Pastors and others sometimes encounter people who claim that their sins are too many and too serious for them to expect pardon from God. But, in my experience (and probably your own), none of them ever committed such grave and cruel atrocities as Judah’s wicked King Manasseh. He set up idols to pagan gods in the Temple, slaughtered so many that the streets of Jerusalem were filled with blood, and even sacrificed his own children as burnt offerings to pagan gods.
But God humbled Manasseh so that he repented of his evil ways. He was restored as king (after being taken prisoner to Babylon) and spent the rest of his life serving the Lord and encouraging Judah to do the same. Manasseh is one of the Bible’s greatest examples of God’s grace that is greater than all our sin.
Read the full sermon transcript below!
When I was a younger man, a professing believer but at the time not well-versed in Christian doctrine and with no formal training under my belt, I found myself one day sitting across the desk from a pretty rough old fellow. Our discussion turned in such a way that he challenged me with a very direct question: “If I were to take a gun right now and kill you, would God forgive me?”
I knew his question was merely hypothetical, but it’s not the kind of question you are asked every day. But still, I left his office that day concerned, not by the proposition but by the question itself. I didn’t know how to answer him. Think about it: If he had pulled a pistol and killed me right then, purposefully and intentionally, would the Lord forgive such an atrocious, premeditated, sinful act of violence? I didn’t know how to answer him.
Looking back now, it might have been that the Lord was using that incident to prepare me for the ministry in my future. I needed answers from the Bible for questions like that one. I don’t know what became of that man from my past, but the Lord provided me with the answer to questions like his from the pages of Scripture.
Now, by God’s grace, if someone asks that kind of question, I know where to direct him and, hopefully, after today’s sermon, so will you. The man’s question was implying that he was, and had been, too wicked a man to be forgiven by the Lord. He believed he had sinned too much and was beyond hope; that, I think, was the concern that drove the question.
If someone declares to you that his sins are so great and his life has been so wicked that there is no hope for him, you might want to tell that person some things about the Old Testament King Manasseh. Why Manasseh? I would wager that the person making that claim to you or to me looks pretty benign when compared to wicked King Manasseh.
God forgave that wicked ruler of ancient times, however, which very vividly demonstrates the biblical truth that God’s grace is greater than ALL our sin. King Manasseh was a terror in his day, but by the end of his life, he was subdued by God’s Spirit and was a trophy of God’s grace. Let’s learn about the mighty work of the Lord in this man’s life.
Born into a Good Family
The first thing we might want to note about Manasseh is his family background. He was born into a good family and had a religious upbringing, with vastly more benefits and exposure to the sacred things of God than most any citizens of his country could hope for. Manasseh’s father was a true servant of the Lord; he was the godly, reforming King of Judah, Hezekiah. Manasseh was born into life as the result of his father’s prayers and in confirmation of the predictions of one of the Bible’s most notable prophets, the rightly renowned Isaiah.
Hezekiah was a good king. Like his ancestor King David, he was a man after God’s own heart. But like all the Lord’s children, Hezekiah had his faults and made some mistakes. One of them was something we might not think so bad at first glance, but it was, and it had grave consequences.
Isaiah came to the king one day with some alarming news: “Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live” (Isaiah 38:1).
Hezekiah did not receive that news very well. The Bible tells us that he turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the Lord: “Remember now, O Lord, I pray, how I have walked before you in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly (38:2-3).
This is one of my favorite examples in Scripture of that old saying: “Be careful what you pray for, you might get it!” The Lord granted Hezekiah the petition and desire of his heart and gave him fifteen more years of life! That sounds great at first, but during those extra years, Hezekiah, who was not content to yield to the Lord’s will, made some fatal errors that would not have happened had he died.
For one, the Babylonian royal envoy came to visit Hezekiah once they heard about his near-fatal illness and to bring gifts to celebrate his recovery. The King, pridefully and boastfully, gave the Babylonian envoy a tour of his kingdom and showed off all the riches of himself and Judah. That proud and foolish display made the Babylonians envious and covetous, and prompted them, a few years later, to take all that wealth for themselves.
Also, during those extra fifteen years stemming from Hezekiah’s discontentment, a son was born to him, who would be the next ruler of Judah—Manasseh. Years later, following Manasseh’s long reign, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came against the royal city of Jerusalem during the reign of King Jehoiakim. God handed over to Nebuchadnezzar the holy city and the people of the land for destruction.
