In his distress Manasseh sought the favour of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors. 2 Chronicles 33:12
Last time we looked at four of Judah’s best kings, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah and Josiah, and saw how, sadly, each of them blotted their copybook (or “messed up”, if you prefer) towards the end of their reigns.
From which the main lesson was: keep going till the end. The Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint, and we should aim to end well.
But then something else occurred to me... Just possibly you may be saying, “My problem isn’t so much ‘Will I end well?’ No, my problem is the bitter regret that it took me so long to get started. Oh those wasted years! If only I could turn the clock back!
Is that you? If so, there is here in the stories of the kings not only a big warning, but also a massive encouragement.
Step forward, King Manasseh!
If ever there was a bad king, Manasseh was that man. (And, to make matters worse, he reigned for a hefty fifty-five years.) Just skim through 2 Kings 21, and it’s all there: child sacrifice, idolatry, occultism, sacrilegious worship, you name it. Bad, bad, bad.
But now turn to 2 Chronicles 33:10-17 and - hey, what’s this? Towards the end “he sought the favour of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors.” God “was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea.” Isn’t that just great?
Be encouraged, then, if you feel troubled about those “wasted” years - you’re in good (or should I say bad!) company. God is a gracious, merciful and forgiving God to those who truly repent - right up to the very end.
Two thoughts strike me...
First, godly parents don’t guarantee godly children.
As we saw last time, Manasseh’s father Hezekiah is one of the most heart-warming figures in the Old Testament : he “trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no-one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. He held fast to the Lord...” (2 Kings 18:5-6). High praise indeed!
So, you might ask, how on earth did he come to have a son like Manasseh? What went wrong? Was he in fact a bad parent? Answer: we just don’t know. But that’s the way it was.
And that’s the way it can be for us too. We probably all know those perfect-seeming families where all the children become solid Christians themselves. And thank God for such families. But I imagine we also know other families where the children have rejected the Christian faith, and in some cases gone right off the rails.
This is a word for all us parents. If our children don’t choose to follow Jesus, we are bound to be sad. And, yes, we may very well feel that we “could have done better” in the parenting department. (The big trouble with parenting is that you don’t get a dummy-run at it to prepare for the reality!)
But in spite of all that, we shouldn’t feel unduly guilty. Look! - didn’t even God himself have the same problem? - “For the Lord has spoken: ‘I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me’” (Isaiah 1:2).
All right, there were things we got wrong - but so were there also, no doubt, in the lives of those “perfect” families we mentioned earlier.
Hezekiah never lived to see the sheer vileness of Manasseh’s adult life - he died when Manasseh was just twelve. But I am sure he must have prayed for him in his early years - and surely that wonderful transformation recorded in 2 Chronicles 33 was an answer to his prayers.
So... Let’s keep praying for our children - even if, as with Hezekiah, it turns out that we are long dead by the time those prayers are answered.
Second, we are told that Manasseh made a genuine attempt to put right all that he had got wrong in those earlier years.
After a later period of captivity and then his return to Jerusalem, he “got rid of the foreign gods and removed the images from the temple of the Lord...” (2 Chronicles 33:15-16).
Fact: we can’t turn the clock back; we can’t undo what is done. But we can grab hold of every minute God gives us to serve and please him.
Manasseh’s change of heart came at a painful cost. At some point - we aren’t told when - along came the king of Assyria who “put a hook in his nose (ouch, nasty!), bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon” (2 Chronicles 33:11).
But I’m sure he felt it was worthwhile - any price is worth paying to find forgiveness and peace with God.
All right, you may feel deep regret that you wasted those earlier years. But be encouraged! As long as you have a day of life, God can - and will - use and bless you.
The time that remains can still be fruitful.
Thank you, Lord, that every day of life you give me is also an opportunity to love, trust and enjoy you - and to be used by you. So help me to put the failures of the past behind me, and to look confidently to the future. Amen.
Last time we looked at four of Judah’s best kings, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah and Josiah, and saw how, sadly, each of them blotted their copybook (or “messed up”, if you prefer) towards the end of their reigns.
From which the main lesson was: keep going till the end. The Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint, and we should aim to end well.
But then something else occurred to me... Just possibly you may be saying, “My problem isn’t so much ‘Will I end well?’ No, my problem is the bitter regret that it took me so long to get started. Oh those wasted years! If only I could turn the clock back!
Is that you? If so, there is here in the stories of the kings not only a big warning, but also a massive encouragement.
Step forward, King Manasseh!
If ever there was a bad king, Manasseh was that man. (And, to make matters worse, he reigned for a hefty fifty-five years.) Just skim through 2 Kings 21, and it’s all there: child sacrifice, idolatry, occultism, sacrilegious worship, you name it. Bad, bad, bad.
But now turn to 2 Chronicles 33:10-17 and - hey, what’s this? Towards the end “he sought the favour of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors.” God “was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea.” Isn’t that just great?
Be encouraged, then, if you feel troubled about those “wasted” years - you’re in good (or should I say bad!) company. God is a gracious, merciful and forgiving God to those who truly repent - right up to the very end.
Two thoughts strike me...
First, godly parents don’t guarantee godly children.
As we saw last time, Manasseh’s father Hezekiah is one of the most heart-warming figures in the Old Testament : he “trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no-one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. He held fast to the Lord...” (2 Kings 18:5-6). High praise indeed!
So, you might ask, how on earth did he come to have a son like Manasseh? What went wrong? Was he in fact a bad parent? Answer: we just don’t know. But that’s the way it was.
And that’s the way it can be for us too. We probably all know those perfect-seeming families where all the children become solid Christians themselves. And thank God for such families. But I imagine we also know other families where the children have rejected the Christian faith, and in some cases gone right off the rails.
This is a word for all us parents. If our children don’t choose to follow Jesus, we are bound to be sad. And, yes, we may very well feel that we “could have done better” in the parenting department. (The big trouble with parenting is that you don’t get a dummy-run at it to prepare for the reality!)
But in spite of all that, we shouldn’t feel unduly guilty. Look! - didn’t even God himself have the same problem? - “For the Lord has spoken: ‘I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me’” (Isaiah 1:2).
All right, there were things we got wrong - but so were there also, no doubt, in the lives of those “perfect” families we mentioned earlier.
Hezekiah never lived to see the sheer vileness of Manasseh’s adult life - he died when Manasseh was just twelve. But I am sure he must have prayed for him in his early years - and surely that wonderful transformation recorded in 2 Chronicles 33 was an answer to his prayers.
So... Let’s keep praying for our children - even if, as with Hezekiah, it turns out that we are long dead by the time those prayers are answered.
Second, we are told that Manasseh made a genuine attempt to put right all that he had got wrong in those earlier years.
After a later period of captivity and then his return to Jerusalem, he “got rid of the foreign gods and removed the images from the temple of the Lord...” (2 Chronicles 33:15-16).
Fact: we can’t turn the clock back; we can’t undo what is done. But we can grab hold of every minute God gives us to serve and please him.
Manasseh’s change of heart came at a painful cost. At some point - we aren’t told when - along came the king of Assyria who “put a hook in his nose (ouch, nasty!), bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon” (2 Chronicles 33:11).
But I’m sure he felt it was worthwhile - any price is worth paying to find forgiveness and peace with God.
All right, you may feel deep regret that you wasted those earlier years. But be encouraged! As long as you have a day of life, God can - and will - use and bless you.
The time that remains can still be fruitful.
Thank you, Lord, that every day of life you give me is also an opportunity to love, trust and enjoy you - and to be used by you. So help me to put the failures of the past behind me, and to look confidently to the future. Amen.
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