1. Title: God is Looking for a Broken Heart (Manasseh)
2. Text: 2 Chronicles 33:1-20; 2 Kings 20
3. Audience: Villa Heights Christian Church, AM crowd, June 25, 2006, last in the series “The Kings and I”
4. Objectives:
-for the people to understand what motivates a person to repentance; that even the very worst of sinners can repent and be forgiven; the necessity of forgiving anyone who has wronged us if we expect to be forgiven;
-for the people to feel sorry for their sin and eager to change; forgiven if indeed they have turned themselves over to the Lord; an attitude of grace toward others who have also strayed and repented
-for the people to repent of any sin they are currently living; have an attitude to grace rather than judgment or cynicism toward others who sin (which is everyone!)
5. When I finish my sermon I want my audience to approach the forgiveness of themselves and others with God’s view of it and a deeper appreciation for our salvation
6. Type: textual / biographical
7. Dominant Thought: God forgives the repentant person no matter how bad his previous life was
8. Outline:
Intro: He was described as a man who “dangled the power of life and death over his fellow countrymen and murdered anyone who stood in his way...” By the end of the 1970s, Manuel Noriega had earned a reputation as the most feared man in Panama.
In 1983 he promoted himself to general and gained control of the government. A prominent critic of the military was mysteriously murdered in 1985. In 1988 a U.S. grand jury in Florida indicted Noriega on charges of racketeering and drug laws and money laundering. December 1989 U.S. forces invaded Panama and arrested Noriega, who was taken to Florida to stand trial.
April 1992 Noriega was found guilty of cocaine trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering. It was the first time in history that a U.S. jury had convicted a foreign head of state of criminal charges.
He was sentenced to 40 yrs in a Miami prison and ordered to pay $44 million to the Panamanian government. A French court sentenced Noriega and his wife to 10 years in jail along with a $33 million fine. That same year, the Panamanian high court announced that it would seek to have Noriega returned to that country to make sure he served time there for murder. Noriega is still in federal prison in Florida, in a two-room isolation cell.
While he was awaiting trial, he was given a copy of a Spanish New Testament. He wrote a letter to the editor of the Soul Winner’s New Testament, Clift Brannon. Brannon and an interpreter came and were allowed to visit Noriega for 6 hours in the Metropolitan Correctional Center of Dade County, Florida. 2 months later, Noriega took a Bible correspondence course. After he finished the course, Noriega requested permission of the prison authorities to be baptized. Cliff Brannon wrote to the US District judge in Miami to get permission, and for permission to bring in a baptistry. American Rehabilitation Ministries of Joplin provided it. A month later, October 24, 1992, a portable baptistry from ARM arrived at the Federal Court House in Miami. A Deputy Marshall brought Manuel Noriega into the courtroom. Surrounded by 12 guards, he got into the baptistry. Cliff Brannon preached on the meaning of baptism followed by prayer and Scripture reading. Brannon then baptized Noriega.
Before being escorted back to his maximum security cell, Noriega was allowed to give a brief testimony. He said:
"Before, Jesus to me was only an image of that which was learned from Catholicism… All was transformed when on Tuesday, January the 16th, 1990, Dr. Cliff asked me in a telephone conversation…"Do you know that Jesus loves you?" Today, this is what He means to me:
He is the Son of God, who died on the cross for our sins, who arose from the grave and is at the right hand of God the Father and who above all things He is my Savior, and has mercy on me, a sinner."
Joe Garman still gets a card from Noriega twice a year.
How does it make you feel when a murderous, power-hungry, drug-trafficking, thug becomes your brother in Christ?
Ill - He was raised in the Church of Christ. Early in his life, he developed faith, but at one point his parents split up. He ended up with his grandmother and abandoned what faith he may have had. He later said that accepting the theory of evolution enabled him to pursue his twisted urges. He accepted that if we all came from slime, he was accountable to no one. He’s right. If we did, no one is accountable to anyone. So, he lived out the logical conclusion of his evolutionistic convictions. He abused and murdered 17 young men, the first when he was age 18. Jeffrey Dahmer was an Alcoholic, Homosexual, Pedophile, Serial Murderer, and Cannibal.
