Manesseh's Repentance

[RETIREDFAN1]

Manasseh’s Repentance

By: Jim Crews

There is a simple fact, which so many people have a hard time accepting. We are responsible for our own sins and no one else's. We are not held accountable for anyone's sins but our own. When we sin and repent, we are forgiven.

Ezekiel 18:20-24

So we ask ourselves, do people really change? Can they really be forgiven? There are people who think that they have done such terrible things that God would never forgive them.

Manasseh was the son of one of the greatest kings of Judah. Hezekiah, his father, was given great praise by God.

II Kings 18:3

Manasseh was born in the later years of his father’s reign. He was born three years after Hezekiah nearly died from an illness. II Kings 20:5-6
 

 

He was born in Hezekiah’s later years. It was in these years that we see a flaw in Hezekiah’s  character. he became more focused on himself than on those who would come after him.

II Kings 20:16-19

Hezekiah died just before Manasseh’s adolescence.

II Kings 21:1

Like many fatherless teenagers, Manasseh turned rebellious. However,  being a king, his rebellion took on dangerous levels of violence.

Manasseh was a very evil king. He restored the idolatrous religions of baal and asherah.

II Kings 21:3

These were the religions his father had worked hard to remove. There were actually multiple baals, and the word here is in the plural. Manasseh sought out many types of baals. Since the baals were fertility gods and were worshiped with sexual immoral practices, maybe we can understand their appeal to a teenage king. Manasseh did this in imitation of Ahab. He introduced astrology, worshiping the host of heaven.

He was most likely copying the worship of the Babylonians, who his father had contact with. Worse, he even brought his idolatry into God’s temple.

II Kings 21:4-5

As so often happens, once you start down the slippery slope of sin there is little to stop you. As he got older, he sacrificed his own son, following after the worship of Molech.

II Kings 21:6

He did this more than once.

II Chronicles 33:6

 

Such sacrifices come from the idea that the greater something costs you, the more likely a god will listen. Manasseh was trying hard to change something that was looming on the horizon. The valley where these atrocities were committed served as Jesus’ symbol of hell. Gehenna is the valley of Hinnom.

Manasseh sought out fortune tellers, he looked for omens, he consulted mediums and wizards. By this we see he is troubled about the future and wanted to know what was in store.
 

 

These activities weren’t confined only to Manasseh. like most people, he spread his beliefs.

II Kings 21:9

In his search for knowledge and relief from his troubles, he did more to bring those troubles down on himself.

II Kings 21:10-15

His reign was a reign of terror.

II Kings 21:16

Jewish tradition records that Manasseh killed Isaiah by sawing him in half.

The event that Manasseh apparently feared finally showed up in the form of Assyria’s commanders.

II Chronicles 33:11

This is the nation that had wiped out Israel during Hezekiah’s day. He had threatened to do the same to Judah before God intervened. Assyrian records state that Manasseh was a vassal of Esarhaddon, Sennacherib's son and successor. He supplied building materials for Esarhaddon’s projects. He also helped with Ashurbanipal, Esarhaddon’s son, in his campaign against Egypt.
Eventually,  something happened to that relationship. This is probably because Assyrians didn’t treat their captives well.

II Kings 19:28

Being imprisoned and with ample proof of the uselessness of his idolatry, Manasseh returned to the one true God.

II Chronicles 33:12

And God heard his prayers.

II Chronicles 33:13

Unlike his idols, God brought him out of his prison. Manasseh realized then that only God was real. Now think how evil Manasseh was and all the crimes he committed, and yet God accepted his change. Now tell me again what crime have you done that God can’t forgive you?

Ezekiel 18:21-23

On his return, Manasseh did a complete about face.

II Chronicles 33:15-16

But there is another lesson to be learned. You can’t erase your past sins, but not completely. Manasseh had changed, but the people he led astray didn’t.

II Chronicles 33:17

The people still practiced their idolatry, they just changed the name of whom they claimed to be worshiping. Manasseh’s own son, raised in his idolatrous ways, didn’t change.

II Chronicles 33:22-23

Have you ever heard people say, “I’ll serve God later?” Manasseh faced the hard truth that you can’t do it successfully. Sin creates wounds that are not easily healed and scars that won’t go away. It’s better to never cause the wound in the first place.

Ecclesiastes 11:9-12:1

Despite his great change, Manasseh’s legacy was all the evil he did.

II Chronicles 33:2

His change wasn’t able to stop the evil he had set in motion.  Jeremiah 15:4-6

Which is sadder, the evil you have done,  or realizing your error and seeing yourself helpless to stop evil from spreading out of control? But at least he tried.

God loved us even while we were sinners.

Romans 5:6-8

So do we remain in our sins, keeping the tide of sin growing, or do we change and start battling the evil we once were a part of?

Luke 13: 3
Acts 2:38-41

Acts 17: 30

 

When you repent, no matter how grievous the sin may appear to you or the rest of the world, God forgives.