And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God.
Manasseh’s wickedness and penitence
I. Manssseh’s career in crime.
II. His return to and acceptance of God.
III. The gracious results of his penitence. Improvement.
1. The lamentable wickedness and duplicity of the human heart.
2. The freeness, fulness, and efficacy of Divine grace.
3. The consequences of salvation are reformation and obedience. (T.B. Baker.)
Manasseh
Manasseh is an eminent instance of the power, richness, and freeness of the Divine mercy. Observe--
I. The sins which he committed.
1. Their contributory cause. His early freedom from restraint, his coming to supreme power when only twelve years of age.
2. Their special nature. The catalogue is appalling.
3. Their aggravated nature.
(1) They were committed in defiance of religious education, and of the admonitions and example of his father.
(2) They were of more than common enormity.
(3) They were productive of more than ordinary evil to others.
(4) They were in defiance of the expostulations of the prophets (verse 10).
II. The repentance which he exercised.
1. Its cause.
(1) Its more remote cause was probably his religious education. The case of Manasseh is not discouraging to training children in the way they should go.
(2) The immediate cause was affliction.
2. Its nature.
(1) Deep conviction of sin.
(2) Deep contrition.
(3) Earnest prayer.
(4) Reformation of life.
III. The mercies which manasseh received.
1. Temporal nature.
2. Spiritual He was brought to the spiritual knowledge of the God of his salvation. “Then Manasseh knew that the Lord He was God.” This knowledge led him to fear, trust, love, and obey. This obedience was accompanied by the deepest self-renunciation and abasement to the end of his life. Lessons.
1. To those who are insensible of their sinfulness.
2. To those who are ready to sink into despair under the weight of their sinfulness.
3. To those who are disposed to presume on the mercy of God. Manasseh’s son Amon was quickly cut off in the midst of his sins (verses 21-28). He seems to be a beacon set up close by the side of his penitent and accepted father, to warn all persons against presuming on the mercy manifested to Manasseh. (Homilist.)
Manasseh’s repentance
I. His character as a sinner.
1. He was a notorious sinner.
2. He was not a hopeless sinner.
II. His conduct as a penitent.
1. The period of his repentance is specified. “When he was in affliction.”
2. The nature of his repentance is described.
(1) Deep humility.
(2) Fervent prayer. These invariably distinguish the conduct of every true penitent (Jeremiah 31:18-19; Luke 18:13; Acts 9:11).
III. His salvation as a believer.
1. He obtained the pardoning mercy of God.
2. He received a saving knowledge of God (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)
Manasseh humbled
I. The benefit of afflictions in bringing the sinner to a true sense of his condition and converting him to God.
II. The mercy of God in so bringing and receiving him.
III. The remaining and lasting portion of the evil of sin, even after the individual is pardoned. In the Second Book of Kings it is repeatedly declared that Judah was destroyed on account of the sons of Manasseh.
1. A man looks back with sorrow and contrite concern upon the follies and sins of his youth; but what of his companions in guilt? Some, perhaps, whom he seduced into sin, and many whom he encouraged and confirmed in sin.
2. Some writers have employed their pens in the odious cause of immorality and irreligion. Such persons have lamented their errors; but the publication has done its work; the poison has been circulated, and the corruption is incurable. (J. Slade, M. A.)
The conversion of Manasseh
I. That early advantages may be succeeded by complicated sin.
II. That sin is frequently the cause of severe affliction.
III. That affliction, when sanctified, exalts to prayer, and promotes humiliation.
IV. That prayer and humiliation are always attended with distinguished blessings, and produce valuable effects.
V. From the whole.
1. The patience of God.
2. The sovereignty of God.
3. The wisdom of God in adapting means to the conversion of men.
4. The mercy of God in saving the chief of sinners. (S. Kidd.)
The repentance of Manasseh
We will connect the important change which took place in the mind of Manasseh--
I. With his early advantages. John Newton states somewhere, “When I was in the deepest misery, and when I was committing the most atrocious sin, I always seemed to feel the hand of my sainted mother pressing my head.”
II. With the afflictions by which it was produced.
III. With the effects which it unfolded.
IV. With the sovereignty of Divine Grace. (A. E. Farrar.)
Manasseh brought to repentance
I. His life of sin.
1. It was in direct contrast to the good reign of his father.
2. His sin involved many in guilt. He “made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err.”
3. He was not moved by the sight of the same wickedness in those whom he despised (2 Kings 21:9).
4. His sin was not checked by God’s punishment of others. The heathen had been driven out from the land because of their wickedness. Judah occupied their place and adopted their vice.
