It's amazing, what amazing grace He's given us. If you take your Bible, would you turn with me to 2 Kings chapter 21? It's good to have you here on this Sunday morning, 2 Kings 21. We are coming close to the end of this series, just a few more weeks, and we'll wrap this up. And next week I want to invite you back, we have a very special missions conference we have planned, and the focus is on prayer, and the essential work that prayer is for missions, and we're excited about God's, what God's already done in our hearts as we've been preparing for this week, and I hope that you will join us here Wednesday through Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday, for a full day, or for a full week, I should say, of ministry, wonderful preaching and teaching from God's Word, as well as what God is doing around the world. 2 Kings 21. And you get there, you find the passage. I just want to begin by asking you, what does it look like when people walk away from the knowledge of God? They have a good start. They know right from wrong. They should know better, but they still throw it away. I think all of us know people like that. I know people like that who grew up in a good family, maybe they were taught well, grew up in a good church, they were taught Scriptures, they knew the Bible, they knew what was right, what was wrong, and I think a lot of us know friends like that, we have loved ones like that, we may even have had spiritual leaders. I was talking with someone just the other day who was telling me about someone they knew who was a spiritual leader, a teacher, and they walked away from God. And it's sad, it's difficult when you find this. I was looking at this passage this week thinking, what kinds of things do people who walk away from God turn to embrace? What do they worship instead of God? Because you're never just walking away from God, you're walking away from God to something else. Specifically what happens when whole nations, when kings, when leadership of a nation walks away from God. Israel has been a people uniquely blessed by God. They're God's special nation. They have a covenant relationship with the Lord. They entered into at Sinai, there in the desert. They had promises from God, special promises from God, that His presence would be there in Jerusalem. But despite all their head start, the nation of Judah was far from faithful. In fact, in the passage today, we'll see the people of Judah, led by their wicked king named Manasseh, become infatuated with several things. They become infatuated with witchcraft, become infatuated with fortune-telling, infatuated with the dead, with occult knowledge. You think about Hezekiah, we talked about him a couple weeks ago. Hezekiah was a man who was righteous. He was a good, righteous king. He did a lot of good things. And he's one of the faithful kings. He showed confidence in the Lord. He worshiped the Lord alone. He trusted the Lord alone. He even asked God, he said, Lord, please give me more life. I don't want to die yet. And God gave him 15 more years of life. We saw that a couple weeks ago. And yet it was in those 15 years that God extended his life. It was during those 15 years he had a son named Manasseh. And this son, and it was during those 15 years, it appears at least, that Manasseh as a boy, co-reigned with his father, the old man Hezekiah. And when the nation, when the man who worshiped the Lord, Hezekiah, passed off the scene, the nation was led by this new young man named Manasseh, I want you to notice how they plunged headlong as the righteous man died and the new man took over, as they plunged headlong into the worst examples of debauchery and wickedness that we have recorded for us here in God's Word. Because when a nation, when a people turn away from truth, the fall of that house is great. It's tragic. And here we have it recorded for us. In God's Word, what happens? What's inside someone's heart finally gets the chance to come out. Let's go and ask God for grace as we look into his Word today. Father, we do ask you for your mercy, your grace, and we ask, Lord, for your Spirit to be upon us as we read and understand your Word, that the application of your Word would be clear, that we would take heed to the warnings here, but we would also see the hope that's in Christ. Pray for those. who are not able to be here today due to illness or other travel issues, I pray, God, that You'd protect them and help them to get better soon. And I pray the wisdom in Your Word would apply to our hearts today in a very real way, that we'd walk out of here changed, submissive to Your truth. In Jesus' name, amen. What comes out of the inside of someone's heart when they get the chance to be themselves? What happens? Well, what we'll see in the first story, the first part of the story is that they are drawn to the world. It's amazing, the building up of a righteous culture takes a lot of time, but destruction can happen really quickly. I'm going to warn you that this passage, this message today is not very happy, it's not It's a warning. It's a warning to all of us. I'm just going to warn you on the front end that this is not pretty. And that's the truth. Sin is always ugly. But as we look at these signs of walking away from God, I want you to be honest and ask yourself if you see any of these signs starting to work in your heart. Manasseh will see it's drawn to the world. Look at verse 1 and 2. Manasseh was 12 years old when he became king. He reigned 55 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hephzibah, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. He was drawn to the world. And we see that he did this by following the nations around him. He's a young man when he becomes king. He's 12 years old. And