KING MANASSEH-A MIRACLE OF GRACE
2 CHRON. 33:1-16
How much sinning is too much sinning? How bad is too bad for someone to be and to lose hope of a future with God? How late is too late to come to oneself and reconcile with God? How simply disgusting and awful is it possible to be and turn to God?
Please turn to 2 Chronicles 33, and let us read together and consider together what we can learn from one ancient example. Once there was an ancient king named Manasseh and he was not the kind of person who seemed to have much hope for a future with God.
I-NOTICE KING MANASSEH’ SINS: 2-9, 16
A-He DEPARTED from the Faith of his Father 2-3
But did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, like unto the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel. 3 He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had demolished; he also erected altars to the Baals and made Asherah poles. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them.
ILLUSTRATION:COLUMIST L. M. BOYD recently described the amazing good fortune of a man named Jack Wurm. In 1949, Mr. Wurm was broke and out of a job. One day he was walking along a San Francisco beach when he came across a bottle with a piece of paper in it. As he read the note, he discovered that it was the last will and testament of Daisy Singer Alexander, heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune. The note read, "To avoid confusion, I leave my entire estate to the lucky person who finds this bottle and to my attorney, Barry Cohen, share and share alike." According to Boyd, the courts accepted the theory that the heiress had written the note 12 years earlier, and had thrown the bottle into the Thames River in London, from where it had drifted across the oceans to the feet of a penniless and jobless Jack Wurm. His chance discovery netted him over 6 million dollars in cash and Singer stock. How would you like to have been making Mr. Wurm’s footprints on that San Francisco beach? What a find! And yet 6 million dollars doesn’t even begin to compare with our spiritual inheritance!
MANASSEH HAD A GREAT FORTUNE left to him, in his father faith, but he refused it.
PERHAPS you have been blessed with a Godly heritage. It’s easy to look upon that heritage as old fashioned and belonging to another age, but our parents, spiritual and natural, learned at great cost that sin were not to be trifled with. If you depart from the faith of your fathers you’re headed for destruction
HE SACRIFICED his own children .v-6 This was always a heinous practice to God and God’s people and it involved the idea of invoking the pleasure and favour of a god by giving to him what was considered your greatest treasure- your children.
ILLUSTRATION: A FARMER was walking over his farm with a friend, exhibiting his crops, herds of cattle, and flocks of sheep. His friend was greatly impressed and highly pleased, especially with the splendid sheep. He had seen the same breed frequently before, but never had seen such fine specimens. With great earnestness he asked how he had succeeded in rearing such flocks. His simple answer was: "I take care of my lambs."
HE CONSULTED mediums, fortunetellers, and sorcerers. v-6All of this was forbidden from the earliest times but there is a certain appeal to these because they are so very emotional and sensual and mysterious. Today, this would translate into the seeking and following of personal horoscopes (I hope you know that Christians don’t do this!), seeking fortune tellers who might read tea leaves or tarot cards, using the ouija board
ILLUSTRATION: A WIZARD, sitting in the marketplace, was telling the fortunes of the passers-by when a person ran up in great haste, and announced to him that the doors of his house had been broken open and that all his goods were being stolen. He sighed heavily and hastened away as fast as he could run. A neighbor saw him running and said, "Oh! you fellow there! you say you can foretell the fortunes of others; how is it you did not foresee your own?’
There are many in modern society who are turning to fortunetellers in order to seek answers from those who cannot give it. Instead, they should really turn to the Light of the world!
B-He DEFILED the Temple of the Lord
vv. 4-5 He built altars in the temple of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, "My Name will remain in Jerusalem forever." In both courts of the temple of the LORD, he built altars to all the starry hosts.
THE TEMPLE was God’s special place, set apart sanctified for him. Manasseh not only let idol worship take place on the hillsides, he brought it right into God’s special place.
