Pastor Jeff Anders continues the series on David by looking at King Asa, David’s great-great-grandson — another king who followed David’s example. The message draws from 1 Kings 15 and 2 Chronicles 14–16.
- The Choice
- The Character
- The Covenant
- The Conquests
Asa’s story moves through cleansing, construction, consecration, conquest, confirmation, and covenant (revival), then shows where he later failed through wrong reliance and a wrong reaction. It closes with a call to set an example that points the next generation to God.
Why David Was a Conqueror
David was a soldier, then the sovereign of Israel, and a great conqueror — not only against outside enemies but even against the inner rebellion of Absalom. He was victorious because he was a servant of God: he obeyed, trusted, and followed the Lord’s leadership. His pattern was to pray and seek God’s will, and when God spoke, to do it no matter what advisors, the crowd, or “reason” said.
That pattern showed up in the battles he fought and in the Psalms he wrote. Three marks of David’s life stand out:
- Faith. Hebrews 11 lists David among those who through faith subdued kingdoms (Hebrews 11:32–34). He listened to God and obeyed.
- Forgiveness. When he sinned, he went to God, asked forgiveness, and God kept using him. A “perfect” heart in Scripture does not mean a sinless life. When God forgives, He forgives completely (Psalm 103:12; Jeremiah 31:34; Hebrews 8:12).
- The fear of God. David was more concerned about what God said than about what anyone else said.
As king, David set the pattern later kings were measured by. Some did not walk as David did; others did, and they became conquerors like him. Scripture has already shown this in Hezekiah, Jehoshaphat, and Josiah. In this message the example is Asa.
The Davidic covenant of 2 Samuel 7 sits in the background: God made a covenant with David, and later kings stand in that line. Asa began to reign about 59 years after David’s reign ended. He was David’s great-great-grandson.
Background: Abijam and Asa (1 Kings 15)
The message opens in 1 Kings 15, then moves to 2 Chronicles 14 for the fuller account.
Abijam (also called Abijah) reigned three years in Jerusalem. He walked in his father’s sins, and his heart was not perfect with the Lord as David’s was (1 Kings 15:1–3). David’s heart is called perfect not because he never sinned — he sinned greatly — but because he turned to God and was forgiven. 1 Kings 15:5 explains David’s direction: he did right in the Lord’s eyes and did not turn aside from what God commanded, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. God forgave even that.
War filled Abijam’s days. He slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David, and Asa his son reigned in his stead (1 Kings 15:6–8). Asa began in the twentieth year of Jeroboam and reigned forty-one years. The “mother” named Maachah, daughter of Abishalom, is actually his grandmother. The verdict: Asa did right in the Lord’s eyes, as David his father did (1 Kings 15:11). He followed David’s example by striving to obey God by faith, seeking forgiveness when he failed, and fearing God. He removed the sodomites and the idols his fathers had made (1 Kings 15:12).
Asa was far from a perfect king; Chronicles shows where he later messed up. But he sought God, and he feared God.
I. The Cleansing (2 Chronicles 14:1–5; 15:16)
When Asa became king, a cleansing began in Judah. In his days the land was quiet ten years (2 Chronicles 14:1). He did what was good and right in the Lord’s eyes because he took away the altars of the strange gods, the high places, the images, and the groves (2 Chronicles 14:2–3). He destroyed both the worship sites and the idols themselves.
That is what a godly king does. Idolatry is putting someone or something in God’s place. Israel and Judah worshiped Baal, the regional storm god they believed controlled rain. They saw neighboring nations who worshiped Baal getting rain and crops and thought, “Why not us?” The motive of idolatry is not the idol; the motive is covetousness (cf. Colossians 3:5). People want something God may not will for them. Entertainment, money, materialism, and empty vanities become idols when we look to them instead of God. Things not evil in themselves become idols when they take God’s place.
America may not carve wood-and-stone images, but idols still dominate the culture. Whatever enables us to live as if we do not need God is an idol.
Asa decided Judah needed God, and he set out to destroy the idols. The cleansing became painfully personal in 2 Chronicles 15:16: he removed Maachah his grandmother from being queen because she had made an idol in a grove. He cut it down, stamped it, and burned it at the brook Kidron. Revival that will not touch Grandma’s idol is not revival.
