Missed Opportunity: Children of the Marred Pattern – 2 Kings 21:19-26

Since the industrial revolution, the factories of the world are increasingly using stamp patterns, punch presses and mold casts. In each of these machine, they found the wonder of having a worker that seldom needs a break, reproduces exactly what is desired, and works without the need for coffee. The one problem occurs when the pattern or mold is flawed. With a flawed mold, there are consistently flawed products. That is why the engineers spend so very long trying to get the pattern right – it has everything to do with the final result. It isn’t the “glitzy” part of the job, with gears spinning and plates bouncing up and down, but the pattern is the most important part of the set up process. Sadly, I share this with a generation that has increasingly become convinced that the pattern of the children’s lives in their family can be set by those who don’t know God in warehouses determined mostly by “are they safe”, “can we afford this” and “is it near where I work”.I want to look at what the pattern in the life of a child produces. The last story in 2 Kings demonstrated that you cannot out sin God’s love. Manasseh was a monster, but when he fell on his face before an incredibly impatient God, the Lord forgave a restored him. After his death, there came a son that spent more time being raised under the pattern of a disobedient dad than the repentant one. Amon had a choice to make.Lest we make it seem that all was right in the kingdom on Manasseh’s death, don’t forget the real scene:

• Judah was now a full tax paying vassal of the Assyrian confederation, and it was free only within the confines of raising a huge sum each year to care for its obligations. Failure to do so was a disaster not to be repeated as his grandfather Hezekiah could attest (18:14). That meant that it was getting harder to make ends meet in the home.
• In addition, the country had seen great restoration to the Lord twice in two generations: The work of grandfather Hezekiah in his vast reforms, and the work of his father Manasseh after being dragged away and publically humiliated. That means the country had been jerked back and forth between evil and good, and a residue of evil that permeated is not easy to squeeze out of a mind – much less a society!
• Finally, it is also worth noting that Amon was leading a group that although reforms took place, were clinging to old ways that were dishonoring to God – a leftover of disobedient kings. In this I refer to the high places, the sore spot for the divided monarchy that were hard to monitor and even harder to unify (2 Chron. 33:17 reminds us that although Manasseh made most things right in the kingdom “yet” the people persisted in the high places that Hezekiah had torn down but Manasseh in his dark days rebuilt). This was a leftover of his sin that he could not fix by personal repentance and proper legislation. There is often a residue in the people that we lead of our sin. Amon offers us another example of this principle.

Key Principle: Because the Lord completely restores the repentant one before Him, we should not infer that all the results of our walk in darkness are taken away. The people we led into darkness don’t necessarily escape with us, nor do all the conditions we created in our dark walk.

I mention this because an increasing number of times I am encountering a false theology that my salvation removes all the stains of the spills I dropped in life. In that theology, God’s chief objective is about my happiness, and therefore He is under some obligation to remove not only my sin, but all the effects of my sinful past. I believe it started with the misguided notion that Jesus died to take away all the effects of sin in sickness. It has now morphed into a broader implied (and sometimes stated) promise of prosperity, health and happiness. These are not to be the focus of our walk with God, they are merely a byproduct of doing right.

Yet, have you noticed, though, if you eat badly for a long time, the weight doesn’t immediately shed the first month you forsake all desserts? Salvation is a transformation over a period of time (except in the cases where no time is available, like the thief on the cross beside Jesus) not an instantaneous reversing of all of my past.

Let’s look at the spill over of sin left after the dark days of Manasseh, even after he repented and died a happy man. He left behind stains that affected his family and his kingdom. I don’t want to lay it all on him – Amon was a man in his own right, but we would be unwise to neglect how the Biblical writer takes pains to connect the bad choices of Amon with the earlier sins of his father – he says it repeatedly for a purpose.

Rise: Amon’s Ascension to Power: (21:19)

Note four truths about Amon how the stains in his life of his dad’s earlier sin…

1. He was old enough to choose: He was old enough to see the results of his father’s hard heart, and the results of his father’s repentance – yet he chose the bad option.
2. He didn’t know his real friends: He was at an age when he likely wanted to prove himself to the people, but didn’t take God seriously.
3. He presumed on his short life experience: He had precious little time before the mistakes he made caught up with him. Don’t assume because God got a second chance or because dad got a long reign, you will get the same opportunity.
4. He apparently had responsible parents from a line of hard working people: I don’t want to make the detail into something super spiritualized, but it is worth noting his mother’s name means “the one who pays”, and it is worth noting that is what happens in the life of a wayward child.

Reign: Amon’s Descent into Evil (21:20-22)

Move past his past and into four choices he made…

1. He practiced evil in the sight of the Lord: It was easy at his life stage to see the horizontal and not care for the vertical. He could believe life was as it appeared, but that is NEVER the case. Life is what God’s Word says it is. Victory, power, significance, wealth – these are all terms that come with two opposing definitions – the one the world gives (and some Christians buy into) and the one the Scriptures define – the ones set by the Eternal One.
2. He followed as his father had done (before his repentance): Influence of the daily bad cannot necessarily be wiped clean by a later repentance, because the patterns were developed early. Negative patterns are easier to establish because there is little to stop them and a lot to pull them forward.
3. He served and worshipped idols: again it is impossible to read the sentence without seeing the heavy influence of the father in all this, but we cannot overlook that at some point he decided to follow this way himself. The attractions of the sensual were no doubt overwhelming.
4. He saw the repentance of his father, and the changes he made, and rejected them: The term “forsook” is the idea of rejection of a real choice in his life. The measure for the young man was not his so-called “theology”, but his walk. What we think and believe is important, but it isn’t real if it isn’t translated into daily choices. It is just verbage.

Results: What Amon left behind (21:23-26)

How did Amon’s flawed plan work out?

He made a lot of close enemies: “To know me is to HATE me” – Those in his own house despised him – not alone, but as a group. The people who watched his daily activities weren’t fooled by progressive speeches or attractive bone throwing policies. They saw the MAN behind the MASK. You can fool the crowd, but not those close up!

He left division all around: After two years of ruling a kingdom that was stabilized by his father, he left people with recriminations and hatred deeply rooted. Selfish living produces embittered children. We are reaping a windfall of it in our day – we are experts. Humbling himself before God would have meant turning his eyes from himself to the Lord. Selfishness is the opposite of real faith, and it is the path to self idolatry and eventual destruction.

Sitting round you in your local church are many people that have made the choice to walk in darkness for a season. When they were humbled before the Lord, and they cried out to God to draw them to Himself, He did just that. Don’t make the mistake of believing that meant that all their bills got paid, their children went to a mission field, and their marriages got healed – that isn’t true! The fact is that because the Lord completely restores the repentant one before Him, we should not infer that all the results of our walk in darkness are taken away. The people we led into darkness don’t necessarily escape with us, nor do all the conditions we created in our dark walk!