2 Chronicles 33 | "Idolatry and Its' Cure: The Story of a People in the Story of a King"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Lowell Praid, my name is Webb.

Normally I get to see all your faces at an earlier point in our worship services.

Forgive my taking aback smile.

It's good to see you all.

It's good to sing with you all, and it's good to be here.

I serve here at the church full-time during the week.

As our ministry associate, I plan our services and sing our songs.

But this morning it's my privilege to open the word with you.

And the first thing I'd like to share with you is that I have loved a pair of boots for almost two years now.

Some of you think that's a long time, and some of you are like, what?

It's a pair of boots, they last 500 years.

But I've tromped those boots through snow, over rocks, through mud.

I've worn them almost every day.

Once I got them so muddy on a cross-country road trip with my family that in my haste to clean them before getting back into a car full of screaming toddlers, I scraped them on the curb so roughly that the damage is still there today.

You can see it on the outside of my left boot.

And now, the sole has worn thin enough under the ball of my right toe that my favorite, beloved boots squeak.

Every other step that I take.

Sarah can hear me coming from a mile away during the week as I walk through the church.

But I've protected the shoestrings, I've tried to correct the shape of the boot as they start to warm.

And by now, it would take a miracle, a real miracle for them to make it another three months.

The time has come when I have to admit that my boots are shot.

We talk about all kinds of things this way, don't we?

Talk about cars or furnaces or furniture that would cost more to repair than they're worth in a trade or replacement.

And even for the most frugal among us, there comes a point with everything.

Have to admit it's time.

Let it go.

In many ways, not every way.

But in many ways, we can say that idolatry was to the nation of Israel.

But the wear and tear of life is to my boots.

From the very beginning.

From the moment God said, You shall have no other gods before me.

Israel worshiped other gods.

From the moment God said, You shall not make for yourself a carved image.

Israel had a golden calf.

They celebrated a feast of pagan proportions as the people rose up to play before these golden calves.

In the name of the Lord.

Those two commandments, forgive me, I didn't grab the remote before I got started.

Those two commandments theologians refer to as idolatry of object, worshiping other gods, and idolatry of manner, worshiping the true God in a false way.

Together they form out the fullness of the meaning of our word idolatry.

It's complete.

And from that moment on, idolatry of both forms haunt the people of Israel.

Time prohibits me from telling you of the sin at Baal Peor with the daughters of Moab, of the complete rejection of God in the book of Judges.

Or no matter how much I would like to, it prohibits me from telling you of the two golden calves that Jeroboam set up in Israel.

When ten tribes forsook the temple that was in Jerusalem, the northern kingdom of those golden calves was plucked up off the land idolatry and sent into exile.

They remained faithful just a little bit longer.

If you turn with me to the book of Second Chronicles, chapter 33.

2 Chronicles 33 · chapter mention

Allow me to show you the moment when idolatry marked the end of David's Judah.

Second Chronicles, chapter 33.

2 Chronicles 33 · chapter mention

Verse 1.

And he reigned 55 years in Jerusalem.

That's David's 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.

We'll stop there right away.

At best, we already have that idolatry of manner.

God has made it plain to the nation throughout their generations that he is not pleased with sacrifices offered at the high places.

Manasseh even saw his own father destroy them.

And ever since the nation left Mount Sinai, they have had a tabernacle at which to worship the Lord.

And then Solomon and David built a temple together because God wants the worship of Israel to be united in one location, and he has since Exodus chapter 19.

Exodus 19 · chapter mention

But Manasseh leads them in worshiping the true God in a false way.

Let's continue.

Verse 3.

And he erected altars to the Baals and made Asherath and worshipped all the hosts of heaven and served them.

And now we know the high places.

They weren't simply just places to worship Yahweh that weren't the temple.

Rather, the nation worshipped false gods upon them.

The author of Chronicles makes it explicit here that Manasseh didn't just erect one altar, multiple altars throughout the land to the false gods of Canaan, idolatry of object.

You see?

Worshipping false gods.

Verse 4.

And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord said, In Jerusalem shall my name be forever.

Verse 5.

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

Behold the shamelessness of a scorched and seared and broken conscience.

Idolatry drags a man further and further into wickedness, and he just doesn't care about it anymore.

