Romans 2:1-4
The Goodness of God
Page 3
There
was a man in the Old Testament who was one of the most wicked
men to ever live. In
fact, I call him the Hitler of the Bible.
His name was Manasseh, and Manasseh did more evil and
more wicked than any king that had ever lived in Israel. And you read about him in 2 Chronicles, chapter
33. When he was 12
years old, he came to the throne and ruled for 55 years, most
of those years was hell on earth.
Tradition tells us that he killed Isaiah the prophet,
he sawed him in two. That's
what a sicko this guy was.
He had babies, his own babies, he would murder them
by offering them as an offering on the arms of a hot idol
where he would actually barbecue them to death in worship
to this god [Molech]. And
then he got everyone else in Israel [the southern kingdom
of Judah] to do this. He
took an image and took temple prostitutes and put them in
the temple of God, he put an image into the Holy of Holies
of God's temple. He
persecuted those who followed God.
God bore with him for many years.
God put up with him for a long time.
God is patient, God is longsuffering.
God is good. Finally, time was up for Manasseh. Verse 9 says, "Thus Manasseh misled Judah and
the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations
whom the Lord destroyed before the sons of Israel.
And the Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but
they paid no attention." So, verse 11, "Therefore the Lord brought the
commanders of the army of the king of Assyria against them,
and they captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with bronze
chains, and took him to Babylon."
And I say "good." I think a man like that ought to have a hook
put in his nose and let him be transported 500 miles with
a hook in his nose, pulled along by his nose.
A man that had murdered that many little babies, murdered
the prophets of God, destroyed the work of God and led a whole
nation astray, he deserves what he gets. That's what something inside of me says. But I just can't get over what God is. He's so much better than you are. He's so much better than anything we could have
ever dreamed up of God to be, because it says that when Manasseh
got there in the pit, he looked up.
Verse 12 says "that when he was in distress he entreated
the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God
of his fathers. When
he prayed to Him, He was moved by his entreaty and heard his
supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God."
You see, that fits in with my closing thought, that
verse 4 of Romans 2 says, "Don't you know that the goodness of God, the kindness of God, leads to
repentance?" Some
of you have got the hook in your nose right now, you didn't
listen to God earlier. Some of you are in the pit right now and you're
thinking 'There's no way I can call on God, I look at my past
life and what I've done, how could I call on God now?
He wouldn't accept me anyway.'
Some of you have done everything you can to destroy
the faith of somebody else, like Manasseh did.
And now you're saying, 'How could I possibly, after
devoting my life to being against Christianity, how could
I ever accept Christ now?' I'm sure all of those thoughts went through
Manasseh's mind. But
there in chains, there in darkness, he knew where to call.
'And he called upon the name of God' and listen, I
cannot describe it, I cannot explain it, and I can hardly
understand it, but God's grace is so great that he lifted
Manasseh up and restored him.
God can do that for you too.
There are Manasseh's listening to what I'm saying. And God can accept you, and will accept you,
and forgive you, and will give you a new beginning if you
will call to him. How
do I know? Because I was a Manasseh. Oh, maybe the things I did were a little bit
different from Manasseh's but there was a time in my life
when I was 17 years old, when because of a lot of different
circumstances I was pushed to the point where I lost my faith
in God. I didn't have
a personal relationship with Jesus.
Because of that, life was just too much to bear, and
one day I got so mad at God that I decided I'd never have
another thing to do with God as long as I lived.
One day in particular I'll never forget, and I've shared
this with some of you, and I don't do it to bore anybody.it
just fits in that it's the goodness of God that leads us to
repentance. One day
I remember I was so upset, I knew God hated me, so I hated
him, and I was going to hate him more than he hated me.
I was going to win him at this game, you know.
And I shook my fist at God and I called him every foul
name I knew, every dirty word I could think of.
I flung at him in heaven, smeared it on his face--"you
blankety blank God, I hate you." I was so blasphemous, lightning bolts should
have fallen down. After
I smeared this filth all over him I said, "I'm never gonna
have anything to do with you again as long as I live, unless
you tell me you love me." I mean, walk up to somebody, and tell him every
foul name you can and then tell him 'unless you tell me you
love me I'll never have anything to do with you as long as
I live' and he'll say, 'Good!
Good!, Never come back again!'
That's how (God) he should have responded.
You see, God was forbearing, God was good toward me.
God was patient to
me. And in the midst
of this cry and this command, I knew I wasn't going to have
anything to do with him if he didn't tell me he loved me.
I had this urge, this compulsion to find a Bible, and
the only Bible I could find was this Bible in this green box.
My mom had given it to me for Christmas, it's a Living
Bible. And it's called the Living Bible. And I just threw it open, it fell open to Leviticus,
a bunch of rules and regulations.
I threw the Bible across the room, [saying] 'Just like
you, rules and regulations nobody can live up to, I hate you.'
I don't know how much time went by, something compelled me to pick that book up. It's just I had to pick it up. I picked it up and threw it open again, and
it fell open to this page right here, because there underlined,
there's a Scripture underlined, I hadn't underlined it, my
eyes fell upon the only place in Scripture where God says
he loves you. I said,
"Unless you say to me, unless you tell me you love me, I'll
never have anything to do with you again as long as I live",
cursing and swearing, and this is what God said to me in reply,
"But now the Lord, who created you O Israel says, don't be
afraid for I have ransomed you, I have called you by name,
you're mine. When you
go through deep waters and great trouble I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty you
will not drown. When
you walk through the fire of oppression you will not be burned
up. The flames will not consume you, for I am the
Lord your God, your Savior the Holy One of Israel. Others died that you might live. I traded their lives for yours, because you
are precious to me and honored, and
I love you." Gang,
it's the only place in the Bible where God says "I love you."
That it would just fall open, when this little punk
on earth was shaking his dirty measly hand at God?--that God
would even respond. Why didn't he say "Good riddance!, Go to hell!"?
No, that isn't the way he is.
He didn't want me to have nothing to do with him for
the rest of my life, because you see, he loves me. And he loves some of you, today. Today, if you hear his voice speaking to you,
then don't get hard, don't say no, but instead today call
on his name."
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