LIFE LESSONS
MANASSEH
DR. JIM DIXON
2 CHRONICLES 33: 1-13
OCTOBER 19, 2003
Halloween is only 12 days away, and it is certainly the strangest of American holidays. Halloween was originally a pagan festival called Samhain—a Druidic festival, a Celtic festival. Samhain was the Druidic Lord of the Dead. They believed that on that day the dead could visit the living. In the Middle Ages, the Christian church decided to Christianize this pagan festival. They made it a holy day. They called it All Saints Day. It was still associated with the dead but with the Christian dead, with the saints who had lived in prior generations. Their examples were remembered. Of course, the evening before All Saints Day was called All Saints Eve or All Hallows Eve, from which we get Halloween.
Today Halloween is neither a pagan festival nor is it a Christian holy day. Today Halloween is just a secular holiday still vaguely associated with the dead, with ghosts and goblins and skeletons. Of course, as we approach Halloween, we couldn’t have a more appropriate character than Manasseh, King of Judah, because he was the most spooky of all the kings of Judah and Israel. He was weird. He was the son of the good and godly King Hezekiah, but he rebelled against his father and he rebelled against God, this 14th king of Judah. And yet his story is strangely an amazing story of mercy and grace.
Our two life lessons this morning concern mercy and grace. The first life lesson concerns mercy. It’s impossible for us to understand the evil that Manasseh brought to Jerusalem. The Bible tells us he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had torn down. That means he rebuilt all the pagan shrines and temples on the hilltops that surrounded Jerusalem and he rebuilt those shrines on hilltops throughout the nation of Judah. He erected altars to the Baals and built the Asherahs which simply means that he reinstituted the worship of fertility gods and goddesses with all the sexual immorality and hedonism associated with such worship, with all the greed and materialism associated with such worship.
He brought the zodiac. He brought astrology and the worship of the heavens to Israel and Judah. We’re told that he actually built altars, zodiac altars, in the two courts of the House of the Lord, in the outer court and in the court of the priests. We’re told that in the Holy Place of the Temple he made an image of an idol believed to be the image of Astarte, the fertility goddess of the Assyrians, right there in the Holy Place of the House of God.
He brought the worship of Molech, one of the most debauched religions of the ancient world associated with child sacrifice. He sacrificed his own sons, burned them in sacrifice in the Valley of Gehinnom, which was soon associated with the image of hell itself. That image continued into the days of Christ. He practiced soothsaying and augury and sorcery and he dealt with mediums and wizards. Every day was Halloween in Judah when Manasseh was on the throne. Every day was Samhain, and he was a necromancer. He seduced the people. He was not only evil himself, but he seduced the people of God. He seduced the nation. He was like the devil himself, evil and seducing others to evil.
And so, the Bible tells us in the 33rd chapter of 2 Chronicles, “The judgment of God descended upon him, and the armies of Assyria came and they made Judah a vassal state. And they seized Manasseh and took him bound in chains and fetters of bronze and they took him to Babylon.” The king had the crown taken from his throne. He had Assyrian swords at his back. He walked that dusty road, that long journey to Babylon. Perhaps he looked back to Jerusalem where once he had reigned and he cursed the many gods he had worshipped. He was thrown into a dungeon in Babylon, into a pit. We don’t know how long he was there. Some records indicate that he was in that dungeon for 13 years, but an amazing thing happened. He repented. He repented truly. This satanic, demonic king repented. He entreated the favor the mercy of the Lord his God. He remembered the God of Israel, the God of his father Hezekiah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers and he prayed. Then a more amazing thing happened; an absolutely astounding thing happened. God received his entreaty. God listened. God heard his supplication. The Bible tells us God actually forgave Manasseh. He forgave him in an act of incomprehensible mercy.
