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Ask Pastor John
Why Good Men Fail God
00:12:33
King Asa worshiped God almost all his days, but he drifted in his old age. So, how should we respond when sin corrupts good men?
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- [00:04]
A
Well, we know the story. A guy starts out full of faith. He does everything right, so it seems on the outside. But as the years pass, maybe even right at the finish line in the last few years of life, he completely blows it. He gets bitter. He loses his faith. He relies on himself. He stops trusting God. This seems to be what happened to King Asa in the Bible. And it leaves us wondering if someone so deeply devoted to God can just drift away at the end, what does that mean for the rest of us? Today on Ask Pastor John why Good Men Fail God this weekend in our Navigator's Bible Reading plan, we are reading about King Asa in the Old Testament. And to get ready for reading his life story, here's a question from an anonymous listener. Pastor John, thanks for the podcast and for taking questions. Mine is about 2 Chronicles 14 to 16, those chapters that are in our reading this weekend. I've been thinking a lot about the trajectory of King Asa, especially in light of 2nd Chronicles 16:9, where it says, for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless towards him. That is a precious text that you explained really well two years ago in APJ 2064. God is eager to work for you. I love that episode. What I struggle with is the contrast between the start and end of EZ's reign. Early, he is described as doing what is good and right in the lord's eyes in Second Chronicles 14. 2. But near the end, he is rebuked for relying on the King of Syria instead of the Lord in 2 Chronicles 16, verse 7 to 10. And then when he becomes seriously ill, the text says that he sought help from physicians, not from the Lord. In 2 Chronicles 16:12, he also seems angry and bitter when confronted at the same time. 2nd Chronicles 15:7 and 1 Kings 15:14 says, Asa was wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord all his life. So how should we make sense of this? How can someone be described that way and still seem to drift or harden near the end? And what does Asa's story teach us about finishing? Well, both for our own faith and for how we think about older believers whose lives maybe don't end as spiritually strongly as they were earlier. Earlier?
- [02:15]
B
Yeah, that's a really good question.
- [02:17]
A
Yeah.
- [02:17]
B
And then I. I share the struggle about Asa. You love him and then you say what? It seems to me that one of the overarching lessons that God intends for us to learn from the Old Testament is that sin has corrupted the best of men. I think that's one of the big lessons. And the implication of that lesson for the world, all of us, all the nations, not just Israel, is that God's chosen people, Israel, under all his favors, if they under all his favors, could not produce a godly society or even any persons who are not corrupted in some measure by sin, then there's no hope for the rest of the world to be pleasing to God. And we're all in need of a savior from God. I think that's the point of Romans 3:19 following. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth, that's all of us, may be stopped and the whole world held accountable to God. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin. In other words, no matter how hard anyone has ever tried or ever will try, the human heart is simply too sinful for us to establish our own righteousness. We must have a Savior. And Jesus is the one, the only one there is. In the Old Testament, this strange mingling of judgment and mercy and hope, the stories, even the best of them, are tinged with sin. Adam and Eve were created good, and they rebelled. Noah was good, and then he failed in his drunkenness. Abraham was good to his nephew Lot and less than perfect with his wife. Isaac was wrong to prefer Esau over God's chosen seed, Jacob. Jacob was a trickster all his life. His son sold their brother into slavery. The period of the Judges is just anarchy without a king. And the first kings of Israel, they're all mixed. Saul disobeyed and was deposed. Solomon was ruined by 700 wives. David commits adultery, and when the kingdom divides, all the kings are tainted. All of them, or worse. And one of those kings is Asa. So Asa's story, starting well and ending badly, fits the pattern. It shouldn't be surprising, but what we have to figure out textually, exegetically, is what the author of First Kings means in chapter 15, verse 11 to 14, when he says this. Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as David, his father, had done. So there's a clue, because David didn't do everything. Well, that's a clue. Asa put away the male cult, prostitutes out of the land and removed all the idols that his father had made. He also removed Mayakah, his mother, from being queen mother, because she had made an abominable image for Asherah. And Asa cut down her image, burned it in the brook he drawn. But the high Places were not taken away. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was wholly true to the Lord all his days. That's the perplexing sentence. So he didn't take away the high places, but his heart was true, wholly true to the Lord. So it's pretty clear that the writer wants us to view Asa mainly in a positive light. He does. He only mentions that the high places were not taken away. And he says Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. And we know from two Chronicles that there were other sins. He relied upon Syria at one point. He didn't consult God, but he consulted physicians when he got this disease in his feet. So it's clear that both in 2 Chronicles and 1st Kings, Asa was a mainly good king, but made some serious sinful blunders. So the question is, what does 1 Kings 15:14 mean when it says the high places were not taken away? Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was wholly true to the Lord all his days. So we're not just dealing with a tension between 2 Chronicles and 1 Kings, as though two different authors contradicted each other. No, no. In the very same verse, the writer of First Kings says he didn't take away the high places, yet his heart was wholly true to the Lord. So we need to know what does wholly true to the Lord mean and how it can coexist with something that God disapproves of. So here's my suggestion. I did a search in the Hebrew phrase, on the Hebrew phrase behind wholly true to the Lord. What does that mean? Literally, it's whole with the Lord Shalem im Adonai. And I just clicked on that and searched it. Here's an interesting parallel. In First Corinthians to First Corinthians 15:14, namely 11:4, when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was David his father's. So there's the exact phrase. And it seems to me that the author of First Kings means by a heart being holy with the Lord is not the absence of sin, but the absence of idolatry. Can we make that distinction? I think he wants us to make that distinction. Those high places that Asa did not remove, I don't think were a sign of Asa's idolatry. That's what we're prone to think. I don't think so, because in verse 12, it says he removed all the idols that his fathers had made. Those high places did not represent Asa's turning to other gods. So my conclusion is that the writer of both Second Chronicles and First Kings portrayed Asa as never turning away from the Lord as his true and only God. I think that's what he means. The one he worships. He worships this God. But rather there were lapses in some of his political and personal dealings that were inconsistent with that devotion to the Lord. So, stepping back then, old man John Piper, trying to think this through for me, it seems to me that the lesson for me, and really for all of us, especially as older people, is first, that we need a Savior. Oh, how we need a Savior. We will never be able to establish our own righteousness. We need the righteousness of Christ to be accepted before a holy God. Second, we should tremble. I should tremble at the possibility that I could bring reproach upon the Lord by failing in old age to act consistently with my faith. And third, we should take heart that God knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust, and that our salvation does not depend on our perfection, but on Christ and our cleaving to Him.
- [10:54]
A
Amen. Pastor John. Yeah, the Old Testament certainly isn't hiding the flaws of its heroes. Actually, it's highlighting them for us to draw lessons like these. And one of the overarching lessons that God intends for us to learn from the Old Testament is that sin has corrupted the best of men. The best of men and sobering. And if the nation of Israel couldn't produce flawless people, then there is no hope for the rest of the world to be pleasing to God. And we are all in need of a savior from God. Amen. The Old Testament just consistently shows that even the best people are corrupted by sin. All of us need Christ. And like we saw last time on Monday, that forgiveness in Christ means that we are freed then to focus on daily present holiness rather than obsessing over our past failures. That is an awesome reality. I mean, what hope would we have apart from Christ? We would have none. On this topic of finishing well, we've covered a lot of territory if you've been following this podcast. I mean, we started it after Pastor John reached retirement age of 65. And so we've talked a lot about finishing well over these 13, almost 14 years. And all of that you can see in my summary of several episodes in the Ask Pastor John book, beginning on page 429. If you have that book handy, check out that section on finishing well beginning on page 429. This need to remain vigilant and faithful until the very end. That's what we saw today. That's what we're going to see next time. What if Jesus returns tonight? How would you live differently today if you knew Jesus was coming tonight? I'm Tony Reinke, and if Christ doesn't return, we will see you on Monday. Thanks for listening.