NOW I SEE — Part One
There are moments in life when everything suddenly becomes clear—moments when the fog lifts, the shadows part, and what we could never understand in our blindness finally comes into focus. Grace has a way of doing that. It finds us when we are running, speaks to us when we are hiding, and opens our eyes when we cannot open them ourselves. Jean Valjean had such a moment. King Manasseh had such a moment. John Newton had such a moment. And every believer who has ever come home to God has whispered the same testimony in one form or another: “I was blind… but now I see.”
We begin today with a story the world never stops telling—Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. The French have called it “the fifth gospel” because running through its pages is the great struggle of the human heart: the struggle between Law and Grace. On one side stands Javert, the relentless inspector who believes justice can save the world. On the other side stands Jean Valjean, a hardened man whose entire life is rewritten by one undeserved act of mercy.
You remember the moment. Valjean steals silver from the priest who showed him kindness and shelter. The police catch him. They drag him back. He is thrown at the priest’s feet. He expects condemnation. He expects wrath. He expects the full weight of the law to crush him.
Instead, the priest lifts the silver and says to the officers, “This man is my friend. I gave him this silver. But Jean… you forgot the candlesticks.” And he hands Valjean the most precious items he owns.
That moment breaks him. It shatters the darkness covering his soul. It is grace in its purest form—irrational, undeserved, overwhelming. And it becomes the turning point of his entire life.
Grace does that.
Grace changes people.
Grace opens blind eyes.
Later, at the barricade—the story’s symbolic Calvary—Valjean carries the wounded young man who loves his daughter. For hours, step after agonizing step, he carries him on his back through the underground of Paris. When he finally emerges, exhausted, he lifts his eyes to God and cries, “Lord, let this young man live. If need be—take my life.”
A man who once stole silver now offers his life for another.
That is the miracle of grace.
But grace does not only operate in novels. Grace operates in the tangled streets of Scripture. Grace operates in the wreckage of our own stories. Grace walks into the darkest corners of the human soul and turns on the light. And nowhere does that become clearer than in the story of King Manasseh.
Turn with me to 2 Chronicles 33.
Manasseh was the son of one of the most righteous kings Judah ever had—King Hezekiah. Under Hezekiah’s leadership, the nation had returned to worship, returned to faithfulness, returned to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The temple was restored. Idols were torn down. Revival swept through the land.
And then came Manasseh—only twelve years old when he took the throne.
Can you imagine it? A crown on the head of a child. Authority without maturity. Power without wisdom. Influence without experience. The throne that required a prophet’s mind and a father’s heart now rested on the shoulders of a boy with neither.
And that boy unraveled everything.
Scripture says he did not merely drift—he ran into darkness. He reversed his father’s reforms. He rebuilt the high places his father had destroyed. He erected altars to Baal. He placed Asherah poles—phallic fertility symbols—inside the very courts of God’s holy temple. He bowed down to the sun, moon, and stars. He practiced sorcery, witchcraft, divination. He surrounded himself with mediums and spiritists.
And he didn’t simply sin privately—he led a whole nation into corruption publicly.
Scripture says he became worse than all the kings before him, and he made Judah worse than the nations God had driven out of the land. That’s how far he fell.
But the darkest moment was this:
Manasseh sacrificed his own sons in the fire.
In the Valley of Hinnom, the idol Dagon stood with iron arms stretched forward. Worshipers built fires beneath those arms until the metal glowed red. They placed their children on the idol’s palms, rolled them down into the flames, believing they were earning the gods’ favor.
Manasseh did that.
A king of Judah.
A son of David.
Burning his children.
This is the man we meet in Scripture. A man who desecrated the sacred. A man who reversed revival. A man who led a nation into darkness. A man who went so far into spiritual blindness that he could no longer recognize right from wrong.
And yet… his story is not over.
Because rebellion rarely stays isolated to the spiritual realm. Eventually, Manasseh made the mistake of rebelling against the Assyrians—a political disaster. Assyria was the superpower of the world. Manasseh’s name appears on the prism of Ashurbanipal—the clay inscription of the Assyrian king—listed among the rulers who paid tribute.
But when he rebelled, the Assyrians struck back.
They invaded.
They captured Manasseh.
They put bronze shackles on him.
They drove a hook through his nose.
They tied the hook to a rope.
They fastened the rope to a chariot.
They dragged the king of Judah all the way to Babylon like a farm animal.
Imagine the sight: a boy-king, now a broken man, stumbling behind a horse-drawn cart through the dust and heat, humiliated, filthy, trembling, stripped of dignity and stripped of hope.
Everything he built… gone.
Everything he trusted… collapsed.
Everything he believed… exposed.
Everything he was… ruined.
Blind.
Lost.
Empty.
Alone.
