Sermons on Biblical Characters

by Clovis Gillham Chappell

Had a jury at that day been impanelled to try this man Manasseh I do not know whether they would have found him guilty or not. Possibly they would. It is also possible that they would not. Had they failed to have done so it would have been because they did not know the facts; they were not entirely familiar with all the evidence in the case. But when God sought the man upon whose shoulders rested the chief responsibility for the wreck of the nation, He fixed on this man. When Manasseh stood on trial before Him, charged with the terrible crime of blasting a kingdom, he was found guilty.

It was a startling verdict. It is all the more startling when we realize that Manasseh in the last years of his life was a good man. It was only his earlier years that were spent in sin. In his old age he was a saint. In the last years of his reign he knew God and did all that he could to undo the evils of an ill-spent yesterday. But in spite of the saintliness of the eventide, in spite of his winter-time goodness, the full influence of his life was not a blessing but a curse. It did not make for upbuilding. It made for terrible downfall and ruin.

Take a glance at his life's story. It is full of interest. Every young heart in the world should make a study of the life of this man. How it gives the lie to many of our false and easy conceptions of sin. How urgent it presses home the truth that the only salvation that can mean the most is the salvation that grips us from life's earliest moment to its very last.

Manasseh came to the throne when he was only twelve years of age. He had not been long in his position of influence and power till he turned utterly away from the Lord and began to wallow in every form of sin. There was no dirty idolatry that he did not practise. There was no false belief to which he did not seem willing to give hospitality. There was scarcely any form of evil of which he was not guilty.

And his career of godlessness was all the more inexcusable because of the good opportunities that he had. He was the son of a great and good father. His father was Hezekiah. And Hezekiah was one of the best kings that Judah ever had. He was a man of spiritual power. He was a man who served as saving salt to his kingdom throughout his entire reign. When the Assyrians hung like a threatening storm cloud over his weak little nation, it was the compelling might of his prayer that stood as a wall between them and their enemy. So, Manasseh was the son of a great saint.

And mark me, it is no small privilege to be the child of a godly father or of a saintly mother. If God granted to you to open your baby eyes to look into other eyes that were "homes of silent prayer," if He sent you to grow up in a home where the family altar and the saintly life made Christ real, then He has given you an opportunity unspeakably great. And as great as is your opportunity, just so great is your responsibility. How hard must be the sentence upon that boy or that girl who breaks away from such saving and sanctifying influences to go into the far country.

Not only was the guilt of Manasseh intensified by the fact that he had a saintly father. It was intensified further by the fact that he was repeatedly warned. Though he turned his back on God and though he gave himself up to a perfect orgy of wrong doing, God did not forget him and did not give him up. He sent to him messenger after messenger to bring home his guilt and to invite him back to the pardon and peace of his Father's presence. But seemingly the more he was warned the deeper he plunged into sin.

And you who are in sin, you are even more guilty than he, because to you God has sent warning after warning, rebuke after rebuke. God has given you calls and invitations without number. He has called you through your conscience. He has called you through your wretchedness and restlessness and hunger of heart. He has called you through your longing for usefulness. He has called you through your sorrow and your pain and your losses. He has called you through ten thousand mercies. Oh, believe me, our need to-night is not so much for more light as it is for courage to live up to the light we have.

Not only was Manasseh guilty because he sinned in spite of the help of a godly father and in spite of repeated warnings. His guilt was deepened yet more because he knew that he did not sin alone. When he went away from God he carried a kingdom with him. The reign of Hezekiah had been a righteous reign. With the coming of Manasseh to the throne there was a violent reaction, akin to that that followed upon the restoration of Charles II to the throne of England. You know how that when Charles came to the throne the court life was changed into a brothel. Charles lived in open and notorious adultery, and the rottenness of the throne led to the rottenness of the kingdom. Such was the case here. Manasseh not only fell but he drew a kingdom after him.

It is profoundly true that no man ever sins alone. Your influence will not be so wide as that of Manasseh, yet however obscure your life may be this is true, that it will set in motion influences that will literally outlast the world. I have control over my own action before it is done, but after it is done I seek to control it in vain. If it is a fiendish act it laughs its devilish and derisive laughter in my face and says, "Control me if you can."