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Forgiveness Makes A Difference

           On October 30, 1961, the most powerful weapon ever constructed was detonated over an island in the Arctic Sea.  The device was a multi-stage hydrogen bomb built by the former Soviet Union and code-named Ivan.  Despite the cloudy weather, the flash of light was visible six hundred miles away.  The giant fireball reached about thirty-four thousand feet in the air, releasing three thousand eight hundred times more explosive energy than the A-bomb over Hiroshima.  Sixty miles from ground zero the heat would have inflicted third degree burns.  The mushroom cloud which followed the blast stretched forty miles into the sky and had a diameter of about twenty five miles.  Ivan was so powerful that it was impractical because using the device on any populated targets would have resulted in adverse effects on Russia.  Thankfully, no other weapon with that kind of power has ever been built.

            You can add up all the bombs ever built, all the earthquakes, hurricanes, and tornados that have ever occurred, but you won’t come close to the most powerful force ever – forgiveness from God.  We get a chance to see that up front and personal today in second Chronicles chapter thirty-three, which presents a Bible character named King Manasseh.  Many of you may have never heard of him before, but he was real, his story is real, and it has a real meaning for us, especially the way this most powerful force comes to bear on your life and mine because, Forgiveness Makes A Difference.  It made a difference for Manasseh, for me, and for you.

Manasseh made a mess

            God is so awesome, so vast, so unapproachable that sinful people cannot stand in his presence or fathom the depths of his decisions.  The only way for sinners to have a connection with God is for God to come to us, to reveal himself to us, to uncover as much as we need so that we can be loved by him and live with him.  But throughout history people have wanted to make God more manageable.  That way they can approach him on their terms and get him to do what they want.  Apparently, that was the case among the natives in the land where God wanted the ancient Israelites to live.  The natives had been associating high hills as places where a person could climb up and access any god, as though there were many to start with.  After hearing the only true God claim, “You shall have no others gods besides me”(Exodus 20:3) and hearing that he wanted to drill that home by having only one place for worship – Jerusalem – many Israelites tired of the trip to Jerusalem and God’s seeming inaccessibility.  They wanted some credit for a connection with God.  They wanted some say-so in how he treated them.  So, they began to adopt the practice of the natives and set up images and idols on every high hill.  A king named Hezekiah tried cleaning that up, but his son, Manasseh made a mess of his father’s reformation.  How bad was he?  How bad was Manasseh?

            The ancient nation of Israel had been split by civil war around nine hundred years before Jesus was born.  Over the next three and a half centuries the southern half of the land, called Judah, had twenty kings.  The kings were supposed to be spiritual shepherds, caring for the people, offering wise decisions, defending the land from predator armies, modeling not luxurious robes but trust in God and God-pleasing living.  All twenty kings had flaws.  Manasseh was number fourteen on the list but number one in filth.  It doesn’t take the Chronicler many words to sketch the mess Manasseh made.  Manasseh, said, “People want to climb up to God?  Fine!  We’ll turn every hill into a shrine.”  He hired top artisans who built altars to made-up gods.  He was so superstitious that he called the one-eight-hundred-psychic-hotline number which he saw on late night cable TV and brought in mediums to consult the dead, sorcerers to conjure up potions, and witches to chant mumbo-jumbo on every street in every town.  The natives also had one particular pattern of putrid behavior that Manasseh found fascinating.  It’s hot and dry there for part of the year.   Plants and crops need rain to grow.  Baal was the god who could make it rain, as long as you pleased him.  What would make Baal happy?  Ritual prostitution.  Imagine setting up in church a display to advertise and promote prostitution.  That’s what Manasseh did.  Now imagine Manasseh whispering to his child one night, “Daddy’s going to teach you about god,” then taking his little boy by the hand, leading him outside, telling him, “Look at all the stars,” and as the little boy raised his head, slipping a knife out from his robes, slitting the boy’s throat, and tossing his little body on a grill called an altar.  I don’t want you to become ill from that graphic description, but it’s obvious, isn’t it, that Manasseh made a mess.  He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, following the detestable practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.  He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had demolished; he also erected altars to the Baals … In both courts of the temple of the LORD, he built altars to all the starry hosts.  He sacrificed his sons in the fire … practiced sorcery, divination, and witchcraft, and consulted mediums and spiritists.

             Why did God put this in the Bible?  To make us nauseous?  To help us look down our noses at really naughty people like Manasseh?  No!  He did it to drive us to look at our messes.  Oh, sure!  We don’t want to be in Manasseh’s company.  We’re not that bad, at least from our viewpoint.  We consider some sins worse than others, and rightly so – from our viewpoint – because some sins are more damaging to ourselves and to others.  But from God’s viewpoint every sin is on the same level of badness.  In the Bible God says that lust is the same as adultery.  Greed is the same as stealing.  Hate is the same as murder.  What about the messes in your life and mine?  What about God’s command, “Among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed … Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, or coarse joking” (Ephesians 5:3-4)?  What about, “Don’t be anxious about anything” (Philippians 4:6), and “You must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.  Do not lie to each other” (Colossians 3:8-9)?  Have any of those feelings or thoughts ever pulsed through your mind?  If so, you’ve made a Manasseh-mess.

