Sermon on 2 Chronicles 33:1–20: The Rebellion, Repentance, and Reformation of King Manasseh
A sermon by James de Costobadie at Latimer Church on the life of King Manasseh and what his story reveals about the grace of God.
Summary
James de Costobadie, Senior Pastor at Latimer Church, preaches through 2 Chronicles 33:1–20, using the life of King Manasseh as the central text. He opens with the story of Jeffrey Dahmer's reported conversion in prison as a way of framing the discomfort many people feel at the idea of notorious sinners receiving grace. He argues that Manasseh — described in Chronicles as the worst of all the kings, whose idolatry and child sacrifice contributed to the exile of the southern kingdom — is held up precisely as evidence that no one is beyond the reach of God's mercy. The sermon traces three movements in Manasseh's story: rebellion, repentance, and reformation, drawing direct lines between Manasseh's culture and contemporary New Zealand society. De Costobadie closes with a call to the congregation to extend the same welcome to others that God extends to all who humble themselves.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jeffrey Dahmer and the Limits of Grace
James de Costobadie: In the grisly folklore of mass murderers, Jeffrey Dahmer holds a place all of his own. Convicted of the murder of 17 men in circumstances too horrific to contemplate, he was sentenced to life without parole after his trial in 1991, and three years later he himself was killed by another inmate. But within those three years, a local minister called Roy Ratcliffe ministered the gospel to Jeffrey Dahmer, and with no personal gain to be had from making a profession of faith — in other words, parole was never an option for him — against all likelihood, Jeffrey Dahmer stated that he had come to believe in Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. He was then baptised six months before his own murder.
At the time, many were horrified at the thought that someone like Jeffrey Dahmer might escape eternally for his crimes on earth. And while none of us of course know the true state of his heart before the Lord, Roy Ratcliffe was convinced of the sincerity of his profession and later wrote a book entitled Dark Journey, Deep Grace.
I think there is something that naturally within all of us we find ourselves recoiling from — a person who has committed the grossest of crimes being let off scot-free. And it's not a very appealing thought for us to be spending eternity with that person. It doesn't feel right that they would be given a wild card, and we probably wish that they weren't. But today in Chronicles chapter 33, we meet just such a man in the ancient world who changed in such a way that he will be there with us in heaven.
Manasseh: The Worst of the Kings
In the book of Chronicles, King Manasseh is held up as the very worst of the kings. A man whose appalling wickedness was abhorrent, even in the list of undesirables that Chronicles provides. In the book of Kings, we're told that almost single-handedly he was responsible for the exile of the people of God in the southern kingdom, when they were banished from God's presence at the temple for over 50 years. And yet here was a man who discovered in the hour of his greatest need the saving grace of God. He was a man who came to understand that our God doesn't put the same limits of grace on people as we might do.
And so the story of Manasseh is also a story for every failed person here today. That what we have done in the past need not define what we are in the future. Here is a message for every person who carries regrets and guilt about their life — that the choices we've made and the foolish decisions we may have taken in life don't have to have eternal consequences for us. Because here we learn through chapter 33 that if only we will humble ourselves and seek his face, God's face, we will find the God who delights to welcome his wayward offspring home.
The First R: Rebellion
The story of King Manasseh is really the story of three R's, of which the first is rebellion.
Manasseh was only in intermediate school when he took over the reins of the kingdom of Judah, and he reigned for 55 years — the longest of any of the reigns of kings within the book. A long reign can of course be a time of great blessing. You think of our former queen, reigning all of those decades — 73 years, I think — that can be a great blessing. But a long-lived monarch can also be the source of unparalleled misery. And so it proved with King Manasseh.
The summary comes in verse 2. Have a look down. That simple phrase: he did evil in the eyes of the Lord. I think it's an interesting phrase, "the eyes of the Lord." Often we think that our view on things is the most important view — our view on the world, our view on politics, our view of ourselves is what really matters. But here we're reminded that what God sees is what really counts in life. And God sees everything. He saw everything about Manasseh. He sees everything that happens in the world today. He sees what happens, he sees what is spoken, he sees the motives of people's hearts. With his X-ray vision, there is nothing hidden from his eyes. And that should cause people to take stock. It should cause people to fear him — the fact that there is nothing private in this world. We may be able to hide it from other people, but you cannot hide from God. It should cause us to fear him, the one before whom one day we will stand in judgment. But there was no fear in Manasseh's heart.
