We are forgetful. We forget the Lord at the strangest times, often relying on our own strength when we have an incredible track record of God’s faithfulness to see. Peter tells his readers he is making every effort to keep them from forgetting, even writing enduring and holy Scripture for future generations. We’ve all seen God’s faithfulness in countless ways, yet it can be very difficult for us to apply that history to present circumstances.
Consider king Asa with me. He was king of Judah. Asa was a rare king of whom Scripture says he “did what was right in the eyes of the Lᴏʀᴅ his God” (2 Chronicles 14:2). He took away foreign altars from the land and broke down pillars and Asherim. In a nutshell, he removed the false religious furniture from the land over which he was king. During these years we’re told the Lord gave him peace (2 Chronicles 14:6). The kingdom of Judah prospered.
Then Ethiopia attacked. Here is Asa’s response:
And Asa had an army of 300,000 from Judah, armed with large shields and spears, and 280,000 men from Benjamin that carried shields and drew bows. All these were mighty men of valor.
2 Chronicles 14:8-12 ESV
Zerah the Ethiopian came out against them with an army of a million men and 300 chariots, and came as far as Mareshah. And Asa went out to meet him, and they drew up their lines of battle in the Valley of Zephathah at Mareshah. And Asa cried to the LORD his God, “O LORD, there is none like you to help, between the mighty and the weak. Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude. O LORD, you are our God; let not man prevail against you.” So the LORD defeated the Ethiopians before Asa and before Judah, and the Ethiopians fled.
Asa has a large and powerful army. Zerah has a much larger and much more powerful army. An army of a million in that day would have been unstoppable! Rather than rely on superior tactics or anything else, Asa turned to the Lord. In faith he cried out for the Lord to protect him and his people. The Lord defeated this massive army and sent them running. Asa trusted in the Lord and the Lord once again proved himself trustworthy.
Then a prophet came to him and told him that he must continue to seek the Lord. This is why the Lord was with him: he kept seeking the Lord. Though Judah had long been without teaching priests and without the law of Moses as a way of life, if Asa would continue to seek the Lord, the Lord would continue to bless him. Asa responded in faith by purging the land of idols and by repairing the altar of the Lord that had been in disuse. Many from the kingdom of Israel had abandoned their wicked kings and moved to Judah. They worshiped the Lord through sacrifice and purged the land of evil. In chapter 15 we’re told that he even destroyed the image his mother had made for the goddess Asherah and removed her from her role as queen mother. Asa turned to the Lord with all his heart and continued seeing the Lord’s faithfulness in protecting Judah and blessing the people.
Then we come to chapter 15 of 2 Chronicles. The kingdom of Israel attacked and built a fortress blocking travel to and from Judah. This had a much bigger impact than blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Many goods traveled to and from Judah through the north and if Israel blocked this traffic, the consequences would be huge for Judah. Having seen God chase away a massive army of Ethiopians had already set the stage for what to do in this situation. The answer is obvious: cry out to the Lord as the only one who can rescue! Duh! So what happened?
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. 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 Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim, and all the store cities of Naphtali. And when Baasha heard of it, he stopped building Ramah and let his work cease.
2 Chronicles 16:1-5 ESV
So…it worked? Instead of trusting the Lord he took matters into his own hands and sent a gift to the king of Syria who attacked a few cities of Israel and drew their army away from Judah. Judah was safe. The blockade of merchants and caravans was broken, and Judah’s economy experienced quite a boost. This “blessing” was not from the Lord, however, for the Lord was not pleased. Earlier he had sent a prophet to Asa to assure him of God’s blessings, provided he remain faithful to the Lord. Asa did not rely on the Lord in this matter, so he sent another prophet.
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 the king of Syria has escaped you. Were not the Ethiopians and the 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 blameless toward him. You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have wars.” 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.
2 Chronicles 16:7-10 ESV
God doesn’t tell him he’s going to die or that he was being rejected as king. God would withhold some of his blessings. Because Asa did not remember the Lord’s track record and cry out to the Lord for help with Israel’s blockade, the Lord would allow other nations to attack. Asa would face unending war, rather than peace. Even now, however, Asa does not respond properly to this word from the Lord. He imprisoned the prophet and was cruel to his own people.
Asa did not end well. The text goes on to tell us that he became diseased in his feet. It further reports that not even this painful and debilitating disease caused him to remember the Lord and his history of faithfulness. Instead of seeking help from the Lord, he sought it from doctors. Ordinarily doctors are exactly the sort of help we would seek, but Asa had God’s promise: seek me and I will help you. He rejected the Lord’s help and sough to fix the promise through his own strength. Asa died after a couple years suffering in a manner that was entirely avoidable, all because he refused to remember what the Lord had done—even with an enemy as powerful as Ethiopia.
