Paradise Lost (2 Kings 21) with Steve Mayo

What is the probability that one who has had a great start will have a great finish?

I don't know the answer to that question.

But I do know it's less than a hundred percent.

And when I'm saying great start, I'm saying what appears to be a great start.

For only God knows what is in the heart.

And we have seen great starts tonight.

And we pray that these will persist in the grace of God so that a great start leads to a great finish.

Let's take a moment to pray.

Our Father, we pray that you would examine our hearts as we look at your word, use it as a mirror to reveal to us anything that puts us into jeopardy.

And will you give us the grace to be honest before you?

And if there is something that we must confess, if there is something that we must submit, that you would enable us to do so, that we might have a good finish in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Our text is one Kings, 2 Kings, pardon me, 2 Kings chapter 21, 2 Kings chapter 21.

2 Kings 21 · chapter mention 2 Kings 21 · chapter mention

This is a cautionary tale of one who had a great start but had a horrific finish.

May it not be true of any of us here in this room tonight.

The one who had a great start and a terrible finish was named Manasseh.

Chapter 21, verse 1.

Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.

His mother's name was Hepsibah.

His name Manasseh.

That gives us a clue that he is in jeopardy.

What we note firstly is a compromised identity, a compromised identity, because the meaning of his name is forgetfulness.

Forgetfulness.

And in this case, Manasseh lives down to his name, because he forgets the covenant of God, which was the condition for the prosperity he inherited as king.

And he forgets the miracle of God that struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand enemy soldiers in an instant, so that Judah had lasting peace.

He inherited that.

And he forgot his father, the godly king Hezekiah, who set for him an example, gave him teaching, and even mentorship.

Manasseh was characterized as identity, forgetfulness, and it was his downfall.

A good start did not lead to a good finish.

Now I said he had mentorship from his father, King Hezekiah.

We know that through doing a bit of mass.

We know some historical dates for the kings of Judah.

And when you do the calculations, you realize that there is an overlap of 10 years between King Hezekiah and King Manasseh.

So whereas Manasseh became king at age 12, he was not the only king.

He was a co-regent with his father for 10 years.

He had the very best possible start.

A kingdom that was at peace, that was prosperous, and his father beside him to teach him what it is to be a good and godly king.

The epitaph for King Hezekiah, he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

That's a good finish.

Manasseh had every reason to have the same finish.

What a great start.

But a terrible finish.

Paradise was lost.

I wonder about you.

Do you have a compromised identity?

How do you see yourself?

If you have come to faith in Jesus Christ, are you persisting in the identity that these four have testified of tonight?

That I am a child of God?

I am indebted with gratefulness to Him.

He is my Savior and He is my Lord.

This is who I am.

I am a Christian, a Christ one.

Or do you see yourself differently?

Are you in danger of forgetfulness?

Instead of counting your blessings, do you more commonly air your grievances?

Instead of waiting on God's will, do you more commonly push through with your self-interest?

Instead of being thankful for your daily bread, are you indulging your selfish cravings?

This puts us on a perilous path to a horrible finish.

Verse 2.

And he, Manasseh, did evil in the sight of the Lord.

That's his epitaph.

It's the exact opposite to his father.

He did evil in the sight of the Lord according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.

Looking historically back to the Exodus as and as they came in to claim the promised land, they meted out God's justice on the occupants of that land.

Exceedingly wicked people.

And God, though he had been patient, even had an extra 40 years because Israel, through their disobedience, wandered in the wilderness.

But no repentance.

And now the judgment of God comes through Israel.

And of Manasseh, it said, he did what was evil, just like the ones God judged back in history.

His downfall may have started with forgetfulness, but now it continues and it accelerates with purposefulness.

He is determined in his evil course.

And so we see a corrupting indulgence, a corrupting indulgence.

The next few verses in chapter 21 describe how Manasseh's bent toward evil became progressively worse.

That's the nature of sin.

If you allow sin to find residence in your heart, if you are tolerant towards sin, if you excuse it as a weakness, that's just who I am.

It is like leaven in a lump of bread, of dough.

It will grow and it will grow.

That's called the law of diminishing returns.

When we have something, at first it may be something we value, something that we appreciate, something we're excited about, but the longer we have it, that excitement wears off.

That happens with a new car.

Especially when my grandkids have been in it.

Somehow it doesn't seem all that new anymore.

When one gets sick in the back or something of that nature.

It's a law of diminishing returns, but in a horrible way, that law takes effect with sin.

