2 Kings 21:1-2
“Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.”
Manasseh, king of Judah, will go down in history as the king who caused the fall of the nation. It was not his foreign policy, his economic plan, or his tax code, that killed the nation. Instead, it was his view of God and his stance regarding sin that would weaken the nation, and lead to its collapse. Later we read,
2 Kings 23:26 “Nevertheless the Lord did not turn from the fierceness of His great wrath, with which His anger was aroused against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked Him.”
The sins of Manasseh include rebuilding high places, building altars to false gods, practicing soothsaying, and even sacrificing his children on altars to false gods. But the real driving force behind his sin was that he “paid no attention” to the word of God.
Our sins and their consequences may look entirely different than those of this ancient king, but the ultimate cause is always the same. When we ignore the Word and ways of God, and do life our own way, we will find ourselves living for things that will destroy us, and negatively impact the generations that follow us. For our sake, and the sake of those who will follow, we should carefully examine the Word of a God, and live according to the ways of God.
Pastor Jim
Imagine what this promise meant for Hezekiah. First, he was ill, so it meant he would be healed. Second, it meant he would have more time. Third, it meant a clock started that night, giving him an expiration date. Fifteen years from this promise, Hezekiah would breath his last. This promise has often made me wonder, “What I would do with fifteen more years?” How would you react, if suddenly you were given an expiration date? Let’s take a look at what Hezekiah did.
Assyria was on a campaign to conquer the world. Their armies were sent out to defeat any nation that showed the least resistance. Judah had watched as their neighbors Israel and Syria were defeated, and the people taken away as slaves. Now, with the Assyrian army at their doorstep, it seemed as though Judah would be the next to fall. Delegates, representing the king of Assyria, came to Jerusalem and openly threatened the people, in order to destroy what little confidence they might have had in the Lord. These delegates reminded the people that no other nation had been able to resist the Assyrian conquest, and Judah would be no different. It was here, they made their biggest mistake. They thought Israel’s God was no different than the manmade gods of other nations.
It seems to me, if one thing is certain in life, it is that things are constantly moving. We live on a moving planet. At the equator, the Earth is spinning at 1000 miles per hour, moving at 67,000 miles per hour around the Sun, and our entire Galaxy is moving at about 185 miles per second. Since this motion is constant, we cannot feel its effects. However, there is other movement that we do notice. The United States Geological Survey website lists dozens of earthquakes that have happened around the world in the past seven days. Earthquakes happen because the earth’s surface is like a thin crust. This crust is made up of many pieces, like a puzzle, and the pieces keep moving around and bumping into each other. This causes the surface of the earth to move like waves rippling in a pond. Also, about 70% of the earth’s surface is water. That means almost three-quarters of the earth is too unstable to stand upon. As far as I know, Jesus and Peter are the only two people to successfully stand on the surface of the water, and that did not last too long for Pete.
The Psalmist is speaking of the benefits derived from living in an intimate, abiding relationship with God. Jesus also spoke on the same subject when He refered to Himself as the vine and us as the branches. He made it clear, the only way to bear fruit in our life was by remaining in a close and personal relationship with Him. This verse expresses one of the most important benefits of abiding.
Webster’s dictionary defines secret as, “kept from view or hidden.”mIt goes on to speak of something as “being covert or stealth,” implying that great pains are taken to avoid detection.
Over the years I have discovered something about myself, I am better at projects than I am at maintenance. My yard is a classic example. We worked hard to irrigate, lay sod, and plant trees, and our yard looked good for a little while. As time went on however, we discovered that neglect undid much of our labors, and before long, things looked rather unkept. It seems like Azariah had a similar problem; while he desired to live pleasing to the Lord and made great strides, he still neglected certain areas that needed his attention. One area in particular, was the “high places”, where altars were built to false gods. These shrines were destructive to the nation because they served as an open door to lead the people away from the true and living God. The only way to properly deal with the high places was to aggressively attack the problem. Azariah needed to mount an offensive and destroy the altars.
The Northern tribes of Israel reached the zenith of their strength under king Jeroboam II. Here we are given insight into the secret behind their success:
When we are young we think we will live forever; death, even aging, is for other people. As we age, we still cannot imagine a world of which we are not a part. Yet, the Psalmist is making clear, we have been designed by God with a shelf life. In other words, one day we will expire. The bodies that we live in will no longer be able to sustain life, and we will move on to an eternal habitation. James put it like this, “For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away ” (James 4:14). The word ‘vapor’ is defined as, “diffused matter floating in the air impairing its transparency.” In other words, a vapor is only slightly more than nothing. It speaks of the fact that life on earth is transitory, not permanent. This does not mean that life is meaningless.
Even a casual reading of Scripture should reveal a pattern; when things get dark, God will raise up a deliverer. We see this when Israel was enslaved in Egypt and God raised up Moses, when they were oppressed by the Midianites and God called Gideon, and here, when Israel was harassed by Syria. A few things are worth noting. First, God responded to the cry of the king. Jehoahaz was not the godliest of men, but he knew enough to cry out to the Lord when things got difficult. We find that God responded to his pleading and sent a deliverer.
