Summit
Geil's hand (multiple) injuries
Donnie's Back
Alyssa's injuries
Kari's dance wins
James' camp and knee
Dave's flying schedule
Hesus & friends witnessing
Students traveling
Hesus & friends witnessing
Students traveling
Hannah teaching next week
Text –2 Chronicles 33:1-13
Today we’re going to look at one of Jesus’ great great great grandfathers. It is truly amazing that Christ’s genealogy contains such wickedness and that he redeemed many of his ancestors. David was an adulterer and murder, Bathsheba was an adulteress, Solomon was a result of that adultery and a great sinner himself, Rahab was a prostitute, Tamar pretended to be a prostitute, Cain killed his brother, Adam was the first sinner, etc, and the beauty of all of these is that Christ paid for their sins on the cross, though they existed long before him.
But even though they were before him, who was greater?
John 8:53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?"
Matthew 22:42-45 "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David." He said to them, "How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, "'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet'? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”
Christ had a pretty spotty genealogy, it was made up of great sinners, of Jews and Gentiles, of kings and paupers, and yet it did not impact his life or ministry. This is the first lesson I want you to learn before we go any farther. There is a resurgence of a false teaching that you can be cursed for things your ancestors did and that you need to specifically rectify their sin in order to do away with the curse. It’s closer to voodoo than Christianity, but it’s becoming a prominent belief in many churches as they go apostate.
Ezekiel 18:1-4 The word of the LORD came to me: "What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge'? As I live, declares the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die.
In Christianity we have a promise of a complete rebirth into the family of God, that Christ is able to redeem all of our sins and any sins and curses in our genealogy. Christ is utterly bigger than our sins, otherwise how could we possibly expect him to save us from them?
Today we’re going to look at one of Jesus’ grandfathers who is in the running for chiefest of sinners of all time, an utterly evil man, but one with a wonderful outcome. So let’s read the Chronicle of his lifetime;
2 Chronicles 33:1-13 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. And he 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 rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had broken down, and he erected altars to the Baals, and made Asherahs, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. And he built altars 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 host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD. And he burned his sons as an offering in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, and used fortune-telling and omens and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger. And the carved image of the idol that he had made he set in the house of God, of which God said to David and to Solomon his son, "In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the 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 through Moses." 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. And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God.
v.1 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.
A little bit of context here, Manasseh’s father’s name was Hezekiah, he did some very prideful things which Manasseh would have seen. Isaiah came to him and told him he would die, but Hezekiah prayed to God for deliverance and Isaiah then told him he would live. In order to train Manasseh up as a king, he and Hezekiah reigned together for about eleven years. It’s neat to see that while two people were ruling Israel, really Israel only had one king because of their unity, which sort of points to the Trinity a little.
Manasseh lived altogether 67 years; remember that he lived to be pretty old, because that’s going to be important later. He reigned the longest out of any king of Israel except for Jesus Christ who is reigning still.
v.2 And he 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.
Instead of looking to the history of Israel, Manasseh looked to the history of pagans, forgetting that it was God who gave the land of Israel to the nation of Israel, forgetting that God drove out the pagans whom he was now following.
v.3-5 For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had broken down, and he erected altars to the Baals, and made Asherahs, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. And he built altars 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 host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD.
Part of his outright wickedness was that he refused to learn from the lessons of his father, who had torn down idols and tried to bring Israel back to worshipping the true God. There was no pagan deity which Manasseh missed in his idolatry, the Baals are the fake creator and sustainer gods, the Asherahs are for worshipping nature, your translation may say groves which would be trees for worship, and the hosts of heaven are either or both the planets and stars and/or angels. Look where he did it too, besides in all the old places which would be scattered throughout the countryside, he’s also done it in the temple, the very house of God.
In order for this to not just be a history lesson, we have to see that today we have Baals, Asherahs, and host of heaven worship in every false religion, in Oprahanity, in the “Green” movement, and in horoscopes and evolution. This wasn’t just a problem which existed in Manasseh’s day, this is still going on today, and remember that this is evil in the sight of God: abominations of the nations.
