VANQUISHING THE SPIRIT OF FEAR

Two Descriptions of King Asa

The Bible says that King Asa was a good king. However, the records of his life in 1^st Kings and 2^nd Chronicles appear at first to give two different versions of what he did during his reign.

Let us note that in verse five we read that he removed the high places. Compare this to verse fourteen in the following Scripture from 1^st Kings.

The books of Kings and Chronicles at first appear to simply repeat Jewish history, but many times the books reveal two different perspectives of the same incident. In this case, it appears that we get God?s omniscient view in Kings, and man?s limited view in Chronicles. This speaks to us of how we may outwardly appear one way, but inwardly be another.

Asa appeared to man and perhaps to himself to have brought down the high places. In fact, we read in verse five of Chronicles that, “He also removed the high places and the incense altars from all the cities of Judah”. This he literally did. Men saw him do it, and if a human historian were relating what happened in Judah at this time, he would have noted these events.

However, in an apparent contradiction in verse fourteen of Kings we read, “But the high places were not removed”. Now this statement does not specifically refer to physical idols. However, the verse previous to this one speaks of Asa “cutting down the obscene image of Asherah”, so this seems to deepen the contradiction. Nevertheless, there is no contradiction. God?s view of what happened is revealed in verse fourteen, and it relates to spiritual high places. In other words, 2^nd Kings gives us the spiritual understanding, whereas 1^st Chronicles gives us the worldly, literal understanding. These two accounts of history are not redundant, they are complementary. It is as if we are viewing a building from the front, and then from the inside. We are looking at the same building, but we have more knowledge of the building when inside, than we do from the outside.

In this case, the building is King Asa, and we see what God sees “inside”, that is, in his heart. From the account in Kings we understand that Asa appeared to man to have all his trust in God, but God knew that he had a spirit of fear which held a “high place” in his heart. We see then that the only contradiction here is the one that fallen man has ? that of double-mindedness. Similarly, as Christians today may be truly serving God, and yet a spirit of fear may cause us internal anxiety. Consequently, even when we have peace, we may be nervous about the future.

A Carnal Response to a Spiritual Blessing

After Asa came to power, Judah was at peace. We read in verse five that, “the kingdom was quiet under him,” evidently due to his godliness. No more raids came from Judah?s enemies, nor problems with other countries trying to take it over. Nevertheless, Asa?s response to this wonderful peace was not a faithful one. He began to arm himself and fortify the cities, not realizing that his lack of trouble had not only come from God, God was the only One who could continue to provide it.

“And Asa had an army?” The word for army here in the Hebrew is the word chayil (pronounced khah’-yil) and it means “strength, force, army and wealth.” However, the root word for chayil is chiyl, and it means “to be in fear, anguish, to wait anxiously, to be distressed, to be pained.” The whole point is that when we allow fear to rule us, we generally go towards a material solution for a spiritual problem. An army of our own making, which we have not gathered under God?s directions, simply betrays our fears and becomes anguish and pain to us in the spiritual realm. This is why the Hebrew word has a deeper meaning which reveals the true fate of those who use only worldly means to allay their fears.

Asa did not have a large army before God gave him peace. But now that he has peace he has decided he must maintain it through a material source. There is a curious contradiction here in that he gives God all the glory, and is definitely a strong man of God, and yet after God rewards him with peace, he is still dreading that he will lose it. In the opening Scripture we read how Job also dreaded losing what God had provided for Him. He even made sacrifices for his children, because he was afraid they might have sinned and would bear a penalty. However, basic spiritual understanding tells us that a sacrifice for someone who does not understand it or want to repent will reap no benefit for him. Jesus died on the cross, but sinners who do not avail themselves of His cleansing Blood, do not share in salvation.

There is Always a Bigger Army

Interestingly, after Asa builds his fortresses and amasses his huge army of five hundred and eighty thousand men, a bigger army begins to attack. Can we not see a pattern in this? Asa, trusting in the natural world for protection, immediately gets a lesson that there is not an army big enough to protect him if he continues in this realm. And nothing has changed. For the Christian today we can be certain that whatever blessing God gives us, if we seek to sustain it by worldly methods which are not ordained by God, we will fail. Let us read what Asa now faces:

Asa has five hundred and eighty thousand soldiers, and coming towards him are one million soldiers and three hundred chariots. Can we even imagine how big this army must have been? Not only was the opposing army almost double the size of Asa?s, they also had chariots. What an incredible response to Asa?s carnality. Asa was beginning to trust in the wrong source, but by God?s mercy, he is thrown back upon the supernatural power of God for protection.

