Sunday
Morning Bible Study
December 8, 2002
The Disciplined Life
:6-8 The nation prospers
:6 the LORD had given him rest.
Asa had a period of ten years where he did not have to go out to
battle. It wasn’t because of his own
goodness that he had this rest, it was simply because
the Lord gave it to him.
:7 walls, towers, gates, bars …So they built and
prospered.
Asa took advantage of his years of “rest” to build the nation.
Lesson
Building brings prosperity
I was challenged this week with this:
(John 10:10 KJV)
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I
am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
The question asked me was, “How many people in our churches experience the
“abundant life” that Jesus promises?
Asa’s prosperity, the nation’s “abundant life”
came as they “built” the fenced cities. Asa’s building included:
Walls – This is what keeps the
enemy out.
I see the “walls” as being similar to our resolve as to what we will allow into
our lives.
Will we allow certain things to penetrate our lives? Or are we resolved to say “no” to temptation.
Towers – This is what helps us
see the enemy coming
A tower is a place where you get perspective. For a tower to
work, you need to get a little bit above everything else to get a view of
what’s going on around you.
I think that every once in a while we need to be able to
step away from our lives and look at things from a different perspective. I think that we need time to be quiet, time
to think, time to pray.
Gates – This is what keeps us
from being trapped inside the city – without gates we can’t farm our lands,
trade with other cities, or go out and face the enemy when he attacks.
As Christians, we have to be careful not to become
“ingrown”. We need to get outside of
this place every once in a while if we’re going to reach the world. Outreach.
We need to have a concern for lost people. And most of the lost people in the world are
outside these walls.
Bars – This is what keeps the
gates closed when we need them closed – how we decide what kinds of things will
come “into” our city, what we allow into our lives. Discernment.
Lesson
Build when it’s easy
Asa’s time of “rest” came because the Lord gave
it. There was a break from the wars.
Asa used that time of “rest” to build up the nation.
We too go through seasons when we’re under attack and when we’re at rest.
My tendency when I’m at rest is to take it easy when I should be building.
I think that as a church we tend to also go through these times of “war”
and “peace”. I think we’ve recently gone
through much difficulty and it seems that we’re about to enter into a time of
“rest”.
Now is the time to build.
Lesson
New Testament disciplines
As Christians, our “prosperity” doesn’t come from building physical walls,
towers, gates, and bars. There are
spiritual things that we need to build up in our lives. There are spiritual disciplines that we can
develop that will develop those spiritual “walls, towers, gates, and bars”
Four of the most important disciplines can be seen modeled in the early
church:
(Acts 2:42
KJV) And they
continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking
of bread, and in prayers.
continued stedfastly – proskartereo – to
continue all the time in a place; to persevere and not to faint; to show one’s
self courageous for
These things are not things that we are to do once in a
while, or even just once a week. These
are things that are to be a part of our lives regularly.
The apostles’ doctrine – This is
God’s Word. We have the apostles’ doctrine in the New
Testament writings. The early church was
constantly in God’s Word.
How often do you read God’s Word? How many of you read your Bible
yesterday? How many of you read your
Bible every day last week?
Fellowship – this is our relationship with each other, our
helping each other. There ought to be a
relationship between you and other believers where you can encourage each
other. There ought to be people that you
know who will pick you up when you fall, who will encourage you when you’re
starting to stumble. People
who will pray for you. People who
will look you in the eye and say, “Are you staying close to Jesus?”
Breaking of Bread – I don’t
think this is just talking about having meals together – that would be under
“fellowship”. I think this is talking
about Communion. This is where we take time to remember what
Jesus has done for us at the cross.
The Gospel – we should never get far from the basics of
the Gospel. Jesus Christ died on a cross
for us. His body was broken as our sins
were heaped upon Him. His blood was
spilt to wash away our sins.
Prayers – The word is
plural. There are lots of kinds of prayer,
and they all ought to be a regular part of our life. We ought to have our own individual, private
time in talking with the Lord. Waking up
in the morning, I’ve been trying to get into the habit of praying for my day
before my feet hit the floor. We ought
to be praying together as families. We
ought to be praying together with our friends.
We ought to be praying as a church.
:8 And Asa had an army …
Asa’s army totaled 580,000 men between the tribes
of Judah and
Benjamin. He has a pretty awesome
army. It’s the biggest army since the
kingdom was split.
:9-15 Victory over Ethiopia
:9 there came out against them Zerah the Ethiopian
…
Zerah – Zerach – “rising”. He was probably a mercenary general hired by
the Pharaoh of Egypt.
the Ethiopian – better, “Cushite”. Not modern Ethiopia,
but the area covering modern Sudan.
Because modern Ethiopia
is a very poor nation and has suffered much in various famines, we might tend
to think that Ethiopia
is a very weak people. In these days, it
was one of the great powers.
a thousand thousand
– A million-man army. Asa thought he had
a huge army.
As they said in Star Wars: “There’s
always a bigger fish.”
three hundred chariots – these were the equivalent to a modern
tank. This isn’t some small, cheap
little army.
