The King that Time Forgot

Introduction

As you are aware, if you’ve been here any this week so far, our series is pertaining directly to Old Testament kings and their impact upon our Christian lives. We look at their stories to learn more about practical things we can apply, or maybe just look for shadows of the glory of Jesus. So tonight we continue in that vein, and I want to begin with a Bible trivia question for you, all right? Bible trivia question, and I’ll set that question up in this way. In the Old Testament during Bible times, God’s people had about forty three kings. Around 43 kings. You had the three kings. I’m not going to ask you what the three kings are. That’s not your question. But you know that there were three kings of the United Kingdom.

And then they split Jeroboam and Rehoboam. I gave you a couple right there. And when they split, you had about 20 kings in the north, Israel, and you had about 20 kings in the south, Judah. Still not your question. Your question is, of the approximately 43 kings, how many were good ones? Do a little mental count, and then you can hold up the fingers on your hands, and you’re probably not going to need more than two hands for this. If you have more than two hands, just show that to me. That’d be interesting. But of the 43 kings, how many do you believe, and how many do we teach our kids in the Bible classes in the back are good ones? Any ideas? I think I think Brent’s right.

Thank you. seven. All right, preachers are responding, that is against the rules. Okay? We would typically say there are about five of them. For instance, we count Saul out. That didn’t go real well, but we would say David was a man after God’s own heart. David counts. David made mistakes, David was a good man and a good king. We would also say that up until the very end of his life, we would count Solomon as well. Solomon wrote terrific material that we still study today, so there’s two. Once they split, you probably know that you count the entire northern kingdom out. Twenty kings, all bad kings, they are out. But in the southern kingdom, there were a few good ones, right? Were it two so far?

Number three would probably be a man named Jehosaphat. Now we don’t study Jehoshaphat a lot, and the kids don’t come out of the classrooms with crowns with Jehoshaphat across it because it’s just too large. You can’t fit it. But we do study Jehoshaphat a lot. Here’s a man who sent preachers out to work with the people, and he famously said, the battle is the Lord’s. That’s three. Number four would probably be a fellow named Hezekiah. The battle between Hezekiah and Sennacherib. I mean, isn’t that just a villain’s name? Sennacherib. Wednesday night, I’m not giving anything away. I just did. That’s what we’re going to be talking about. The fifth one is, were you here last night? Josiah. Now, I think that’s about it. About five guys, there are some other things that we say, and if you know where I’m going in this lesson, you know that there might be others.

But here’s my question. While we’re studying and telling people those are great kings, you need to learn a lot about them. What about Asa? Why don’t we tell our kids about Asa? I mean, think about it. It’ll fit perfect on little paper crowns. A S A. It’s easy. I don’t remember as a young person hearing a lot about the faithfulness of Asa, do you? In fact, if I said right now, I’m just messing with you, there actually is no Asa, you’d probably think, I didn’t think so. But there really is. And he was in the Southern Kingdom, and he was a good king. Now, if I ask you, well, why don’t you know about Asa? You might say, well, maybe he was not that great of a king.

No, he was terrific as a king, actually. You might say, well, maybe we don’t talk about Asa because he only ruled for a couple of years and somebody took him out. Asa ruled 41 years. That’s longer than David, longer than Solomon, longer than Jehoshaphat, then Josiah, than Hezekiah, longer than all of those guys. Why don’t we talk about Asa? That’s the subject of our study tonight. Asa, the king that time, and by that I mean most of us have entirely forgotten. Now, this is a really interesting lesson for me to deliver here because up until about 2014, I had never heard a single sermon on Asa until I get this text from a friend saying, I’ve been invited to speak at the FC lectures, and they’ve asked me to speak on Asa.

