Latest / HBCWestminster / 9.12.21 2 Chronicles 33:1-17 Pastor Danny Gardner

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9.12.21 2 Chronicles 33:1-17 Pastor Danny Gardner · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  Good morning, church. We are so glad that you could join us. If you have your Bibles, open to 2 Chronicles. 2 Chronicles chapter 33. 2 Chronicles 33. When I was a kid, the greatest basketball player in the world was Michael Jordan. I still believe that to be true. I think he was the greatest of all time. I think you could make an argument for Wilt Chamberlain, maybe Kobe Bryant, maybe Magic Johnson, maybe Larry Bird, if you lack...
• 0:26
  all sense of reason and discernment. Maybe you'd say LeBron James. But all of them, with the exception of Wilt Chamberlain, of course, all of them when they were growing up were Air Jordans.
• 0:41
  You know, and basketball players still do. Nike's famous swoosh symbol is only slightly more recognizable than a silhouetted airborne man dunking a basketball. And you've probably all seen that silhouette of the guy doing that dunking a basketball. This man, whom Nike now calls Airman, is actually Michael Jordan. It was about 10 years ago he told them they couldn't use his name anymore for that symbol, and so they just made it generic Airman.
• 1:07
  But in the early 1990s, when I was in high school, Gatorade came out with a commercial that I can still remember. It was a video montage of some of Jordan's greatest hits, dunks and transitioning hands in the air and all kinds of the crazy things that he did. But sung over the top of this video montage was this song that they'd written that says, sometimes I dream that he is me. You gotta see, that's how I dream to be. I dream I move, I dream I groove like Mike, if I could be like Mike.
• 1:37
  It says, yeah, I tried to seem to fly for just one day. If I could be that way, I dream I move. I dream I groove like Mike. If I could be like Mike, like Mike. If I could be like Mike, I want to be, want to be like Mike, be like Mike. That was the Gatorade commercial, Michael Jordan.
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  became the idol to young basketball players all over the world. They started drinking Gatorade, wearing Air Jordans, selecting number 23 for their jerseys, even showing off their stunning basketball moves with their tongues hanging out, which was a signature trademark of Michael Jordan. Be Like Mike in the 90s took over the world. Even Bugs Bunny got in on the action when Warner Brothers made Space Jam, a movie where Michael Jordan played an intergalactic basketball team of evil aliens
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  for the fate of the world it sounds ridiculous but we do this stuff all the time church we pattern our lives after others the way we dress the way we talk the way we spend our money the way we vote our interests our values our religious beliefs these are most often stolen from watching those around us and so the question we're going to address this morning is this are you patterning your life after the right people knowing that we follow in other people's footsteps
• 2:54
  Are you patterning your life after the right people? If you were going to make a commercial and your theme song was, be like blank, be like blank, whose name would go in the blank? The argument I'm going to attempt to make this morning is that we should pattern our lives after the greatest among us. But what we'll see is that the greatest among us are not necessarily those whom the Lord has gifted with the greatest talents or the greatest resources,
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  choices, but rather the greatest among us might be those whom the Lord has saved from the greatest failures for his glory. There is a verse that I love to quote. I quote it often because of the promise that is made. Hebrews chapter 7 and verse 25 says this, consequently he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them.
• 3:53
  Can you imagine, church, if we took some time this morning to regale one another with stories of sin and hopelessness and despair? What if we told the stories in the church that we are most ashamed to tell? What if we publicly confessed our deepest and darkest secrets? I think that we would find that each of us has had a period in our lives that we would consider the darkest that we could look back at and call our uttermost.
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  our uttermost, the darkest period in our lives. This morning we're going to study what it means that Christ is able to save
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  to the uttermost. And I imagine there is a person listening this morning who would wager that they themselves are the greatest sinner of all time. They're the worst. They just feel the worst. They feel the guilt and shame of what they've done. They've done horrible things, committed horrible things, said horrible things, hurt people in horrible ways, and so would consider themselves to be the greatest sinner, the most guilty person at church who is...
