the pillar of fire and
cloud which moves over the desert!
I. How eagerly,
then, God consults the welfare of his people.
II. How minutely
careful of us is God.
III. How complete is
God’s supervision of our welfare. (J. M. Ludlow, D.D.)
Divine Providence
The term “Providence,” as now commonly applied to God, does not
occur in Holy Scripture. It occurs only in two passages in the Apocrypha, viz.,
Wisdom of Solomon 14:3; Wisdom of Solomon 17:3. It is,
nevertheless, a term convenient and proper for the statement of a Scriptural
doctrine. By those of the ancient philosophers who admitted the existence of a
God, or of a plurality of gods, terms of correspondent grammatical import were
employed, to express that Divine superintendence by which all things in the
material creation were fitted and directed to their proper ends, and by which
the universe was kept from falling back into that state of chaos which was
supposed to have preceded the present orderly and beauteous frame of things.
After their example, we have learned to employ the term “Providence,” for the
purpose of describing “the conduct and direction of the several parts of the
universe by a superintending and intelligent Being.” My purpose is to invite
your attention to such views of the providence of God as more immediately
affect the higher interests of man.
I. First, then, we
inquire into the general proofs evincing a Divine providence.
1. The first of these proofs is drawn from the moral fitness and
necessity of such a Providence. The Psalmist teaches us he is a “fool” who says
“There is no God”; and surely he is not less so who, professing to believe in
the existence of such a God as the Jehovah of the Scriptures, can say, “There
is no Providence.” Some writers on this subject have gone so far as to assert
that, in the abstract, the idea of a God without a providence involves a
contradiction. But the truth of that position may be reasonably questioned. It
we suppose a God, invested with no higher attributes than those which were applied
to the false deities of ancient heathenism, where is the folly of farther
supposing Him to dwell in a remote and selfish seclusion from terrestrial
things? In this respect, the followers of Epicurus gave good proof of their
consistency at least when, believing only in such gods as those referred to,
they not only denied them to be the governors, but also the creators, of the
world; it being, as they rightly judged, but reasonable to conclude that such
gods had neither the wisdom nor the power to create, or govern, such a world as
this. And they were equally consistent when, having no distinct notion of any
intelligent Being to whom the lofty attributes of eternal existence and
universal power might be considered as pertaining, they attributed eternity to
matter, and give the empire of the world to chance. Were there in reality no
higher object of worship than the daemon-gods of Greece and Rome, and were
there, consequently, no Providence but such as these gods might be supposed to
be capable of exercising, it were surely consistent with good reason and
benevolence at least to wish the sceptre of the world’s dominion might be
wrested from their grasp, and that, rather than be subject to such rule, the
course of nature and of all events might be committed to the sportive dance of
atoms and the blind rush of accidental causes. But if, as taught in Scripture,
we acknowledge, as the first cause of all created things, a Being absolutely
perfect, and therefore infinite in wisdom, in goodness, and in power, we must
at the same time admit a Divine Providence as still sustaining and governing
the universe which He has made; and especially we must admit there is a
Providence, to administer and overrule the affairs and interests of men. Much
as it has laboured on that point, “the wisdom of this world” presents us with
no principles which can at all suffice to show how anything created can even
continue to exist unless by a perpetual exertion of wisdom and power on the
part of Him who first called it into being; or how, upon the supposition that
the Divine guidance and support should be withdrawn, the world could do
otherwise than immediately sink back into the nothingness from which it
originally sprung. Even supposing the material creation, in “the dew” of its
“morning,” and in the beauty of its primaeval excellence, to have received the
impression of such properties and laws as would have been sufficient, but for
the positive intervention of some disturbing cause, to perpetuate its existence
and its order, yet we cannot contemplate the character and aspect of the world,
as it exists at present, and especially we cannot contemplate its moral
character and aspect, without perceiving the necessity of a Divine Providence,
to counteract the evils which have gained access to it. That the universal
Creator should leave, without a providence, a world like this, in which evil of
all kinds has won so large and terrible a sway, and in which there are so many
fearful tendencies to universal mischief and confusion, would neither be consistent
with wisdom, nor goodness, nor justice, on any other supposition than that of
man’s having been judiciously abandoned, without hope of redemption, to reap
the natural fruit of his own evil and rebellious doings.
2. The second proof of a Divine Providence is found in the positive
and repeated testimony of Holy Writ.
3. A third proof evincing a Divine Providence is found in certain
miraculous attestations which have occasionally marked its interposition. We
are enabled to point out numerous occasions on which God has come forth from
the “hiding-place” in which He usually dwells and carries on His operations and
has shown Himself, as it is stated in my text, by tokens which could not but be
seen, and which could not be mistaken. There is the flood coming on “the world
of the ungodly,” whilst Noah and his family, being “warned of God,” are
directed to the means
of their exemption from the general destruction. We point to “the cities of the
plain, turned into ashes by fire and brimstone, which the Lord rained upon them
out of heaven,” whilst righteous Lot is escorted by angelic attendants to a
place of safety. We will exhibit to him the long roll of those “mighty acts and
wonders” which are displayed in the history of the Israelitish people. We
contemplate the strange deliverance of Daniel and his three countrymen from the
power of savage beasts and from the rage of the devouring flame. We will show
him how Nature herself--the imaginary deity whom infidels pretend to
worship--has in many instances forgotten her own laws, and been arrested, or
even turned backwards, in her course; and we will challenge him to show us how
these stupendous anomalies are to be accounted for, unless upon the supposition
that in these instances there was the interposition of a Power superior to
anything that has ever been understood by the term Nature--an interposition
which must necessarily lead us to admit the providence for which we are
contending.
II. The general
characteristics of that Divine Providence which is demonstrated to exist.
1. This Providence is universal, “for the eyes of the Lord run to and
fro throughout the whole earth.” By a universal Providence we mean a Providence
which is at the same time general and particular. Indeed a Providence which is
Divine must necessarily bear both these characteristics. No argument can be
adduced in favour of the one which is not equally applicable in favour of the
other; and we cannot exclude either of them from our notion of that Providence
by which the world is governed without admitting into our notion of the Deity
by whom that providence is exercised an imperfection of which He is incapable.
For, in excluding either a general or a particular Providence, we necessarily
suppose some portion of our world, of greater or less extent, from which the
Divine presence and care are totally excluded. It is true that we are utterly
confounded in every attempt we make to estimate the wisdom and power and
condescension which are required to be in constant exercise, in order to the
maintenance of an inspection so vast in its extent, and yet so minute in its
details. But from this feeling of astonishment no objection would arise against
the doctrine either of a general or a particular Providence, were it not for
those monstrously absurd comparisons which we are wont to institute between the
Almighty and ourselves, together with our strange forgetfulness of the
important truth that God is everywhere present at one and the same time; and
that to One whose knowledge and power are subject to no bound or imperfection,
it must be quite as easy to attend to many things, however numerous or
complicated they may be, as to attend to only one.
