The Folly of Godless Pragmatism Text: 2 Chronicles 16:1-6
Introduction: Two Ways to Build
There are fundamentally only two ways to live in this world, and consequently, only two ways to build a kingdom, a nation, a church, or a life. You can build by faith, or you can build by sight. You can build by trusting in the sovereign goodness of the God who speaks worlds into existence, or you can build by trusting in the arm of the flesh, in political maneuvering, in clever alliances, and in the glitter of gold and silver. One way leads to life, stability, and blessing. The other leads to ruin, instability, and a curse, even when it appears, for a short season, to succeed.
We come this morning to a tragic turning point in the reign of Asa, king of Judah. For thirty-five years, Asa had been a reformer. He had walked in the ways of his father David. He had torn down the idols, commanded Judah to seek the Lord, and trusted God in the face of an overwhelming Ethiopian army a million strong. God had honored that faith with a stunning victory and had given the land rest. Asa had started the race with tremendous pace and strength. But a long obedience in the same direction is a difficult thing, and here, in the thirty-sixth year of his reign, we find him stumbling. He is faced with a new threat, a more mundane and political threat than a massive invasion, and his response reveals a deep-seated rot that has crept into his heart.
The story of Asa is a warning to every Christian, every church, and every nation. It is a warning against the subtle temptation of godless pragmatism. It is the temptation to believe that while God is good for the big, miraculous deliverances, the day-to-day business of politics and national security requires a more "realistic" approach. It is the temptation to look at the resources of the world, the armies of pagan kings, the treasuries of silver and gold, and to think that these are the real levers of power. It is the temptation to forget that the same God who can rout a million Ethiopians is the same God who controls the heart of every king, big or small.
Asa's failure here is not a flamboyant, scandalous sin. It is a quiet, calculated, political decision that seems, on the surface, to be shrewd and effective. And that is precisely what makes it so dangerous. The sins that will undo us are often not the ones that look wicked, but the ones that look wise.
The Text
In the thirty-sixth year of Asa’s reign Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah and built up Ramah in order to prevent anyone from going out or coming in to Asa king of Judah.
Then Asa brought out silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of Yahweh and the king’s house, and sent them to Ben-hadad king of Aram, who lived in Damascus, saying,
"Let there be a covenant between you and me, as between my father and your father. Behold, I have sent you silver and gold; go, break your covenant with Baasha king of Israel so that he will withdraw from me."
So Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his military forces against the cities of Israel, and they struck down Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim, and all the store cities of Naphtali.
Now it happened that when Baasha heard of it, he ceased building up Ramah and stopped his work.
Then King Asa brought all Judah, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber with which Baasha had been building, and with them he built Geba and Mizpah.
(2 Chronicles 16:1-6 LSB)
The Political Problem (v. 1)
We begin with the geopolitical situation that Asa faced.
"In the thirty-sixth year of Asa’s reign Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah and built up Ramah in order to prevent anyone from going out or coming in to Asa king of Judah." (2 Chronicles 16:1)
Baasha, the king of the northern kingdom of Israel, makes a strategic move. He begins to fortify Ramah, a town located only about five miles north of Jerusalem. This was not a full-scale invasion; it was a political and economic power play. By controlling Ramah, Baasha could effectively create a blockade, cutting off trade and travel to and from Jerusalem. This was an act of aggression intended to choke Judah, to put a stranglehold on Asa's kingdom.
This is a test. After years of peace, a new pressure is applied. Notice the nature of the threat. It is not an overwhelming, existential crisis like the Ethiopian invasion. It is a slow squeeze, a logistical problem, a political headache. And it is often in these mundane, manageable problems that our true spiritual state is revealed. It is one thing to trust God when you are facing a million-man army; the odds are so ridiculous that only a fool would trust in anything else. But when the problem seems solvable by human ingenuity, when it looks like a matter for clever diplomacy and financial leverage, that is when the temptation to rely on the arm of the flesh is most potent.
The Pragmatic Solution (v. 2-3)
Asa's response is immediate, decisive, and entirely godless. He does not cry out to the Lord. He does not consult a prophet. He looks to his bank account and his Rolodex.
"Then Asa brought out silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of Yahweh and the king’s house, and sent them to Ben-hadad king of Aram, who lived in Damascus, saying, 'Let there be a covenant between you and me, as between my father and your father. Behold, I have sent you silver and gold; go, break your covenant with Baasha king of Israel so that he will withdraw from me.'" (2 Chronicles 16:2-3 LSB)
First, notice the source of the funds. Asa raids the treasuries of both the king's house and the house of Yahweh. The silver and gold dedicated to God, set apart for His worship and for the maintenance of His temple, is repurposed for a political bribe. This is a profound act of sacrilege disguised as statecraft. When a nation begins to see the treasures of God's house as just another resource to be liquidated for political expediency, it is a sign of advanced spiritual decay. Asa is treating the things of God as a means to his own ends. He is melting down the holy things to buy a pagan sword.
