One man can change the Course

 Jeremiah 15:1-4

How the life of one man can change the course of a people and a nation that is the story told in these verses.  Often we have heard a pastor say that sin will always take us deeper than we had any intention of going and now that is being made clear in the life of one evil king named Manasseh.  A timeline helps me as I look for understanding in the Scriptures.  So let’s begin with King Hezekiah 715-686 B.C. and His son Manasseh’s time line was 687–642 B.C. This is the account found in 2 Kings 21:1-9 of his age at the beginning of his reign, and the sins of this evil king.

“Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hephzibah. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem will I put my name.” And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. And he burned his son as an offering and used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. And the carved image of Asherah that he had made he set in the house of which the Lord said to David and to Solomon, his son, “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever. And I will not cause the feet of Israel to wander any more out of the land that I gave to their fathers if only they will be careful 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 led them astray to do more evil than the nations had done whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel.”

As you read Jeremiah 15:1-3 you will see God’s judgments; those destined for death; those intended for the sword; those destined for a famine; and those destined for captivity, and if given a choice there would be no takers.  But therein lies a paradox, you and I choose to sin, in doing so we choose judgment and not blessings.

So the life of one corrupt leader and the agreement of the people to follow that leadership began cancer, and it was many years later that the people were called into account.  As a follower of Jesus Christ each day we choose God’s blessing or His curses as did the people of Jeremiah’s day, and the question will be asked; what will you choose?

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice