Preface to Distraction

Asa, is one of those men who did well – for a while.  For a time, he responded well to the Lord as he was confronted with truth.  But, as I have written before, he did not end well.  It is to our advantage to consider his life and ponder what we may learn from him.

Asa had the advantage of having a man in his life who would encourage him in the Lord.  Azariah was that man. A prophet.  Take a look at Azariah’s message to Asa in 2 Chronicles 15:2 – 7 (here @ Bible Gateway).

There is much in these few verses we need to unpack.  For now focus on verse 2 (here @ Bible Gateway).

This first part of Azariah’s exhortation is fairly straight forward.  It is one declarative followed buy two conditional statements.

The declaration:

• The Lord is with you when you are with Him.

The conditional statements;

• If you seek the Lord, then the Lord will let you find Him.
• If you forsake the Lord, then the Lord will forsake you.

Seems pretty simple on the surface.  But, as I reflect on these as I have typed them out, for those of us now it raises multiple issues that in a few sentences are impossible to fully cover.  Before we go further I acknowledge that there are layers here, but for the sake of time and space, let’s stipulate that at a significant level Azariah’s exhortation to Asa is readily applicable to us here and now.

The interesting thing is how Azariah, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, expands his encouragement to Asa in the next few sentances.

We will continue to look at this through the next post or so…