Rev. Don Campbell
2 Chronicles 32-33
THOUGHT FOR TODAY, August 3, 2019
“THE NEXT GENERATION”
Yesterday we read about Hezekiah and Chamberlain’s peace-in-my-day statements. For Chamberlain, it was empty words. Hezekiah did die in peace as a very wealthy king. He slept with his fathers (2 Chronicles 32:33) and his son Manasseh began to reign at age 12 and reigned for 55 years. “And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (2 Chronicles 33:2). He undid the good that Hezekiah had done ( 2 Chronicles33:3-9). He was captured and taken to Babylon. In his distress, he humbled himself and prayed to God who brought him back to Jerusalem and his kingdom (2 Chronicles 33:10-13).
There are several lessons. An obvious one is that God is a forgiving God. A less-obvious lesson is in the form of a question. Would Manasseh’s undoing of the good his father had done not taken place had Hezekiah put as much into the rearing of his son as he did in making treasures for himself (2 Chronicles32:27-30)? Solomon wrote: “I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 2:18-19).
A second less-obvious lesson is embedded in the question of how many people died as idolaters during the reign of Manasseh? We will never know, but we do read of the same events in 2 Kings 21:10-15: “Then the Lord said through his servants the prophets: ‘King Manasseh of Judah has done many detestable things. He is even more wicked than the Amorites, who lived in this land before Israel. He has caused the people of Judah to sin with his idols. So this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I will bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of those who hear about it will tingle with horror. I will judge Jerusalem by the same standard I used for Samaria and the same measure I used for the family of Ahab. I will wipe away the people of Jerusalem as one wipes a dish and turns it upside down. Then I will reject even the remnant of my own people who are left, and I will hand them over as plunder for their enemies. For they have done great evil in my sight and have angered me ever since their ancestors came out of Egypt” (NLT).
The poet John Donne reminds us:
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
The more powerful and influential one is, the more one’s selfish actions will affect family, friends, the church, the nation, and the world. However, we do not have to be among the mighty for our actions to affect all within our sphere of influence, not only in our own generation but it the one to follow.
CONNECTIONS
1. Regardless of the size of your family or how large or how small your circle of friends, will “your” next-generation be better for you having been here?
2. Is there someone who has impacted your life’s story in a positive way? Thanking them is nice but paying it forward is better. What’s your plan?
