2 Chronicles 15:17
The high places were not removed from Israel, but Asa's heart was fully devoted all his days.
Sermons
Caution in Judging OthersH. Melville, B. D.2 Chronicles 15:17
Perfection, Limited by PowerH. Melville, B. D.2 Chronicles 15:17
Spiritual BackslidingH. Melvill, B.D.2 Chronicles 15:17
Unsoundness of Heart Suspected on Insufficient GroundsH. Melville, B. D.2 Chronicles 15:17
Ancient CovenantersT. Whitelaw 2 Chronicles 15:8-19














How comes it to pass that the service of Christ should be associated in any mind with austerity and gloom? How is it that every one does not connect that service in his thought with gladness of heart and brightness of life? This misfortune may be attributable to misconception, to a mental error, to the misreading of some words of the Master or of his apostles; or it may be the consequence, physical as much as spiritual, of a particular temperament; but it is most frequently caused by lack of thoroughness in the service of the Lord.

I. THE MISTAKE OF HALF-HEARTEDNESS IN THE SERVICE OF CHRIST. During the reigns of Rehoboam and Abijah, when king and people both showed much abatement of zeal in the worship of Jehovah, we do not read of any record like that of the text. Of Rehoboam we find that "he fixed not his heart to seek the Lord" (2 Chronicles 12:14, marginal reading). Abijah could say nothing more for himself than that he had "not forsaken the Lord" (2 Chronicles 13:10), and his later days, like his grandfather's, were apparently darkened by indulgence. There was no fervour of piety, and there was no fulness of joy in the land. And we find that everywhere and always it is so. Half-heartedness in holy service is a profound mistake. It gives no satisfaction to our Lord himself. It leads to no height of Christian worth, to no marked excellency of character. It fills the soul with no deep and lasting joy. It is very likely to decline and to expire, to go out into the darkness of doubt, or worldliness, or guilt.

II. THE WISDOM OF WHOLE-HEARTEDNESS. "All Judah rejoiced at the oath; for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire... and the Lord gave them rest." There was no imaginable step they could have taken which would have caused so much elation of heart and ensured so enviable a national position. Ass and his people showed the very truest wisdom, something more and better than sagacious policy or statecraft, when they sought the Lord with all their heart. They did that which gave them a pure and honest satisfaction in the present, and which, more than any other act, secured the future. And though we certainly are not invited to manifest the thoroughness of our devotion in the same severities that characterized their decision (ver. 13), we do well when we follow there in the fulness of their resolve. For to seek Christ the Lord with all our heart and our "whole desire" is the one right and the one wise thing to do.

1. It secures to us the abiding favour and friendship of the Eternal; he is then "found" of us.

2. It brings profound personal rest; then Christ speaks "peace" to us = - His peace, such as this world has not at Its command.

3. It secures a feeling of friendship toward all around us: "rest round about." The heart is filled with that holy love which desires to bless all who can be reached.

4. It fills and sometimes floods the heart with sacred joy. The full realization of the presence and love of Christ, the fervent worship of the Lord of all grace and truth, earnest work done in his Name and in his strength, - these are a source of enlarging and ennobling joy. The true key-note of the Christian life is this: "Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again... rejoice." - C.

Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was perfect all his days.
We learn from the text that we cannot always infer the state of the heart from external symptoms.

I. YOU MAY HAVE THE APPEARANCE OF SOMETHING WRONG WHILE THE HEART IS SOUND. This was Asa's case.

II. Conversely you MAY HAVE THE HEART UNSOUND WHILST AS YET THERE IS BUT LITTLE TRACE OF IT IN THE HEART AND LIFE. In tracing this disease, consider —

1. Its working.(1) The heart's relapse towards positive evil. There is the presentation to the mind of something of some worldly, fleshly things as pleasant and desirable; and then there not having been an immediate curbing of the rising inclination, the thoughts come to dwell with more and more complacency upon the object; and the man begins to wish that it might be lawful to have it, and to cast about and contrive for the modes of possession. And when the inclination has thus been formed and strengthened, it proposes to the understanding whether the enjoyment may not be had without hazard to the soul;and then there will soon be devised something plausible in the shape of an apology or warrant, something that shall serve to put conscience off its guard, or even make it concur in the prosecution of the design.(2) The heart's decline from the love of godliness and of God.

