The Prodigal King (2 Chronicles 33)

WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:09.349 Second Chronicles thirty three. I hope that you know at least one great story 2 00:00:09.509 --> 00:00:18.149 of repentance, the Biblical one. Is Is Sall right, this great persecutor 3 00:00:18.230 --> 00:00:24.620 of the Church who turned unto the Lord. Has the Lord revealed himself to 4 00:00:24.699 --> 00:00:30.739 him and became one of our great heroes, writer of a significant portion of 5 00:00:30.859 --> 00:00:35.539 the Bible used by God and in many great ways. I'm there of course, 6 00:00:35.579 --> 00:00:41.289 other examples, John Newton, the great slave traitor and later Christian and 7 00:00:41.369 --> 00:00:47.289 author of Amazing Grace and other hymns. Tonight I want to add one more 8 00:00:48.570 --> 00:00:55.920 person to your list of great repenters, really important stories to remember and think 9 00:00:56.039 --> 00:01:00.600 of often, and that is the story of King Manassa. Let's give our 10 00:01:00.640 --> 00:01:07.549 attention to it now. In second chronicles, Chapter Thirty three, Manassa was 11 00:01:07.629 --> 00:01:11.590 twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty five years 12 00:01:11.750 --> 00:01:18.859 in Jerusalem, and he did what was evil in the side of the Lord, 13 00:01:18.900 --> 00:01:23.299 according to the abominations of the nations, whom the Lord drove out before 14 00:01:23.420 --> 00:01:29.459 the people of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places that his father, 15 00:01:29.659 --> 00:01:34.170 Hezekiah, had broken down and he erected altars to the bales and made Asherahs 16 00:01:34.209 --> 00:01:41.170 and worshiped all the host of Heaven and served them, and he built altars 17 00:01:41.290 --> 00:01:44.450 in the House of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, in 18 00:01:44.569 --> 00:01:49.640 Jerusalem shall be my name forever. And he built altars for all the host 19 00:01:49.719 --> 00:01:53.599 of Heaven in the two courts of the House of the Lord, and he 20 00:01:53.760 --> 00:02:00.920 burned his sons as an offering in the valley of the son of Hinnom and 21 00:02:00.120 --> 00:02:07.430 used fortune telling and Omens and sorcery and dealt with mediums and necromancers. He 22 00:02:08.030 --> 00:02:12.669 did much evil in the side of the Lord, provoking him to anger, 23 00:02:13.430 --> 00:02:16.419 and the carved image of the idol that he made. He said, in 24 00:02:16.460 --> 00:02:21.740 a house of God, to which God had said to David and to solemn 25 00:02:21.819 --> 00:02:24.699 and his son, in this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen 26 00:02:25.020 --> 00:02:30.009 out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever and 27 00:02:30.169 --> 00:02:34.090 I will no more remove the foot of Israel from the land that I appointed 28 00:02:34.169 --> 00:02:38.689 for your father's I own. If only they will be careful to do all 29 00:02:38.729 --> 00:02:43.770 that I have commanded them, all the law, the statutes and the rules 30 00:02:43.849 --> 00:02:53.039 given through Moses Manassa led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray to do more 31 00:02:53.240 --> 00:02:57.360 evil than the nations whom the Lord destroyed. Before the people of Israel, 32 00:02:58.520 --> 00:03:01.949 the Lord spoke to Manassa and to his people, but they paid no attention. 33 00:03:02.909 --> 00:03:07.750 Therefore, the Lord brought upon them the commanders of the army of the 34 00:03:07.789 --> 00:03:13.060 king of Assyria, who captured Manassa with hooks and bound him with chains of 35 00:03:13.180 --> 00:03:17.939 bronze and brought him to Babylon. And when he was in distress, he 36 00:03:19.060 --> 00:03:25.539 entreated the favor of the Lord, his God, and humbled himself greatly before 37 00:03:25.580 --> 00:03:30.729 the God of his father's he prayed to him, and God was moved by 38 00:03:30.849 --> 00:03:37.810 his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. 39 00:03:38.729 --> 00:03:45.919 Then Manassa knew that the Lord was God. Afterward he built an outer 40 00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:50.360 wall for the city of David West of the Guihon in the valley and for 41 00:03:50.439 --> 00:03:53.800 the entrance into the fish gate, and carried it around and carried it around 42 00:03:53.840 --> 00:03:59.710 o fell and raised it to a very great height. He also put commanders 43 00:03:59.750 --> 00:04:02.270 of the army and all the fortified cities of Judah, and he took away 44 00:04:02.349 --> 00:04:05.669 the foreign gods and the idol from the House of the Lord and all the 45 00:04:05.750 --> 00:04:10.060 altars that he had made on the mountain of the House of the Lord and 46 00:04:10.379 --> 00:04:15.860 in Jerusalem, and he threw them outside of the city. He also restored 47 00:04:15.939 --> 00:04:19.220 the altar of the Lord and offered on its sacrifices of peace offerings and of 48 00:04:19.300 --> 00:04:25.290 Thanksgiving, and he commanded Judah to serve the Lord, the God of Israel. 49 00:04:26.610 --> 00:04:30.889 Nevertheless, the people still sacrificed at the high places, but only to 50 00:04:30.930 --> 00:04:35.250 the Lord, their God. Now the rest of the acts of Manassa and 51 00:04:35.370 --> 00:04:40.040 his prayer to his God and the words of the seers who spoke to him 52 00:04:40.040 --> 00:04:42.959 in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. Behold, they 53 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:46.639 are in the chronicles of the Kings of Israel, and his prayer and how 54 00:04:46.680 --> 00:04:50.920 God was moved by his entreaty and all his sin and faithlessness, and the 55 00:04:51.040 --> 00:04:56.470 sights on which he built high places and set up the Asherine and the images 56 00:04:57.069 --> 00:05:00.189 before he humbled himself. Behold, they are written in the chronicles of the 57 00:05:00.230 --> 00:05:05.550 seers. So manassa slept with his father's and they buried him in his house 58 00:05:05.990 --> 00:05:12.300 and am and his son reigned in his place. Am and was twenty two 59 00:05:12.339 --> 00:05:15.500 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem 60 00:05:16.220 --> 00:05:19.500 and he did what was evil in the side of the Lord, as Manassa 61 00:05:19.660 --> 00:05:25.370 his father had done. AM and sacrifice to all the images that Manassa his 62 00:05:25.490 --> 00:05:29.490 father had made and served them, and he did not humble himself before the 63 00:05:29.649 --> 00:05:34.089 Lord, as Manassa his father had humbled himself. But this ammon incurred guilt 64 00:05:34.689 --> 00:05:40.680 more and more, and his servants conspired against him and put him to death 65 00:05:40.759 --> 00:05:44.399 in his house. But the people of the land struck down all those who 66 00:05:44.399 --> 00:05:48.160 had conspired against King Amine and the people of the landmade Josiah, his son, 67 00:05:48.680 --> 00:05:59.550 King in his place, may God bless is weird to us. Will 68 00:05:59.629 --> 00:06:02.430 you can see why I say this is one of the great stories of repentance 69 00:06:03.269 --> 00:06:08.579 of all time. I think, sadly, you've forgotten one. A good 70 00:06:08.620 --> 00:06:15.459 reminder. Read your old testaments people. There's important things in here. All 71 00:06:15.500 --> 00:06:23.649 joking aside, and I'm not really joking, King Manassa a great story of 72 00:06:23.689 --> 00:06:31.730 repentance because of the degree of his sins. We all false sin are we 73 00:06:31.850 --> 00:06:38.360 all sin and false short of the glory of God. But but MANASSA. 74 00:06:40.639 --> 00:06:48.709 Wow, the list is a compact in a way. It covers a short 75 00:06:48.829 --> 00:06:56.949 space, but every clause is a new thing, a new problem. There's 76 00:06:56.990 --> 00:07:00.389 not a lot of detail here, except that we have him reigning for fifty 77 00:07:00.430 --> 00:07:05.899 five years and then this great cataloging of these things that he did. It's 78 00:07:05.980 --> 00:07:11.819 has a way of reminding us how much there was. It starts in verse 79 00:07:11.899 --> 00:07:15.339 too, with the summary. He did what was evil in the side of 80 00:07:15.379 --> 00:07:18.930 the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out 81 00:07:18.970 --> 00:07:27.410 before the people of Israel. That's not merely a comparison. He's not merely 82 00:07:27.490 --> 00:07:31.920 saying it's similar to that. There's a theological weight to that. God had 83 00:07:32.040 --> 00:07:39.720 driven Pagan nations out of the land of Israel so that Israel could be established 84 00:07:39.759 --> 00:07:44.310 there. So what do you think is going to happen? If Israel is 85 00:07:44.430 --> 00:07:48.509 doing the same things that the pagan nations were doing when they were driven out, 86 00:07:49.910 --> 00:07:56.750 they will be exiled, and indeed we are coming to a speedy conclusion 87 00:07:57.670 --> 00:08:01.899 in the exile. God puts it on hold here because of the repentance of 88 00:08:01.980 --> 00:08:07.220 Manassa, but it won't be for much longer. This point about the nations 89 00:08:07.339 --> 00:08:11.379 is brought up not only be at the beginning, but also the end, 90 00:08:11.180 --> 00:08:16.089 where we read that they continued to go after these things in the high places. 