February 17, 1992, he was sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences, because there was no death penalty in Wisconsin.
In 1994, Curtis Booth and Mary Mott sent Jeffrey Bible correspondence courses from World Bible School. He completed the courses and sent back a letter saying he wanted to be baptized.
Roy Ratcliff, a Church of Christ preacher, received the call from a preacher friend. He had nothing to do with Jeffrey Dahmer. In fact, he had never even done any prison ministry. He just happened to live near Portage, WI. It was a whole day before he could even confirm that the request wasn’t a joke.
After some time teaching with him, Jeffrey Dahmer was baptized May 10, 1994 at the Columbia Correctional Institute in Portage, WI. From that day, they met each Wednesday as Jeffrey continued to study the Bible. Was he sincere? Roy Ratcliff is convinced he was, although Dahmer remained a complex personality. Then, November 28, 1994, Jeffrey Dahmer and another inmate were murdered by a fellow prisoner. No one is sure of the motives.
Jeffrey Dahmer’s situation raises an interesting question: Was he for real? Did he make it? Alcoholic, Homosexual, Pedophile, Serial Murderer, and Cannibal. Did Jeffrey Dahmer die and go safely into the arms of Jesus?
More than one person actually told Roy Ratcliff, “If Jeffrey Dahmer’s going to be in heaven, I don’t want to be there.” That may be you this morning. If it is, I suggest you’d better get studying and figure out exactly where Jeffrey Dahmer is so that you can go ahead and decide where you want to spend forever!
Seriously, you and I need to have some insight into this. What does God think of bad people? Correction: what does God think of really bad people, of serial murderers and thugs and cannibals? Can they be like that, and then repent, and expect that God will forgive them? And do we have to? Would you be able to call Manuel Noriega “Brother?” Can you look forward to spending forever with Jeffrey Dahmer?
I need something besides man’s opinion on questions like this. So, this morning, the last message from this series is about a king whose life helps us to deal with this whole subject. His name is Manasseh. He’s the son of good king Hezekiah. He was also a wicked king who repented and changed his life and who came back to the Lord for forgiveness.
I experienced a temptation as I was writing this message. You see, I’m going to be showing you how Manasseh is a good example of how God will forgive even the worst of people. But then, as I was studying, I ran across
2 Kings 24:2-4
The LORD sent Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite and Ammonite raiders against him. He sent them to destroy Judah, in accordance with the word of the LORD proclaimed by his servants the prophets. Surely these things happened to Judah according to the Lord’s command, in order to remove them from his presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all he had done, including the shedding of innocent blood. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the LORD was not willing to forgive.
That last line didn’t fit what this whole story was supposed to be saying. I looked at it and thought, “Well, I’m not going to read that out loud. I hope no one else skips ahead to it.” Here I am trying to take the life of Manasseh and show how God was willing to forgive him, and then I read “and the LORD was not willing to forgive.” I couldn’t find any commentators who were willing to tackle it. Why should I? Because we have to be very honest with the Bible. Amen?
Go ahead and look at it: 2 Kings 24:4 “the Lord was not willing to forgive.” This is talking about some years after Manasseh was already dead. It’s about God’s punishment on the whole nation of Judah. Manasseh was forgiven and dead, much like King Josiah is told in 2 Kings 22 that he’d die in peace, but that the punishment against the nation wouldn’t be quenched because of their sin against God. There was an individual and a national sins involved. Manasseh the individual repented. The nation of Judah didn’t, even after Manasseh changed:
2 Kings 23:26
Nevertheless, the LORD did not turn away from the heat of his fierce anger, which burned against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to provoke him to anger.
If Adolph Hitler had repented and God had forgiven him, that wouldn’t have meant that all of the people who followed Hitler’s evil lead would suddenly be forgiven too. So, the Lord was NOT willing to forgive – Judah. But He did forgive King Manasseh. In a moment, you’re going to see why that’s so important.
