He even...

He even set a carved image of Asherah that he had made, in the house of which the Lord had 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 make the feet of Israel wander anymore from the land which I gave their fathers—only if they are 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 paid no attention, and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel. – 2 Kings 21.7-9

We are getting close to the end of the kings of Judah. There are few good ones, but Manasseh is NOT one of them. He was a really wicked king. He is listed among the worst. Not only was he wicked but he got the people to follow him into wickedness. He was so evil that ‘he even set a carved image of Asherah that he had made in the house’ of the Lord. This was the very place where God had said to David and Solomon that God would set His name there forever.

This is horrible! How could a king bring the image of a false god to defile God’s holy Temple? His leadership seduced the people to ‘do more evil that the nations’ that God had destroyed for Israel.

It doesn’t make any sense does it?

I think though that we can do virtually the same thing as believers today. We know that our bodies are the ‘temple of the living God.’ We are bought with a price so we ought to glorify God in all that we do.

And yet we, like Manasseh, can drag our false gods into our lives. We drag in the gods of greed and materialism and lusts and anger and selfishness and pride, as well as any number of more obvious sins into our lives and hence into the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. We defile our temple just as surely as Manasseh did. Paul wrote about this when he said ‘And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God,and they shall be My people.”

It is easy to condemn Manasseh, but what idols are you and I allowing in our lives? How are we defiling our temples?