He just plowed on, ironically following the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before God. Have a look at that in verse 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. 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 worshipped them. 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.
Who did Manasseh follow in life? He should have followed the God of Israel, his God. God had put him on the throne, and here we're explicitly told he followed the practices of the nations around. He had no desire to be distinct from them. He copied them. And what did those cultures involve but idolatry on a grand scale? He worshipped the same idols as everybody else.
And at the heart of these detestable practices was the way he treated the name of God. You see that in verse 4: he built altars in the temple of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, "My name will remain in Jerusalem forever." And verse 7: he took the carved image he had made and put it in the Lord's temple, of which God had said to David and to his son Solomon, "In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever."
In other words, here was the place — the temple — where God would dwell with his people, where they would come to worship him and honour him as the God he really is. Here, above everywhere else, would be the centre point where God would be seen for who he is, and recognised for who he is, and worshipped for who he is. And Manasseh had deliberately ridden roughshod over that. This is not accidental — he actually builds altars to foreign gods within the temple. It was the clearest possible signal that he explicitly and without shame worshipped other gods. In other words, as we would say, he was a law unto himself. He did what he wanted.
And the trouble is that once you reject the place of God in your life, as all of us do by nature, there will be no limit to what a person is capable of. And hence verse 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.
It was the most appalling reign of godless rule. And as the king, it had a profound effect on the nation. Verse 9: he led Judah astray. It wasn't just him — it was the effect he had on other people. And when the Lord did speak into the situation, verse 10, and spoke to Manasseh and his people, they paid no attention. In other words, of all the dubious history of the kings, when God had brought them into the promised land, here was the low point of any of them.
Manasseh's Rebellion and Our Own Culture
Now, I think we should just pause and take stock of this for a moment. Manasseh was so awful, I think it's easy for us to distance ourselves from him and take the high ground. Certainly as a society, we would like to think that we are a good deal better than this — sophisticated, cultured, certainly different to the barbarians of previous centuries. But I don't know — how different are we in some of the ways?
As a culture, we too have constructed our temples and altars where we find identity and satisfaction. They're called shopping malls and gyms. We've forgotten the name of God in our culture — God and Jesus are really only used as swear words. And even the extreme elements here are mirrored to some degree. We read of him sacrificing his children in the fire, but we live in a country where it's legal to abort children to full term. I'm not talking about the choices that individuals might make under that — I'm just talking about the legislation itself. What will people say in a hundred years' time when they look back on life in our culture?
And as for the sorcery and divination and witchcraft — I don't know if you realise this, but if you take sociology at Canterbury University, one of the mandatory first-year papers includes compulsory studies on witchcraft, magic, and the dead. That's how it is. So maybe we are not quite as far from this as we would like to think in our sanitised society.
And I don't know how that makes you feel. It should make us feel uncomfortable. Because you can't just blame the society out there — we're part of the society. We're it. It's not just other people. It's us as well.
And what begins to change us is when we see that if we meet God as we are, we won't have a leg to stand on. People can dismiss talk of judgment and say it's made up, but our conscience testifies to the fact that one day we won't just go into the ground. Most people could cope with that, right? — have a life here, drink and be merry, and then die and that'll be it. But we're not. We will live beyond this world. First of all in our spirits, our souls will rise to meet God, and the Bible tells us that every person will be physically resurrected one day to stand before God in judgment. And King Manasseh should provide the warning for us that all is not well for that day.
So that's the first R — rebellion — leading to the second R, which is repentance.
The Second R: Repentance
Manasseh is now, at the end of verse 10, in a dark valley without God and without hope in the world. And because God is true to his word, what follows is absolutely inevitable. God had warned his people in the law that idolatry was punishable by death, and reason stands to affirm that. You cannot cut yourself off from the author of life and then expect to live afterwards. We only fool ourselves when we imagine that that's the case. And it matters to God how people live. God is not indifferent. God is not uncaring. It matters to him how people treat other people, as well as how we treat him.
And so that's what leads to the judgment here, which is what comes in verse 11. Have a look down:
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.
What a reversal of fortune this is for Manasseh the king. Because that's what judgment does — judgment reverses our fortunes. Remember how Jesus said, those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. In judgment, God turns the tables. And he turns the tables here on Manasseh in a way that I would think the king never could have envisaged. I don't believe that he ever thought it was possible for this to be his fate. But on the flick of a switch, God brings against them the army commanders of the king of Assyria, who wins the battle, wins the war, takes Manasseh prisoner, puts a hook in his nose — so now he leads him by the nose — binds him in bronze shackles, and takes him to Babylon. The king is now treated like a farm animal. He's chained.
But just when Manasseh hits this lowest point, his life turns around. Have a look at verse 12:
In his distress, he sought the favour of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.
In life, we tend to avoid difficult things. We tend to avoid suffering. If we've got children, we tend to want to protect them from suffering. But sometimes God brings difficulty into a person's life to bring good. And here he takes Manasseh to the lowest point to turn him around. And sometimes it takes God to lead us to the lowest point, the darkest place, to bring us to reality — to help us see the reality of the situation, what we've done and where we're heading. And that lowest point might be a hospital bed, it might be a prison cell, it could be the quietness of our own bedroom. But wherever it is, it will always contain one essential ingredient: where God works in our heart to help us see the reality of the situation into which we've got ourselves, and to take personal responsibility for how we've treated God and rebelled against him.
Until we think this is only true of other people, or we're okay, or we can get ourselves out of the mess, it will never mean anything to us, never cause us to cry out to God. But when we realise that we are the ones who've sinned against God, and we understand that we are the ones who will face the righteous judgment of God, and when we understand there is nothing that we can do to change the situation — that's really what humbles a person.
And so in his distress he sought the favour of the Lord his God. He turns around in his heart. Instead of resisting and keeping on walking in that direction, he turns back to God and seeks his favour.
You'll know the parable which Jesus told — the famous parable which speaks of this change in a person's life — that when the younger son was in a pigsty and was envious of the food that the pigs were eating, and when he thought of life back home, we're told he came to his senses. He woke up. It took God to lead him to the lowest place for him to turn around.
And so Manasseh does that in his own life. He seeks God and humbles himself, but we're told he greatly humbled himself. And it's such a hard thing to do — to admit that we have nothing to bring to God, to admit that we have nothing to offer to the table with God, to come before him on our knees admitting we've broken his commands, that we deserve only his wrath. But when we do, then it all falls into place.
Because look how God responds in verse 13:
And when Manasseh prayed to him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea, and so he brought him back to Jerusalem and back to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God.
Here is the amazing grace of God. Manasseh, who all these years had rebelled against God, who had desecrated the temple with God's name, who had shaken his fist against God, who had led the whole nation to worship other gods — when he humbles himself and seeks the favour of God, what does God do? What does God say? Not, "I told you so." Not, "You've cooked your own goose, you deserve everything you've had and everything you've got coming for you." No. We read here that God was moved — moved by his entreaty.
Here is the loving father in that parable of the lost son. The father who was waiting all those years for his son to return. His friends said that he was mad, but true love never tires. And so day after day he's waiting for a sight of his son, he has the binoculars out, he's scanning the horizon day after day. And finally he sees a speck, and the speck grows bigger and bigger, and he looks like his son, but he looks so different from the boy who left home — he looks emaciated, he's in rags. But as he gets closer, the father sees it's him.
The son, meanwhile, is rehearsing his lines and getting ready. He's worried what reaction his dad will have. And so he practises his lines: "Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son." But when he gets close to the father, the father won't hear any of it, because it's not the time for speeches. The father picks up his robe and runs to his son and embraces him, and he says, "Quick, put a ring on his finger, put a robe on his back, kill the fattened calf. We must celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found."
Here is the loving heart of the Father God. And that's what Manasseh found as he turned back towards God. In a stroke, God puts a red line through the past. We're told his heart is moved by Manasseh's plea for mercy, and he restores him to the kingdom and brings him back to Jerusalem. And Manasseh, we're told, knew that the Lord is God. In other words, he knew — he understood — what kind of God he is.
Now, don't forget: who is Manasseh's dad? Hezekiah — the best of the kings. Manasseh was not ignorant of this. He had grown up with this. But there's a big difference between knowing something about God and experiencing it. And here, whatever he knew as a kid growing up, he experiences for the first time what God is like. He understands that God doesn't seek his pound of flesh. God doesn't wag his finger. He is the God who shows mercy to any who ask.
