Let me ask you to turn in the back of your hymnals to page 928. This evening, our confessional lesson comes from the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 15, Repentance Unto Life. 928, chapter 15 of Repentance Unto Life. I'm gonna read the first four paragraphs. Repentance unto life is an evangelical grace. The doctrine whereof is to be preached by every minister of the gospel, as well as that of faith in Christ. By it, a sinner out of the sight and sense not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness of his sins as contrary to the holy nature and righteous law of God, and upon the apprehension of his mercy in Christ to such as are penitent, so grieves for and hates his sin, as to turn them all unto God, purposing and endeavoring to walk with him in all the ways of his commandments. Although repentance be not be rested in as any satisfaction for sin or any cause of the pardon thereof, which is the act of God's free grace in Christ, yet it is of such necessity to all sinners that none may expect pardon without it. And there is no sin so small, but it deserves damnation. So there's no sin so great that it can bring damnation upon those who truly repent. In a wonderful article that J.I. Packer wrote for Table Talk Magazine, he said, if 10 years ago, You had told me that I would live to see literate evangelicals, some with doctorates and a seminary teaching record, arguing for the reality of an eternal salvation divinely guaranteed that may happen at no repentance, no discipleship, no behavioral change, no practical acknowledgement of Christ as Lord of one's life, and no perseverance in faith. I would have told you that you were out of your mind. Stark, staring bonkers is the British phrase I would probably have used. Yet, now, this very thing has happened. Packer actually wrote that article for Table Talk magazine back in 1981. Things haven't really improved. While our confession rightly reminds us that repentance is an evangelical grace, It's largely an invisible grace for many evangelicals. Obviously, there are exceptions, but language like sin and repentance are often avoided. It's more fashionable to call sin brokenness and repentance, simple sorrow. In doing so, they soften and smooth over what are distinct and important gospel categories. Listen again to some of the language of paragraph two. By repentance, a sinner, out of the sight and sense not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness of his sin, as contrary to the holy nature and righteous law of God, and upon the apprehension of his mercy in Christ, grieves for, hates his sin, and turns from them all unto God. See, that's a much better understanding of sin and repentance, and it's a far cry from terms like broken and sorry. And here's the thing, a gospel proclaimed with no repentance is really no gospel at all. You see, faith and repentance are both sovereign graces from God. Both are the fruit and outcome of God regenerating a believer. A person who's been born again will turn to Christ by faith and that same person will turn from sin. That's repentance. So faith enables us to rightly see Christ and by faith to receive and rest in Him Repentance is rightly seeing ourselves and our sin and fleeing from it. And biblically, you can't have one without the other. Faith says, I see Christ and He's beautiful and I want Him and I want eternal life with Him. Repentance says, I see the ugliness of my sin. I see what my fallen nature has produced. And now God helped me to run from that, to turn from it. But please do get this. Where God grants the gift of faith, he also grants the gift of repentance. I know I've shared this before, but I love how old A.W. Pink puts these two together in a very pithy way. He writes, repentance is the hand releasing those filthy objects it had previously clung to so tenaciously. Faith is extending an empty hand to God to receive his gift of grace. Repentance is a godly sorrow for sin. Faith is receiving a sinner's savior. Repentance is a revulsion of the filth and pollution of sin. Faith is a seeking of cleansing therefrom. Repentance is a sinner covering his mouth and crying, unclean, unclean. Faith is the leper coming to Christ and saying, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. The two hang together. And then, of course, paragraph four that we read gives us the joy and hope of the gospel and the wonder we have in true and genuine repentance. As there's no sin so small, but it deserves damnation, so there's no sin so great that it can bring damnation upon those who truly repent. That's why it's repentance unto life, dear ones. And that's what makes the good news so good. There's no sin so great that it can bring damnation upon those who truly repent. Well, as you know, I typically try to connect the confessional lesson to the evening sermon, and this evening, I'm going to do it in a slightly different way, but you'll just have to wait for that. For now, let's continue praising the Lord. We're going to stand to sing a 51C. It's a great psalm of repentance, 51C. Well, brothers and sisters, let me ask you to open up your copy of Scripture to 2 Kings 21. 2 Kings 21, we'll read this entire chapter, verses one through 26. 2 Kings 21, beginning in verse one, this is the infallible word of the living God. Manasseh was 12 years old when he became king, and 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. For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah, his father, had destroyed. He raised up altars for Baal and made a wooden image, as Ahab, king of Israel, had done. and he worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. He also built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, in Jerusalem, I'll put my name. And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. Also, he made his son pass through the fire, practiced soothsaying, used witchcraft, and consulted spiritists and mediums. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. He even set a carved image of Asherah that he had made and the house of which the Lord had said to David and to Solomon his son, in this house and in Jerusalem, which I've chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever and I'll not make the feet of Israel wander anymore from the land which I gave their fathers, only if they're careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them. But they paid no attention, and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel. And the Lord spoke by his servants, the prophets, saying, because Manasseh, king of Judah, has done these abominations, he acted more wickedly than all the Amorites who were before him, and has also made Judah sin with his idols. Therefore, thus says the Lord God of Israel, behold, I'm bringing such calamity upon Jerusalem and Judah Then whoever hears of it, both his ears will tingle. And I'll stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab. I'll wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. So I'll 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've done evil in my sight and have provoked me to anger since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day. Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another beside his sin by which he made you to sin and doing evil in the sight of the Lord. Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, all that he did and the sin that he committed, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? So Manasseh rested with his fathers and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzzah. Then his son Ammon reigned in his place. Ammon was 22 years old when he became king and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Meshulameth, the daughter of Haruz of Jatbah. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord as his father Manasseh had done. So he walked in all the ways that his father had walked, and he served the idols that his father had served, and he worshiped them. He forsook the Lord God of his father and did not walk in the way of the Lord. Then the servants of Ammon conspired against him and killed the king in his own house. But the people of the land executed all those who had conspired against King Ammon. Then the people of the land made his son Josiah king in his place. Now the rest of the acts of Ammon, which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And he was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzzah. Then Josiah, his son, reigned in his place. While the grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of God endures forever. Dearest congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, you'll recall that we spent several Lord's Days considering the reign of Hezekiah. Regarding worship, he was one of the great reformers of Judah. And while he succumbed to pride at the end of his reign, He was a godly king who accomplished many noteworthy things for God's people. But ultimately, he went the way of all the earth. He died. And the last verse of chapter 20 tells us that Manasseh, his son, reigned in his place. And try to take this perspective for just a moment. If we were reading this for the first time, the question that would likely be in our minds is, what kind of king Will Manasseh be? Will he further the reformation of his father? Will he lead Judah and the people of Judah into greater obedience and faithfulness to Yahweh? I mean, with a father like Hezekiah, we might have expected stupendous accomplishments. But those expectations are actually dashed, aren't they? As soon as you start to read chapter 21, there's really nothing about Manasseh's reign that's stupendous. A better word to describe his reign is scandalous. Idolatry, blasphemy, immorality. These things are not merely present under his reign. They're scandalously omnipresent in Jerusalem, in Judah. He was only 12 when he became king, and he reigned for 55 years. Scholars who labor over chronology and dates say it was likely that at least 10 of those years he was co-regent with his father. But this is the longest reign of any king. in Israel's history. Now, when Manasseh's reign is over, along with the two-year reign of his son Ammon, Judah will be on an irreversible path of apostasy. It's scandalous. Well, verse 10 begins with a curt statement, he did evil. in the sight of the Lord." Now, this is actually a regular refrain for a northern king, for a king of Israel. In fact, it's used more than 20 times to describe northern kings. But up to this point, it's astonishing to hear that language describe a king of Judah. I mean, even as evil and wicked as his grandfather Ahaz had been, here's how he was described in 2 Kings 16.2. He did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord, his God, as his father David had. That's typically the way southern kingdoms were denounced and condemned. They didn't continue to do and act according to what was right. But Manasseh's not even given that language. Because from the narrator's perspective, he had no rightness in him. There's simply no way to compare him to David. In fact, what he's compared to are the abominable nations that the Lord had driven out of the promised land. This was a man who intended, under his long reign, to turn Judah into pagan central. It seems as though if some Yahweh-hating pagan could think