2 Kings 21:3-6 - He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he also erected altars to
Baal and made an Asherah pole, as Ahab
king of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the starry hosts
and worshiped them. He built altars in the
temple of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, "In Jerusalem I will put
my Name." In both courts of the
temple of the LORD, he built altars to all the starry hosts. He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced sorcery and
divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the LORD, provoking him to anger.
Manasseh’s life was so steeped in the worship
of other Gods…Baal…Asherah…mediums…fortune tellers…the sun…the moon...the stars…
he searched for answers from everyone…and anything that he had ever been told
had power. Any love he might have for God so totally displaced by his search
for power…that he felt it was okay to place their images right beside the one
true God…even inside the temple next to his holy ark. And what is even sadder…he
didn’t have a clue how angry he had made God.
The list here is undeniable…spiritists….fortune
telling…scorcery…divination…so that means that Ouija boards… astrology horoscopes
…and tarot cards are all methods that we need to stay away from. They use power
that is not of God…and they give us a false sense of what is God’s will for our
life. Their introduction to our lives
will do nothing but begin a confusion …a confusion that satan will take and eventually
twist into justifying the use of them in our lives.
Let’s just be radical and say that TV shows
and movies…or even books that glamorize the occult….use magic…or paint witches
as good people…or depict vampires and werewolves as good things…they could all be
tools that satan could use to eventually twist our mind into thinking that we
might need some of that power…because we haven’t tapped into the power God
gives us with the wisdom of his Bible. Shew…that is as dangerous as the run on
sentence I just wrote to describe it! It will make God angry…because it
separates us from the goodness and pure love he has waiting for us when we use
only prayer and the wisdom of his word to tell us what to do with our lives.
I admit that I loved the Twilight series…I
was sucked into its world…spent hours doing nothing but reading the next few
words of the plot….and waited in line with friends to see the movies. I watched the TV shows ‘Charmed’…. ‘Bewitched’… and ‘Medium.’ I played with a Quija board as a child…and
read my horoscope each day…sometimes even thinking the words had merit. Maybe I should have considered how angry and
hurt I was making God when I justified these things ….thinking that they could
never influence me in a permanent way…or replace my love for God. Maybe they are more dangerous than I ever
imagined…just because they made God mad.
God began his warnings about other gods in
Exodus 20:5….when he gave Moses the ten commandments. He told us …. “You shall not bow down to them
or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to
the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.” Then in Deuteronomy 4:24 he repeated a
warning to us… “For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” And just a few verses later in Deuteronomy
6:15 it repeats…. “for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God
and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of
the land.” Sounds pretty cut and dry to me…if I play around with anything that
God did not give me to live my life….I AM making him angry.
Father…thank you for reminding me today
that you are a jealous God. Help me to
purge from my life everything that might influence me to take my relationship with
you less serious. Show me how to keep my thoughts pure and focused on the
guidance your word gives me. Help me
understand the words I read in your Bible...so that I can use them to guard my
heart against other influences in my life…that you might consider another god.
Amen.
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