And yet it was there—in exile, in darkness, in chains—that the first beam of grace broke through the blindness of his soul.
Scripture says:
> “In his distress, he sought the favor of the Lord his God.”
When everything else failed, when every idol was silent, when every excuse collapsed, when every illusion fell away—Manasseh prayed.
Not a royal prayer.
Not a polished prayer.
Not a temple prayer.
A desperate, trembling, broken-hearted prayer whispered through bleeding lips…
…and heaven listened.
The Scripture says:
> “The Lord was moved by his entreaty.”
“…and brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom.”
In other words:
Grace brought him home.
Grace opened his eyes.
Grace gave him back the life he destroyed.
Grace made him say the words he could never say before:
“Now I see.”
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Manasseh’s story turns on a single sentence—just a handful of words that reveal everything we need to know about the heart of God. The Scriptures say, “In his distress, he sought the favor of the Lord his God.” Not in his victory. Not in his strength. Not in his success. Not in the season when the temple was clean and the idols were removed. No—in his distress. In the filth of Babylon. In the humiliation of chains. In the loneliness of exile. In the consequences of his own rebellion. That is when he finally turned toward God.
There is something profoundly human about that. We rarely seek God when life is polished. We seek Him when life collapses. We seek Him when the things we trusted betray us. We seek Him when the idols we built crumble to dust. We seek Him when our brilliance runs out, when our strength fails, when the road behind us is littered with broken pieces. Sometimes it takes Babylon to open our eyes.
But here is the miracle: when Manasseh prayed, God was moved.
Think about that.
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The God who parted the Red Sea.
The God who spoke worlds into existence.
The God who holds galaxies in His hands.
That God was moved by the prayer of the most wicked king Judah ever produced.
Not overwhelmed by His own holiness.
Not restrained by Manasseh’s crimes.
Not bound by His justice to reject him.
Moved.
When grace moves, chains break.
When grace moves, walls fall.
When grace moves, even the most hopeless stories begin to breathe again.
Manasseh’s life teaches the world that no one—no matter how far they have run, how deeply they have sinned, how badly they have fallen—is beyond the hearing of God. If Manasseh can pray and be heard, then any of us can pray and be heard. If Manasseh can come home, then anyone can come home. This is the scandalous beauty of grace.
And it is here that we confront the great truth of the gospel: grace is not God turning a blind eye. Grace is God opening His arms. Grace does not excuse sin; grace rescues sinners. Grace is not weak; it is the mightiest force in the universe. Grace reaches farther down than sin can dig. Grace loves longer than guilt can run. Grace restores what shame has shattered.
There are people—good, sincere people—who fear grace. They fear it because they have been taught that law is what keeps us moral. They worry that if you preach grace too strongly, people will take advantage of it. If you speak of God’s mercy too freely, people might sin without restraint. So they build fences around the gospel, adding conditions, adding behaviors, adding requirements, trying to “protect” the holiness of God.
But holiness never needed protecting. Holiness is not fragile. Holiness is not threatened by mercy. Holiness is what makes grace possible. And grace, once received, does not make sin easier—it makes sin unbearable.
Paul saw the fear in people’s hearts, so he confronted it directly in Romans 6 when he said, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid.” In other words, people who treat grace like permission have never tasted grace at all. True grace does not empower rebellion; true grace ends rebellion. Grace does not loosen the chains of sin—grace breaks them.
That is why Paul also says, “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” Notice his logic: sin loses its power not when we stand under the law, but when we stand under grace. Law reveals sin, but grace destroys its rule. Law commands righteousness, but grace produces it.
Grace does not minimize obedience. Grace makes obedience possible.
Grace is not the absence of moral force. Grace is the presence of divine power.
Grace is not a soft whisper. Grace is the thunder of mercy echoing in the chambers of the human heart.
And that only happens when we see God as He truly is: the One who loves us in spite of us, the One who pursues us even when we run from Him.
Manasseh’s story shows that the first step toward healing is not perfection. The first step is honesty. It is the moment the heart admits, “I cannot do this alone.” And when honesty rises from the rubble, grace answers.
The Chronicles writer says that after Manasseh prayed, God brought him back to Jerusalem and restored him to his throne. Imagine the astonishment of the people watching the most disgraced man in Judah reenter the city as a restored king. Imagine the whispers. Imagine the shock. Imagine the disbelief.
Grace writes endings no one sees coming.
And when Manasseh returned, Scripture says, “Then he knew that the Lord is God.” He did not know it at twelve. He did not know it during his idolatry. He did not know it while he sacrificed his children. He did not know it while he defiled the temple. He did not know it while he worshiped the stars. He did not know it while he ran from God.
But he knew it when grace brought him home.
Isn’t it something that the first moment some people truly see God clearly is the moment they least deserve Him? Isn’t it something that the clearest revelations often come in the darkest places? Isn’t it something that grace becomes most visible when we are most broken?
The law can tell you what God commands. Grace tells you who God is.
And who is He?
He is the One who runs to prodigals.
He is the One who rebuilds ruined kings.
He is the One who stops storms with a word.
He is the One who touches lepers with His hands.
He is the One who forgives the criminal on the cross.
He is the One who sees the tears that never reach your voice.
He is the One who hears the prayer too fragile to speak.
He is the One who says, “I know where you’ve been. Come home.”
This is the God of grace.
Scripture is not a collection of laws seeking perfect people. Scripture is a collection of stories revealing a perfect God rescuing broken people. It is a book of homecomings. It is a book of restorations. It is a book of divine interruptions into human disaster. It is a book where the worst sinners become the loudest singers of grace.
But grace always makes someone uncomfortable. It made the Pharisees uncomfortable. It made the self-righteous uncomfortable. It made the religious gatekeepers uncomfortable. Because grace levels the ground. Grace invites the unqualified. Grace embraces the unwanted. Grace welcomes the undeserving. Grace kneels in the dirt next to the guilty woman and speaks forgiveness into her shame.
Manasseh experienced that grace. And once grace touched him, he began rebuilding what he had destroyed. He cleansed the temple. He tore down the idols. He pointed the nation back to the God he had rejected. His repentance did not earn grace—grace produced his repentance.
And that is the gospel.
We repent because grace found us.
We obey because love compels us.
We walk with God not to earn His favor, but because His favor has already embraced us.
This is why the Christian life must begin with grace. Because grace is the only power strong enough to change the human heart. Grace is the only force deep enough to break generational wounds. Grace is the only voice loud enough to silence shame’s accusations. Grace is the only bridge strong enough to cross the canyon between who we were and who we are becoming.
Grace is not the first step of the Christian life.
Grace is the entire journey.
Grace calls us.
Grace carries us.
Grace corrects us.
Grace sustains us.
Grace restores us when we fall.
Grace rewrites our story.
Grace leads us home.
You cannot understand God until you understand grace. You cannot live in the peace of God until you rest in the grace of God. And you cannot come home until you trust the grace that is already running toward you.
This is what Manasseh discovered.
This is what every prodigal discovers.
This is what every broken heart discovers the moment it turns its face toward God.
Amazing grace, indeed.
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f the Scriptures had left us with only the story of Manasseh, that alone would have been enough to silence the voice that whispers, “You’re too far gone.” Yet God, in His kindness, gave the world another testimony—a story not written in Chronicles, but written in song. A story that has crossed continents, entered prison cells, comforted mourners, steadied the fearful, and echoed through church halls and funeral chapels for more than two centuries.
The story of John Newton and the hymn Amazing Grace.
Newton’s hymn has grown so familiar to us that we sometimes forget the depth of the testimony behind it. Those lines were not crafted by a saint who lived an unblemished life. They were written by a man who walked through the same spiritual wilderness Manasseh walked through—a man swallowed by sin, driven by rebellion, and nearly destroyed by arrogance.
He was a brilliant child. By ten, he had memorized vast portions of Scripture. His mother planted in his heart the seeds of faith, faith she never lived long enough to see sprout. When she died, everything inside him collapsed. His grief curdled into anger. His anger hardened into bitterness. And bitterness turned him against God, against authority, and eventually against himself.
His father, a wealthy ship owner and slave trader, tried to correct him. Newton only mocked him. He wrote vile songs slandering his father and taught those songs to the sailors aboard their ships. His father pulled him from the vessel, not knowing what to do with a son whose heart had become a clenched fist of resentment.
Then one day, walking along the harbor, Newton was ambushed. Struck unconscious. Kidnapped. Pressed into service aboard a foreign ship. When he awakened, he found himself in the brutal world of maritime slavery. The captain despised him. Newton responded with stubborn rebellion. He became such a problem that the captain, enraged, decided to be rid of him. He sold Newton to an African queen—an arrangement that placed the young man among the very people his own family had exploited.
Newton lived like an animal. He was beaten. Starved. Covered in filth. Mocked. Treated below the servants. He was fed rotten scraps and pelted with waste. He sank lower than he ever imagined possible. One day, at the brink of death, he fled into the jungle. But the jungle offered no refuge. Blind with fever, stumbling, starving, he wandered through the dark. The verses of Scripture his mother taught him echoed through his mind like distant thunder, but he resisted them still.
Eventually—miraculously—his father sent a ship that found him. He returned to England alive, but not whole. He inherited his father’s slave-trading operation and became one of the most feared and brutal captains on the sea. He chained people. He beat them. He transported them like cargo. He did to others what had been done to him, doubling the cruelty in his soul. His life became a storm, and everywhere he sailed, darkness followed.