2. Its symptoms. There was a time when you felt God to be your "chief good" — do you feel Him less so now? There was a time when you delighted in prayer — has it become more of a task now? Once you thought much of the work of Christ and longed to be with Him in heaven — are you now more contented with earth and more disposed to say, "It is good for us to be here"? Once you found sufficient scope for fervent affections in secret communion with God, in meditating on His perfections, and in admiring His love in the gift of His Son — now do your affections seem stifled unless you have some showy work on which to fasten them, some dazzling novelty with which to engage them?

(H. Melvill, B.D.)

How ready are we to condemn and find fault with our neighbour, if his conduct do not seem in every respect consistent with his Christian profession! How soon we think he may be nothing but a hypocrite if we observe certain things in which he fails to carry out the principles of the gospel, though perhaps we know little or nothing of his peculiar circumstances, dangers, and temptations! It is enough for us that the "high places" are not "taken away"; immediately we condemn Asa, and infer that his heart cannot be right with God. Let the text teach charity first; and while we are not to shut our eyes to what is wrong, or count it matter of indifference whether or not the "high places are removed," when the removing is that to which the Christian stands pledged, let us be cautious of judging our brethren, and delivering a verdict against them, when we are told, though "the high places were not taken away out of Israel, nevertheless, the heart of Asa was perfect all his days."

(H. Melville, B. D.)

Some of you might, indeed, be ready to make a wrong use of our text. You may say, "If Asa's heart was perfect with God, though he did not remove the high places, so may ours be, though you may see things in our conduct which may not be wholly consistent with a Christian profession." Yet, before using the case of Asa to justify the assertion that your heart may be right whilst your conduct is wrong, it may be as well to observe how far Asa had gone in the extermination of idols. The text merely says that the "high places" were "not taken away out of Israel." Asa was king of Judah, but not of Israel; though he would seem to have possessed much influence in that kingdom. There was no reason to doubt that, where his power was clear, he had exerted it in restoring the worship of the true God; if he had not he would not have punished his nearest relations. You read that he removed Maachah, his mother, being queen, "because she had made an idol in a grove: and Asa cut down her idol, and stamped it, and burnt it at the brook Kidron." You learn, in like manner, what was done with the idol of the high priest. So that, if he did not carry reform into Israel, he was vigorous in its application in his own fancily and household. When you can say as much — when you can say that, to the utmost of your power, you have laboured to serve God in your own family and household and neighbourhood, maintaining His cause among all those who come more immediately within the sphere of your influence — then you may hope that, as with Asa, the heart is perfect with God, though there are high places yet, in far distant lands, whose overthrow you have not attempted.

(H. Melville, B. D.)

And yet, in speaking on the case of the backslider in heart, it becomes us to take heed that we make not those sad who may be disposed, without sufficient cause, to write bitter things against themselves. It is not every person who suspects himself of unsoundness of heart who is really a backslider. We must declare there is commonly much greater cause for fear with your forward, confident, bustling professors, who would be quite offended if suspected of spiritual decline, than with the timid, scrupulous individual who is always ready to think worse of himself than others think of him. Tried by conscience — alas! what hardens conscience like contact with the world? — it may still make a man accuse himself of backsliding who is all the while "pressing toward the mark for the prize of his high calling in Christ." Bodily sickness may be regarded as the taking away of the quickenings of the Spirit; the clouding of the understanding, and the clogging of the affections, will often make a believer fearful of spiritual relapse; he mistakes the infirmity of the body for disease of the soul — a decay of memory for a decay of piety; as though there must be less of devotedness, of abhorrence of sin, of meek reliance upon Christ in our dangers, our confusions, our difficulties in spiritual exercises, because of that unenlightenment of mind which is but the result, or symptom, of declining strength. Though a person may be quite correct in calling himself a backslider, yet the probabilities are greater for him who has no fears and no suspicions that he is really a backslider than for another who does not wait to be charged, but is painfully apprehensive of being in fault. For certainly, as a general rule in religion, to advance is, in some senses, to appear to go back. To grow in grace is to grow in knowledge of ourselves; and, alas! who can know himself better, and not think himself worse? If, however, we would not have the timid unduly severe in accusing themselves, we would have all diligent, and him "that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall"

(H. Melville, B. D.).