2 Kings 21:1-5
Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, following the detestable practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.
What did he do?
He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he also erected altars to Baal and made an Asherah pole, as Ahab king of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them. He built altars in the temple of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, "In Jerusalem I will put my Name." In both courts of the temple of the LORD, he built altars to all the starry hosts.
The very place where God said He would dwell, Manasseh set up camp for false gods instead. In the very city where God said he would put His name, Manasseh set up a “Welcome Baal to Jerusalem” banner. That’s pretty bad. It gets even worse. Among those false gods was one called Moloch. Worship of Moloch involved a big bronze idol with its hands extended. They’d heat the statue with a blazing fire inside, and then drop their infant sons into his hands to burn alive. (picture)
2 Chronicles 33:6
He sacrificed his sons in the fire in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, practiced sorcery, divination and witchcraft, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the LORD, provoking him to anger.
So, Manasseh was a leader. He wasn’t asking the people to do anything he didn’t do himself!
2 Kings 21:9b
…Manasseh led them astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites.
You may remember how we looked at Dt. 9 a few weeks ago. God was reminding the Israelites before they entered the Promised Land that it wasn’t because they were so good that he was driving out all the other nations ahead of them. It wasn’t because Israel was so good. It was because those other nations were so bad!
Deuteronomy 9:5a
It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you…
So, when they stop listening to God, and when the wickedness level of Judah becomes even worse than it was in the nations God had destroyed before, what’s God going to do?
2 Kings 21:12b-16
“I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab. I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. I will forsake the remnant of my inheritance and hand them over to their enemies. They will be looted and plundered by all their foes, because they have done evil in my eyes and have provoked me to anger from the day their forefathers came out of Egypt until this day."
God always promised this. If His people would neglect Him chase after other gods, He’d allow their enemies to take them away.
2 Chronicles 33:11
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.
The Assyrians had a habit of torturing and humiliating their enemies – especially kings. Here’s an ancient picture of an Assyrian king putting out the eyes of captured enemy kings. (picture) God allowed the worst to happen to King Manasseh, and there’s probably a part of us that’s glad. Aren’t you? Not only was he a wicked man personally, but he shed a lot of innocent blood – he burned his own sons to death, and he misled the whole nation. God warned him, he didn’t listen, and he got what he had coming, right? Serves him right. Most of us don’t have a problem with that end of justice. What throws a wrench in everything is when the King Manassehs and Manuel Noriegas and Jeffrey Dahmers of the world have a change of heart. Those are bad people. And they seem to spend most of their life doing terrible things, and then, right near the end, they’re sorry. We get skeptical of their sincerity. We become doubtful of God’s grace. Do they really deserve to be forgiven?
Before being doubtful or skeptical, I’m more inclined to be grateful that we can read about and learn about people who really needed to repent and who really needed to be forgiven – because that’s me (and you).
2 Chronicles 33:12-14, 15-17
In his distress he sought the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. And 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.
He got rid of the foreign gods and removed the image from the temple of the LORD, as well as all the altars he had built on the temple hill and in Jerusalem; and he threw them out of the city. Then he restored the altar of the LORD and sacrificed fellowship offerings and thank offerings on it, and told Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel.
Too often, people have to hit rock bottom before they experience a change of heart. It may not take that experience, but one thing’s for sure: when it comes to making bad things right, God is looking for a broken heart. The reason Manasseh was forgiven started with a broken heart.
Are you there? Are you in a right standing with God, forgiven, accepted? I simply want to point out some perspectives that accompany a broken heart.
I. Understanding of the Seriousness of Sin
We’re living in a time when even using the word “sin” sounds so intolerant and bigoted that we’re afraid to do it. I want you to realize this morning, that God wants us to appreciate the seriousness of sin.
When blood is spilled, the serious level of anything goes up. My kids may complain of aches and discomforts, but if they can show me blood, the degree of seriousness goes up a few notches. You can’t live without blood. We take the shedding of blood seriously.