HE ENCOURAGED WORSHIP OF IDOLS of the heathen. He believed that all roads lead to heaven - we would call him a pluralist and he’d fit in very well in today’s usa. If this were today, he would have allowed, or encouraged, Buddhist statues to be everywhere.
IN THE NEW TESTMENT were told that because of the work of Christ we ourselves have become the temple, in fact that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
I IMAGINE THAT SOME OF YOU WOULD BE OFFENDED if we brought the dumpster from outside and dumped it on this altar. Yet how often have we been guilty of letting worse filth into the real temple?
C-He DECEIVED the People of God
v. 9 But Manasseh led Judah and the people of Jerusalem astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites.
MANASSEH not only tolerated or permitted evil- he encouraged evil. In the Bible, there are two broad categories of sin- these are evident in the sacrificial system of Leviticus. There are sins of omission, where someone simply fails to do something that they should have done; they omit to do. Then, there are sins of commission, where someone encourages and enables the doing of wrong. Manasseh did both.
THE PEOPLE look to their leaders for instruction and example, In corrupting his own life, Manasseh was responsible also for the corruption of God’s people. 1 Cor 15:33, Bad company corrupts good morals.
ILLUSTRATION: Josiah Wedgwood, English maker of the famous Wedgwood pottery, was showing a nobleman through his factory one day. One of Wedgwood’s employees, a young boy, was accompanying them. The nobleman was profane and vulgar. At first, the boy was shocked by his irreverence; then he became fascinated by the man’s coarse jokes and laughed at them.
Wedgwood was deeply distressed. At the conclusion of the tour, he showed the nobleman a vase of unique design. The man was charmed by its exquisite shape and rare beauty. As he reached for it, Mr. Wedgwood purposely let it fall to the floor. The nobleman uttered an angry oath and said, "I wanted that vase for my collection, and you have ruined it by your carelessness!" Wedgwood answered, "Sir, there are other ruined things more precious than a vase which can never be restored. You can never give back to that young man, who just left us, the reverence for sacred things which his parents have tried to teach him for years. You have undone their labor in less than half an hour!"
D-He DISREGARDED the Word of the Lord
v. 10 The LORD spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention.
THE LORD IN HIS MERCY called out to the king and the people to come back to Him. But Manasseh turned a deaf ear. Tradition tells us that Manasseh was the king who was responsible for the death of the Prophet Isaiah, sawing him in two with a wood saw. Why? Because he tired of hearing God’s call to repentance
ILLUSTRATION: RONALD REGAN as a young man worked at a radio station and sometimes played records of sermons, sometimes he would set the record to play in the one man operation and sneak out for a cup of coffee. One day he got a call at the coffee shop from the stations owner telling him to get back to the station now and after that night he was fired. He returned to the station to find the record skipping "Go to hell, go to hell..." (Reader’s Digest)
GOD’S CALL TO REPENTANCE can sound like that, but the broken record is the loving voice of God’s mercy, offering us the chance not only for salvation but for genuine blessing and revival.
E-He DELAYED His Surrender to the Lord
v. 1-2a Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years. 2 He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, following the detestable practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.
YOU MIGHT BE THINKING "How can this be sad? He came back to the Lord." And my answer is that he came too late and he wasted too much time and opportunity.
ILLUSTRATION: WHEN I GOT SAVED AT 29, after a few months as a new Christian, I realized that I had wasted a lot of time in not coming to the Lord. How many people could I have influnced for Christ?
II-NOTICE KING MANASSEH’ SALVATION:
A-The LORD SHACKLED Him: 11
Wherefore the LORD brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. (Once Manasseh was in affliction he came to his senses.)
ILLUSTRATION : I REMEMBER A YOUNG LADY who didn’t have time for God. Then one day, I heard she was in the hosptial with a serious conditon. When I went to visit her, she said, as I sat down, well Bro. Evie, God got may attention. She got saved.
B-The LORD SAVED Him : 12-13
And when he was in affliction, he besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, 13 And prayed unto him: and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD he was God.
