Dr. Robert Liston. Dr. Robert Liston. This is the name of the surgeon who completed the deadliest surgery in history. He is the first and only surgeon to have a 300% mortality rate on a single patient. Yeah, one patient on a table, but by the end of the case, three people died. See, prior to anesthesia, the goal for the surgeon was to complete the surgery as quickly as possible in order to minimize the amount of pain that the patient would have and the blood loss. And so Dr. Liston was considered the most skilled and fastest surgeon in his days. His nickname was the fastest knife on West End. And he was so skilled, he would lose only one out of 10 patients, whereas other surgeons would lose one out of four. he could perform a single amputation in up to 28 seconds. And so essentially during this deadly case, what happened was a patient needed his leg amputated. And so Dr. Liston, when he went in for the first swipe, he accidentally cut off the fingers of his assistant. And when he realized what happened, he jerked up and he swiped the spectator to his other side, where that spectator would die of shock. and the patient on the table as well as the nurse would die of infected wounds. Now here's the thing, you look at his life, it was a lifetime career of success, prestige, and skill, and yet what we are talking about is none of his accomplishments. We're talking about his failure. He has a career where that is what he's known for. It was that deadly case he had completed. And we're gonna be leading about a king who is very similar, a king who had a very godly reign for most of his life, and yet what we are talking about was not his accomplishments, it was his failure at the end. And the danger is that Christians, we can fall into the same trap where we have a lifetime of devotion to Christ, and yet at the end of all lives, we forsake the statutes of God, and we are no different from King Asa. where when someone looks at our life, they will not be talking about the service we had towards God or our devotion to God, but our failure towards God. I wanna start off by admonishing two groups today. There are some of you here who are genuine Christians, you have genuinely repented, you have believed in the gospel of Christ, yet you are not seeking God. You are genuine Christians, and yet your life is characterized as seeking video games, seeking entertainment, seeking relationships, seeking the things of the world, and that is what your refuge is, rather than God. And my warning to you is if that is you today, that is going to be you in the future. And there's another group of people who maybe you have been seasoned Christians, you have been walking with Christ for 50, 60, 70 years. Take heed lest you fall. Because Asa walked for many years with God and yet he fell miserably at the end. And so my goal for today's sermon is for us to learn from Asa's failure and for us to be motivated by this to continually seek God. My goal is for us to learn from Asa's failure and to let this motivate us to continually seek God. And we're gonna be reading from 2 Chronicles 16 if you return there with me. 2 Chronicles 16. You need to rise for me for the reading of the word. In the 36th year of the reign of Asa, Baasha, king of Israel, went up against Judah and built Ramah, that he might permit no one to go out or come in to Asa, king of Judah. Then Asa took silver and gold from the treasures of the house of the Lord and the king's house and sent them to Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, who lived in Damascus, saying, There is a covenant between me and you, as there was between my father and your father. Behold, I am sending to you silver and gold. Go break your covenant with Baasha, king of Israel, that he may withdraw from me. And Ben-Hadad listened. to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel. And they conquered Ajun, Dan, Abelmeim, and all the stone cities of Naphtali. And when Baasha heard of it, he stopped building Ramah, and his work ceased. Then King Asa took all Judah, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber with which Baasha had been building. And with them, they built Geba and Mizpah. At that time, Hanani, the seer, came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, because you relied on the king of Syria and did not rely on the Lord your God, the army of this king of Syria has escaped you. Were not the Ethiopians and Libyans a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the Lord, he gave them into your hand. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to give strong support to those whose heart is whole toward him. You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have woes. Then Asa was angry with the seer and put him in the stocks in prison, for he was in rage with him because of this. And Asa inflicted cruelties upon some of the people at the same time. The acts of Asa from first to last are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. In the 39th year of his reign, Asa was diseased in his feet, and his disease became severe. Yet even in his disease, he did not seek the Lord, but sought help from physicians. And Asa slept with his fathers, dying in the 41st year of his reign. They buried him in the tomb that he had cut for himself in the city of David. They laid him on a bier that had been filled with various kinds of spices prepared by the perfumers' art, and they made a