Audio Recording:

As Hezekiah's son, Manasseh must have witnessed his father's wonderful life of relying on God. Unfortunately, not only did he not inherit Hezekiah's gene of faith, but he also did things that were more evil than the kings of Israel. There is no such thing as a princeling in the Kingdom of Heaven. Even if Manasseh had great spiritual leaders around him or personally witnessed the miracles of famous battles, he remained apathetic. How could a heart that worships idols understand the laws of the true God? Manasseh, too, would have to eat the bitter fruit of his own folly.

Questions for Reflection:

Why did Manasseh fall so deeply into the sin of idolatry? What is the attraction of idolatry to the flesh?

What is the difference between worshiping the true God and worshiping false gods?

In today's era, are there Christians like Manasseh? How do you keep yourself from walking the path of Manasseh?

Reading the Bible to Understand God's Will

God Will Judge the Wicked with Justice

When we read the Bible, we must read it to understand God's will. His will was to pronounce judgment through the prophets on Manasseh's abominable deeds:

Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down. And I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies; Because they have done that which was evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even unto this day. (2 Kings 21:13-15)

Do What Is Right in the Eyes of the Lord According to the Bible

I believe that reading history can make people wiser. Ancient emperors kept a copy of the Zizhi Tongjian or Records of the Grand Historian by their bedside. They read these books from a young age. When they were thrust onto the throne, they may have been very young, unable to wield power, but they knew that they were in great danger. Wise people learn from history, while foolish people taste all the misfortunes of the world and then die. This is very ignorant. Today, the Bible we read is written to us by God. The conclusion is: Frequently doing what is evil in the eyes of the Lord provokes His anger, and in the end, you will be handed over to your enemies and become their spoil. Wise people read this and steel themselves to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

Reasons Why People Often Fall into Corruption

It is difficult to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord, because doing according to God's word goes against our nature, but if we follow our nature, we will fall into corruption. Why did Manasseh fall into idolatry so easily? In fact, those who do what is evil in the eyes of the Lord are very clever, very clear about what they are doing, but why do they do such foolish things? Why did Manasseh think he was doing something clever when he was doing evil? What is the problem?

Our worship of the true God is bitter first, then sweet. The bitterness is resisting the carnal nature, and the sweetness is prosperity in all things. This is clearly seen in Hezekiah. But after Hezekiah died, Manasseh became king at the age of twelve. Although he was well aware of what had happened to his father, he deliberately forgot it. In fact, human memory is very short-lived, and it is easy to follow one's nature. Idolatry is sweet first, then bitter. Why do people worship idols? Because idolaters want the idol to listen to them.

Sometimes you will find that people, in order to achieve a certain goal, will tend towards idolatry, because I want that idol and that evil spirit to listen to me and do something for me. Don't think that you will get something sweet by doing this. In the beginning, the demons will listen to you, but later things will get out of control.

Learn to Obey God and Be Free

If a person worships the true God, he must obey God's will, not his own. If he does according to God's will, he will surely live prosperously. As Paul said, I discipline my body and keep it under control, because God's will is for you to be free, and the devil's will is for you to be controlled. God's will for you to be free is to do God's word.

Follow God's Word, Do Not Worship Idols

I want to show you that when we read historical books like Kings and Chronicles, you must be able to see how to do what is in accordance with God's will. Overcome your carnal lusts and desires according to God's will, and you will surely become a prosperous person, because God will be with you. God wants us to act justly, love mercy, and have a humble heart. A humble heart is realistic and sees things more practically.

Why be humble? Because you don't decide when you are born or when you die, and you don't decide what will happen tomorrow. You think you are great, but you can't solve anything that will happen tomorrow. So today we must follow God's will so that we can live well, because that is God's will.

I will tell you a story. The family next door to where I used to live used necromancy to do business. Every day their business was booming. Strangely, they couldn't cure any diseases, but still many people repeatedly lined up to see the doctor at their house. One of them was a brother in our group who had seen the doctor more than twenty times without being cured. Later, I learned that it was because they practiced necromancy at home. The demon would make people dizzy and they would come to line up. Although on the surface it looked like their business was booming, there were also unknown sufferings. Their life can be described as a bitter gourd life. We lived next door to them and often heard them howling like ghosts in the middle of the night. Then they would often invite a bunch of masters to perform rituals, giving them tens of thousands of dollars. After a while, they would invite another bunch of masters and give them tens of thousands of dollars. So we must know that necromancy and idolatry, although done according to your will - you want your business to prosper, you want to be king, you want to curse someone to death, you want to achieve certain goals - but the ultimate result is that you live a very painful life.

