2 Chronicles 14:7
So he said to the people of Judah, "Let us build these cities and surround them with walls and towers, with doors and bars. The land is still ours because we have sought the LORD our God. We have sought Him and He has given us rest on every side." So they built and prospered.
Sermons
The Duty of Improving Present OpportunityJ. G. Breay, B.A.2 Chronicles 14:7
Rest on Every SideW. Clarkson 2 Chronicles 14:1, 5, 6, 7
Quiet in the LandT. Whitelaw 2 Chronicles 14:1-8
Constructive GodlinessW. Clarkson 2 Chronicles 14:2, 4, 6, 7














Human energy and capacity show themselves in two forms -in the destructive and in the constructive. Though action of the latter kind is the more honourable and admirable of the two, yet that of the former is also useful and needful in its time. Moses did a very good work for the people of Israel when he ground to powder the golden calf; and Hezekiah, when he broke in pieces the brazen serpent and called it "a bit of brass;" and the Christians of Ephesus did a wise as well as a worthily sacrificial thing when they burnt the "books" out of which they had been making large profits for their pocket (Acts 20:19). Destructive godliness sometimes indicates a devotedness, and sometimes renders a service which deserves to take high rank amongst the excellences and even the nobilities of human worth. We look at -

I. THE DESTRUCTIVE PIETY SHOWN BY THE KING. He removed the high places set apart for idolatrous worship, also the altars of false gods; he "cut down the groves" where moral and devotional abominations were likely to be committed; he "took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made" (1 Kings 15:12). And that which was, perhaps, more than all this, as evidencing a sincerity and thoroughness of heart toward God, and justifying the language used by the Chronicler (ver. 2) concerning him, he destroyed the idol of Maachah, and even removed that idolatrous queen from the official dignity she had been enjoying. Asa, therefore, struck a very decisive and damaging blow at the idolatry of his time; he powerfully and effectually discouraged iniquity and immorality in three ways:

1. He showed his own personal and royal hatred of them.

2. He rebuked and punished the perpetrators of them.

3. He took away the means of indulging in them.

By these measures he strove well and wrought successfully for the truth of God and for the purity of his people.

II. OUR OWN ACTION IN THE SAME DIRECTION, In what ways shall we serve God by a destructive piety?

1. By promoting wise legislative measures. There arc evils which it is needless to name from which large numbers of people need to be protected. To be tempted by them is to be overcome, is to be slain by them; they are active sources of evil and of suffering, of ruin and of death; they ought to be suppressed; and one part of a Christian man's duty is to join his fellow-citizens in cutting down or "removing those high places" of the land.

2. By excluding evil things and evil persons from the home. There are men and there is literature concerning whom and concerning which we can only say that they arc sources of defilement; and if we have not power, like an Oriental monarch, to forbid them the land, we can forbid them the home; we can see that, in respect of those who are in our charge and for whose well-being we are responsible, that these men and these books are well beyond reach.

3. ,By putting down evil language. This we may do, in many quarters, by firmly discountenancing and fearlessly condemning it; the voice of righteous reprobation will soon silence the profane and lascivious tongue.

4. By expelling from our own life that which imperils our moral or spiritual integrity. Every man must know, or should know, what habits (in eating or drinking, in recreation, etc.) are fascinating, absorbing, dangerous to himself; must know in what direction it is perilous to set out, lest he should go too far. There let him determinately bar the way; that threatening habit let him exclude rigorously from his life (see Matthew 5:29, 30). - C.

Therefore said he unto Judah, Let us build these cities... while the land is yet before us
(a Sunday-school sermon): — Consider —

I. THE OPPORTUNITY FOR LABOUR WITH WHICH WE ARE BLESSED. "The land is yet before us."

1. We have liberty to labour.

2. The facilities are great: multiplication of elementary books, circulation of Bibles, etc.

3. The encouragements are numerous. The prejudices of society are in our favour. God's command, etc.

II. THE IMPORTANCE OF LABOURING WHILE WE HAVE THIS OPPORTUNITY.

1. What is the work to which we are called? That of teaching the young the Word of God (Deuteronomy 6:6, 7; Psalm 78:5, 7; Proverbs 22:6).

2. The duty of improving existing opportunities. Conclusion: Address children. If you had to pass through a long and dark passage where there were many deep pits, how anxious, at the beginning, would you feel for light. Such is the Word of God given to you at your entrance into life (Psalm 119:105).

(J. G. Breay, B.A.)

People
Abijah, Asa, Benjamin, Cushites, David, Ethiopians, Zerah
Places
Bethel, Gerar, Jerusalem, Mareshah, Valley of Zephathah
Topics
Bars, Build, Building, Built, Cities, Compass, Doors, Gates, Giveth, Judah, Locks, Ours, Peace, Prosper, Prospered, Rest, Round, Sought, Surround, Towers, Towns, Two-leaved, Wall, Walls, Yet
Outline
1. Asa following, destroys idolatry
6. having peace, he strengthens his kingdom with forts and armies
9. Calling of God, he overthrows Zerah, and spoils the Ethiopians

Dictionary of Bible Themes
2 Chronicles 14:7

     5323   gate
     5585   towers
     5604   walls

2 Chronicles 14:2-7

     6703   peace, divine OT

Library
Asa's Prayer
'And Asa cried unto the Lord his God, and said, Lord, it is nothing with Thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O Lord our God; for we rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go against this multitude. O Lord, Thou art our God; let not man prevail against Thee.'--2 CHRON. xiv. 11. This King Asa, Rehoboam's grandson, had had a long reign of peace, which the writer of the Book of Chronicles traces to the fact that he had rooted out idolatry from Judah, 'The land had rest,
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Asa's Reformation, and Consequent Peace and victory
'And Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God; 3. For he took away the altars of the strange gods, and the high places, and brake down the images, and cut down the groves: 4. And commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers, and to do the law and the commandment. 5. Also he took away out of all the cities of Judah the high places and the images: and the kingdom was quiet before him. 6. And he built fenced cities in Judah: for the land had rest, and he had no
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Asa
BY REV. ALFRED ROWLAND, D.D., LL.B. 1 KINGS xv. 8-24; 2 CHRON. xiv-xvi. Asa was the third king who reigned over the separated kingdoms of Judah. His father was Ahijah, of whom it is sternly said, "He walked in all the sins of his father, Rehoboam, which he had done before him." A worse bringing-up than Asa's could scarcely be imagined. As a child, and as a lad, he was grievously tempted by his father's example, and by the influence of an idolatrous court, which was crowded by flatterers and
George Milligan—Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known

The Best Things Work for Good to the Godly
WE shall consider, first, what things work for good to the godly; and here we shall show that both the best things and the worst things work for their good. We begin with the best things. 1. God's attributes work for good to the godly. (1). God's power works for good. It is a glorious power (Col. i. 11), and it is engaged for the good of the elect. God's power works for good, in supporting us in trouble. "Underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut. xxxiii. 27). What upheld Daniel in the lion's den?
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

Chronicles
The comparative indifference with which Chronicles is regarded in modern times by all but professional scholars seems to have been shared by the ancient Jewish church. Though written by the same hand as wrote Ezra-Nehemiah, and forming, together with these books, a continuous history of Judah, it is placed after them in the Hebrew Bible, of which it forms the concluding book; and this no doubt points to the fact that it attained canonical distinction later than they. Nor is this unnatural. The book
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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