            What did God do about Manasseh?  What would you have done if you were God?  We know what God is capable of.  Does the Flood say anything to you?  Does Sodom and Gomorrah ring a bell?  The only just and fair thing for God to do would be to damn Manasseh right then and there.  But God didn’t do that.  He showed patience andspoke to Manasseh and his people.  Wouldn’t that get you to start thinking?  “God is talking!  I better listen!”  But I’ve seen it in my life, and you’ve seen it in yours.  Sometimes we just don’t want to listen.  So we don’t.  We’re no better than Manasseh and his people who paid no attention.  Now what was God supposed to do?  Dump Manasseh into the pit that has no bottom but only blackness and pain, right?  No!  God again shocks us.  He brought about a scenario in which Manasseh had to listen.  The LORD brought against them the army … of Assyria, who took Manasseh prisoner, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon.  In his distress he sought the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.  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.  The hook in the nose and bronze shackles were not a hammer from God but evidence of God’s love, the only way he could get Manasseh to listen.  There was only one way for Manasseh to be restored to Jerusalem, to be on God’s good side, to live the rest of his life with God and on into eternity – God’s forgiveness.  Forgiveness – the most powerful force in the world – made a difference for Manasseh so that he was right with God.

            What is God supposed to do with us?  Oh, oh!  Here comes the hammer, right?  We know what we deserve.  But Jesus has set things right.  Listen to the way one writer puts in his own words what the apostle wrote in his letter to the Romans: Since we compiled this long and sorry record as sinners and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us … Out of sheer generosity God put us in right standing with himself.  A pure gift.  He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be …through the sacrifice of Jesus (Romans 8:22-26. “The Message” E.Peterson].  The hammer came down on Jesus not on Manasseh and not on us.  God gave Manasseh and gives us forgiveness.  But that’s the nature of God.  We get a reprieve.  God’s forgiveness gives us a clean slate, rescues us from on-going death in hell’s prison, and presents us with on-going life with God.  Forgiveness – the most powerful force in the world – made a difference for Manasseh, and it makes a difference for me and for you so that we are right with God.

Manasseh made amends

            Forgiveness from God is such a powerful force that it did more than change Manasseh’s status with God.  It transformed his life.  Forgiveness from God scrubbed Manasseh clean from the inside out, but it didn’t leave him empty.  It filled him with power to make changes and clean up the messes he had made.  Afterward he rebuilt the outer wall of the City of David … He stationed military commanders in all the fortified cities in Judah.  He got rid of the foreign gods and removed the image from the temple of the LORD, as well as all the altars he had built on the temple hill and in Jerusalem; and he threw them out of the city.  Then he restored the altar of the LORD … and told Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel.  Manasseh made amends.

            Forgiveness fills the air in every worship setting and every time you hear a truly biblical message.  The Bible is not primarily about what you can do to obey God and make him happy by cleaning up your life.  The Bible is primarily about him cleaning us up from the inside out with his powerful cleanser, forgiveness.  But forgiveness does not leave us empty.

            The problem comes in our apathy because we’ve heard about forgiveness from God so often, or in our foolishness when we turn his forgiveness into a license to do what we want and sin more.  If that happens in your life or mine, then we are only demonstrating that we have not taken to heart how bad our messes are, and we’re setting ourselves up for hooks in the nose and shackles so that God gets us to listen.  Don’t wait!  Pay attention, my friends, to what God is telling you today through the Manasseh story, and you’ll not only have a clean slate but the energy to make amends.  You might say, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to change,” but with God’s powerful forgiveness you can stop believing the lie, “All guys do it.”  You can stop living together when not married even if it costs more rent.  You can stop wasting money, stop being negatively critical, and stop the gossip.  You can be more generous.  You can apologize.  You can do more listening.  That’s all possible because Jesus paid the price for our being forgiven by God, and forgiveness – the most powerful force in the world – made a difference for Manasseh, and it makes a difference for me and for you so that we make amends.

            The largest earth mover in the world stands three hundred eleven feet tall, weighs forty-five thousand five hundred tons, took five years to build at a cost of one hundred million dollars, and can remove one hundred thousand large dump trucks of dirt in a day.  That’s a powerful force.  But God’s forgiveness is more powerful.  It made a difference for Manasseh, and it makes a difference for me and for you.   Amen.

Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on June 20, 2010

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Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church | 1209 North Broadway Milwaukee, WI 53202 | (414) 271-3006

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