great fire in his honor. This is the load of the load. You may be seated. We're going to be looking at three observations concerning Asa's backsliding hurt. Three observations concerning Asa's backsliding hurt. Now, some background information you would need to know about Chronicles is this book serves as a broad overview of the history for God's people. Now if you look in your Bibles, 1 and 2 Chronicles is going to be after 1 and 2 Kings. But if you have a Hebrew Bible, that's not where this book is at. 1 and 2 Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible is at the very end of the Old Testament. And there's a reason for that. Because it's meant to be a summary of what we have seen God's people do in the Old Testament. And I would argue that the person who wrote 1 and 2 Chronicles is Ezra. And the primary audience he had in mind was that this letter was meant for the leaders who had come back from the exile. Where when you read 2 Chronicles, the second half, you're going to see king after king after king who is failing. And that's meant to serve as an example for the leaders reading it at the time of learn from their mistakes, seek God, don't rely on man. And so as we go through 2 Chronicles, it starts off with Solomon building the temple, where we see Solomon construct the temple and he lifts up this glorious prayer to God. Where God responds in two ways. God responds to this prayer by saying that, if my people humble themselves and they seek my face, they will find me and I will forgive them of their iniquities and I will grant healing. But his second response is that, if they forsake me and my statutes, I will cast them off. And we're going to see that be a recurring event throughout all these kings' lives. Where it starts with Solomon, who he sought the Lord, his heart was whole towards Him, and you see prosperity, you see success, accomplishments. Where at the end of his life, he fell into idolatry because of his many wives. And God's response is not to strip the kingdom from Solomon, but to strip it from his son. Where Rehoboam made some very foolish decisions, where as he sought counsel on how to lead God's people, rather than go to the wise counselors that Solomon got counsel from, he went to his high school buddies, where he made foolish decisions and he caused a schism, which divided the northern and southern kingdoms. And so, after Rehoboam's death, his son Abijah took reign, the second king of Judah. And so Abijah's story starts off with him going to battle with an army that is completely outnumbering him. And what he does is he lifts this glorious prayer, pleading with God to deliver him and to give him victory, and we see an overwhelming victory on his part. And then at his death, the third king of Judah took reign, and this is who we're gonna be reading about today, King Asa. Now, King Asa's rule starts off with, because he sought God, because he had a heart for God, it started with 10 years of peace. It started with him building fortified cities. It started with military strength. And now, one thing you want to remember throughout Chronicles is that typical signs of God's blessing on his people is peace, construction, military strength, and victory, and riches. Peace, construction, victory in battle, military strength, and riches. And we see Asa experience all these blessings. And then Zerah the Ethiopian comes to battle against King Asa. And so Asa does exactly what his father did. He doesn't rely on man to win this battle. He relies on God. He calls for help, says that there's no one like you to help, and you are the one who can deliver the weak from the mighty. Where he delivers them out of an army that was over twice his size, and he had an overwhelming victory. And it's after Asa's victory that a prophet comes to him named Azariah. We see this in chapter 15. In Azariah, turn to chapter 15 and look at verses 1 and 2, at what Azariah told him. Verse 1, the Spirit of God came upon Azariah, the son of Oded, and he went out to meet Asa. and said to him, hear me Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you. But if you forsake him, he will forsake you. And so we're gonna have to ask the question of what does he mean by seeking God and forsaking God? What is he referring to? One person defines these things as this way. That in Chronicles, when you see kings seeking after God, this is meaning they are committing their life toward Him in act of faith. To seek God means you are committing your life to God holistically in act of faith, and this is gonna lead you to pursue obedience and oppose idolatry. And likewise, when you forsake God, when you forsake Him and His statutes, you are embracing idolatry. You are neglecting and abusing the temple, the kings are despising the words of the prophets. That's what it looks like when you see kings beginning to forsake the Lord. And so, after Azariah, the prophet speaks to Asa, what is Asa's response? He takes courage. He takes courage, he takes down all the idols of Judah, he offers a great sacrifice to God, thanking him for his deliverance. And He, along with all Judah, make an oath to God that they will continually seek Him all their days. And whoever does not seek Him shall be put to death." Now, as we reach chapter 16, we are going to learn about the end of Asa's life and how he broke that covenant. Now, there is something we're going to have to reconcile here, because