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The Prayer Of Manasseh - A 2200 Year Old Prayer · Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self

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  Welcome to Tabernacle Talk. Tabernacle Talk is a Bible study
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  podcast brought from Tabernacle Baptist Church in Essex, MD.
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  I'm your host, Brian Self. We hope this podcast encourages
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  you to know Christ, grow in his word and show his love to
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  others. Let's dive right in.
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  Welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. And today we have the last of
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  our kind of out-of-the-box episodes.
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  And I really enjoyed yesterday's episode walking through Psalm
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  151, so-called. And today we have one other 2000
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  year old prayer that someone wrote while reflecting on the
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  story of Manasseh from the Old Testament.
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  Now I know that you know all about Manasseh and you have
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  spent a lot of time studying his life and his reign and his
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  accomplishments and his sins. I I say that somewhat tongue in
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  cheek. Manasseh tends to be one of
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  those characters in Scripture that gets tucked away within,
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  you know, Second Kings and Second Chronicles.
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  And a lot of Christians don't spend much time there in
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  Scripture. And so they, you very well might
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  not have heard about Manasseh other than if you've been doing
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  a perhaps, you know, Bible in a year reading or something like
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  that, that you may have come across the story of Manasseh
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  from time to time. Now Manasseh was the king of the
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  southern Kingdom of Judah. So there was the United Kingdom
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  first under Saul, David, and Solomon.
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  And then after Solomon, there was the breakup of the children
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  of Israel into the northern Kingdom of Israel with their
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  capital city called Samaria, and then the southern Kingdom of
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  Judah that had its capital city as Jerusalem.
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  And there were a few good kings in the southern Kingdom of
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  Judah. There were no good kings that
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  followed the Lord in the northern Kingdom of Israel.
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  And the vast majority of the kings in the southern Kingdom of
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  Judah were wicked and evil for a variety of of reasons.
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  Manasseh is one of the ones that scripture tells us was deeply
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  unrighteous and that because of how evil he was in proliferating
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  idolatry and sin causing these people who were supposed to be
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  the people of God. You can think even of their
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  kingdoms name. The Kingdom of Judah, which is
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  to praise Yahweh is one way that you could navigate through that.
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  Now I will praise Yahweh is what Judah's mother Leia said as she
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  gave birth to him. That was kind of the name that
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  she gave to her son. And so the Kingdom of Judah
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  should have been for the praise of God, but it was not.
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  And that was led in its idolatry by Manasseh.
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  Manasseh had a long reign and he had a an incredibly evil reign.
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  And as a result of his wickedness, God had Babylon come
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  in. And they actually deposed
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  Manasseh. They put some of his sons to
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  death in front of him, and they took him and imprisoned him in
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  Babylon. And so Scripture says that
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  Manasseh, this wicked, idolatrous, evil, godless king,
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  as he was there in prison in Babylon, he turned back to God
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  and he prayed and God restored him not to the Kingdom, but he
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  actually had him be in the king of Babylon's court.
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  And it's just a really kind of short mention in, I forget if
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  it's the second King's passage or the second Chronicles passage
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  that highlights Manassas like being brought back out of
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  prison, but it's just a short little blip of a story.
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  But what a thought that someone that their whole life has been
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  devoted to evil and wrongdoing in the sight of God and against
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  God's people, that when they turn and when they repent and
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  turn back to God, they can find God's like mercy and his grace.
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  This would have been a very unpopular view back when the
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  books of scripture were being penned, because when you had
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  someone that was evil, when you had an idolater, well, we read
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  together in Leviticus that one who participates in idolatry,
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  that's a thing that is worthy of death according to the law, the
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  Torah of God. So this is a person that
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  genuinely deserved death, but God forgave and God showed
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  kindness and grace to this person.
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  And so as people thought about what is just and what is right
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  and what is good and what is holy, the story of Manasseh
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  tells us that God can work and intervene in broken, awful
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  people to be able to bring out someone new.
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  Someone that is, if you will, much closer to the image of God
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  that he created us to be. So in the time between when the
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  Old Testament was completed and when the New Testament started,
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  the people of God were thinking all the time about what the Old
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  Testament said. And one of the things that a
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  particular writer at one point during that BC 400, sorry, 400
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  BC to maybe 200 BC, one of the things that a writer during that
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  time period thought was I wonder what Manasseh prayed, because in
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  Second Kings and Second Chronicles, it doesn't give us
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  the content of that prayer. And so about 24120, yeah, about
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  2200 to 2400 years ago, a believer in God wrote a prayer
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  that he said this could have been what Manasseh prayed.
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  This is his story. And so working off of what
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  Manasseh would know, here's what I think he might have prayed to
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  the Lord. I think this is a beautiful
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  prayer and I was so encouraged through reading it even just a
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  few moments ago. And so I want to encourage you
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  to listen along as we read through this 22124 hundred year
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  old prayer. I, I think it'll be incredible.
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  Verse #1 Lord Almighty God of our ancestors, God of Abraham,
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  Isaac, Jacob, and their righteous children.
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  You made heaven and earth with all their beauty.
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  You set limits for the sea by speaking your command.
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  You closed the bottomless pit and sealed it by your powerful
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  and glorious name. All things fear you and tremble
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  in Your presence, because no one can endure the brightness of
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  your glory. No one can resist the fury of
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  Your threat against sinners, but Your promised mercies are beyond
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  measure and imagination. Because You are the highest
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  Lord, kind, patient, and merciful, and you feel sorry
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  over human troubles. You, Lord, according to Your
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  gentle grace, promised forgiveness to those who are
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  sorry for their sins. In Your great mercy, You allowed
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  sinners to turn from their sins and find salvation.
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  Therefore, Lord God, of those who do what is right, You didn't
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  offer Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who didn't sin against You a
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  chance to change their heart and lives.
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  But you'll offer me, the Sinner, the chance to change my heart
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  and life because my sins outnumbered the grains of sand
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  by the sea. My sins are many, Lord, they are
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  many. I'm not worthy to look up, to
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  gaze into heaven because of my many sins.
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  Now, Lord, I suffer justly. I deserve the troubles I
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  encounter already. I'm caught in a trap.
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  I'm held down by iron chains so that I can't lift up my head
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  because of my sins. There's no relief for me because
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  I made you angry, doing wrong in front of your face, setting up
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  false gods and committing offenses.
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  Now I bow down before you from deep within my heart, begging
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  for your kindness. I have sinned, Lord.
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  I have sinned and I know the laws I've broken.
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  I'm praying, begging you forgive me, Lord, forgive me.
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  Don't destroy me along with my sins.
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  Don't keep my bad deeds in your memory forever.
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  Don't sentence me to the earth's depths, for you, Lord, are the
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  God of those who turn from their sins.
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  In me You'll show how kind you are.
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  Although I'm not worthy, you'll save me according to your great
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  mercy. I will praise You continuously
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  all the days of my life because all of heaven's forces praise
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  you, and the glory is yours forever and always.
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  Amen. Man, I tell you guys, I just
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  love this little prayer. Now, as I mentioned both
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  yesterday and I think I might have mentioned it just a moment
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  ago, this prayer is not, if you will, it's not inspired by the
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  Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit did not move the
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  pen of the author as he was writing this.
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  I say that colloquially in the writing of Scripture, there is
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  human agency. The Holy Spirit did not, you
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  know, dictate in the words of Paul or John exactly what they
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  needed to be saying. He, he moved, if you will, in
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  their hearts so that what they wrote from their being and in
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  their heart what they wrote was exactly what God wanted to have
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  written with even the vocabulary and grammar that God wanted it
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  to be written in. That was not the process for
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  what we looked at yesterday. That song titled Psalm 151 or
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  this prayer, the prayer of Manasseh.
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  However, as we read A2220400 year old prayer from a believer
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  in God, I I just can't help but worship the Lord for His
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  goodness as we read through this portion.
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  So I do want to highlight one thing that would highlight this
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  particular portion of scripture as not being inspired that this
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  is not, if you will, the Word of God.
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  Though certainly we can hear God's voice and some of it as it
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  echoes Scripture in line #8 or verse #8 if you will, He says.
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  Therefore, Lord God of those who do what is right, You didn't
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  offer Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who didn't sin against you a
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  chance to change their heart and lives, but you offer me, the
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  Sinner, the chance to change my heart and life.
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  Want to highlight here Abraham, Isaac and Jacob absolutely sin
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  and they sinned over and over again.
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  I've been preaching through the book of Genesis in 2024-2025 and
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  we will complete it this year in 2026.
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  So I have gone over at length the sins of Abraham, Isaac and
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  Jacob. So here is this person as they
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  write, they're saying in comparison with the sins of
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  Manasseh, that at no point do we read that God punishes Abraham,
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  Isaac, and Jacob in the way that he punishes Manasseh, or that
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  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they didn't commit idolatry like
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  Manasseh was committing idolatry.
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  They had lies of sin. They had lies or sorry, they had
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  the sin of lies that each of them committed over and over and
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  over again, taking advantage of other people in a in a variety
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  of circumstances. So Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
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  while yes, they were great examples of faith in God, they
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  were not sinless and they did in fact sin against God.
