Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Manasseh



Manasseh, Hezekiah's son
Broke all God's rules, every one.

His father pulled the idols down
he smashed them all upon the ground
But Manasseh, evil man,
stood them all back up again.

This dreadful king, he truly would,
worship anything that stood
still for long enough, and then
he'd find more things and worship them!

He carved out Asherah poles and Baals
He bowed before the moon and stars
He worshipped all the heavenly host
He talked to witches, looked for ghosts

Jerusalem was filled with blood
From end to end there was a flood
From south to north, from west to east,
Manasseh moved and, what a beast,

he slashed his sword like one insane
and left behind a thousand slain
and then he went back to his home
and turned on those who were his own.

Manasseh took his own poor son
and made him through the fire run
He did all this to please the Baals,
the Asherahs, the moon, the stars

And then Manasseh, what a nerve!
Took all the gods he liked to serve
and stood them in the temple: No!
This evil king would have to go!

Manasseh was so truly bad
That God, though patient, said he had
had enough. He set a date
when like a grubby, dirty plate

Judah, he would scrape and wipe
Away with them! A single swipe
and they'd be gone. God's word was true
and that is what he said he'd do.

Manasseh, Hezekiah's son
broke all God's rules, every one.
And all the people followed him
So Judah writhed and sank in sin.

sar 2010

    7 comments:

    1. Have you done a poem/song for 1 Kings 2? I'm preaching on it this week.

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    2. 1 Kings 2 is tricky! Not sure I've ever even heard it preached on! I didn't do that passage. I only did 2 talks on chapters 1-11. The first was a warm up, context etc. The second was bad Solomon.

      The promise section at the beginning I kindof had in my first talk. I had a whole lot of gift boxes, each representing a promise that was fulfilled in Solomon's time - land, people, blessing, King from David's line, God dwelling ... I said that all this good stuff was given to Solomon and God would keep on giving it to him if he does vs3-4 stuff.

      I have a pic of spunky young king solomon if that would help!

      Good luck with that!

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    3. That's brilliant! What a great way of paraphrasing for kids. Not so much Revolting Rhymes as Revolting Times ;-)

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    4. Yep. That's where I'm going with it. Conditional/unconditional covenant stuff. Not fulfilled by David or Solomon etc. Fulfilled by Jesus.

      I'm only going to preach on the first 11 chapters.

      I'm having fun though. It's a relief to be out of 1 Corinthians and into some narrative. I don't do epistles that well.

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    5. 'anything that stood
      still for long enough' love it.

      I like the time and effort you put into this stuff, it would make a great resourc. It'd be nice to see it illustrated in a Quentin Blake kinda way.

      ReplyDelete
    6. Quentin Blake style illustrations would be nice... Interested?

      ReplyDelete