look at chapter 15, verse 17, at the end of that verse. It says, nevertheless, the heart of Asa was wholly true all his days. So this is describing King Asa as someone who his entire life was wholly true to God all his days, and yet we're gonna read an entire chapter of him forsaking God and his statutes. So how do we make sense of this? What sins did David commit? Murder, adultery? Yet, this was a man after God's own heart, he sought after God, and when you read Chronicles, you never see those sins mentioned once on David. In fact, when you read David in Chronicles, pretty much the only time he's mentioned in 2 Chronicles is when he's being compared to the wicked kings of Israel, and the wicked kings are being rebuked for not following David's example. So even in Chronicles, David is depicted as a righteous man, as a man whole towards God, even though he committed those heinous sins. Meaning, this could be any one of us, where our lives are whole towards God, and yet we commit big failures. And so, this leads us to our first point of the text. The first observation concerning Asa's backsliding hurt is that Asa breaks his covenant to Yahweh by relying on the king of Syria. Point number one is that Asa breaks his covenant to Yahweh by relying on the king of Syria. This is in verses one through six. Now, before we get into this text, let me point out a slight dating issue that occurs in here. There is some textual debate on how to reconcile this, but this says that Baasha came against the king of Judah in the 36th year of his reign. Now the issue is when you compare this to the King's account, the dates are not adding up. Because if this was in the 36th year of his reign, Baatia would have been dead for 10 years. So unless this is a zombie that's risen up, there's something going on here. And there's several ways people have resolved this, but whichever solution you embrace, the key takeaway is not the specific year, it's that this is at the end of his life. And so at the end of Asa's life, we see the setting begin to take place. We see the conflict. Look at verse one with me. In the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha, king of Israel, went up against Judah and built Ramah, that he might permit no one to go out or come in to Asa, king of Judah. So Baasha, if you remember, this is the wicked king of Israel, and this is the king, just to show you how evil he was, that assassinated Nadab so that he could take the throne, and then immediately killed the entire house of Jehoram. And so Baasha, his tactic is to come against Judah, it's not to take a huge army and to go out to battle, it's to cut off the traffic flow to Judah. Because if you remember from chapter 15, what were people doing because of God's blessing on Judah? They were all leaving Israel and coming to Judah, because they saw God's hand on Asa. And so, Baasha wants to stop this. He wants to weaken Judah by cutting off the flow, by keeping them from getting stronger. And so, as we see the conflict, now tension's rising. Because now we're asking the question of, what's Asa gonna do now? Is he gonna lift up another glorious prayer like he did at the last battle where God's gonna deliver him? What's the glorious battle gonna look like? And we see his response in verse two. Look at verse two with me. Then Asa took silver and gold from the treasures of the house of the Lord and the king's house and sent them to Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, who lived in Damascus. And so what we see is that Asa doesn't lift up a prayer What he does is he takes all the treasures out of the house of the Lord. Now I want you to compare this with how he was earlier in his life when he was committed to God. Look at chapter 15, verse 18. This is after God delivered him out of the hands of the Ethiopians. It says, and he brought into the house of God the sacred gifts of his father and his own sacred gifts, silver and gold and vessels. So we already see things beginning to change. We see this is not the same Asa he was earlier in his life. This is someone who went from being grateful to God and putting treasures into his house to now he's taking them back. And so what does he do? He takes these treasures and he sends them to Ben-Hadad. Look at verse three. It says, there is a covenant between me and you, as it was between my father and your father. Behold, I am sending to you the silver and gold. Go break your covenant with Baal, king of Israel, that he may withdraw from me. Now, Ben-Hadad, this is the wicked king of Syria, and Ben-Hadad is not his name. This is a title. Ben-Hadad, just to show you the arrogance of Syria and their idolatry, Ben-Hadad means son of the thunder god. And so that is the title of this man, and what Asa does is takes the treasures, sends them to this wicked king, and he makes a deal with him. Whereas we keep reading, we see what the covenant was. He makes a covenant with Baasha to break his covenant with Israel. Now compare this with Asa's initial covenant with Yahweh. Turn to chapter 15 and look at verse 12. And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul. And so he covenants with God that God will be the one he seeks, and yet what's he doing now? He breaks it. And here's the ironic part is, what is he covenanting the king of Syria to do? To break his covenant. So what we have is this once devouted man whose heart was whole to God, now he's just