First, he rebuilt the high places. The high places were torn down by Hezekiah (Manessah’s father). You would think this would be good. He swings… but he misses. Manasseh restored the high places only to pervert it. He set up idols, and altars of Baals, and everyone worshipped them. Manasseh took the extra step, he set up altars in the house of the Lord. The house of the Lord was to have His name only (duh), Manasseh took something holy, and perverted it. He made it a house of Baal. In verse 6 we get a list of some of the evil thing Manasseh did, “he caused his sons to pass through the fire in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom”. More simply, he sacrificed his sons to Baal. He sacrificed his sons?! That would never cross our minds, at least I hope not. Of course, Manasseh isn’t the first king to do this. Carry on down to verse 9, Manasseh seduced Judah and all the people in Jerusalem. Jerusalem, the city of God, His blessed city, doing more evil and wickedness than the nations that the Lord destroyed because of thier wickedness. Jerusalem sure did have worship issues. So, God tried to speak to Manasseh and his people. No luck, they turned a deaf ear. Well, needless to say, God was fed up with them. He sent the Assyrians to capture them. When Manasseh was captured they tide him up with bronze fetters, which were chains. They also used hooks, back then, they used nose hooks, they went inside the nostrils and out the other side, pulling the nose up. Manasseh was in a lot of pain I presume. So, we find in verse 12 Manasseh repents and humbles himself before God, and he recieves Him. And God sent him back to Jerusalem, His kingdom. “Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God”.

*Application lesson*
So, what do we get out of all this? We get 2 thing out of this story. The faithfulness and the mercy of God.
A lot of people fail to realize the importance of Manasseh, and the other king’s of Jerusalem before and after Manasseh. They were the line of David. How is this important? Jesus in the line of David. If God would have let Manasseh die in the hands of the Assyrians the lineage of David would have been destroyed. The line of David would not have existed any more, and everything would have been severed And the covenant God made would have been broken. But God in his faithfulness keeps the line going.

Second, on mercy. When I read this passage I kept thinking, “man, Manasseh is lucky I am not God, cause if I was, he’d be a goner for sure”. Then I thought, “Thank goodness I am not God!”. We often think we are more merciful than God, we are not even close! We forgive someone for making fun of us, how sweet. We forgive someone for hitting us, that’s nice. God forgave someone who worshipped Baal in His temple, He forgave someone who sacrificed his sons to Baal. We would not even think of doing that, it wouldn’t even dare to cross our minds! God took this pagan for a king, and turned him into a God fearing king. Can we say we have done something at this magnitude? Most certainly not, because we can’t do it. We are nowhere near as merciful as God.

This brings me to a third point this is both faithfulness and mercy. Sometimes we have this mentality of “how can God forgive me?”. Read the story of Manasseh, it’ll cheer you up in a jiffy. This is the beauty of God, there is nothing we can say or do, that can seperate us from God. God is so faithful and so merciful, he forgives us.
This reminds me of a story I heard. A father came home late from work, and he finds a note on the counter, written by his little boy, it says, “Dear daddy, I did something terrible today. Will you forgive me?”. So, the father went up stairs into his son’s room. His little boy is alseep, so he kneels by the bed, places his hand on his son and says “son, I forgive you”, and goes off to bed. You might confused. How can he forgive his son when he doesn’t even know what his son did. It’s the whole beauty, there is nothing his son can do that will not earn his father’s forgiveness. God will forgive you, not matter what you have done. Because He is a faithful, and merciful God. Amen!

We need to have wisdom concerning sex. Pornography is just out of hand these days. It’s so easy to get your hands (eyes) on porn. Once you do, you’re sucked in! That is how sin works. You do it once, you find yourself doing it over and over again, until you do it without even thinking! Porn destroys a true sexual experience. When you become sucked into porn (which results to masturbation), in the end it becomes dry, and just meaningless. When that happens, sex is nothing new to you. When you get married, something is suppose to be beautiful and joyous, automatically becomes something that was routine. It destroys everything! Sex, when used how it’s suppose to, on the marriage bed, is the most beautiful gift (apart from Grace) God gives us.

Probably what is meant by “fair” in the protest is “just.” It does not seem just for God to choose some and receive his mercy while others do not receive the benefit of it. To deal with this problem we must do some close but very important thinking. Let us assume that all men are guilty of sin in the sight of God. From that mass of guilt humanity, God sovereignly decides to give mercy to some of them. What do the rest get? They get justice. The saved get mercy and the unsaved get justice. Nobody get injustice. Mercy is not justice. But neither is it injustice.

There is justice and there is non-justice. Non-justice includes everything outside of the category of justice. In the category of non-justice we find two sub-concepts, injustice and mercy. Mercy is a good form of non-justice while injustice is a bad form of non-justice. In the plan of Salvation God does nothing bad. He never commits an injustice. Some people get justice, which is what they deserve, while others get mercy. Again, the fact that one gets mercy does not demand that the others get it as well. God reserves the right of executive clemency.

As a human being I might prefer that God gives His mercy to everyone equally, but I may not demand it. If God is not pleased to dispense His saving mercy to all men, then I must submit to His holy and righteous decision. God is never, never, never obligated to be merciful to sinners. That is the point we must stress if we are to grasp the full measure of God’s grace.

The real question is why God is inclined to be merciful to anyone. His mercy is not required, yet He freely gives it to His elect. He gave it to Jacob in a way he did not give it to Esau. He gave it to Peter in a way He did not give it to Judas. We must learn to praise God both in His mercy and in His justice. When He executes His justice He is doing nothing wrong. He is executing His justice according to His Righteousness.” (Chosen by God, R.C. Sproul, Chapt. 2, pp. 37-39)

Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because
” All flesh is as grass,
And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass.
The grass withers,
And its flower falls away,
But the Word of the LORD endures forever.”
Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you.
Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
1 Peter 1:22-25, 2: 1-3
I cannot stress how important Scripture is. I honestly cannot. A lot of Christians have this view of Scripture that is very demeaning to It.
They see the Bible as just a book to memorize, they go, “The more passages I memorize, the better!”, and they only look at it when they are feeling down and need
encouragement. They fail to see Scripture as it truly is.
In Paul’s letter to Timothy, we see why we have Scripture and how we are suppose to use It. Scripture ultimately, is a corrective tool, which allows us to become wise for salvation, which only comes from faith in Jesus Christ. But, Scripture will not only be corrective, but we will be shown, through the discipline and love of God for us, which leads to our restoration. The Scripture is a corrective tool as a means to an end, so that we may stand upright, even as we bow in humility before God. This is also were we get our doctrine.
Doctrine isn’t just something people make up (unless you’re Joseph Smith =D), doctrine comes straight from the Scripture.
The Scripture is what edifies us, so that we may NOW be complete and equipped for every good work we do for the glory of the Lord, which comes from the Spirit

When we open up Scripture we are truly coming into the presence of the Scripture, the word for “inspiration” used in 2nd Tim, is the Greek word Theonostus, which literally means, God-breathed. What you are reading is the divine will of God. Many people ask what God’s will is, but, we have it! It’s right in front of you! Read it, so you may be edified. We are
to THIRST for the Word of God, just as newborn babes thirst for their mothers milk. Newborn babes grow physically with the milk from their mother’s breast. We grow spiritually by the milk of the Word. And it is sweet to the mind! Indulge yourself in the Word, in doing so, you indulge in the Spirit, which edifies you, corrects you, and completes you, so that you may do and perform God’s will, which is revealed in the Scripture. Amen!