a lot of us know 12-year-olds. 12-year-olds are easily manipulated. And it's very possible that he had placed himself surrounded by people who easily manipulated him. But as a young man, he was drawn to the things around him. He had a long reign. He reigned 55 years. That's a long time. And his rule, Nasser's rule specifically, proved disastrous for the nation of Judah. And as I mentioned, there's some question about who's exactly in charge here, but the nation falls so swiftly, we notice here there are two perspectives on his reign. Look at the first one. He did evil in the sight of the Lord. That's the first perspective, is that according to God, this man lived evilly. He lived with evil. He embraced evil. He was an abject failure in God's perspective. But I want you to notice the second perspective. that He lived according to the abominations of the nations, that is, that the things which God detests He liked. He embraced, He courted His life, He ordered His life, He adapted His life and adopted the culture of the world around Him. And from the culture around Him, from the perspective of the nations around Him, He was not a disaster, He was a success. because they saw Him becoming more like them. These were behaviors that had warranted the nations being ejected from the land by God. God had cast out the land of Canaan, the people of the land of Canaan, throughout the conquest of the book of Joshua. Some of you have been studying Joshua. You know how the conquest of Canaan took place, and God had endured a lot of wickedness from the people of Canaan, but finally cast them out because of their wickedness. Now Judah was adopting the things that had brought God's And I'd just like to say we are what people call mimetic creatures. You know what that word means? Mimetic means that you copy those around you. Isn't that true? All you have to do is go to a high school, and you'll notice this is the case. The cool kids start wearing a certain outfit, and at first everybody's like, well, that's different. Where is that from? And then what happens is, is once the cool kids are doing it, the other kids start doing it. They copy each other, right? And, you know, grown men are like this too. They go to their friend's house, they see he has a new saw. Now, your saw was perfectly fine. But his saw is new, and his saw can go different directions. It has all these different things. It has knobs on it. Yours doesn't have knobs on it. And so you get memetic. You go to the store, you go to Home Depot, and you find the one that your friend has, and you buy that one. And then you show it off to your other friends and say, see how cool I am. We are memetic people. And what happens to people who are not grounded in truth? is you start looking around you and you start copying people around you, and that's exactly what Manasseh did. He looked at the nations around him and he patterned his life, he patterned his reign after the pagan nations. He said, well, why can't we do it like them? Why can't I live like that person? And God directly rejects this. He says, this is according to their abominations. God detests this. And he looked to the world for inspiration. And he also did something else. He reversed reforms. When Hezekiah came in, he reformed. He wanted people to obey the Lord. He wanted to destroy that which was a stumbling block for the people. And he said, I want to make this place a place that is easy to honor God and hard to sin. We want to put guardrails up. We want to destroy that which is destructive. And look at verse 3, he rebuilt, this is Manasseh, he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah, his father, had destroyed. And he raised up altars for Baal, and he made in wood an image as Ahab, king of Israel, had done. He worshipped all the hosts of heaven, he served them. Look at this, he rebuilt the place that Hezekiah had destroyed. In 2 Kings 18. Just a few chapters ago, it says, Hezekiah removed the high places, broke down the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden image, broke in pieces the bronze serpent Moses had made, and the people had begun worshiping it. Hezekiah took seriously that God said, you should not worship anything except me. Hezekiah obeyed God and said, we're going to get rid of these things that are causing the people to fall. You know what Manasseh did? Manasseh said, I want to reverse these reforms. I want to put this back in place. Secondly, he raised up altars to Baal that Jehu had torn down. We see this all the way back in 2 Kings 11. Jehu had come and had destroyed the altars of Baal. All the people of the land went to the temple of Baal. They tore it down. They thoroughly broke pieces of altars and images, killed Matan, the priest of Baal, before the altars. The priest appointed officers over the house of the Lord. They destroyed the house of Baal. And what does he do? He raised up altars to Baal. He is undoing all the righteous things that his father had done. We know Ahaz, two kings earlier, had brought back Baal worship. We see this in 2 Kings 17. But this is brought to a new level. He actually raised up what had been torn down. He builds a wooden image. This is an Asherah pole. It's a feminine goddess representation in the fertility cults of the time. This was the style and tradition of Ahab, the king of Israel, Ahab and Jezebel. You remember them, the worst first couple of all time. And then we see not only that, he did something worse. He worshipped the hosts of heaven. You see that in your scripture? It says he worshipped all the hosts of heaven. What this means is that he looks up at the sky and instead of seeing the creation, he sees God's to be worshipped. He starts worshipping the sun, the moon, the stars. He becomes