He heard his supplication. God heard his prayer. God restored him as king and brought him back to Jerusalem.
THE THIEF had nails through both hands, so that he could not work; and a nail through each foot, so that he could not run errands for the Lord; he could not lift a hand or a foot toward his salvation, and yet Christ offered him the gift of God; and he took it. Christ threw him a passport, and took him into Paradise.
ILLUSTRATION: A YOUNG MAN who had rejected many calls from the Lord, was on his death bed. The minister exhorted him to seek the Lord, but he insisted that he had refused so many opportunities that he was ashamed to come. Said he, "Don t you think it would be mean of me to come now?" The minister replied, "Yes, it is a fearful thing that you have done, and it is a shame that you did not come sooner, but I think it would be more wicked never to come. It would be better to come now than never." After some time the young man seemed greatly moved because of the Lord’s willingness to receive him, even then. He seemed to definitely trust the Lord, and passed on praising Him for His great mercy.
III-NOTICE KING MANASSEH’S SERVICE:
A-He SHOWED A Change In His Life: 16A
And he repaired the altar of the LORD,
ILLUSTRATION: THERE WAS IN A CERTAIN VILLAGE , a very mean man who sold wood to his neighbors, and who always took advantage of them by cutting his logs a few inches under the required four feet. One day the report was circulated that the woodchopper had been converted. Nobody believed the report, for they all declared that he was beyond being reached. One man, however, slipped quietly out of the grocery store where the "conversion" was being discussed and soon came running back in excitement and shouted: "It’s so! He has been!" They all asked: "How do you know?" "Why, I have been over and measured the wood that he cut yesterday. It is a good four feet long!"
B-He SACRIFICED To The Lord: 16B
and sacrificed thereon peace offerings and thank offerings,
ILLUSTRATION : THE REV J ALEXANDER CLARK a Scotch missionary from Africa, told in this country a very striking story of an African who had been mauled by a lioness and was well-nigh dead. Mr. Clark cared for his wounds, and when he got well he left. After three months he came back to Mr. Clark, and said, "You know the law of the African forest, that the redeemed belongs to the redeemer. I was dead, but I am now alive. I am yours. Here are my six wives and my children and my cattle; do with me as you will." Are we willing to surrender all to Christ like that? The secret of our lack of power and service is just this we do not acknowledge that we, the redeemed, belong to the Redeemer.
C-He SOUGHT The People to Serve The Lord: 16C
and commanded Judah to serve the LORD God of Israel.
ILLUSTRATION : THE TIMES-REPORTER OF NEW PHILADELPHIA, OHIO reported in September, 1985 a celebration of a New Orleans municipal pool. The party around the pool was held to celebrate the first summer in memory without a drowning at the New Orleans city pool. In honor of the occasion, 200 people gathered, including 100 certified lifeguards. As the party was breaking up and the four lifeguards on duty began to clear the pool, they found a fully dressed body in the deep end. They tried to revive Jerome Moody, 31, but it was too late. He had drowned surrounded by lifeguards celebrating their successful season.
CONCLUSION-I THINK though the big question to ask is not can God save someone else, but, can God save me? What about you today? Do you feel as if you have done some terrible act that God will not forgive? Do you feel as if you do not deserve the mercy of God? Let me assure you that God has the capability and the desire to forgive you of your sins. Follow the example of Manasseh:
Seek out God
Humble yourself
Pray to him
You will find forgiveness and restoration. Your sin was placed on the cross, but the Savior is more than capable of handling the weight of it.
AS YOU TRAVEL ALONG I-4O IN LOUISIANA there is a large billboard which catches your eye. It stands high above the city just as you start up the Mississippi River bridge. On it is a picture of Jesus Christ hanging on the cross of Calvary, head bowed. The caption underneath says in bold letters, "It’s Your Move!"
What a powerful thought. God has already taken the initiative in salvation. Christ died for you. Now--it’s your move!