Application: we are in no position to clean up anyone else until we look at our own hearts. Is there anything we look to instead of God? This is not a call to sinless perfection — none of these people, including Asa, were perfect — but the idols that stand in the way of knowing God, depending on God, and experiencing His presence and power have to go.
II. The Construction (2 Chronicles 14:6–8)
After cleansing came building. Because the land had rest and the Lord had given him rest, Asa built fenced cities in Judah — walls, towers, gates, and bars (2 Chronicles 14:6–7). He also built a great army: 300,000 from Judah with targets and spears, and 280,000 from Benjamin with shields and bows, all mighty men of valour (2 Chronicles 14:8).
The order matters: they got cleaned up, then they built up. They tore down idols; then they constructed cities and an army. Peace was not luck. When Asa became king and began cleansing the land, God blessed him with a season of no war so the building could happen.
III. The Consecration (2 Chronicles 14:6–7)
Woven through the same verses is consecration — yielding and surrendering to God’s will. The reason they could build was that they had sought the Lord, and He had given them rest on every side, so they built and prospered (2 Chronicles 14:7).
That sounds like David. Asa had learned to seek God’s face and was teaching Judah to seek God, pray, and walk with Him. When God’s people start praying, God starts moving. Cleansing, construction, and consecration belong together.
IV. The Conquest (2 Chronicles 14:9–15)
Then came the test. Zerah the Ethiopian came against them with a million men and 300 chariots, to Mareshah (2 Chronicles 14:9). Asa went out and set the battle in array in the valley of Zephathah at Mareshah (2 Chronicles 14:10). Facing that host, Asa cried unto the Lord (2 Chronicles 14:11): it is nothing with God to help whether with many or with them that have no power; they rest on Him and go in His name. That prayer is David’s pattern. It recalls David before Goliath (1 Samuel 17:45). Asa had a large army, but he faced a larger one, and he knew the One he needed more than the army was God.
So the Lord smote the Ethiopians (2 Chronicles 14:12). The Lord did it. Judah pursued them to Gerar; the Ethiopians could not recover. Judah took spoil and returned to Jerusalem with sheep and camels in abundance (2 Chronicles 14:13–15).
The key to victory when the enemy attacks is the same as David’s: seek God’s face, obey His voice, trust Him. They cried out; God heard; God gave the victory.
V. The Confirmation (2 Chronicles 15:1–8)
After the victory, the Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded. He met Asa with a prophetic word (2 Chronicles 15:2): the Lord is with you while ye be with him; if ye seek him, he will be found of you; if ye forsake him, he will forsake you. That is David’s way. It also sounds like Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:7–8). Keep seeking, keep praying; God hears.
Azariah reminded them that for a long season Israel had been without the true God, without a teaching priest, and without law (2 Chronicles 15:3). But when they in their trouble turned to the Lord and sought Him, He was found of them (2 Chronicles 15:4). God even uses trouble (2 Chronicles 15:5–6). Then the charge: be strong, and let not your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded (2 Chronicles 15:7).
When Asa heard the prophecy, he took courage and put away the abominable idols out of Judah and Benjamin and the cities taken from Mount Ephraim, and renewed the altar of the Lord before the porch (2 Chronicles 15:8). He was operating by faith because the word of God had come.
People from Israel (Ephraim, Manasseh, Simeon) fell to him in abundance when they saw that the Lord his God was with him (2 Chronicles 15:9).
VI. The Covenant — and What Revival Looks Like (2 Chronicles 15:10–19)
In the third month of Asa’s fifteenth year they gathered at Jerusalem (around Pentecost). They offered from the spoil 700 oxen and 7,000 sheep (2 Chronicles 15:10–11) and entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul (2 Chronicles 15:12).
Playing games was over in Judah. No more playing; now it was praying. They needed His power, presence, and hand.
They were so serious that whoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman (2 Chronicles 15:13). That sounds severe to modern ears, but God has judged covetousness and idolatry with death before:
- The earth opened and swallowed rebels (Numbers 16, Korah).
- Achan took of the spoil of Jericho; he and his household died at God’s command (Joshua 7).