The biblical word for mercy in the Old Testament is the Hebrew word “hesed.” In the New Testament, it is the Greek word, “eleos.” The Hebrew word hesed refers to the mercy of steadfast love. The word eleos refers to the mercy of compassion. There are three Greek words for compassion in the New Testament. The first is the word, “sumpatheos” from which we get the English word “sympathy.” It simply means “to feel what another person feels.” This word sumpatheos is used for God because God feels what you feel. God feels what I feel. He feels what we feel. Sumpatheos. But that’s the weakest of the words for compassion in the New Testament.
There’s a second word, “splagchnizomai,” and it means “to act,” “to feel what somebody else feels and then to take action to help them,” It means to actually take action to help the person who’s afflicted or hurting. A stronger word. That’s the word Jesus used in the story of the Good Samaritan where the Good Samaritan was on that Jericho Road. He saw that wounded man and he was moved with compassion, “splanchnos,” and he acted on it. He went and helped the man. That is a stronger word and this word too is used of God. God has the compassion of action. He acts to help those who are hurting.
This third word, this word “eleos,” is the strongest of all. It not only means that you feel what another person feels. It not only means that you take action to help them, but it means that you must also forgive them because they actually deserve the affliction they’re in. They actually deserve the suffering they’re experiencing and yet you feel what they feel, and you move to help them and you forgive them. It’s the strongest of all the words for compassion. It’s the compassion of mercy. It’s the compassion of forgiveness, and it’s the compassion of God. God is a just God, holy and righteous, but He tempers His justice with mercy.
Now, we are created in the imago Dei. We’re created in the image of God and yet there’s little mercy in us. I kind of like the story of the 5-year-old boy named Bobby who was playing in his room with his 2-year-old sister. His mother was downstairs having a cup of coffee, reading a magazine. She heard a scream upstairs in the house. She opened the door and Bobby was crying. She said, “What’s wrong?” Bobby pointed to his 2-year-old sister. He said, “She pulled my hair and it hurt and I’m angry.” She said, “Well, don’t be angry, Bobby. Your little sister didn’t mean to hurt you. She’s pretty young and she doesn’t understand that when she pulls your hair, it hurts.” The mother went back downstairs and heard another scream. She returned to the room and opened the door. The 2-year-old girl was crying. Bobby said, “She knows now!”
I think that’s kind of what people are like. We’re all a little bit like that. We kind of want to get even. When someone has hurt us, we kind of want to get even. But the Bible tells us God is a God of mercy and forgiveness and compassion. That’s why Jesus told the Parable of the Prodigal Son, where the father represents God and the prodigal represents us. The prodigal demanded his inheritance. He went on a long journey, and he lived a sinful and profligate life in rebellion against his father. Finally, Jesus tells us, he came to his senses and he returned home. Jesus tells us the father was looking for him. “scanning The horizon” is the meaning for the Greek, looking for him at a distance, for the return of his son that he might welcome him home, that he might hug him and hold him. That’s what God is like. Mercy.
I read some time ago an allegedly true story about a couple in the 1960s who lived in San Merino, California. San Merino is a very affluent area of California, one of the highest incomes per capita in the United States. It’s right next to Cal Tech. This couple in San Merino had a beautiful home and they had a son who was fighting in the Vietnam War. One night their phone rang and it was their son. They were amazed to hear from him. He said, “Mom and Dad, I’m coming home. I’ve been released from the Army and I’m coming home.”
His parents were stunned. They knew nothing of this. He said, “But Mom and Dad, I’m bringing a friend if it’s all right with you. I’ve told him that it would be okay if he stayed at our house for a period of time. He’s really hurting and he was badly wounded. He’s fortunate to be alive. He’s missing both of his legs. He’s missing one of his arms. He’s blind in one eye and deaf in his right ear. He’s lucky to be alive. He almost died in Vietnam. I’ve told him that I could bring him home and we would take care of him.” His mom and dad said, “Son, we look forward to seeing you but please understand we don’t want you to bring your friend. We’re a lot older now and we don’t have the energy we once did. It sounds like he’s going to need a lot of help and maybe some professional care. It really would be hard for us and probably for him too. It would just be best if he doesn’t come. I hope you understand.”