Today we must be careful. Why doesn't God let you love your parents more than you love God? Because if you love your parents more than you love God, that is where you are controlled. If you love your work more than you love God, your work will become a place of control, because the devil will attack that place. It will be very hard, very painful, and you will succumb. If you have nothing that you love more than God, and you love God alone, He will guide you on the right path.

The Difference Between the True God and False Gods

Humble Yourself and Turn to God, and Serve Him Alone

There is a clear difference between the true God and false gods, between worshiping idols. If you worship the true God, when you call upon God in times of distress, even if you have done many evil things in the past, but you decide to repent and turn to God, God will surely hear your cry. But if you call upon idols, even if you shout until your throat is hoarse, it will not work.

I will tell you a story. I want to emphasize this point I am making.

There was a girl who was a student of mine. During her graduation internship, she fell in love with a boy and fell into unrequited love. After this girl fell in love, she thought of a way: Could she use necromancy to solve this problem? Later, she found a master who gave her a curse and she kept chanting it. Later, her landlord told me that she hadn't left her house for two days and had been chanting this thing in the room. Then they heard her talking to another man in the room. I asked him if there was another person in the room. He said he didn't know, but he could hear two people talking. You can imagine how terrifying it is for one mouth to speak for two people! In fact, this symptom is demonic possession. The demon kept controlling her body. Once she stood in a pose at the subway station for hours. A passerby called the police and sent her to the police station. Later, the police contacted us from the contacts in her mobile phone and said she was sent to a mental hospital. We rushed to the mental hospital, prayed for the child, and drove out the demons.

A few days later, she came out of the mental hospital, but she was still thinking about the boy in her heart and felt that she hadn't used the right method last time and decided to try again. I advise you not to do things according to your own will, it is very dangerous! If you don't do it according to God's will, but according to your own will, you can easily be controlled by demons. She didn't listen to our advice and went to chant curses again and contacted those masters, and as a result, she was controlled by demons again. I personally sent her to the mental hospital the second time. At that time, her whole body was stiff. The next day I went to the mental hospital to see her and she rolled her eyes back, just like a madman on the street.

I said to her at the time: I know you can understand what I am saying. You can still call on Jesus at this time. No matter when you call on Jesus to save me, you will be released, it depends on your own choice. You can try to call out the names of all the famous masters in the world and see who can save you. If no one can save you, don't forget to shout Jesus save me at the end! I turned around and left the mental hospital.

As a result, she returned to normal the next day and was no longer the terrifying madman. She said she knew I had come to see her yesterday and she knew what I had said to her. Later, she did what I told her to do. It was useless to shout anything else, but when she shouted Jesus save me, she suddenly regained control of her body.

All of a sudden I felt very grateful that the name of Jesus Christ we trust in has such power in heaven and on earth! I think a person who enters a mental hospital has lost control of his body and is completely controlled by evil spirits. Then he suddenly remembers to call on the name of Jesus and can be released.

This gives us a revelation: Who loves us? Isn't it this true God we worship who loves us?

Wasn't Manasseh also loved by God? Although God gives you and me the freedom of choice, God also gives Manasseh the freedom of choice, but when we call upon God in our distress, God will surely deliver us. Although God has given us all the laws, commandments and ordinances, this is not to harm us, but to save us from the dominion of the spiritual forces of darkness. When we are miserably dominated, we must learn to humbly turn to God.

Why did the Bible choose Manasseh's story to write to us? God wants to save even a wicked person like Manasseh, let alone us. Let us learn to humbly turn to God and serve Him alone!

That girl in the mental hospital, she had never done anything for God, but when she said Lord Jesus save me in her distress! She can take back control of her body. If you and I trust in this God alone throughout our lives, what abundance and grace we will live out!

The Devil's Lies

So you must know that there is a big difference between the true God and false gods! False gods can't wait for you to suffer more disasters. Although it will give you a little benefit, it wants to kill you. The true God we worship is: Although He says He will bring this disaster upon you, His intention is that you can turn back to Him.