2. A second characteristic of the providence of God is its
beneficence. In all its operations it regards, as its final object, the welfare
of mankind in general; and as far as may be found consistent with that object,
the welfare of individuals in particular. This general purpose of beneficence
is to a great degree apparent in the general provision which is made for human
sustenance and comfort. It is impossible to view the astonishing arrangements
which everywhere display themselves, for the supply of “food convenient for
us,” and for the general preservation of our race, without being prompted to
exclaim, “Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness; Thy paths drop fatness.”
And the moral ends contemplated by a Providence which is thus mindful of our
bodily necessities, and of our humblest natural infirmities, must be, in even
more than an equal degree, characterised by a pure and infinite beneficence.
There may at first, indeed, appear to be something almost incompatible with
such a doctrine, in the affliction and misery which desolate the earth. But the
difficulty arising on that ground is easily resolved by such considerations as
the following:
3. A third characteristic of Divine Providence is its mysteriousness.
I do not say that there is any mystery as to the general object which that
Providence regards. We have already “seen the end of the Lord, that He is
pitiful and of great mercy.” But of the course which He pursues to the
attainment of that end, it may frequently be said, that “His path is in the
whirlwind, and His way in the great deep, and His footsteps are not known.” And
surely a Providence which is Divine must necessarily, in the detail of many of
its plans and operations, appear to be mysterious to creatures so short-sighted
as we are. It is certainly right, because perfectly consistent with just
notions of the God whom we adore, that we should acknowledge the existence of
mysteries in providence; but why should we profess to wonder at such mysteries,
while there remain so many mysteries in Nature? I have said that the general
principles of the Divine administration of the world are clearly made known.
But I remember the saying of a great man, now no more, that “things pertaining
to God may be mysterious, in proportion as they are revealed”; and I cannot but
feel the application of that paradoxical yet just position to the point which
is before us. Were God a finite being, like ourselves, the revelation of the
principles on which He acts, however vast and comprehensive in their range and
application those principles might be, would not, perhaps, be such as we should
be unable adequately to conceive. But principles which know no limit, in
themselves or in their application, save that which is imposed by the will, or
by the necessity, of a Divine and incomprehensible nature, must necessarily, in
whatever degree they are revealed to us, remain mysterious because of their
infinity; and the more nearly we are enabled to contemplate those principles,
the more overpowering--I had almost said, the more bewildering--will be the
effect of their united splendour, both on our mental and spiritual vision. And
then, besides the physical reason to which I have referred, why the providence
of God should in many of its dispensations be mysterious, there is a moral
reason--a reason arising out of the beneficence by which the operations of that
providence are shaped to their intended issue. For were those operations free
from mystery, then would our faith want those trials which constitute its most
important and profitable exercise; and in wanting those trials, it would want,
at the same time, the arena on which it wins its brightest victories, and
becomes entitled to its richest and most glorious reward. Think, for example,
of the difference which it might have made to Abraham if in his path to the
attainment and confirmation of the promise in regard to his son Isaac, there
had been no adverse hope against which he might continue to “believe in hope,”
and no apparent impossibilities in the midst of which he might still be “strong
in faith, giving glory to God.”
4. There remains to be noticed yet one other characteristic of the
providence of God, and that is, its entire subservience to the purposes of His
redeeming grace. Indeed, it is altogether of that grace that there exists at
all a Providence of such a character; in other words, had there been no
redeeming grace, then no such Providence could have existed. No; it is then
only accounted for on principles justly claiming to be considered “rational,”
when it is set forth as the result of “the redemption of the world by our Lord
Jesus Christ.” On the part of persons who maintain a contrary opinion, we
sometimes hear the question, “How can the death of Christ, as an atoning
sacrifice, be made to seem consistent either with perfect justice or with
perfect goodness?” But we may retort that question with another, which they
will find it much more difficult to answer. Suppose our fallen world to have
been left without redemption, and that no means had been devised, in the
counsels of the Divine grace and wisdom, for the recovery of its guilty
population to “the favour and the peace of God,” where then would have been the
consistency--nay, where the possibility, of a Providence so condescending and
beneficent as that which now appears? Or where would have been the actual
benefit to man of a Providence to correct and modify the course of outward things,
if he had still been doomed, for want of a Redeemer, to bear for ever the
burden of a guilt for which there was no expiation? But let us take that
doctrine along with us, and we then discover an apt and harmonious reason for
such a Providence, by which its utmost beneficence is justified. And, as that
characteristic of the providence of God which renders it especially dear and
valuable to us originates in, or operates at least as the result of, the
“grace” which “came by Jesus Christ,” so, as already stated, it is ever in
subservience to the purposes of the same grace that its operations are
conducted. It is thus in those extensive operations which involve the character
and fats of nations and empires. It were vain for us to indulge in speculation
as to the objects which Jehovah might contemplate, on the supposition of man’s
having continued in his original uprightness. We have the fact of his departure
from that character into a state of guilty estrangement and hostility. And
taking the world in its present circumstances, and seeing that “God so loved
that world,” fallen as it is, as to “give His only begotten Son” for its
redemption, we may be assured that there can be no object dearer to the heart
of God than that His Son should “see of the travail of His soul and be
satisfied,” in the reception of “the heathen for His inheritance,” and of “the
uttermost parts of the earth for His possession.” As the providence of God thus
stands, and ever must stand, connected with the purposes of His redeeming grace,
so it is in those cases where the grace of God specially prevails, that this
Providence specially exerts its powerful and benignant operation; or, as stated
in the text, it is “on the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him”
that the Lord “shews Himself strong,” and for their sakes more especially His
“eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth.” In other words, He is
eminently the God of providence to those who bow before Him, and rejoice in
Him, as the God of comforting and sanctifying grace. Doubtless, this was one of
the great truths designed to be set forth by those numerous providential
interpositions which shed so illustrious a light upon the early history of the
Israelitish people. On this express condition, that they should “have no other
gods before Him,” and that they should “keep His statutes and His judgments
diligently, to do them,” Jehovah engaged on His part to “shew himself strong”
on their behalf, in such a manner as should render them the astonishment and
envy of surrounding nations. And, on the other hand, the judgment so frequently
inflicted on that people during their journeys through the wilderness, and in
the subsequent periods of their history, and more especially their present
wonderful dispersion throughout other nations, go to remind us, with equal
emphasis and certainty, that it is only in proportion as our heart is “perfect
toward Him” that God can be expected to “shew Himself strong” on our behalf. We
thus perceive that the great lesson intended to be taught by all the mighty
acts and wonders which God did for Israel is, that the same God will ever in a
peculiar manner, ears for those who, being Christ’s, are therefore “Abraham’s
seed and heirs according to the promise,” whilst those who are yet “aliens,” or
outcasts from His spiritual Israel, though not excluded entirely from His
providential care, shall still enjoy that care in an inferior degree. It is on
this ground that we discover the foundation of those promises which ensure to
all God’s people, in their individual as well as their collective character, an
adequate supply of all their bodily and temporal necessities. For if, as
intimated in the history of the Jewish people, the providence of God is the
handmaid of His grace, and, as such, is commissioned with the special care of
those “whose heart is perfect toward Him,” then, unless we would again charge
an all-perfect Being with infirmity, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion,
that all those things which Nature absolutely needs, and the providing of which
often brings so severe a burden on the mind, “shall (certainly) be added.”