as much a covenant breaker than this wicked king of Syria. And I want you to notice something. What we see is the gears are turning as we see Asa beginning to forsake God and His statutes. I want you to notice just in what we read, how many idols do you actually see pop up? Do you see any bells arise? Do you see any asterisk come into the picture? No. All these are still taken down from his early reign, from his devotion, yet let me tell you what you do see. You see a man who's not even thinking of God. This man who was once fully committed to God and devoted, God doesn't even come across his mind in the midst of this conflict. I mean, let me ask you this. When conflict arises in your life, Do you make a beeline for yourself, or to men, or to the bin hay dads in your life, or are you running straight to God? Do you even think about praying? When you get in an argument with your spouse, or problems with your children, do you even think about praying to God? I remember years ago, when I took Hebrew, that class kicked me all over the place. Most humbling and sanctifying class I'd ever sat through. And I struggled for the first two months just to even keep a scene in the class. I'm up all night, I'm stressed, and two months into it, I realized I never even thought about praying over this. Where the Ben-Hadad in that struggle wasn't the king of Syria, it was myself. I was relying on my own strength, my own wisdom to get me through it. I didn't even think about praying. When you are in conflict and problems and you don't even consider praying, that is the first stage of you beginning to be like Asa. And so how did Asa get to this point? What happened to turn this man once committed to God into now he doesn't even think of him? Keep your finger here, but turn to Proverbs chapter 30. And look at verses eight through nine. Remove far from me falsehood and lying. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my Lord. What we see here is a divine prayer asking God to not bless him with over-prosperity because he's gonna be tempted to forget about God. I want you to remember, what did Asa experience after he was delivered from the Ethiopians? Years of peace, years of blessing, and now look at where he's at. He's at a point where he's completely forgotten about God. And so you need to be on guard when you are in seasons of blessing and prosperity because you can easily fall into the same trap. I believe it is Spurgeon who said that it is much easier to doze off in the green fields and the grassy pastures than it is in the valley of the shadow of death. And the first sign you can know whenever you're beginning to have this heart that Asa has is do you become pragmatic about things? When conflict arises, do you go to scripture, do you go to prayer, or do you just do what works? Because that's what we see Asa do. And as tension is rising in the story, we are remembering the curses that God has told His people to expect when they disobey Him and His statutes. Deuteronomy 28-25, it says, the Lord will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will come at them from one direction, but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms in the earth. And so, now tension is rising in the story. We see that Asa disobeyed God, we see he broke his covenant, and now we're left to wonder, is God gonna give him over to his enemies? What is gonna happen? And here's the crazy thing, his plan actually works. Look at verses four through five. And Ben-Hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel. And they conquered Ajan, Dan, Abimeim, and all the stone cities of Naphtali. And when Baashir heard of it, he stopped building Ramah and let his work cease." And so, Ben-Hadad, unlike King Asa, is a man of his word. He actually stays true to the covenant he made to the king of Judah. and he conquers these cities, and now the king of Israel is withdrawing, he stops construction. And furthermore, it's not just that King Asa's problems went away, it's not just that his plans worked, he actually got blessings from this. Look at verse six. Then King Asa took all Judah, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber, with which Baathia had been building, and with them they built Geba and Mizpah. So essentially, he takes all Judah, and when you remember the last time he did this, he took all Judah to offer sacrifices to God because they were grateful for his deliverance. And now what are they doing? He's gathering all Judah to gather the materials for himself. Now, Geba and Misbah, this signifies hill. This is a watchtower. So what do we see? We see that they are prospering, they have blessings, and now they're building, they're constructing. Remember what I said earlier, what are some of the signs of God's blessing in Chronicles? Construction, peace, victory. Asa has all this, and he disobeyed God. And so here's the warning, is that the most dangerous spot to be in is when you are living an unfaithful life to God, when you are living a life not seeking after Him, and you're being blessed in the midst of it. Because you can easily think that I'm right with God, I'm doing exactly what I should be, and yet look at Asa. Samson had many victories, he had many accomplishments, and yet he lived all that time a life of debauchery. Where you look at him and you can't tell much of a difference between him and an unbeliever. And so now tension is rising in the