2 Chronicles 33 talks about Manasseh, the most wicked king of Judah, the king whose wickedness was the reason for the captivity.
I want us to
examine that wickedness by looking at his father, Hezekiah.
Incidentally,
Hezekiah is widely known as a godly king with a stellar history of faith.
After he had
prayed against his death and was added fifteen years, he became proud. And it
is from that that we get these verses.
And of thy
sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away;
and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Then said
Hezekiah unto Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. And
he said, Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days? (2Kings 20: 18, 19)
It was therefore
in that backslidden state that he raised young Manasseh.
But his
backslidden state did not go as far as Solomon’s since only his heart had
shifted. It was only in his heart that fire for God had become all but
extinguished.
Outwardly, he
was the same Hezekiah
This people
draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but
their heart is far from me. (Matthew 15:8)
No wonder he had
no issues with his sons being castrated to serve other kings.
You see, with
pride, self becomes the predominantly guiding light.
In fact, even
his prayer against death went along those lines.
How can you be
so unfair, appears the pitch of that prayer.
You do not weep
bitterly unless you feel unfairly treated.
And to imagine
it was God it was directed at!
That is the kind
of heart that raised young Manasseh.
Sadly, the mouth
continued speaking the right things.
But we know that
children do not listen to words.
They normally
glean from the heart and spirit.
An example is
this parent who sends his children to buy him a smoke yet never forgets to
remind them that smoking is dangerous. Or the one railing against drunkenness
when they know that he becomes more talkative after a pint.
All his children
will become smokers despite all those warnings.
And that is what
happened to Hezekiah’s powerful testimonies of his earlier spiritual exploits.
The only thing
that young child was able to pick was that godless and rebellious spirit.
Another thing
that made it so tragic was that he had not grown enough to examine the evidence
to establish whether his father was lying or even what had happened for his
life to be that shallow.
He respected his
father and picked that rebellious spirit from him.
No wonder he
hated God with so much passion!
He couldn’t
distinguish between the God his father spoke so passionately and convincingly
about and the rebellious spirit he lived by.
This means that
when push came to shove, he would choose the spirit and trash the testimony.
Your actions are
speaking so loudly that I can’t hear what you are saying, is the outcome of a
life lived at cross purposes when picked by a child like Manasseh.
Your life is
being lived in full colour that there is absolutely no attraction at all from
the fuzzy, hazy and undistinguishable monochrome images your narratives are
trying to point me to.
I am still
speaking about spiritual leadership and parenting.
And we are doing
this all the time, whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we believe it or
not.
I know someone
is shouting to me to prove one or the other thing.
Manasseh is the
sum total of Hezekiah’s backslidden state.
And I will take
us to the answer people are asking for.
And when he
was in affliction, he besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly
before the God of his fathers, And prayed unto him: and he was intreated of
him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his
kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD he was God. And he took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house
of the LORD, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of
the LORD, and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city. And he repaired the
altar of the LORD, and sacrificed thereon peace offerings and thank offerings,
and commanded Judah to serve the LORD God of Israel. (2Chronicles 33: 12,
13, 15, 16)
He required his
own encounter with God to know that the God his father had been speaking about
was actually God and acted accordingly.
That realisation
could have led to a huge revival.
The only
impediment was that his earlier state had been so bad that it became impossible
for that revival to reverse the damage his spiritual heritage had planted.
This also proves
something many always refuse to face; and it is that the earlier someone
responds to and starts serving God, the better everything becomes.
Simply because
there is very little baggage involved.
I do not know
whether people say it nowadays, but when we were young, people would plead for
time to ‘eat’ life first and get saved later.
I have
ministered with that sample of believers and one very visible dynamic you will
notice without looking is regret.
The wastefulness
of a life lived outside God’s revelation cannot be hidden because the damages
accrued therein are constant pricks on one’s whole existence.
A worse thing
would be a backslidden life, especially Hezekiah’s kind of backsliding.
And that because
it is like a cancer eating ever so slowly and unobtrusively, especially to the backslider.
And some examples are in order.
Nevertheless
I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember
therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or
else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his
place, except thou repent. (Revelation 2: 4, 5)
The previous
verses read like a huge commendation.
Nothing about
the church was questionable.
But the fire in
their heart had waned.
That is what
they were being rebuked for.
Think about
doing ministry on autopilot!
This means it is
possible to do ministry for so long as to do it by instinct. To the point that
I can backslide and nobody will be able to know the difference.
Please note that
I am not talking about the outward backsliding as we see with Solomon, Uzziah
and many others.
Reminds me of
the ministers in Matthew 7
Many will say
to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy
name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then
will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work
iniquity. (Matthew 7: 22, 23)
They were not
able to know when their ministry was deleted from God’s records because they
were not able to see the fire in their hearts cooling off ever so slowly.
That is the
backsliding I want us to consider here.
And it is
important to do it because for the most part none of us is able to see it in us
or even in our circles.
And unto the
angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven
Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a
name that thou livest, and art dead.
(Revelation 3:1)
As was the case
with the church in Ephesus, the externals were glowing. But the internals were
completely kaput.
And both
required the eye of the Only One who could see the heart to diagnose their
situation.
It means that,
apart from God, only someone whose eyes God has opened can see that reality and
accurately address it.