And so this morning, I don't know what brought you here and I don't know what the state of your life is. But if you have not come back to God, why would you delay when this is what God is like? He is the loving father who, through the arms of his son on the cross, is waiting to extend a welcome to us. Why would you delay? Why would you put off coming back to him when he is waiting for us to come home? He longs for us to cry out and to seek his favour.
The Third R: Reformation
Rebellion, repentance — and that leads to reformation.
Manasseh makes a great effort then to reverse the mistakes of the earlier part of his reign. You get that little bit of building that goes on in verse 14:
He rebuilt the outer wall of the city of David west of the Gihon Spring and the valley as far as the entrance of the Fish Gate, circling the hill of Ophel.
Quite detailed, isn't it? He also made it much higher. He stationed military commanders in all the fortified cities in Judah. What's that about? Well, he protects the city from foreign invaders. In other words, no longer does he welcome in any gods — "Oh, it's fantastic, you've got some new gods for us? Excellent, we'll put them in the temple." No. Now he's keeping them out. And you can tell he's serious, because he makes the walls higher than they were before, and he stations the military commanders.
Then in verse 15, he gets the pickaxe out. Various things get cut down — the image from the Lord's temple, as well as the altars on the temple hill in Jerusalem. And you notice in verse 15: he threw them out of the city. Now that's significant, because he takes physical action against these physical gods, showing that he meant it. It's decisive action. He doesn't just get a sheet out and cover this up — which would have meant that if he ever wanted to go back to them, he could have unveiled it and gone back to them again. No. He executes them. It's a decisive action.
And sometimes in life it's possible to sort of turn away from sins while not actually executing sins. That's not repentance — it's a show, it's a fraud, it's a fake. And some of us know that, because we've done it. You turn from a sin but you still give yourself the opportunity to return if you wanted to. We leave ourselves connected with the one person on Facebook we should not be in contact with. We leave the settings turned on when we shouldn't. We allow ourselves to take a certain route home which is unwise. Or whatever it is. But that's not Manasseh. He cuts it down. He executes it. There is no going back.
And then verse 16, the positive: 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.
So you get both sides here. Following the Lord involves a death, and we have to be clear on that. It's a death of ourselves. It's a death to our old self. It's a death to everything we lived for and everything we thought was important. And when we're truly humble, that's what we do. We're dead to self. We don't hold on to things. You don't try and strike a bargain with the living God. You say, "I am nothing, I have nothing, I bring nothing." And then out of the dust, God gives us a new life with Christ — a life that begins with forgiveness, a life that brings us back to him, and a life which leads to this wonderfully positive desire to want to live for him, to want to please him, where we nurture the fruit of the Spirit and pray that God would help us to become more like Jesus, and where we give ourselves joyfully and gladly to the work of the Lord, the honouring of his name. That's what we want.
And often you see, when a person puts their faith in Jesus, the first thing that changes is their language. They no longer use Jesus as a swear word — it's very hard to use his name as a swear word if you also worship him. And then the second thing they do is they develop a love for Christians. We can't do that as a non-Christian, but when you become a Christian you want to do that, because you want to help God's people grow in Christ and you want to help others come to know Christ. There's nothing like the zeal of the new convert. The work of the gospel becomes so important, because we realise what we've been saved from, and so we have a great passion for others to be saved, just as we've been saved by the grace of God.
It seems, verse 17, that the people continue to sacrifice at the high places, but only to the Lord their God — maybe indicating that unfortunately it's easier to lead people into sin than it is to lead people out of sin. But nonetheless, at least they do it to the Lord and offer their sacrifices to him. In other words, the leadership of the king has a profound effect on the people.
The Record and What Follows: Amon
The reforms and the rest are verses 18 to 20. The other events of Manasseh's reign are all recorded — both good and bad. And that reminds us again that everything in this life is recorded by God. For those who are outside Christ, the record will be a record that speaks against us. Who can stand against the record of our lives? Not one of us. For those who are in Christ, there will be nothing to fear on that day. God will assess our lives for the extent to which we gave ourselves to him and his work, to determine the rewards that he will give to us, because he loves to bless those who are in Christ.
Just to round out here — sadly, Amon, verses 21 to 25, is Manasseh's son who comes afterwards and does not learn from his father's repentance. He only reigned for two years, and in that time demonstrated a hardness of heart which copies the early years of his dad. Perhaps reminding us that we can never be responsible in the end for someone else's life, even when it's that of our own children. Amon is the sad tale of a man who kept going his own way, leading to his own assassination and then further bloodshed. In other words, he was like his dad in parts of his life, but not sadly in terms of his faith.
