Introduction
On Friday 14th April, 1999, Wall Street experienced its biggest one-day fall in history, ending a week in which US markets lost $2 trillion in value — the equivalent to Germany’s entire economy. Virtually all of the losses came in the Information Technology sector and what had been called the "dotcom bubble" became the "dotcom crash." Bill Gates saw his personal fortune drop $30 billion in a few hours. In the following months more than 430 Internet companies closed up shop and 100, 000 people lost their jobs. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
What’s the point? Things can change suddenly. Even when everything looks peachy they can go bad quickly as a result of carelessness or misconduct. Over the last few weeks we have been studying Hezekiah’s revival. In spite of a brief downturn as the result of pride, things were going well in the nation of Judah spiritually and materially under Hezekiah’s rule. God was responding to his people’s repentance and faithfulness with revival blessing.
This week we look at what happens when Hezekiah’s son Manasseh takes over the kingdom. And the picture is not good--we could call it anti-revival.
You might be thinking why look at this in a series on revival? The answer is because it’s a part of the story and it’s included for a reason. It’s a big flashing warning light to us: "don’t let this happen to you."
As I look at the story of Manasseh’s reign my response is primarily sadness, this is a sad chapter in Israel’s history and Manasseh’s is a sad life.
Transition: I’d like us to look at that life this morning and be cautioned as we are meant to be. The first thing that makes Manasseh’s reign sad is that he..
DEPARTED from the Faith of his Father
v. 3 He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had demolished; he also erected altars to the Baals and made Asherah poles. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them.
You’ll remember If you’ve been here for most of this series that the high places are a recurring theme. Several promising times saw revival thwarted by the unwillingness of the kings and the people to tear down the high places. Finally in the reign of Hezekiah, they came down, we can only assume at great cost. Now upon Hezekiah’s death what does Mannaseh do? He not only allows them to be rebuilt, he apparently is one of the principal users. In fact he becomes involved in every imaginable idolatrous and occult practice including witchcraft and the sacrifice of his own son to idols. I’d say that’s a big departure and I’d say that’s pretty sad.
Perhaps you have been blessed with a Godly heritage. Be protective of it. It’s easy to look upon that heritage as old fashioned and belonging to another age, but our parents, spiritual and natural, learned at great cost that the high places were not to be trifled with. That you can’t live a life that’s pleasing to the Lord in isolation from the church, that you can’t just visit the enemy’s territory for entertainment occasionally, and that to try to do so leaves you vulnerable to the attacks of the enemy without a protective covering.
If you depart from the faith of your fathers you’re headed for destruction too, the second thing that’s sad about Manasseh’s reign is that he...
DEFILED the Temple of the Lord
vv. 4-5 He built altars in the temple of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, "My Name will remain in Jerusalem forever." In both courts of the temple of the LORD, he built altars to all the starry hosts.
The temple was God’s special place, set apart sanctified for him. Manasseh not only let idol worship take place on the hillsides, he brought it right into God’s special place.
In the New Testament were told that because of the work of Christ we ourselves have become the temple, in fact that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
I imagine that some of you would be offended if we brought the dumpster from outside and dumped it on this altar. Yet how often have we been guilty of letting worse filth into the real temple?
The third thing that makes Manasseh’s reign sad is that he...
DECEIVED the People of God
v. 9 But Manasseh led Judah and the people of Jerusalem astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites.
The people look to their leaders for instruction and example, In corrupting his own life, Manasseh was responsible also for the corruption of God’s people. 1 Cor 15:33, Bad company corrupts good morals.
ILLUSTRATION: Josiah Wedgwood, English maker of the famous Wedgwood pottery, was showing a nobleman through his factory one day. One of Wedgwood’s employees, a young boy, was accompanying them. The nobleman was profane and vulgar. At first, the boy was shocked by his irreverence; then he became fascinated by the man’s coarse jokes and laughed at them.