infatuated with the celestial objects, celestial beings here. He is rejecting Jehovah God worship and is reverting. to pagan worship, pagan roots. He took everything and reversed it. Here's how it looks today. Today, when people reverse reforms, they rebel against the wisdom of spiritual leaders or the wisdom of their parents or the wisdom of those church leaders out of pride or sin, and they say, when I get on my own, things will be different. I will make things better. There's a rejection of God's leadership and a drawing to the world. There's also a corruption of the holy. You see this in verse 4. He also built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, in Jerusalem, I will put my name. And he built altars for all the hosts of heaven and the two courts in the house of the Lord. He built altars in God's house, but the altars that he built were not for the Lord. He took a holy place that God had said, this is the place where my name will be. This is a holy place. That's what that means, that God is saying, this is a special place. This is a place I've set aside for my name to be, for my presence. In a unique way, God said, my name will be here. And yet, what does he do? He builds these altars and you can feel the pain and how the author describes this. He has to repeat himself. He says he builds these altars in the house of the Lord. He built altars for the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the house of God. He is drawn to the world. He ends up taking that which God made and he corrupts it, he twists it, he perverts it. This happens all the time, doesn't it? People who are drawn to the world take what God has made and we twist it, and this is called profanity, profaning God's house, taking something that God made holy and making it common, twisting it. And this is a distinct rejection and an attitude against the holiness of God. And if we keep a high view of the holiness of God, if we maintain If you maintain in your heart the greatness of the Holy God, this will not happen in your life. But the minute you start downplaying God's greatness, and you downplay God's holiness, and you lose the fear of God, this kind of twisting and profaning can be very close to where you're going. So another thing that happens as he's drawn to the world, he's consumed with death. Look at this in verse 6. This is an odd thing that happens when people walk away from the light that comes from God's word. You notice this in your friends, you notice this in your family, but very often when people walk away from truth, they walk away from God, they become obsessed with and consumed with things relating to death. Verse 6, he made his sons pass through the fire. He practiced soothsaying. He used witchcraft. He consulted spiritists and mediums. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. First, there's the horror of child sacrifice. He says he made his son pass through the fire. This is a horrible Canaanite practice of offering your children in the fire of sacrifice to Molech. This is a killing of your own children to appease the gods. And then there's a second horror, and that is dark magic or witchcraft. Did you notice all the lists of that? He said they were involved in soothsaying, that's interpreting signs, trying to interpret omens by consulting with spirits. Witchcraft probably involved seeing things associated with, often in the ancient world, drug use or communing with spirits. They would inhale all kinds of burning things, burning leaves, and see things and have communion with spirits. There's consulting spirits and mediums, people who would consult with and speak with those who were already dead. Today, we might call this a seance. All these are related to death. It's like a death cult. And what you'll notice, in our American culture, which used to be distinctly more Christian, As Christianity has disappeared, horoscopes, tarot cards, seances, demon worship, suicide, drug use, all the death-associated things come together. This is what happens when people walk away from God. And there is an attraction of this kind of thing to people, and a lot of you feel that attraction. A lot of people who are turning away from God, you feel this attraction to things that are in this vein. Let me just warn you, friends, stay away from the dark side of these things. Stay away from these wicked witchcraft kinds of behaviors. Manasseh dove in headfirst. And it says, it describes at the end that he became obsessed with this, he did much evil in the sight of the Lord, and God was provoked to anger because of his wickedness. And the occult is always associated with death. Satan is the bringer of death. If you dig deep enough into anti-Christ movements, you'll always find there's an obsession with death. There's no reason, there's no, wonder why God straight out forbids this kind of behavior. In Deuteronomy chapter 18 He says, there shall be not found anyone among you, anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft or soothsaying, one who interprets omens or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells or a medium or a spiritist, or one who calls upon the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations, the Lord your God drives them out from before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. These nations which you will dispossess, listen, to soothsayers and diviners, but as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you." I believe that this stuff is not just pretend, this is dangerous stuff. There's a tendency among us Christians to say, well, it's just, it's foolishness, but there is a real danger behind these kinds of things, and you must, you must be careful to stay away. God condemns it constantly. In fact, it says in