Sunday, September 21, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: 2 Chronicles 14-18
Key Verse
2 Chronicles 17:3 — “And the LORD was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David, and sought not unto Baalim;”
Devotional Thought
The long reign of Asa begins in bright promise. He inherits a kingdom worn thin by his father’s wars, and he does the plain, unfashionable work of reform: he tears down the altars of strange gods, breaks the images, cuts down the groves, and commands Judah to seek the LORD God of their fathers. The land is quiet ten years, and Asa uses the quiet well—building fenced cities, towers, gates, and bars while the land is yet before him. Then Zerah the Ethiopian comes with a thousand thousand men and three hundred chariots, and Asa prays a prayer worth memorizing: “LORD, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power… for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude.” God smites the Ethiopians; the spoil is abundant; Azariah the prophet confirms the covenant: “The LORD is with you, while ye be with him.”
But the story turns. In his thirty-sixth year, facing Baasha of Israel, Asa reaches for silver and gold from the house of the LORD and sends it to Benhadad of Syria—a hired arm instead of a trusted God. Hanani the seer delivers the verdict: “Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the LORD thy God… from henceforth thou shalt have wars.” The verse that follows is one of the most searching in Scripture: “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.” Asa, who once rested on God against a million men, now rages at an old prophet and throws him in prison. In his thirty-ninth year his feet are diseased exceedingly, “yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians.” He dies in his forty-first year, and Jehoshaphat his son reigns in his stead—walking in the first ways of David, sending princes, Levites, and priests throughout the cities of Judah with the book of the law, so that the fear of the LORD falls on the surrounding kingdoms. Yet even Jehoshaphat joins affinity with Ahab and rides to Ramothgilead on the strength of four hundred agreeable prophets, while one honest man, Micaiah, speaks the truth and is hated for it.
These chapters read like a mirror held up to a long life of faith—or to any of us who have walked with God for years. The beginning of Asa’s reign is the easy part to preach: pray, trust, watch God scatter the impossible. The later chapters are the harder part to live. Rest becomes routine; routine becomes self-reliance; self-reliance becomes a quiet turning away, and the turning away rarely announces itself. It shows up as a decision made without prayer, a problem solved by a checkbook or a connection rather than by the God who once answered fire from heaven. Autumn is a season of harvest and inventory, and this passage invites us to take inventory—not of our worst sins, but of our most recent reflexes. When trouble came this year, where did our feet carry us first? Asa’s early prayer and Asa’s late physicians both tell the truth about a heart. The good news is that the eyes of the LORD still run to and fro; He is still looking for hearts wholly His, and He still shows Himself strong on their behalf.
Reflection
- Asa began by resting on God against a million Ethiopians, yet ended by trusting Syria’s king and his own physicians. Looking back over the past year, where has your first instinct in trouble quietly shifted from prayer to something else?
- Hanani told Asa that God’s eyes search the earth “to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.” What would it look like this week for you to give God one specific situation you have been handling entirely on your own?
Prayer
LORD God of our fathers, whose eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth, we confess that we have often begun well and drifted. You helped Asa against a host no man could number, and yet he later trusted in silver, in Syria, and in physicians rather than in You. Forgive our own quiet turnings away—the decisions made without seeking You, the burdens carried alone, the counsel we prefer because it agrees with what we already want. Give us hearts perfect toward You, and show Yourself strong on our behalf. Make us like Jehoshaphat’s teachers, carrying Your word into every city of our lives, and like Micaiah, willing to speak Your truth though all the world says otherwise. We rest on You, and in Your name we go. Amen.