“He Looks for Those Who Trust Him, Part 1” (2 Chronicles 16:1-9)

I. Introduction. A. Let’s consider the context of our passage:

The Lord had blessed the Southern Kingdom (Judah) with revival –

Things had been spiritually dark

For quite a while by this time:

Towards the end of his life,

Solomon had turned from the Lord

And fallen into idolatry –

Because of the influence of his many wives,

Which he married mainly for political reasons –

He had set up shrines to their gods,

And even began worshiping them himself –

The Lord tells us not to be unequally yoked –

If we are believers,

We are not to marry unbelievers:

Because of the struggles we’ll have,

Because we’ll be tempted

To compromise for the sake of peace –

Solomon’s life stands as a warning to the truth of this –

His son didn’t do any better:

He had the chance to repair

Some of the damage his father had done

When his people came asking for relief, 2

But he refused to listen to the advice of the elders –

He listened to his peers instead:

The result was, the kingdom was split –

The Lord tells us to listen to wisdom –

To His word

And those who bring us counsel from His Word –

Not to those who only tell us what we want to hear –

If we want to be wise,

That’s what we need to do.

His son, Abijam/, followed his example:

We read in :3-5, “He walked in all the sins of his father which he had committed before him; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, like the heart of his father . But for David’s sake the LORD his God gave him a lamp in , to raise up his son after him and to establish Jerusalem; because David did what was right in the sight of the LORD, and had not turned aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.”

Even during times like these –

When the kings of Judah failed to trust the Lord –

He continued to be faithful –

For the sake of His servant David,

Because of the covenant He made with him –

To preserve the Davidic line,

Until He would establish the kingdom

Of David’s greater Son: the Lord Jesus.

God is faithful: which is why we should trust Him.

3 Abijam’s unfaithfulness cost him –

He reigned for only three years –

But Asa, Abijam’s son, was different –

He trusted the Lord:

We read in 1 Kings 15:11-15, “Asa did what was right in the sight of the LORD, like David his father. He also put away the male cult prostitutes from the land and removed all the idols which his fathers had made. He also removed his mother from being queen mother, because she had made a horrid image as an Asherah; and Asa cut down her horrid image and burned it at the brook Kidron. But the high places were not taken away; nevertheless the heart of Asa was wholly devoted to the LORD all his days. He brought into the house of the LORD the dedicated things of his father and his own dedicated things: silver and gold and utensils.”

Because of the Lord’s grace in Asa’s life –

And His mercies towards David and His people –

Asa made God’s worship pure again in Judah,

And that brought God’s blessing to His people –

Sometimes we’re tempted to think

That the way to happiness

Is to travel the road the world takes:

By pursuing wealth –

We need to see

That true happiness and blessing

Comes from the Lord:

When we do the things that please Him,

He blesses us,

With blessings the world can’t understand,

But only those who know Him.

Israel – the Northern Kingdom – 4

Had also become an idolatrous nation:

When Rehoboam refused to listen to the Lord

And divided the kingdom,

The Lord gave Jeroboam –

The former head of Solomon’s forced labor –

The ten northern tribes

As an act of discipline against Rehoboam –

It was also against Solomon,

Since it was his idolatry

That brought this about in the first place (1 Kings 11:34-35).

When Jeroboam became king,

The first thing he did

Was set up an alternate religion –

The same one that Israel had fallen into

When they first came out of Egypt –

He made two golden calves;

Put one in and the other in Dan (1 Kings 12:29);

And commanded his people to worship them,

So they wouldn’t go to Jerusalem to worship

And be tempted to return to the kings of Judah.

We read in 1 Kings 12:28, “So the king consulted, and made two golden calves, and he said to them, ‘It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt.’”

Jeroboam’s idolatry laid the foundation

For the ultimate downfall of Israel.

When we turn from the Lord – 5

From His worship,

From the kind of life He calls us to live –

It leads to our downfall –

Thankfully, if we belong to Him,

He won’t let us go too far down that path,

But bring us back to Himself,

As He did with Judah.

When the faithful in Israel –

Those who still loved the Lord,

And had regard for His worship –

Heard what the Lord was doing in Judah –

They began to migrate to the Southern Kingdom.

That’s what God’s grace –

His Spirit –

Does in our lives:

It turns us from false worship –

Worship that dishonors the Lord –

And compels us to go where He is honored.

Baasha was determined to stop this:

We read in 2 Chronicles 16:1, “In the thirty-sixth year of Asa’s reign Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah and fortified Ramah in order to prevent anyone from going out or coming in to Asa king of Judah.”

Since the main road between and Jerusalem

Went by the frontier town of Ramah –

A town about six miles north of Jerusalem – 6

Baasha turned it into a military station:

He posted his soldiers there

And fortified it against attack

To stop this migration.