up a false religion, Manasseh was convinced it ought to be represented in Judah. And let me make an observation here. Wherever true religion is absent, or true religion is nudged out of the public square, It will never ultimately be replaced with pure secularism. It will always be replaced with either an organized false religion or some kind of paganism. And that's because man is a religious animal and he will worship something. And listen, Satan loves false religions and paganism. He loves to support them because he delights to leverage any and all opportunity to oppose God and his Christ. That's what's happening in our own nation. Don't let anyone tell you America is becoming irreligious. It is not. What's happening is it's returning to various forms of paganism. In 2020, Pew Research said that about a little more than 30% of Americans describe themselves as nuns. That is folks who have no religious affiliation. And they also said from 2016 to 2020, sales of tarot cards and Ouija boards doubled and tripled. respectively. That's just a little hint for what's happening. As true religion is pushed out, secularism doesn't take its place. Paganism takes its place. I recently read an article in USA Today entitled, We're in the Middle of a Witch Moment. Hip witchcraft is on the rise in the US. In it, the author writes, no longer considered wicked, witches are hip. And then she goes on to state some facts. Wicca is among the fastest growing and largest pagan groups in America that practices witchcraft. The number of Americans who identify with Wicca or paganism has risen from 134,000 in 2001 to nearly 2 million today. So think about that. 134,000 to 2 million and a bit more. than 20 years. And the author's convinced that Gen Z will usher in an era where there's a delight and acceptance in paganism. And listen, dear ones, the climate religion, the perversion of human sexuality, even the countless child sacrifices that are made at temples that are called abortion clinics, they're all practices that ultimately arise out of paganism. Let me tell you why I mention this. We're getting ready to categorize some of the idolatry and wickedness that begins in verse 3. And it would be very easy to think, man, those folks in antiquity, they sure had some weird and barbaric ideas and practices. And I just don't want us to look back at them with hubris without realizing that folks in our own day have some weird and barbaric ideas. and practices. Well, buckle up, because we're going to go down a stroll of pagan lane. The first thing we're told about Manasseh's pagan revival is that he rebuilt the high places that his father had destroyed. Now, high places were basically elevated spots scattered around the topography of the land where there would be stones and pillars, and people could sort of engage in spontaneous pagan worship. Manasseh wanted to make sure they're back in place. That was one of the unique things that his father had done. No other southern king had actually removed all the high places. His father, Hezekiah, had. That's one of the things that made him such a remarkable king. So what does he do? Puts them back. Then we're told he raises up altars for Baal, and he made a wooden image. And wooden image, as it's called there in the New King James, is actually an Asherah pole. And again, he's doing just what King Ahab did. Now, we talked about Baal and Asherah several times over the last couple years, but let me mention a couple things. You'll remember Baal was a storm god, and really the preeminent Canaanite God. Asherah was a female Canaanite deity. She was the goddess of the sea, and she was Baal's consort. Because you know, gods always need a girlfriend. And when Baal and Asherah made love, This is their religion. When Baal and Asherah made love, it resulted in rain and the coming of spring, and of course, that represented the emergence of life. And so here's what we need to keep in mind. In the temples of Baal and Asherah, worshipers would go, and you know what they would do? They would reenact what Baal and Asherah would do, which is why there were always cult prostitutes. at the Temple of Baal, right? So Joe, worshiper, he strolls off to the Baal, Asherah Temple to have sex with a cult prostitute so that it will inspire his gods to do the same and provide spring and life and rain and those kind of things. It's the kind of gross, perverse, demonic, anti-sacrament in Manasseh. reinstitutes that in Judah. Then we're told he worshiped all the hosts of heaven. This is what's known as astral worship. It's basically venerating stars and planets and moon and anything you'd see in the night sky. And he put altars to worship these heavenly bodies in the outer courts of the temple. So again, he's bringing paganism into the temple of the Lord. And of course, no villainous king could avoid the pull to engage in a bit of child sacrifice. But verse 6 tells us Manasseh was a true believer because he even caused his own son to pass through the fire. How hard and cold does your heart have to be to do that? Scandalous. And then there's this matter, he was a practicing, he practiced susang, he used witchcraft, he consulted spiritists and mediums. This means he was trying his hand at a bit of black magic. He really wanted to communicate with the dead. And then look there at verses seven and eight. He even said a carved image of Asherah that he had made, in the house of which the Lord had said to David and Solomon his son, in this house and in Jerusalem, which I've chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I'll put my name forever and I'll not make the feet of Israel wander anymore from the