[AI translation] Today's evangelistic service is entitled "The Way of the Prodigal Son". And yet, I didn't read the way of the prodigal son from the Bible. Why? On purpose. Because in the Bible, there is not only the journey of a prodigal son, but more. This King Manasseh, the one we are talking about, was such a prodigal son. Sometimes it is good to hear the same message of God that He wants to communicate through the story of the prodigal son of the New Testament, from the perspective of the story of the prodigal son of the Old Testament. Here too we have a whole human life before us, from birth to death. The life of one man, as God sees it. So this account is not from the perspective of the storyteller, but from the perspective of God, telling us about the life of King Manasseh. And it is good to deal with him because God sees the lives of all of us! Your life and my life: he sees! But somehow he sees our lives differently from the way we see ours or each other. And what is decisive, what is important, is how He sees us, how He sees us. We can fool each other with appearances, and often ourselves, but not Him! So let us try to see ourselves now through God's eyes.What kind of man was this Manasseh?Well, if we look at his origin, what kind of family he came from, we would already have a favourable opinion of him. For his father was one of the most godly men in the Old Testament. He was the son of a king named Hezekiah, who was to the people of the Old Testament what Calvin or Luther was to Christianity. He carried out a great religious reform at a time when the belief in the god of the ancients was already quite mixed up with the belief in the god of the surrounding paganism. Humanly speaking, he is perhaps responsible for the survival of the five books of Moses. So he was a courageous champion of God's cause, a father of deep faith. He certainly raised his son in the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and in the fear of God. But later it became clear that piety, the fear of God, was not something to be inherited like other goods of life. But many people refer to their ancestors! "There were many priests in our family," someone once said with no small amount of pride. Or: 'One of my ancestors was one of the galley slaves...', someone once said. As if the faith of the ancestors were a foundation on the interest of which the late descendants could live! I have seen the children of very faithful parents and grandparents drift very far from God! Such was Manasseh: his father was a man of deep faith, and the son was already - as the Scripture says: "He did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the Gentiles." (2Kir 21:2) No sooner had the godly father closed his eyes than the son turned from the path his father had set him on. He could not resist the absorbing influence of the paganism around him, sacrificing at the altars of idols instead of the one true God, practicing practices instead of pure godliness, and ruthlessly trampling on those who offended his interests or his vanity. His example of life had an influence on all those who looked up to him or depended on him. The entire life's work of his god-fearing father was slowly being destroyed.
How painful it is that even a man whose birth was prayerfully requested by believing parents, and who was brought up in the fear of God, can turn his back on God! In the absence of religious tradition and the best education, Manasseh has become an unbeliever! And now we should not think of the unbelief that one confesses with his mouth, but with his actions! By his life! For it is not the confession of faith made with the mouth, but the speech of life that exposes faith or unbelief! Perhaps Manasseh himself, if asked if he believed in God, would have said, "Of course I believe, I am the son of Calvin of the Old Testament! But his deeds were nothing but abominable in the sight of God! This is what we read in the description of him, 'He did evil in the sight of the Lord'. But which of us do you think would get a better rating in the eyes of the Lord? Of course, it is not difficult to do right in the eyes of men! I can imagine that Manasseh was also a skilled diplomat, an educated, talented man, an artistic soul, or an artist of life, who stood his ground well in the various problems of life - but failed in the eyes of God! And in the end, that is what really matters!
And that's what really matters in your life! And that is the least of our concerns! You may be a very excellent person in your own eyes, blameless, blameless, sacrificial, kind-hearted, justice-seeking - you may indeed have some good qualities that make you a decent person, praised, liked, appreciated by others - but in God's eyes, the standard is different! For a long time, I lived my life being very pleased with myself and convinced that if all people were like me, there would be nothing wrong in this world! But try to see yourself as God sees you: in God's eyes! Try for once to see yourself as if your life were a constant test before God! We are tested every moment, at home, in the morning, at night, in the street, on the tram, at work, when we are alone in a room or in the woods, when we are surrounded by people: we are tested! Subjects such as: goodness, patience, faithfulness, peace, gentleness, love - in a word: Christianity! Christlike temperament and life. Haven't you noticed that you keep failing one of these subjects over and over again? I have noticed it many times!
