It did not take much to convince Asa that he had 'no power.' His army,
according to the numbers given of the two hosts, was outnumbered two
to one; and so it did not require much reflection to say, 'We have no
might.' But although perhaps not so sufficiently obvious to us, as
truly as in the case in our text, if we look fairly in the face our
duties, our tasks, our dangers, the possibilities of life and its
certainties, the more humbly we think of our own capacity, the more
wisely we shall think about God, and the more truly we shall estimate
ourselves. The world says, 'Self-reliance is the conquering virtue';
Jesus says to us, 'Self-distrust is the condition of all victory.' And
that does not mean any mere shuffling off of responsibility from our
own shoulders, but it means looking the facts of our lives, and of our
own characters, in the face. And if we will do that, however
apparently easy may be our course, and however richly endowed in mind,
body, or estate we may be, if we all do that honestly, we shall find
that we each are like 'the man with ten thousand' that has to meet
'the King that comes against him with twenty thousand'; and we shall
not 'desire conditions of peace' with our enemy, for that is not what
in this case we have to do, but we shall look about us, and not keep
our eyes on the horizon, and on the levels of earth, but look up to
see if there is not there an Ally that we can bring into the field to
redress the balance, and to make our ten as strong as the opposing
twenty. Zerah the Ethiopian, who was coming down on Asa, is said to
have had a million fighting-men at his back, but that is probably an
erroneous figure, because Old Testament numbers are necessarily often
unreliable. Asa had only half the number; so he said, 'What can I do?'
And what _could_ he do? He did the only thing possible, he
'grasped at God's skirts, and prayed,' and that made all the
difference.
Now all that is true about the disproportion between the foes we have
to face and fight and our own strength. It is eminently true about us
Christian people, if we are doing any work for our Master. You hear
people say, 'Look at the small number of professing Christians in this
country, as compared with the numbers on the other side. What is the
use of their trying to convert the world?' Well, think of the
assembled Christian people, for instance, of Manchester, on the most
charitable supposition, and the shallowest interpretation of that word
'Christian.' What are they among so many? A mere handful. If the
Christian Church had to undertake the task of Christianising the world
by its own strength, we might well despair of success and stop
altogether. 'We have no might.' The disproportion both numerically and
in all things that the world estimates as strength (which are many of
them good things), is so great that we are in a worse case than Asa
was. It is not two to one; it is twenty to one, or an even greater
disproportion. But we are not only numerically weak. A multitude of
non-effectives, mere camp followers, loosely attached, nominal
Christians, have to be deducted from the muster-roll, and the few who
are left are so feeble as well as few that they have more than enough
to do in holding their own, to say nothing of dreaming of charging the
wide-stretching lines of the enemy. So a profound self-distrust is our
wisdom. But that should not paralyse us, but lead to something better,
as it led Asa.
II. Summoning God into the field should follow wholesome
self-distrust.
Asa uses a remarkable expression, which is, perhaps, scarcely
reproduced adequately in our Authorised Version: 'It is nothing with
Thee to help, whether with many or with them that have no power.' It
is a strange phrase, but it seems most probable that the suggested
rendering in the Revised Version is nearer the writer's meaning, which
says, 'Lord! there is none beside Thee to help between the mighty and
them that have no power,' which to our ears is a somewhat cumbrous way
of saying that God, and God only, can adjust the difference between
the mighty and the weak; can redress the balance, and by the laying of
His hand upon the feeble hand can make it strong as the mailed fist to
which it is opposed. If we know ourselves to be hopelessly
outnumbered, and send to God for reinforcements, He will clash His
sword into the scale, and make it go down. Asa turns to God and says,
'Thou only canst trim the scales and make the lighter of the two the
heavier one by casting Thy might into it. So help us, O Lord our God!'
One man with God at his back is always in the majority; and, however
many there may be on the other side, 'there are more that be with us
than they that be with them.' _There_ is encouragement for people
who have to fight unpopular causes in the world, who have been
accustomed to be in minorities all their days, in the midst of a
wicked and perverse generation. Never mind about the numbers; bring
God into the field, and the little band, which is compared in another
place in these historical Books to 'two flocks of kids' fronting the
enemy, that had flowed all over the land, is in the majority. 'God
with us'; then we are strong.
The consciousness of weakness may unnerve a man; and that is why
people in the world are always patting each other on the back and
saying 'Be of good cheer, and rely upon yourself.' But the
self-distrust that turns to God becomes the parent of a far more
reliable self-reliance than that which trusts to men. My consciousness
of need is my opening the door for God to come in. Just as you always
find the lakes in the hollows, so you will always find the grace of
God coming into men's hearts to strengthen them and make them
victorious, when there has been the preparation of the lowered
estimate of one's self. Hollow out your heart by self-distrust, and
God will fill it with the flashing waters of His strength bestowed.