The son was kind of sad and he hung up the phone. Just two days later, these parents in San Merino, California, received a phone call from the United States military. Their son had just died in a military hospital where he had just arrived from Vietnam. He committed suicide. As the parents went back to make the funeral arrangements, they discovered it was their son who was missing both of his legs. It was their son who was missing one of his arms. It was their son who had lost sight and hearing on the right side. Their son felt he wasn’t welcome home. He felt like it just would have been too great of a hardship on mom and dad. He just felt he wasn’t welcome home.
It is a really sad, tragic story, but God wants you to know He’s not like that. He’ll welcome you home. It doesn’t matter what condition you’re in. He will welcome you home. It doesn’t matter what condition you’re in. That’s what the story of the prodigal is all about. It’s about mercy. God wants to welcome you home and repentance means coming home. That’s what repentance is all about. God wants you to come home. God wanted Manasseh to come home. In the midst of his wickedness and his evil, God still longed for him to come home, for him to repent and come home. Mercy. That’s the God we have and it’s incredible. It’s just awesome. It’s unbelievable, the mercy of God.
There’s a second life lesson from this story of Manasseh and it’s a life lesson about grace. I think sometimes grace and mercy are sometimes confused. We think they are synonymous, but they’re really not. The word grace does have a broader scope and it can include the meaning of mercy. Mercy means primarily to forgive. That’s the meaning of eleos. The word for grace in the Greek means, “to give.” Mercy means, “to forgive.” Grace means, “to give.’’ Grace can include mercy because mercy can be one of the things you give. But, you see, the focus of grace is giving. The Greek word grace, the word, “charis,” has the root meaning, “to give.”
God not only forgives, but God also gives. We see this in the story of Manasseh where God not only forgave this King of Judah, but he gave to him, He restored him, He brought him back to Jerusalem. He sat him on the throne. He put him over the kingdom. He recrowned him. He blessed him. He gave to him. Mercy and grace. He gave and forgave. You see that also in the story of the prodigal where God not only forgives the prodigal son but then gives to him. He brings shoes for his feet. His feet will not be unshod like a slave. He puts the finest robe upon him and gives it to him. He gives him the family ring, the signet ring so that he would be restored to the family’s authority. He kills the fatted calf. It’s all about giving and forgiving. That’s the nature of God’s grace and mercy. That’s the gospel. That’s what I experienced when first I came to Christ. That’s what you experienced when first you came to Christ. Your sings forgiven by the blood of the cross, by the mercy of God and then by His grace, you were given membership in the family of God, and you became sons and daughters of God, born into his family. You were given kingdom of heaven and citizenship in that kingdom. You were given eternal life and the promise of heaven itself as a free gift. Grace. Mercy and grace. God gives and forgives.
Some of you may have seen a movie called “Antwone Fisher.” Antwone Fisher is the story of a young man, an African American. He had a hard life. He was rejected by his incarcerated mother when he was just a baby. His mother, even when she came out of prison, never looked him up. He grew up in reform schools and in abusive orphanages. He grew up in foster homes. He went into the military with a lot of anger in him, but through much counseling and through much discipline, he had become a good young man. Now, his counselor who was played by Denzel Washington. His counselor counsels Antwone to go and seek out his roots, to find his mother, and he finds that his mother is living in Cleveland and that he also has an aunt and uncle in Cleveland and perhaps other relatives. Antwone has gone to Cleveland with his girlfriend. His uncle takes him to see his mother, who he has not seen in all that time. What he doesn’t know is that his uncle has also prepared a special gathering of relatives that are going to greet him afterwards and he’s going to see his extended family for the very first time.
When Antwone meets his mother, he says to her, “ For all these years I wondered about you, I dreamed about you. Why’d you never come for me? Didn’t you wonder where I was and what I was doin’? Or what I’d become? Even if I was still alive? Didn’t you?” Then Antwone says, “I’m a good person. I’m a good man,” and kisses his mother on the cheek. Then, in a later scene, you see the whole family welcoming Antwone into a welcome home party for him and he comes to his mother, and his mother says to him with so much love, “Welcome.”