the summary, he did much evil. He stirred up the Lord, he offended the Lord, he provoked the Lord to anger, and God responded with righteous indignation at the wickedness that Manasseh had led people into. We see this in the next step as there is a rejecting of God's protection. Look at verse seven. It says he carved, images of Asherah that he had made in the house of which the Lord had said to David and Solomon, his son, in this house in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever. He set up a carved image there of Asherah. What's Asherah? We mentioned this earlier. It's a cult object. It's a pole. It's a stylized tree that's to represent a female kind of deity or a female fertility cult. He makes it very clear in Deuteronomy 16, you shall not plant for yourself any tree as a wooden image near an altar which you build for yourself to the Lord your God. This was completely rejected by God. Exodus chapter 34, you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, cut down their wooden images. The prophets were constantly confronting the kind of popular worship that included this Asherah pole. Manasseh, the king, brings in these poles. and connects them to the temple of the Lord. Even the royal family struggled with this. In 1 Kings 15, Asa removed Makah, his grandmother, from being queen because she had made an obscene image of Asherah. This was something that was a problem, but notice where he put it. He put it in the temple, a place where God said his name was forever, and this was an affront to God. I want you to notice the rest of this passage. Look at verse 8. He said, and I will not make the feet of Israel wander any more from the land which I gave their fathers, only if they are careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to the law my servant Moses commanded them, but they pay no attention. And Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel. God said, I offered you protection. I said, I will establish you here. You worship me and I will not send you out again. You will be secure. You will be safe. If you will just worship me, yet what happens? God said, I give you protection, and yet they are led astray. Here it says in our Bibles that Manasseh seduced them. That just means he led them away. He led them away into this kind of sin, and he was responsible for this. Manasseh the king, the leader, was the one who God said, you're responsible because you led the people into this wickedness. As we talk about these heavy things, I want to remind you of a couple things. Number one, God warns us about being in love with the world. And it seems out of fashion to talk about these things, but we must be reminded, in 1 John 2, God says, do not love the world or the things that are in the world. Be careful, Christian. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life, is not of the Father, is of the world. He's not talking about the people of the world. We obviously love the people of the world. We're not supposed to love the philosophy of the world. We're not supposed to love the culture of the age. Because in verse 17 he says, the world is passing away in the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever. Are you drawn to the world? Are you copying the world? Or are you following Jesus? It's a simple question. Because Jesus says, follow me. When things are dark, what does God do? Well, God confronts. God confronts the world. Here we see confronted by God's word. God deals with this wickedness the way he always deals with darkness. He sends his light bringing word. You notice this? God sends light into darkness. Verse 10, and the Lord Jehovah spoke by his servants, the prophets. So in the midst of rejection, in the midst of a moment where everyone's rejecting God, God speaks. I mean, you can't think of a worse resume than Manasseh's resume. It's bad. Okay, this is as bad as it gets. Manasseh is the worst. And as Manasseh is doing all these terrible things, God still sends His Word. That's why this sermon series is called God's Word to a Divided Kingdom. It is all about God preaching His Word, God speaking His truth into a dark place. God has a Word to say. God lovingly confronts and He connects the dots. God sends light to places that don't want to see light. He confronts darkness with light. God speaks the truth, not just to those who love Him and want to obey Him. God will speak the truth to those who hate Him. because he loves them, and he wants them to know, and even those who walk away from him, God speaks the truth. God sends light into darkness, and God sends his consequences on the guilty. Look at verse 11. He says, because Manasseh, king of Judah, has done these abominations, he's acted more wickedly than the Amorites who were before him, and he has made Judah to sin with his idols. Okay, so he's saying because the king of Judah has done these things, there's a connection here. Notice the because. Whenever you see words like because, he's saying this is the reason why, because these things, he's acted more wickedly, than all the Canaanites who were in the land before Israel took the land." Notice the impact of leadership. He has made Judah sin with his idols. Manasseh has led them to be more wicked. Your leadership, friends, has consequences. Because he has done this, therefore, verse 12, therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel, behold, I am bringing such calamity upon Jerusalem and Judah that whoever hears of it, both his ears will tingle. It's actually this word calamity is the word for evil. And he says, your evil has brought evil. I am bringing calamity, I am bringing destruction because of your calamity, because of your destruction. And it's going to be so bad that everybody who hears about