91 00:08:16.810 --> 00:08:22.410 They continue to do as the nations had done before them. The specifics 92 00:08:22.449 --> 00:08:28.120 of those things are then given in verse three and following. First of all, 93 00:08:28.199 --> 00:08:33.639 he rebuilds the high places. This is an egregious thing, right. 94 00:08:33.080 --> 00:08:37.960 He's not merely sort of inheriting a bunch of problems that he can sinues in, 95 00:08:39.039 --> 00:08:41.309 which would be sinful enough, but he's sort of going out of his 96 00:08:41.509 --> 00:08:46.309 way to do the things against the good example that his father said for him. 97 00:08:48.429 --> 00:08:50.429 I know we can all sort of raise our hands and say there have 98 00:08:50.509 --> 00:08:54.509 been people in our lives who have shown us the right way and told us 99 00:08:54.549 --> 00:08:58.620 the right thing and rather than building on that, we built against it. 100 00:09:00.779 --> 00:09:03.539 And that's what Manassa does here. He instead of staying true to the God 101 00:09:03.659 --> 00:09:07.460 of Israel, remembering all the great things that the Lord had done for Hezekiah, 102 00:09:07.580 --> 00:09:11.610 his father, he is now erecting things and erecting them all over the 103 00:09:11.769 --> 00:09:16.809 place. He rebuilds the high places, he erects altars to the bales. 104 00:09:16.850 --> 00:09:20.250 He meets astras in at the end of verse three. There it says he 105 00:09:20.330 --> 00:09:26.440 worships all the host of Heaven and served them. You know, when our 106 00:09:26.919 --> 00:09:31.200 kids are in school, they learn about these great pantheons of the Gods, 107 00:09:31.519 --> 00:09:35.519 right the Greek and the Roman gods. But this is true and all places 108 00:09:35.639 --> 00:09:41.549 throughout the world, and this time as well, man is constantly tempted to 109 00:09:41.990 --> 00:09:45.830 give his hope and his desire, as we thought about this morning, from 110 00:09:45.830 --> 00:09:50.710 first John Two, to the things of this world, the the the created 111 00:09:50.950 --> 00:09:54.419 things, and raise them up above God. And that's what Manassa did. 112 00:09:56.379 --> 00:09:58.940 He worshiped them and served them, the Sun, the moon, the stars, 113 00:10:00.059 --> 00:10:03.539 animals, all kinds of things. He goes farther, though, is 114 00:10:03.580 --> 00:10:07.409 if that it's not enough. In verse four he builds holp Altars in the 115 00:10:07.610 --> 00:10:13.850 House of God. Later we read that he constructs an image in the House 116 00:10:13.929 --> 00:10:20.889 of God and altars out in the courtyard. Can you imagine coming to church 117 00:10:20.090 --> 00:10:24.919 one day and you realize that pastor Chopka has set up a giant statue one 118 00:10:24.919 --> 00:10:31.559 day that we're all or cure to worship? That's what Manassa did in the 119 00:10:31.720 --> 00:10:35.399 place of the Lord in the in the place, and it mentions that several 120 00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:41.070 times in the chapter. In Jerusalem shall be my name forever. This is 121 00:10:41.190 --> 00:10:48.309 the place specially designated by God. Later we pick up words from earlier, 122 00:10:48.389 --> 00:10:52.659 in second chronicles, when, or in chronicles where? Let's see, this 123 00:10:52.740 --> 00:10:56.620 is in verse seven. God said to David, into PSALOMN and his son, 124 00:10:56.980 --> 00:11:01.340 in this house in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the 125 00:11:01.460 --> 00:11:07.409 tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever God, even as solemn 126 00:11:07.490 --> 00:11:11.370 and dedicated to the house. It was because God had already dedicated it undo 127 00:11:11.450 --> 00:11:16.370 himself. God was to live with them, dwell with them, rule over 128 00:11:16.490 --> 00:11:24.759 them, not be supplanted by them. This is nothing short of