Hello my ‘Walking with Jesus” friends,
Do you sometimes find yourself shaking your head at the news you hear from around our world? Does it seem standards of morality are crumbling into decadence in nearly all segments of your society? Does it seem standards of decency in all forms of media entertainment are collapsing into insanity? And yet do you still occasionally hear a voice of reason, a call to honor, someone standing courageously for what we intrinsically know to be God honoring right and good? Maybe you are that voice and if so I applaud you!
In the last few days we’ve been celebrating a man named Hezekiah who was that courageous voice about 2700 years ago in Israel. He honorably led the people of Judah in Jerusalem for 29 years and God poured out His great blessing upon that city and the people of Judah in those years, as we saw recorded in 2 Chronicles 29-32 & Isaiah 36-39. I’m sure it was a sad day when king Hezekiah finally died and perhaps there was great hope his young son Manasseh had learned well from his father as he ascended to the throne in Jerusalem, at the age of 12. (2 Kings 21:1)
But shockingly, in complete REJECTION of everything his father Hezekiah stood for and the leadership Hezekiah had given the people of Judah, young king Manasseh totally abandoned every good and positive initiative Hezekiah had instituted and Manasseh rapidly made every effort to turn Jerusalem back into the pagan city it had been under the reign of his grandfather king Ahaz, when the Temple had been closed and the worship of Almighty God of Israel had been outlawed! (2 Chron. 28:24,25) I doubt we can easily find vocabulary to express or explain what the people of Jerusalem were experiencing in the very dark years after king Hezekiah’s death.
Listen again to this paragraph which summarizes Manasseh’s remarkable reversal of his father Hezekiah’s leadership and Manasseh’s pursuit of God blaspheming evil and wickedness in Jerusalem: “Manasseh rebuilt the high places (for worshiping idols) which his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he also erected altars to Baal and made Asherah poles, as Ahab king of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them. He built altars for idols in the Temple of the LORD… He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced divination, sought omens, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He took the carved Asherah pole he had made and put it IN the Temple of the God of Israel.” (2 Kings 21:3-7)
Do you see king Manasseh not only embraced the evil idol worship of wicked nations around them, Manasseh overtly pursued the occult, the worship of Satan and the demonic forces, inviting them into Jerusalem!?
God’s message to Manasseh was terrifying: “I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab. I will wipe out Jerusalm as one wipes out a dish and turning it upside down.” (2 Kings 21:12,13) Sometimes God is very graphic and unmistakably clear when He warns a people. Even though it had been two generations before, the people of Judah had heard the horrific stories of what God had allowed the army of Assyria to do to the northern kingdom of Israel and its capital city Samaria in 722bc.
God’s explanation of that devastation is this: “The LORD rejected all the people of Israel; He afflicted them and gave them into the hands of plunderers, until He thrust them from His presence… as He had warned through all His servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria…” (2 Kings 17:20,23)
As king Mannaseh and the people of Jerusalem and Judah contemplated God’s warning to them they were forced to look closely at themselves and face the truth. Despite 29 wonderful years of God’s blessing under king Hezekiah, Jerusalem was now rapidly becoming a wicked city with idols everywhere including in the Temple of God but also Jerusalem was welcoming open occult and demonic activity. Even king Mannaseh had sacrificed his own son in the fire!
God was in evaluation mode and the days of God’s great blessing would soon be replaced by God’s judgment! God’s standards and what He expects from His people had not changed. God’s use of construction terms: “the measuring line and the plumb line” were significant in Jerusalem for the skyline of Jerusalem boasted some of the most amazing architecture and palaces seen anywhere in the middle east in that day. The people understood God uses His exact, holy standards for evaluation of our lives just as engineers or builders use exact standards for what is straight and plumb in construction.
King David had written centuries before, in Psalm 19 that “The heavens declare the GLORY of God, the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech, night after night they display God’s knowledge.” Isaiah had written: “Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power not one of them is missing!” (Is. 40:26)
God’s undeniable invitation, then and now, is for people to look up, day and night, to SEE the evidence of God’s majesty, His power, His presence, His careful watch over all He has created, including humanity. Yet the heart of their king Manassseh was hard and wicked, and quickly Jerusalem was turning into another Samaria, soon to experience God’s judgment! Look closely my friends, has that been happening in your city? Is God speaking to you and your city about that?
King Solomon had been led by God to write this warning: “Your evil ways are in full view of the LORD, and He examines all your paths. The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare them, the cords of their sins hold them fast. For lack of discipline they will die, led astray by their own great folly…” (Prov. 5:21-23) “The LORD detests those whose hearts are perverse, but He delights in those whose ways are blameless. Be sure of this: the wicked will not go unpunished…” (Prov. 11:20,21)
When God said “I will wipe out Jerusalm as one wipes out a dish and turning it upside down.” (2 Kings 21:13) The people understood God was declaring a TOTAL judgment upon Jerusalem IF they did not repent, remove from their city all the defilement, and turn back to God. In fact these additional warning words from God were very frightening: “I will forsake the remnant of My inheritance and give them into the hands of their enemies. They will be looted and plundered by all their enemies…” (2 Kings 21:14)
The thought of God turning away from His people leaving them vulnerable to the wicked and vicious enemies who sought their destruction was almost beyond imagination! But I must point out to us one additional statement made by God: “Moreover, Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end…” (2 Kings 21:16)
King Manasseh reigned for 55 years with an iron fist, intolerant of anyone or anything he perceived was opposed to his leadership or had become a burden on society. That could be elderly people or disabled people or unwanted pregnancies. It calls us to look at our cities, wherever you and I live around the world. Is innocent blood being shed? Is evil and wickedness growing and accepted? Is dishonesty, immorality, corruption and even the demonic on the rise where you live?
What words is God speaking today over your city and mine as He stretches out His measuring line and plumb line holding our cities to His high and holy standards? Would it be wise for us to pause right here for serious contemplation about our cities, our nation, our own hearts and God’s warnings. Here’s a worship song to help us in reflection and decision.
Today’s Scripture: 2 Kings 21:10-16.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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