How is your influence impacting future leaders? (106-3)

Leaders can set dynamics in motion, both positive and negative, that continue to influence the world long after they are gone. Read 2 Kings 21:1-9.

Hezekiah prayed to God while he was on his death bed and received an extra 15 years of life. Prior to this life extension the Bible gives only a glowing report of Hezekiah’s actions. It was during these 15 years that Hezekiah became prideful and had to be rebuked by God through the prophet Isaiah. It was also during those 15 years a son named Manasseh was born. At Hezekiah’s death, Manasseh became king of Judah. Manasseh was 12 years old when he became king and he ruled in Jerusalem over the nation of Judah for 55 years.

Manasseh grew up in the home of a different Hezekiah than if he had been born in Hezekiah’s early God-honoring years. Hezekiah’s less than God-honoring influence, or at least the lack of zeal to be aggressively obedient to God’s laws, shows up in his son Manasseh’s life and rule after Hezekiah’s death. The following are just a few statements found in chapter 21 concerning Manasseh:

• He did evil in the eyes of the Lord following the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites (v. 2).
• He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed (v. 3).
• He also erected altars to Baal and made an Asherah pole, as Ahab king of Israel had done (v. 3).
• He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them (v. 3).
• He built altars to worship the starry hosts right in the temple of the Lord (v. 4-5).
• He sacrificed his own son in the fire of a false god, practiced sorcery, and consulted with mediums and spiritists rather than the God of Israel (v. 6).
• He led the people astray so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites were given the land (v. 9).

Manasseh misused his divinely-bestowed power by abandoning the reforms his father Hezekiah had instituted and corrupted the entire nation of Judah. Under his misguided leadership, Judah suffered an irreversible spiritual decline. Even the later reforms under his grandson Josiah were insufficient to turn the tide of national deterioration. And, all this was set in motion during the last 15 years of Hezekiah’s reign when he did not demonstrate spiritual zeal to stay true to God’s principles.

Manasseh’s actions so angered God that He spoke the following words: “Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says: ‘I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab. I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. I will forsake the remnant of my inheritance and hand them over to their enemies’” (2 Kings 21:12-13).

Leaders by definition are people who have influence. If you were gone tomorrow and your influence was demonstrated through your team’s future actions, would the results of your influence please and honor God? Wise, godly leaders regularly evaluate their attitude and actions and make changes when necessary to consistently honor God; striving to insure their continuing influence through their team has a chance to carry God-honoring values into the future.