You tolerate sin.

And it may give pleasure for a season, but you're going to go, you're going to need to go deeper and deeper and deeper in order to have that same satisfaction.

Addiction is what results.

Think about it.

How many people start with cannabis and end up on something harder?

That's the natural progression.

And that's the natural progression with all forms of sinfulness.

It comes, it moves towards an addiction.

There were five downward steps for Manasseh, as we're going to note here.

The first downward step is that he appreciated worship preferences.

That there were differing ways that people preferred to express their worship.

Look at verse three.

For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed.

He raised up altars for Baal and made wooden, made a wooden image, an Asherah, as Ahab, king of Israel, had done.

And he worshipped all the host of heaven and served them.

Manasseh has a wide variety for the expression of worship, and each one leads away from God.

He rebuilds those high places where people would go to worship rather than going to God's temple in Jerusalem.

He allows the worship of Baal, the Canaanite fertility god.

He then facilitates the worship of Asherah, the Canaanite fertility goddess.

And he even goes so far as to facilitate the worship of the sun, the moon, and the stars.

All of this variety, no doubt, under the boast of tolerance.

And thus Manasseh turns away from the one true God to false gods and idols, and he makes it convenient for all the residents of Judah to do likewise.

He has broken the first commandment, he has broken the second commandment.

Look at verse 4.

He also built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, In Jerusalem I will put my name.

And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.

Here's a second downward step.

He accommodated worship practices.

He accommodated worship practices.

Where did he put these altars where people could make sacrifices to these false gods?

He put it in the courtyard of God's house, the temple in Jerusalem.

It gets worse.

Third downward step.

He adopted worship perversions.

He adopted worship perversions.

Look at the beginning of verse six.

Also, he made his son pass through the fire.

Moab had a god that they worshiped called Moloch.

And Moloch, with his hands graven, not a real being at all, but an idol.

Molten hot with fire.

And the practice of the Moabites, the pagan, to pass their child through that fire, resulting in the sacrifice of that child.

And Manasseh took his child, his son, made in the image of Almighty God, and he sacrificed him to Moloch.

You ever scratch your head sometimes and wonder, how did we get here?

It's one downward step after another.

And Manasseh is now doing something that he undoubtedly could not conceive of while his father was alive.

In the Psalms, this offering is shown to be to demons.

Psalm 106, verses 36 and 37 says, They served their idols, which became a snare to them.

Psalms 106:36

They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.

It's unsurprising that Manasseh's next step is to engage directly with demons.

Continuing in verse six, also he made his son pass through the fire, practiced sooth saying, used witchcraft, and consulted spiritists and mediums.

He did much evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger.

This is the fourth downward step.

Manasseh approached worship impostors.

He went to impostors, he went to demons.

And now he is actively engaged with the occult.

How could someone who started so well now openly parade evil?

It's absurd, is it not, when you think about it?

How primitive of Manasseh.

We're modern today, aren't we?

We're not primitive, are we?

I think we are.

Channel 7 reported this yesterday.

American YouTube stars, McJugger Nuggets.

What a name.

Joyously announced to their four point three million followers that they were expecting a baby.

That was two months ago.

Much celebration.

But now they have announced to their followers that they terminated the pregnancy.

Do you know why?

Because tests showed the baby was Down syndrome.

Is that not child sacrifice?

That was one of seventy-three million abortions that happen in a year worldwide.

Primitive?

Well then we are primitive, aren't we?

Because child sacrifice is rampant.

What about the open engagement with demons?

That too is rampant, is it not?

Whether it's tarot card readings or role-playing games, the demonic is pervasive in our society.

You see, we're already on that downward trend.

And we, as believers, must be sober, be vigilant, for our adversary, the devil, walketh about seeking whom he may devour.

Now back to Manasseh.

Because there's a fifth downward step.

He abandoned worship integrity.

He abandoned worship integrity.

Look at verse 7.

He even set a carved image of Asherah, that Canaanite fertility goddess, an image that he had made in the house of which the Lord had 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 not make the feet of Israel wander any more from the land which I gave their fathers, only if they are careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them.

But they paid no attention.

And Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel.

Manasseh cements this paganism in the hearts of his people.

Now he takes the image itself and places it in the temple.

What an abomination.

He disavows the semblance of any connection to the true God.

He abandons the God of his father.

And yet, the God of King Hezekiah his father does not abandon Manasseh.

For look at verse 10.

