A Perpetual Problem
6/29/26 Bible Thought (2 Kings 21)
Main Idea: God does not tolerate competition in the hearts of His people.
A Look at the Text:
As we continue our journey through the Kings, we see that things changed significantly after Hezekiah was gone. While Hezekiah wasn’t perfect, he is remembered as a righteous king because of his devotion to Yahweh.
Yet, when his son, Manasseh, took the throne, things changed. God had chosen His people to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (see Ex. 19:5), but Manasseh instead followed the customs of the Canaanites whom the people of Israel were to drive out from the land.
In fact, Manasseh led Judah into greater evil than the Canaanites themselves were guilty of! (2 Kings 21:9). For this, the prophets condemned him. Judgment and disaster were sure to come for the land of Judah (2 Kings 21:10-15). God was going to fulfil the covenantal curses that were laid out in Deuteronomy 28:15-68 in response to His people’s rebellion.
Manasseh worshipped the host of heaven, erected altars for Baal and Asherah, and even sacrificed one of his sons to idols. This idolatry then continued into the next generation with his son, Amon (2 Kings 21:21). They abandoned Yahweh. In response, He would turn them over to the Babylonians in just a few generations.
Bringing it Home:
The very first commandment of the 10 Commandments is that God’s people would have no other gods before or besides Him (Ex. 20:3). While the living God is truly without rival, He still doesn’t like competition for the hearts of His people. He yearns for undivided worship. He has never tolerated idolatry as if it were of little consequence.
“You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3).
In the modern age, we can quickly conclude we are beyond this. Idolatry is merely a thing of the past. Right? None of us has an Asherah pole in our backyard or a little carved Baal figurine in the living room. While our idols might not be fashioned by our hands in this way, the apostle Paul once charged believers at Colossae:
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry (Col. 3:5, emphasis added).
To covet material things is to elevate them to a place of prominence that is sinful. It is to worship an element of creation whereby we conclude that our hearts will be satisfied if we only had that thing, whatever it is. That is just one area where idolatry can fix its grip on the believer’s heart.
Observing the perpetual issue of idolatry, John Calvin once concluded
From this we may gather that man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.[1]
As human beings, we are worshippers by nature. The only question is: what is the object of our worship?
Challenge:
Does my God have any competition for my heart?
[1] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1 & 2, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 108.