story, and that brings us to our point number two. The second observation concerning Asa's backsliding heart is that Asa rages against Hanani's rebuke. Point number two is that Asa rages against Hanani's rebuke. This is in verses 7 through 10. And so now, a new character comes into the story named Hanani, and we see him begin his rebuke. Look at verse 7 with me. At that time, Hanani the seer came to Asa, king of Judah, and said to him, And so now Hanani is rebuking him for relying on man rather than God, and he says something interesting. He says, What's he mean by that? He means that if you had just relied on God, He would not have just given you Israel. He would not have just given you this one army. He would have given you both armies. And so He continues on this rebuke and strengthens it by recounting what happened last time Asa relied on God. Look at verse 8. Were not the Ethiopians and Libyans a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the load, he gave them into your hand." And so Hanani is recalling the battle that took place in chapter 14 where Zerah the Ethiopian came against him with, the literal translation is a thousand thousand men. Meaning this was an army too big to even count. And what we learn right here is that this wasn't just the Ethiopians. This was actually two armies. Things were even more hopeless. So the Ethiopians and Libyans, the same way that God gave them into King Asa's hand, he easily could have given Israel and Syria into his hand now. And look at how he's picturing this. Imagine a father with a piece of candy in his hand, crouching down, pulling it into his child's hand. The kid's not having to strain, he's not having to jump on a stepstool, he's not having to reach for it. The father's literally just giving into his hand. That's what the father did for King Asa. And we keep on reading and we see why did God even deliver Asa in the first place? Why did he deliver him from this battle? Look at verse nine with me, the first part. for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to give strong support to those whose heart is whole toward him. This is describing God as someone who his eyes are searching all over the earth for someone to give support to. See, God is not someone who is in heaven and if you need help, you keep calling him over and over and over again and then eventually he gets to a point where he just reluctantly answers and gives you a little help. God is someone who is actively searching all over the place. He wants to give support to his people. And here's the irony. You see a king once devoted to God and now he's at the point he's failing to seek God. Ultimately, who is it that does the seeking? It's God. He's the one seeking, searching to and fro across all the earth. Compare that with Satan. What does Satan do? He's searching to and fro also, but what's He doing? He's wanting someone to devour. And so God, He's not just giving support, He's giving a strong support. And what we see as we continue reading is who are the candidates to receive this support from God? Look at verse 9 with me. It says, for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to give strong support to those whose heart is whole toward him. Some of your translations may say blameless. This is not signifying sinless perfection. This is not saying if you want God's help, you're going to have to be perfect. There can be no sin on your slate. This is saying this is someone whose heart is whole towards God. Someone who is devoted to God and his ways and his statutes. You know, one question I hope everyone here is asking is, how do I become useful to God? How do I be used by God? How do I become someone who receives His strength rather than someone who's just relying on my own strength? And you look at this verse, what does it not say? It doesn't say that God is searching to and fro across the whole earth for someone with a master's degree. It does not say He's searching for someone with a PhD or someone with all these certificates. He's searching for someone who has a heart that is whole toward God. If you want to be used by God, if you want to experience this strong support, you have to cultivate a devotion to God. You have to love God. You have to be devoted to all of His statutes. Just think of the Christians who had some of the biggest impact on the world just over the past hundred years, few hundred years. George Whitefield. a young man who, you don't see any PhDs or anything like that, but you saw a man who loved God. He loved God so much that when he got on the ships on his two-month voyage to America to do preaching, he made it his sole mission that I'm on this boat full of sailors who are cursing and blaspheming God and they are acting like pagans. I want to tell every single sailor about Christ. I want to get the gospel to every single one. And by the end of the voyage, guess what happened? These same sailors were rebuking him every time he was too exhausted to teach Sunday school. Think of Spurgeon, saved when he was 15 years old, became a preacher a few years later, and God used him in miraculous ways. No degrees, this was a nobody, random kid. And you listen to his sermons, and yes, they may not be exegetical, but they ooze the love of Christ. Children, I just wanna say something to you directly. So children, make sure you're listening to this. You live in a culture that is saying if you want to make a