it, don't you love this phrase, their ears will tingle. What that means in our parlance is that they'll get goosebumps. You'll hear about it and like, oh man, that's terrible, that's wild, I've never thought of that before. God says, I'm gonna do something that will be so surprising. Look at verse 13, he says, I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab. I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish. Wiping it and turning it upside down. He says, I'm gonna measure it out with a plumb line or a measuring line or a mason's level, a plummet. This means that I'm going to use the same judgment I used for Ahab and Israel that I'm going to use for Judah and Manasseh. He says, you think you can get away with this and not experience the judgment of God? I'm going to use the same accountability, the same judgment that I just showed you with Ahab. And in fact, there's another image he says. He says, I'm going to pick you up and wipe you off like a dish. It's going to be cleaned like a dish. This place is going to be cleaned off and you're going to be gone. And you notice that this is, in fact, I have another reference to this exact kind of terminology. This is from Isaiah. He says, I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plummet, the same pictures. The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, the waters will overflow the hiding place. Here's the picture here. God says your covenantal blessing will be forsaken. Look at verse 14. I will forsake the remnant of my inheritance and deliver them into the hand of their enemies and they shall become victims of plunder to all their enemies because they have done evil in my sight, have provoked me to anger since the day their fathers came from Egypt, Egypt, even to this day. They have become victims of plunder because they've done evil. They've done evil, they have provoked God to wrath. There is a conditional nature to God's blessing here. God says, I will not make your feet wander anymore, verse 8. I would give you stability. I've rescued you, I've claimed you as my own, God says. I brought you out of the land of Egypt, placed you in the promised land, but there is a conditional nature to this blessing. God says I would raise up a descendant, an unconditional promise that a descendant will come. His name will be Jesus, the son of David. He will come. That is an unconditional blessing, an unconditional promise. Yet, there is a conditional promise that he says the continuous, uninterrupted reign of David's line was not a promise. that as long as they were faithful, God would allow them to stand on the throne. But they rejected God. God said, I will reject you. And in a sense, this reminds me a lot of the Christian life. If you'll follow me here, he says, because when we're saved, think about it, we have an unqualified promise, an unconditional promise of eternal life. God says, when you're saved, I will give you eternal life and you shall never perish, neither shall anyone pluck you out of my hand. But there is also a conditional side to your walking with God. that as you walk in obedience to Him, God blesses obedient behavior, and God rewards righteous behavior, and God does not reward wickedness. I mean, this is very clear in verses like 1 Corinthians chapter 3. He says, no other foundation can anyone lay that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, here he's saying you have your salvation in Christ, but as you build your life, you have options. And some people build their life out of gold, silver, precious stones, and righteousness, and following Christ, and being a disciple of Jesus. But others wood, hay, and stubble. If you keep reading in this, he says, each one's work will become clear for the day will declare it because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test each one's work of what sort it is. God will deal with us and will reveal our works. Verse 14, if anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet as though through fire." And this is the picture that God will judge our works as Christians. How does that make you feel? Does it scare you a little bit? It scares me. It should. It should be like, whoa, that's a little bit intimidating to think that God will evaluate my life. Of course He will. He promises He will, and that doesn't change the fact that if you're in Christ, you're saved, you have eternal life, you'll be saved as though through fire. But it's similar here where He says, I have given you an eternal promise that you'll have a son of David, the Messiah will come, but unless you're faithful, God says I will deal with you. Notice this next passage as we keep going that God says consequences, God sends light, and God hears the cry of innocent people. This is encouraging. This is like one of the few parts of this passage that's encouraging to me. Because if you look at this verse, he says, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another, besides his sin which had made it Judas' sin, and doing evil on the side of the Lord. You say to yourself, how is that encouraging? How in the world do you find that to be an encouraging verse? I find it to be encouraging because of this, that God hears when the innocent people are harmed. And God knows when innocent people are murdered. In fact, the very first murder we find in Genesis chapter four, remember this, Cain and Abel? God said, what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. God sees and God hears the cry of the weak, of the afflicted, of the innocents who are harmed by these wicked leaders. If you look at that verse again, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood. This is someone who doesn't deserve to die. Manasseh is killing probably prophets. There's a tradition