III.
After his great deliverance Asa renewed his consecration. The need for its renewal shows that in character and conduct he was far from being all that he ought to have been. He was not "perfect" in that sense. His earnestness cooled down. Through his carelessness the "high places" were re-erected. He seems to have been content that the "groves," with their grosser forms of idolatry, were gone, and that other forms might be tolerated, just as some, who have conquered their vices, are morally ruined by what the world calls little sins. But, in spite of these failings, the judgment of God, who is ever slow to anger and of great mercy, was that Asa's heart was "perfect"—sound, whole, and sincere, though not sinless.
How happy it is that God judges not as man judges, that He can unerringly read the heart, and graciously accepts even the imperfect and blundering service which we sincerely offer to Him. Jehu accurately executed Jehovah's fiat, whereas Asa's obedience seemed imperfect; yet the latter was commended, and the former condemned, because Asa, unlike Jehu, was right in heart. Therefore we may be encouraged still to do our little part in God's service, in spite of the failures and imperfections of the past, if only we can say, "Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee."
AHAZIAH
BY REV. J. G. GREENHOUGH, M.A.
"And the destruction of Ahaziah was of God, by coming to Joram; for,
when he was come, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu the son of
Nimshi, whom the Lord had anointed to cut off the house of Ahab."—2
CHRON. xxii. 7.
We rarely read this part of the Bible. And I do not wonder at it. For those particular chapters are undoubtedly dreary and monotonous. They contain the names of a number of incompetent and worthless kings who did nothing that was worth writing about, and who were singularly alike, so that when you have heard the story of one of them you know pretty well the story of all. It is the good lives that furnish attractive reading, because there is so much individuality and variety in them, so many pictorial lights and shadows. A novel in which all the characters are mean, would be read by nobody. The blackness needs to be relieved by something good, for darkness is always monotonous. Bad men show a dreary sameness in their thoughts and doings, their rise and fall. The godly are like nature illumined by the sunlight, manifold and infinite; the wicked are like nature when the darkness covers it, uniform and dismal. Nearly all that is said in the Bible about these bad kings, is that they walked in the ways of Ahab or Jeroboam or some other wicked person, that they closely imitated the doings of their model. The Bible does not waste space in describing them more accurately. One or two specimens do for all.
But certain things are said about Ahaziah which afford room for reflection, and may, perhaps, be useful to us if we take them in a right way.
And first let me give you a lesson in genealogy. These lessons are often very wearisome. Let two men get on talking about who was the cousin, father, grandfather, great-grandmother, and what not of such a person, and you begin at once to wish that you were out of it, or that you could quietly go to sleep until they settle the question; and yet it is not so unimportant as it seems. When a man writes a biography he deems it his duty to go back three or four generations, and tell you what sort of fathers and mothers and grandmothers and even great-grandsires his hero had. It is very wearisome, but it is very necessary. The story is not complete without that—for breed and ancestry go quite as far with men as with cattle, and often further.
Ahaziah's descent was right on one side, but it was very mean on the other. He had David's blood in his veins, and Jehoshaphat's, and mingled with that, the venom of heathenism. His mother was Athaliah, and Athaliah was the daughter of Jezebel, and Jezebel was a licentious heathen princess whom Ahab on an evil day had made his wife.