People
Asa, Azariah, Benjamin, Maacah, Maachah, Manasseh, Oded, Simeon
Places
Jerusalem, Kidron
Topics
Asa, Asa's, Aside, Blameless, Committed, Fully, Heart, Nevertheless, Perfect, Places, Remove, Removed, Yet
Outline
1. Asa, with Judah and many of Israel, moved by the prophecy of Azariah,
12. make a solemn covenant with God
16. He puts down Maachah his grandmother for idolatry
18. He brings dedicated things into the house of God, and enjoys a long peace.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
2 Chronicles 15:17

     7435   sacrifice, in OT
     8208   commitment, to God

2 Chronicles 15:17-18

     8466   reformation

Library
The Search that Always Finds
'They ... sought Him with their whole desire; and He was found of them: and the Lord gave them rest round about.'--2 CHRON. xv. 15. These words occur in one of the least familiar passages of the Old Testament. They describe an incident in the reign of Asa, who was the grandson of Solomon's foolish son Rehoboam, and was consequently the third king of Judah after the secession of the North. He had just won a great victory, and was returning with his triumphant army to Jerusalem, when there met him
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Entering the Covenant: with all the Heart
"And they entered into the covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart, and all their soul."--2 CHRON. xv. 12 (see xxxiv. 31, and 2 Kings xxiii. 3). "The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul."--DEUT. xxx. 6. "And I will give them an heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God: for they shall turn to Me with their whole heart."--JER. xxiv. 7 (see xxix. 13).
Andrew Murray—The Two Covenants

The Practice of Piety in Glorifying God in the Time of Sickness, and when Thou Art Called to Die in the Lord.
As soon as thou perceivest thyself to be visited with any sickness, meditate with thyself: 1. That "misery cometh not forth of the dust; neither doth affliction spring out of the earth." Sickness comes not by hap or chance (as the Philistines supposed that their mice and emrods came, 1 Sam. vi. 9), but from man's wickedness, which, as sparkles, breaketh out. "Man suffereth," saith Jeremiah, "for his sins." "Fools," saith David, "by reason of their transgressions, and because of their iniquities,
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

The Secret of Effectual Prayer
"What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them."--MARK xi. 24. Here we have a summary of the teaching of our Lord Jesus on prayer. Nothing will so much help to convince us of the sin of our remissness in prayer, to discover its causes, and to give us courage to expect entire deliverance, as the careful study and then the believing acceptance of that teaching. The more heartily we enter into the mind of our blessed Lord, and set ourselves simply
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession

The Whole Heart
LET me give the principal passages in which the words "the whole heart," "all the heart," are used. A careful study of them will show how wholehearted love and service is what God has always asked, because He can, in the very nature of things, ask nothing less. The prayerful and believing acceptance of the words will waken the assurance that such wholehearted love and service is exactly the blessing the New Covenant was meant to make possible. That assurance will prepare us for turning to the Omnipotence
Andrew Murray—The Two Covenants

Covenanting Performed in Former Ages with Approbation from Above.
That the Lord gave special token of his approbation of the exercise of Covenanting, it belongs to this place to show. His approval of the duty was seen when he unfolded the promises of the Everlasting Covenant to his people, while they endeavoured to perform it; and his approval thereof is continually seen in his fulfilment to them of these promises. The special manifestations of his regard, made to them while attending to the service before him, belonged to one or other, or both, of those exhibitions
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

Manner of Covenanting.
Previous to an examination of the manner of engaging in the exercise of Covenanting, the consideration of God's procedure towards his people while performing the service seems to claim regard. Of the manner in which the great Supreme as God acts, as well as of Himself, our knowledge is limited. Yet though even of the effects on creatures of His doings we know little, we have reason to rejoice that, in His word He has informed us, and in His providence illustrated by that word, he has given us to
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

The First Commandment
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.' Exod 20: 3. Why is the commandment in the second person singular, Thou? Why does not God say, You shall have no other gods? Because the commandment concerns every one, and God would have each one take it as spoken to him by name. Though we are forward to take privileges to ourselves, yet we are apt to shift off duties from ourselves to others; therefore the commandment is in the second person, Thou and Thou, that every one may know that it is spoken to him,
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

Chronicles
The comparative indifference with which Chronicles is regarded in modern times by all but professional scholars seems to have been shared by the ancient Jewish church. Though written by the same hand as wrote Ezra-Nehemiah, and forming, together with these books, a continuous history of Judah, it is placed after them in the Hebrew Bible, of which it forms the concluding book; and this no doubt points to the fact that it attained canonical distinction later than they. Nor is this unnatural. The book
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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