1/12/13
S: 2 Kings 21:6-16 [Manasseh] passed his son through the fire and practiced divination and omen reading. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits, and appointed magicians to supervise it. He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. He put an idol of Asherah he had made in the temple, about which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon, “This temple in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will be my permanent home. I will not make Israel again leave the land I gave to their ancestors, provided that they carefully obey all I commanded them, the whole law my servant Moses ordered them to obey.” But they did not obey, and Manasseh misled them so that they sinned more than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed from before the Israelites.
So the Lord announced through his servants the prophets: “King Manasseh of Judah has committed horrible sins. He has sinned more than the Amorites before him and has encouraged Judah to sin by worshiping his disgusting idols. So this is what the Lord God of Israel says, ‘I am about to bring disaster on Jerusalem and Judah. The news will reverberate in the ears of those who hear about it. I will destroy Jerusalem the same way I did Samaria and the dynasty of Ahab. I will wipe Jerusalem clean, just as one wipes a plate on both sides. I will abandon this last remaining tribe among my people and hand them over to their enemies; they will be plundered and robbed by all their enemies, because they have done evil in my sight and have angered me from the time their ancestors left Egypt right up to this very day!’”
Furthermore Manasseh killed so many innocent people, he stained Jerusalem with their blood from end to end, in addition to encouraging Judah to sin by doing evil in the sight of the Lord.
2 Chronicles 33:10-13 The Lord confronted Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention. So the Lord brought against them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria. They seized Manasseh, put hooks in his nose, bound him with bronze chains, and carried him away to Babylon. In his pain Manasseh asked the Lord his God for mercy and truly humbled himself before the God of his ancestors. When he prayed to the Lord, the Lord responded to him and answered favorably his cry for mercy. The Lord brought him back to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh realized that the Lord is the true God.
O: Manasseh was one of the worst ever kings of Judah, in spite of having such a good father, Hezekiah. He even committed human sacrifice on his son and murdered many people -- and the way that 2 Kings 21:6 puts it, it implies that these were godly people who supported Hezekiah's reforms.
Yet when he was captured by the Babylonians, he repented, and God forgave him. There is a "Prayer of Manasseh" in the Septuagint, which some think is the prayer he prayed in his repentance.
A: No matter how bad your sin is, when you realize it, repent! God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked! He would rather you turn to Him. God says, "Come, let us reason together -- Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool."
P: Father, thank You that You sent Your only begotten Son, so that we do not have to perish, but have everlasting life. In Jesus' name, amen.
Note: this is using the SOAP method. For more information, see this page (not written by me.)
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