The Value of a Loyal Heart to the Lord
1 Kings 15:1-15
; 2 Chronicles 13-15
Introduction:
I. Two Kings of Judah vv. 1-24
A. Abijam, King of Judah (vv. 1-8)
-here we see the grandson of Solomon through Rehoboam; Abijam only reigned three years; he is also called Abijah in 2 Chr., which means Jehovah is my Father
-Abijam’s dad had reigned 17 yrs and was 58 when he died; there is no mention of how old Abijam was when we took the throne or when he died
-he was a king that knew the religious history but “walked in all the sins of his father…his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his [fore]father David
-we get much more information on Abijam in the account in 2 Chron. 13
-Abijam grew up in a household that was accustomed to conflict with the northern kingdom; when he ascended to the throne there was an attempt to bring back the northern tribes to the control of the southern kingdom of Judah
-the one high point of his short three year reign was his proclamation to the army of King Jeroboam when they were about to engage in battle
-read 2 Chronicles 13:3-22
-Abijam’s heart was not loyal to the Lord; he had every opportunity to do right in the eyes of the Lord, but he looked to the example of his ungodly father instead
-he was someone who was out to build his own name and bask in the privileges of kingly authority with his many wives and children; but his reign abruptly ended
B. Asa, King of Judah (vv. 9-15)
(9) In the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Asa became king over Judah. (10) And he reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem. His grandmother’s name was Maachah the granddaughter of Abishalom. (11) Asa did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, as did his father David. (12) And he banished the perverted persons from the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. (13) Also he removed Maachah his grandmother from being queen mother, because she had made an obscene image of Asherah. And Asa cut down her obscene image and burned it by the Brook Kidron. (14) But the high places were not removed. Nevertheless Asa’s heart was loyal to the LORD all his days. (15) He also brought into the house of the LORD the things which his father had dedicated, and the things which he himself had dedicated: silver and gold and utensils.
-there were a total of nine kings over Israel and Judah that had the epitaph ‘they did what was right in the sight of the Lord’
-David was the first one, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite; and now the next one here is Asa’
-Asa’s name means ‘physician or cure’; he was a breath of spiritual life for Judah, a ‘cure’ if you will in how he instituted moral reforms in Judah
-it had been around twenty years since the death of Solomon, sixty years since the death of David
-the people of Judah had been greatly influenced by the spiritual carelessness of the past decades; the length of Asa’s reign is a testimony to God’s mercy over Judah
-it appears that he officially cleared Jerusalem of the idolatry left over from the days of Solomon; he even deposed his grandmother, Maachah, a descendant from Absalom, from her influential position of authority; her name means ‘depression’
-the account here in 1 Kings is a very general record; more detail can be found in 2 Chr.
-read 2 Chronicles 14-15