II Kings 21:3 For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed: and he reared up altars for Baal, and made a grove, as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them.
Who Will Carry On?
Everything is new to people who do not pay attention to history. You may love history or you may be totally bored by history, but if we don’t pay attention to what has happened, we have no idea of what is going to happen in the future. I realize that no one knows the future, but human nature does not change. We keep making the same dumb mistakes generation after generation because we are not learning the lessons we should from history.
As I read II Kings, I become weary because I read about king after king who did not do well, but every once in a while you find a king who loved God, served Him, did great things, and built great monuments. But then the next generation was back in the brink again.
Manasseh was 12 years old when he began his reign, and he reigned 55 years. II Kings 21:2 says, “He did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, after the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.” So he was more influenced by the wicked world around him than he was by the father who raised him. Verse 3 says, “For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed.” Verse 6 says, “And he made his son pass through the fire.” We have three generations: Hezekiah who did great things, Manasseh who just one generation later built up all that his father had destroyed and destroyed all that his father had built up, and the third generation who just went up in smoke when Manasseh sacrificed his offspring to false gods.
Now we are doing that exact same thing right here, right now. I’m not trying to be hard on people with broken hearts. Please know that. But we can accomplish great things that do no good in the long run if we don’t train children to carry on without us after we are gone. Win the world? Yes! Seek God’s grace and build whatever He wants to build in our generation? Yes! But if we would just hold on to the kids we bring into the world, we would be doing better than we are right now.
Hezekiah was a godly man, but apparently he wasn’t a sufficient father. By that I mean that he was a noble king, but whatever else he may have built, he had not built a son. And whatever else he had destroyed, he had not destroyed the seeds of idolatry that grew in his own house in the heart of his own son. All of us have made mistakes, and God will give grace for the future. But we need to win the world by beginning in our own home.