It is astonishing how the God who searches the depths of the heart has such a scathing general opinion of man. Paul put it this way, "As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not even one; no one who understands, no one who seeks after God. All have gone astray, all together have become useless; there is none that doeth good, no, not even one." (Romans 3:10-12) This is how God sees your life. Whoever and whatever you are, you have failed before God! You are a person who "does evil in the sight of the Lord"! And now look: if God were thinking in human terms, perhaps He would not have said this when He saw Manasseh: "This Manasseh is not only a difficult case, but downright hopeless. For he sins not as a cannibal in the jungle who has never heard of God's will, but as a man who has known the Scriptures from childhood. His responsibility is therefore even greater. He is not blind, who cannot help having strayed from the right path, but a rebel, who knows what he should do, how he should behave, and yet does not do it! We have had enough! Let him go to his doom. He is not worth caring about any more! Yes, that's what every Manasseh deserves! And yet this is not what happens. What is? Something quite touching, which the account says: "And though the Lord called to Manasseh and his people, they took no heed"! So the Lord spoke to Manasseh! He warned him!
This is always God's first attempt to save a man, to call him! Then he cries out! Is there anyone among you that God has never called out to in any way? Hardly! Perhaps you have not dared to raise your eyes, because you felt that others almost knew that it was only you - but God calls you in many other ways, in many different ways. He once used a donkey to warn Balaam; He spoke to Martin Luther in a shocking way when a bolt of lightning struck his friend who was passing by him; He spoke to a friend of mine in the war with a revolver bullet that missed him; He spoke to a woman when a secret sin was revealed. God speaks to me in so many different ways, for example, last week someone called me at home and invited me to church tonight. Because God is not content to let Manasseh sink so low, so far from Him - God is fighting for Manasseh! Just take one look at Calvary, where Jesus suffered so miserably on the cross, where that holy blood was shed into the dust of the ground: see, such is the bloody struggle God has fought for your life, such is the way He wants you to live, happy, pure, childlike - even a Manasseh to live, to live forever! This is how God fights for you! That is why He speaks in every way. He speaks to you in the words of this sermon we are listening to. This service today is part of the struggle that God is fighting for us!
So, "the Lord has spoken to Manasseh". And it makes no difference what means God uses when He seeks the distant Manasseh! But it does matter how those Manassehs respond to that call. Here we read "but they would not heed him". This is one of the saddest, most tragic statements in the whole Bible - that God speaks and man does not listen, does not take him seriously! Oh, how many times and in many different ways he has spoken to us, and yet we go on living as if he had not warned us! Is it in vain that God speaks? No! God never speaks in vain! For that divine word, that warning which we hear, but let go of our souls, becomes a judgment upon us! Behold, the story of Manasseh goes on, "And the Lord brought the captains of the army of the king of Assyria, and they took Manasseh, and bound him with two chains of iron, and brought him to Babylon." The word of God cannot be disregarded with impunity! Manasseh was struck down. He sits in some strange dungeon, beaten with iron. It looks as if it could almost be written above the door of his dungeon: "This is the Manasseh who, because of his disobedience, God has rejected and cursed! And yet I, with the Bible in my hand, say: the opposite could be written over the door of his dungeon: This is the Manasseh whom God has chosen and loves!