And I said, Well, send me your notes. And he sent me the notes, and it was this tremendous study into a man whom I hadn’t spent much time learning about, if I can be honest about that. I was probably like a lot of you. And I took that material and I worked on it, and I did, you know what preachers do with that stuff, and I preached it, and I thought about preaching it here. The problem is that guy who texted me is sitting right there. It’s Tony. Tony did that. This is Tony’s Asa sermon. At least it’s inspired by the work he did. I would say the way we break it down tonight’s very simple. If you really enjoy this lesson and you feel like you can use it in your life, it was all of my changes that brought this about.

1. A Great First Fifteen Years of Faith

If this does not work for you, that’s where I got it right there. It’s pretty simple tonight. Let’s open our Bibles, please, to the text that you see noted here. I need to prove it to you. I want you to see that every good thing Josiah did in our study last night, Asa did the same things. All the wonderful things that Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah did, Asa is right there with them. If you have your Bibles open to 2 Chronicles chapter 14, we’ll do just a little bit of reading. And I want to talk to you primarily about those first fifteen years. He had a great first fifteen years of faith. One of the things that he did is when he came into power, he saw that there were idols spread throughout the land.

So much like Josiah last night at the age of twenty, he went in and purged the land of those idols. Look with me in chapter 14, please, verse 1. Second Chronicles 14 1. So Abaijah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David, and his son Asa became king in his place. The land was undisturbed for ten years during his days. Asa did good and right in the sight of the Lord his God. For he removed the foreign altars and high places, tore down the sacred pillars, cut down the asherum, and commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers and to observe the law and the commandments. So one of his first actions during that period of his first ten to fifteen years is he saw all of the things among God’s people that didn’t belong, and he said, We’re tearing them down.

And if you keep going all the way up through verse 6, he fortified the cities by getting rid of the sin. That’s a great move by a king that wants to enjoy the blessings of God. You get the things out of there that don’t belong. And he did that. In addition to that, he went further than just taking the idols out of the land. He said, I tell you what else we’re going to do. We’re not just going to get rid of the things that don’t belong. This sounds a lot like Josiah last night. We’re not just going to get rid of the things that don’t belong, but we’re going to start doing all the right things again. You already saw it there in chapter 14, verse 4.

He commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers and to observe the law and the commandments. But look over into chapter 15 as well. In chapter 15 and verse 8, you see more of both of these things. Now when Asa heard these words and the prophecy which Azariah, the son of Obed, the prophet spoke, he took courage and removed the abominable idols from the land of Judah. Look at the end of verse 8. He restored the altar of the Lord, which was in front of the perch of the Lord. He gathered all Judah and Benjamin and those from Ephraim, Manasseh, Simeon, who resided with them, for many had defected to him from Israel when they saw that the Lord his God was with them.

So he assembled them in Jerusalem, verse 10. And in verse 11, they sacrificed to the Lord that day seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep from the spoil they had. They entered verse 12 into the covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their hearts and souls. Verse 13 Whoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death. He’s serious about this. With all the seriousness that ought to be in place. He got rid of the idols and he restored faithful worship. That sounds like a great king and somebody we should be talking a lot about. And I skipped a story in between chapter 14 and chapter 15. There was this massive attack against him in the first 15 years of his reign.

He was a pretty busy guy, you know. He’s trying to get rid of the sin. He’s trying to get God’s people back right. But right in the middle of it, let me show you what happens. Look back in chapter 14, verses 9 through 12. This could have been a major interruption to his progress. Now Zara, the Ethiopian, came out against them with an army of a million men and 300 chariots. So Asa, verse 10, went out to meet him, verse 10, and they drew up in battle. So I want you to see that verses 9 and 10. What do you think a godly king would do next? You see the two things he’s working on. And here comes not a hundred men, not a thousand men, one million guys, and three hundred chariots.

What would a godly king do? What would Josiah do? What would Hezekiah do? Asa did the same thing. Asa called to the Lord his God and said, Lord, there is no one beside 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 no man prevail against you. Where’s that song in our book? That’s a song verse, if I’ve ever seen one. They are strong, we are weak, so we come to you, God, the great God of power, the deliverer, we trust in you. Why don’t we sing about that? I think Asa had fifteen of the most impressive, strong, faithful, godly years of any king that had ever ruled over God’s people.

