Thought for the Day 05/02/21 - CRITICS!

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King Asa was by this point in life a pretty senior guy.

He'd reigned over Israel in peace and prosperity and he'd done it for nearly forty years.

He'd really seen loads of SUCCESS.

He was valued, loved and esteemed for all of that ... and his POSITION had become very dear to him.

So when a threat to all of that was posed by an invading foreign army, Asa turned to his own devices and chose a foreign treaty with a pagan power that he bribed to break their treaty with his invader and turned that pagan power to fighting his invader alongside him.

It was a betrayal of trust in the God Who had given Asa his beloved position in the first place.

For Asa, Deuteronomy 32:15 held true:

"Jeshurun grew fat and kicked;

    filled with food, they became heavy and sleek.
They abandoned the God who made them

    and rejected the Rock their Saviour." 

But God had seen the mistake Asa made ... and instead of letting the King fall down on his face on the battlefield, God in his patience and mercy sent the previously faithful Asa a prophet.

"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.’"

2 Chronicles 16:7-9

The situation was that Asa had not been handed a glorious a victory from God, the way he did when he simply trusted to the LORD in the more faithful days of his youth. 

It should have rung warning bells in his head, but it looks as if it simply did not, so ...

• a prophet stepped up
  
  
• explained the military half-victory
  
  
• reasoned why this had happened from Asa's past experience
  
  
• stated the Biblical principle that Asa'd forgotten
  
  
• exposed his folly
  
  
• and delivered God's verdict: a life of previous faithfulness abandoned means the privileges of faithfulness will be lost. Peace was GONE: "You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war.’"
  2 Chronicles 16:7-9
  
  

Did Asa like the sound of what he was hearing?
No.

Did it pander to his vanity?

It did NOT!

Was Asa's heart fixed on faithfulness to God as in the days of his youth, which led to God blessing his long reign?

Apparently, judging by his response it was NOT ... just LOOK at what happens next, recorded in today's Thought for the Day:

Thought for the Day:

"Asa was so angry at the prophet, he put him in jail."

2 Chronicles 16:10

Confronted with a message that he didn't want to hear, 

Asa decided he was going to 'shoot the messenger'.

The biggest danger of all to us lies not in the people who will criticise us, but those who fear to tell us the uncomfortable truth!

The point

Lashing out at a faithful critic for pointing out truths that don't suit you doesn't work out so well in the end ...

Sometimes we need to hear and to heed some home truths and EMBRACE them.

That's what Asa (in all his material blessing) had grown unaccustomed and unwilling to do.

The takeaway

'Feeling the burn' can be a good principle also outside the gym.

Are we secure enough in the love of the LORD, to take the more robust instances of his 'coaching'?

And are we faithful to respond to His loving correction?