2 Kings 21:1-25

There is clearly a battle that rages for the hearts and souls of men.  This is a fallen planet and Satan has great power and influence over the inhabitants of the Earth.  Hezekiah had just finished tearing down all of the high places in Israel.  This was obviously not something that Satan was pleased with and he would not stand by and just let this happen without any response.  Manasseh, Hezekiah’s son is an instrument in Satan’s hands and he goes out a rebuilds all of the idols that his father had torn down.  We must be careful to not relax after a great spiritual victory or ever consider any area of sin in our lives to be “conquered.”  We must be constantly vigilant knowing that we are vulnerable to temptation and failure no matter how victorious we have been in the past.

MANASSEH CONTRADICTS ALL THE GOOD HEZEKIAH HAD DONE: Hezekiah had a difficult but productive reign.  He was obedient to the Lord and cleaned up the idol worship in Israel better than any king ever had.  Despite, or more likely because of, his faithfulness, he faced constant war, he was likely highly criticized from within and he had poor health.  There are no guarantees in life that if we are faithful to the Lord that all will go well with us.  Actually, the Scriptures promise just the opposite; Paul tells us that ALL who live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.  Manasseh chose the path of least resistance.  He saw his father suffer for doing good and wanted no part of it.  He decided the price for serving God was too high and decided to rebuild all of the high place his father had destroyed and build altars to idols in the temple of the Lord.  He had a long reign of 55 years and likely had much more peace than his father did.  From a human perspective Manasseh was much more “successful” than Hezekiah.  But on the judgment day when all men will stand before God; I would much prefer to be Hezekiah than Manasseh.  We must never fall into the trap of measuring our success by human perspectives or standards.

AMON CONTINUES ALL THE EVIL MANASSEH HAD DONE: Amon, Manasseh’s son reigned after him but did not fare quite as well.  His reign only lasted for two years and at the age of twenty-four he was assassinated.  In reality, Amon was fortunate to have survived that long since his father had sacrificed several of his siblings as acts of worship to the many false gods he served.  Amon continued to follow the way of his father and he displeased the Lord greatly.  There are times where God steps in and interrupts history and says: “enough is enough;” however, those instances are not as common as we would like them to be or think that they should be.  We must trust these things in the hand of our sovereign Lord and know that when He acts, or chooses not to act; He does so from the position of an all knowing, all powerful God.  We must simply learn to trust Him in all of these circumstances.