Why did the Almighty direct such violent and destructive judgment to fall on the people of his promise? It was due to the sinful idolatry, social injustice, and all-around wickedness of the people and rulers in general. But there was one man who, in the Lord’s eyes, epitomized the wickedness of that day and society.
2 Kings 24:3-4 tells us: Surely at the commandment of the Lord this came upon Judah, to remove them from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, 4 and also because of the innocent blood that he had shed; for he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, which the Lord would not pardon.
A Covenant Child Gone Astray
Reiterating our earlier point, Manasseh had been born into a good family. He had a religious upbringing with access to the priests and temple in Jerusalem, right in his hometown, and even the teachings of the prophets, including Isaiah. And what happened? Manasseh turned out to be a covenant child gone astray.
There is a sobering lesson for us all here. Manasseh is one of the starkest examples of just how far into sin a professing Christian can fall. Without God’s sustaining grace, any of us is liable to fall into gross wickedness at any time. The power of the sinful nature is still at work in our minds, and we have to be on guard. Manasseh is one example of a professing believer who, when he fell, fell big time! Following is the Bible’s summary of King Manasseh’s wicked life.
Manasseh, born during that fifteen-year mistake of his father, became king when he was merely twelve years old and reigned longer than any former king of God’s people—fifty-five iniquity-filled years (many of those years, at least).
His father, Hezekiah, the reforming king of Judah, had torn down the altars on the high places—hills and elevated places where people went to worship false pagan gods. Manasseh led a renaissance of the wicked pagan religions of the neighboring nations and peoples. He built altars to Baal and Ashtera, male and female gods of nature who, by copulation, were supposed to bring good weather and crops, health and prosperity to the people who worshiped them.
Manasseh even set up altars and idols in God’s own temple, the place of the Lord’s presence among the people; to him alone they were to render worship, obedience, and devotion. Manasseh went as far as offering his own children as burnt sacrifices to those hideous, demonic entities. Rather than seeking the Lord’s will from the Scriptures, and through prophets and priests who were easily accessible to the king, Manasseh consorted with fortune-tellers, witches, sorcerers, and necromancers—occult practitioners who consult the dead. In our day, their practices are called seances, and they are no less wicked now than then.
We find an awful summary in verse 9: Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel. The Lord God, under the leadership of Moses and Joshua and others, had destroyed and removed the Canaanite nations for their horrendously evil ways and had given their land and possessions to Israel in order to establish a nation that would love and serve the Lord God. But under Manassesh’s rule, Judah grew even more wicked than the accursed Canaanites of old.
Called to Account
The scene was horribly abominable, and the Lord was not going to allow it to continue indefinitely. The time came when his patience ran out, then Judah and their despicable king were called to account.
The Lord God had spoken to the people by the mouths of his prophets, warning them what was coming if they did not repent, but they paid no attention. Scripture graphically describes the divine judgment on the wayward king (v. 11): Therefore, the Lord brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon.
The words above—captured Mannasseh with hooks—mean that the Assyrians did to Manasseh according to their usual manner with captured prisoners. The Assyrians were a cruel people who would run hooks through the noses of their prisoners and chain them together, forcing them to endure a very painful walk to the place of imprisonment and exile.
Confronted, Confessed, Pardoned
Manasseh learned the hard way—in fact, a very hard way—that he wasn’t as great as he had so proudly thought. In the humiliation of his imprisonment, he had a change of heart that brought a change of life. In other words, the Lord God, by the gracious movements of his Holy Spirit in the heart of the king, gifted Manasseh with a repentant attitude of mind. That is the way true repentance works. The word repent is taken from Scripture sources that mean, literally, a change in mind that produces a change in ways, wrought by the Holy Spirit.
Scripture describes Manasseh’s confession and how our amazingly merciful God heard and answered the sincere pleas of the humbled king; the words of Scripture describe a beautiful scene (vv. 12-13): 12 And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. 13 He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.
We read a moment ago from the book of 2 Kings that Manasseh’s sin was so great that the Lord would not pardon him. As his word had said, the Lord did not pardon the king’s wickedness and guilt, not until the chastening hand of the Lord drove Manasseh to his knees. But there was a price to pay first. Sin has repercussions. Choices have consequences. But once the Lord God was satisfied with Manasseh’s sincerity of heart, then he pardoned, forgave, and even restored Manasseh to his position in Jerusalem.
Is there any more amazing display of loving and pure divine mercy than this? The next time someone tells you about their sins being so atrocious that there is no chance of God ever pardoning them, I suggest you might want to tell them the story of Manasseh and how awful his sins were. Since God’s mercy is great enough to forgive a wretch like Manasseh, his mercy can certainly pardon the worst of us. The Apostle John sums it up well: the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7).
