Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was perfect all his days.
Spiritual backsliding
We learn from the text that we cannot always infer the state of the heart from external symptoms.
I. You may have the appearance of something wrong while the heart is sound. This was Asa’s case.
II. Conversely you may have the heart unsound whilst as yet there is but little trace of it in the heart and life. In tracing this disease, consider--
1. Its working.
(1) The heart’s relapse towards positive evil. There is the presentation to the mind of something of some worldly, fleshly things as pleasant and desirable; and then there not having been an immediate curbing of the rising inclination, the thoughts come to dwell with more and more complacency upon the object; and the man begins to wish that it might be lawful to have it, and to cast about and contrive for the modes of possession. And when the inclination has thus been formed and strengthened, it proposes to the understanding whether the enjoyment may not be had without hazard to the soul;and then there will soon be devised something plausible in the shape of an apology or warrant, something that shall serve to put conscience off its guard, or even make it concur in the prosecution of the design.
(2) The heart’s decline from the love of godliness and of God.
2. Its symptoms. There was a time when you felt God to be your “chief good”--do you feel Him less so now? There was a time when you delighted in prayer--has it become more of a task now? Once you thought much of the work of Christ and longed to be with Him in heaven--are you now more contented with earth and more disposed to say, “It is good for us to be here”? Once you found sufficient scope for fervent affections in secret communion with God, in meditating on His perfections, and in admiring His love in the gift of His Son--now do your affections seem stifled unless you have some showy work on which to fasten them, some dazzling novelty with which to engage them? (H. Melvill, B.D.)
Caution in judging others
How ready are we to condemn and find fault with our neighbour, if his conduct do not seem in every respect consistent with his Christian profession! How soon we think he may be nothing but a hypocrite if we observe certain things in which he fails to carry out the principles of the gospel, though perhaps we know little or nothing of his peculiar circumstances, dangers, and temptations! It is enough for us that the “high places” are not “taken away”; immediately we condemn Asa, and infer that his heart cannot be right with God. Let the text teach charity first; and while we are not to shut our eyes to what is wrong, or count it matter of indifference whether or not the “high places are removed,” when the removing is that to which the Christian stands pledged, let us be cautious of judging our brethren, and delivering a verdict against them, when we are told, though “the high places were not taken away out of Israel, nevertheless, the heart of Asa was perfect all his days.” (H. Melville, B. D.)
Perfection, limited by power
Some of you might, indeed, be ready to make a wrong use of our text. You may say, “If Asa’s heart was perfect with God, though he did not remove the high places, so may ours be, though you may see things in our conduct which may not be wholly consistent with a Christian profession.” Yet, before using the case of Asa to justify the assertion that your heart may be right whilst your conduct is wrong, it may be as well to observe how far Asa had gone in the extermination of idols. The text merely says that the “high places” were “not taken away out of Israel.” Asa was king of Judah, but not of Israel; though he would seem to have possessed much influence in that kingdom. There was no reason to doubt that, where his power was clear, he had exerted it in restoring the worship of the true God; if he had not he would not have punished his nearest relations. You read that he removed Maachah, his mother, being queen, “because she had made an idol in a grove: and Asa cut down her idol, and stamped it, and burnt it at the brook Kidron.” You learn, in like manner, what was done with the idol of the high priest. So that, if he did not carry reform into Israel, he was vigorous in its application in his own fancily and household. When you can say as much--when you can say that, to the utmost of your power, you have laboured to serve God in your own family and household and neighbourhood, maintaining His cause among all those who come more immediately within the sphere of your influence--then you may hope that, as with Asa, the heart is perfect with God, though there are high places yet, in far distant lands, whose overthrow you have not attempted. (H. Melville, B. D.)
Unsoundness of heart suspected on insufficient grounds
And yet, in speaking on the case of the backslider in heart, it becomes us to take heed that we make not those sad who may be disposed, without sufficient cause, to write bitter things against themselves. It is not every person who suspects himself of unsoundness of heart who is really a backslider. We must declare there is commonly much greater cause for fear with your forward, confident, bustling professors, who would be quite offended if suspected of spiritual decline, than with the timid, scrupulous individual who is always ready to think worse of himself than others think of him. Tried by conscience--alas! what hardens conscience like contact with the world?--it may still make a man accuse himself of backsliding who is all the while “pressing toward the mark for the prize of his high calling in Christ.” Bodily sickness may be regarded as the taking away of the quickenings of the Spirit; the clouding of the understanding, and the clogging of the affections, will often make a believer fearful of spiritual relapse; he mistakes the infirmity of the body for disease of the soul--a decay of memory for a decay of piety; as though there must be less of devotedness, of abhorrence of sin, of meek reliance upon Christ in our dangers, our confusions, our difficulties in spiritual exercises, because of that unenlightenment of mind which is but the result, or symptom, of declining strength. Though a person may be quite correct in calling himself a backslider, yet the probabilities are greater for him who has no fears and no suspicions that he is really a backslider than for another who does not wait to be charged, but is painfully apprehensive of being in fault. For certainly, as a general rule in religion, to advance is, in some senses, to appear to go back. To grow in grace is to grow in knowledge of ourselves; and, alas! who can know himself better, and not think himself worse? If, however, we would not have the timid unduly severe in accusing themselves, we would have all diligent, and him “that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (H. Melville, B. D.).