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  even now possibly feeling out of place in listening to this sermon, maybe feels beyond help and beyond cure and beyond forgiveness, a person who feels totally depraved, who feels despicable every time they think about their own sin, who feels like they couldn't get any worse. Let's say, for argument's sake, that that is you, that you couldn't get any worse, that you couldn't possibly send any
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  more that every thought, every action, every opportunity you have ever had since birth has been rebellious and full of rejection and hatred. It has been licentious that you have from the day of your birth been perfectly evil. According to the promise of Scripture Church, even then Christ would be able to save you. The story of King Manasseh before us this morning is an interesting one. It's the story
• 5:47
  that reminds its readers that God truly can save anyone, anyone, because Manasseh is quite possibly the most evil man who ever lived. And you say, well, what about Emperor Nero? And what about Hitler? What about Stalin? What about Himmler? What about Bin Laden? What about Mao Zedong? What about Pol Pot? What about Saddam Hussein? These have all been evil, all committed unspeakable crimes against humanity, but none of them worth comparing with Manasseh, the man in our text this morning. The books of 1 and 2 Kings,
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  are meant to be a history of israel during the united and divided monarchy they begin with david the greatest king that israel ever had with the exception of christ of course but even christ scripture says was seated on david's throne in fact jesus himself was even called the son of david david was the high modern the high water mark of israel's kings but from their monarchy
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  From there, the monarchy, I should say, from there, from that high water mark with King David, the monarchy spiraled into greater and greater sin, eventually spilling into the tribes and splitting the northern and southern tribes, ending ultimately in captivity of those tribes and even the oblivion of some of the tribes. The story of kings, first and second kings in your Bibles, is full of darkness and despair. By the time you get to 1 and 2 Chronicles, where we are this morning,
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  the mood changes a little bit. Now, 1 and 2 Chronicles are a retelling of those same generations. It's the same kings, but from a lighter and more hopeful perspective.
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  In fact, the book of 2 Chronicles even ends with an interesting statement that could be interpreted as an invitation to the Messiah to come. If you've got your Bibles open to 2 Chronicles 33, just go to the right just a few pages, you'll notice that the very last words in the book, in 2 Chronicles 36, the very last words are these words, let him go.
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  That's how the book ends. In fact, Chronicles is arranged at the end of the Hebrew Old Testament. So it's the last book. In fact, those are the last words in the Hebrew Old Testament. Let him go up.
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  That verse has often been explained or interpreted to mean to be an invitation to the Messiah to go up to Jerusalem to establish his throne There it's similar to the phrase next year in Jerusalem, which is quoted at the end of every Passover Seder in the spring
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  the idea is next year in jerusalem the idea is that the messiah will come and rebuild the temple and regather his people and that jerusalem will become the center of learning and spirituality among the nations and go up let him go up carried with it that same thought that the messiah might come regather his people and so as so whereas the the kings are dark and full of despair the chronicles are upbeat and positive you can see this kind of
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  and the light at the end of the tunnel there in 2 Chronicles. And yet, it is in this supposedly positive and upbeat book that we find contained the most detailed story of Manasseh, son of King Hezekiah. And if Scripture contains an uttermost, the worst person, it's Manasseh. You notice in verse 1 that Manasseh was kind of the poster child.
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  the uttermost and verse 1 says that he reigned longer than anyone else look at verse 1 Manasseh was 12 years old when he began to reign and he reigned for 55 years in Jerusalem 55 years his reign over three generations meant that his agenda was completely lived out can you imagine what a president could do
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  over five decades what if there were no term limits what if we had one president for 55 years at some point everything in the country would reflect his leadership right there would be no changes there would be no transitions and in some of those ways they might be good but in some of those ways they might be really really
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  Bad. If he reigned, if Manasseh reigned for 55 years, then everything he wanted to accomplish, he did. And it turned out that was not a good thing. In fact, J. Barton Payne has said it this way, Manasseh, more than any other single person, was responsible for the final destruction of the kingdom of Judah.