And in the end, Manasseh and Amon — that's the difference. Two different people, two different responses, two different outcomes.
Two Closing Lessons: Hope for Us, and Hope for Others
Two things we learn just in closing.
First, there is hope for us. As I say, the crimes of which Manasseh was guilty are perhaps a little bit closer to our society than we would wish to admit. But nonetheless, he is clearly held up as the worst of the worst. We have Jeffrey Dahmer — they had King Manasseh. That's the kind of level we're talking about here. But even he was forgiven by God when he repented of his rebellion. And if Manasseh could be forgiven, there is hope for all of us. There is hope whatever we have done in the past. There is hope whatever sins stick to our conscience. Here is the cleansing which God brings — a cleansing that we know takes place through Christ, of whom it was said: but now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.
And what I want to reinforce is that the completeness of that sacrifice covers our sins as believers. I think it is a little bit different — the sins of unbelievers and the sins of believers — in the sense that when you sin as a Christian, it can feel worse in some ways. And I guess in some ways it is worse, because you're sinning against the light, sinning not in ignorance but against what we know. What we have to remember is there is no exhausting the mercy of God. Manasseh was one of God's people, he did dreadful things, and God fully forgave him. And so even if we do dreadful things as Christians, God will not give up, as long as we seek his mercy and humble ourselves before him.
What we mustn't do is double down on what we've done. We need to hold our hands up and say, "I should never have done what I did, I should never have said what I said, it's my fault, I take responsibility." And we need to come back to God. And there is no limit to the mercy of God when we do. There is hope for us.
And lastly, there is hope for others. Maybe we do naturally find it easier to think that God might extend the hand of friendship to some and not to others. Maybe we like the thought of a deathbed conversion for other people. It doesn't seem to happen that often, but praise God when it does. The trouble is, we sort of think, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if Brad Pitt got converted on his deathbed? I'd quite like to meet him in heaven anyway." But someone like Jeffrey Dahmer, who's dreadful — we're not sure we want to share heaven with some people.
Well, Manasseh shows here that beggars can't be choosers. There is hope for others. The grace of God has no limits when people, whoever they are, humble themselves before him and seek his favour. There is only one way in. There is only one route. It's called the grace of God, to any of us. But because it's open to any of us, it's open to all of us — meaning that we should be wanting all to find that hope.
And I wonder if we have that longing for other people. Earlier in the year, a friend of mine who is gay lost his mother. He doesn't live in Christchurch, so I saw it on Facebook. I sent him a message and gave him the name of a church to go to if he wanted to, and I prayed that he would go. And then I thought, on the next Sunday morning, praying that he would go and wondering what kind of reception he would get when he got there.
And I wonder if you've had that feeling — of someone that you wanted to go to church, hoping they'd turn up. Maybe it's a son or a daughter of yours, or someone that lives in a different place, and you're hoping they go. Now, what kind of reception would you want them to receive when they get there? Well, we know what kind of reception we want them to get — the best possible reception. We want someone in that other church, whoever it is, to take the initiative and welcome them in and show an interest in them and a love for them. That's what we would want for our friends or our relative or whoever they are.
And maybe the question is: do we show that same welcome to others here? I'm not saying we don't, but it's a question for each one of us. You can't just leave it on a Sunday to a few people with orange lanyards. It's up to us to show a welcome to others. Because a welcome expresses the hope we have in the gospel — the hope that the gospel is for all people. Not just the regulars, not just the people who've been coming for 30 years, but for all people, whoever they are.
As a church, we're about to go through a big change. There will be challenges in that, there will be difficulties in that. But one of the ways that we can all help is to be welcomers, out of love for people, whoever they are, that come in. There'll be people that come from other services at Latimer who need a home, who are feeling displaced from the 4 o'clock service particularly, which is not continuing, who need to be welcomed in. And I really want to encourage us to offer hospitality to them, and where we can to have some round for lunch, or in other ways as well.
But God willing, there'll be people from the local community as well. We've got a new building, we've got people turning up. We know what can happen when people park across other people's driveways — we've heard it this morning. God will use anything to bring people in. Are we ready to welcome them when they come in?
I want to pray that like Manasseh, they would see their rebellion, turn from it in repentance, and undergo a complete transformation — a reformation of life through the grace of God.