Sadly, many
times, he is made the enemy by the systems and people in that state, something
I have seen enough times in ministry.
It requires
immense humility and faith from us to even imagine that we could be so
backslidden when the reports of our exploits are glowing wherever we look.
Incidentally,
that is why prophets are always endangered. They can see what God is seeing, an
unpleasant reality that we are not willing or ready to face.
But if we
released ourselves to God and allowed Him to shine His all-powerful flashlight
on our spirits, we will see ourselves as He sees us.
However, I feel
there are some guidelines to help us navigate this confusing maze where actions
and words are removed from the state of the heart. And self is the clearest
one.
By self, do not
just think of ego.
Think of
structures, histories, relationships, impacts,
What makes you
bend the rules ever so slightly?
Who takes you
from a ‘lesser’ ministry opportunities?
Why do you
refuse to minister at particular places?
What makes your
blood hot for no reason?
What makes you
look the other way when a supporter or partner is in the wrong?
When our life’s
direction shifts slightly off Christ and His agenda, Christ and His assignment,
Christ and His passion, Christ and His victory, we have shifted from the
straight and narrow.
We are slightly
off the centre. But off the centre all the same.
Why is it that
sycophants are the ones who get closest to the centre of ministries and
churches even as people who are known for their spirituality are slowly but
surely kicked away from those decision-making centres?
Why is it that
the people who enjoy the best support are the cheer leaders for the leadership
instead of the ones doing the actual ministry?
Why do senior
ministers with means shun their filial responsibilities if their own families
refuse to join their cheerleading choirs?
Why do senior
ministers ringfence their offices to block serious believers (especially those
they grew up with in ministry) from getting in?
Why is
retirement anathema to senior ministers?
All these
questions are meant to guide us to the state of our spirits.
But I believe it
is more important for us to get positive glimpses of the right thing.
A fire in the
spirit is indicated by an overflowing passion for God and His agenda, an agenda
that is completely opposed to the pursuit of mine.
He must
increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:30)
And we will
start with Biblical examples.
Jacob is dying.
He calls his
sons and reminds them of The Promise, reminding them to continue being faithful
to it and even requiring to be buried there.
Joseph is also
dying.
As a way of
ensuring that the promise is never forgotten, he requires an intergenerational
oath to ensure it is never forgotten by asking that his bones be buried in the
promised land. And it was a promise that would take centuries to come to
fruition.
Moses is told
his time was up.
Deuteronomy is
the product where he is passing his fire to the next generation. And he also
prepared Joshua and anointed him to take over from him.
We see the same
with Joshua. And David.
In the New
Testament, we see the same with Paul.
In his earlier
letters, he is pushing around as Paul.
In his later
letters, we are seeing him again passing the fire by issuing instructions and
guidelines to another generation of ministers, giving them status and authority
to minister.
We see the same
with Peter and John.
The fire of God
in a heart grows outward to infect others.
But it does more
than that.
It allows those
others to thrive, even outshine the origin of that fire.
Remember Moses
when some were reported to have prophesied outside the centre and someone
wanted them stopped?
And Moses
said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the LORD'S people
were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them! (Number 11:29)
A heart on fire
for God is not content blazing alone.
Fire always
spreads.
This means that,
if I am scared of seeing the spread of my fire; if I am scared of losing
control of that spread; if I want to always want to be in charge of my fire,
...
It is probably
the most glaring indication that I have lost my spiritual fire.
It is most
probably true that the fire I have is self created and self sustained.
It is probable
that I lost God’s fire loooong ago and am operating on counterfeit fire, a
strange fire that is offensive to God.
God’s fire
thinks about the next generation.
God’s fire
prepares aggressively to ensure that the next generation has even better tools
(greater fire) to blaze.
And God’s fire
prepares to exit the stage and watches that next generation blaze even better
than it did.
As I have
written about elders, that is the reason priests and Levites retired at fifty
as per God’s own commandment.
This is so that
they can enjoy seeing the result of their passing on their fire.
What am I
saying?
I am shouting
from the rooftops that you are completely and probably hopelessly backslidden if
you are unable think of ministry without you.
And the folly of
it all is that you will eventually exit that stage.
You will either
become too infirm to perform or even die.
Even the wife or
child you are planning to hand over to for your security will also exit.
Worse still,
they could become like little Manasseh who will put to shame everything you so
painfully built.
All because you
became too selfish to give God the space to run His enterprise.
Your fire is not
God’s fire unless it is intergenerational.
It is not God’s
fire unless it allows for your letting go of everything to allow it to spread
as God chooses.
Why is it so
difficult to let go of ministry you openly say is God’s when in your youth you
left everything, from jobs to classes to businesses, to pursue it?
Why is it
becoming painful to imagine that ministry thriving without you?
I know this is
an extremely hard teaching.
But I am
convinced it is a message for our generation.
Because we were
such a radical generation and nothing could stand between us and God’s
revelation.
We left families.
We left churches. We left jobs. We left businesses. We left security. We left
relationships.
It is hard to
imagine that God’s ministry has now become a personal enterprise or a club for
a select few.
Will we allow
God to shine His powerful spotlight on our hearts?
Will we go to
the closet to ensure He does it His way?
God bless you