Again, the principle that the operations of God’s providence are subservient to
the purposes of His grace sheds no inconsiderable light upon the mystery which
is “supposed to be presented when, whilst the ungodly “increase in riches,” and
“have more than heart could wish,” the man whose heart, if not absolutely
perfect toward God, is yet, in general, upright and sincere before Him, is
“plagued till the day long, and chastened every morning.” It is not that He who
claims as His own, “the gold and the silver, and the cattle on a thousand
hills,” would merely “for His own pleasure” deny to His people the advantages
of health and riches. But He regards their eternal salvation as being an object
infinitely more important than their worldly comfort, and to this one great
object all others must be subordinate and secondary.
1. In the first place, the doctrine of a Divine Providence, that
Providence being beneficent as well as universal, condemns that excessive
anxiety with which we are so prone to burden and distress ourselves.
2. Secondly, this doctrine inculcates the duty, and when heartily
embraced, it will inspire the feeling, of a grateful acquiescence in our lot,
however far removed that lot may be from the circumstances which we should have
chosen for ourselves.
3. More especially, this subject, as connecting the operations of
God’s providence with the purposes of His grace, calls upon us to look well to
it, that our own “hearts are perfect towards Him”; and that, in order to their
being so, they are the subjects of that grace which can alone destroy their
deceitfulness and enmity, and render them a holy and acceptable sacrifice. (J.
Crowther.)
God the guardian of the world
I. That God’s guardianship
of the world is universally inspective “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro
throughout the whole earth.” God sees the whole of a thing. Of those objects
with which we are most acquainted, we know but a little of their outside; the
essence of everything is hid beneath an impenetrable veil from us. Few, indeed,
are the things we are permitted to see even the outside of. Space limits us.
Our widest horizon is not a handbreadth to the heavens as compared with the
universe. Duration limits us. Wonderful things were transpiring, even on
planet, ages ere we woke into conscious thought. But neither space nor duration
limits the knowledge of God; He is in all places; He exists through all times.
Whatever is, has been, will be, or can be, are in His eye. All actualities and
possibilities are there. “All things are naked and open to the eyes of Him with
whom we have to do.” If the eye of a child has sometimes been known to paralyse
the arm and frustrate the intentions of him who has been bent on some criminal deed,
how would not the lightning glance of God check thee from all evil?
II. That God’s
guardianship of the world is personally exercised. He does not watch and
superintend the world through the instrumentality of others; His eyes, His own
eyes, are employed. He does not, like human potentates, get a knowledge of His
empire by hearsay and report, but by His own personal inspection. It is a
glorious truth that God Himself is in our world. He is not merely here by
representation. He does not look after the universe as parents after their
children, merchants after their business, monarchs after their dominions--by
proxy. He employs others, it is true, but He is with them and in them--the
force of all causes, the motive of all motives. Nor is He here merely by influence,
just as the author is in the book, or as the telegraphic officer is at the time
wherever he transmits his message. Those heavenly bodies, which fill thoughtful
minds, as they “gaze upon them shining,” with unutterable emotions, and seem to
engulf the spirit into their own immeasurable vastness, we are told, radiate
and revolve by law. Man is born, sustained, enjoys, suffers, lives, and dies,
by “laws.” Blessed thought! the great Father of the world is here, not merely
by representation, or influence, but in person. The world has not only His
agents and His works, but His eyes--His all-seeing Self is here.
III. That God’s
guardianship of the world is morally designed. Why does He thus so sedulously
and constantly guard the world? “To shew Himself strong in the behalf of them
whose heart is perfect toward Him.” God guards the universe for the interests
of the good. It is not material Nature in any of its wondrous combinations of
beauty and sublimity, not blooming landscapes, mighty oceans, starry spheres,
revolving worlds, or refulgent systems, that interest Him most. No; it is His
adopted ones, His loving children, though little and afflicted, that engage His
sympathies. He says, in effect, “I keep up the machinery of the universe only
for the good of My children. I have no affection for it, ‘but for the saints
that are in the earth, in whom is all My delight’: wherever they are, ‘ Mine
eyes and My heart shall be there perpetually.’” This subject teaches--
1. The true spirit of life. If God is the all-seeing Guardian of the world, whose eyes
pierce into every avenue of existence, what should be the spirit of life? Not
the spirit of empty frivolity and childish trifling, treating all things as if
made for foolish jests and giddy laughter, but the spirit of solemnity clothing
all objects with a Divine significance.
2. The true interests of life. What are they? Secular possessions?
mental attainments? social honours? No, but a perfect heart.
3. The true Judge of life. Our life has many judges, at many tribunals
are we tried, and many, and often diverse, are the verdicts returned. Some are
too favourable, and some too adverse. The few instances of accuracy are random
guesses, not righteous deductions. But there is one true Judge; it is He whose
“eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth.” (Homilist.)
The guardianship of God
I. The world had a
Guardian.
II. That the
guardianship of the world is of the most minute character.
III. That this
guardianship of God is of the most loving and gracious character. (W.
G. Barrett.)
God’s thoughts toward good men
I. Why does God
exercise all His power of observation and control in this world in behalf of
good men? The answer is that they of all creatures best illustrate His
character and glorify Him most. They alone--
1. Were originally created in the Divine likeness.
2. Have been born again into His spiritual image.
3. Glorify Him in the highest degree by holy lives.
II. How have God’s
powers of observation and control been exercised in their behalf?
1. The process of the earth’s development during the vast geologic
periods of the first five creative days all meant that man was coming, and that
God’s eyes were running forward to prepare him a home.
2. In connection with the creation of living creatures, by the aid of
comparative anatomy we can see God’s eyes running forward through all the
orders of animate life up to man.
3. Having given him a body fearfully and wonderfully made, He
has made abundant provision for the supply of all his wants.
No mist before the eyes of God
We see a Divine purpose in the discovery of America, in the art of
printing, in the exposure of the Gunpowder Plot, in the contrivance of the
needle gun, in the ruin of an Austrian or Napoleonic despotism; but now hard it is to see God
in the minute personal affairs of our lives. We think of God as making a record of the
starry host, but cannot realise the Bible truth that He knows how many hairs
are on our head. It seems a grand thing that God provided food for thousands of
Israelites in the desert, but not how He feeds hungry sparrows. We cannot
understand how He encamps in the crystal palace of a dew-drop, or finds room to
stand, without being crowded, between the alabaster pillars of a pond-lily.