that he killed Isaiah the prophet by sawing him in a log. There's traditions of him killing all kinds of righteous people, and he killed all kinds of people who were not deserving of this. Yet God knew, and God saw them. And yet, if you notice the rest of this passage, we're almost done with this point. There is, like every other king, Manasseh dead and buried, verse 17. The rest of his acts, how he did his sins he committed, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the king of Judah? So Manasseh rested with his fathers, was buried in the garden of his own house, the garden of Uzzah. This place he was buried was unique. He's buried in the garden of his house, the garden here of Uzzah, and it's likely that the author here of 2 Kings is pointing this out for a specific reason, because Uzzah, the name is not the same man here, spelled slightly different, but he was a man in the book of 2 Samuel. Remember this man, Uzzah? And Uzzah reached out and touched the ark, and what happened to him? God took his life from him because he dared to profane that which was holy. And what had Manasseh done his entire life but profane that which was holy? And so it's fitting that Uzzah is there buried, or he's buried there in the garden of Uzzah. The last point, simply and short, is that he corrupted those who followed him. Manasseh's reign of wickedness did not stop with his behavior. It was picked up by his son. Ironically, Ammon, his son, his name means faithful. And he's anything but faithful. It was he like father, like son. Verse 19, Ammon was 22 years old when he became king. He reigned two years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Mahushameth. I think that's right. Meshulameth, there we go. The daughter of Heruz of Jothbath. He did evil in the sight of the Lord as his father Manasseh had done. He walked in all the ways that his father had walked. He served the idols his father had served. and worshiped them. He forsook the Lord God of his fathers, did not walk according to the Lord." Nothing changed. Ammon reigned just like his father reigned, and finally the people had enough. There seems to be some kind of palace coup against Ammon. If you look with me in verse 23, it says, the servants of Ammon conspired against him, killed the king in his own house, and then the people of the land, you'll notice verse 24, executed all those who had conspired against King Ammon, and the people of the land made his son Josiah king in his place." They executed those who conspired against the king, they sent Josiah as king in his place, and the last verse, it says that the rest of his acts are not written in the books of the Chronicles. I want to conclude with a couple of thoughts here as we close. First, think about the influence a leader can have over a group of people. This became really clear to me that God places a lot of the blame for the people, and they're falling away on the shoulders of this king. It was because of him, the Bible says, that they fell. It's because of his wickedness that the whole nation was led astray. There's a warning for leaders in the New Testament. It's in James chapter 3. He says this, my brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing we shall receive the stricter judgment. There is a stricter judgment laid upon the head of those in leadership. And if you're leading, you need to take very seriously what your behaviors, how your behaviors will impact those whom you serve. Manasseh's behavior is a terrible example of this, but you'll notice that God says, there's a warning. Secondly, the title of the message was turning from the truth, and we notice that you need to watch your heart. This is a familiar verse, Proverbs 4.23, keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it for the issues of life. The problem with Manasseh was his heart was drawn to the wickedness of the world. You need to watch what you love. Be warned where your heart is drawn. But there is always potential for change, and this is some hope here at the end. If you'll look on the back of your bulletin, you'll notice a Scripture reading. There is a passage of Scripture, the reason I put that there, look at verse 18. Micah 7, 18 says this, if you look on the back of your bulletin, we read it this morning. Micah 7, 18 says, who is a God like you? Notice how he describes God. Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity, passing over the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He does not retain his anger forever, for he delights in mercy. Let me just give you a little bit of hope. No matter how deep your sin, no matter how far you have turned from truth, God is there willing to forgive. And what we find is that God is there ready to chasten as well. Could you turn with me to 2 Chronicles chapter 33? Just a minute and we're done. 2 Chronicles chapter 33. Could you turn? There's just a couple books over. I want you to look at this because this shows you a side of the story that we're not told in 2 Kings. Some of you may have discussed this in Sunday school. Some of you may know this. In 2 Kings, it's very much focused on his negative traits and all the bad things that happen. But in 2 Chronicles, there's an account that gives us a peek into how God worked to chasten Manasseh for his disobedience. 2 Chronicles 33, starting in verse 10, says, the Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they would not listen. So remember, God's Word came into a dark place. And right in there, we have them hearing but not listening. What happens then? Verse 11. The Lord brought upon them the captains of the army of the king of Assyria who took Manasseh with hooks, bound him in bronze fetters and carried him off to Babylon. They take Manasseh away. and they take him in exile in Babylon. And how would he respond? Look at verse 12. It says that when he was in affliction, Manasseh implored the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the Lord God of his fathers. He prayed to him, he received his entreaty, he heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God. What an amazing, amazing event. that God chastened Manasseh, and Manasseh actually responded by saying, Lord, please forgive me, please restore me, and please bring me back. And there's actually some change that happens. Verse 14, he built a wall outside the city of David on the west side of Gihon in the valley. And he put military captains in the fortified cities of Judah. Verse 15, he took away the foreign gods and the idols from the house of the Lord and all the altars he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. He cast them out of the city. Verse 16, he repaired the altar of the Lord. He sacrificed peace offerings and thank offerings on it. He commanded Judah to serve God of Israel. Nevertheless, the people still sacrificed in the high places, but only to the Lord, their God. The sad thing about him was that his repentance did not last long. He did repent, he did change, but God eventually removed him from the kingdom. His son took his place, and once his son took his place, I want you to remember one other prophecy that had happened earlier. When we first started this series, way back in 1 Kings chapter 13, there was a prophecy. A prophecy given because as soon as the people started worshiping at this false idol, or worshiping at this false altar, I should say. We see a name at the end of 2 Kings that we've been waiting for this whole time. If you go back to 1 Kings 13. This is a bad altar. Notice. O altar, altar, thus says the Lord, behold, a child…" What's the name? "...Josiah by name shall be born to the house of David. On you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and men's bones shall be burned on you." God says, there is a son coming, and this Josiah would come, and He names him Josiah, and He will come and He will destroy this altar, He will desecrate this altar. And as we come to the end of 2 Kings 21, when you read it, It says in verse 24, the people of the land executed all those who had conspired against King Ammon, and the people of the land made his son Josiah king in his place. Josiah is going to reign, and Josiah is going to discover God's Word, God's written Word. And as the people rebelled against the wickedness of Manasseh and the wickedness of Ammon and stalled this new king, there is always hope, there is always hope as long as those who are confronted with God's Word are willing to change. So my question to you today is this, do you notice when your heart is pulled away from truth? Do you notice when you're on this path towards danger and can you instead say, Lord, forgive me for this, turn me back to you, turn me back to truth, turn me back to following Jesus. I must set my eyes on Christ instead of on the world around me and avoid the danger of falling into turning away from the truth. Would you bow with me in prayer? Father, we ask today that you work in our hearts. We know it's so easy to fall away from truth and to embrace those things which are detested by you, those abominable things, the things which we ought not to pursue. God, I pray you'd work in our hearts even this morning that we would make a rededication of our heart, that we would purpose in our hearts to say, Lord, I will follow you. I will go where you go. I will not allow my heart to pull me away from the truth. The songwriter once said, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love, here's my heart, take and seal it. And so we ask the same thing, Lord. Let us give our hearts to you, for out of our hearts flow the issues of life. And we're thankful for the hope that we have through Christ. We're thankful for the hope that we have in him, that no matter how far we go, you are there ready to forgive. You are a merciful and gracious God. So if there's someone here today, Lord, who needs to turn back to you, I pray that they would stop this slide away from you and turn back to you, embrace you, knowing you're forgiving God and loving God. You may have chastened them like you chastened Manasseh, but there's hope for someone who would turn back to you. Father, as we come before you now, we've seen the disaster of bad leadership here with Manasseh. I pray that we would take heed, take warning, but also embrace the good, good mercy of Christ. Every head bowed and every eye closed, I'm gonna just let you have some time to deal with the Lord here and ask him to give you the grace to make the decision you need to make. If you see your heart pulling away from God, say, Lord, forgive me and help me to embrace you and call upon you and be faithful to you, Lord, and follow Jesus Christ and be a true disciple of him this day. I'm gonna ask the pianist to begin to play as we deal with God now, would you please? I mentioned earlier that each one of us has the opportunity to be, to receive the free gift of salvation. That's a promise that's unconditional. We trust Christ. He will forgive you and give you eternal life. And if you've never had the experience of trusting Jesus alone for salvation, we'd love to get with you and share with you the good news of Christ. You can have a knowledge of eternal life that you have a hundred percent knowledge that you're going to go to heaven with, be with Christ forever. You can have that today. If you don't know that you're on your way to heaven, we'd love to talk to you. But secondly, if you know you're on your way to heaven, but you've been walking in disobedience to Him, maybe now's the time to repent.