2 Chronicles 14:11 - Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary

Reader! do not fail to observe the beauties of this prayer, short as it is, for they are many. In the first place remark in it the ground of Asa's cry to God. He had served God in the day of his prosperity, and therefore now in the day of his adversity he might truly call upon him. Observe moreover, that the God he called upon was not an unknown God, but a well known and a well proved God; even God in covenant. O Lord, our God, said Asa! oh! how precious, how inconceivably precious is it, to have God in Christ in all the covenant engagements of redemption in the Lord Jesus, to fly to in time of need. Observe still further the strong faith Asa had in the power of God. It is nothing with thee (said he) to help with many or with few. Oh! for faith to every poor sinner when a sense of abounding transgression would overwhelm the soul! Thy covenant grace, almighty Father, and thy cleansing blood and justifying righteousness, thou blessed Jesus, can save from all sin! - Observe once more the humbleness of soul in Asa concerning his own strength; we rest on thee; not in our arms, nor in our strength. So saith the poor sinner made sensible of his own nothingness and depravity. His language is, I place no more dependence on my best prayers for acceptance, than on my worst sins. Neither repentance, nor faith, are the causes of my hope: But Jesus alone, his merits, his blood, his righteousness. And lastly, let not the Reader pass over as distinguishing a feature in Asa's prayer as any; thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee. Intimating that the cause was the Lord's, and so would be the glory of the triumph. And is not this the case in all the great objects of redemption? All is for the honour of Jesus; that God may be glorified in him. So sung the redeemed in heaven, which John heard, who, while ascribing redemption to Jesus, proclaimed at the same time that this redemption was from God as the first cause, and reverted back to God again as the final end. Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood. Revelation 5:9. See, Reader! what a true gospel prayer is here recorded of Asa in the book of the Chronicles.