ASA'S GOOD REIGN.

(2 Chr. xiv:1-12.)

I. The Analysis.

1. Asa's reforms (verses 1-7; see below).

2. The Secret of Asa's Victory (verses 8-12). Asa's beautiful prayer is good for all dispensations, for it deals with the great permanent factors of man's need and weakness and the strength of God. Note that it is not a prayer of despair, but the confident petition of a heart that "rests" (verse 11) on God.

II. The Heart of the Lesson.

As not infrequently happens, we must go outside the lesson to find its deepest truth. Our lesson records the activities of Asa in the things of God, but a little word concerning this king in another book of the Bible gives the secret of his power to do the Lord's work: ''Nevertheless, Asa's heart was perfect with the Lord all his days." Reading that we no longer wonder that the idol houses came down and walls of defense went up. The real causes of things are often hidden from the world.

When loving hands prepared Martin Luther's body for the grave it was found that his knees were calloused from his hours of unceasing prayer. The world saw Martin Luther nailing the immortal theses to the church door, and heard him thundering from pulpit and printing press against the iniquities of Rome. The Lord saw on his knees a humble man whose ''heart was perfect with the Lord all his life."

And any man, king or peasant, scholar or unlearned, great or small, whose heart is perfect with the Lord will be owned and used of the Lord. What, then is it to have a heart perfect with the Lord? It is not to be sinlessly perfect in life, nor absolutely flawless in obedience, for Asa was neither. Not all of the high places were removed; and Asa gave the Lord's treasure to Ben-hadad (1 Kings xv:14, 18). And yet the Word of God expressly says that "Asa's heart was perfect with the Lord."

That heart is perfect with the Lord which, in all sincerity of desire and intent, longs to do and permit to be done the will of God. Such a man will not be perfect, but he will long to be, and will mourn when he is not. He has enthroned the will of God as the supreme object of his desire. But he lives his life in the presence of three hindering forces.

First of all his hinderances is himself as he is by nature. He is not in the flesh as to standing (Rom. viii:9), but the flesh is in him, and the old self will is a vigilant seeker after the throne from which it has been cast down.

Secondly, the man whose heart is right with God lives his life in a vast world-system of which Satan is the veiled prince (John xiv:30) and god (2 Cor. iv:4). It spreads before the man of God its kingdom of pleasure; of profit and of power.

And, finally, such a man is hated of Satan, and the principalities and powers of evil are arrayed against him. Doubtless the divine provision for his threefold need is ample (Gal. v:16, 17); Eph. vi:10-13), but doubtless, too, the man of God, to his shame and sorrow, before God will again and again come short of absolute perfection. But he will make no weak excuses for his failures, judging them honestly before God, and such a man God will surely use.