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  Most of his 55-year reign was devoted to thoroughgoing paganism religiously and a renewed subjection to Assyria politically. In other words, J. Barton Payne says Manasseh ruined everything. He ruined everything. And we see in the following verses that Manasseh assaulted worship in Israel. Worship. He assaulted the worship of God among God's people. Notice verse 2.
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  Manasseh did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. For he, Manasseh, rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had broken down. He erected altars to the Baals, the false gods, made Asheroth, false gods, worshiped all the hosts of heaven and served them. He built altars.
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  In the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said in Jerusalem, shall my name be forever. And he built altars for all the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. Skip verse six for now. We'll come back to it. Look at verse seven. And the carved image of the idol that he had made, he set in the house of God. So in other words, he erected an idol in the temple itself in Jerusalem. Can you imagine?
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  of which God had said to David and to Solomon, his son in this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the twelve tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever and I will no more remove the foot of Israel from the land that I appointed for your fathers. If only they will be careful to do all that I have commanded them, all the law, the statutes and the rules given them through Moses. Now, more than anything else, we find in Scripture that God wants to be worshiped. What God is looking for is worshipers.
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  He desires a people who understand who he truly is and marvel at his glory. That is what he desires. In fact, only in right worship of God can we be who we were designed to be. Worship is the core, fundamental human purpose.
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  happen upon a commercial, maybe in the middle of a Rockies game or in the middle of a Broncos game, and you get mad at that commercial's content. Do you ever just see a commercial and go, what in the world? How can they put that on primetime television? Like, my sons are here.
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  What are you doing? Who approves the content for those commercials? I've even gone so far, just like you guys do in your home, to kind of outlaw certain things, the watching of certain television shows. I've even gone so far as to outlaw the watching of live TV. If we're going to watch a Rockies game, we never watch it live. We always record it, right? We start it on a little bit of a delay, an hour delay or something, so we can just zip through the commercials so we don't have to endure that stuff in my house.
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  I just don't want that unfiltered content streaming into my home, exposing my boys to evil. And honestly, church, I'm finding that more and more difficult to do. That evil is so pervasive. It seems to be everywhere. You can't drive without billboards and other things. It's everywhere.
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  Romans 1 says this, that claiming to be wise, mankind became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. And this we find is exactly what Manasseh did. Anywhere he could erect an altar to a false god. You see that says every high hill, every high hill, even within the temple itself, he erected idols. The people of Israel.
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  or assaulted with paganism everywhere they looked it was pervasive it was everywhere just like in our culture now evil was just everywhere it was impossible to keep your family protected from it every time you walked out your door in israel you would have looked up on top of the hill and seen an idol a an altar to a false god a false temple i mean it was
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  Everywhere. Verse 5 even states that Manasseh built altars for all the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. The temple courtyard was divided into two main sections. There was the court of Israel reserved for the patriarchs of every family to come and to present their offerings, their sacrifices. And then there was the court of priests.
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  where only Levites, priests, could go when they were on duty. And what this verse says is that Manasseh erected monuments to false gods where worshipers of Yahweh and even Yahweh's priests would have to kind of work their way, maneuver their way around false idols in order to bring their offerings and sacrifices to the Lord. He assaulted worship in Israel. But not only that, in Manasseh we find in verse 6,
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  assaulted the messianic line look at verse 6. it says and manasseh burned his sons as an offering in the valley of the son of hinnom and used fortune telling and omens and sorcery dealt with mediums and with necromancers now this one is crazy to me manasseh sacrificed his own sons to false gods
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  He burned them in the fires as offerings to false gods. And you may say, man, that is sick. But honestly, church, it's way beyond sick. This was actually a satanic attempt to annihilate the messianic line. Consider this. Go with me here for just a moment.