I see in this movie mercy and grace—mercy when Antwone kissed his mother. And perhaps she sensed in her silent tears his forgiveness, but grace—I see lots of grace. When he came into his family, a family he didn’t even know that he had, he was welcomed and embraced by the family. That’s what it was like for me and for many of you when you responded to the gospel and when you came to Christ and you found that forgiveness and you found the family of brothers and sisters all over the world and a family here, people who love you, people who care about you. That’s the grace of the gospel. We don’t want grace abused. We don’t want to abuse grace. Of course, the Bible warns us of the dangers of abusing mercy and grace.
Sometime ago I read a story (perhaps you’ve read it or heard it) about a man who was at the grocery store. He was doing some shopping. He got in line to pay his bill. He came up to the clerk with his shopping cart. The clerk handed a basket to him. He said, “What’s this about?” She said, “Well, we’re running a contest. There’s a bunch of papers there in the basket. If you pick the right one, your groceries are free.” He reached into the basket and took a paper out. To his amazement, he had won the contest. His groceries were free. But he looked in his basket and all he had was a half-gallon of milk and a carton of eggs. He thought, “What a waste!”
He looked behind him and the woman behind him has a basket that is just overflowing with groceries and other items she purchased at these modern supermarkets, some clothes and even a VCR. He thought, “Wow! Maybe I can make this work.” He turns to her and he says, “Honey, can you believe it? We won!!” She was quick on the uptake. She kind of played along. The clerk bought the whole thing and gave them both baskets of groceries for free. They went out into the parking lot, divvied things up and that’s grace abused.
That’s grace abused. I mean it was grace that he could have his groceries for free and of course that grace was abused. The Bible says we abuse grace when we do not seek holiness, when we just sin the more that grace may abound. Paul said, “Do we sin the more than grace may abound?” He said, “Heaven forbid.” “I abuse grace if I’m not in a quest for holiness. We all abuse grace if we’re not in a quest for Christlikeness. We also abuse grace if we don’t become givers and forgivers. We’ve all been forgiven, and God has given eternal life itself to all of us who believe in His Son. We now abuse grace if we’re not givers and forgivers.
Some of you have heard of Hetty Green. She lived years ago. She was called the Witch of Wall Street. Her witchery had nothing to do with occultism or spiritualism. Her witchery was entirely socio-economic. She died in 1916, and when she died, she was (we’re told) the wealthiest woman in the world. She had more than $100 million, the equivalent of billions of dollars today, but she didn’t want anyone to know she had money, so she went around in rags. She was afraid that somebody might ask her for money, and she didn’t want to give. Of course, everybody knew who she was. Nobody asked her for anything because they all knew that she wouldn’t give a penny. They all knew she was a miser. She went around in a carriage made of an old chicken coop. She didn’t even have a home. She lived in a boarding house. She went down every morning, got a newspaper, read it, refolded it, put the string around it, went down to the street and tried to sell it. She took empty bottles into the grocery store. She would ask for a discount if she could empty the contents of the store bottle into her bottle. She shouldn’t have to pay for the bottle. A miser.
The Latin word that miser comes from is “misera” which means “to pity.” Etymologists often debate it, “Is a miser so called because they have no pity on others or are they so-called because they are pitiable?” Probably both are true, but the thing to know is that in the Latin, the opposite word of “misera” is the word “gratis.” It means “grace.” It means “gift.” It’s the equivalent of the biblical word, “charis.” In the Latin Vulgate Bible, it’s the word that’s used again and again for God. God is the God of grace and He’s a giver. He’s no miser. He wants you to know if you’re one of His, if we belong to Him, we can’t be misers. Givers we must be. We must be givers and forgivers.