Cromwell, Alexander, Washington, or an archangel, is not more under Divine
inspection than your life or mine. Pompey thought that there must be a mist
over the eyes of God because he favoured Caesar. But there is no such mist. (T.
De Witt Talmage.)
To shew Himself strong in
the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him.--
God waiting to show Himself strong
I. God has shown
himself strong on behalf of men. It is often the knowledge of God’s ability to
help that causes us the greatest difficulty, and paralyses our faith in Him. We
do not feel able to say quite as confidently as we might that all His promises
are yea and amen, or else
we limit their reference, and say that they have only to do with certain orders
of things. Now we have this fact before us: God is able, He must be, to control
all things. His knowledge is infinite; His wisdom, His strength eternal. As it
is, while we acknowledge His ability we limit its exercise, and find in this
reason for our independent action. We see, in opposition to the limit which we
are often ready to place on God’s interference on our behalf, the wonderful
variety and modes of the help given to men as recorded in the Scripture. There
is not a condition but God has appeared in that, strong to help. What wisdom
and power are here shown on behalf of men! Lost by sin, we are restored by
faith in Christ.
II. God looks out
for opportunities of showing Himself strong. His eyes run to and fro throughout
the earth. He is thus represented as watching men for the purpose of revealing
Himself, so that when He sees the opportunity He is there ready to do it. He is
not reluctant to give.
III. Why, then, do
we not always receive? How is it we make mistakes, complain of want of life and
light and progress? Here is the reply. The opportunity for which He waits is a
heart perfect toward Him. This is the fitness which is always needed ere He shows Himself
strong. “How wilt Thou manifest Thyself to us?” etc. “My Father will
love him, and We will take up our abode with him.” We are not so dependent on
the condition of our life as we think. Let the heart be right, and everything
else will be transformed. But what fitness is here required? Asa did not trust
God, but his own wisdom and gold and silver. Apply the general truth of God as
for all, without considering that God, though the absolute monarch of all, does
not act arbitrarily towards any. Thus here God does not manifest His strength
to men always. Far from it. Asa found that God’s strength did not help him; he
had wars all the remainder of his life. We are often left in our weakness, otherwise
there would be no such thing as failure in the details of life. We ask why does
not God make bare His arm when He sees the weak struggling against greater
forces. Be it nation, be it tribe, or people, or individual, He knows the need,
He measures it, and at a time and under conditions most calculated to ensure
the eternal and lasting good of His creatures, He comes forth to help and to
save. That this is His way of dealing with men may be seen in the greatest and
highest gift He has given. We gather, in conclusion--
The heartening certainty
Asa is in trouble. Baasha has captured and fortified Ramah and so
hemmed in Jerusalem. Is not that a frequent type of life? Is not every man
often thrust into straits as Asa was? Is there not for every man some threatening
Ramah over against his Jerusalem.
1. Here is a man whose work in life seems sometimes vaster than his
energies. How can life’s work get done--the support of a family, the meeting of
obligations, etc.?
2. Here is a man confronted with some special obstacle, e.g.,
unholy competition in business, etc.
3. Here is a man under the shadow of the Ramah of disappointment.
4. Here is another man who is dissatisfied with his pernicious way of
life.
5. And there is Doubt, another Ramah often built across our way. Is
there any help for a man in the presence of these Ramahs? Our Scripture is the
statement of the heartening certainty. “Perfect” in our Scripture means pure
intent. Once I was becalmed upon the sea. I was in a sailing ship. For some
days the wind died utterly away. There was not the curl of a minute ripple even
on the ocean’s surface. We were drifted here and there, now backward and then
forward, as the tides rose and as they fell. Of course we could not get on
thus. There was no inherent power of motion in the vessel. What did the captain
do? Order the sails furled? Let the man at the helm sleep? No, he did the best
he could. Every sail was hung broadly on the yards. The helm was firmly held.
The vessel was kept pointed toward her port. In a word, the captain kept the
vessel in pure intent; not perfect in power; she had no power. And when, at
last, the wind did come, the sails were filled, and we were wafted into
harbour. This is the heartening certainty. This is the meaning of our
Scripture. The man who thus holds himself in pure intent, keeping his sails
spread and his helm steadily pointed toward the right, and fixed, and from the
wrong, that man God shall see, and He shall send upon him the breezes of a
Divine strength, and waft the man on into accomplishment, victory, heaven. (Wayland
Hoyt, D.D.)
Perfection discriminated
We must discriminate between purity of heart and maturity of
Christian character. The entire cleansing received by faith is perfect health
of soul; but it is not perfect development. Perfect health is the entire
absence of disease. Perfect holiness is the entire absence of sin. Christian
purity brings finality to nothing but inbred sin. It is the field cleared of
the noxious weeds, not the ripe waving harvest. It is the best preparation for
growth, not the consummation of growth. Sin in the heart makes us like a child
that is sickly, or a tree with a worm at the root. Some hope by cultivating the
graces of the Spirit to grow into purity, which is like a man cultivating the
vegetables in his garden to grow the weeds out from about the roots of the
plants. Common sense says, “Pluck up the weeds, and give the plant a fair
chance for growth and development.” This is the Divine method. God cleanses the
heart from inbred sin, after which growth is always more rapid and symmetrical;
advancement in knowledge, and love of God, and all spiritual excellence,
becomes possible then as it never was before. Maturity is the result of
experiences, trial, conflict, and requires time; but in purity we grasp by
faith the sin consuming power that sweeps the heart clean at a stroke. (Thomas
Cook.)
Verse 10
Then Asa was wroth with the seer.
A reluctant conscience
It is said
that straw which had been used for the bedding of the lions at Wombwell’s
menagerie was sold, and placed in a stable as bedding for some horses. No,
sooner did the horses enter than they began to show signs of alarm, snorting,
snuffing the air, and trembling as though conscious of a threatening presence.
Horses in this country have had no experience of the hostility or strength of
carnivora; but there is a persistency in hereditary powers which certain
objects can stimulate into activity. The conscience of man exhibits a similar
persistency of sense, if not by self-reproach or remorse, at least by a
reluctance to enter on the consideration of sin. It is not too much to infer
that all is not right, when pain, alarm, aversion are felt when inquiry is suggested.
(Bp. Boyd Carpenter.)
Verse 11-12
And, behold, the acts of Asa, first and last, lo, they are written
in the books of the kings.
Asa; or failure at the last
Asa’s case is a Scriptural declaration, that one who has begun
well, who has even done much for God, may fall miserably, may fail at last.
What were the causes of his fall?
I. He was tried by
great success. Nothing is more liable than success to produce self-confidence,
and neglect of Him who bestoweth on the wise their wisdom and on the strong
their strength. Unless s man watches himself very narrowly, pride will
insinuate itself even into the midst of his thanksgivings; complacent thoughts
of his own foresight underlie his recognition of God’s providence; confessions
of his own good desert qualify his confessions of sin.
II. He was placed
in the perilous position of having to guide and instruct others. This is a
great snare to any one. The mother who teaches her child to pray; the father
who watches over his son’s moral progress; the master who is a strict censor of
the behaviour of his servants; the Scripture-reader, the district visitor, the
nurse of the sick, the almoner of the poor; yea, even the minister of God who
has professionally to bring before his people the means of grace and hope of
glory; these persons are all in danger of neglecting themselves--of placing
themselves, as it were, ab extra, to the duties which they have to
inculcate. They are tempted to forget themselves, to abate their
self-discipline, and when the novelty of their employment has passed away, to
fall back on other things; it may be, to end with languor, disgust, or carelessness, if not
with utter faithlessness and sin. (D. Hessey.)
Verse 12-13
And Asa, in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in
his feet
Mind-cure
That sickness is twin born with sin is the oldest tradition in the
world.
Our maladies arise from something finer than the germs any microscope can
detect; and if all disease has its origin in the ill-disposed spirit, in a
different well-disposed spirit it may have its cure. There can be no doubt that
a mind morbid or in health affects the body. Some persons, by their presence
and air, make us sick or well. Temperance is a virtue before it is a bodily
trait. All vice digs a mine of ruin which no physician can countermine. What
doctor can prescribe for an inordinate affection, from his pocket-book or
medicine-chest? A little mind-cure were better than a complete apothecary’s
shop; and in one’s own mind, often more than in another’s, the remedy lies.
Safety and peril reside in the same region of the affections, even as the very
sea that tosses brings us to port. Like cures like; the hair of the dog his own
bite; and herbs, as George Herbert says, the flesh they find their acquaintance
in. There is no malady which guilty intrigues, extravagant passions, and
corroding cares may not produce or increase; and none which good affections
will not alleviate or remove. Many a heap of flowers have I seen on coffins
that would not have been made by plane and hammer so soon had a tithe of the
green leaves, lilies, and roses been strewn along the way. Christ’s miracles
were wrought on a promise of faith, for the blind eye, for the withered hand,
and for the remorseful conscience in him whom He assured, “Son, thy sins be
forgiven thee,” an insane compunction being in this case the evil root. Peter
commanded the cripple to stand on his feet, perceiving that he had faith to be
healed. The good Samaritan poured out something more than oil and wine into the
robbed traveller’s wounds. There are in us gashes and ghastly wounds, perhaps
unknown to the inflictors, which no sword or dagger ever made. A word or a look
was enough to stab us; shall no words or looks suffice to make us whole? No
medicaments, only mental cure, can either probe them or bind them up. Right
ordering of our active powers is a medicine, as well as that merry heart of
which the Preacher speaks. The steadfast will is a life-preserver, and buoys up
against spiritual drowning. Heal the mind tired and sore with brooding on
absent or unresponsive objects: with labour that eases it, while it wearies the
muscles and makes the sweat, according to the old decree, run down the face. As
the girders and cross-ties of the bridge distribute the pressure on it of heavy
loads, so various duty lightens by dividing every burden of grief or pain. Such
considerations may show how far a sane body is not only inhabited, but made, by
a sane mind. Let us notice more particularly the connection between sickness
and sin.
I. They have the
same origin.
II. They have the
same propagation and spread.
III. Why, then,
should not the cure of sickness run parallel with its continuance and cause?
Disorder is inherited. Ezekiel protests against the proverb that the fathers
have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. Nevertheless,
it is true. For example of this communication or transmission, take the
illustration of fear. What a leaven it is! Terror is not only a wretchedness,
but a disgrace, an exposure to harm. You will be likely to have what you dread.
What you rehearse you will enact. This is the shorthand history of disease,
misery, and crime. Bonaparte, in his better days, thought the bullet was not
run and moulded he should be hit by, though cannonballs ploughed the earth into
powder at his side; felt no alarm for himself from the plague in Egypt, and
fortified his soldiers against it, with that brave deportment of his own. To
what but panic is due the large destruction of life in buildings falling or on
fire, in battles like that of Bull Run, and in wrecks at sea? We must be of
good heart to be secure. How many have been sick of a thought or of a certain
company or of a single companion! How many have got well with thoughts alone
that could cure! By one who served in our civil war I was told of sick soldiers
who, in their despair, voluntarily turned their faces to the wall and died,
because they wanted, and had made up their mind, to die. If as they lay moaning
on their beds had come some token of affection, the step of some Florence
Nightingale, or any good message, they would have opened their eyes, stretched
their limbs, and lived! A grain, a hair, the twentieth part of a scruple, in
delicate conditions and a tremulous suspense determines the scale; and the
balance hangs for us all to put the atom into, so intimate is the relation
between body and mind. We decide each other’s fate every day. Balzac tells us
of a mother who suddenly expires after one more of her unnatural daughter’s
hard words; and he adds that the slaughter by savages of those too old to
continue on the march
is philanthropy in the comparison. This is happening every day. A gentle
remembrance from one--a note, a flower, a book, a hand-grasp--to assure us our
days of usefulness are not over, enables us to live and labour still. The
supernatural acts through the natural. Let us make the connection and be all of
us well. Be its fault or defect what it may, I greet, therefore, the new
departure which lays the stress on the mind. (C.A. Bartol, D.D.)
The sin of Asa
1. Though it is not my purpose to dwell upon the general features in
this history, I cannot help remarking how strongly one is inclined in hearing
it to exclaim, “Lord, what is man! In his best estate, moral as well as
physical, he is altogether vanity.” Here is a person that appears to have been
piously educated, that in his youth was piously and deeply impressed; that when
clothed in royal purple still remembered his responsibility to a higher power,
and felt and acknowledged his dependence on it; that in his mature years
departed not from the way in which he had been trained up; and that knew by a
single personal experience that it is a way of pleasantness and a path of
peace; in his old age guilty of the greatest inconsistencies, to say the very
least. May we not reasonably suppose that, during his long prosperity, his
heart had become in a measure hardened by the deceitfulness of sin; that
indolence had corrupted, and pride, taking occasion from the happy condition of
his people, of which he had been the instrument, had puffed him up; and that
prayer, in consequence, had been restrained before God? Be sober, be vigilant,
be prayerful, be humble, is the moral of this melancholy tale.
2. This monarch’s history may also teach us that, what we deem our
strongest point of character may in fact prove our weakest. Asa’s distrust in
Divine, and over-trust in human power, was the last sin, most probably, which
he thought would ever beset him. “Though all men forsake Thee,” said St. Peter,
“yet will not I.” His courage he was sure would abide, however that of the
other disciples might falter. That he felt was not his weak point; and probably
it was not naturally. When we are conscious of weakness, and in consequence
lean constantly on an Almighty arm, then our strength never faileth. How can
it? In the confidence of this it was that the apostle Paul said, “I can do all
things through Christ strengthening me.” On the other hand, let a man feel
strong in himself, and of consequence lean on himself, in the things of
religion, we are told we can do nothing. The lesson, then, to be learned from
the history of Asa, in this view of it, plainly is, to glory in nothing as of
ourselves, to distrust ourselves even in our strongest point, and to count all
our sufficiency as of God through Christ.
