No one is too far gone

Blessed is the man
    who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
    nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
Psalm 1:1

Walking in the counsel of the wicked. Standing in the way of sinners. Sitting in the seat of scoffers. Walk. Stand. Sit. Do you feel the grinding to a halt? How progress gradually slows until it just stops? The downward spiral to stubbornness, immovability, rigidity and the ineffectiveness of sitting there scoffing at everything? Have you ever been there? Me too. Often, I don’t realize how I arrived in that place. A lack of intentionality. A complacency and being OK with it maybe? The very fact that I can even realize I’m stuck in scoffing, rebellious sin is a mercy I don’t deserve. Praise God He’s always there, calling me back to Himself. Responding to my repentance and walking with me as I get moving again out of the muck and mire toward restoration.

The other morning after spending time with God in His Word, my wife called me in to share what she read about Manasseh in 2 Chronicles 33. Manasseh was notorious for being Judah’s most evil king. The 2 Kings 21 account of his reign shares how he reestablished idol worship and did more evil than even the pagan nations that came before him. He “shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another.” He used fortune-telling, omens, and sorcery. He dealt with mediums and necromancers. He even sacrificed his own sons by burning them in fire to worship a false god named Molech. What an extreme example of walking, standing, and eventually sitting mired in defiant sin.

But my wife and I had forgotten about 2 Chronicles 33…

Therefore the Lord brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon.  And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the Lord his God 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. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God… And he took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built on the mountain of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem, and he threw them outside of the city. He also restored the altar of the Lord and offered on it sacrifices of peace offerings and of thanksgiving, and he commanded Judah to serve the Lord, the God of Israel. 

No one is too far gone. Have you ever felt like, “But God could never love me. Look at all I’ve done in my past!” Even at our lowest moments, God hears us. His mercy and grace are unending. There’s no sin God can’t redeem. Not even from the most evil king in history. This kind of grace is almost scandalous if you really think about it, but how much do we all need it! What struck my wife and I most is that God was moved by Manasseh’s entreaty. God can be moved by our repentance?! He can. He loves us. He created us to love us and to know Him…be in right relationship with him.

Another thing to take note of here is Manasseh didn’t just say stuff. He took action. He entreated God’s favor, humbled himself greatly, prayed, and then took away the objects of his rebellion and threw them outside the city. I love that. Can’t you picture it? Just yeeting idols over the wall of the city. He also restored God’s altar (no longer scoffing), obeyed God’s law (the ways of God not sinners), and commanded the people to do the same (godly counsel instead of wicked counsel). If you read on, it wasn’t perfect. A lot of damage was done and the people’s obedience was muted in some ways, but Manasseh got unstuck. He got up from his seat of scoffing and began taking steps back toward fellowship with God.

When we’re feeling stuck in sin, far from God, under the weight of His loving discipline, may we remember Manasseh and follow his example of entreating God’s favor, humbling ourselves, praying, and begin to steadily remove our objects of rebellion as we move back toward a right relationship with God. Walking not in the counsel of the wicked, nor standing in the way of sinners, nor sitting in the seat of scoffers. Life as it was created to be. Blessed.

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