Not only has Manasseh worshipped false gods, he has no problem, no qualms about doing so within sight of God's temple.

And worse, far worse, he has no problem worshiping the true God in the presence of those other altars right there.

You see, even Solomon at first refused to bring his idolatrous wives into the king's palace.

He said in chapter 8, My wife shall not live in the house of David, king of Israel.

For the places to which the ark of the Lord has come are holy.

Solomon won't even bring his idolatrous wives into the house of David that's next door to the temple.

But Manasseh builds altars in the temple that Solomon built.

Verse 6.

And Manasseh burned his sons as an offering in the valley of Hinoh, the valley of the son of Hino.

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.

Remember that phrase.

Provoking him to anger.

We could spend three hours on that phrase, but we won't.

Because by now, in Manasseh's life.

It's so sad that it's almost it's almost comical.

And that's the real tragedy of it all, right?

It's almost as if Manasseh opened up his Bible to get a list of things that would make God angry.

His rebellion was so complete, he couldn't have done it better if he tried.

Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse 9, I have it for you.

Deuteronomy 18:9

Moses writes, When you come into the land that Yahweh your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.

There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes, or interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a necromancer, or one who inquires of the dead.

For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.

And because of these abominations, the Lord your God is driving them out before you.

You shall be blameless before Yahweh your God.

For these nations which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune tellers and to diviners.

But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this, and it's easy for you and I.

It's easy for you and I to gasp at the horror of child sacrifice.

It's easy for you and I to just be just shocked at the thought of burning our sons alive in order to seek the favor of some deity.

That's exactly that's exactly what Manasseh did.

Believe it.

It says it.

He committed idolatry of objects with false gods.

Idolatry of manner with his corrupt worship in the very temple, but as if those things weren't enough, he sacrificed his own sons alive through fire.

And he heard their cries.

People don't die quiet.

He heard cries from young boys through whom flowed the blood of David.

The line of promise and the security of the covenant.

He didn't just forsake God, he forsook God's promises.

How far will he go?

Before you pick up your stones.

We all we all must reckon with the fact that as parents, we have all sacrificed our children to something.

You sacrifice your kids to your career when you neglect them after your own advancement.

You sacrifice your kids to your convenience when you put off raising them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord for an extra half hour of sleep.

You sacrifice your kids to your own comforts and pleasures when you discard them.

To spend an extra chunk of time with your smartphone.

No, you may not burn them with fire.

But in our negligence, we don't protect our children from hellfire.

All parenting.

All parenting.

Even Manasseh's parenting.

Comes down to this very simple point.

Will you offer your kids as a living sacrifice to the idols made by your hands?

Or by your obedience and faith like Abraham?

Will you entrust them to your God who reigns in the heavens and looks upon them with love?

Will you trust him with your kids by obeying him in his word?

All parenting comes down to that question.

And there's so much, there's so much more we could say.

And in truth, the chronicle does say more, but I trust we've made my first point that Manasseh's idolatry was complete and accompanied with every vile practice.

Manasseh's idolatry was complete.

Idolatry of manner, idolatry of object, and accompanied by every vile practice, just like my worn-out boots.

Manasseh's wickedness was filled up.

And his idolatry was total.

Thus the text says in verse 9.

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.

Now what?

What will the Lord do?

What will the Lord do with such an idolatry as Manasseh?

Surely the righteous judge of all the earth will do what is right, verse 10.

The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention, and this shouldn't surprise us, they paid God no mind.

In the hearts and minds of Manasseh and his people, this God of the heavens was no more powerful than Baal or the Ashtaroth.

Like Elijah says, maybe he's off-relieving himself.

They've already reduced Yahweh to the category of the lowercase gods of the nations.

Of course they didn't listen.

But the book of Kings tells us what God said in chapter 21, verse 11.

Because, verse 10, and the Lord said by his servants the prophets, the Lord said this.

Because Manasseh, King of Judah, has committed these abominations and has done things more evil than all the Amorites did who were before him, and has made Judah also to sin with his idols.

Therefore, thus says the Lord the God of Israel.

Behold, I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such disaster that the ears of everyone who hears it will tingle.

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

And I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish.

Wiping it, turning it upside down.

Hear this.

Verse 14.