difference, you have to have a social media following. You live in a culture that says if you want to make a difference, you have to be famous, you have to do this, this. If you want to make a huge impact, if you want to turn the world upside down, you have to be devoted to Christ. and God will grant you that strong support. And I would not be surprised if we have a child whose heart is whole towards God, if that becomes the next George Whitefield straight out of this church. And so as we continue seeing this, this progression, the nasus rebuke, Hannah and I continues by telling him the consequences of his actions. Look at verse nine again with me. At the end of verse 9 it says, You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have woes. Compare this with what happened in chapter 15, verse 15. Look at 15, 15 with me. And all Judah rejoiced over the oath that they had sworn with all their heart, and had sought Him with their whole desire, and He was found by them, and the Lord gave them rest all around. Asa's woe begins with him seeking God, being devoted, and now God has given him rest all around, and how does his story end? With nothing but woes. You can rely on man, you can seek the help of man, you can forsake God, and guess what's gonna happen? You may have symptomatic relief, your problems may get better for a season, but you will have consequences. It may not be immediate, but you will suffer because of it. And now the tension has risen even more as Hannah and I finish this rebuke, and now we're left with the question of what's King Asa gonna do? Is he gonna repent? Because remember, what was God's promise? He said, if my people humble themselves before me, I will forgive them of their iniquity, and I will grant healing. And now we're just hoping, is King Asa gonna repent? Look at verse 10 with me, and we see his response. Then Asa was angry with the seer, and put him in the stocks in prison, for he was in a rage with him because of this. And Asa inflicted cruelties upon some of the people at the same time. We see a king who was once whole towards God, who once was fully devoted to him, now throwing his prophets in prison and inflicting cruelties on those who sympathized with his prophet. Compare this with how he responded to the first prophet in his early reign, Azariah. What does he do after Azariah prophesies to him? He takes courage, he takes down all the idols, he makes an oath to always seek God, and now this is the man he's become at the end of his life. And I want you to notice what Asa's doing here. A man just came to him giving him a very biblical rebuke. You see him recount God's character. God's motives, specific instances of God's faithfulness. And what do you see Asa do? You don't see him justifying himself. You don't see him arguing with Scripture. You don't even see, you still don't see him mention God once. You see a man who just rages. This is what a hardened heart for a Christian looks like. When you have a hardened heart where you are at aces point, this doesn't cause you to have short-term memory loss where you forget about God's past faithfulness. This causes you to not care. This causes you to get to a point where you can experience all the deliverances from Ethiopian and Libyan and you just don't care. When your heart is hardened, you become like the Israelites who, they were delivered from Pharaoh, they were brought out of Egypt, God sent the whole sea crushing Pharaoh and his armies, and what do these people do? They start singing praises for this deliverance, and the very next chapter, they start grumbling over God not giving them water. When we, our hearts are hardened to this point, we become like the disciples who, you can see Jesus multiply the bread over, over, over again. And yet, when we get on the boat and forget our bread, we start arguing over what we're gonna do. Let me warn you guys, when you are in a situation where you are in sin and someone comes to correct you like Hannah and I did, if your response is to rage, you should be terrified. That is your heart hurting. Let me tell you what this looks like. When your heart is that of Asa's at this point, when your heart is not seeking on God, relying on God, you are eventually going to get caught up in some sin. And if God is merciful to you, He would send that godly friend to you, that friend who has discernment, who may invite you to coffee, they may invite you to lunch, and they're going to have that whole conversation with you. When they sit down with you and they are showing you from Scripture, Now at first your response may be just to try to run away from it, to cut them off, to avoid the conversation. And then eventually your response is going to be to maybe use a verse or two to justify your actions. But here's the reality. When you are in sin, you can only use scripture so much. Eventually you're going to get pinned in a corner and now what happens is you begin raging like Asa. where when your friend is trying to correct you, every verse they throw at you is hardening your heart more and more and more, to the point where your friend cannot tell the difference between Pharaoh's heart hardening and your heart hardening. And I want you to keep in mind, this is a man whose heart was whole all of his days. This could be any one of us in this building. and pastors and deacons and those who are in leadership, don't forget about who the primary