treason in 129 00:11:24.919 --> 00:11:33.509 political terms idolatry in religious terms. God tells them, though, that his 130 00:11:33.950 --> 00:11:39.389 strength in Israel is dependent upon their obedience. He says in verse eight that 131 00:11:39.629 --> 00:11:45.789 no more will I will no more remove the foot of Israel from the land 132 00:11:46.149 --> 00:11:50.299 that I appointed for your father's, if only they will be careful to do 133 00:11:50.700 --> 00:11:54.379 all that I have commanded them, all the law, the statutes and the 134 00:11:54.419 --> 00:12:00.659 rules given through Moses. So there's two covenants in play here. One Covenant 135 00:12:00.700 --> 00:12:03.049 is the Covenant that God made with David, in which he promised that a 136 00:12:03.129 --> 00:12:07.090 rule or a son of his would set on the throne and rule over Israel 137 00:12:07.129 --> 00:12:13.490 forever eternity, even but the other covenant that is a play is that it 138 00:12:13.649 --> 00:12:18.039 is that is at play as God's covenant with the People Under Moses and which 139 00:12:18.039 --> 00:12:22.000 he says, do these things and you shall live, do these things and 140 00:12:22.159 --> 00:12:26.279 you will be blessed. Do these things and you will be able to stay 141 00:12:26.840 --> 00:12:33.990 in the land. But here we see them doing none of these things, 142 00:12:35.230 --> 00:12:41.590 breaking specific and extremely important parts of the Mosaic Law. God was very, 143 00:12:41.710 --> 00:12:50.620 very clear about these things, about worshiping carved images, about worshiping him alone, 144 00:12:50.659 --> 00:12:56.220 about not depending on witchcraft and sorcery and necromancy and all the rest. 145 00:12:58.610 --> 00:13:03.330 God was very clear that he was to be king and King alone, and 146 00:13:03.450 --> 00:13:07.529 that every king, every human king, that would rule under him, would 147 00:13:07.529 --> 00:13:11.490 give him all glory and honor and praise and obedience, and the people were 148 00:13:11.570 --> 00:13:20.320 to follow as well. And here we see Manassa and all of Judah breakingness 149 00:13:20.399 --> 00:13:24.000 at at every important level, and and worse as well. We read, 150 00:13:24.120 --> 00:13:30.590 and I believe it's a second kings, that he was also a politically brutal, 151 00:13:31.029 --> 00:13:35.110 murderous and other things. We of course read here of him burning his 152 00:13:35.230 --> 00:13:41.899 own sons in verse six. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine what 153 00:13:41.940 --> 00:13:50.059 it would take to motivate you to burn your own children in sacrifice to another 154 00:13:50.179 --> 00:14:01.289 God. That's what Manassa did. It gets worse. In verse ten, 155 00:14:01.450 --> 00:14:05.889 we read that the Lord spoke to Manassa, as he does. He speaks 156 00:14:05.970 --> 00:14:09.159 to Manassa, he speaks to the people, but they pay no attention. 157 00:14:11.639 --> 00:14:16.320 We have a way of incurring guilt and then piling it up. We read 158 00:14:16.399 --> 00:14:20.679 about this when it comes to am and. In Verse Twenty Three, am 159 00:14:20.759 --> 00:14:26.429 and incurred guilt more and more. Right his son, who only reigned two 160 00:14:26.470 --> 00:14:31.629 years, to very short years, not the fifty five of Manassa. Em 161 00:14:31.669 --> 00:14:33.269 and reigns these two short years. And in these two short years he and 162 00:14:33.389 --> 00:14:39.740 curl he incurred guilt more and more. The Apostle Paul the beginning of Romans, 163 00:14:39.820 --> 00:14:46.019 when he's careful to show us how we are all condemned under the law, 164 00:14:46.899 --> 00:14:52.659 Manassa and you and me. One of the points that he makes is 165 00:14:52.740 --> 00:14:58.210 that he says to the the unbelievers and the Non Jews, the gentiles of 166 00:14:58.289 --> 00:15:03.889 the world in particular, he says, do you not know that the kindness 167 00:15:03.970 --> 00:15:09.000 and forbearance of God was meant to lead you to per penance and that because 168 00:15:09.039 --> 00:15:15.840 you're not responding to this, you're only storing up wrath for yourself. That's 169 00:15:15.840 --> 00:15:20.320 what happened with ammon. That's what's happening with Manassa when he's refusing to listen, 170 00:15:20.429 --> 00:15:24.590 refusing to listen much of the prophets of the Bible or about this. 171 00:15:24.750 --> 00:15:31.149 They are God's covenant lawyers, coming again and again saying thus, Saith the 172 00:15:31.309 --> 00:15:35.350 Lord, you shall not do these things. But because you have done them, 173 00:15:35.429 --> 00:15:39.340 the judgment of the Lord is coming. And it came from Manessa. 