- In the New Testament, Ananias and Sapphira put greed ahead of God and were struck dead (Acts 5:1–11).
Even in church life, putting out those who will not turn from such sin is biblical (1 Corinthians 5). The covenant meant: no other gods, You alone, and we will not tolerate anyone bringing idolatry in.
They swore unto the Lord with a loud voice, with shouting, trumpets, and cornets (2 Chronicles 15:14). All Judah rejoiced at the oath; they had sworn with all their heart, sought Him with their whole desire; He was found of them, and the Lord gave them rest round about (2 Chronicles 15:15). This was total consecration.
That is what revival looks like. Revival is not merely inviting a guest preacher for a series of meetings. Revival is when God’s people who have not been walking with God start walking with Him; when filthy hearts get cleaned up; when the cleaned-up people get prayed up and start seeking God. When that happens, they intercede for others, and the Spirit of God begins to move — victory after victory, rest round about.
In that climate Asa removed Grandma Maachah, cut down her idol, stamped it, and burned it at Kidron (2 Chronicles 15:16). The high places were not taken away out of Israel, nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect all his days (2 Chronicles 15:17) — not because he was sinless, but because he would not tolerate idolatry, just like David. He brought dedicated silver, gold, and vessels into the house of God, and there was no more war until the thirty-fifth year of his reign (2 Chronicles 15:18–19).
VII. Asa Was Not Perfect: Wrong Reliance, Wrong Reaction (2 Chronicles 16)
Asa’s later years show corruption, as David’s personal life also had. Two failures stand out.
Wrong Reliance (2 Chronicles 16:1–9)
When Baasha king of Israel came against Judah, Asa turned to Ben-hadad king of Syria, sending temple and palace treasure to buy an alliance, instead of relying on the Lord (2 Chronicles 16:1–6). Hanani the seer rebuked him (2 Chronicles 16:7–9): because Asa relied on Syria instead of the Lord, Syria escaped; God had delivered him from the Ethiopians and Lubims when he relied on the Lord; the eyes of the Lord run to and fro to show Himself strong for those whose heart is perfect toward Him; Asa had done foolishly and would have wars from then on.
He could have destroyed Israel and Syria if he had turned to God as he had against the Ethiopians. From then on: war, because of the wrong reliance.
Wrong Reaction (2 Chronicles 16:10–13)
Asa was wroth with the man of God, put him in the prison house, and oppressed people who stood with the rebuke (2 Chronicles 16:10). Then in the thirty-ninth year he was diseased in his feet, yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians (2 Chronicles 16:12). The issue is not that doctors exist; it is that he would not cry out to God. He lived miserable last years and died in the forty-first year of his reign (2 Chronicles 16:13).
So Asa had the wrong reliance (Syria instead of God) and the wrong reaction (rage at the preacher; physicians instead of prayer). He was not a perfect man. Yet his heart could still be called perfect in the earlier years because, like David, he would not tolerate idolatry. David’s example reached a great-great-grandson ruling some sixty years after David was dead.
The Example We Set
Pastor Anders closed by thinking of his own grandsons, and of a possible great-great-grandson — and of those who already have them. If they follow our example, what direction will they go? Not perfection, but direction: Will they live by faith? When they mess up, will they seek God’s forgiveness? Will they fear God first?
That is the example David set for Asa. God used a flawed king because He had used a flawed David — a man who sought Him, was forgiven, and would not make peace with idols.
Would God help us set that kind of example for the next generation?
Truths to Take Home
- God knows the heart. A “perfect” heart is not sinlessness; it is a heart that turns to God, is forgiven, and will not keep idols.
- Forgiveness is complete (Psalm 103:12; Jeremiah 31:34; Hebrews 8:12).
- Seeking God is the open door (2 Chronicles 15:2; Matthew 7:7–8).
- Victory is the Lord’s when His people rest on Him and go in His name — as David against Goliath (1 Samuel 17:45), as Asa against Zerah (2 Chronicles 14:11–12).
- Revival is God’s people getting cleaned up, prayed up, and covenanted to seek Him with all the heart (2 Chronicles 15:12–15).
- Reliance on alliances, image, or physicians instead of the Lord is foolish, even for a previously used king (2 Chronicles 16). Keep seeking; do not stop.