And I will forsake.

I will forsake the remnant of my heritage and give them into the hand of their enemies, and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies, because they have done what is evil in my sight and have provoked me to anger.

Since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.

Because of Manasseh, God says, Because of Manasseh, king of Judah, God will wipe out Jerusalem like one wipes out a dish.

He's done.

Jerusalem.

Jerusalem and the temple within it, of which the Lord said in our text, verse 7, I will put my name there forever.

And I will no more remove the foot of Israel from the land that I appointed for your fathers.

Manasseh's wickedness was so great.

His idolatry was so complete that it brought the wrath of God down upon even those whom he had chosen to be his people and love.

Manasseh's sin was so abhorrent, so awful, that not even the temple that David built could escape.

That is.

That is not until after a warning.

Or rather, multiple warnings from the mouths of many prophets.

Because that's God's first response to idolatry.

He speaks through his word.

God's first response to idolatry is his word, and the word of the Lord.

The word of the Lord stands forever.

It always comes true.

Always God keeps his promises.

And upon Manasseh's kingdom, God's word came true.

Verse 11 of our text.

These are hooks on the end of a chain they threaded through his nose to lead him.

They captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon.

The Assyrians didn't come on their own, friends.

No, the Lord brought them.

Because that's God's second response to idolatry, his discipline.

His discipline.

But behold, I don't know if you've heard it.

Behold the mercy of God upon sinners.

It's there.

It's already there.

Throughout the scriptures, the lack of the word of the Lord is seen as a mark of God's disfavor after the time of the judges.

The word of the Lord was rare in those days.

And so the fact that Manasseh received the word of the Lord at all shows us that he received more mercy than the nations who committed the same abominable practices that God drove out before Joshua.

Hear the mercy of the Lord, he speaks, and by that same token, God's discipline, while also related to his wrath.

God's discipline is not God's condemnation.

It's not.

God's discipline stops just short of total destruction and eternal punishment.

For Manasseh, God restrains his mighty right arm short of a global flood or fire from heaven upon Jerusalem.

Surely God would have been right to have dealt with Manasseh's Jerusalem covered with blood from end to end with fire from heaven as he did Sodom and Gomorrah.

God could have, and he would have been righteous to do so.

But your God, Manasseh's God, He chooses mercy.

He chooses disorder intervenes with idolaters in a merciful way.

That's how.

That's what the righteous Lord of all the earth will do.

And the Lord's merciful work with Manasseh put Manasseh in distress, right?

So verse 12 says.

And when he was in distress.

Before we go on, turn back with me to chapter 28.

Chapter 28.

To Ahaz, another idolater from the nation of Judah, one who also burned his sons as an offering in the valley of the sun of Enoam, one who made metal images to the Baals.

The chronicler says that he made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

Ahaz's idolatry spread across the land.

But verse 22 is where we're interested.

In the time of Ahaz's distress, same phrase, just a few chapters before.

In the time of his distress, he became yet more faithless to the Lord, this same King Ahaz, for he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus that had defeated him and said, Because the gods of the kings of Syria helped them, I will sacrifice to them too that they may help me.

But they were the ruin of him and of all Israel.

This merciful distress, this discipline from the Lord, this distress that he puts people into, has been God's way, God's merciful way with idolaters ever since the curse, ever since the fall of man.

And yet some idolaters, some of us run ever deeper, ever longer, ever further after our idols.

Because our sin and our distress, when God put An idolatry into distress, what happens is they run to that which they worship.

It reveals what you worship.

Which is why we who know the Lord we really can count it all joy when we face trials of various kinds, right?

But Ahaz.

Ahaz panics in his distress.

He finds yet another God to worship.

He chops up the materials used to worship the true God to make new altars in every corner of Jerusalem, the chronicler writes.

You can't throw a rock without hitting an altar to a false God.

And Ahaz is Jerusalem.

Yikes.

Behold the anxiety of a man with no God.

He runs around panicking all the time.

Turn back yet further with me to chapter 7.

Chapter 7, verse 11.

And now let's hear the words together that God uses to consecrate the temple.

The temple that Manasseh desecrated.

Let's hear the words that God uses to consecrate that temple.

Verse 11.

Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king's house, and all that Solomon had planned to do in the house of the Lord and in his own house he successfully accomplished.