audience of this letter was. The primary audience is for the spiritual leaders of God's people to learn from these mistakes. Meaning, a pastor can pastor faithfully for 40, 50 years and still end up like an Asa. One of the devilish lies that Satan likes to get into the church is for the church to think that the pastor and the leaders of the church do not need your prayer. Your prayers for your leaders and pastors might be the very thing that's keeping their heart from becoming Ace's heart. And so now we're at the climax of the story. Where we see King Asa's response, we see he didn't repent, and now we're going to say, ask the question, what on earth is going to happen to this man? What is God going to do now? And this leads us to point number three, the final point. The third observation concerning Asa's backsliding hurt is that Asa fails to seek God even unto death. Point number three is that Asa fails to seek God even unto death. This is in verses 11 through 14. Look at verse 11 with me. The acts of Asa from first to last are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. This verse is often gonna preface the end of a king's life and what we are in now is there's a shift in time where a few years have went by and now we're at the end of his life and we see that King Asa still has not repented. And furthermore, we see that now he is diseased. Look at verse 12 with me. In the 39th year of his reign, Asa was diseased in his feet, and his disease became severe. Brothers and sisters, I would argue this is not just an ordinary foot disease. I would argue this is divine judgment. Because other kings, they were judged in the same way. 2 Chronicles 21, Jehoram, how did he die? God inflicted him with a disease in his bowels and he died a very, very agonizing death. Chapter 15, look at chapter 15 with me, verse 12-13. Part of the original covenant King Asa had made. And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul. But whoever would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, shall be put to death, where the young old man, a woman." And so now we see the same thing. And some of you may be saying, well, you know, God sending diseases and sicknesses as a means of judgment. That's just in the Old Testament. God's all love now. What does Paul warn about concerning the Lord's Supper? You can die if you take of it in an unworthy manner. God does not change. If you are an unbeliever here and you have been taking the Lord's Supper, you need to stop it right now. When Paul says you can die because of this, he is serious. And so we see Asa suffering because of this affliction. Look at the end of verse 12, where we see how he responds in the midst of this. Yet even in his disease, he did not seek the Lord, but sought the help of physicians. When your heart is no longer relying on God, when your heart is forsaking God and His statutes, this is like gangrene. It spreads to every area of your life. If you're not relying and seeking God in the midst of your marriage problems, you would not seek Him in other problems of your life. If you're not seeking Him in your financial struggles, you're not gonna seek Him in any other area of your life. It's gonna spread and spread and spread until you're at Asa's point right here. Now I want you to compare this with how Hezekiah responded when he was sick. What did Hezekiah do when he was at the point of death because of his sickness? He pleaded with God. He prayed, he pleaded, and guess what God did? He granted him healing, he gave him 15 whole years of living left. And yet, Asa does not pray at all. I'm convinced that if Asa had just sought the Lord even now, he would have been healed of this. And we see this idea being reflected in the New Testament. Keep your finger here, but turn to James chapter five. James chapter 5, look at verse 14 through 15. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with the oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. And so we are told that when you are sick, when you are in your deathbed, you should be seeking the Lord the way Asa failed to. And the way you should be seeking Him is by having your elders come and pray over you. No offense, but I'm looking around and I'm seeing a lot of old people. Not you, you're still young. You're approaching a point, though, where you're going to be on your sickbed, where you're going to have those seasons where your health is rapidly fleeting from you. If your response is to be quicker to go to the doctor than in prayer, you have the same heartache as I had. If your response when you have those seasons where you are on your sickbed and you're in the hospital, if you disobey what James says and you don't have your elders come pray over you, You may die because of it. And so we reach the end of Asa's life where we see his burial. Look at verse 14 with me. They buried him in a tomb that he had cut for himself in the city of David. They laid him on a bier that had been filled with various kinds of spices prepared by the perfumer's art. And they made a very great fire in his honor. So he ends up in a tomb, he's buried, he's placed on a bier, and the people, you don't see them cheering, you don't see them cheering over his death, you see them honoring him. In Jeremiah, you see this happen when a king who is to be honored passes away, a great fire is held, and that's what happens to Asa. And so here's a king that was so unfaithful