As a reward for his good service, they entered into twenty years of peace. That’s a great reward for his faithfulness. He did that because of his good choices. So when you get down to the end of chapter 15, and you look in chapter 15, verse 10, they assembled at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa’s reign, so that’s the end of our 15 year period. When you get down to verse 17, it goes on to say at the end of verse 17, Asa’s heart was blameless all his days. He brought into the house of God the dedicated things of his father and his own dedicated things, silver and gold utensils, and there was no more war until the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign.

So I could show you a couple other good things about him that aren’t on the list here. First of all, he took some of his own goods, his own riches, and he put them into the house of the Lord. This man believes in God. This man believes that God made all the difference. He took his own utensils. And when it says here, and I would just warn you that there’s a turn coming that’s going to need more explanation. I’m going to leave Wednesday night, and Tony will handle this. But verse 17 says, Asa’s heart was blameless all his days, all 41 years of his days. And I think what it means contextually is when it came to idolatry, which is what the text is about, he never served foreign gods.

He never turned to idolatry and he never rebuilt any of the idolatry and the things that had been built to those gods. Twenty years of peace. There were battles along the way. Let me just say that. He’s about to have a run in with Basha, and Basha and he, they did battle 1 Kings 15 for a long time. But for the most part, 20 years of prosperity and peace and safety. Can I just ask you a question? You can nod or shake your head or just stare at me. That’d be fine too. Do you think at this point he kind of deserved some peace for the good choices that he made? I think he did. I think the man did great. And I think God gave him that peace.

2. A Closer Look at Those Last Six Years

And you read about it there. Well, we skip 20 years in the story. Are you in chapter 16? This is our last chapter related to Asa, and we get to 20 years later. So we’re at about the 35-year point, and we get to take a closer look at those last six years. Now, if I asked you, how did he live the last six years of his life? You might look at this and say, Well, let’s see. He started off so incredibly strong, and he was rewarded intensely for that. I’ll bet he ended just as strong as he began. If you believe that’s where you’d be in heir. Let me show you some things in chapter 16, verses 1 through 4. In the 36th year of Asa’s reign, Basha, 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.

What do you think Asa is going to do about this? He’s fought this battle before, hasn’t he? This isn’t a million men and 300 chariots. This is the northern kingdom in Basha. And it’s later in his life. How do you think he handles it? You might be surprised. 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 Hedad, king of Aram, who lived in Damascus, saying, Let there be a treaty between you and me, and between my father and your father. Behold, I have sent you silver and gold. Go break your treaty with Vasha, king of Israel, so that he will withdraw from me. So Ben Adad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his army against the cities of Israel.

Is this the same Asa we’ve grown to know and love? He doesn’t turn to God. He doesn’t say those beautiful words we saw just a few years earlier. This time, in the latter portion of his life, when a smaller army, and one he knows very well, fortifies their defense against him, he turns to an evil, godless king, and asks for help from him. In fact, he even takes the money, the treasures that he had given over to God. Remember when he gave those over to God? That was a really noble thing that he did. Twenty years later, he goes back in, an Indian gives with God, always a bad idea. Talking to snakes, always a bad idea. Indian giving. He takes it back from God and he gives it to some evil guy to try and protect the people.

This was a terrible mistake. And God sees that he’s not the same man. And so God sends someone to try to help him see the error of his ways, and that brings us to verse 7. Look in chapter 16 and verse 7. At that time, and Tony and I have been working on this all day, Hananai. Anybody care? Nobody even cared. At that time, this guy, Hanani, Hananai, the seer, that’s the main point. He is working for God. That’s all that really matters here. 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 that king has escaped out of your hand. Were not the Ethiopians?