Mareshah – Mar’eshah – “crest of a hill”. About 24 miles southwest of Jerusalem.
Note: This attack didn’t come because Asa was being
bad. It just came.
Lesson
Discipline doesn’t keep you from the
battle, it prepares you for it.
We might think that since Asa has built all these cities up, that he should
never have to worry about his enemies.
Not so. But his building projects make it better to face the enemy.
In our Christian life, learning to practice spiritual discipline doesn’t
keep us from being attacked from the enemy.
They prepare us to win the battle.
Illustration
Sometimes we can look at the best athletes and get to think that they only
work at their “job” a few hours each week.
We might look at a professional golfer like Tiger Woods and think that he
only swings his clubs a couple of hours a week at the tournaments.
A top professional will work at his skills eight hours a
day. They must be disciplined.
Like it or not, we are in a spiritual battle. If we want to survive the battle, we need to
learn to be disciplined.
Illustration
Daniel was a disciplined man.
You have to pay attention to the details to see it, but
his disciplined life was something that went on behind the scenes.
He was disciplined about his physical body.
As a young man, he refused to eat the wrong kinds of food.
(Dan 1:8 KJV)
But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with
the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine
which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he
might not defile himself.
He was a man of prayer
(Dan 6:10 KJV)
Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his
house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled
upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God,
as he did aforetime.
He was a student of the Word.
(Dan 9:2-3 KJV)
In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number
of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that
he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. {3} And I set
my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting,
and sackcloth, and ashes:
I think this is part of the reason why we see Daniel and
his friends behaving so amazingly under the most difficult of circumstances.
When Nebuchadnezzar threatened to have all his wise men
killed if they didn’t tell him what he dreamed and what it meant – Daniel and
his friends simply prayed, and God answered.
When Daniel’s friends were told to bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s
idol, they refused. They knew that God
would bless them when they said “no” to the right things.
When Daniel was threatened with the Lion’s Den, he went
ahead and prayed anyway. It was his
habit of life. God was with him.
:10 they set the battle in array in the valley
of Zephathah
Zephathah – Ts@phathah – “watch-tower”. The battle took place
at the “watch-tower”.
Watch-towers are designed to spot the enemy coming, so you can protect your
homeland. Because the watch-tower was up and running, the battle didn’t get
past it.
Lesson
Be ready for battle
Illustration
Bruce Wilkensen, in his book, “The Prayer of Jabez” (pgs. 65-66), tells
of being worn out one day and realizing that he was in a dangerous place:
“Years ago, a cab had picked me up in downtown Chicago
and was whisking me down the Kennedy expressway toward
the airport. I slumped in the backseat,
exhausted from a week of special meetings at Moody Bible Institute. God had moved in remarkable ways. I had preached every day and counseled scores
of students – seventy-six, to be exact (I kept a log). Now heading home, I was physically and
spiritually spent. Staring blankly out
at the traffic, I reached for the Jabez prayer.
“O Lord,” I pleaded, “I have no resistance left. I’m completely worn out in Your service. I can’t cope with temptation. Please, keep
evil far from me today.”
When I boarded the plane, I found I’d been assigned a middle seat – not a
good start for my flight. And things
quickly got worse. The man on my left
pulled out a pornographic magazine. “Lord, I thought we had a deal here!” I
groaned in my spirit, and I looked the other way. But before the plane lifted off, the man on
my right opened his briefcase and pulled out his own skin magazine.
At that moment, I didn’t have it in me to ask them to change their reading
material. I closed my eyes. “Lord,”
I prayed, “I can’t cope with this
today. Please chase evil far away!”
Suddenly the man on my right swore, folded up his magazine, and put it
away. I looked at him to see what had
prompted his action. Nothing,
as far as I could tell. Then the
man on the left looked at him, swore loudly, and closed up his magazine,
too. Again, I could find no apparent
reason for his decision.
We were over Indiana when I
began laughing uncontrollably. They both
asked me what was so funny.
“Gentlemen,” I said, “you wouldn’t believe me if I told you!”
I think we need to have that “watch-tower” operational. We need to be aware of when we’re vulnerable
to attack.
:11 …help us, O LORD our God; for we rest on thee
we rest – sha‘an – to lean on, trust in, support
Lesson
Victory still comes from God.
Even when we learn to live a life of discipline, we don’t somehow become
able to single-handedly fight every battle and conquer every enemy.
We still have to throw ourselves upon the Lord.
Yet a life of a spiritually disciplined person will teach him to go quickly
to the Lord and rely completely upon Him.
Even though Asa had done so much work in raising an army and building up
the cities, it wasn’t enough.
He knew that he still needed the Lord to help. He knew …
(Psa 127:1 KJV) A Song of degrees for
Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build
it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh
but in vain.
Even when you are learning to be spiritually disciplined and have built up
your “fenced cities”, the victory is still completely dependent upon God, just
as if you were completely helpless.
:12 So the LORD smote the Ethiopians before Asa
God won the battle.