at the end, a king who started off being whole towards God, but when you look at the end of his life, he acted no different from the wicked kings of Israel. And yet the people honored him. Why is that? The reason is because his rule was characterized as being godly. Allow this to show you just how subtle and dangerous it is when our hearts begin to harden. Where you, people may be cheering for you, giving you amens, they may be honoring you greatly, yet no one knows what's going on in your heart, except for maybe that one prophet. So how do we maintain a heart that's whole towards God? How do we maintain hearts that are gonna continually seek God all of our days? Here's the first thing you have to do, you have to pray for it. If you want this heart of Josiah, you're going to have to pray for this heart. If you have a desire to seek God all of your days and to rely on Him, you're going to have to seek God to even give you that desire to seek Him. The second thing is regularly soak in the past faithfulness of God. Many of you here have probably had experiences where God has delivered you from the Ethiopians and the Libyans and you need to soak in those experiences. You need to cherish them. When you get to a point where you can think of all the times God has done miraculous things in your life and you just go numb to them, that might be because your heart has hardened. Guard yourself against seasons of prosperity Make sure you have a godly friend in your life who can function as a hand and eye. Someone who, when you begin backsliding, when you begin relying on yourself and man rather than God, you can have someone who has that whole conversation with you and calls you out. And here's just a practical tip. You have to put off and put on. It's what we've been talking about over and over again in Sunday school class. When you are tempted to run to the Ben-Hadad's in the midst of struggles, there's a lie being told. You need to put off that falsehood. That's not where your refuge is. Your refuge is in the one true stronghold, Yahweh. Look at verse 9. for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to give strong support to those whose heart is whole toward him. Memorize that verse. Memorize it, soak on it. Get to a point where if someone cuts you, you are bleeding, verse nine. When you have those falsehoods and those lies coming to you saying the Ben-Hadad's are gonna be where your refuge is, this is the truth you need to replace it with. Now to you unbelievers here, notice where King Asa ends up at. He ends up in a tomb. Where does the next king end up at? A tomb. Next king, tomb, tomb, tomb, tomb. Every single king you see in here, it doesn't matter how wicked they were or how godly they were, they end up in the same place and guess what? They actually stay there. They die and they stay dead. Right now, the one you are relying on for your hope and your salvation, your comfort, your joy, is the Ben-Hadad, which is yourself. You are relying on yourself, your strength, your wisdom, everything. You are forsaking God and His statutes, and there is one king you have to rely on if you want to be saved. This is the king that was buried in a tomb, and guess what? He was raised on the third day. This is a king that doesn't throw prophets into prison and inflict cruelties on his people. This is a God who bears the afflictions of his people. This is a king so good that even his disciples who rejected him prior to his crucifixion, what was the first thing he did when he came to them? He could have easily summoned a lightning bolt and killed them and strike them off for their sin, but what does he do? Make some breakfast. This is a glorious King who is a servant to all. This is a glorious King who is not only powerful and has all authority, this is a King who is gloriously humble. This is a King who loves nothing more than to save wretched sinners who have no hope. If you want to be saved, repent of your sins and trust in Jesus Christ. Now here's the question I ask everyone here. believer and unbeliever. Are you gonna make God your refuge and rely on Him, or are you gonna rely on the physicians? Need I remind you that Dr. Liston's patient relied on physicians as well, and look at how he ended up. Let's go to God in prayer. Oh Father, we plea with you. Never let us make the mistakes Asa made. Father, we plea with you for you to guard our hearts against unbelief, against us hurting ourselves. Father, we, you're weak, you're desperate, we need you. Oh Lord, we want to seek you, we want to rely on you, but unless you act on us, unless you place the work in us, we have no hope. My Father, I pray that you grant us all the hearts of Josiah. We pray that you raise up the next Whitfields, the next people who will turn the world upside down just in this very church. Father, we pray that if there's any been hate ads in our life or any false refugees we are embracing, that you strip us away from every single one of them. Father, we pray that in the seasons where you see fit to send prophets our way to correct us, that you grant us the humility to be corrected. Father, we plea for the lost here. We pray that those who are relying on their own obedience and their own wisdom, that you crush them, humble them. We pray that you grant them a new heart and that you use that heart to serve your kingdom in ways we can't even imagine. We ask all of this in your son's name, amen.