An immense army with very many chariots and horsemen. Yet because you relied on the Lord, he delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth, that he may strongly support those whose heart is completely his. Asa used to know that, by the way. You have acted foolishly in this. Indeed, from now on you will surely have wars. Asa responds in this way. Asa was angry with the seer and put him in prison, for he was enraged at him for this. And Asa oppressed some of the people at the same time. You think Hanani is trying to help him out? I think he is. I think he’s coming to him saying, You’re not the same man that you once were.

And if you’ll remember in your youth, I thought we’re supposed to grow in maturity. In your youth, you faced a much more formidable and dangerous foe, and you turned to God, and he took care of you. And now this smaller army has come. And you have responded in this way. But we see our second negative about Asa in the last portion of his life. He’s just not the same man. Instead of being humble, like men like David were humble, when they were confronted for their sins, he responds with correction and rage and throws a prophet of God into prison. That’s not the man we knew. Something has changed. Later in his life, at the very end, look in chapter 16, and this will be the end of our story of Asa’s life in verse 11.

Now, the Acts of Asa from first to last, chapter 16, verse 11, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. In the 39th year of his reign, so two years before his death, Asa became diseased in his feet. His disease was severe, yet even in his disease, he did not seek the Lord but the physicians. So Asa slept with his fathers, having died in the 41st year of his reign. I like to believe that Solomon figured it all out at the end. That after he had been drawn away by making the three mistakes from Deuteronomy 17 as we studied, that at the end he came back, he made it right, but it doesn’t look like Asa had the fortitude to do that.

Instead, he’s lying in bed, his feet are diseased, he’s in pain and agony, and the infection probably would end his life within a period of time. And all he had to do was turn to God, but he remained obstinate and rejected the Lord even to his death. Here’s the big question for me in the story of Asa. What happened? What happened to a man who had tremendous spirituality in the early years and ended so terribly awry and poor? What in the world transpired during the 20 years in between? Because I tell you, I want to know everything about what happened in the 20 years in between, and I’ll tell you why. It’s not because I’m an Israelite and Judah king historian, and I want to write a book about it.

That has nothing to do with it. I want to know everything that happened in the 20 years in between, because if you would please look at these monitors, I just want to tell you that I have seen this.

I have seen this time and time again. Young Christians, young families, men, we’re talking about kings. Let’s talk about men, husbands and fathers, men, some raised in the church, some not raised in the church, men of great faith. Young men, young women, young families who have evaluated what was going on in their lives and purged their land of the things that could damage their families. People who demanded that their children serve the Lord and led by example and absolutely forged the way to the throne of God for the people that they cared about. I’ve seen people who, when they faced unbelievable circumstances, loss in their family, health problems within themselves or the ones they love, terrible economic crisis. I have seen them. Have you seen them?

I’ve seen them act with so much faith, so much devotion that it inspired everybody in the room. I’ve seen that. You ever seen that? But then time starts to pass. And that big crisis passes. They get another job or they get better. And the calendar just starts flipping over and over or scrolling up or over, depending on what device you brought. But time is passing. And those same people, after years of just sort of hanging in there and turning off monitors, the monitors actually pause for dramatic effect. That was phenomenal. It was amazing. Believe that just happened. These same people, years later, who you think is always going to be great. They end up facing smaller problems. And you think, oh, they’ll handle that. But something has changed.

They’re not the same as they once were. And when a smaller foe stands up, you find that they turn to the ways of the world instead of to God like they used to. And you go to them and you say, Listen, something’s changed in you. You’re not the same person that you were, and we need to talk about that. And they get angry about it. They don’t want to talk about it. They worship less frequently and they become unplugged from God’s people. And some of them, and unfortunately, I’ve had to witness this a time or two, remain obstinate all the way until their death.

I see it now. I see it right now. I see people who were once on fire for God, seeking the Lord, doing everything in their power and making real sacrifices, really amazing sacrifices to serve God. I’ve seen incredible things. And let me just tell you, those people are not here. They’re not here. They’re not obstinate, they’re maybe even in the room tonight. They’re not obstinate about God. They’re not getting angry at every little thing that gets preached, and they’re not turning to worldly people for all their answers, but they’re somewhere in there, and you can see it happening. The slow, steady drift, where they can’t even see what’s going on because of the fog around the waters where their boat is floating. One day they’ll be too far from God when they need him the most.

