Asa was a good king of Judah. He “did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord, his God.” Not only “good and right,” because these might be variable terms. There are persons who set themselves to the presumptuous and impious task of settling for themselves what is “right” and what is “good.”
In the case of Asa, he did not invent a righteousness, nor did he invent a goodness which he could adapt to his own tempers, ambitions and conveniences. He was right and good and “did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord, his God.”
While the land had peace, Asa set to work and built walls, towers and fences, and did all that he could for the good of his country.
Zerah, an Ethiopian warrior, did not understand silence. He mistook quietness for languor. He made the vulgar mistake of supposing that quietness was indifference. He did not know that repose is the very highest expression of power.
Zerah brought against Asa, king of Judah, no fewer than a million soldiers--to us a large number, but to the Orientals quite a common array. Zerah’s host was the largest collected army of which we read in Scripture, but it does not exceed the known numbers of other Oriental armies in ancient times. Darius Codomannus brought into the field at Arbela a force of 1,040,000. Xerxes crossed into Greece with certainly above a million combatants. Artaxerxes Mnemon collected 1,260,000 men to meet the attack of the younger Cyrus.
What was to be done? Asa did not shrink from war, though he never courted it. He must meet the foe in battle. Before doing so he must pray.
“Lord, it is nothing with Thee to help, whether with many or with them that have no power. Help us, O Lord, our God, for we rest on Thee; and in Thy name we go against this multitude. O Lord, thou art our God; let not man prevail against Thee.”
Having risen from their knees, they launched themselves against the Ethiopians, and were mighty as men who answer straw with steel. They fought in God’s name and for God’s cause, and the thousand thousand of the Ethiopians were as nothing before the precise and terrific stroke of men who had studied war in the school of God.
The defeat of Zerah is one of the most remarkable events in the history of the Jews. On no other occasion did they meet in the field and overcome the forces of either of the two great monarchies between which they were placed. It was seldom that they ventured to resist, unless behind walls. Shishak, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander and Ptolemy I. were either unopposed or only opposed in this way. On the other occasion on which they took the field--which was under Josiah against Necho--their boldness issued in a most disastrous defeat.
Asa, then, began upon a good foundation; he established himself upon a great principle. That is what all, young people especially, should take to heart right seriously. Do not make an accident of your lives--a thing without center, purpose, certitude or holiness. Be right in your great foundation lines, and you will build up a superstructure strong, after the nature and quality of the foundation upon which you build. Do not snatch at life. Do not take out an odd motto here and there and say: “This will do for the occasion.” Life should be deeply laid in its bases, strongly cemented together in its principles, noble in its convictions; then it can be charitable in its concessions and recognitions.
“And Asa took courage, and put away the abominable idols out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from Mount Ephraim, and renewed the altar of the Lord.”
Let us not trifle with the occasion by suggesting that we have no idolatries to uproot, no heathen groves to examine, to purify or to destroy. That would indeed be making light of history and ignoring the broadest and saddest facts of our present circumstances. The world is full of little gods, man-made idols, groves planted by human hands, oppositions and antagonisms to the tried Theism of the universe.
We are apt to think that the idols are a long way off--far beyond seas; or that they existed long centuries ago and spoke languages now obsolete or forgotten.
Nothing of the kind. They live here; they build today. Our gods are a million strong. We do not call them gods, but we worship them none the less. Luck, Accident, Fortune, Fashion, Popularity, Self-Indulgence--these are the base progeny of idols that did once represent some ideal thought and even some transcendental religion. Idolatry has retrograded; polytheism has gone quickly backward.
Asa said, in effect: “We must be right about our gods before we can be right with one another.” That is true teaching. With a wrong theology we never can have a thoroughly sound and healthy economic system.
This was the corner-stone upon which Asa built his great and gracious policy. What was the effect of it upon other people? We find that the effect then was what it must always be: