Manasseh’s Prayer of Repentance
“And when he prayed to him, the LORD was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD is God.” (2Chr 33:13)
The Word of God teaches us clearly that ‘bad company ruins good morals’; there is a Jewish proverb that illustrates this well and simply: “There were two dry logs of wood, and one green log; but the dry logs burnt up the green log.” This is how Israel’s King Rehoboam lost his United Kingdom – he ignored the wise counsel of the elders and followed the wicked advice of his peers, and quickly followed an irreversible split of the kingdom. Of the 19 kings of the Judah that remained to him, eight were good and two were excellent. In the description of the wickedness of the bad nine kings, the essential influence of bad company is always highlighted. Manasseh seems to have been the greatest sinner of them all, his later repentance and second chance notwithstanding.
By now it is already clear that every careful person must learn and recall these two lessons: you need good company – caring and constructive friends that encourage you on the right track; secondly, God cares and will receive and restore whoever returns and repents.
Whose life would illustrate these better than that of King Manasseh? He had the longest reign of 55 years, in which he swung from the extreme end of wickedness and the darkest depth of sin to a restored sanity in the Lord. 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” (2Chr 33:1-13). His friends were the idolatrous neighbours and his patrons were the horribly wicked kings of Israel’s past.
Manasseh, as Bishop Patrick observes, seems to have studied to find out what God had forbidden in his law, that he might practice it. He led Judah to worship the Baals and starry hosts; he desectrated the temple by erecting idolatrous altars in both its courts; he even practiced human sacrifice, worshipping Molech by burning his own son in the fire! At this epitome of evil, God meted out upon this king a punishment: ‘the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh prisoner, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon.’ Only then did he remember to pray.
The effects of Manasseh’s Prayer of Repentance reveal that God is able and willing to bring the sinner from the pit into which bad company could have sunk him. In God’s great mercy, He not only released Manasseh from his shackels but also restored him to his throne; most importantly, the king now knew that the LORD is God and was turned to worship Him wholeheartedly – turning away from all idolatry. No matter how far you have fallen, God still cares about you and loves you and will readily receive one that turns back to Him. In His Son Jesus Christ, He is calling you today.
God bless you.