II. The life of manasseh under God’s chastisement. We learn from recently discovered Assyrian inscriptions what is meant by “among the thorns.” The word thus translated means a hook, which was put through the under lips of captives. The depths of Manasseh’s degradation may be imagined. Yet it was sent in mercy to turn him to God.
III. His repentance and restoration.
IV. His re-establishment of the worship of God. Lessons.
1. Never to be ashamed of repentance.
2. We see the meaning of God’s chastisements.
3. The power of a single man when he has turned from sin to God.
4. The necessity of solitary communion with God.
5. The patient love of God. (Monday Club Sermons.)
The conversion of an aged transgressor
I. Let us attend to the circumstances which by the grace of God led to the conversion of Manasseh.
1. Affliction.
2. Solitary reflection.
3. Prayer.
II. Consider next how the grace of God operated in Manasseh.
1. He humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.
2. He was made to know that the Lord was God.
3. He brought forth fruits meet for repentance.
III. The circumstances which made his conversion peculiarly striking.
1. It was the conversion of an atrocious sinner.
2. Of an aged sinner.
3. It took place at a distance from the ordinary means of grace. (H. Belfrage, D.D.)
Manasseh
God contents not Himself to have left on record in His word declarations and promises of grace as beacons of hope to the sinner. We have examples also of His acts of grace. Abounding iniquity, and more abounding grace, are the special features presented to us in this history of Manasseh.
I. Abounding iniquity marked Manasseh’s course.
1. He was the son of Hezekiah the servant of the Lord. We place this foremost as an aggravation of his sin, that in spite of a father’s example he cast off the fear of the Lord and sinned with a high hand against his God. That father, indeed, was early taken from him, for Manasseh was but twelve years old when he began to reign; still, the memory of Hezekiah’s piety could not have been utterly forgotten. Too marked had been the interposition of Jehovah in that father’s deliverance from Assyria and in his recovery from sickness for the report to have passed away. But Manasseh heeded not these things; “he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger.”
2. Manasseh added to his disregard of a godly parent this iniquity also, that he led his children unto sin,” he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom.”. .. Some godless parents have shown a happy inconsistency, in that whilst pursuing themselves that path “whose end is destruction,” they have desired for their offspring that they should seek the Lord. The force of example, indeed, meeting as it does with “the evil that is bound up in the heart of a child,” will in such eases often prove too powerful to be withstood. But Manasseh took no such course, but dedicated his children as well as himself to the service of the false gods. Alas, the reproducing power of evil! Thou that art a citizen of the world, intent on gain or pleasure, can it be expected but that thy children should walk after thee in the same destructive road?
3. Manasseh bade defiance to Jehovah in His own sanctuary. Not only did he build again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed, but “he set a carved image,” the idol which he had made, “in the house of God.” It was not enough that he himself should bow down to idols, and that his children should also do them homage, but with yet more prsumptuous sin he declared himself, in the face of all Israel, an idolater, and desecrated to this base end the very temple, of which the Lord had said, “My Name shall be there.” It is the very character of Jehovah that He is “a jealous God,” “His glory will He not give to another.”
4. But further, Manasseh “shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another.” The faithful who warned him were doubtless the ones especially sacrificed to his vengeance, and it is supposed that Isaiah suffered death under this fearful persecutor of the Church of God. For the wickedness of Manasseh could not plead this even in palliation that he was unrebuked: “The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they would not hearken.” What depth of malignity is there in the unchanged soul! what pollutions! what ingratitude! what rebellion! Were it not for the restraining grace of God, what a scene of bloodshed and of all enormity would this earth be!
II. More abounding still the grace of God.
1. In chastisement the first faint streak of mercy manifested itself. The voice of plenty had spoken to him in vain, the voice of warning had been treated with neglect, but now the voice of correction speaks in tones not to be gainsaid. The alarm of war is heard in that guilty court.
2. His deep penitence bore witness to the workings of grace. He humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers That word “greatly” speaks much as recorded by the Spirit of truth. As with the gospel itself, so with the chastenings of the Lord, they are either “a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death.”
3. The voice of prayer went up from that prison-house, “He besought the Lord. .. and prayed unto Him.” Tears, many it may be, fell before one prayer was uttered.
4. Abounding grace, shone forth, too, in the answer granted to prayer. “God was intreated of him.” He heard his cry, and hope sprung up in his downcast soul.