We often experience a strange sort of spiritual insanity. In a quote that is often misattributed to Albert Einstein, Rita Mae Brown wrote in her book “Sudden Death”:
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Rita Mae Brown, “Sudden Death”
How often do we do this? We see God’s faithfulness over and over again, yet when faced with a difficulty or even a profound crisis, we expect a different outcome! Yes, God has been true a thousand times in a row…but maybe not this time? Yes, God has an unwavering track record of faithfulness to his promises, but this time I expect a different result? When we—when I—do this, I stand as judge over the Lord. I declare with my actions that God has reached his limit of faithfulness, so I take upon myself the necessity of worry and angst, wondering how I’m going to solve my problems.
It’s not hard to see how this is spiritual insanity, a refusal to acknowledge reality. God is faithful! He will, in fact, do all he has said he will do. Every. Single. Time. To think otherwise is the height of foolishness, yet how often am I a fool?
In 2 Chronicles we see this on display. Asa had every reason to trust the Lord. When he did, the Lord demonstrated his power and his faithfulness, every single time. Then Asa forgot. He forgot all the Lord had done, all that he had shown Asa and all Judah. He forgot the Lord is faithful. He will do everything he says he will do.
What this means is if the Lord has promised, we must cling to that promise. To cling to that promise is to refuse to do what Asa did, namely, take matters into our own hands. In Asa’s case, he may have thought that making an alliance with the king of Syria was simply the prudent thing to do—you know, to help the Lord? Or maybe in case the Lord is busy and cannot help this time?
The problem with forgetting the Lord is that doing so robs him of his glory. It doesn’t diminish his glory, or take away his glory. God is simply glorious. When we forget his faithfulness, we fail to acknowledge his glory and therefore we fail to reflect it. We prevent folk from seeing it—both ourselves and those around us.
Further, forgetting the Lord’s faithfulness gives us a false security that we can handle things on our own. It makes us think that we can come up with a solution to a problem the Lord has already promised he would handle. Then, if it actually works, we think we are the ones who orchestrated our own rescue. Things continue to spiral at this point. Thinking we are our own savior, we begin losing a sense of awe and wonder at God who is faithful. We stop being amazed that God would include us in his plans and that he would come to fulfill his promises to us. We stop trusting him.
This was Asa’s real problem. He forgot the Lord. He started out well, removing idolatry from the land. In response to his faithfulness God blessed him and all Judah. When Zerah the Ethiopian attacked with a massively superior army, God caused them to flee and gave the victory to Asa. God continued to bless them and cause them to prosper. In that blessing and prosperity, however, Asa began to forget. Those blessings and that prosperity had not come at his hand, but at the Lord’s hand. God sent a prophet to promise continued blessings for Asa’s continued faithfulness.
When Israel set up a blockade that threatened to stop God’s blessing, rather than trust God to fulfill his promises, Asa forgot him. Ignored him. Waved him off, so to speak. He made an alliance with Syria and dishonored the Lord through unbelief. Pragmatically, it worked. The blockade was broken. Even in the suffering of his old age, he did not seek the Lord but sought to solve his problems on his own. He remained forgetful the rest of his life.
Let us not do that. Let us not forget the Lord and his promises. God has made it clear that he will be with us every step of our journey. Even when it is difficult to sense his presence with us and when we look outside the city gate and see a massive army coming against us, God has promised. He is faithful and will never fail to keep his word. We’ve seen his faithfulness time and time again. If we see God’s faithfulness a thousand times in a row, we must remember that God will never have an “and 1”. God will never have a record of 1000-1. If he is faithful 1,000 times in a row, he will also be faithful 1,001 times in a row. We must remember this. Forgetting would be disastrous.
Consider these words from the Lord when he was about to send Israel into the land after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.
And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
Deuteronomy 8:2-3 ESV
Yes, the Lord allowed difficulty to come their way during those 40 years, but did you catch the purpose of the difficulties? It was so that he could give them still more evidence of his faithfulness! This means every difficulty is allowed by the Lord as an opportunity for us to see his glory, to see his faithfulness, to see his kindness on display. If we forget, we will not see it. We will miss the opportunity to experience the wonder and the awe that comes every time we see his faithfulness. That would be truly disastrous.