Gain from the Pain

 Read 2 Chronicles 33. 

After some 29 years of wonderful and godly leadership from Hezekiah, his son Manasseh became Judah's next king.  Manasseh systematically reversed the spiritual reforms of his father.    He turned from worshiping the LORD to installing every false and evil way. 

1. He not only built altars to the Baals but also to the fertility goddess, Asherah.  When people turn to false worship, moral values are soon lost.

2. He built altars to the "host of heaven".  Astrology and worship of the movement of stars and planets has always been condemned by God as evil (Deuteronomy 4:19).  It is a system that looks to the creation for life guidance rather than the Creator.

3. He led the nation into human sacrifices, including his own sons.

4. He used fortune-telling, omens, sorcery, mediums, and wizards.  These are not amusements for video games, role playing, fantasies of escape, and advice seeking.  They are in fact satanic and rooted in everything that is against the God of heaven.

5. He even carved an idol and set it up as a god.  A piece of inanimate wood that he fashioned became something to which he bowed and paid homage. 

All of these actions resulted in God's anger and judgment.  The Assyrians humiliated him and took him captive.  He lost everything. 

"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" (v.12).  God heard his prayer.  "Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God" (v.13b).  The personal and national restoration began. 

It took the pain of loss and distress to turn his heart from going his own way to surrendering to God's way.  Isaiah described this behavior as true of everyone and the reason the Messiah died on the cross.  "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:6) 

Restoration begins when a person turns from their sin to embrace God's forgiveness.