He was apparently able to do this

Because he was helped by Ben-hadad –

Ben-hadad isn’t a name, but a title

Used by the Syrian kings –

It means the “son of Hadad” –

Hadad being the name of a Syrian god –

It’s like the name Abimelech –

Which means “my father is king” –

That was used as a title for the Philistine kings.

Ben-hadad was the king of –

Aram is the Hebrew name for Syria –

The area northeast of Israel.

He was likely supplying Baasha

With the materials and support he needed

To fortify Ramah.

The warning against being unequally yoked

Applies to this alliance

As much as it applies to marriage.

Whenever we get involved

7 With those who don’t love the Lord,

We will run into trouble –

As we see happens to Baasha.

B. How does Asa deal with this blockade?

He decides to take a political route:

He bribes Ben-hadad into breaking his treaty with Baasha

Using the wealth that had been dedicated to God’s worship,

Along with some of his own.

We read in verses 2-3, “Then Asa brought out silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of the LORD and the king’s house, and sent them to Ben-hadad king of Aram, who lived in , saying, ‘ Let there be a treaty between you and me, as between my father and your father. Behold, I have sent you silver and gold; go, break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel so that he will withdraw from me.’”

Ben-hadad listens to Asa,

Breaks his covenant with Baasha –

Which is what the ungodly do,

Which is one of the reasons

We shouldn’t enter into contracts with them –

And he attacks and conquers

The cities of Israel closest to him.

We read in verses 4-5, “So Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel, and they conquered Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim and all the store cities of Naphtali. When Baasha heard of it, he ceased fortifying Ramah and stopped his work.”

Asa then brings his people out to Ramah

To gather the building materials,

To use them to fortify two cities

That also stood between Israel and Judah – 8

Geba and Mizpah,

Which were very close to Ramah –

As further protection against Baasha.

We read in verse 6, “Then King Asa brought all Judah, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber with which Baasha had been building, and with them he fortified Geba and Mizpah.”

Asa looks for a solution

By entering into a covenant

With a nation that betrays Israel,

And the problem is solved.

He was even able to strengthen

His position against Israel.

Seems like everything worked out.

C. But things were not as they seemed.

What Asa did dishonored his Lord –

Solomon writes, “There is a way which seems right to a man,

But its end is the way of death” (Prov. 14:12).

That’s why we shouldn’t trust our own wisdom.

And so the Lord sent His prophet to tell him.

We read in verse 7, “At that time Hanani the seer [i.e., prophet] came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, ‘Because you have relied on the king of Aram and have not relied on the LORD your God, therefore the army of the king of Aram has escaped out of your hand.”

Asa failed in that

He looked to the king of Aram/Syria for help,

When he should have looked to the Lord – 9

He put his trust in man, rather than God.

He did this even in light

Of what the Lord had already done

For him and for Judah:

We read in verse 8, “Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim an immense army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the LORD , He delivered them into your hand.”

The Lubim –

Or the Libyans –

Attacked Judah

With the Egyptians and Ethiopians

When Rehoboam was king (2 Chr. 12:2-3).

But it’s more likely what Hanani had in mind here

Was the attack that took place in Asa’s day –

When he was outnumbered almost 2 to 1.

We read in :8-13, “Now Asa had an army of 300,000 from Judah, bearing large shields and spears, and 280,000 from Benjamin, bearing shields and wielding bows; all of them were valiant warriors. Now Zerah the Ethiopian came out against them with an army of a million men and 300 chariots, and he came to Mareshah. So Asa went out to meet him, and they drew up in battle formation in the valley of Zephathah at Mareshah. Then Asa called to the LORD his God and said, ‘LORD, there is no one besides You to help in the battle between the powerful and those who have no strength; so help us, O LORD our God, for we trust in You , and in Your name have come against this multitude. O LORD, You are our God; let not man prevail against You.’ So the LORD routed the Ethiopians before Asa and before Judah, and the Ethiopians fled. Asa and the people who were with him pursued them as far as Gerar; and so many Ethiopians fell that they could not recover, for they were shattered before the LORD and before His army. And they carried away very much plunder.”

In the face of that threat,

Asa trusted the Lord,

And the Lord delivered him 10

And all Judah,

And He blessed them with great wealth.

But whom did he trust

When it came to Baasha?

Asa might have been happy

With the short-term results:

Baasha lost his blockade,

Died shortly after that,

And Israel was weakened.

But what did it cost him?

The wealth he took from the Lord’s treasuries,

As well as some of his own;

An enemy escaped – Aram –

That he otherwise would have defeated;

And he would have to face continual wars –

Not only would Aram be a thorn in his side,

The Lord would raise up others to discipline him –

Until he learned to put his trust in the Lord,

Rather than in man.

II. Sermon. A. The point is: The Lord wants us to trust Him for our wellbeing.

The prophet tells us in verse 9,

11 “For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.”

This is the kind of person He looks for.

The kind He helps.

What He wants us to be,

What He has made us in Jesus.

This evening,

We’ll continue this theme by looking at:

What it means to trust the Lord;

And how we might trust Him more.

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