Fruits of Sincere Repentance
Once Manasseh was returned to Jerusalem by the Lord’s grace, he showed well that his claim of repentance in prison was no hoax. Repentance consists of more than a sorrowful attitude about sin and guilt. Sincere sorrow over our sin is a vital part of repentance, of course, but there is more.
When John the Baptist was preaching in the wilderness, several were baptized to publicly acknowledge their gratitude to God for the forgiveness of their sin. John had a very important admonition to those who came to express their repentance. He told them: “Bear fruits worthy of repentance.” Perhaps clearer, “bear fruits in keeping with repentance.”
We might say it in our day in words such as these: If your repentance is genuine, your life will show it. If there is no change, there was no repentance, because change is what repentance is about: a Holy Spirit-given change of mind that leads to a change of direction in life.
Manasseh’s repentance was the genuine article, and the rest of his life proved it. After he was restored by God and returned to Jerusalem, the king undertook rebuilding the city and fortifying it. But especially important, he did this (vv. 15-16):
15 And he took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built on the mountain of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem, and he threw them outside of the city. 16 He also restored the altar of the Lord and offered on it sacrifices of peace offerings and of thanksgiving, and he commanded Judah to serve the Lord, the God of Israel. 17 Nevertheless, the people still sacrificed at the high places, but only to the Lord their God.
God’s servant Manasseh lived the rest of his life walking with his and our Lord, then died and was buried in his own palace, in the city where his fathers rested who had gone before him. The life of Manasseh, his sin and faithlessness, his prayerful repentance, and his subsequent acts of devotion to the Lord—the fruits of his repentance—were recorded. Ever since then, whenever people read about the sin of the king, they also learn about the forgiving mercies and lovingkindness of God Almighty, our God, whose grace really is greater than all our sin. The testimony of God’s mercy to that formerly wicked man is displayed in the story for all the world to see. Manasseh truly is a trophy of God’s grace.
Conclusion
Let us conclude with a few thoughts we might do well to take away this morning and meditate upon. First, can anyone properly say, “My sins are too great…I’ve been too bad…for God ever to accept me?”
I hope by now we are all in agreement on the answer to that question: No! Obviously not. Our Westminster Confession says it as well as any source I have ever encountered: As there is no sin so small, but [that]it deserves damnation; so there is no sin so great, that it can bring damnation upon those who truly repent (WCF 15:4).
Isaiah 55:7 assures us: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Another consideration drawn from this example, and one every believer needs to consider and remember, is just how deeply, extensively, and seriously a professing Christian can sin against God! How far can a Christian fall? As far as Manasseh and possibly even worse. Covenant children, and those who have now reached adulthood, should not rest in their baptisms or their later professions of faith as infallible protection against falling away. Always remember Manasseh; he was raised a covenant child.
How far can one of the Lord’s sheep stray? Very far, but never too far for God to have mercy on him and restore him. Never far enough to be out of God’s reach. As the Lord said to Moses, “Is the arm of the Lord too short?” How far can one of the Lord’s redeemed children stray? Even though a true believer might for a time forsake his covenant with God, it is never far enough for God to forsake his covenant made with Christ and all true believers in him. As Jeremiah explained of God’s covenant of grace in this new covenant age, it can never be broken.
Were you ever in your past a straying Christian, a wandering sheep? If so, wasn’t it great when you finally stopped running from the shepherd and returned to the flock? Perhaps you are tempted to stray right now. Don’t do it! It didn’t work for Manasseh. During the time of his wandering, it certainly was not for him, as the song says, “well with his soul.”
Neither will it be well with you, at least not until God rescues you and restores you to his fold. The Lord will do that; he will not forsake you. But do you really want something like a hook through your nose, bronze fetters, and painful imprisonment to happen to you? Even if it takes that and more, sooner or later, if you are one of Christ’s sheep, he will find you and bring you home.
Do you know someone who has professed the Lord in the past, but now seems to have no interest in Christ? Don’t stop praying. Don’t give up hope. I’ll wager he or she has not done as much wickedness as Manasseh, and the Lord restored that contrite, repentant man of old.
It is as Jesus said of his sheep: No one, not even the devil himself, can ever snatch them away from the Good Shepherd and our Father in Heaven. As Spirit-breathed and Spirit-filled believers, we are—every one of us—just like Manasseh—trophies of God’s grace. And no one can rob God’s trophy room.