Beloved in our Lord Jesus Christ, Biance, Wilbert, and Corné, and others who might be visiting us today –
Today is a special day. A day in which we celebrate God’s goodness, grace, and mercy in the lives of these three. A day in which we again remember the promises of God, to save sinners in and through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is not interested in making better people – he makes new people.
Today they also accept these promises of their baptism and make them their own. They stand as a witness to those who have come here before them, reminding them all of us of the promises that we have made. And they stand as an example of those who would follow them. They stand not in their own strength. They do not come because they worthy. They come because they recognize their sin and need for a savior, they come as those who have been call and made worthy through the blood of our Lord Jesus and the work of the Spirit.
And I pray that we might see God’s hand of grace in these people and be reminded of it also in the preaching. That God is sovereignly calls us all to himself through Christ. Calling us back into communion with him as it was in the Garden with Adam. Calling us back from the exile. Calling us out of the slavery of sin. Calling a lost humanity like he did on that fateful day when he said, “Adam, Adam, where are you!”
And today we have an example of one such man , who in a sense is a picture of the history of Israel. A picture of the gospel. A picture of the old Adam and the new Adam. A sign of the sin of humanity, and the overflowing grace of God. An illustration of Paul’s words, “where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more!” The chronicler is coming to the end of his journey. And it is fascinating that this king comes basically right before the great last king Josiah with just a little section on Amon in between. The Chronicler's text treats Manasseh as a model of one who was exiled, repented of his sin, returned to the land of promise, and restored the nation to God.
God humbles the proudest king.
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His arrogance before God
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His humility Before God
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God’s grace to Him.
His Arrogance
Here was a king – a king who followed did not just do evil like his fathers, or like the house of Israel, but it says, “He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel.” He acts like those nations that lived in this land before Israel. Totally Wicked. Utterly evil. I mean this man went all the way. Just read the first few verses. He undoes everything his father Hezekiah did. He worships all the host of heaven. He shakes his fist at heaven by building alters right in the middle of Gods holy temple. He even sacrifices his own kids uses fortune telling, omens, and Sorcery. He goes to mediums and necromancers (people that communicate with the dead).
He places an idol in the temple. He replaces the covenant God with the god of his own making. And put in the temple! The place where the covenant promise was made that if they would obey, they would stay in the land! And God would dwell in their midst, as we read in verse 7 and 8. And it ends where it started. Verse 9 echoes verse 2. We read there in v. 9, “Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitant of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the people of Israel.”
If you are still wondering what this man was like, you can read 2 Kings 21 later. In the back of their minds the Israelites reading this would have known that history! There we read that he shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from one end to the other. In other words, he killed a lot of good people. Innocent people. We read that it was because of him, that God would give them into the hands of their enemies.
I really hope that you are getting some idea of who this man was. The Chronicler does not want you to be misinformed. He was worse than the nations god drove out. Worse - eviler! It would have been bad enough if it had just said, “he was just as evil.” But it does not say that! It says he was “More evil then the nations whom the LORD had destroyed before the people of Israel.” God had told the people at that time under Joshua that the people had to be completely destroyed because of their wickedness. Man, woman and child. And now we have a covenant child, a son of David, who had inherited the promises of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Who had received the promises from David acting this way!
O it is not as if he did not know. God had sent his word - but his pride was too great to listen to rebuke, or warning. He has had the prophets. God had sent them. But instead of listinening he filled Jerusalem with their blood. His arrogance was stopping up his ears. King and people had both walked the road of rebellion. Not listening to God. Dear young men and women, it is so easy to begin to think that you don’t need God. That you do not need to hear God’s words. That you are good on your own. To start shutting down church and pursuing gods which are not gods in order to satisfy the old person. O that you would always have the heart of humility. A listening heart, and that you would be a light also in the church of what it looks like to follow God!
Under Manasseh, The covenant people are no better than the surrounding nations. They do the same. They act the same. They are the same. Sinners. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God!
His Humility.
God is faithful and always follows through on his covenant promises. He had sent his prophets and they had not listened. They had paid no attention. It’s a sleeping church – the covenant people had become one with the world. The word of God goes in one hear and out the other, and the people just carried on with their idolatry in their hearts, in their land, in their places of worship.
So what does God do, he humbles them. He sends the Assyrians who capture Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon. It is interesting that it is Babylon that is spoken of here, for the capital city of Assyria was Nineveh. The author wanted to remind the people of their own exile to Babylon and show that it was because of their sin that they had gone their too.
His sin had led to slavery. He recognizes this. It was not the power of the Assyrians, but sin that had led to judgement. God humbles the proud. Is it not so often true that it sometimes takes a big event in our life to make us see that we had been focusing on all the wrong things? Something drastic wherein God reminds us of who we are and who we are before him.
Do you want to grow in Grace, humble yourself anew before God. the way down is the way up for a Christians. Paul gives us this example.
He says, “I am the least of the apostles. 1 Corinthians 15:9. Later in his life he says, “I am the very least of all the saints.” Ephesians 3:8 and toward the end of this life he says, “I am the foremost of sinners.” 1 Timothy 1:15
The healthy heart is one that bows down in humility and rises through repentance in praise and adoration. Look at his three descriptions of himself quoted above, as the years pass, he goes lower; he grows downward! And as his self-esteem sinks, so his rapture of praise and adoration for the God who so wonderfully saved him rises. We see this happening in Manasseh. Here were two wicked wick sinners. One in the Old Testament killing God’s people, one in the new. God sovereignly changed them both, and with a passion they lived for God. And it is through suffering that this beautiful process of being formed in Christ image happens. It is in our need that we begin to really listen. Listen to the gospel. To the preaching. If Manasseh had listened to the prophets, he would not have been sent to exile. Gods word comes to you every week. Don’t just let it be a lecture that you attend. May it be a real encounter.. Hear and apply - asking the Spirit of God to search us and know us and see if there is any wicked way in us!”
