Manasseh

THEME: It is never too late to get right before God.

LESSON: Don't wait until we've destroyed ourselves and everything around us to put away our sin.

KEY VERSE: "And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers" (2 Chr. 33:12).

VERSE TO REMEMBER: "But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul" (Dt. 4:29).

TRACK RECORD: It's hard to believe that someone as righteous as Hezekiah could turn out a son as evil as Manasseh. The Wicked monarch reigned longer than any other king in Israel's history - 55 years. Among his transgressions - and there were many - was Mannasseh's blatant worship of idols and his practice of pagan rituals. "And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger" (3 Chr. 33:6). When God's patience had run out he sent the Assyrians to punish Jerusalem. They put a hook in Mannasseh's nose and bound him in bronze shackles and carried him off to prison in Baylon.

And it was sometime in his dank and dreary cell that he came to his senses and called upon the Lord. "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" (2 Chr. 33:13). Manasseh displayed his conversion by instituting repairs to the city wall and ridding the city of foreign gods. However, the damage to the people was too great to repair, for Manasseh's sins were recalled years later during the righteous reign of his grandson Josiah: "Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal" (2 Ki. 23:26).

APPLICATION: Too often Christians take liberites with the grace of God That He will forgive our sins when we truly repent of them is no excuse to sin at any time. Though Manasseh did come to know the Lord, he brought down an entire people until he did. As Christians, let us deal with our sin as soon as possible and spare those aroung us of the coneqences.

SPIRITUAL EPITAPH: "So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen, whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel" (2 Chr. 33:9).