And the Lord spoke by his servants the prophets, saying, Because Manasseh, king of Judah, has done these abominations, he has acted more wickedly than all the Amorites who were before him, and has also made Judah sin with his idols.

Therefore, thus says the Lord God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such calamity upon Jerusalem and Judah that whoever hears of it, both his ears will tingle.

And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab.

I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.

So I will forsake the remnant of my inheritance and deliver them into the hand of their enemies, and they shall become victims of plunder to all their enemies, because they have done evil in my sight and have provoked me to anger since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.

The covenant is broken.

But God in his mercy sends his messengers, the prophets, to pronounce this impending judgment to Manasseh.

This is an opportunity for Manasseh.

Judgment is coming.

God is real, he is not mocked.

What you have sown you shall reap.

The warning is issued.

It's an opportunity.

The mercy of God, even in this late hour.

One of the prophets who confronts Manasseh is Isaiah.

The same one who stood beside Manasseh's father, King Hezekiah, when the Assyrians laid siege and issued threats.

Will Manasseh remember the kindness of Isaiah?

Will he hear the word of the Lord?

Verse 16.

Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent.

Blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to the other, besides his sin by which he made Judah sin, in doing evil in the sight of the Lord.

According to Jewish and Christian tradition, Manasseh martyred Isaiah by putting him inside of a log and cutting it in two.

Perhaps this is what the phrase that we read in Hebrews eleven thirty-seven is alluding to.

He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, all that he did, the sin that he committed, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah?

So Manasseh rested with his fathers and was buried in the garden of his own house, not with the kings, in the garden of Buzzah.

And then his son Amon reigned in his place.

It's like father like son in this case.

Amon was twenty two years old when he became king, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem.

That's all.

His mother's name was Meshulamath, the daughter of Haruz of Jutba.

And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done.

So he walked in all the ways that his father had walked, and he served the idols that his father had served, and he worshipped them.

A bad start and a bad ending.

He forsook the Lord God of his fathers.

He did not walk in the way of the Lord.

Then the servants of Ammon conspired against him and killed the king in his own house.

His servants assassinated him.

But the people of the land executed all those who had conspired against King Ammon.

Then the people of the land made his son Josiah king in his place.

Now the rest of the acts of Ammon which he did, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah?

And he was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzzah.

Then Josiah his son reigned in his place.

In the case of Manasseh, he had the best possible start.

Peace, prosperity, and he inherited from his father, and mentorship from his father.

But his reign ends not in peace, but in conflict and bloodshed, not in prosperity, but in poverty.

A bad ending.

How could it happen?

The same way that it happens for us today.

If we allow sin to take residence in our heart, it infects us and it spreads.

And we begin to do things that we never thought were possible.

There's something in our fallen nature that is naturally attracted to that which is bad quicker than we are attracted to that which is good.

We noticed that forbidden fruit so easily.

The lust of the eyes, it's a bad thing.

And yet, how quickly our eyes focus on what we perceive to be our lack or our deprivation, something that we wish we had.

If only I had more money, if only I had a better job, if only I had unlimited leisure, if I could retire early, if only I had greater popularity, if only I had the latest iPhone, if only I was autonomous and I didn't have to live by the rules of my parents.

If only then I could be happy.

That's the lust of the eyes.

It is the gateway to the sin of discontentment, ingratitude toward the goodness of God.

The lust of the flesh is bad.

And yet, how quickly our attention is drawn to whatever gives us a hit of dopamine, that chemical that we have in our body naturally, that is for good purposes, but it can be stimulated for bad purposes.

And so we overeat or we over-drink or we indulge in salacious gossip, gratuitous violence, endless scrolling on our devices.

I discovered this week that's called zombie scrolling.

Or a dopamine loop.

You already knew that, but I'm old.

I had to discover it.

Pornography.

The lust of the flesh.

It's a gateway to the sin of disgrace, a trampling on God's gifts that were meant for good, but now made into an objectification.

The pride of life.

It's bad.

And yet, how quickly our instincts magnify our perceived rights above our actual responsibilities.

My body, my choice.

That's a creed, isn't it?

Whether that is the stewardship of a pregnancy or the reality of biology and gender, or the elevation of self to be accommodated, accepted, and applauded for whatever I say I am.

The pride of life is the gateway to the sin of idolatry, a presumptuous and disastrous rival to the true I am.

This, my friend, is how those who have a good start might not have a good finish.