Second, notice the proposal. He sends this holy treasure to Ben-hadad, a pagan king in Aram, and proposes a covenant, an alliance. But this is not just any alliance. He explicitly asks Ben-hadad to break his existing covenant with Baasha. Asa's brilliant plan is to solve his problem by bribing a pagan to be treacherous. He is building his security on a foundation of faithlessness. He is hiring an unbeliever to be an oath-breaker. This is the logic of the world. It is a "realpolitik" that sees covenants as temporary, transactional arrangements to be discarded when a better offer comes along. But for a king of Judah, a king whose entire existence was predicated on God's covenant faithfulness, this is a staggering act of hypocrisy and unbelief.
Asa has forgotten the first and most basic lesson of covenant theology: you do not make common cause with the enemies of God. You do not form entangling alliances with those who worship false gods, because their loyalty is to their gods, not to you. Asa is yoking himself to an unbeliever, and he is doing it with God's money.
The Apparent Success (v. 4-5)
And here is the insidious part of the story. From a purely worldly perspective, Asa's plan works perfectly.
"So Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his military forces against the cities of Israel, and they struck down Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim, and all the store cities of Naphtali. Now it happened that when Baasha heard of it, he ceased building up Ramah and stopped his work." (2 Genesis 16:4-5 LSB)
The bribe works. Ben-hadad, being a good pagan with no allegiance higher than his own self-interest, takes the money and promptly betrays his ally. He attacks Israel from the north, forcing Baasha to abandon his construction project at Ramah to deal with this new threat on another front. The immediate problem is solved. The blockade is lifted. Ramah is neutralized. If you were a political analyst in Jerusalem, you would be writing columns praising Asa's shrewd and decisive leadership. You would call it a foreign policy masterstroke.
This is a crucial lesson for us. We cannot judge the rightness of an action by its immediate, apparent success. The world is full of wicked schemes that "work." Lies can get you out of trouble. Cheating can help you pass the test. Bribes can open doors. But worldly success is not the same as divine blessing. God, in His providence, often allows our faithless plans to succeed in the short term, precisely to reveal what is in our hearts and to set us up for a greater fall later on. The fact that a sin "works" does not make it any less a sin. It simply makes it a more subtle and dangerous temptation.
The Carnal Construction (v. 6)
Asa then capitalizes on his apparent victory, but the foundation of his new project is rotten.
"Then King Asa brought all Judah, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber with which Baasha had been building, and with them he built Geba and Mizpah." (2 Chronicles 16:6 LSB)
Asa takes the very materials Baasha had intended to use against him and uses them to build up his own defenses. He builds two of his own fortified cities, Geba and Mizpah. Again, this looks like wisdom. It looks like turning the enemy's weapons against him. It is the very picture of prudent, resourceful kingship.
But what is he building with? He is building with the stones of faithlessness. He is cementing his kingdom with the timber of godless pragmatism. These cities, Geba and Mizpah, were monuments to a successful foreign policy, but they were also monuments to a colossal failure of faith. They were strong walls built on a foundation of sand. Every time Asa looked at those fortifications, he should have been reminded not of his own cleverness, but of the moment he decided that Ben-hadad's army was a more reliable defense than the Lord of Hosts.
This is what happens when we rely on the arm of the flesh. We may get our cities built. We may solve our immediate problems. We may achieve a measure of worldly security. But we do so at the cost of our fellowship with God. We build monuments to our own ingenuity that are, in reality, memorials to our unbelief. And as the prophet Hanani will soon make clear to Asa, such buildings cannot stand. The security purchased with God's gold and a pagan's treachery is no security at all.
Conclusion: The Cost of a Clever Plan
This passage is a stark and timeless warning. Asa had a problem, and he solved it. But he solved it the wrong way, for the wrong reasons, and with the wrong resources. He chose the path of worldly wisdom over the path of faithful obedience. He forgot the God who had delivered him before and trusted instead in a political deal lubricated by holy money.
We face the same test every day, though on a smaller scale. We face a financial pressure, and our first instinct is to manipulate the numbers, not to pray. We face a conflict with a neighbor, and we scheme about how to get the upper hand, not how to love our enemy. We see a political threat to our way of life, and we are tempted to make alliances with any scoundrel who promises to fight our battles for us, forgetting that our ultimate trust is not in princes or presidents, but in the King of kings.
Asa's story reminds us that God is not just interested in the results; He is intensely interested in the methods. He does not just want us to be safe; He wants us to be faithful. He is not glorified when we achieve victory through carnal means. He is glorified when we, in the face of our fears, turn to Him, trust His promises, and obey His commands, even when it looks foolish to the world.
The stones of Geba and Mizpah stood for a time. But the kingdom built on such compromises eventually crumbled. Let us learn the lesson that Asa forgot in his thirty-sixth year. Let us not raid the house of God to pay off the pagans. Let us build our lives, our families, and our churches not with the stones of pragmatic unbelief, but on the bedrock of the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of all true wisdom.