And if God brings us discipline, lets humble ourselves. Dear church when God brings us to these places, when life confronts you – open you heart and life before the Lord. The LORD sent the Assyrians, and the LORD sent him into exile. It was Gods doing because of his wickedness. Now how does he respond to the LORDS discipline.
God humbles him, and through this humbling he also humbles himself. We read, “And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him. Broken. In exile. Realizing his own sin he prays to God! It reminds me of Daniels prayer chapter 9 when he prays for forgiveness for the sins of the people a short time before Israel would return to exile.
And You know what is shocking? What is amazing. God was moved by his entreaty and hear his plea and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom.
God’s Grace.
Why do I say that it is amazing? I mean is this not what God does, you think? Yes, it is, but if you have taken if for granted you have taken the amazing out of grace – its no longer amazing grace then.
let me ask you, “would you have listened to Manasseh when he prayed?” When we read in verse 10-11 that the king of Assyria took him into exile, don’t we think, “Yes, he had it coming he deserved it. He deserved it. Deserving of total annihilation. He had offended God more then anyone! This is what happens to those who disobey God! Too little too late! Do you realize how far you went, Manasseh? Do you have any idea what you did? You were a murdering pagan, idolater! And what made it worse is that you knew better! And yet you were worse than the kings of Judah, you were not only worse than all the kings of Israel that came before you of which there was not even one good one. You were worse than the people of the land that came before you! You were worse! And now? You have the guts to come before me! How dare you?” we may have said.
Not our God. Gods grace extends to the worst of sinners. To me and you. He hears those who acknowledge their sin. When is that the last time you have done that? When is the last time you have felt the fount of grace in Christ wash over you?
God Hears.
God hears a sinner
He hears sinful humanity
He hears his covenant child.
As a pastor and elders there are times we encounter. They say, “I am not sure God can forgive me anymore. You have no idea what I have done. I have willfully sinned. Knowing its wrong. And I have failed again and again.” And no, I don’t know what you have done. But I do know a covenant child that was utterly wicked that found redemption. I do know a person that once denied that he ever knew Jesus three times even after Jesus had told him he would. I know someone that slept with another man’s wife, and then murdered her husband. I know myself. And I know each one found redemption. Don’t every get tired of Going back to him. Don’t doubt his grace. And don’t take it for granted.
How do you keep this balance? By loving God with your heart soul mind and strength, and that means hating sin with your heart soul, mind and strength. Truly hate sin and confess it to death. As one author said we do not overcome by trying harder, and by our will power – but through confession! This chapter is shouting you are not beyond the favor of God! it is a picture of chapter 7:14 which we return to again, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
And remember these sins of Manasseh are not sins again just any human, these are sins against a holy God. Remember Manasseh had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood. With the blood of God prophets, and then had shaken his fist at him by putting a foreign idol smack in the middle of Gods holy temple!. God had given people his vineyard. And again and again they killed his prophets. It is coming to the moment where he will send his own Son.
His own Son would be sent to these people. And what would they do? They would take him and kill him. But in his death they would find salvation. In his exile they would find their home.
Dear church the justice of God requires exile, but the mercy of God triumphs in Jesus Christ for every sinner! n. As Daniel 9:9 says, “To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him.”
This chapter does not give permission to rebel or be sinful. But it is saying, where sin abounds grace abounds. Gods grace can grab us at the very worst, and lowest place of your life. This is the gospel. This is the God of the covenant. This is our story. Before we go judging Manasseh and ask why God hear him, have you asked the question of yourself. You too were under the wrath of God for your sin. As Ephesians 2 says, “we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” But guess what!?!? BUT GOD! “made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved.”
And what does this grace do? Well, he who has been forgiven much says Jesus, also loves much. Or as Paul says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” This is illustrated in Manasseh. He gets to work right away. Something that would have been a good reminder for the people coming back from Babylon like Manasseh had done. God had shown them grace. But they were taking for granted by first building houses before getting to work on the temple. But not Manasseh. Look at what he does!
He gets right down to business, undoing his former way of life. Before he weakened the kingdom through sin, now he strengthens the kingdom, he takes away the idols and throws them outside the city, rebuilds the altar, and offers sacrifices! This is repentance. He has undergone a radical mind shift. He sees the world differently now. He knows who God is! The fear of the LORD is truly the beginning of Wisdom. Real life starts when you have encountered the living God. Before that you are dead. After that everything changes. God has come to you in your baptism, you have this day chosen to respond, and as you look forward may you remember these promises, and continue to be holy as he Is holy. Your bodies are temples. May you remove all that is impure form them.
O what a beautiful message that the chroniclers give us. He takes the worst king in the book of kings. The one that the book of kings says is the absolute worst person that reigned of all the kings of Judah, Israel, or even the nations before them, and shows that there is hope even for him! There is hope for sinners. The chronicler wants the people of Judah to see themselves in this man. He wants the church to see themselves in this man! It is by grace that you have been saved, and made alive in Christ!
And that grace does not leave us where we are. It motivates to new life. And may Gods grace for you motivate you to live out of a passionate love for him.
Amen