But that is really foolishness, exaggeration!" one might say. It is indeed folly, but not exaggeration! It is, after all, the very folly of speaking of the cross. And this is the folly for which I personally will bless and praise my gracious Father forever. For it is in this very foolishness of the cross that I have come to know the redeeming grace of God, the power of his love to give new life. For what is this all about? That it was Jesus who hung there nailed to the cross as a rejected and damned evildoer. And it was for Manasseh's sin, in Manasseh's place, in my place and in your place, that God rejected and cursed him. And therefore it is true - however absurd it may seem - that Manasseh was chosen and loved by God! That is why you can think of yourself, whoever you are, however far you may have drifted from God's presence, however evil you may have done in God's sight, that God has chosen you and loves you! Because that is how God saw Manasseh, that is how God sees you, through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus the Substitute! Therefore even judgment is mercy! When God's hand of judgment is laid on someone, it is not a sign that, behold, God has rejected him, but that, behold, God is seeking him! That's how much he calls! The call was not enough, the soft and gentle word, well, then he calls out to you, shakes you, scares you to life!
All God's judgments are salvific, all the blows that befall a human life are a great memento: God does not want to lose you in any way, He wants to show mercy, He wants to embrace you! The pain, suffering and adversity in our lives are precisely intended to amplify, like a loudspeaker, the call of Jesus, so quiet at other times: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." (Mt 11,28) The tangled web of all kinds of troubles is like a net, a net of God's saving grace that he casts for us in the world. The rod whose stroke sometimes cuts so painfully through our lives is in fact a shepherd's crook, the good Shepherd's staff with which he draws his sheep into the safe fold. God sometimes stirs up the earthly nest in which his children are languishing and lazing, allowing even Satan to shake it, but only so that those who dwell in it may be forced to spread their wings of faith and prayer and use them more fully. There will be many in heaven who would never have got there if God had not sent storms upon them. Does not God do a man good when He breaks his pride, his resistance, when He brings a man to his knees before Himself? Many times I have seen that God is able to do everything out of His infinite love, so that those for whom He gave Jesus to die would not perish.
But whether God's judgement will be a blessed means of salvation and conversion in someone's life or a tragedy depends on how one reacts to it! In Manasseh's prison, God's grace triumphed! It was there, under the weight of the adversities that fell upon him, that the prayer which God always hears was torn from his soul: the prayer of repentance and forgiveness: 'And when he was in great tribulation, he cried to the Lord his God, and humbled himself completely before the God of his fathers.' So he humbled himself before God - and here begins the possibility of a whole new life for all Manasseh! This man found himself there, in humility before God, and made amends for all that he had done wrong, and became a blessed, caring, loving, God-fearing ruler, a shepherd of his people! Who would have believed it? Behold, a miracle of grace!
The same grace God offers us today! All are free to share in it. Don't be afraid of being rejected because of your past! God does not ask who you were. You have neither advantage nor disadvantage because of your ancestors! Who you were is not important, only who you are now. If you are a person who is now humbling yourself before God, so you come to God with a consciousness of sin and a need for forgiveness: he will accept you and forgive you. The great good news for us in this story is that even Manasseh can start over, together with a gracious God! And then everything will change, it will turn out for good! Because God knows no impossibility.
A new start is a great opportunity! Even here on earth, let alone for eternity! Two thousand years ago, God held your sin and mine in the burning pain of Jesus' death on the cross, until the last remnants of all our sins and debts were burned away. That is why we can all come back to God! But it is for us to humble ourselves, it is for us to do right by God, it is for us to step on the road home. God gives us the way home, under his rule and care, God gives us the open door in Jesus, but we have to enter it and we have to go through it!
At this moment God's eyes are on you. Angels are looking at you and waiting for your decision, will you surrender to Jesus for the grace of forgiveness and a new beginning? If so, bear witness to it here, now, in front of us all with this hymn:
Broken and empty
I give myself to him,
That he may make me new,
To fill the void.
All my troubles, all my sorrows
I give to the Lord,
He bears all my burdens,
He wipes away my sorrow,
He wipes away my sorrow.
(Canto 459, verse 2)
Amen
Date: 17 September 1967 (evening).