Because you relied on the king of Syria and not on the Lord your God… – 2 Chronicles 16:7, Amplified Bible

The book of 2 Chronicles records that King Asa of Judah fought only one war in the first thirty-five years of his forty-one year reign. In that war, Asa faced an army of Ethiopians and Libyans that numbered 1 million. In contrast, Asa’s army numbered 580,000. Outnumbered almost two to one, Asa cried out to The Lord for help, and God rewarded Asa’s faith in Him with a miraculous victory followed by twenty-five years of peace.

In Asa’s thirty-sixth year, war came again. This time, Baasha, King of Israel, brought the fight to Judah’s doorsteps. In order to defeat Baasha, however, Asa didn’t call upon the Lord. Instead, he made a league with the king of Syria, and together they drove Baasha back to Israel. Victory was again Asa’s, but this time victory came with a heavy price. As 2 Chronicles 16:7 and 16:9 record:

7 At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, Because you relied on the king of Syria and not on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you…

9 …from now on you shall have wars.

Asa’s late-life propensity to rely on man rather than on God not only cost him lasting peace for his people. It also cost him his life. As 2 Chronicles 16:12-13 (AMP) records:

12 In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet—until his disease became very severe; yet in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but relied on the physicians.

13 And Asa slept with his fathers, dying in the forty-first year of his reign.

Bad things happen when we rely on man rather than on God. Particularly bad, however, is when someone who has a habit of relying on God rather than man forsakes God’s way of provision for man’s. Asa knew better than to rely on man, and most of his life he didn’t. Most of his life, he relied on God. Yet in his latter years he somehow forgot the words that God spoke to him through the prophet Azariah just after his victory over the Ethiopians and Libyans:

Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: the Lord is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him [inquiring for and of Him, craving Him as your soul’s first necessity], He will be found by you; but if you [become indifferent and] forsake Him, He will forsake you. – 2 Chronicles 15:2, AMP

It is absolutely, 100% possible to access the mighty power of God at one stage of our lives and then lose that power by turning our attention away from God and unto man. It is a danger every God-fearing Christian faces, and it is a temptation that we all must guard against.

When tempted to rely on the strength of man – whether we want to place that reliance in ourselves or in someone else – remember Asa’s failures of faith. Though a king, though a victor over great armies, and though possessing a heart that God called “blameless” in 2 Chronicles 15:17, Asa finished his life as a bitter (2 Chronicles 16:10), sickly man, all because he stopped putting his faith in God and started putting his faith in man.

Relying on man isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. God knows that, and so should we.