no soul beyond saving

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.

The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention.

2 Chronicles 33:9-10

It is a sad time when God says a people are living worse then before He delivered them. In the case of Judah, king Manasseh was so committed to idolatry that idols dotted the landscape everywhere you would look. There was more idol worship in Judah under him than before the conquest of Canaan under pagan rule. That’s quite a downfall.

Even in that much disobedience and idolatry, God tried to get the king and the people to repent. He sent His Word to call them to repentance. They refused. They all clearly loved their embarrassing abundance of idols.

It took intervening judgment from God to change Manasseh’s idolatrous heart. Since Judah refused God’s Word, He brought His action to bear. The Assyrian army that had been a looming threat quickly swept in to Jerusalem in a swift strategic raid. They kidnapped Manasseh and led him off to Babylon in chains. There the idol king was stripped of his reliance on false gods. Manasseh returned to God in what the text calls “great humility”. His prayers were honest and God used that same Assyrian threat to then return Manasseh back to Jerusalem. And that was something the Assyrians did not normally do. Definitely God was using them. The text says Manasseh “knew that the LORD was God” (2 Chronicles 33:13).

The humbled, repentant king fortified the city against further attack. He more importantly fortified the worship of God by rooting up idolatry, personally destroying every idol he had set up (there were a lot of them). He restored the altar and the proper temple worship in His repentance back to God.

God can redeem the most faithless and rebellious heart. That brings us hope! Manasseh’s beginning was tragic. His judgment was frantic. His repentance was authentic. And his renewed passion for worship of God became magnetic, attracting the Jews back to God. Never think a soul is beyond God’s power to save! He is in the business of turning us all around!