In the first Scriptures quoted, we saw that Job, great man of God that he was, feared he would lose the blessing God had given him. Likewise, King Asa, enjoying the peace God had given his country, feared that he would lose it. What about us? Is there fear that some blessing that we now enjoy will be taken away? Will we attempt to secure a blessing from God by natural means? Will such an attempt work, or will the fear that it engenders hurt us rather than help us, for when the Savior walked the earth He said:

So much unscriptural faith teaching has been falsely gleaned from this passage that its meaning has been brought down to a tawdry, materialistic level. But what it means to us is that we must believe God?s spiritual promises to us, when he says:

What a fascinating Scripture! In the same expression of the love Christ has for us, we read of being killed all day long for Him. Does this make any sense at all? Yes, for it refers to the fact that God will not allow us to be tested beyond what we can endure (1^st Corinthians 10:13).

How Do We Vanquish Fear?

Years ago my daughter was suffering from fears of being sick. Anytime she heard of, or saw a sick person, she became afraid that she would get the same illness. I began earnestly praying for her not to be afraid. In prayer I asked God to take away her frightening thoughts. But soon it became apparent that this was not the solution. Rather, the remedy could only come from her confronting these thoughts.

We sat down together, and I told her that the next time she had a thought regarding illness, I wanted her to fully imagine getting sick, suffering and dying. She was rather shocked at what I said. I could tell these were not the comforting words she was waiting to hear. Nevertheless, I continued to explain to her that fear was becoming a high place in her life. And the only way to dethrone the threatening thoughts was to imagine them coming to fruition. Her attitude had to become the same as Esther?s, who when confronted with possible death, finally said, “If I perish, I perish.” (Esther 4:16). That way, Satan could no longer use them against her.

Not Just For Little Girls

Whatever it may be that would plague us mentally, let us allow that scenario to be fully played out in our minds. And then we can say, “So what?” Nothing can be “held over our heads” if we have already dealt with it. What is our greatest fear? Being embarrassed in some manner? Losing our sight? Losing all our possessions? Losing our jobs? Being imprisoned for our faith? Whatever it may be, God will get us through it. We must make our peace with it, now. If we do not, and it continues to be an idol in our hearts, God must, in His mercy, tear it from us.

How does love cast out fear? If we love God, we know He will provide for us, whatever the situation. Corrie Ten Boom thought she might go to a concentration camp for hiding Jews in World War 2, and she did not know how she could deal with it. However, she remembered the wisdom her father had imparted to her when he told her as a child, “You get your ticket before you get on the train.”

Yes, we get our ticket, or our ability to deal with the circumstances we may find ourselves in, as we begin to live in them. Today, it might be hard to imagine getting through some difficult trial. Nevertheless, should the time come, He will give us what we need. If God does not change the circumstances, he will change us in the circumstances. Asa temporarily forgot, but let us remember:

Do we believe that God will fight for us in our difficulties, and finally deliver us from them? Or are we inclined to seek the world for help? We may wonder why it was a sin for David to count the people (actually his soldiers) when we read the 24^th chapter of 2^nd Samuel. The answer is that this checking of resources was tantamount to a lack of faith, which revealed that he was beginning to trust in the world and not in God. David was sinking into the mindset that Isaiah refers to in the following Scripture:

Egypt speaks to us of the world. If our help comes from non-believing psychiatrists and psychologists, or popular self-help gurus, we are “going down to Egypt.” In fact, there are only two sources from which our help can come from: the spiritual wellspring of all life, Jesus Christ, the Living Word, or the wisdom of the world, characterized by Egypt. And, if Egypt is our choice, we will never vanquish fear, because only God has the power to deliver us from it.

When trouble comes, instead of crumpling, let us rise up in praise to God, and declare: