[AI translation] In the Bible passage we read, we have a whole human life before us, from birth to death. This account does not give us the life of King Manasseh from the perspective of the historians, but from God's perspective: as God sees it. And this is important for us because God sees the life of each one of us, your life and mine! And God sometimes sees our lives very differently from the way we see ours or others. But that is the crucial thing, that is the important thing, how does He see us? We can fool each other, we can fool ourselves: but not Him! Well, it is good to see ourselves sometimes from God's point of view! He sees the life of every man as He sees the life of King Manasseh, or as the prophetic Word sums it up: "I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked may turn from his way and live!"Was Manasseh also an unbeliever? In God's vision, yes! And yet his father was one of the most pious men in the Old Testament. Manasseh was the son of one of Israel's great kings, the godly Hezekiah, the man who brought religious reform to his people, and humanly speaking, we may have the survival of the books of Moses to thank for him. The believing father was one of the brave warriors in the cause of God, and it is assumed that he brought up his son in the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and in the fear of God. It soon became clear, however, that piety, the fear of God, was not something to be inherited. Behold, the father was still a believer, but the son was already 'doing evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the Gentiles' (v.2). The altars of idols which his father had destroyed, he now rebuilt, and the altar to Yahweh he had built was broken down. He carved idols, practised sorcery, shed innocent blood, and dragged his people into pagan practices. He ruined almost the entire life's work of his god-fearing father. What a terrible thing to think that even a child whose birth was requested by God and who was raised in the fear of God by believing parents could sink to such depths. Good upbringing, religious tradition was in vain, Manasseh "did evil in the sight of the Lord"! And which of us would get a better report card, a better rating "in the eyes of the Lord"? Of course: it is not difficult to do good in the eyes of men. Manasseh may well have been a very skilful diplomat, a very learned man, a very excellent organiser, but he failed in the eyes of God, and that is what mattered in the end!
And that is all that matters in your life! You may be a very excellent person in your own eyes, sinless, sacrificial, pure, you may have many good qualities, you may be considered as such by others, praised, honoured - but in God's eyes, the measure is different. God speaks very unfavourably of man in general in the Bible. Even before the Flood, man was said to be "evil continually in all the works of his heart"! (Genesis 6:5) And the situation was no different after the flood: the apostle Paul writes in A.D. 64 that men are "dead in trespasses". But perhaps we cannot generalise, one might say, since not all men are monsters like Manasseh, Herod, Nero or Caligula! Well, that is true, but only because the inherent evil in human nature does not develop in everyone to such a frightening degree. But the general opinion of God, who searches the depths of hearts, is this. They are all perverse, all of them have become useless, there is no one who does good, there is not only one" (Rom 3:10-12). That's how He sees you! Whoever you are and whatever you are, you can only have one qualification before God: you are a sinner! A man who has "done evil in the sight of the Lord"!
And now look, if God were like us, maybe He would have said this: "This Manasseh is not only a difficult case, but a downright hopeless case. For he sins not as a cannibal in the jungle who has never heard of God's law, but as a man who has known the Scriptures from childhood. His responsibility is therefore even greater! He is not a blind man who cannot help having strayed from the right path, but a rebel who consciously defies the God of his fathers! We have had enough! Away with him, let such a man perish, and let the devil take his prey! Yes: that's what you deserve! It is a miracle.Something quite touching is what the account says: "And though the Lord called to Manasseh and his people, they did not heed him." (Ez 33,10) This is always God's first attempt to save man: he speaks to him! Brothers, is there anyone among you whom God has never addressed in any way? Hardly! For God speaks to you not only through the preaching of pastors, but in many different ways. He used a donkey to warn my Balaam; a thief who stabbed his strongbox was once a divine warning to a merchant; a fornicating woman was warned by the disease that killed her child; a friend of mine during the war was warned by the revolver bullet that missed him.
God speaks to me in many different ways. For example, someone visiting you in your home and inviting you to worship here today. Maybe you weren't even home, but they left a message for you to come to church this morning. You may not even know who was there - it doesn't matter, God has called you to come! For God does not take pleasure in the death of the unbeliever, but wants him to repent and live a happy, blessed, fulfilled life! God is not satisfied that Manasseh has fallen so low, so far from Him: God is fighting for Manasseh! Just one look at Calvary, where God's Son Jesus Christ suffered on the cross: such is the bloody struggle God fought for every human life, such is His will not to see sinful man dead, such is His will that he should live, even a Manasseh should live, live forever!
God is fighting for you too! That's why He is calling in every way. In the words of this sermon He speaks to you. Today's service is part of the struggle God is fighting for us! - And it makes no difference what means God uses when He searches for the lost Manasseh! But it matters a lot how those Manassehs respond to God's call! Here we read, "but they did not heed him". This is one of the saddest, most tragic statements in the whole Bible. So that God speaks, God does so by addressing a human being who is separated from Him, who is at war with Him, who is denying Him - and this human being is capable of not paying attention to the divine word! Jesus says there is joy among the angels of God in heaven when a sinner repents. From this I suppose that the greatest sorrow of these heavenly beings is when a man who has been spoken to rejects the saving hand of God. Manasseh did this! And he has brought great, exultant joy - instead of heaven - to the demonic host of hell!
But the story of King Manasseh does not end there! It 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 carried him away to Babylon." (verse 11) Behold, the measure is full! Violating God's moral world order cannot go unpunished. Judgment has come! The wayward king sits in the prison of a foreign power, beaten with iron. It looks as if one could almost write over the prison door, "This is Manasseh, whom God has rejected and cursed!" In fact, the opposite could be written on the door: "This is the Manasseh whom God has chosen and loves!" But this is folly, one might say, this is exaggeration! Isn't it? Well, yes: foolishness! But it is not too much! That is the folly of the cross. This is the folly for which I personally will bless and praise my gracious Father forever! For it is in this folly of the cross that I have known God's redeeming grace, the power of his love to give new life. Jesus, the Son of God, died there on the cross - the innocent, the sinless - as a rejected and damned evildoer. He was rejected and cursed by God for the sin of Manasseh, in Manasseh's place. For my sin, in my place, for your sin, for your sins, for your sins!
And therefore it is true, however absurd it may seem, that Manasseh was chosen and loved by God! Therefore you can think of yourself, whoever you are, whatever sins may be weighing on your soul, that God has chosen you and God loves you! Because that is how God sees you, that is how God saw Manasseh: through the substitutionary atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ! Therefore, even the judgment is grace. When God's hand of judgment falls on someone, it is not a sign that, behold, God has rejected him, but that, behold, God is seeking him! This is how much he calls. It was not enough to call, it was not enough to speak softly and gently: now he is calling out to you, shaking you, scaring you to life. All God's judgments are salvific, all the blows that come to a human life are but a great saving hand: God does not want the sinner to die. God wants mercy, mercy! And whether God's judgment will be a blessed means of deliverance and conversion or a tragedy depends on how man reacts to it. In Manasseh prison, the grace of God triumphed! It was there, under the weight of the calamities that fell upon him, that Manasseh's soul was torn from this prayer that God always hears: a prayer of repentance and forgiveness: "And when he was in great distress, he cried to the Lord his God, and humbled himself completely before the God of his fathers." (verse 12) Here begins a whole new life for Manasseh and for everyone. Behold, this man has found his true self, built up what he had destroyed, cleansed what he had defiled, made right what he had broken! He will be a blessed, caring, loving, God-fearing ruler and shepherd of his people! Who would have believed it?! This is a miracle of grace!
And God offers his wonderful grace today! All are free to share in it. Don't be afraid of being rejected because of your past. God does not ask: who were you? You have neither advantage nor disadvantage because of your ancestors! It does not matter who you were! It is who you are now! If you are a person who has completely humbled yourself before God, so you come to God with a confession of sin and a plea for forgiveness in Jesus' name: He accepts you and forgives you! I read somewhere that Charles V received a large sum of money on loan from a merchant in Antwerp. The deadline had expired and the king was unable to pay. The merchant gave a great feast in the king's honour. When the guests were all together, the landlord placed a dish on the table in front of him, with a fire blazing in it. Then he took the bond and held it in the fire until it was destroyed. The king embraced his benefactor happily.
So God did to us. We should have paid our debt, but we were unable to. Two thousand years ago, God invited the world to the great feast of the gospel and there held your sin and mine in the burning pain of Christ's death on the cross until the last remnant of our sin, our debt, was burned away. Therefore you can come too. The great good news for us in this story is that there is forgiveness prepared, there is a way home from captivity! There is new life! But it is you who must humble yourself, you who must decide, you who must do right by God, you who must step onto this road to God! God gives you the way home, under His rule and care, God gives you the open door in Christ - but you have to enter it, you have to walk it!
"But the Lord watcheth them that fear him, and them that trust in his mercy, to deliver their souls from death, and to feed them in hunger." (Psalm 33:18-19) At this moment, God's eye is on you, my brother! Angels are watching you and waiting for your decision! Will there be joy in heaven today in your wholehearted surrender to Christ for a share in the grace of forgiveness and new beginnings!
It is truly as our good old, now forgotten hymn says:
There in the far-off land, orphaned, homeless,
Hear the cry my son, my son!
Your Father's love is waiting for you, your comfort is waiting,
Come from far away, O come home!
(Song of Hallelujah 167, verse 1)
Amen
Date: 23 Oct 1955.
Lesson
2Krón 33,1-16