3. A third particular in this narrative, well worth noticing, is the
pertinacity which Asa exhibited in his sin, and how in consequence one
transgression led on to another. David committed some most fearful sins, and a
prophet was sent to reprove and warn him. His confession was, “I have sinned
against the Lord.” Not so Asa. His crime, though indeed not so horrible, was
equally certain; yet when the prophet reproves him, the historian tells us “he
was in a rage with him because of this thing”; and added to the sin, and to a
denial of it, persecution of God’s servant for delivering God’s message. The
sin of Asa, though certain and heinous, as I have said, was not so palpable and
overt as that of David. It lay more exclusively between God and his own soul.
It was an offence which shortsighted men, who cannot read the heart, could not
with propriety charge him with. The sins which are known with certainty only to
Omniscience are the last which corrupt human nature is willing to acknowledge.
It hides itself from its own guilt and from its obligation to confess and
forsake its sin, under the cover of its fellow-creatures’ ignorance. From this
hiding place, to which Asa had manifestly fled, man could not dislodge him.
God’s resources, however, were not exhausted.
When His prophet failed to do it, He sent another messenger to the
king in the shape of a most painful disease which finally proved mortal.
1. Health, it is generally acknowledged, is the very greatest of all
personal and temporal blessings. By its influence on the inner man it gives new
glory to objects already bright, and pours light on that which would otherwise
be dark. It converts to luxuries the plainest food, and adds a sweetness to a
cup of cold water which nectar in the hand of an invalid partakes not of.
Health is valuable not only as an exemption from pain and anxiety, but as a
positive good. It causes positive happiness to spring up--to well up from the
depths of the soul, the operation of which the man may be unable to explain,
but to the mysterious sweetness of which he is ready to testify with a
rejoicing, and, would that we could say always, a grateful heart. I do not mean
to say, however, that the blessing when in possession is always adequately
realised and appreciate. Like other things, the loss of it, at least for a time,
is in many cases necessary to open our eyes to its value. The fact that the
natural issue of sickness is death is, of itself, enough to give health an
inestimable value; and that fact is felt by him who has felt the gnawings of
disease; and who that has reached even middle life has not experienced them?
2. But though it is thus inevitable, disease may be mitigated and its
fatal consequences postponed. This is effected by one of the greatest mercies
which Providence has vouchsafed to man: I mean the healing art. It is not
common, perhaps, to regard it in this light, but most certainly it ought to be
so regarded. This art is one of great dignity and beneficence. It is found in
every country, and among the most savage and most cultivated nations of the
earth; and though it seems to have advanced more slowly than many
other--perhaps most other--arts and sciences, yet so early was its
commencement, and so universal has been its cultivation, it has now attained
great perfection. In most departments, where once human aid was unattempted or
unavailing to the patient, it is astonishing what can be done for his relief,
and for his restoration to society and the full enjoyment of it. This blessed
art, moreover, is but an imitation of a merciful provision of nature; even as
when pursued and practised on its proper principles, it consists in a
co-operating with, and taking advantage of, the powers of nature. With the
recuperative and healing properties of nature a true practitioner of the
healing art is a co-worker. It is his high calling, in a scientific manner to
aid and minister to and increase this beneficent provision. He is not occupied
in helping to gratify an idle vanity, nor in pandering to luxury and
over-indulgence. His business is, in the way described, to relieve distress, to
dry the tear of sorrow, to rekindle the lamp of hope. It has been acutely
observed that there is a likeness in the practice of this art, not only to the
healing power of nature referred to, and to the course of that Providence by
which both nature and art have been ordained, and to the all-merciful conduct
of God manifest in the flesh while He sojourned on the earth, but also in the
methods which Providence uses ordinarily for the attainment of these benevolent
ends. “Both are designed to restore what is lost, and to repair what is
disordered; both have the production of ease and happiness for their ultimate
object; both frequently make use of pains and privations as the means of
procuring it, but neither of them employs an atom more of these than is
necessary for that purpose.”
3. Now from all this it follows that though nothing is expressly said
in commendation of this art in the Holy Scriptures, nor any command given to
resort to it for relief under our bodily ailments, yet the art and the use of
it are manifestly according to the mind and will of God. The mere fact that God
has put healing virtue into the productions of the animal and vegetable
kingdoms, and given man the power to discover its existence, is sufficient
warrant, in the
silence of Scripture, for the thankful use of it wherever it may be necessary.
It has been thought by some that the sin here condemned was resorting not to
regular physicians, but to those who attempted cures by charms and other
superstitious devices. Such conduct, though not generally thought so by those
who indulge in it, is essentially atheistic. He was seeking good from a source
not sanctioned by Heaven. He was in pursuit of health in a quarter which God
did not bless. In
a word, he was not seeking it of Him from whom cometh every good and perfect gift. This was
atheism. It is not necessary, however, to suppose that Asa ran into this sin.
He was guilty enough, and furnished sufficient ground for the censure in the
text, without going to this extreme. Let us suppose, what the Scripture
narrative makes probable, that through the influence of prosperity and its
attendant snares and temptations, the heart of Asa had waxed cold; that his
religious feelings had declined; that whereas before, God was in his thoughts as
his dependence, his protection, his comfort, his consolation, his joyful
portion, now he lives in forgetfulness of Him, or, if thoughts of God ever
enter his mind, they come but seldom and are speedily dismissed. While living
habitually in this way, sickness smites him, violent and severe, and very
naturally alarming. He sends for the physicians--for many of them. His
dependence is on the powers of nature to the exclusion of the Divine Author of
these powers. He looks anxiously to human skill, but feels no want, or offers
no prayer for the Divine blessing on it. Asa seems to have sought a cure, as he
would have done had he never heard of that almighty Being in whose hand are the
issues of life and death. We see here that the Lord is a jealous God, and will
not give His glory to another, and that His glory and His right as God is to be
recognised by His intelligent creatures everywhere, in all the exigencies,
duties, and privileges of life. In instituting the present system of means and
ends, He did not intend that it should be forgotten that He planned the whole;
and that the whole, destitute of any self-sustaining power, is sustained only
by Him. He not only created all things, but also upholds all things by the word
of His power. This is a fact, and a fact manifestly connected with His glory.