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  And so here I wanted to highlight that that's the one
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  part of this prayer that I'm like, listen, I know what you're
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  trying to communicate, but here God the Lord, who is the God of
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  those who do what is right. There is none righteous.
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  No, not one as we would read in Romans chapter 3 or as David
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  says, there's none that understands.
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  There was no one that seeks after God.
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  They have all gone out of the way.
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  They have all together become unprofitable.
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  So God is the only good and perfect one.
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  We are not the good and perfect. So I want to look first at this
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  little section in lines one through 5 or verses one through
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  5, if you will. Very quick side note as well, if
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  you are interested at any point in reading through some more of
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  these, they're not scripture, but the intertestamental books,
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  I want to encourage you, you can look up the Common English
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  Bible, the CEB, the Common English Bible, and it has some
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  great very readable translations of these ancient Greek and
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  Hebrew texts and so, and actually some Syriac as well.
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  So I want to encourage you if you want to read more of those
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  things, just like you would read, you know, a book by John
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  MacArthur or by Rick Warren or someone else.
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  This is these are great insights into what believers were
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  thinking couple thousand years ago.
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  So want to look first at the section in one through 5.
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  Lord Almighty God of our ancestors, He says, God, you are
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  the God who has been with my family for generations back and
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  God, you are incredible. You meet heaven and earth with
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  all of their beauty. You do amazing, wonderful
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  things, He says. You set limits for the sea by
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  speaking your command, like you keep us safe from being
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  overwhelmed, if you will, by the chaos waters, by the flood,
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  because you set where the sea stops.
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  He says you closed the bottomless pit.
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  That's the depths that we would read even in Genesis 1, or what
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  we read in Revelation that God throws Satan into is that the
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  bottomless pit is opened and Satan is chucked into it, and so
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  God is incredible and powerful. Verse 4.
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  All things fear you and tremble in your presence because no one
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  can endure the brightness of your glory.
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  No one can resist the fury of your threat against sinners.
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  Think about the flood or think about Sodom and Gomorrah.
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  Think about the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC that all of
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  these things show us that what God wants to get accomplished
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  will be accomplished. And so we ought to live in fear
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  and awe, reverence and respect of our God.
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  But this fearful, amazing, wonderful God in verse number
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  six, he says, but your promised mercies are beyond measure and
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  imagination. I I so this encourages my soul
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  in an incredible way that yes, my God is the just God, but he
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  is the God who delights in showing mercy.
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  Verse 7, he just goes on and on with the description, you are
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  the highest Lord, kind, patient and merciful and you feel sorry
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  over human troubles that God's not disinterested in the pain
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  that you or I go through. Instead, he deals patiently with
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  us. He doesn't treat us like our
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  sins deserve. Instead he treats us as his own
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  children. He's merciful.
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  He gives grace to us. He doesn't punish us when he
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  could. He doesn't punish us right when
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  we would deserve it. Sometimes He gives us a space of
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  grace to be able to repent. He is kind to as He continually
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  does good things to us even when we have not earned it.
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  And he he feels sorrow over the things that we interact with.
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  What a good God that that is. Verse #7 You, Lord, according to
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  your gentle grace, promised forgiveness to those who are
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  sorry for their sins. In your great mercy, you allowed
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  sinners to turn from their sins and find salvation.
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  This is the picture of repentance that I I'm no longer
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  going to pursue idolatry. I'm no longer going to pursue
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  sexual immorality. I'm no longer going to pursue
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  covetousness or greed as the driving motivation of my life.
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  Instead, I'm turning from these sins and I'm going to say, God,
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  I need your mercy. I need your forgiveness.
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  I need you to change who I am because I am broken.
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  And so he says, Lord, you have offered me the Sinner, the
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  chance to change my heart and my life.
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  He says because my sins outnumbered the grains of sand
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  by the sea, as you read through the story of Manasseh, you would
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  go, yeah, this person has no shot of ever, if you will,
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  getting into heaven, as we would often phrase it.
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  They have no shot of a relationship with God as a
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  result of their brokenness. He says, my sins are many, Lord,
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  they are many. I'm not worthy to look up to
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  gaze into heaven because of my many sins.
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  And I don't know if you've ever been there in your life or you
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  feel like you have let God down at far too often, my friend,
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  there is still grace and forgiveness and mercy reserved
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  for you. He says now Lord, I, I suffer
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  justly. I deserve the troubles I
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  encounter already. I'm caught in a trap.
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  I'm held down by iron chains so that I can't lift up my head
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  because of my sins. There's no relief for me because
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  I made you angry, doing wrong in front of your face, setting up
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  false gods and committing offenses.