And I’ll tell you one more thing. I’ve seen it, I see it, and I just don’t want to see it in me. I can’t control anybody in the room. This is the only person I can control. I don’t want this to happen to me. If it can happen to men like Asa, it can happen to any of us. So here’s what I want to know. I want to know what in the world happened to make Asa the king who forgot God. That’s why God forgot him, and that’s why you forgot him. Because he forgot God. And the answer is in these 20 years. Would you like to know all of the mistakes that Asa made over the course of the 20 years to cause him to drift away?

Because that’s not in your Bible at all. We don’t get that information. Look at the text again. At the end of chapter 15, you see that there was no more war. It was a time of relative peace for 20 years. And at the end of the 20 years, when the first sort of big event took place, he wasn’t ready for it, and he handled it incredibly poorly, and you know the rest of the story. What happened to cause him to drift away? Well, to some extent, I’m going to have to tell you what I think happened. But I want to base it on what some of the other kings have done and what some other places in the Bible teach about dangers of which we need to be aware.

3. Peace Produces Pride

And here’s the first thing I want you to think about tonight. Fortify your family tonight. Make sure you’re traveling in the right direction while that calendar is flipping. And here’s the first thing. I’m going to tell you right now peace produces pride. There were a million people, Ethiopian people marching at his city with 300 chariots. He’s a young king. I don’t know how old he is. He may be in his teens or twenties. I have to do the math, but he’s a young, terrified king. And so what do you do? You go to God and say, God, I can’t handle this, please. And God delivers him, and you realize how great God is. But then years pass, and you don’t have those huge enemies. And you don’t face those critical, dire moments.

You don’t think the devil knows what he’s doing? He can accomplish more through peace than war ever thought about. And then during this period of peace, here’s someone who can grow in pride. They can begin to see things and take credit for those things, and you start looking around thinking, I’m building a pretty good life here. I’ve been at peace for 20 years. I think I’ve pretty much got a grip on all this. And we start to see life as if we are doing well. And we forget that every good thing we have is by the blessings of the God in whom we trust. But we don’t know that. Because we’re not fighting any big wars. Nobody’s really sick, or nobody passes from this life, or you don’t lose your job, or things don’t go terribly all around you, and you just start believing in yourself, and then the devil comes in at just the right moment, and he hits us with something, and we’re not ready.

Open your Bibles with me to Daniel. I think Nebuchadnezzar would be a primary example of this. Nebuchadnezzar, kind of the opposite of Aza. He was not a very godly king, but every once in a while he’d kind of see it, you know. He’d see that God is really in control of all this, or something about fiery furnace guys just walking around in there that can convince you of some things. And he would have great times of faith. But then in Daniel chapter 4, please, in verse 30, 12 months later, you remember after this dream about what would happen to him. In verse 30, the king reflected and said, Is this not Babylon the Great? Which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty.

And we don’t have the time to go all the way through this, but you can tell exactly where someone’s faith is by the kind of pronouns that they use. The pronoun tell is absolute. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were taken out of the fire and saved, you have chapter 3, verse 28. They’re like the best verse. I think that’s it, 328, about great faith. Nebuchadnezzar says, Blessed be the God who has sent him. Put their trust in him. He’s using God pronouns. But now he comes to a time of great peace, and he starts using a lot of me’s and my’s and look at eyes. And we find in chapter 4 and verse 31, while the word was in the king’s mouth, a voice came from heaven saying, King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared sovereignty has been removed from you, and you will be driven away from mankind, and your dwelling place will be with the beasts of the field, and you know the rest of the story.