174 00:15:41.019 --> 00:15:46.220 We read that the commanders of the army of Assyria, they captured Manassa, 175 00:15:48.059 --> 00:15:52.409 and not to make him a prince of some I honor in their empire, 176 00:15:52.330 --> 00:15:58.690 but to subjugate him, to embarrass him with hooks. They bound him with 177 00:15:58.850 --> 00:16:15.600 chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon. We like to we like to 178 00:16:15.159 --> 00:16:19.190 think of our own sins, often in relation to other people, and a 179 00:16:19.230 --> 00:16:23.750 lot of times this is totally an unhelpful thing, because what you're usually doing 180 00:16:23.909 --> 00:16:29.629 is trying to get ourselves off the hook. Well, I'm not that bad, 181 00:16:29.750 --> 00:16:36.379 or I'm not so bad, or whatever the case may be. But 182 00:16:36.539 --> 00:16:40.820 sometimes it is helpful to compare our sins to other people, and this is 183 00:16:40.899 --> 00:16:44.820 one of those cases, not so that we can say, well, at 184 00:16:44.820 --> 00:16:48.649 least I'm not as bad as Manassa, but so that we might say, 185 00:16:48.690 --> 00:16:53.210 well, if God can forgive Manassa, God can forgive anyone, the thief 186 00:16:53.370 --> 00:16:57.929 on the Cross. All of tars has Jonah, sinking down and being swallowed 187 00:16:57.970 --> 00:17:04.720 up by the Seaweed and by the by the fish. There are humans, 188 00:17:06.640 --> 00:17:12.559 people, some of you even here, maybe all of you here, who've 189 00:17:12.640 --> 00:17:19.589 done some pretty horrible things. You've committed the sins of the Ten Commandments, 190 00:17:22.269 --> 00:17:27.109 not the subtle little ones that are attached to them, though those are sins 191 00:17:27.150 --> 00:17:33.339 as well, the ones by implication, the ones that we take from good 192 00:17:33.380 --> 00:17:40.579 and necessary consequences. But I'm talking about the big ones. I don't think 193 00:17:40.579 --> 00:17:45.089 there's anyone here who can walk out of tonight and say, Oh yeah, 194 00:17:45.210 --> 00:17:52.809 I've done pretty well. MANASSA's story tells us that for sinners, all sinners, 195 00:17:53.849 --> 00:18:00.799 those who commit adultery, those who commit idolatry, those who commit murder, 196 00:18:03.160 --> 00:18:12.869 for all sinners, there's forgiveness for those who repent, and you see 197 00:18:12.910 --> 00:18:22.470 that in these coming verses. When Manassa was in distress, he entreated not 198 00:18:22.630 --> 00:18:26.950 the justice of the Lord, he was getting that he entreated the favor of 199 00:18:26.109 --> 00:18:33.099 the Lord, his God, and he humbled himself greatly before the God of 200 00:18:33.259 --> 00:18:37.579 his father's this humility is very important and it's an important part of repentance. 201 00:18:38.619 --> 00:18:44.089 Everything Manassa has been doing up to this point has not been humble, it's 202 00:18:44.130 --> 00:18:48.009 been prideful. He has been setting the rules, he has been deciding how 203 00:18:48.130 --> 00:18:52.529 things will go, where his power goes, to whom it goes, why 204 00:18:52.650 --> 00:18:57.000 it goes. Manassas the one who's been deciding who to worship and who not 205 00:18:57.119 --> 00:19:00.160 to worship, who to serve not to serve, what to do what not 206 00:19:00.359 --> 00:19:06.680 to do. God Says No carved images, no graven images. He says, 207 00:19:06.799 --> 00:19:10.269 well, I make my own decisions. God says, you worship no 208 00:19:10.349 --> 00:19:11.789 other gods but me. Manassa Says No, I want to do what I 209 00:19:11.869 --> 00:19:17.230 want to do. This is the essence of sin. It's choosing our will 210 00:19:17.990 --> 00:19:22.549 over and above God's. The finally, by the goodness and grace of the 211 00:19:22.630 --> 00:19:33.380 Lord Manassa, this Manassa humbles himself greatly before the God of not the nations 212 00:19:34.220 --> 00:19:40.930 but of his father's. He prayed to him and God was moved by his 213 00:19:41.210 --> 00:19:45.849 entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem, into his kingdom. 