Verse 12.

Then the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him, I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice.

When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.

Now my eyes will be open, and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place.

He means the temple, right?

For now I have chosen and consecrated this house, that my name may be there forever.

My eyes and my heart will be there for all time, and as for you, Solomon, if you will walk before me as David your father walked, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my rules, then I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, You shall not lack a man to rule Israel.

Just getting going, verse 19.

But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that have set before you, here Manasseh, here Ahaz, and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you.

And this house that I have consecrated from my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

And at this house, this temple, which was exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished and say, Why has the Lord done thus and this to this house?

And then they will say, and then they will say, Because they abandoned Yahweh, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshiped them, and served them.

Therefore he has brought this disaster upon them.

God is saying to Solomon, Repent before me like David your father did, and I will not cast you out for your sins.

Sincerely, think of David's murderous abuse with Bathsheba and Uriah and his repentance thereof.

Think of the pestilence that God sent to David's Jerusalem when David took that faithless census.

When trouble befalls you, Solomon, God says, Because of sins in a fallen world, like drought or locust or pestilence, verse 13.

Cry out to me like David.

Humble yourself before me like David.

And I promise that forgiveness and healing will flow from this temple.

That's God's promise to Solomon.

That's God's promise to David's sons.

And that promise includes Manasseh.

Turn back to Manasseh.

Chapter 33.

Verse 12.

Chapter 33, verse 12.

And when Manasseh was in distress, he entreated the favor of the Lord his God.

Did you hear it?

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.

And then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.

Because God always keeps his promises.

Even to an idolatrous wretch like Manasseh.

Even to one as covered in blood as Manasseh was.

When they heard this book, the message was clear.

That no idolatry ruined life.

Not one is beyond the reach of God's grace.

Not a single idolatry ruined life is beyond God's grace.

Yet this foremost of idolaters, Israel's chief of sinners, he received mercy, and the grace of the Lord overflowed for him just like it did the Apostle Paul.

And if a Manasseh can find forgiveness, anybody can.

Anybody, if they humble themselves, pray.

Seek the Lord's favor as they turned from their wicked ways.

If Manasseh can find forgiveness, all of the idolaters of Israel could find forgiveness.

But my friends, Manasseh is not your king.

Manasseh's not your king.

You and I.

You and I, we have a king who hung on a cross instead of having hooks in his nose.

A king who's distressed, didn't just bear the weight of God's restraint and discipline in a prison cell.

No, Jesus of Nazareth bore the entirety of God's wrath for sinners.

Our king.

Our king humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

He humbled himself before his God.

And on that cross, he cried out to his God in the words of David and said, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

That was the cry of the humbled Lord of all the earth, who humbled himself for the sins of the world.

When the true king of Judah and of all Israel humbled himself for the sins of that nation, and all the world with it, the temple veil was torn in two, as forgiveness flowed out for all who would believe in Jesus' name, that they may not be put to shame, right?

And so in Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ, no idolatry ruined life on the entire planet is beyond the reach of God's grace.

Paul writes, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, so accept it now that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost.

Repent of your sins and come to Christ.

It matters not how great your sins are.

No man's sins were greater than Manasseh's, and I have not even covered all of them this morning.

Manasseh's reign, it lasted 55 years.

Fifty-five years.

I'm not even half that old.

But his sins were great.

And he lived a life of them.

Entrenched in his sins, but he counted life with God and with God's people of more value than the pride of an old man who can't admit he's wrong.

How long have you lived with alcohol or adultery or whatever it is?

If Manasseh can repent, so can you.

So can you.

How blasphemous has your idolatry gotten to you?

Even bring it here to the worship of God among the people of God, like Manasseh brought altars and idols into the temple of the Lord.

Have you taken the name of the Lord in vain in the pew when your kids misbehave this morning?

Manasseh built temples in the built altars in the temple itself.

Repent.

He did.

He persisted in his sin even at the word of the Lord from the mouth of God's prophets.

Have you been told before?

Do you know better?

Have you been rebuked and scorned?

Come to your king who hangs on a cross for you, humble.

Manasseh did.

Oh my friends, what does your sin cost you?

What does your sin cost you?

Have you lost jobs?

Maybe?