There is a test you can easily do to see just how evil a nation has gotten. They may be worshipping money and sex and all be atheists, but if they’re not doing this next step, then they haven’t sunk to the lowest level:
v.6 And he burned his sons as an offering in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom
We know from other sources that this was to the god Molech, the god of money and wealth. The ultimate low is when a nation begins to murder its babies. In another place God asks Israel if their sexual sin is worth burning their babies in the fire. Today in America we offer up over 3,000 babies daily to the god of money, sex, and convenience.
The place that this took place was such an evil and disgusting place that later Jesus Christ would use it to paint a visual picture of Hell, Gehenna, or the Valley of Hinnom. Oh how much he must hate it when a nation goes so apostate as to sacrifice its babies.
v.6 and used fortune-telling and omens and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger.
I love this verse because for all of the evil that Manasseh did, we see that God is not ignoring it, but that God is provoked to anger and about to act. We know that there is a God in Heaven and we rejoice that he will judge on earth.
To really make the point the Chronicler continues showing how great a sinner that Manasseh was:
v.7-9 And the carved image of the idol that he had made he set in the house of God, of which God said to David and to Solomon his son, "In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the 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 through Moses." 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.
There is a reminder that God blesses nations that honor him, but that he will reject and destroy those who dishonor him. Instead of instantly crushing the nation though, God sent prophets and warnings:
v.10 The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention.
Here we see that it wasn’t just Manasseh who was sinning, but the people under him were happily being pagans as well. The Chronicler puts it pretty gently that they paid no attention. Check this out:
Hebrews 11:37-38 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy— wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
One of the prophets that went to Manasseh was Isaiah. There is a tiny chance that Isaiah was actually Manasseh’s grandfather on his mother’s side, since Isaiah’s daughter and Manasseh’s mother had the same name, and tradition tells us that not only did Manasseh ignore Isaiah’s call to repent, but he ordered for Isaiah to be arrested. As Isaiah fled he hid inside a hollowed out log, and Manasseh gave the order for the log to be sawn through.
I really, really, really hope you’re getting an idea of how wicked Manasseh was! You’ll be glad at what happens next:
v.11 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.
Aha! He got what he deserved, the far superior army of Assyria came in and took many sinning Jews from Judah and Jerusalem and took them to Assyria, included in this is Manasseh the king who was taken to Babylon. In a day he fell from being a king to being a prisoner.
My Bible I think may have mistranslated this point that they took him with hooks…I think the Hebrew says they found him among thorns, which is neat because we see Manasseh fled and hid amongst his chosen gods, the Asherah groves, which couldn’t save him. And just as Isaiah died hiding, so did Manasseh get captured. He is very fortunate at this point that he didn’t die, because while Isaiah went to a very good place, Manasseh at this point would have gone to a very bad place.
v.12 When he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.
Having realized that his gods couldn’t save him, he seeks the God of history who has consistently been saving people since the beginning, including his fathers and grandfathers. He humbled himself, fell on his face, and begged God for favor. Do you think God will answer? Let’s see.
v.13 He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom.
This exceedingly great sinner was forgiven, restored, and saved; he went from being the chief of sinners to the least of saints!
v.13 Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God.
One of the neatest things about this is that you remember that Manasseh reigned the longest out of any king…well he got saved late in his life. Manasseh’s father Hezekiah had what could for all intents and purposed be called a death-bed conversion, though he got better. The beauty of a grace-based religion is that salvation is available while you still have breath in your lungs. You can be a thief nailed to a cross utterly unable to do anything good and still be saved by trusting in the crucified Messiah who was dying for your sins.
There are precious few examples of people getting saved in their last moments in the Bible. However, they are there, and they are there so that we do not despair for older people and that we have hope in death-bed conversions, but they are rare so that we don’t rely on them. If Christ is so great as the Bible makes him out to be, then we want to come to him as soon as possible, and not like Manasseh who had godly parents and grandparents yet sinned and did much damage to himself and his country because he would not come to God early in his life. I would love for you to go home and read the first sixteen verses of Matthew 20 for a great parable on this topic.
The remainder of the story recounts the partial repentance of Judah, but once again Manasseh’s son would go astray, but this opened the way for Josiah to be one of Judah’s greatest kings, but that’s a story for another day.
So your conclusion is that Christ is able to save even the most evil of people, he paid a magnificent price on the cross for all of our sins, so we must flee to him to receive mercy and forgiveness. The earlier the better, for we are doing no-one any good by seeking life and pleasure anywhere else. Our nation would make Manasseh’s nation blush for the rampant nature of our sins, so I implore you not to partake in the idol worship of America, but see that the Lord is God, and submit yourself humbly to him.