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  Here, as the writers writing from the perspective of Manasseh
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  imprisoned in Babylon, you could think about the literal chains
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  that would be on him. And he'd go, Yep, I earned all
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  of this because I snubbed my nose at God and I knew that God
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  existed and I knew what God's commands were, and I ignored him
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  and I did whatever I wanted to do instead.
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  Can I encourage you don't believe that your sins will go
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  unpunished. Don't believe that there will
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  not be consequences for the wrongs that you and I have done.
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  And that consequence doesn't have to be eternal condemnation.
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  Instead, as we read in Hebrews, I forget if it's 12 or 13, I
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  think it's chapter 12, that God disciplines, He chastens, He
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  corrects those who are his children.
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  And so even in our Christian life, though, we never have to
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  fear. Hell, we can absolutely fear.
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  All right. If I, you know, make my life
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  stealing stuff, I can expect at some point I'm going to walk
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  into a house or I'm going to break into a house, that someone
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  is actually inside the house and they might harm me as a result
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  of my thievery. You know, I'm engaged in this
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  wrong relationship. And that person's spouse or
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  someone else might find out about this or my spouse might
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  find out about this and you know, my life will be destroyed.
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  Or if I rob a bank, you know I'm going to prison.
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  Our sin has natural consequences.
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  So do not snub your nose at God and go, no, I'm just going to do
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  whatever I want to do and you can deal with it.
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  Let's recognize that whatever we do, we do in front of the face
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  of God, and he is a holy and a just God, and so we ought to
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  obey him, not flagrantly sin in front of Him.
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  Verses 11 through 13. Now I bow down before you from
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  deep within my heart, begging for your kindness.
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  I've sinned, Lord, I've sinned and I know the laws I've broken.
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  I'm praying, begging you forgive me, Lord, forgive me.
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  I love this, these verses, if you will.
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  If there's any kind of ancient version of the sinner's prayer,
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  I feel like this is it of God. I know that I'm a Sinner.
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  I believe that because of your kindness and your goodness, you
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  will forgive me because of Christ Jesus.
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  Would you forgive me of my sins? And if there's never been a time
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  in your life where you have, you know, prayed.
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  You don't have to pray these exact words or anything, but if
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  there's never been a time when you have responded to the Lord
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  in faith to say God, I recognize I'm a Sinner.
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  I'm in need of a Savior. Just as God heard the prayer of
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  Manasseh, God will hear your prayer today and he will save
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  you that you will not have to worry about what will happen in
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  your eternity, which is then what this prayer goes on with.
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  He says don't destroy me along with my sins.
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  Don't keep my bad deeds in your memory forever.
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  Don't sentence me to the earth's depths, for you, Lord, are the
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  God of those who return from their sins.
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  And that I love verses 14 and 15.
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  They're so good in me. You'll show how kind you are.
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  Although I'm not worthy, you'll save me according to your great
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  mercy. I'll praise you continuously all
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  the days of my life, because all of heaven's forces praise you,
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  and the glory is yours forever and always.
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  Amen. I love the lining here in me.
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  You'll show how kind you are, that when people look at Brian's
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  life that they'll go, man, God is good.
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  I can tell because Brian experiences joy or peace or love
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  that he doesn't deserve in and of himself.
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  But God has done something good to him.
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  God has given him some amazing friends.
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  God has given him a wonderful church family.
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  And I know it's not because Brian's earned it.
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  It's because God is kind to him. He says, although I'm not
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  worthy, you'll save me according to your great mercy.
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  This is the gospel message that because of the mercy of Christ
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  Jesus, because of his kindness expressed to us on the cross and
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  in the resurrection and in the gifting of the Holy Spirit, that
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  God saves us because of His great mercy.
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  So what's our response to this? We praise God, we don't love
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  sin. We turn away from sin.
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  We operate in awe and worship and reverence of God.
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  We seek the Lord to heal what is broken in US and how we break
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  others through sin. And we come back to the
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  recognition God, we are the broken, you are the whole, we
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  are the imperfect. You are the perfect and
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  righteous. And so if I'm going to exist, if
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  I'm going to have a relationship with you, if I'm going to, if
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  you will make the most of my life, it has to come through
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  God, His kindness, His mercy, His goodness, His compassion on
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  me. I hope that this little prayer
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  has been an encouragement to you today.
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  Like I mentioned last episode, Monday we are heading into First
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  Timothy, the letter from Paul to his young protege, and I believe
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  that that'll be a wonderful time in the word together.
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  Thank you for tuning in. Have a wonderful day.