This
week we are looking at the life of a
king of the Jewish people named Manasseh, who led the Jewish people for 45
years, which was the longest period of rule for any King of the Jewish people. Yesterday,
we discovered that during the first 39 years of King Manasseh’s leadership of
the Jewish people, King Manasseh distinguished himself as perhaps the most evil
king that ever led the Jewish people. King Manasseh selfishly rebelled against
the Lord by following the
detestable customs of the foreign nations that the Lord had driven out from the
land that He had given the Jewish people in seven specific ways.
King Manasseh’s selfish and
rebellious worship of false gods instead of the one true God insulted the Lord
and provoked the Lord in a way that angered the Lord. However, over the passage
of time, King Manasseh’s selfishness and rebellion against the Lord only
continued to increase, as we see in verse 7:
Then he set
the carved image of Asherah that he had made, in the house of which the LORD
said to David and to his son Solomon, "In this house and in Jerusalem,
which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever.
"And I will not make the feet of Israel wander anymore from the land which
I gave their fathers, if only they will observe to do according to all that I
have commanded them, and according to all the law that My servant Moses
commanded them." But they did not listen, and Manasseh seduced them to do
evil more than the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the sons of Israel.
You
see, not only did King Manasseh build altars for the public worship of the sun, moon, and stars in the courtyard of the Temple.
King Manasseh then proceeded taint and pollute the Temple by placing an image
of the false god Asherah in the Temple itself. In addition, King Manasseh
rejected the covenant agreement that the Jewish nation had entered into with
the Lord to follow and obey the Lord.
Instead, King Manasseh led the
Jewish people to reject the worship of the Lord to instead live a life that
worshiped and participated in the very activities that led the Lord to give the
Jewish people the Promised Land in the first place. King Manasseh seduced the
Jewish people away from a love relationship with the Lord to an adulterous
relationship with false gods in such a way that was far more displeasing to the
Lord than any of the behavior of the nations that the Lord had previously removed
from the Promised Land. We see how the Lord responded to the spiritual adultery
of King Manasseh and the Jewish people in verse 10:
Now the LORD
spoke through His servants the prophets, saying, "Because Manasseh king of
Judah has done these abominations, having done wickedly more than all the
Amorites did who were before
him, and has also made Judah sin with his idols; therefore thus says the LORD,
the God of Israel, 'Behold, I am bringing such calamity on Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever hears of it,
both his ears will tingle. 'I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria
and the plummet of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a
dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. 'I will abandon the remnant of My
inheritance and deliver them into the hand of their enemies, and they will
become as plunder and spoil to all their enemies; because they have done evil
in My sight, and have been provoking Me to anger since the day their fathers
came from Egypt, even to this day.'"
Because
King Manasseh had seduced and led the Jewish people to follow and embrace the
detestable customs of the foreign nations that the Lord had driven out from the
land that He had given the Jewish people, the Lord had a message for King
Manasseh. And that message, which was delivered through His spokespersons the
prophets, was this: “Behold, I am bringing such calamity on Jerusalem
and Judah, that whoever hears of it, both his ears will tingle.”
In other words, the Lord was
going to bring such distress and misery upon the Jewish people that the ears of
those who hear of it would ring and quiver in disbelief. The prophets who
proclaimed this message of misery and distress then painted a powerful word
picture of God’s judgment and justice. Just as a builder uses a measuring line
and level to assess and measure the quality of his work, the Lord would assess
and measure the Jewish people according to the same right and just standard
that He had used with the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
And, just as it was with the
Northern Kingdom of Israel under King Ahab, the Southern Kingdom of Judea under
King Manasseh would fail miserably when it came to meeting God’s standards. And
just like a dirty dish that is wiped clean and set to dry, the Lord would
exercise His right and just response to the selfishness and rebellion of the
Jewish people by removing them from the land that the Lord had given them.
The Lord was now abandoning the
Jewish people as they had abandoned Him to worship false gods instead of the
one true God. King Manasseh, and the Jewish people’s, selfish and rebellious
worship of false gods instead of the one true God insulted the Lord and
provoked the Lord in a way that would result in the Southern Kingdom’s
destruction, along with the people and possessions deliverance into the hands
of their enemies.
Now I want us to take a minute
and imagine ourselves in this event from history as King Manasseh. I want us to
place ourselves in his shoes. As a result of your leadership and worship of
false gods, the Lord has sent to you his messengers the prophets with a message
of judgment and destruction.
You are King Manasseh. What
would you be thinking as you heard this message? What would you be feeling? How
would you respond?
Friday, we will see how King
Manasseh responded...
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