Text –2 Chronicles 33:1-13
Today we’re going to look at one of Jesus’ great great great grandfathers. It is truly amazing that Christ’s genealogy contains such wickedness and that he redeemed many of his ancestors. David was an adulterer and murder, Bathsheba was an adulteress, Solomon was a result of that adultery and a great sinner himself, Rahab was a prostitute, Tamar pretended to be a prostitute, Cain killed his brother, Adam was the first sinner, etc, and the beauty of all of these is that Christ paid for their sins on the cross, though they existed long before him.
But even though they were before him, who was greater?
John 8:53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?"
Matthew 22:42-45 "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David." He said to them, "How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, "'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet'? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”
Christ had a pretty spotty genealogy, it was made up of great sinners, of Jews and Gentiles, of kings and paupers, and yet it did not impact his life or ministry. This is the first lesson I want you to learn before we go any farther. There is a resurgence of a false teaching that you can be cursed for things your ancestors did and that you need to specifically rectify their sin in order to do away with the curse. It’s closer to voodoo than Christianity, but it’s becoming a prominent belief in many churches as they go apostate.
Ezekiel 18:1-4 The word of the LORD came to me: "What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge'? As I live, declares the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die.
In Christianity we have a promise of a complete rebirth into the family of God, that Christ is able to redeem all of our sins and any sins and curses in our genealogy. Christ is utterly bigger than our sins, otherwise how could we possibly expect him to save us from them?
Today we’re going to look at one of Jesus’ grandfathers who is in the running for chiefest of sinners of all time, an utterly evil man, but one with a wonderful outcome. So let’s read the Chronicle of his lifetime;
2 Chronicles 33:1-13 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. And he 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 rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had broken down, and he erected altars to the Baals, and made Asherahs, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. And he built altars 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 host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD. And he burned his sons as an offering in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, and used fortune-telling and omens and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger. And the carved image of the idol that he had made he set in the house of God, of which God said to David and to Solomon his son, "In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the 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 through Moses." 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. And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God.
v.1 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.
A little bit of context here, Manasseh’s father’s name was Hezekiah, he did some very prideful things which Manasseh would have seen. Isaiah came to him and told him he would die, but Hezekiah prayed to God for deliverance and Isaiah then told him he would live. In order to train Manasseh up as a king, he and Hezekiah reigned together for about eleven years. It’s neat to see that while two people were ruling Israel, really Israel only had one king because of their unity, which sort of points to the Trinity a little.
Manasseh lived altogether 67 years; remember that he lived to be pretty old, because that’s going to be important later. He reigned the longest out of any king of Israel except for Jesus Christ who is reigning still.
v.2 And he 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.
Instead of looking to the history of Israel, Manasseh looked to the history of pagans, forgetting that it was God who gave the land of Israel to the nation of Israel, forgetting that God drove out the pagans whom he was now following.
v.3-5 For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had broken down, and he erected altars to the Baals, and made Asherahs, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. And he built altars 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 host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD.
Part of his outright wickedness was that he refused to learn from the lessons of his father, who had torn down idols and tried to bring Israel back to worshipping the true God. There was no pagan deity which Manasseh missed in his idolatry, the Baals are the fake creator and sustainer gods, the Asherahs are for worshipping nature, your translation may say groves which would be trees for worship, and the hosts of heaven are either or both the planets and stars and/or angels. Look where he did it too, besides in all the old places which would be scattered throughout the countryside, he’s also done it in the temple, the very house of God.
In order for this to not just be a history lesson, we have to see that today we have Baals, Asherahs, and host of heaven worship in every false religion, in Oprahanity, in the “Green” movement, and in horoscopes and evolution. This wasn’t just a problem which existed in Manasseh’s day, this is still going on today, and remember that this is evil in the sight of God: abominations of the nations.
There is a test you can easily do to see just how evil a nation has gotten. They may be worshipping money and sex and all be atheists, but if they’re not doing this next step, then they haven’t sunk to the lowest level:
v.6 And he burned his sons as an offering in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom
We know from other sources that this was to the god Molech, the god of money and wealth. The ultimate low is when a nation begins to murder its babies. In another place God asks Israel if their sexual sin is worth burning their babies in the fire. Today in America we offer up over 3,000 babies daily to the god of money, sex, and convenience.