He expects, therefore, that all intelligent creatures feel it and acknowledge
it. There are two errors--opposite extremes, which He would have them carefully
avoid. The first is a reliance upon Him to the exclusion or neglect of the
means which He has commanded to be used. At first view it might seem as if such
conduct were putting special honour upon Jehovah; but in truth it is open
rebellion against His will. He hath not commanded this at our hands. It is a
strange offering--an unclean sacrifice. In His works and in His Word, God has
enjoined the diligent use of means; it is impious to turn away from the
commandment, even under the pretence of honouring Him. The other extreme, and
equally presumptuous, is a reliance on the means to the neglect of the Divine
agency and blessing. If the first was an arrogant theism, this is a gross and
stupid atheism. Paradoxical as it may sound, our duty and the dictate of pure
reason is, that we use means as diligently as if God’s aid were altogether
unnecessary, and rely on God as sincerely as if means were unavailing. This is
Scripture; this is the highest reason; nay, this human nature herself teaches
when in extremity and unperverted by a theory. Who, when in conscious danger of
his life, does not with a convulsive eagerness grasp at any and every means of
safety, and at the same time lift a voice of agonising supplication for the
Divine assistance? Our duty, then, plainly inculcated by the text, is to use
means and to trust in
the Lord, and to do this not of necessity, because death is imminent, but from
a principle of obedience to His will, respect for His honour, and love to His
name; and to do it also not only in extreme cases, but at all times. It belongs
to such a spirit, as a matter of privilege as well as duty, to seek to the Lord
also, and rely upon His help. In conclusion, I would observe that the text
teaches a lesson in all analogous cases. For instance, if such is the temper of
mind in which we should look for medicines to heal the body, the same should we
have in the use of food for the maintenance of life. A blessing asked, when we
take our meals, is only in conformity with these principles. So our Lord when
on the earth regarded it, for He sanctioned it by His practice. And again it
plainly says to those whose calling in life is trade, that whilst they
industriously employ all honourable means for the maintenance and advancement
of themselves and their families, they should bear in mind that there is an
overruling Providence which sees through the complications of events as man
cannot, and can give them such issue as may be pleasing in His sight. In short,
the text teaches us that we should all, at all times and under all
circumstances, realise the presence of God and lean upon His power and
goodness, vouchsafed us through Jesus Christ our Lord. (W. Sparrow, D. D.)
The disease of sin and its true Physician
I. Sin is a
disease under which all men are labouring.
II. To get rid of
the disease of sin men resort to forbidden and unauthorised means.
III. They ought to
depend on Christ as the only effectual and infallible physician of souls. (W.
Sparrow, D. D.)
To the medical profession
Here is King Asa with the gout. In defiance of God he sends for
certain conjurors or quacks. With the result “And Asa slept with his fathers.”
That is, the doctors killed him. In this sharp and graphic way the Bible sets
forth the truth that you have no right to shut God out from the realm of
pharmacy and therapeutics. If Asa had said, “Oh, Lord, I am sick; bless the
instrumentality employed for my recovery! Now, servant, go and get the best
doctor you can find,” he would have recovered. The world wants Divinely
directed physicians. Men of the medical profession, we often meet in the home
of distress. We meet to-day by the altars of God. As in the nursery children
sometimes re-enact all the scenes of the sick-room, so to-day you play that you
are the patient
and that I am the physician, and take my prescription just once.
I. In the first
place, I think all the medical profession should become Christians because of
the debt of gratitude they owe to God for the honour He has put upon their
calling. Cicero said: “There is nothing in which men so approach the gods as
when they try to give health to other men.”
II. The medical
profession ought to be Christians, because there are so many trials and
annoyances in that profession that need positive Christian solace.
III. The medical
profession ought to be Christians, because there are professional exigencies
when they need God. Asa’s destruction by unblessed physicians was a warning.
There are awful crises in every medical practice when a doctor ought to know
how to pray. I do not mean to say that piety will make up for medical skill A
bungling doctor, confounded with what was not a very bad case went into the
next room to pray. A skilled physician was called in. He asked for the first
practitioner. “Oh!” they said, “he’s in the next room praying.” “Well.” said
the skilled doctor, “tell him to come out here and help, he can pray and work
at the same time.” It was all in that sentence. Do the best we can and ask God
to help us.
IV. The medical
profession ought to be Christians, because there opens before them a grand
field for Christian usefulness. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Sickness
The great truth taught us in this verse is--that afflictions, in
their measure, nature, and duration, result neither from chance nor necessity,
nor second causes, but primarily from the wise, sovereign, and righteous
appointment of the Eternal.
I. Asa’s disease.
The former part of this verse mentions what this disease was--“And Asa in the
thirty, and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease
was exceeding great.” Commentators suppose that this disease in his feet was the
gout, and that it was a just punishment for putting the prophet’s feet in the
stocks. How varied the disease to which human nature is liable.
1. The person afflicted--Asa the king. This circumstance teaches us
that when the Almighty wills afflictions, none can escape them--no, not even
kings. When kings commit evil they must expect to be punished as well as
others. King Jehoram sinned against the Lord, and the Lord visited him with a
disease in his bowels. King Uzziah transgressed the Lord’s commandments, and
the Lord smote him with leprosy: “And Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day
of his death, and dwelt in a separate house, being a leper.” Asa was diseased
in his feet. Honours, riches, power shield us not from disease. When God gives
the commission, afflictions enter the palace as well as the meanest hut.
2. The violence of Asa’s disorder. “His disease was exceeding great.”
Sometimes we think our trials very heavy; but when compared with those of
others we find them light. Hence, if your case is very painful, it is not
singular.
3. The period of its continuance. Asa was diseased in his feet two
years. When the Lord afflicts us for a month, a week, yea, sometimes, when we
are in pain only one day, we think it a long time. But how short the period of our
pains when compared with others! It might have lasted for many years.
II. Asa’s duty.
When it is said that Asa sought not unto the Lord, it implies that he ought to
have done so.
1. The purposes for which you should seek unto the Lord in your
afflictions. The advice which Eliphaz gave to Job in his affliction was most
excellent, and is suitable to us on all occasions: “Yet man is born unto
trouble, as the sparks fly upward. I would seek unto God, and unto God would
commit my cause.” The afflicted should seek unto God, in disease, that they may
know its design. “Shew me,” prays Job, “wherefore Thou contendest with me.” The
Lord’s way, both in mercy and in judgment, is in the sea, and His footsteps,
oftentimes, are not seen. Since, therefore, none can give us the information we
need but God Himself, and since also it is so important for us to know the
design of Our trials, let us not do as Asa did, but as Eliphaz recommends--seek
unto God. When diseases visit us we should seek unto God, that He would give us
grace to sustain them. None but He who lays these burdens on our shoulders can
sustain us under them. That these visitations may be duly improved is another
end we should propose in seeking unto the Lord. God should be sought unto in
affliction, that He may remove them. The Lord should be sought unto in
sickness, that His righteousness in afflicting may be devoutly acknowledged.
2. The manner in which God should be approached unto in these
circumstances. First, in faith--the Christian must exercise faith in his
heavenly Father’s providence, promises, and revealed character. Secondly, in
humility--the Christian has merited all he endures, and has nothing of his own
to plead. Thirdly, with resignation.
