In First Kings, chapter fifteen, verse nine, continues with Asa, king of Judah. In the twentieth year of Jeroboam, the king of Israel reigned Asa for forty-and-one years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom. He took the sodomites out of the land, removed all the idols his father did, and dismissed his mother from being queen because she had made an idol in a grove. However, the high places did remain, as in verse fourteen of this chapter.
Asa was a good King whose reign characterized faithfulness to God. However, he fails to trust God fully in his later years in Second Chronicles sixteen. The rule of Asa was significant because he led the people to renounce the ungodly ways and turn away from the wicked practices of the Canaanites. True revival always includes turning from practices that offend God and violate His Word.
Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord indeed is so in God’s eyes. Asa’s times were times of reformation. He removed that which was evil. When Asa found idolatry in the court, he rooted it out thence. Reformation must begin at home. Asa honors and respects his mother, he loves her well, but he loves God better.
Those with power are happy when they have the hearts to use it well. We must not only cease to do evil but learn to do well: cast away the idols of our iniquity but dedicate ourselves and our all to God’s honor and glory. Asa was cordially devoted to the service of God, his sins not arising from presumption. But his league with Benhadad arose from unbelief. Even true believers find it hard to trust the Lord with all their hearts. Disbelief makes way for carnal policy and for one sin after another. Unbelief has often led Christians to call on the help of the Lord’s enemies in their contests with their brethren, and some who once shone brightly now have a cover with a dark cloud towards the end of their days.