Yet even then, God was not finished with him.
On one voyage, a massive storm hit. Newton, at the wheel, fought for survival. Waves crashed over the ship. The vessel groaned under the force of the sea. Then Newton collapsed. A stroke. A moment of utter powerlessness. Carried back to England, he survived, but never fully recovered. His right foot dragged behind him for the rest of his life. The storms outside had calmed, but the storm in his soul raged on.
Then one day he picked up a book—The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. As he read, something inside him broke open. The words pierced through the layers of rebellion. The Scriptures stirred. The voice of his mother echoed. The stories he had once memorized returned. His heart softened. The iron bars around his soul began to bend.
Newton surrendered to Christ. He sold his share in the slave business. He pursued the ministry. He preached the gospel he had once despised. He became a shepherd to the broken, a friend to the poor, a voice for the silent. And he placed a brass plaque on his pulpit with the words:
“Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you.”
He wanted to remember.
He wanted his congregation to remember.
He wanted the world to remember.
Grace had found him.
Grace had rescued him.
Grace had led him home.
And one quiet night, sitting by his fire, Newton took up a pen and began writing the story of his life—not in prose, not in narrative, but in song:
Amazing grace—how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind, but now I see.
Those are not the words of a theologian sitting in an ivory tower. Those are the words of a man who had been to Babylon. A man who had seen himself in the mirror of his own sin. A man who had cried out in distress. A man who had discovered, to his shock, that God still listened.
Manasseh prayed in chains; God heard.
Newton prayed in a storm; God answered.
And in every generation since, broken hearts have prayed the same cry:
“God, bring me home.”
And God has done what only grace can do.
The truth running like a river through Scripture and through human history is this:
Grace is what leads us home.
Not performance.
Not perfection.
Not law.
Not personal worthiness.
Not a cleaned-up past.
Not a moral résumé.
Grace.
Grace alone.
Grace is the hand that reaches into the pit.
Grace is the voice that whispers in the dark.
Grace is the Father running toward the prodigal.
Grace is the Shepherd carrying the lost sheep.
Grace is the King restoring the rebel.
Grace is the Savior dying for His enemies.
Grace is the Spirit calling broken hearts back to life.
Grace is God’s love refusing to let go.
And grace is not God lowering the standard.
Grace is God sending Jesus to meet the standard for us.
Grace is not God ignoring justice.
Grace is God satisfying justice in the body of Christ.
Grace is not the cancellation of holiness.
Grace is the invitation into holiness through a power we do not possess on our own.
Grace is not a gentle pat on the head.
Grace is a resurrection.
Grace is what took a king from chains back to a throne.
Grace is what took a slave trader and turned him into a pastor and a poet.
Grace is what took you and me out of the wreckage of our own choices and placed our feet on a path toward home.
And grace is available this very moment, to anyone whose heart whispers the prayer Manasseh whispered:
“Lord, I seek Your favor.”
“Lord, I need Your mercy.”
“Lord, bring me home.”
And He will.
Because there is nothing you can do to make God love you more.
There is nothing you can do to make God love you less.
His love is not graded on performance.
His mercy is not measured by deserving.
His grace is not rationed according to behavior.
God’s love is not a reaction.
God’s love is the foundation of the universe.
God’s grace is not weakness; it is the strength that holds all things together.
When grace grabs hold of you, the journey home begins.
When grace touches you, the past no longer defines you.
When grace lifts you, guilt no longer commands you.
When grace surrounds you, shame no longer imprisons you.
When grace fills you, fear loses its voice.
And when grace leads you, home is no longer a dream—it is a promise.
The world knows many words.
Religion knows many doctrines.
Philosophy offers many ideas.
But the word that brings the fruit from the tree—the word that opens heaven’s blessing—the word that transforms the heart—the word that carries us from Babylon to Jerusalem—is the word grace.
It is grace that leads us home.
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APPEAL
Someone listening today may feel the weight of Babylon—the weight of choices you regret, the weight of years that seem wasted, the weight of guilt that keeps whispering, “You’ll never get back.” But the God who heard Manasseh in chains hears you now. The God who pulled a rebel king out of the darkness can pull you out of yours. The God who chased John Newton across oceans and jungles is chasing you across the landscape of your life.
You don’t need to bring a résumé.
You don’t need to prove sincerity.
You don’t need to fix yourself before you pray.
You just need to come.
Come tired.
Come guilty.
Come weary.
Come broken.
Come blind.
Come lost.
And grace will lead you home.
If your heart can whisper just one sentence—
“Lord, I seek Your grace”—
then heaven has already begun to move.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.
Amen.