The place that this took place was such an evil and disgusting place that later Jesus Christ would use it to paint a visual picture of Hell, Gehenna, or the Valley of Hinnom. Oh how much he must hate it when a nation goes so apostate as to sacrifice its babies.
v.6 and used fortune-telling and omens and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger.
I love this verse because for all of the evil that Manasseh did, we see that God is not ignoring it, but that God is provoked to anger and about to act. We know that there is a God in Heaven and we rejoice that he will judge on earth.
To really make the point the Chronicler continues showing how great a sinner that Manasseh was:
v.7-9 And the carved image of the idol that he had made he set in the house of God, of which God said to David and to Solomon his son, "In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the 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 through Moses." 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.
There is a reminder that God blesses nations that honor him, but that he will reject and destroy those who dishonor him. Instead of instantly crushing the nation though, God sent prophets and warnings:
v.10 The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention.
Here we see that it wasn’t just Manasseh who was sinning, but the people under him were happily being pagans as well. The Chronicler puts it pretty gently that they paid no attention. Check this out:
Hebrews 11:37-38 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy— wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
One of the prophets that went to Manasseh was Isaiah. There is a tiny chance that Isaiah was actually Manasseh’s grandfather on his mother’s side, since Isaiah’s daughter and Manasseh’s mother had the same name, and tradition tells us that not only did Manasseh ignore Isaiah’s call to repent, but he ordered for Isaiah to be arrested. As Isaiah fled he hid inside a hollowed out log, and Manasseh gave the order for the log to be sawn through.
I really, really, really hope you’re getting an idea of how wicked Manasseh was! You’ll be glad at what happens next:
v.11 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.
Aha! He got what he deserved, the far superior army of Assyria came in and took many sinning Jews from Judah and Jerusalem and took them to Assyria, included in this is Manasseh the king who was taken to Babylon. In a day he fell from being a king to being a prisoner.
My Bible I think may have mistranslated this point that they took him with hooks…I think the Hebrew says they found him among thorns, which is neat because we see Manasseh fled and hid amongst his chosen gods, the Asherah groves, which couldn’t save him. And just as Isaiah died hiding, so did Manasseh get captured. He is very fortunate at this point that he didn’t die, because while Isaiah went to a very good place, Manasseh at this point would have gone to a very bad place.
v.12 When he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.
Having realized that his gods couldn’t save him, he seeks the God of history who has consistently been saving people since the beginning, including his fathers and grandfathers. He humbled himself, fell on his face, and begged God for favor. Do you think God will answer? Let’s see.
v.13 He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom.
This exceedingly great sinner was forgiven, restored, and saved; he went from being the chief of sinners to the least of saints!
v.13 Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God.
One of the neatest things about this is that you remember that Manasseh reigned the longest out of any king…well he got saved late in his life. Manasseh’s father Hezekiah had what could for all intents and purposed be called a death-bed conversion, though he got better. The beauty of a grace-based religion is that salvation is available while you still have breath in your lungs. You can be a thief nailed to a cross utterly unable to do anything good and still be saved by trusting in the crucified Messiah who was dying for your sins.
There are precious few examples of people getting saved in their last moments in the Bible. However, they are there, and they are there so that we do not despair for older people and that we have hope in death-bed conversions, but they are rare so that we don’t rely on them. If Christ is so great as the Bible makes him out to be, then we want to come to him as soon as possible, and not like Manasseh who had godly parents and grandparents yet sinned and did much damage to himself and his country because he would not come to God early in his life. I would love for you to go home and read the first sixteen verses of Matthew 20 for a great parable on this topic.
The remainder of the story recounts the partial repentance of Judah, but once again Manasseh’s son would go astray, but this opened the way for Josiah to be one of Judah’s greatest kings, but that’s a story for another day.
So your conclusion is that Christ is able to save even the most evil of people, he paid a magnificent price on the cross for all of our sins, so we must flee to him to receive mercy and forgiveness. The earlier the better, for we are doing no-one any good by seeking life and pleasure anywhere else. Our nation would make Manasseh’s nation blush for the rampant nature of our sins, so I implore you not to partake in the idol worship of America, but see that the Lord is God, and submit yourself humbly to him.
