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2 Chronicles 33:14-20

‘Things can change.’ People can change. Let us say it again: God answers prayer (18, 19). Be encouraged.

You know those ‘before and after’ pictures? Like, ‘This is me before the diet, and this is me afterwards!!’ When someone turns to God (or comes back to God) there is always an Afterwards… (14). He or she will look different. They will act differently. There will be impressive change. People may be invited to tell their story, but the transformed life itself will tell the most eloquent story. Afterwards…

• There will be a rebuilding of broken down things and a guarding of the life against enemy attack (14). You will be aware of vulnerabilities and weaknesses and you will seek to strengthen those areas because you will not want to fail your Lord. Manasseh did not rebuild the entire wall, only a section of it that was threatened. The ‘new’ person will want to don the whole armour of God (Eph.6:10-20) and be able to stand and withstand. (He tightened up the defense system by posting army captains in all the fortress cities of Judah. The Message.)
• There will be a ‘getting rid’ of things that do not belong in the ‘temple precincts’ of your life. (1 Corinthians 6:19, 20). You will have an instinctive sense of what is foreign; an ‘illegal immigrant’, spiritually speaking. He also did a good spring cleaning on the Temple, carting out the pagan idols and the goddess statue. The Message.
• As well as a throwing out of rubbish (a removal of all that ought not to be there) there will be a restoring of what should be there (16). He put the altar of GOD back in working order and restored worship… The Message.

But we also have to be realistic. Afterwards…you can’t expect everything in the garden to be rosy (17). Manasseh had led his people very far away from God (33:9). Although he had turned back to God, the people did not fully do away with everything they should have done. In verse 19b we see the terrible truth that what we have done we have done. It cannot be undone. Sins have consequences, and although they can be forgiven and removed, the consequences regularly stick around. So it is possible to know the peace of a clean conscience, and yet still rue the things you have done.

In my church at Wigan I had a good friend, and I often felt, when we went out onto the streets to share our faith, that he could relate better to many of the people we met. He’d done his fair share of the ‘pubbing and clubbing’ etc. He’d ‘been there, done that and got the tee shirt!’ He knew, like Ecclesiastes, the emptiness of such a life. I remember saying to him one day, ‘I wish I had a story like yours.’ ‘No you don’t Steve,’ he replied in a kind but firm way. ‘You don’t want a story like mine.’ His sins had gone, but the scars remained.

Prayer: Thank you Lord for the ‘afterwards’ experienced by everyone who is in Christ and who becomes a new creation.

 2 Chronicles 33:10-13

‘Things can change’ – and so can people!

When GOD spoke to Manasseh and his people about this, they ignored him (10) The Message. As I said previously, Manasseh put in the ear plugs (10). There are none as deaf as those who will not hear! Can you imagine a situation where the Queen speaks to you and you refuse to listen? It would be so rude. Someone infinitely greater in power and wealth wants our attention. Will we give it to Him? It should be a priority for believers to want to hear God.

How good of God it was to not give up on Manasseh (11). The Lord had been speaking severely to him to warn him and his people, but now His tone got even harder. This was a ‘severe mercy’, but it worked! God got his man. The ‘Hound of Heaven’, as Francis Thompson put it, pursued him and cornered him. This reminds me of C.S. Lewis saying that he became ‘the most reluctant convert in all England.’ Notice the So at the beginning of this verse. It brings to us once again the clear point that sin has definite consequences. It is a serious thing to resist God on any matter.

At our first church house party, Pastor Dave Green hammered home the message that ‘Things can change.’ I’ve never forgotten that line. Don’t give up on anyone, however low they have sunk; no matter how far out on the tide they may have drifted (12, 13). If Manasseh could be converted, anyone can be. The ‘Hound of Heaven’ can sniff out anyone, however thick the camouflage they’re hiding behind. Now that he was in trouble, he went on his knees in prayer asking for help – total repentance before the God of his ancestors. As he prayed, GOD was touched; GOD listened and brought him back to Jerusalem as king. That convinced Manasseh that GOD was in control. The Message. So long as this story stands on the page of revelation, no sinners need despair of mercy. There was hardly a sin possible to man that Manasseh did not commit…And he made his people do worse than the heathen. Then came awful sorrow. Bound in fetters, exposed to consummate cruelty and disgrace, he was carried to Babylon, and thrust into the dungeons, where other captive princes were immured, with little chance of liberation or permission to revisit his native land. But there the Spirit of God did his work. He humbled himself greatly and prayed. What tears, and cries, and bursts of heart-broken penitence were his! How those walls were saturated with the breath of confession, and those stone floors indented by his kneeling at perpetual prayer! And God came near to his low dungeon, and graciously heard his supplication, and brought him back again. F.B. Meyer: Great verses through the Bible, p.162.

‘Things can change’. People can change. Don’t give up on anyone or anything. Manasseh had sinned greatly, but now he humbled himself greatly. He had grown up in a godly home and lived in the midst of a ‘revival’ you might say. Perhaps, in his distress all that good seed finally began to sprout in his heart. The prodigal came home. It wasn’t just his father he remembered, it seems, but his fathers (12). There were many other godly kings he knew about. When we pray for our loved ones we do not know what they might have to go through to come to Christ. It is not easy for us to face this, but God has tools in His toolbox that can do the job. Never doubt it. He can unlock any heart. He is the God of restoration, and be encouraged that He is still moved by entreaties. ‘Things can change’ – and so can people!

Prayer: Today Lord I pray for  ——- knowing that only you can change their heart. But I am convinced that you most certainly can.