land which I gave their fathers, only if they're careful to do according to all that I've commanded them and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded him. This is really perhaps at this point, one of the most stunning evils. Manasseh apparently thought Yahweh needed a girlfriend, so he put an Asherah in the sacred place, a consort, a consort for the living God. in the place that was God's special presence with His people. In the temple, the place that was a reminder that He was their covenant God. The place where He put His name so that He could be associated intimately with His people. And there, Manasseh provided Yahweh a pagan consort. Scandalous, isn't it? And the Judeans thought so little of the grace that Yahweh had shown them that they apparently were willing to scoot right up to Manasseh's all-you-can-worship pagan buffet to feast on it. In the end, They're guilty of more wickedness than the pagan nations that had previously been in the land. What a thing to say. It's interesting, I think, that the name Manasseh means the one who makes me forget, or it could simply mean forgetful. You may remember when Joseph was in Egypt. He named his firstborn son Manasseh because his new son helped him forget the horrible way his brothers had treated him. It's really difficult for us to know exactly why Hezekiah gave his son the name Manasseh. It may be because his birth helped him forget that the Lord had only given him 15 years to live, and those 15 years were ticking down. We can't know for certain because the Bible doesn't tell us, but as one writer put it, He definitely became the king of forgetfulness. Later in 2 Kings 23 and 2 Kings 24, And Jeremiah 15, as Judah is prepared to be carried off into Babylonian captivity, will be told repeatedly, one of the main reasons given for their exile is Manasseh. And in those instances, Manasseh's name serves to remind the people that they're condemned because of their forgetfulness. They forgot the goodness and mercy and deliverance of Yahweh, and they followed the king of forgetfulness. Well, there's one final bit of Manasseh's depravity that we don't want to miss. It's recorded there in verse 16. It says, he spread much innocent blood. This likely means he was completely unjust in the way he administered his government. He wasn't at all concerned with any biblical justice. If someone got in his way, if someone challenged his authority, it didn't really matter if they had committed an actual crime. Manasseh would have them executed until Jerusalem was basically a bloodbath. Scandalous. It's worth pointing out. Many scholars believe the reason Manasseh was dabbling in so many different forms of idolatry and paganism. What was the hope that he'd have power to stand against the Assyrians and perhaps even the Babylonians, who we've learned in recent weeks were emerging as a superpower on the world stage? it suggested that what he was doing with all these various iterations of paganism was sort of like the idolatrous equivalent of throwing spaghetti on the wall, just hoping some of it will stick. Either way, the Lord is not impressed with Manasseh's religious pluralism, his blasphemies, and certainly not his bloodlust. Beginning in verse 10, the Lord sends his servant, the prophets, to announce judgment. We don't know who these prophets were. There were schools of prophets often in Israel's history. All we know about this particular group is that they were God's mouthpiece. It's worth pointing out that there in verse 11, it says that Manasseh's abominations are more than those done by the Amorites. That's actually the same language that was used to describe King Ahab. And you may remember just how immoral and idolatrous he was. And the image, the imagery used to describe The pending judgment of Judah is terrifying. It's almost slightly understated in such a way to make it more terrifying. The judgment that's about to come on Judah and Jerusalem, when people hear about it, it'll simply cause both of their ears to tingle. He says he's going to stretch a plumb line over Jerusalem. And the picture here is the Lord's going to use that to judge Jerusalem with the same exacting standard he used to judge Samaria. And, of course, they're going to receive the same terrifying punishment. He says, I'll wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. Imagine you're doing dishes, the dish or bowl is wiped clean, you flip it over to show there's not a drop or lick or anything in it. This is an imagery of the totality of judgment. And you see, if all this graphic imagery isn't clear enough, verses 14 and 15 spill it out. So 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've done evil in my sight, and they've provoked me to anger since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day. Up to this point, we might think this judgment is coming solely because of Manasseh's wickedness, right? To borrow a cheeky line from Dr. Davis, we might be inclined to think the prophets were teaching a doctrine of condemnation by Manasseh alone. But we find that's not the case. The entire national history from the time God had brought his people out of Egyptian bondage, has been one where they, by and large, squandered and trampled on their covenant privileges. They've abused God's bountiful provisions. They've presumed upon God's amazing grace. And God's patience has reached its tipping point. And the scandal of Manasseh's depraved reign pushes it over. We know that because even after godly Josiah's reign, Judah's captivity is coming. We learned last week, this was first announced, after the Babylonian envoy came to Jerusalem and Hezekiah showed