Salvation...for Him? For Me?

INTRODUCTION

Can God save anyone? Are there people in today’s world that are beyond the grasp of Almighty God? Surely we can look around us and see evil in this world. We can take a look at the war in Iraq and see that we are facing an opponent who epitomizes the word evil. And what about Saddam Hussein? Is it possible for God to save him? After all of the atrocities that have been performed by him and in his name could we consider him a likely candidate for salvation? Let’s take a look back into the Old Testament and see if God has already answered that question for us.

A. MANASSEH’S RULE – II Chronicles 33:1-6

1. He totally rejected God.

a. He built again the high places that his father, Hezekiah, had broken down (v.3).

b. He reared up altars for Baalim. By doing so he revived the god of the wicked king Ahaz. (v.3).

c. He worshipped the host of heaven and served them (v.3).

d. He built up altars for idols within the house of the Lord (v.3).

e. He caused his children to pass through the fire (v.6). This is what Charles Haddon Spurgeon had to say about this particular passage of scripture,

“We are told he made his children to pass through the fire; that is to say, he passed them between the red-hot arms of Moloch, that they might belong for ever as long as they lived, to that fiendish deity. If we do not aver that men do this now-a-days, they fall little short of the same cruelty and crime. Many a man teaches his child to drink arduous spirits; trains him to habits which he knows will lead him to drunkenness; does his utmost to pass the child through the red-hot arms of the spirit-fiend, Else Moloch of the present time. Many a man has taught his child to blaspheme. If he has not deliberately purposed it, he has actually effected it, fully conscious that he was so doing. What was his example but a deliberate lesson? Ay; there are people who seem to take delight in the sins of their children, laughing at the iniquities they have instructed their own sons to perpetrate. Do I address a father who, for many years, has never attended a place of worship on the Sabbath—who has often gone home reeling drunk, and, though somewhat reformed himself, sees his own son plunging into every vice that he was himself once habituated to? Let me ask you, do you wonder at it? Do you wonder at it? You have passed your children through the flames; what marvel that they were singed, and that the smell of fire is upon them? Oh! it is a crying sin that men will not only go to hell themselves, but they must needs drag their children with them. Many a man has not been satisfied to be ruined but he must ruin same young woman who, perhaps, once had religious convictions. He becomes her husband, and forbids her to attend the house of God. As for his children, they may, perhaps, be sent to the Sunday School to get them out of the way in the afternoon, yet any goad they might learn there is soon dissipated by the scenes and sounds they witness and hear under the roof of their home. Why, multitudes in this city—we know it, and they must know it themselves—are ruining their children, deliberately compassing their perdition. Is this a small sin, an insignificant mistake in their training? I think not!”

f. He got involved with demonic activity such as enchantments, witchcraft, familiar spirits, and wizards (v.6).

g. He provoked God to anger (v.6).

B. MANASSEH’S RUIN – II Chronicles 33:9-11

1. He caused the people to reject God (v.9).

a. So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err and do worse than the heathen, whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel.

2. Both Manasseh and the people refused to listen to God (v.10).

a. And the Lord spake to Manasseh, and to his people: but they would not hearken.

3. God caused an Assyrian invasion. Manasseh and the captains of the army were carried away to prison (v.11).

C. MANASSEH’S REDEMPTION – II Chronicles 33:12,13

1. Manasseh’s response. Once Manasseh was in affliction he came to his senses. It often takes a low point in our lives to realize the error of our ways. Manasseh follows a pattern toward redemption that can still be followed by sinful man today.

a. He besought the Lord his God – He sought after God.

b. He humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.

c. He prayed to him.

2. God’s response.

a. He was entreated of him. God listened to his prayer.