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  If you go all the way back to 2 Samuel 7, you remember that? 2 Samuel 7, David says, I want to build you a house, Lord. I want to build you a temple where you can live. And God comes back and says, no, David, you're not going to build me a house. I will instead build you a house. And for a thousand generations forever, one of your sons will sit on the throne and rule. Your sons will rule.
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  Now, this was a promise that the Messiah, even Jesus himself, would be from David's line. The Messiah would come from David's line. Now, consider what that means.
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  If David would have an heir who would reign over an everlasting kingdom, then every one of David's sons from that point forward was that potential Messiah, right? Every one of his sons and then grandsons, eventually great-grandsons and so on, was a potential Messiah. One of them would be Jesus. And in the burning of his sons, Manasseh was in effect ensuring that David's line would be exterminated.
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  that the Messiah could never come. Can you imagine? You can see here the enemy of our souls at work. Not only was there false worship, was he attacking the worship of that current generation, but he was even attacking the ability of the Savior to come. We also see in verses 9 to 11 that Manasseh assaulted the nation even politically. Look at verse 9.
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  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 spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention. 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." Now, Manasseh's actions led to the subjection of Judah by the Babylonians.
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  really the Assyrians first. And although it wouldn't be for another two generations that the Jews as a whole would be led into captivity under King Zedekiah, it was Manasseh's actions that were the final straw that paved the way for the Babylonians to invade. I mean, there can be no doubt, church, Manasseh was the worst. Manasseh was the uttermost.
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  But notice second, Manasseh's repentance. So that's kind of Manasseh's uttermost. That was his period of uttermost. But notice his repentance. We're going to start actually back in verse 10. I've already read it, but look what it says. Verse 10, the Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention. Now, I love we see that God initiates the conversation with Manasseh. Do you see that? The Lord God spoke to Manasseh and to his people.
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  I mean, if you're married, you know it's always the hardest on the first person to say sorry, right? When you've been in an argument or whatever, the first person who comes, it's the hardest to say sorry first. It's very easy to say, you know, I'm sorry too. But very hard to be the first one to humble yourself, to take on that servant nature and say, you're sorry, or to say, I love you. It's hard to be the first person to lay down your rights. And we see here that the Lord is very willing to do that. He, in fact, initiates.
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  that conversation. 1 John chapter 4 and verse 10 says, and this is love, not that we've loved God, but that he loved us. He loved us first. And we find this is true of the Lord. But you notice second in verse 11, you see the persistence of our God in chasing down wayward sinners. Look at verse 11. Therefore, the Lord brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria. So we saw that God was willing to speak to Manasseh. Manasseh wouldn't listen. So look what the Lord did.
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  They captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon. The Lord is persistent in chasing down wayward sinners. And you know, church, we may not like the Lord's tactics. I'll bet Manasseh didn't like the Lord's tactics. But if we're honest, we probably wouldn't listen if the Lord was gentle. Sometimes it takes a two-by-four to smack us over the head before we'll finally pay attention.
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  to what the Lord has said. One has said this, it sometimes takes distress to drive a man to God and praise God for the distress in my life that has brought me to my senses. You notice additionally that the Lord is eager to save. The Lord is eager to save. Look at verses 12 and 13. When he was in distress, Manasseh entreated the favor of the Lord as God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.
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  He prayed to him and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. And then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God. There is no other way to explain the Lord's actions, the Lord's response to Manasseh, other than to say that he was eager to save. Based on Manasseh's response, based on Manasseh's hardness of heart, heaven's ears should have been deaf to his cries.
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  so evil was manasseh the lord could very easily said you know what you didn't want anything to do with me before i'm not going to help you now but this text says but god was moved look again at verse 13 manasseh prayed to god and god was moved and heard his plea what a great truth you notice fourth
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  that you can see the genuineness of Manasseh's repentance in his follow-through. Do you ever wonder, like, how do I know if somebody's genuinely repentant? I mean, what if they say they're sorry? How can I tell if they're really sorry? And the answer is by his actions. Look at verse 14. Afterward, Manasseh built an outer wall for the city of David west of Gihon.