Wedgwood was deeply distressed. At the conclusion of the tour, he showed the nobleman a vase of unique design. The man was charmed by its exquisite shape and rare beauty. As he reached for it, Mr. Wedgwood purposely let it fall to the floor. The nobleman uttered an angry oath and said, "I wanted that vase for my collection, and you have ruined it by your carelessness!" Wedgwood answered, "Sir, there are other ruined things more precious than a vase which can never be restored. You can never give back to that young man, who just left us, the reverence for sacred things which his parents have tried to teach him for years. You have undone their labor in less than half an hour!" (Morning Glory, Sept.-Oct., 1997, p. 32)
You say, "Well I’m not a leader, no one is looking at me. What I do is my business." Each of us is a leader to someone, our family our children our friends, our enemies who are looking to see with what kind of conviction we live our lives before God and man, and we are responsible for the effect that our lives lived out before them affect the decisions they make. And if we show them by our behavior that God’s expectations are unimportant then we are deceiving them.
The fourth sad fact of Manasseh’s reign is that he...
DISREGARDED the Word of the Lord
v. 10 The LORD spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention.
The Lord in His mercy called out to the king and the people to come back to Him. But Manasseh turned a deaf ear. Tradition tells us that Manasseh was the king who was responsible for the death of the Prophet Isaiah, sawing him in two with a wood saw. Why? Because he tired of hearing God’s call to repentance, like a broken record. Kind of like the sermons these past few weeks.
Ronald Reagan as a young man worked at a radio station and sometimes played records of sermons, sometimes he would set the record to play in the one man operation and sneak out for a cup of coffee. One day he got a call at the coffee shop from the stations owner telling him to get back to the station now and after that night he was fired. He returned to the station to find the record skipping "Go to hell, go to hell..." (Reader’s Digest)
God’s call to repentance can sound like that, but the broken record is the loving voice of God’s mercy, offering us the chance not only for salvation but for genuine blessing and revival.
The last sad thing about Josiah’s reign is ...
DELAYED His Surrender to the Lord
v. 1-2a Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years. 2 He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, following the detestable practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.
vv.11-13 So the LORD brought against them the army commanders of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh prisoner, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon. 12In his distress he sought the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. 13And when he prayed to him, the LORD was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD is God.
You might be thinking "How can this be sad? He came back to the Lord." And my answer is that he came too late and he wasted too much time and opportunity.
The writers of the books of Kings and Chronicles were trained in the Army Writing style. They always give us the bottom line up front and they give to each king one of two evaluations, either "He did right in the eyes of the Lord," or "He did evil in the eyes of the LORD." Manasseh gets the second--in spite of the fact that he repents at the end of his life. This troubled me for awhile. In fact I talked about it this week with DeeAnn, I was questioning why does he get the "evil" stamp when he ended up returning to the Lord and being restored? And then I read that Manasseh had the longest reign of any king of Israel or Judah. He had more opportunity to do good than any other king, yet for almost all of that time He chose what was wrong and he only finally changed when God in his mercy allowed him to be bound in chains and dragged to Babylon with a hook in his nose--yes this was God’s version of tough love and finally it worked but at what cost and after how much had been wasted. Douglas MacArthur said, in war all tragedy can be summarized in two words, "too late."
CONCLUSION:
What about you how long will you wait? God has given you life and the opportunity to serve Him. That gift is like this beautiful boquet, what will you do with it? Will you waste your life worshipping at the high places of illicit pleasure saying "oh there’s still time?"
[Begin tearing flowers from boquet]
Will you allow God’s Temple, your body, to be defiled by the filth of the world and tell yourself "Oh, I’ll clean that later?"
Will you by your example cause the lives of others to be destroyed in the process?
Will you yet again today disregard the pleading voice of the Lord to return, saying still, "tomorrow, tomorrow?"
Will you waste even more God given opportunity to live a life filled with genuine pleasure making a positive difference in the World as an instrument in the hands of God. Will you squander your life until you finally hit the bottom in chains dragged around by Satan’s hook through your nose?
Will you then turn to God and say "Here’s what’s left of my life, God, I’ll give you the stalks?"