214 00:19:47.450 --> 00:19:52.680 Then Manassa knew that the Lord was God. This sounds to me like 215 00:19:52.839 --> 00:20:02.680 a conversion, part change. That's what repentance is. It's changing and moving 216 00:20:02.759 --> 00:20:07.710 from one thing to another, and you see that in the coming verses. 217 00:20:07.869 --> 00:20:11.869 If the first thing where to learn about repentance from this chapter is that there's 218 00:20:11.910 --> 00:20:18.390 always a time for repentance until there isn't. But there's always over time for 219 00:20:18.509 --> 00:20:22.619 repentance while God is still offering it, while we're still alive and breathing, 220 00:20:22.700 --> 00:20:27.859 even when it gets as bad as Manassa's situation. Manassa didn't sort of give 221 00:20:27.900 --> 00:20:33.660 himself over to the fate of the Gods. He didn't look at God's judgment 222 00:20:33.779 --> 00:20:34.809 and say, well, this is good, it's going to be forever. 223 00:20:36.250 --> 00:20:38.490 I clearly deserve this and that's the way it's going to be. He could 224 00:20:38.490 --> 00:20:41.569 have said that and there would have been some truth to that. You could 225 00:20:41.569 --> 00:20:48.690 have said to him, yeah, maybe, Manessa. But instead he reached 226 00:20:48.730 --> 00:20:52.079 out to the Lord, the God of his father's, because the god of 227 00:20:52.160 --> 00:20:57.799 his father's had promised mercy to all who would trust him for it, and 228 00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:03.400 God was moved of course he was moved. That's who God is. He 229 00:21:03.519 --> 00:21:11.150 heard Manassa's prayer. There's always a time to repent until we die. The 230 00:21:11.230 --> 00:21:15.670 second thing to known about repentance to think that we learn in this chapters that 231 00:21:15.230 --> 00:21:22.980 it is a true turning. Manassa is not just sort of throwing up words 232 00:21:22.099 --> 00:21:26.500 to God and kind of hoping something will stick. and well, that works. 233 00:21:26.539 --> 00:21:30.660 So and move about his life. Now you see a change happen and 234 00:21:30.859 --> 00:21:37.569 that's true repentance. True repentance isn't just saying I'm sorry, it's doing something 235 00:21:37.730 --> 00:21:42.890 different. And boy does he do something different. His Chap the chapter start. 236 00:21:44.049 --> 00:21:48.119 Sorry, the verse is starting at Verse Fourteen. is how the chapters 237 00:21:48.200 --> 00:21:52.480 for the good kings usually start. And such and such a king to though 238 00:21:52.519 --> 00:21:55.039 what was right in the side of the Lord and he built the wall and 239 00:21:55.160 --> 00:21:57.400 he fortified the city and he protected the people and all those kinds of things. 240 00:21:57.880 --> 00:22:02.470 For MANASSA takes a while. Maybe for some of you it's taken a 241 00:22:02.549 --> 00:22:08.750 while. That's true here. That's okay. In a way, God is 242 00:22:08.869 --> 00:22:14.910 good, Merciful. Manassa gets to work. He builds an outer wall for 243 00:22:15.029 --> 00:22:18.539 the city of David. He's he's spilds it far. He builds it high, 244 00:22:18.660 --> 00:22:26.140 he strengthens it, instead of ignoring and and sort of spiritually depleting the 245 00:22:26.259 --> 00:22:32.450 resources and perhaps physically to the resources of Judah and Jerusalem. How he's building 246 00:22:32.490 --> 00:22:36.930 it up, he's strengthening it, he's protecting it against the nations. Instead 247 00:22:36.970 --> 00:22:40.970 of inviting them in, he takes away, in verse fifteen, the foreign 248 00:22:41.049 --> 00:22:44.400 gods, the idol from the House of the Lord, the altars that he 249 00:22:44.440 --> 00:22:47.519 had built up on the mountain of the House in the Lord in Jerusalem. 250 00:22:47.559 --> 00:22:51.400 mean he threw them all outside the city. He restored the altar of the 251 00:22:51.519 --> 00:22:59.029 Lord, offered on it, sacrifices to God. An amazing thing. Do 252 00:22:59.109 --> 00:23:02.589 you know how hard it is? Perhaps you do, but you know how 253 00:23:02.869 --> 00:23:06.230 hard it is to go to people after spending all of your time and your 254 00:23:06.309 --> 00:23:11.269 resources and energy building something you shouldn't have and to say I'm sorry and deconstruct 255 00:23:11.349 --> 00:23:17.180 it? If that's hard on a one to one basis, can you imagine 256 00:23:17.259 --> 00:23:22.859 doing that as a king, all of your public works projects that you've been 257 