Spent time wandering around in the field with long hair and fingernails, learning that majesty and protection is from God and God alone. Beware of peace. Beware of the passing of time. We live in such a wonderful country and place. We have great blessings, great health benefits. I think we still have those. We have a great quality of life, and the devil knows how to use that to shift your pronouns away from him and to me. I believe that’s one of the things that affected Asa over this period of time, so that his first reaction wasn’t God. And that brings us to our second observation. When he really needed somebody. When it was finally time and things were dire, go back with me to 2 Chronicles, please.

4. His First Phone Call Was Not God

I want to look again in chapter 16. When I need God again, or I need someone again. His first call, I’m going to use the term for the next few minutes, his first phone call was not God. It wasn’t the Lord. Instead, it was just some guy, some guy that we don’t know a whole lot about, except he’s not a man of faith. In 2 Chronicles chapter 16, verse 2, Asa brought out silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of the Lord and the king’s house, and he sent them to Ben Hedad, king of Aram, who lived in Damascus, saying, Let there be a treaty between you and me, between my father and your father. I’ve sent you silver and gold, which I took from God, by the way.

Break your treaty with Basha, king of Israel, so that he will withdraw from me. Now, to his credit, in the end, it did work. That treaty break did lead to it. But God was incredibly displeased because in time of crisis he had forgotten where to go. And his first phone call was an ungodly man, an unrighteous nation, and it cost him part of his, watch this, part of his commitment to God, the treasures he put in the house. It cost him part of his commitment to God. He had to step away from what he had given God in order to pursue that relationship instead. Can I just ask you a question? If you woke up tomorrow and you were facing the deepest, darkest, most troubling trials of your life.

Things have been plugging along really well for quite a while. But things have hit you harder than maybe you can ever even remember. Who is your first phone call? Who do you pick up the phone and call and say, I need help? I need you to come over. I need us to get together. I need some guidance. I need you to help me. I’m lost, and I need someone to get me through. If the answer is not God first and God’s people second, then reevaluate where you are in your life tonight. So many young Christians with so much promise build relationships in the world and pursue peace and the worldliness that comes along with it and the friendships of the world. And when they find crisis, they don’t go to Mr.

Tony and his nice blue tie. They don’t go to their Christian friends over here. They keep their questions in, and when it gets too heavy to handle, they go to the world and they ask for answers. And what they’re getting are worldly answers. And you’ve got to compromise part of your faith in God to follow their advice. That’s the way the world works. You’ve got to take back some of the money you put in the treasury of the Lord to follow the will of what people tell you should do next. And this is killing families. Can I just say that? And it damages churches as well. Friends, replace God. Now I’ll just tell you one more thing. Go back to Deuteronomy chapter 17. Then we’ll wrap it up with a few positive takeaways that I think we can use tonight.

5. When You Stop Reading, You Start Drifting

Remember Deuteronomy 17. If you were here Sunday morning, we started this whole thing off by looking at Moses’ instruction to Israel on when you get kings. You can have some pretty great ones, but there’s three things they must not do, and then there’s three things they definitely need to do. Do you remember the three things that every king absolutely must do? Deuteronomy chapter 17, verse 18. Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priest. It shall be with him. He shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes.

Number one, write it down. Get a personal relationship with the word, handwrite in front of the Levites your own copy. Read it every day, all the days of your life, and then live it as a natural outgrowth of that upon which you’ve been feasting. Let me tell you about Asa. I’ve got a strong sense that in Asa’s house there were some dusty scrolls. There was some distance. Maybe it had been years since the last time he sat down and just wrote the book of Genesis. And why would he? Why would he sit down and write the law? Things are going great. We have peace. The people are happy. The idols have been torn down. Everybody’s worshiping just like they’re supposed to be. Why would I sit down and grind through Leviticus again?