5. The workings of God’s grace were further evidenced by the fruits of faith in life according to godliness. Manasseh restored to his kingdom, has now but one object in view, the glory of God, and that object he consistently pursued. The idol is east out from the temple, and the altars of the false gods out of the city, and the people are commanded “to serve the Lord God of Israel.” He turned not aside from his purpose to bring back to Jehovah those whom formerly he had led away to sin; and this godly course he pursued unto the end.
Lessons.
1. The first is, that there is a fulness of grace in God as our reconciled Father in Christ Jesus beyond the power of heart to conceive, or of tongue to utter.
2. But this history also reminds us of the dreadful nature of sin. Deep are its furrows, lasting its effects. Manasseh is pardoned, but,could he repair the evil he had done? (F. Storr, M.A.)
Manasseh
We shall consider Manasseh--
I. As a sinner.
1. He sinned against light, against a pious education and early training. It is a notorious fact that when men do go wrong after a good training they are the worst men in the world. The murder of John Williams at Erromanga was brought about by the evil doings of a trader who had gone to the island, and who was also the son of a missionary. He had become reckless in his habits, and treated the islanders with such barbarity and cruelty that they revenged his conduct upon the next white man who put his foot upon their shore.
2. He was a very bold sinner.
3. He had the power of leading others to a very large extent astray.
II. As an unbeliever. He did not believe that Jehovah was God alone.
1. The unlimited power that Manasseh possessed had a great tendency to make him a disbeliever.
2. His pride was another cause.
3. Another cause was his love for sin.
III. As a convert. He believed in God--
1. Because God had answered his prayer.
2. Because He had forgiven his sin. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Manasseh’s repentance
Manasseh is unique alike in extreme wickedness, sincere penitence, and thorough reformation. The reformation of Julius Caesar or of our own Henry V, or to take a different class of instance, the conversion of Paul, was nothing compared to the conversion of Manasseh. It was as though Herod the Great or Caesar Borgia had been checked midway in a career of cruelty and vice, and had thenceforward lived pure and holy lives, glorifying God by ministering to their fellow-men. (W. H. Bennett, M.A.)
He was intreated of him.
Pardon for the greatest guilt
The story of Manasseh is a very valuable one. I feel sure of this, because you meet with it twice in the Word of God. God would have us again and again dwell upon such wonders of sovereign grace as Manasseh presents to us.
I. Let us examine the case before us.
1. Manasseh was the son of a good father.
2. He undid all his father’s actions.
3. He served false gods.
4. He desecrated the Lord’s courts. There are some to-day who do this; for they make even their attendance at the house of God to be an occasion for evil.
5. He dedicated his children to the devil. Nobody here will dedicate his children to the devil, surely; yet many do. Have I not seen a father dedicate his boy to the devil, as he has encouraged him to drink? And do not many in this great city, dedicate their children to the devil by allowing them to go into all kinds of licentiousness, until they become the victims of vice?
6. He fraternised with the devil, by seeking after all kinds of supernatural witcheries and wizardries.
7. He led others astray.
8. He persecuted the people of God. It is said,--we do not know whether it was so or not,--but it is highly probable, that he caused Isaiah to be cut asunder with a wooden saw.
9. In short, Manasseh was a compound of every sort of wickedness.
10. Notwithstanding all this Manasseh was pardoned. How it came about?
(1) Being in great trouble, he turned to Jehovah his God.
(2) He humbled himself greatly.
(3) He prayed.
II. Let us consider why there should be others like Manasseh. Judging from many probabilities, that God will save other great sinners as He saved Manasseh.
1. Because He speaks to such great sinners and commands them to repent (Isaiah 1:16-18). Because of the great promises God has given to great sinners.
3. Because of the nature of God.
4. From what I know of the value of the blood of Jesus. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Then Manasseh knew that the Lord He was God.--
Forgiveness and the knowledge of God
Men first begin to know God when they are forgiven. What did the prodigal know about his father when he asked for the portion of goods that fell to him, or while he was wasting his substance in riotous living? Because love and forgiveness are more strange and unearthly than rebuke and chastisement, the sinner is humbled by pardon far more than by punishment; and his trembling submission to the righteous Judge deepens into profounder reverence and awe for the God who can forgive, who is superior to all vindictiveness, whose infinite resources enable Him to blot out the guilt, to cancel the penalty, and annul the consequences of sin. (W. H. Bennett, M.A.)