Friendships?

Other relationships?

Maybe your finances are wrecked because you chased after false gods.

Whatever it might be, Manasseh lost a kingdom.

He was thrown in a Babylonian prison far worse than our supermax for his idolatry.

Will you not repent?

Will you not repent?

Manasseh clung.

In that prison cell, Manasseh clung to the loving kindness of God that he'd heard of from his father Hezekiah.

Oh, righteous Hezekiah.

And he hoped.

Manasseh placed his hope in the promise of forgiveness that he beheld in the temple as the offerings for atonement were made.

He knew there had to be a way.

He trusted in the promise of God and the atonement that he'd witnessed in the temple, even as he desecrated it.

And many of you from your youth.

Like me.

And even maybe just today for the first time.

You've heard of the promise of God.

You've heard of the forgiveness of sins.

You know that your God is merciful.

Repent.

Repent.

Because the promise of forgiveness that you've heard is so much better.

So much better than the promise of forgiveness that Manasseh heard.

Hear this.

You and I have heard of the promise of forgiveness and the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who took your sins, placed them upon his own head, and bore the wrath of God that was for you.

In his own body on the cross, he died in your place, that you might receive the forgiveness and his righteousness.

The blood of Jesus Christ speaks a better word than Abel and a better word than the bulls and calves of Manasseh's day.

You have seen the reality when Manasseh only saw a shadow.

And Jesus died not so that you could be restored to the kingdom of Judah, not even its throne, but you can be restored to life giving worship of God most high for all of eternity.

Not to the land of promise, but to the kingdom of heaven.

You can be restored not to the family of Israel, but to adoption as sons of the God who reigns in the heavens.

How shall we escape?

We won't.

We surely will not escape if we neglect so great a salvation as that.

So this morning, look upon Jesus and love him as David did.

Forsake your wicked ways as Manasseh did, repent of your idols and tear down their altars, as Manasseh would do, and his grandson Josiah would continue to do after him.

But know, friends, that that sanctifying work of tearing down the idols never ends.

Look at verse 17 of our passage for this morning.

Even after all that Manasseh did when he was restored.

Nevertheless, nevertheless, the people still sacrificed at the high places.

But only to the Lord, their God.

They persisted still in their idolatry of manner, and the same is true for you and I.

Sin and idolatry?

It will remain with us for all the days of our flesh.

What remains for us is what has always been.

Just as the beginning.

Humble yourself.

Pray.

Do you pray against your sins?

You should.

Pray and seek the Lord's favor as we cast out our idols.

And as we do that, that's our spiritual worship.

That's worshiping the true God.

The right way.

And ultimately, they did suffer exile.

That's what God said.

Because of Manasseh's sins, I'm wiping out Jerusalem, and they and he did.

Unlike my boots, though, God can work miracles to restore those things that are broken.

Dana has this quotation from John Owen on his door.

I see it every day.

John Owen writes, To save sinners through believing will be seen to be a far more wonderful miracle or work and to create the world out of nothing.

You think creation's a miracle?

God saved Manasa.

God save me.

But all of you to save sinners through believing will be seen in all of eternity to be a far more wonderful work than to create the world out of nothing.

It surely does take the Lord's intervention to save a sinner.

To redeem an idolater.

So if this morning God has revealed to your heart the depths of your sins and the wonder, the majesty of Christ's saving work today, you have two choices left, just like Manasseh did.

Just like Ahaz did.

You can, like Ahaz, I wouldn't recommend it.

But you can turn and run deeper after your idols headlong towards your foolishness, so it might help you sleep at night when your conscience troubles you.

Or like Manasseh, or wicked Manasseh.

Like Manasseh, you can humble yourself and you can say with the Apostle Paul, a man of bloodshed himself, that the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.

That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost, but I received mercy for this reason.

This is why Paul received mercy, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.

I hear the worship in Paul's words.

To the king of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God.

To him be honor and glory for ever and ever.

And all of God's people said, Amen.

As the worship team makes their way forward, would you stand with me?

Would you stand with me?

And before we sing, let me read for us these words from Psalm 19.

Who can discern his errors?

O Lord, declare me innocent from hidden faults.

Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins, let them not have dominion over me, and then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression.

O Lord, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.

O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.