You know who you are. When everything is going so well, because God is so wise. And his word is so perfect. And when you stop reading, you start drifting. When you stop reading, you start drifting. I can guarantee you, Asa wasn’t a Bible student. And when it came time to go to God, he had forgotten how to do so. So what’s the takeaway for us? What can we do tonight? Can I just share with you three quick things for the next? I’m going to take only 40 more minutes, is all I need. Like four more minutes. Pay close attention, please. I told you already. I’ve seen it, and it breaks my heart. I’m seeing it among people I care a lot about right now. They’re not at the beginning, they’re not at the end, they’re just moving along uneventfully, and that’s part of the problem.

6. Three Quick Things

And I don’t want to see it in me. Can I just give you three things and then we’re done? Number one. Every day. Have you done this today?

Every day. Give God credit for who you are and what you have. Look into the eyes of your family and say, God, to you be the glory for my family. Walk into this building if you’re a member here, or wherever you worship, and look at God’s people and say, God, you did this. We didn’t do this. Elders, shepherds, you didn’t do this. Tony, you didn’t do this. God, you did this for us. Look at your life and everything that’s going right and everything that has purpose and say, God, you infused my life with purpose. Give God credit every single day with every good thing. Because if we stop giving God credit, you don’t just stay in stasis, folks. The He turns to me. Look at what I have.

What I have done, who I am. And we distance ourselves. The second thing, and I promise you it’s there. I love these things. I’m taking them with me.

Work on that first phone call, folks. One of the things that happens over the time, it’s just not 20 years for Christians, some that drift away, is they just have questions. They have doubts, they have questions about their faith, and they’re embarrassed to come to a front row and confess that, or to go to somebody in the church and say, I really need help on this. And so they just kind of hold it in until it becomes some big crisis, and out of shame, they’ll go away from God’s people to the world. Find faithful people you can trust and confide in them. Build Christian relationships. Ask the tough questions. Determine if you woke up tomorrow morning to the most difficult circumstances in your life, who are you going to call?

And if it’s not prayer and a Christian, reevaluate. Reevaluate who matters most in your life. Let me tell you about the world. They got your back until you need them. People in the world look out for themselves. And I guarantee you that bin Hadad only helped him because it helped him. Christians don’t behave that way. Find faith, support him. Maybe as we get ready to offer the invitation. Maybe it’s tonight. Maybe it’s your moment. And then here’s the last thing, and you’ve been hearing me talk about this all week, and there may be more coming. Write it. Don’t really write it. Unless your penmanship is terrific, you can write it. But get a Bible that you feel connected to. Read it every day. Read it every day.

Study it every day. And I could take you to, you’re probably saying, this can’t be a gospel meeting sermon. We haven’t done any New Testament verses. Look, if you want me to hit you with ten New Testament verses, I’ll do it. But they’re all going to say about the same thing. You need to study to show yourself approved of the word. You need to be about the book, studying the book, loving the word, learning the word, teaching the word, build connection with God through prayer, most definitely through prayer. He’s your first phone call. It’s God every day. And you’re giving God credit. That’s prayer. Get in that book. If it’s been longer than one day since you’ve eaten, you’re hungry. If it’s been longer than one day since you’ve read the book, your soul is already developing an appetite that can turn to a starvation that can cause you to act very irrational.

Conclusion

Study the word of God. Let me just say this by invitation tonight. I struggle to put this lesson in, mainly because it was Tony’s lessons, Asa. But also because it’s got kind of that scour on it, you know, like a bunch of barking at you about bad choices. All I can say is when Christians stop making bad choices, they make a whole lot of good ones. And sometimes studying an example like this can give us exactly the motivation we need. And if tonight is your night, your moment to say, I’ve been taking credit for things that belong to God, and I need to tell him that. Or I’ve been struggling and going through a battle, and I’ve got an enemy at the gates, and I don’t know what to do, and I think it’s time to get the support of God’s people.

Or I need to read the word, and tonight I just need to obey what I’ve already been reading. If we can help you be strong, make it right, or become a Christian. Put on a relationship with Jesus through baptism because that’s what the Bible teaches. We’re here for you. As together we stand and sing.