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  in the valley and for the entrance into the fish gate and carried it around Ophel and raised it to a very great height. He also put commanders of the army and all the fortified cities in Judah. 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.
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  He also restored the altar of the Lord and offered on it sacrifices of peace offerings and of Thanksgiving. Then he commanded Judah to serve the Lord, the God of Israel. How do you measure genuine repentance? By their follow through, by their actions. It's like the Lord is saying, I know that you're saying you're sorry, but now show me you're sorry. And you see what Manasseh did. He did all of those things. He tore all of those things down. He commanded.
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  soul worship of God rather than the worship of all of these other idols. 2 Corinthians 7 and verses 10 says the same thing. It contrasts godly grief, godly sorrow versus worldly sorrow. And it says this, for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
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  So he says, you can be sorry in two different ways. There is a godly way to have grief and a worldly way. One produces life and repentance. The other produces death. Now, here's what he says. For see what earnestness.
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  this godly grief has produced in you. What eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment. In other words, godly grief will have follow-through, zeal, conviction, longing to do what is right, even longing for punishment. You'll want to endure the consequences of your sin, no matter how severe, because you know what you did was wrong.
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  At every point, 2 Corinthians 7 says, at every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter. Godly grief versus worldly grief. And here we see, based on his follow-through, that Manasseh was experiencing a godly grief. That's his repentance. You'll notice, finally, his legacy. What did he leave behind? Look at verse 17.
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  the people still sacrificed at the high places so not necessarily that all of the people repented but look with what it says this legacy it says but only to the lord their god manasseh's actions at the beginning were despicable there was no more rotten man anywhere this man actually sought to try to destroy jesus before he came that's pretty evil stuff and yet it says at the end of his life
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  Because of his repentance, because of the grace that was showered upon him from the Lord, the forgiveness that he received, he pointed the people back to Israel. I'm sorry, back to Israel's God. He pointed them back to Yahweh, back to Jehovah, so that they would worship the one true God. And those last few verses of his life kind of talk about how he died and where he was buried. But Manasseh's final work...
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  was to point his people back to the Lord, and that's what he did. He had royally messed up his life. He had messed up the lives of God's people, but his repentance ended with one final righteous act. You know, church, no matter how badly you've blown it, it's never too late to repent, to return to the Lord, and to allow the Lord to restore your life. Repent, return, restore. You know, there are men whose
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  feet hang trembling over the edge of perdition. They are ready to perish. They stand at the edge of the pit, ready to fall. There are men who are the vilest of the vile. They are the off-scouring of this world. They might be the scum of the earth. There is somebody who is the worst, the chief among sinners. But even they are not beyond God's grace. Even we who have periods in our lives that we would consider to be our uttermost are not beyond the grace of God. And we can call on him just as Manasseh did.
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  and he will hear us and church let us yell that message from the rooftops let us tell that everywhere if there is something that is ever on our lips let it not be politics and agendas and these other things none of those things matter let it be this message the message of the gospel
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  Let us be reminded that we were at one time, before we ourselves had drawn near to God, that we were ourselves dangling over the fiery pit by a single thread, plunging headlong into eternal despair. But because Christ was crucified, because he fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law, he is able to save to the uttermost. Our darkest, most shameful deeds of the past church can be forgiven. Let us determine to be like Manasseh, because if God can save Manasseh,
• 26:58
  He can save anyone. And Lord, I pray that we would embrace that same forgiveness, Lord, that we would yell that message from the rooftops, that even the worst, even the most vile, even we can be saved. And like Manasseh, we can leave a righteous legacy if we will repent from our sin and return to you and allow you to restore our lives. God, we want to be like Manasseh. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.