Pertanyaan: 965. Bagaimana Kita Dapat Mendamaikan Pernyataan bahwa Asa Membenci Allah dengan Pernyataan Tegas dalam Buku Lain bahwa Hati Asa Sempurna dengan Tuhan Sepanjang Hidupnya?
Pernyataan terakhir dalam I Raja-raja 15:14 tidak eksplisit. Anda harus ingat bahwa Asa telah ditegur karena mengambil keputusan sendiri dan menunjukkan ketidakpercayaan kepada Allah (lihat II Tawarikh 16:7-10), dan ia sangat marah kepada nabi yang menegurnya, memenjarakannya dan menghukum orang lain yang mungkin memiliki pikiran yang sama dengan nabi tersebut. Ia mengulangi kesalahannya saat sakit, dan mungkin jika kita tahu jenis dokter yang ia konsultasikan, kita akan mengerti mengapa Allah sangat marah padanya. Seperti yang dikatakan nabi kepadanya pada awalnya, ia, dari semua orang, seharusnya mencari pertolongan Allah dalam keadaan darurat, karena Allah telah menyelamatkannya dalam kesulitan yang besar. Sikap raja yang ditunjukkan saat ditegur membenarkan pernyataan bahwa ia membenci Allah, meskipun pada tahun-tahun awalnya ia telah melakukan beberapa hal yang sangat baik. Penulis Tawarikh dan Raja-raja pasti bersyukur kepadanya atas hal-hal ini, dan dengan gaya istana memuji dia atas kebaikan yang telah dilakukannya, dan mengabaikan kejahatan.
Question: 965. How Can We Reconcile the Statement that Asa Hated God with the Explicit Statement in Another Book that Asa's Heart Was Perfect with the Lord All His Days?
The latter statement in I Kings 15 : 14 is not explicit. You must remember that Asa had already been reproved for taking matters in his own hand and showing distrust of God (see II Chron. 16: 7-10), and had been very angry with the prophet who reproved him, putting him in prison and punishing others who apparently were of the same mind as the prophet. He repeated his fault in his sickness, and perhaps if we knew the kind of physicians he consulted we should understand why God was so angry with him. As the prophet told him in the first instance, he, of all men, had reason to look to God in an emergency, as God had come to his rescue in a sore strait. The temper the king showed under reproof justifies the statement that he hated God, though in his earlier years he had done some very good things. The writers of Chronicles and Kings were doubtless grateful to him for these things, and in courtly fashion praised him for the good he had done, and overlooked the evil.