00:23:22.900 --> 00:23:30.009 spending most of your royal career, so to speak, a building to give 258 00:23:30.049 --> 00:23:36.089 glory to yourself, now having to take down one after another? After another, 259 00:23:37.369 --> 00:23:42.000 and that even while we read in verse seventeen that the people still sacrificed 260 00:23:42.119 --> 00:23:48.640 at the high places, but to the Lord they're God. A good reminder 261 00:23:48.720 --> 00:23:52.640 there in verse seventeen, that God doesn't want us to worship in any old 262 00:23:52.680 --> 00:23:56.390 way with it. We want he wants to be worshiped how he wants to 263 00:23:56.430 --> 00:24:00.069 be worshiped. We worship according to his will, not our imaginations, not 264 00:24:00.230 --> 00:24:06.630 our desires. It's not good enough that they're worshiping him and that they're at 265 00:24:06.670 --> 00:24:11.299 the high places. The high places need to be gone. They need to 266 00:24:11.619 --> 00:24:21.259 get themselves to the temple anyway. I mentioned this in part to point out 267 00:24:21.339 --> 00:24:26.970 the political pressure that was on Manassa, to show you the level of repentance 268 00:24:26.089 --> 00:24:33.170 or the level of turning that we see him going to. I think it's 269 00:24:33.210 --> 00:24:37.730 fairly safe to say that verses fourteen through seventeen would not have been an easy 270 00:24:37.890 --> 00:24:45.319 thing to do. Would have been very difficult, embarrassing, maybe even especially 271 00:24:45.359 --> 00:24:48.119 after coming back from exile. Who knows what was going on while he was 272 00:24:48.240 --> 00:24:53.109 gone. Nevertheless, he does it and he does it because his heart has 273 00:24:53.150 --> 00:25:00.150 been changed. He knows now, knows an intimate and personal sense, that 274 00:25:00.230 --> 00:25:04.950 the Lord is God. The last thing I want to mention that I think 275 00:25:06.069 --> 00:25:11.579 this teaches us about repentance is that when we come to know the Lord and 276 00:25:11.740 --> 00:25:17.900 to truly trust in him for forgiveness, as Manassa does, and truly trust 277 00:25:18.019 --> 00:25:22.849 and unrepent of our sins, it doesn't necessarily mean that everything here on earth 278 00:25:22.930 --> 00:25:26.569 is going to get fixed up and a nice little bow put on it. 279 00:25:26.690 --> 00:25:33.329 For us, there are real consequences that Manassa continues to face. It's hard. 280 00:25:34.450 --> 00:25:37.720 It's true that the Lord is good to him, the Lord Blesses Him, 281 00:25:38.119 --> 00:25:47.319 the Lord preserves Israel yet a little while longer, but we see ongoing 282 00:25:47.359 --> 00:25:51.069 struggles, not only in the peace of people continuing to sacrifice at the high 283 00:25:51.150 --> 00:25:56.109 places, but in the following story about his son am and. It's likely 284 00:25:56.309 --> 00:26:06.140 that Manassa went most of his kingship living in this sinful way and that it 285 00:26:06.299 --> 00:26:08.700 was just at the end. We know this from some dating in second kings 286 00:26:08.819 --> 00:26:14.339 and other places, that his repentance was likely at the very end, which 287 00:26:14.339 --> 00:26:18.380 is good, which is a blessing, but it also meant that his son, 288 00:26:18.609 --> 00:26:25.490 amine the time he got to twenty two years old, been being catechized. 289 00:26:25.849 --> 00:26:30.450 According to the bales so nash rooms. He'd been living out the liturgies 290 00:26:30.569 --> 00:26:34.279 of worshiping at the high places and seeing the idols and going to the altars, 291 00:26:34.839 --> 00:26:41.680 seeing where his father had put his confidence and Amine. He didn't get 292 00:26:41.799 --> 00:26:47.230 what Dad was going, what dad was doing. This repentance, this change, 293 00:26:47.269 --> 00:26:51.910 all of these things. No, Ammin he decides to go into the 294 00:26:51.950 --> 00:26:56.109 old sinful paths. He did what was evil in the side of the Lord, 295 00:26:56.230 --> 00:27:00.150 as Manassa his father had done, and he sacrifices to the images that 296 00:27:00.269 --> 00:27:04.180 Manassa his father had made and he served them. He did not humble himself 297 00:27:04.380 --> 00:27:10.299 before the Lord, as Manassa had done, and in this he incurred guilt 298 00:27:10.579 --> 00:27:18.250 more and more. God punishes him for this. Instead of establishing strength and 299 00:27:18.730 --> 00:27:22.170 power as