While repentance results in forgiveness of our rebellion, it does not remove the consequences of our rebellion...

This week we are looking at the life of a king of the Jewish people named Manasseh. Wednesday, we looked on as King Manasseh rejected the covenant agreement that the Jewish nation had entered into with the Lord to follow and obey the Lord. Instead, King Manasseh led the Jewish people to reject the worship of the Lord to instead live a life that worshiped and participated in the very activities that led the Lord to give the Jewish people the Promised Land in the first place. King Manasseh seduced the Jewish people away from a love relationship with the Lord to an adulterous relationship with false gods in such a way that was far more displeasing to the Lord than any of the behavior of the nations that the Lord had previously removed from the Promised Land.

We looked on as a the prophets proclaimed a message of misery and distress for the Jewish people as a result of King Manasseh and their selfishness and rebellion. Now today I want us to take a minute and imagine ourselves in this event from history as King Manasseh. I want us to place ourselves in his shoes. As a result of your leadership and worship of false gods, the Lord has sent to you his messengers the prophets with a message of judgment and destruction. You are King Manasseh. What would you be thinking as you heard this message? What would you be feeling? How would you respond? We see how King Manasseh responded in 2 Kings 21:16:

 Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; besides his sin with which he made Judah sin, in doing evil in the sight of the LORD.

King Manasseh responded to the Lord’s message through the prophets by shedding very much innocent blood, including the blood of the prophets. Jewish tradition tells us that King Manasseh responded to the warnings that he received from Isaiah the prophet by sawing Isaiah in two. King Manasseh responded to anyone who questioned or criticized him by killing them, until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to the other with the blood of the innocent.

The fact that during much of Manasseh’s reign, in contrast to other times during the reign of the kings of the Jewish people, there is little heard from the prophets attests to the king’s oppression and persecution of these spokespersons of the Lord. And while 2 Kings gives us very little additional information about King Manasseh, we discover more about the life of King Manasseh in a section of another letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of the Bible called 2 Chronicles. So let’s look at this section of this letter together, beginning in 2 Chronicles 33:10:

The LORD spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention. Therefore the LORD brought the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria against them, and they captured Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze chains and took him to Babylon. When he was in distress, he entreated the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. When he prayed to Him, He was moved by his entreaty and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God.

Here we see Ezra reveal for us the reality that the Lord responded to King Manasseh’s oppression and persecution of the prophets by using the Assyrian Empire and His instrument to exercise His right and just response to the king’s selfishness and rebellion. In 649 B.C., the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal attacked the city of Jerusalem and took King Manasseh captive. And, as was common practice for the Assyrians, a ring was placed through the nose of King Manasseh as he was led like an animal back to the Assyrian capital.

In total humiliation, the king of the Jewish people was taken like an animal to the nation of Assyria. And as Manasseh sat as a humiliated man in prison in Assyria, Ezra tells us that the king humbled himself before the Lord. King Manasseh prayed to the Lord as asked for forgiveness of his selfishness and rebellion. King Manasseh prayed that the Lord would extend grace and mercy toward him. King Manasseh prayed for an opportunity to return the Jerusalem.

And, in response to King Manasseh’s prayer, the Lord gave the king the opportunity to return to Jerusalem and resume his role as king. In 647 B.C., after spending two years in prison in Assyria, the humiliated and humble king received the opportunity to return back home. And as a result of the Lord doing what seemed to be impossible, Ezra explains that King Manasseh knew that the Lord was God. We then are given a glimpse of how King Manasseh finished as a king beginning in 2 Chronicles 33:14:

 Now after this he built the outer wall of the city of David on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, even to the entrance of the Fish Gate; and he encircled the Ophel with it and made it very high. Then he put army commanders in all the fortified cities of Judah. He also removed the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the LORD, as well as all the altars which he had built on the mountain of the house of the LORD and in Jerusalem, and he threw them outside the city. He set up the altar of the LORD and sacrificed peace offerings and thank offerings on it; and he ordered Judah to serve the LORD God of Israel. Nevertheless the people still sacrificed in the high places, although only to the LORD their God.

Upon returning to his role and responsibility as king, King Manasseh demonstrated his repentance from his selfishness and rebellion in three specific ways. First, King Manasseh led the Jewish people to restore the walls of the city of Jerusalem that had been destroyed during the invasion that resulted in his capture and captivity. In addition, King Manasseh strengthened the defenses of the Jewish nation by placing qualified military leaders throughout the nation. Thus King Manasseh repented from the abdication of his responsibilities when it came to his military leadership of the Jewish people.

Second, in verse 15, King Manasseh removed all of the images and altars of foreign gods that he had built from the Temple and the Temple courtyard. These false gods and altars were taken outside the city and destroyed.  Thus King Manasseh repented from the selfishness and rebellion that led him to worship and lead the Jewish people to worship false gods instead of the one true God.

And third, in verse 16, we see King Manasseh reinstitute the Jewish sacrificial system that had been previously shut down under his leadership. King Manasseh worshipped the Lord and encouraged the Jewish people to follow and worship the Lord. Thus King Manasseh demonstrated his repentance by turning the trajectory of his life that was moving away from the worship of the Lord back to the worship of the Lord. King Manasseh demonstrated his repentance by leading the Jewish people to turn from placing their confident trust in false gods to putting their confident trust in the Lord.

Nevertheless, the Jewish people failed to follow the Lord fully. While the Jewish people stopped worshipping false gods; while the Jewish people returned to worshipping the Lord; the Jewish people still chose to worship the Lord at the High Places instead of the Temple, which violated God’s commands when it came to how He was to be worshipped.

You see, while King Manasseh had demonstrated his repentance during the final six years of his leadership of the Jewish people, his repentance did not change the impact of his influence on the Jewish people during his 49 years of rebellion against the Lord. And when King Manasseh finally died in 642 B.C., he was not buried with honor with the rest of the kings of the Jewish people.

Instead, King Manasseh was buried on the palace grounds of his home in dishonor. You see, while King Manasseh had repented from his selfishness and rebellion, the consequences of that selfishness and rebellion followed him in his death.

And it is in this event from history from the life of King Manasseh that we discover a timeless truth that has the potential to powerfully impact how we live our lives today. And that timeless truth is this: While repentance results in forgiveness of our rebellion, it does not remove the consequences of our rebellion. Just as it was for King Manasseh, just as it has been for humanity throughout history, while repentance results in forgiveness of our rebellion, it does not remove the consequences of our rebellion. Just like King Manasseh, we are responsible and accountable to the Lord for our actions.

Just like King Manasseh, when we selfishly rebel against the Lord in a way that insults, provokes, and angers the Lord, we place ourselves in a position to experience consequences from the Lord. Just like King Manasseh, when we selfishly rebel against the Lord in a way that insults, provokes, and angers the Lord, we also place others who are influenced by us to selfishly rebel against the Lord in a position to experience consequences from the Lord. And just like King Manasseh, while our repentance from selfishness and rebellion results in forgiveness from the Lord for our rebellion, it does not remove the consequences of our rebellion.

So here is a question to consider: How are you responding to the reality that while repentance results in forgiveness of our rebellion, it does not remove the consequences of our rebellion? Are you living your life in such a way that recognizes the reality that we are responsible and accountable to the Lord for our actions? Are you living your life in such a way that recognizes the reality that our actions have consequences for us and others?