3. Some reasons why the Lord should be sought unto may be specified.
III. Asa’s sin.
Asa’s sin is a common sin--the way of the multitude, Asa’s sin was a great
sin--he put the
creature before the Creator. Asa’s sin, unrepented of, is a ruinous sin. “
Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord?” Asa’s conduct arises from
many causes.
1. Ignorance. Sin has so darkened the mind that many have no right
views of their relation to God.
2. Inattention. Some know these things, yet give them little or no
serious attention. God is neither in all their ways nor in all their thoughts.
3. Independence. Sin has made man so proud that, if it were possible,
he would do without God altogether.
4. Presumption. Many expect health, ease, and success without God’s
assistance.
5. Unbelief. Multitudes have no vital faith in God, His Word, nor in
the necessity, efficacy, and advantages of prayer.
Learn from
this subject--
1. Means may be used, but we must be careful not to abuse them.
2. The best of men do not always keep in the same gracious frame of
mind. Compare 2 Chronicles 14:2 with the text,
“Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”
3. The same sins that were prevalent in Asa’s day are prevalent now.
(H. Hollis.)
Asa and the physicians
I. It is
interesting to notice who this sick person was. It was Asa, one of the kings of
Judah. A king has no poverty to contend against; but--alike with his meanest
subjects--he has sickness. Sickness is impartial, even as death. No luxury can materially
soften it, no precaution can keep it away, no wealth can stay its course. What
was Asa’s course? He sought to the physicians. Surely he was, so far, right. It
is thought that these physicians were charmers, bringers in of foreign
superstitions, singers of useless incantations, and that herein lay Asa’s
wrong. The question does not relate to the kind of physician he went to, but
only to the fact of his going. He did no wrong in seeking human help. We are
never to give up at the first approach of sickness and wait for a special
wonder of cure. It is not that he was wrong in seeking to the physicians, but
very wrong in some other particulars.
1. He did not seek to the Lord, without whom human physicians may
vainly exercise their skill and talents. Neither will prayer dispense with
medicine nor medicine with prayer.
2. Asa was a king. The inconsistency which, in an unknown subject,
would provoke but little comment, grows serious in the life of royalty. We
expect nobleness, manliness, and exemplary conduct from kings. Asa set a bad
example to his subjects and was false to his royal order. Asa was also false to
God, for he was head of the Church and yet dishonoured prayer.
3. Asa suffered his disease to make him unjust and irritable. He cast
Hanani into prison for telling him God’s holy will.
4. Asa belied a previous life of piety. One of his prayers in time of
health, when marching against his numerous enemies, had been more inspiring
than the most stirring war-cry or the most martial summons to certain victory.
“Lord! it is nothing to 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 the
multitude. O Lord, Thou art our God; let not man prevail against Thee!” But now
Asa was sick he forgot the trust he had formerly placed in the God of Israel.
Sickness, more terrible than an army with banners, spoiled this king of his
faith.
II. The general
lesson taught by sickness.
1. Health is the gift of God. Many who are ready to acknowledge
recovery to be so, and who gratefully thank God for it, forget that good health
is a far greater blessing than recovery.
2. Health is a talent. What has been done with it?
3. Prepare for sickness by continuing mindful of its approach.
4. As regards our conduct to those who are sick. Asa was wrong, impatient, faithless;
but the duty of his attendants and subjects was to hear with him. Sickness is
trying. What seems like impatience to lookers-on would seem different were the
places reversed.
5. The great lesson of all--a lesson of avoidance from Asa’s
fault--is to commit ourselves to the care of God; to seek, if able, to earthly
physicians; but to seek with brighter hopes and fuller certainty to the Great
Healer Himself (S..B. James, M.A.)
Retribution
From the theological standpoint of the chronicler’s school, these
invidious records of the sins of good kings were necessary in order to account
for their misfortunes. That sin was always punished by complete, immediate, and
manifest retribution in this life, and that conversely all misfortune was the
punishment of sin, was probably the most popular religious teaching in Israel
from early days till the time of Christ. This doctrine of retribution was
current among the Greeks. When the Spartan King Cleomenes committed suicide,
the public mind in Greece at once
inquired of what particular sin he had thus paid the penalty. When in the
course of the Peloponnesian war the AEginetans were expelled from their island,
this calamity was regarded as a punishment inflicted upon them because fifty
years before they had dragged away and put to death a suppliant who had caught
hold of the handle of the door of the temple of Demeter Theomophorus. (W.
H. Bennett, M.A.)
The most serious punishments of sin
These are not pain, ruin, disgrace. Their are the formation and
confirmation of evil character. Herbert Spencer says “that motion once set up
along any line becomes itself a cause of subsequent motion along that line.”
This is absolutely true in moral and spiritual dynamics: every wrong thought,
feeling, word, or act, every failure to think, feel, speak, or act rightly, at
once alters a man’s character for the worse. Henceforth he will find it easier
to sin and more difficult to do right; he has twisted another strand into the
cord of habit; and though each may be as fine as a spider’s web, in time there
will be cords strong enough to have bound Samson before Delilah shaved off his
seven locks. This is the true punishment of sin: to lose the fine instincts,
the generous impulses, and the nobler ambitions of manhood, and become every
day more of a beast and a devil. (W. H. Bennett, M. A.)
Our disinclination to rely upon God only
Some years ago my wife and I were walking through the streets of
Boston, having recently left our place of residence and living in a flat. My
wife was without a servant; the summer was unusually hot even for our country,
and the task of preparing the meals for the family was a grievance. Like a good
husband, I had great sympathy with my wife, and so I rose in the morning and
fit the fire. One day I saw a device advertised for cooking by oil, and after a
little while I strained a large point, bought the stove, and brought it home in
triumph. I said to my wife, “You will not have to be roasted any more over that
old kitchen range”; but she was sceptical, as good wives are wont to be, and
when I went in to see how the cooking was going on, I found a roaring fire in
the old range as well, in case the new one would not work. I think we all want
something to fall back upon, and like to have a roaring fire in the old
range--to trust in our own efforts instead of relying on God. (G. F.
Pentecost.)
God left out of the calculation
I knew a man who professed to love the Lord, and who really
did so. He got into great difficulties, and racked his brain all night without
avail for a way out of them. In the morning he went to the squire and the
rector, and racked their brains about his troubles, but to no good effect. He
then came to me, and asked me to pray with him about them, and my reply was,
“No, I will not; you have racked your own, the rector’s, and the squire’s
brain, and now you wish to make Jesus only the fourth instead of first. I won’t
take any part in doing that.” He fell on his knees with such a beseeching look
for forgiveness, and prayed, “Oh, how could I forget Thee, Lord? Yet even now I
come and ask guidance.” It is needless to say that the Lord graciously heard
and answered, and gave him a triumphant issue out of all his troubles. (Christian
Herald.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》