The whole OT is full of blood sacrifices and warnings and punishments having to do with sin. In fact, it’s so serious, that
Hebrews 9:22
…the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
How serious is sin? Serious enough that, to fix the problem, someone is going to die. So, every sacrifice in the OT was a reminder to the people of this: sin is serious.
1. Sin is serious because it’s an affront to God
After committing adultery, murder, lying, and abusing his power, David repented. But, it’s interesting how he looked at all his sin. He prayed to God in Ps 51, v4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight…
The perfect Creator made us perfect so that we could have perfect fellowship with Him. The day that man sinned, that was messed up. God’s holiness won’t tolerate the presence of sin. Our problem is, we get used to it. Sure, I’ve got egg on my face, but it’s not so bad once you get used to it. And you have it too, so that helps it not seem so bad on me. In fact, the more egg I can point out on your face, the better my face seems to me. No big deal – unless the appearance of my face before God is really what matters!
If sin is no big deal, explain the cross! If God can just ignore it, explain why He doesn’t! Sin is an affront to God. It’s contrary to His very nature. That makes it a serious issue.
2. Sin is serious because it ruins lives
If sexual sins are no big deal, why all the broken marriages? Why the unplanned pregnancies? Why entire nations threatened by AIDS? Why the messed up emotions and relationships?
If anger is really no big deal, why the abused children and spouses? Why the road rage, the lost job, the suspension from school, the friendship ended, the murder?
If sin is no big deal, explain how people manage to plunge themselves into absolute misery.
As long as sin is no big deal, you won’t have a broken heart over it. So, if you’re wondering if you have a rightly broken heart, look for a heart that understands the seriousness of sin. From there you can have…
II. The Ability to Forgive Yourself
There’s a movie called The Mission that begins with a man hitting rock bottom. He’s trained as a mercenary. He has actively captured the natives of northern Brazil and hauled them off to sell as slaves. He murders his brother in a rage. Now, he’s a broken man, sitting in a monastery. He understands that sin is serious, but he doesn’t believe that anything can be done about his sin. His name is Mendoza. Watch his conversation with a Jesuit priest: (roll short clip here)
The story of Manasseh is a story for every person struggling with forgiving himself or herself. It shows that you can be forgiven by God, and it’s on the basis of that forgiveness you can forgive yourself.
The Apostle Paul had been violently opposed to Jesus and His Church. He tried to systematically stop it by his abuse to Christ followers.
1 Timothy 1:15b-16
…Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.
The person who has had a broken heart and been forgiven by God has the tools to forgive himself. Remember, it’s not all about you. It’s God showing through you to other people the measureless size of His unlimited patience.
III. The Ability to Forgive Others
Anyone whose heart has been broken over his own sin also has exactly what it takes to be able to forgive others.
Ill - Jesus told the story of a servant who owed his master a huge amount of money. There was no way he could pay it off, but he begged for mercy, and the master took pity on him and canceled the debt. Then, that servant went out and found another servant who owed him a few bucks, and he threatened him and demanded his money, and then had the guy thrown in prison. When the master heard about it, he had the servant turned over to be punished and tortured until he paid back his debt. Jesus said, "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
If you’re heart has truly been broken by the seriousness of your own sin, you’ll be amazed at how much you’ll be able to forgive others when they repent too. Is God’s grace big enough to forgive everyone else? – the person who lied about you, who cheated you, who insulted you, who injured you?
Conclusion:
After David repented of his great sin with Bathsheba, he wrote Ps 51. These are the words of a man who was truly sorry for what he did, and who was ready to make it right with God.
Psalm 51:16-17
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
His name was Manuel Noriega. His name was Jeffrey Dahmer. His name was King Manasseh. His name, her name is…YOU. Getting right with God meant having broken heart.
It’s the only way into heaven. Perfect people need not apply. You may as well face that.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they will inherit the Kingdom of heaven; blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
If you ever wonder if God is pleased with you, know this: The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
But I don’t want a broken heart! It doesn’t feel good! Neither does eternity in hell feel good. For that matter, having a hard, crusty heart right now doesn’t feel very good either.
Bring God your broken, messed up heart today. He’ll make it new.
