Although Asa was a good king and did many good things, he offended God by forming an alliance with Ben-hadad king of Syria (vv. 1-6). Furthermore, he became angry with the seer who rebuked him for trusting in the king of Syria instead of trusting in Jehovah (v. 10). It might have been because of this offense that Asa became severely diseased in his feet. This disease caused his death (v. 13).

God’s dealing with the kings of Judah in the details of their living shows that it is not adequate for us who love God and seek Christ only to stand on the proper ground of the oneness of the church and to keep the fundamental truth. We also need to take care of who we are, how we behave, and how we conduct ourselves, including our interests, our intention, our purpose, our goal, our attitude, and our way of speaking. God dealt with all the good kings of Judah according to the law of Moses in detail. Anyone who was wrong with the law even a little would lose a great part of the enjoyment of the good land. In the Old Testament time, God’s people were required to behave themselves according to the law. Today we are required by the New Testament to conduct ourselves according to the spiritual law, which is the compound, life-giving, all-inclusive, consummated Spirit, who dwells in our spirit (Rom. 8:4, 16; Gal. 5:16, 25). We need to learn from the example of the kings of Judah to have a God-man living in all the details of our daily life, a living in which we are crucified in our natural life to live by the divine life within us (Gal. 2:20). We need to be warned and be on the alert that whatever we say, whatever we do, whatever we express, our attitude, our spirit, and our intention must be purified by the life-giving, compound, all-inclusive Spirit. Otherwise, we will lose much in the enjoyment of Christ, today’s good land (see note Deut. 8:7¹). See note 1 Kings 1:1¹, par. 2.