When Abijah was king over God’s people in the land of Judah, the king from the other part of Israel came to fight a war against them.

So Abijah lined up the fighting men against them and said, You all need to know that God gave the kingdom to David forever.

 

But this man, Jeroboam, who was a servant of Solomon is not from David and has bad men following him.

 

 

Do you think you can win against the kingdom of the Lord being led by sons of David.

You have many more soldiers than us and golden calves and priests who are not the ones that the Lord made priests for gods that are nothings.

The Lord our God is with us. We haven’t left Him. We have good talks with Him every morning and evening and serve Him like he said with the offerings and special bread and incense going up with our prayers.

 

 

 

 

His light is always shining for us in His temple,

 

 

 

but you have left Him who made us

 

 

 

 

and made heaven and earth.

 

 

 

O children of Israel, do not fight against us because you can’t win against the Lord.

 

 

But Jeroboam sent part of his army around behind Abijah’s army

 

 

 

so that they were surrounded.

 

 

When they saw the trouble they were in, they shouted out loud to God for help

 

 

 

and blew God’s trumpets to call to God for help.

The Lord God heard them right away and struck down the army that surrounded Abijah so that army ran away.

 

 

 

 

The children of Israel were put under the children of Judah at that time. The children of Judah won because they trusted in the Lord God.

 

 

 

When Abijah was done being king, his son, Asa, was king next.

 

Everything was peaceful and quiet in Israel for ten years because king Asa did what was good and right in front of God.

King Asa took away all the statues of the bad ones that the people were bowing down to and ruined all the places that the people were bowing to the bad ones so they couldn’t bow down to the bad ones any more.

The whole kingdom was quiet while king Asa cared for the people like God said to. There was no war.

After the ten years of good and quiet life, an army came from another country to fight with Israel. The other army had a million soldiers, much bigger than Israel’s army.

 

 

 

 

But Asa cried out to God for help and said, Lord, It is nothing for You to help us. Help us O Lord for we rest on You and in You we go against this many soldiers.

 

 

 

 

You are God. Don’t let these men win over You.

 

So the Lord struck down this army before Asa and Judah and that army ran away.

 

 

The invading army was beaten so badly that they couldn’t get up again. And all the cities became scared of the Lord God.

 

 

The Spirit of God put Himself on a man named Azariah and he went the meet king Asa. He said, Listen to me Asa and all the people.

 

 

The Lord is with you while you stay with Him. If you seek Him you will find Him, but if you leave Him, He will leave you.

 

 

(In those days no one could go anywhere because there was too much trouble everywhere.)

 

 

 

 

The Spirit of the Lord said, Be strong, don’t let your hands be weak because I will give you big rewards for the work you are doing.

 

When Asa heard these words he became brave and took away all the statues of the bad ones out of the land.

He also took away his mother from being queen because she made a big statue of a bad one and put it in a pretty garden and people went there and bowed down to it.

 

 

Asa took the statue and smashed it to dust and burned it at the brook.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The people gathered together and made a big party to the Lord God,

 

thanking Him over and over for how much He loves us and all that He does for us every day.

 

 

 

The people made a promise to the Lord to stay only to Him:

 

 

they promised with a loud voice and shouting and loud singing.

 

 

The people were very happy that they made this promise to God.

and the Lord God stopped all the trouble so that the people could go places and do things. There was no more trouble until Asa had been king for 35 years.