There’s another little story about a miser in the Talmud. The Talmud is a Jewish sacred writing, second only to the Torah. In part of the Talmud called the Gemara, there’s a story about a miser, a rich man who had a nice house on a hall above a Jewish village. He was simply called the miser because he never gave. People who were needy and desperate would go and knock on his door and he would never give anything.
At the base of the hill, there was a shoemaker. He was very giving, and in the story, he is simply called the giver. So, you have the giver and you have the miser. When people knocked on the miser’s door, he’d say, “I don’t give; Everyone knows I don’t give. Go see the giver. Go see the shoemaker.” They would go to the shoemaker. They would knock on his door, and he would give them whatever they needed to help them. The giver also gave large gifts to the synagogue, as this story in the Talmud is told.
The amazing thing is that after the course of time, the miser dies and suddenly the giver ceases to give. The gifts to the synagogue ceased. People knocked on his door and he was rarely able to help them. The rabbis go to him and they say, “What’s happening here? You’re the giver. You’re supposed to give.” He said, “Don’t you understand? I never had enough to give what I wanted but one day the miser came to my shop. He said that he wanted to be a giver, but he didn’t want anyone to know about it. He said he wanted to give away everything that he had but he didn’t want anyone to know about it. He wanted to give secretly and wanted only God to know.” He asked the giver if it would be okay if he could give through him. So, he gave to the giver that the giver might give to others.
In the Talmud, we’re told that from that point on, when the people understood, everybody wanted to be buried in the cemetery next to the miser because they knew he was really the giver. They wanted to be buried next to him, we’re told, because they believed you’re never more like God than when you give, and you’re never closer to God than when you give.
There’s a lot of truth in the Talmud. There’s a lot of truth in the Gemara. There’s a lot of truth in that story. If we belong to Christ, we’re to be known as givers, givers and forgivers. But, of course, many of us are Christians in name only. We’re not really givers and we’re not really forgivers. I think one of the reasons the Church of Jesus Christ in the western world will be so judged at the consummation is because we’ve been shown such grace and mercy and yet we have so little grace and mercy towards others and towards the needs of Christ and the cause of the kingdom of heaven. Forty percent of our congregation give nothing to the church. In the 60% who give, very few give anywhere near a tithe, which is the minimal standard of giving biblically. It’s tragic but it’s true.
I know many of you have heard of Archimedes. Archimedes was a famous Greek scientist. He lived in the third century before Christ. He was one of the greatest minds known to history. It was Archimedes who discovered the principle of the pulley and the principle of the lever. It was Archimedes who invented the catapult, which revolutionized ancient warfare. He was knowledgeable in physics and in mathematics he determined a more accurate value of pi. Archimedes is perhaps best known for the word “eureka.” He was commissioned by the king to determine a means of measuring the relative purity of gold and other precious metals. It all came to him as he was in the bathtub. He was in the bathtub and suddenly he realized how you could measure the purity of gold. In his excitement, he ran nude out into the street shouting, “Eureka! Eureka!” The word eureka today is on the great seal of the State of California, where Arnold Schwarzenegger will soon be governor. The word eureka is the official motto of the State of California. It’s associated with gold and the discovery of gold in California and the story of Archimedes. But the word literally means, “I found it—eureka!”
I think God would ask you today, “When it comes to life, have you found it?” Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life and that you might have it abundantly.” Jesus tells us how we can have life. He said, “He who would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me. He who would save his life will lose it. He who would hold onto his life will lose it, but he who would lose his life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will surely find it.” If you want to be able to say “eureka” about life itself, then you must give your life away to Christ. That’s the message of the gospel. It’s been the message for 2,000 years. We must give our life away to Christ, and we must give all that we have to Christ and all that we are to Christ. The more we give, the more life we have. It’s always been true. It’s the message of the gospel and yet so many Christians do not live as Christians. We’ve received grace and mercy, and we’re called to be givers and forgivers every day as long as we draw breath until we see the Lord face-to-face. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.