The more I feel myself weak, the more I am meant not to fold my hands
and say, 'I never can do that thing; it is of no use my trying to
attempt it, I may as well give it up'; but to say, 'Lord I there is
none beside Thee that can set the balance right between the mighty and
him that hath no strength.' 'Help me, O Lord my God!' Just as those
little hermit-crabs that you see upon the seashore, with soft bodies
unprotected, make for the first empty shell they can find, and house
in that and make it their fortress, our exposed natures, our
unarmoured characters, our sense of weakness, ought to drive us to
Him. As the unarmed population of a land invaded by the enemy pack
their goods and hurry to the nearest fortified place, so when I say to
myself I have no strength, let me say, 'Thou art my Rock, my Strength,
my Fortress, and my Deliverer. My God, in whom I trust, my Buckler,
and the Horn of my Salvation, and my high Tower.'
Now, there is one more word about this matter, and that is, the way by
which we summon God into the field. Asa prays, 'Help us, O Lord our
God! for we rest on Thee'; and the word that he employs for 'rest' is
not a very frequent one. It carries with it a very striking picture.
Let me illustrate it by a reference to another case where it is
employed. It is used in that tragical story of the death of Saul, when
the man that saw the last of him came to David and drew in a sentence
the pathetic picture of the wearied, wounded, broken-hearted,
discrowned, desperate monarch, _leaning on_ his spear. You can
understand how hard he leaned, with what a grip he held it, and how
heavily his whole languid, powerless weight pressed upon it. And that
is the word that is used here. 'We lean on Thee' as the wounded Saul
leaned upon his spear. Is that a picture of your faith, my friend? Do
you lean upon God like that, laying your hand upon Him till every vein
on your hand stands out with the force and tension of the grasp? Or do
you lean lightly, as a man that does not feel much the need of a
support? Lean hard if you wish God to come quickly. 'We rest on Thee;
help us, O Lord!'
III. Courageous advance should follow self-distrust and summoning God
by faith.
It is well when self-distrust leads to confidence, when, as Charles
Wesley has it in his great hymn:
'... I am weak,
But confident in self-despair.'
But that is not enough. It is better when self-distrust and confidence
in God lead to courage, and as Asa goes on, 'Help us, for we rely on
Thee, and in Thy name we go against this multitude.' Never mind though
it is two to one. What does that matter? Prudence and calculation are
well enough, but there is a great deal of very rank cowardice and want
of faith in Christian people, both in regard to their own lives and in
regard to Christian work in the world, which goes masquerading under
much too respectable a name, and calls itself 'judicious caution' and
'prudence.' There is little ever done by that, especially in the
Christian course; and the old motto of one of the French republicans
holds good; 'Dare! dare! always dare!' You have more on your side than
you have against you, and creeping prudence of calculation is not the
temper in which the battle is won. 'Dash' is not always precipitate
and presumptuous. If we have God with us, let us be bold in fronting
the dangers and difficulties that beset us, and be sure that He will
help us.
IV. And now the last point that I would notice is this--the
all-powerful plea which God will answer.
'Thou art my God, let not man prevail against Thee.' That prayer
covers two things. You may be quite sure that if God is your God you
will not be beaten; and you may be quite sure that if you have made
God's cause yours He will make your cause His, and again you will not
be beaten.
'Thou art our God.' 'It takes two to make a bargain,' and God and we
have both to act before He is truly ours. He gives Himself to us, but
there is an act of ours required too, and you must take the God that
is given to you, and make Him yours because you make yourselves His.
And when I have taken Him for mine, and not unless I have, He is mine,
to all intents of strength-giving and blessedness. When I can say,
'Thou art my God, and it is impossible that Thou wilt deny Thyself,'
then nothing can snap that bond; and 'neither life nor death, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things
to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any _other_ creature' can do
it. But there is a creature that can, and that is I. For I can
separate _myself_ from the love and the guardianship of God, and
He can say to a man, 'I am thy God,' and the man _not_ answer,
'Thou art my God.'
And then there is another plea here. 'Let not man prevail against
Thee.' What business had Asa to identify his little kingdom and his
victory with God's cause and God's conquest? Only this, that he had
flung himself into God's arms, and because he had, and was trying to
do what God would have him do, he was quite sure that it was not Asa
but Jehovah that the million of Ethiopians were fighting against.
People warn us against the fanaticism of taking for granted that our
cause is God's cause. Well, we need the warning sometimes, but we may
be quite sure of this, that if we have made God's cause ours, He will
make our cause His, down to the minutest point in our daily lives.
And then, if thus we say in the depths of our hearts, and live
accordingly, 'There is none other that fighteth for us, but only Thou,
O God!' it will be with us as it was with Asa in the story before us,
'the enemy fled, and could not recover themselves, for they were
destroyed before the Lord and before His hosts.'