Thought for the Day 04/02/21 - Outnumbered

AUDIO

Outnumbered is a British sitcom starring Hugh Dennis as a father and Claire Skinner as a mother who are outnumbered by their three children. It finished in 2014 but there have been Christmas specials since.

It had five series - which is a SUCCESS in sitcom terms - and it is a great watch. Personally, I LOVED it.

But you can't help thinking that it  makes light of a pretty serious subject. Those 'pretend' parents weren't really in crisis or even particularly outnumbered. They actually had a pretty straightforward time of raising their kids.They took a comedic look at quirky parenting ups and downs, though not really even things that might trouble families with a less well-developed sense of humour.

The series is a great laugh, but it doesn't necessarily help anyone who is battling with a sense of being overwhelmed and genuinely outnumbered.

There's a classic case of overcoming that horrible sense of being opposed and outnumbered in the Thought for the Day today, and it comes with a clue as to the secret of overcoming it. It's proven wisdom from a long time ago, but it comes with a salutary twist to the tale.

So by now, you might be saying something like ...

Asa? Asa? Who on earth is ASA?!

Asa was the third king of the Kingdom of Judah and the fifth king of the House of David. 

The Old Testament tells us he was a long-lived monarch reigning for 41 years, probably between 913-910 BC and 873-869 BC. It's a bit vague because it was a VERY long time ago!

King Asa was a keen follower of the LORD in his early years, restoring the worship of the Lord, and rooting out idolatry, and the cruelty and immorality that went with it.

But then he came up against a real and a serious threat ... you can read about it in 2 Chronicles 14.

• Zerah the Cushite (it means 'the Ethiopian') raised an army of 1,000,000 men and 300 chariots
  
  
• Zerah marched against Asa who had an army half that size
  
  
• Asa marched out to face Serah down against these overwhelming odds and they lined up to fight in the Valley of Zephathah near Mareshah (these sites have been excavated and are real - check the links).
  
  

And THAT's where Asa prayed the prayer in our verse today. Here it is:

"Then Asa 

• called to the Lord his God and said, 
• ‘Lord, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. 
• Help us, Lord our God, 
• for we rely on you, and 
• in your name we have come against this vast army. 
• Lord, you are our God; 
• do not let mere mortals prevail against you.’"
  
  2 Chronicles 14:11

Panic loomed but Asa both turned out with his troops AND took it to God.

• He called on the LORD (the capitals mean he used the Name of the God of the covenant - a call on the character of the God Who always keeps His promises)
  
  
• He recalled the character of the God Who helps the powerless against the powerful
  
  
• He pleaded with God to help based on the fact they were a people who were RELYING on their God
  
  
• He renewed his own covenant commitment to God: 'LORD you are OUR God' (this is significant because of the twist at the end of the tale)
  
  
• And he was straight up about why God might be inclined to help His people ... it was a reputational matter not just for them but for their God: "do not let mere mortals prevail against you."
  
  

The Point

The point of all this is that Asa was really up against it with a huge responsibility for the people he led. He could have run after all sorts of treaties with pagan nations around, but those ALWAYS led to spiritual dangers for his people and had caused terrible trouble to them in the past.

So Asa deployed what God had put in his hand (a half-sized army), then deliberately and publicly committed the whole outcome of his battle to the LORD ... making it an issue of faith for all to see.

And in the event, Zerah the Ethiopian fled. There was peace in Judah (2 Chronicles 14:1,9) until the 36th year of Asa's reign (2 Chronicles 16:1) 

The Takeaway

We can always shirk the spiritual challenge of faith when confronted with a material, physical threat.

It doesn't pay.

But here comes the twist in the tale

This commitment needs to be fresh every day

In his 36th year Asa was confronted by the army of Baasha, king of Israel. 

And this time Asa made a significant mistake. He panicked, let go of God and formed an alliance with Ben-Hadad I, king of Aram Damascus, and using a monetary bribe, convinced him to break his peace treaty with Baasha and invade the Northern Kingdom.

Asa got straight into trouble with God, Who sent a prophet to point out the problem:

"At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him: ‘Because you relied on the king of Aram and not on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand. 

Were not the Cushites and Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet when you relied on the Lord, he delivered them into your hand. 

For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war.’

We're told that Asa didn't make a great response to this, and things went straight downhill for him from there ...

"Asa was angry with the seer because of this; he was so enraged that he put him in prison. At the same time Asa brutally oppressed some of the people ...

In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was afflicted with a disease in his feet. Though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the Lord, but only from the doctors.

Then in the forty-first year of his reign Asa died and rested with his ancestors."

2 Chronicles 16:7-14

The lesson of Asa is obvious

We need to keep our practical re-commitment to God fresh every day ... and when we do so we are NEVER outnumbered.