them around and bragged about it, and the prophecy of judgment was given. But there seems to have been the possibility of repentance that's no longer a possibility. Turn forward just a page or so in your Bible to 2 Kings 23.25. I want to start reading at 2 Kings 23.25 because I want us to get an appraisal of Josiah's reign. This is really helpful to see. Verse 25, now, before him, there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his might. According to the law of Moses, nor after him did any arise like him. So Josiah is actually going to usher in reformation and revival in ways that eclipse what even Hezekiah accomplished. But now look at verse 26. Nevertheless, The Lord did not return from the fierceness of his great wrath with which his anger was aroused against Judah because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him. There's no turning back. I can borrow from Dr. Reich and he says, a simple lesson to draw from these prophecies of judgment is that no nation, however well favored, can expect to get away with unrighteousness forever. God's patient, but he's not blind. He keeps a strict record of wrongs. In the case of Judah, he remembered the tribe's misdeeds going all the way back to Egypt as a result of their idolatry and apostasy. They're about to be plundered by their enemies. Well, Manasseh receives his obituary statement there in verses 17 and 18. It again highlights that his reign was scandalous. And some 55, 56 years after his death, Jerusalem will be sacked and Judah will be carried off into captivity. But Manasseh has a son. His name is Ammon. He replaces his father. He only reigns two years. It becomes clear Ammon was a chip off the old scandalous block. We're told he did evil in the sight of the Lord as his father Manasseh had done. And it's interesting because what's happening now in Judah, the political instability of a reign that only lasts two years, what we see is a pattern that typically you would find in the northern kingdoms. After two years, the servants of Ammon, they conspired against him. They put the king to death in his own house. But apparently, Ammon did have some friends, or he was in some way popular because the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against him, and they made Josiah, his son, king in his place. That's the one glimmer of hope in this passage. The covenant God made with David is going to advance, and there will be a godly king on the horizon. Well, like his father, Ammon is laid to rest in the peaceful surroundings of his own garden, But the reign of Ammon offered God's people no peace at all. Scandalous, isn't it? The immorality, the paganism, right in Jerusalem, and not just in Jerusalem, right in the temple. Oh, we see this all around us today, too. I was just listening to a sermon A woman preached in PCUSA stating unequivocally that God is radically pro-choice. She's doing that in a church. Of course, I would argue it's a church that no longer has a lamp stand, but it still happens today. We look at Manasseh. And it's scandalous. And I want us to think about what we learned in our confessional lesson. There's no sin so small, but it deserves damnation. What does Manasseh deserve after such a scandalous immoral, idolatrous, blasphemous life. There's actually a bigger scandal than that in the Hezekiah story. There's the breathtaking scandal of God's grace. Turn with me to 2 Chronicles 33. 2 Chronicles 33. The first nine verses of this chapter basically give a summary of many of the things we just discussed. But there's something that happens in verse 10 that Kings doesn't tell us about, and I want us to see it. 2 Chronicles 33, beginning in verse 10. The Lord spoke to Manasseh his people, but they would not listen. Therefore the Lord brought upon the captains of the army of the king of Assyria who took Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze fetters and carried him off to Babylon. Now when he was in affliction, he implored the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. And he prayed to him and he received his entreaty heard his supplication, brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom, then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God. This probably offends you, doesn't it? Because Manasseh doesn't deserve that. But you see, that's the scandal of grace, right? There's no sin so small that it deserves damnation, but there's no sin so great that it can bring damnation upon those truly repent. Manasseh is perhaps the greatest example of that in the Bible. His life was scandalous. God's grace to redeem him and bring him to repentance is the greater scandal. It's the scandal of grace. Amen. I'll give you a moment to ask any questions or comments. Well, I was sitting here hoping to get in the car and not sit here. But nevertheless, The Bible's still clear. Even though Manasseh at the end repented, Judah was still destroyed. Yes, yes. Yes, I believe the Lord saved Manasseh, but it had nothing to do with the outcome of Judah's judgment, for sure. I should have made that clear. That's an important point. You did. I was just reiterating that. You know, it's something I've said before. There's a principle behind that, right? God is merciful. But he doesn't promise to reverse horrific decisions. And in this case, it's a really bad judgment coming. I could say 55, 56 years after Manasseh's death. Any other comments or questions? You mentioned that Josiah was very godly. There was none that were like him. And yet, nevertheless, God was still going to judge Israel. I wonder if it's because I'm thinking about the promise that God made, that if my people will humble