he, I suppose he thought he would have of after his father's 300 00:27:22.250 --> 00:27:29.970 long reign, he dies quickly the hands of his own servants. And after 301 00:27:30.079 --> 00:27:34.039 that it's not as though the servants were attained maintained power, but they're struck 302 00:27:34.079 --> 00:27:41.960 down and basically there's political turmoil until Josiah's made king. I point this out 303 00:27:42.440 --> 00:27:47.630 to point that, just to point out that just because we repent, it 304 00:27:48.470 --> 00:27:52.789 doesn't mean that everything is fixed. It doesn't mean that the mistakes we've made, 305 00:27:52.910 --> 00:27:57.069 in the people we've heard, the things we've done will all be okay. 306 00:28:00.259 --> 00:28:04.859 But we repent anyway. Why? Well, you might say, it's 307 00:28:04.980 --> 00:28:08.980 because it's the right thing to do, and that's true, of course it's 308 00:28:10.019 --> 00:28:11.579 the right thing to do. Always better to do some of the right thing 309 00:28:11.619 --> 00:28:18.890 than none right but there's more to it than that. We do it knowing 310 00:28:18.970 --> 00:28:23.369 that not everything is going to be fixed by our repentance, because ultimately, 311 00:28:23.490 --> 00:28:29.319 we're not trusting in our repentance to fix things, are we? That's not 312 00:28:29.480 --> 00:28:36.359 what repentance is. Repentance is trusting and the God of our fathers, trusting 313 00:28:36.480 --> 00:28:42.509 him to fix everything, trusting him to work all things for good, to 314 00:28:42.710 --> 00:28:48.109 take the evils that we experience, as well as the evils that we commit, 315 00:28:49.789 --> 00:28:56.059 and make them perfect and use them for good, use them to glorify 316 00:28:56.259 --> 00:29:06.220 himself and bring about his holy will. We don't depend on our own repentance 317 00:29:06.940 --> 00:29:11.369 to make all things right. We depend on God, the king, the 318 00:29:11.450 --> 00:29:15.690 King of Israel, of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Moses, 319 00:29:15.769 --> 00:29:19.970 of David. We look to the Lord and to his law and we 320 00:29:21.130 --> 00:29:26.319 say guilty has charged. We have not comet kept Your Commandments. We have 321 00:29:26.480 --> 00:29:32.599 not kept your laws, we have not kept your holy statutes. We just 322 00:29:32.799 --> 00:29:37.440 as much as Israel we have no right to either that earthly land or to 323 00:29:37.559 --> 00:29:44.869 the heavenly land and a kingdom in the age to come. But we repent 324 00:29:45.829 --> 00:29:51.950 knowing that God will give to us not his justice in that moment, but 325 00:29:52.029 --> 00:29:57.779 will give to us his favor and his mercy. He does that in particular 326 00:29:57.900 --> 00:30:03.619 through Jesus, who fulfills the law that God gave to Moses, the fulfills 327 00:30:03.740 --> 00:30:11.170 the promise to be David's, a greater son, Jesus, who comes to 328 00:30:11.410 --> 00:30:15.329 rule, even as he ruled over Israel then and rules over Israel now. 329 00:30:18.089 --> 00:30:22.920 US, his people who believe and trust in him and belong to his kingdom 330 00:30:22.519 --> 00:30:30.880 by faith. We don't repent because we think that we can somehow, by 331 00:30:30.920 --> 00:30:37.309 our actions, make everything perfect again. Often it does solve problems and brings 332 00:30:37.470 --> 00:30:41.630 restoration and forgiveness and healing here and now, and it's a joy when it 333 00:30:41.670 --> 00:30:48.029 happens. But when it doesn't, we don't give up and we don't stop 334 00:30:48.109 --> 00:30:51.259 ourselves short of repenting saying well, I know it's not going to do any 335 00:30:51.299 --> 00:30:55.220 good anyway. No, we do it because we trust in the Lord. 336 00:30:56.339 --> 00:31:00.700 We trust in him to be king over his people and to bring all things 337 00:31:00.940 --> 00:31:07.450 into perfection, to provide for us forever and ever through his son, who 338 00:31:07.529 --> 00:31:15.289 rules and reigns over us even now. So when you look at your sins, 339 00:31:15.490 --> 00:31:19.960 when you face the darknesses of your heart, do not give up, 340 00:31:22.160 --> 00:31:26.079 do not grow hard in your hearts, do not die in your sins, 341 00:31:27.519 --> 00:31:34.269 but be like Manassa. Give yourself over to the Lord, seek his favor. 342 00:31:36.230 --> 00:31:40.190 He will forgive you. Let's pray