Eve had the Garden of Eden, a conflict-free marriage, daily walks with God, a great start, until she saw the fruit with her eyes and was drawn to its imagined taste in her flesh and aspired to the autonomy to feed her pride.

A bad finish.

Judas, the apostle, had a wonderful start.

Following Jesus, a worry-free life.

He never ran out of food as long as he was with Jesus, right?

He had daily walks with God the Son.

Until he saw money with his eyes, was drawn to what he might own for his flesh, and aspired to power to feed his pride.

A horrible finish.

And then tonight we've looked at Manasseh, who had a prosperous kingdom, a peaceful city, Jerusalem, that's the name, and the daily presence of God through worship at his temple.

Until he saw the customs of other peoples with his eyes and was drawn to their sensual indulgence with his flesh, and he aspired to be his own man to feed his pride.

And paradise was lost.

What do we have?

We have the word of God, we have the Spirit of God, we have the fellowship of God's people, we have the finished work of Jesus Christ, everything that is the making for a great start, as we heard in the testimonies from the four tonight.

But will we resist the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life?

Will we persist in God's grace so that our finish is as good as our start?

Of course, the initial start is to put your trust in Jesus Christ for salvation.

Have you had that transformation in your heart that the four shared with us about their own experience tonight?

If you have not trusted in Christ, you are trapped in your sin, and it is impossible for you to escape through your own effort.

There's only one means of escape, and that is to repent and to put your trust in Jesus Christ.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

And if you have not trusted Christ, I urge you, persist in sin no longer.

Come to Him just as you are.

Put your trust in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for you, paid fully for your sin, and is risen from the dead.

Manasseh's history is a cautionary tale.

It's an unpleasant read.

It's even worse if you live it out in the present tense.

Are you caught in the downward spiral that he was trapped in?

Is sinfulness infecting your heart?

Are you doing things you do not wish to be doing and yet you do them anyway?

Are you trapped in addictions of one nature or another?

Then come to Jesus.

Because God delights in freeing those who come to Him.

And I can say that confidently because of Manasseh's story.

You see, in 2 Kings chapter 21, it gives us the overarching view that Manasseh had a bad finish, and that corrupted Judah right to its destination of going into exile.

2 Kings 21 · chapter mention

But there's a footnote to his story, and I want you to see that and let this fuel your hope.

Turn to the parallel passage in 2 Chronicles chapter 33.

2 Chronicles 33 · chapter mention

2 Chronicles chapter 33.

2 Chronicles 33 · chapter mention

For here is hope.

Here is the mercy of God.

Here's the transformation of grace.

2 Chronicles chapter 33.

2 Chronicles 33 · chapter mention

Look at verse 11 to this footnote to the history of Manasseh.

2 Chronicles 3 33, verse 11.

Therefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the army of the king of Assyria who took Manasseh with hooks, bound him with browns, bronze fetters, and carried him off to Babylon.

That is bad news, isn't it?

But God uses it to make good news, for let's hear the rest.

Now when he was in affliction, Manasseh has been taken off the throne.

He now himself is a prisoner.

He has lost everything.

And what's he do?

He implored the Lord his God, the God of his father.

That seed that had been sown as a young person.

Now it takes root.

And he humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers and prayed to him, and he received his entreaty.

A man this wicked, this vile, when he turned to the merciful God, God heard his entreaty.

He heard his supplication and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom.

Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God, not Ma'al, not Asherah, not the sun, moon, or stars.

And after this he built a wall outside the city of David on the west side of Gihon in the valley as far as the entrance of the fish gate, and it enclosed Ofel, and he raised it to be a very great height.

Then he put military captains in all the fortified cities of Judah, and he took away the foreign gods and the idols from the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem, and he cast them out of the city.

He also repaired the altar of the Lord, sacrificed peace offerings and thank offerings on it, and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel.

Nevertheless, the people still sacrificed on the high places, but only to the Lord their God.

You see, God forgave Manasseh.

And God will forgive you too.

If you will come to him just as you are, God will forgive.

He will cleanse and he will save.

We heard four testify tonight that they came to the point in their life when they came to God and He saved them.

Do you need to come to God?

Have a good start.

And persisting in God's grace, have a great finish.

Our Father, we pray that you would allow us no contentment in sinfulness, that you would mercifully bring conviction through the Holy Spirit, and that you would draw us irresistibly with your grace, that we might be saved.

And being saved, please help us to persist and be strong in that grace, that we might finish fully to your glory.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.