themselves and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways. So maybe, could it be that Josiah turned to the Lord, but maybe the people were still scandalous, why God went ahead and continued to judge them, even though Josiah didn't repent. I don't know if you guys could hear what Brother Jeff was saying. And tell me, I'm going to make sure I heard it. Basically, I think what he was saying is Josiah is a godly king. He's without question, I believe, even more godly than Hezekiah. And we'll see that in a couple of weeks as we spend some time studying his reign. But I think what you said is, but perhaps the nation wasn't. Yeah, you get into a couple different theological dynamics. One is covenantal, right? He is representative of the people. So there's a sense in which they're hidden in their kingly mediator. So his righteousness should have communicated that to him, but I suspect part of it is just as you say, you know. The point is, one of the frightening things to know is that there is a place where God's mercy is exhausted. Whereas patience runs out, and there's no longer a place for repentance. I mean, that's the teaching of Hebrews 6. That's what makes that such a bracing passage, that there can come to a place where you're beyond repentance. Again, I don't know where that is. Only God knows where that is. But it's still a bracing reality. That's what happened to Judah. So again, It really was irrespective, like you say, of what Josiah was going to do. And did you notice, I tried to highlight this. This isn't just based on what they've done even since they've had a king. It's been an accumulation of things that have been building up from the time they left Egypt. You see, we might have been going along as we're reading the Bible and think, boy, God seems to have forgotten that. God seems to have forgotten what happened in the wilderness. No, he didn't forget it. And forget it, so. Any other? As part of Hezekiah, or Manasseh's repentance, he tore down all the things. He restored. Versus tell what he did in his repentance. It wasn't just, I'm sorry, God. I didn't read those. What Beth is saying is really helpful. If you look, his repentance resulted in a transformed life. He started tearing down the things he put up, yeah. Again, we can praise God for that grace. This brings to mind, at least in my mind, the question you'll sometimes get. with people who are, by and large, opponents of Christianity, they'll say something to the effect of, so you're saying that Hitler could have lived an entire horrendous life. He could have killed six million Jews, been responsible for maybe 20 or 30 million deaths, you know, all around the, you know, the world. And if he repents and turns to Jesus, he's going to heaven. When people say that sort of thing, what they indicate is they don't understand our sin. They don't understand. I know this sounds like a weird thing to say, but I heard this illustration once and it helps explain it. God is holy, we're not, right? When I was young, I probably had, I don't know, a vertical jump maybe that high. Now, I just fall over, I can't jump. So it's gone. You know, you get a young athletic basketball player, they may have a three and a half, four foot vertical jump. But if holiness is the moon, we're all that far from it. So at the end of the day, if I can jump an inch and you can jump four foot, we're still never getting to the moon. That's the righteous standard, right? And I think you see that with Hezekiah. And one of the reasons I find this comforting is because it tells us God can save the worst. He's that powerful and that gracious. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's about right. You can certainly correct me if I'm wrong, but there were certainly faithful people in Judah that were captured and taken to Babylon. I think by the rivers of Babylon, we mourn. And then, of course, they go back and rebuild the temple. Sure. You're going to have Daniel, his friends, Ezekiel. You're going to have the prophet Jeremiah. And there are faithful. To be sure, there are faithful people who are going to be carried off in three different ways of exile. By the way, there's something else I thought about, and this will resonate with Todd and Beth and Paul, when we were in Israel a few years back, was that 2019? Yeah, 2019 or 2020? 2020. We went to Arad. That's a southern desert area south of Jerusalem. And there was a place where probably during this time frame or within 100 years of this time frame, they had They had built a mock temple to mimic and pattern the temple in Jerusalem. And when we were there, I don't know if you remember, but in that, by the way, that mock temple, that was a blasphemy, right? Because the only place the temple could be was in Jerusalem. So it was a blasphemy up front. But one of the things that was unique about that temple is that there were two stones in it, one indicating Yahweh, one indicating Asherah. in Iraq. So again, it was amazing to see that and to see how that kind of influence had corrupted Judah. Yeah. Anything else? Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. We're thankful, O God, for one of the One of the principles behind this passage that as great and as scandalous as our sin can be, your grace is greater yet. We see that in Manasseh. Help us to rest in the assurance of your grace to save sinners like us and use it to comfort us as we go from here this evening. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Well, let me ask you to stand, brothers and sisters, to receive the Lord's benediction. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. And all of God's people said, amen.