Today we see the story of Manasseh and we know that the God we worship is really gracious! But his son Amon was a very stubborn person: I must do this! The consequences will be controlled by demons. Do you know how the devil deceives you? The devil will say: If you do this, you will become a wise man! If you do this, you will be like God! If you do this, you will become a free man! But did you become a free man? No! If you have some kind of selfish desire in your heart, you will be deceived by the devil, because the devil knows best what is in people's hearts.

So don't think that your thoughts and intentions are unknown to God, and don't think that your thoughts and intentions are unknown to demons. So the Bible says: Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. (James 1:15). When you are about to die, you say: I don't want to die! It will be useless at that time.

Recently, I have felt very helpless. A couple among us experienced many graces from God in the beginning, and suddenly wanted to try what it would be like to be far away from God, and wanted to start over as a seeker. Such people are too foolish. Why do we read the Bible today? Because we want to learn from the experience of our predecessors. If you study at university, master's or doctoral level today, aren't you absorbing what your predecessors have done? How much do you have to invent yourself?

You say I have a lot of things I want to try again, without standing on the shoulders of my predecessors! That is not a clever person. If we read history, we read the wisdom in history into us, we don't need to experience it again, our life cannot be undone, we can only keep going.

Living According to God's Will

So when we read the Bible, we must see the wisdom in it, what God's actions are like, and what the ending is like, we can see it at a glance. I don't encourage you to imitate them and go back to being seekers to try it out. This is a person blinded by the devil. After a person is blinded by the devil, he will think he is very smart; but a person filled with the Spirit of God feels very humble: I can't do many things, so I rely on God.

Next, I want to make a summary for you: Why did Manasseh worship idols? He wanted to do whatever he wanted, and the result was to open the door to demons with his actions and thoughts. We must never open the door to demons, but learn to deal with our lusts and desires, and then start living according to God's will, not according to our own will.

Do you know what kind of person will not be attacked by the devil and cannot be controlled by the devil? It is the kind of person described in Galatians 2:20:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Now it is not I who live, but Jesus Christ who lives in me! If you are such a person, you will completely overcome all negative thoughts and live out the image of Jesus Christ. Jesus lives in you, Jesus is not negative, He has no such word as negative. Even to those who nailed Him to the cross, He had no negative thoughts. He said I was nailed to the cross, not because of you, if it were not for the Father's arrangement, you would have no way to take me! So today, when we encounter any negative things in the world, we must know that God has arranged a way for us to overcome the challenges and difficulties before us. Amen!

Scripture

2Ki 21:1 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hephzibah.

2Ki 21:2 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.

2Ki 21:3 For he rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them.

2Ki 21:4 And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem will I put my name.”

2Ki 21:5 And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.

2Ki 21:6 And he burned his son as an offering and used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.

2Ki 21:7 And he set up the carved image of Asherah that he had made in the house of which the Lord said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever.

2Ki 21:8 And I will not cause the feet of Israel to wander anymore out of the land that I gave to their fathers, if only they will be careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them.”

2Ki 21:9 But they did not listen, and Manasseh led them astray to do more evil than the nations had done whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel.

2Ki 21:10 And the Lord spoke by his servants the prophets, saying,

2Ki 21:11 “Because Manasseh king of Judah has committed these abominations and has done more evil than all that the Amorites did, who were before him, and has made Judah also to sin with his idols,

2Ki 21:12 therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such disaster that everyone who hears of it will tingle.

2Ki 21:13 And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria, and the plumb line of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.

2Ki 21:14 And I will forsake the remnant of my heritage and give them into the hand of their enemies, and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies,

2Ki 21:15 because they have done what is evil in my sight and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.”

2Ki 21:16 Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another, besides the sin that he made Judah to sin, so that they did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

2Ki 21:17 Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and 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?

2Ki 21:18 And Manasseh slept with his fathers and was buried in his garden, in the garden of Uzza. And Amon his son reigned in his place.

2Ki 21:19 Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Meshullemeth the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah.

2Ki 21:20 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, as Manasseh his father had done.

2Ki 21:21 He walked in all the way in which his father walked and served the idols that his father served and worshiped them.

2Ki 21:22 He abandoned the Lord, the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the Lord.

2Ki 21:23 And the servants of Amon conspired against him and killed the king in his house.

2Ki 21:24 But the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King Amon. And the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his place.

2Ki 21:25 Now the rest of the acts of Amon that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

2Ki 21:26 And he was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzza. And Josiah his son reigned in his place.