Thank you.
Good evening, everybody. Welcome to Faith of Word Baptist Church.
Very nice to see you all here for a Wednesday night service.
If you'd all please find your seats now, take a sump, but go to hymn 224.
We'll begin tonight in hymn number 224.
There shall be showers of blessing.
Hymn number 224.
Once you find your place, lift your voice with me together.
On that first now, 224.
There shall be showers of blessing.
224, sing it out now.
There's no need to shout, we're the best.
Let's go before the Lord and ask his blessing on the service.
Let's be our heads together.
Dear heavenly Father, Lord, we come before you tonight.
We thank you for the privilege we have to be in church
this evening.
We thank you for the safety you've given
to each and every one of us to be able to be here.
We just ask, Lord, your blessing upon us
as we come together and worship you in song.
We just ask that you would fill us with your spirit
and that you would help us be encouraged and edified
as we sing out these hymns unto you.
And, Lord, you would also prepare our hearts
for the preaching of your work.
Thank you for it in Jesus' name, amen.
Up to him, 364, number 364.
Standing on the promises of God.
Him number 364.
364, standing on the promises of Christ, my King.
Let's sing it out together on that verse now.
364, standing on the promises of Christ, my King.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
감사합니다!
with our preaching service Sunday nights at six.
Wednesday nights at seven is our Bible study.
This week we will be in Second Chronicles chapter 33.
We've got the soul winning times listed there below
as well as salvation and baptisms.
Congratulations to the urban family
on the birth of baby Elias.
Got a beautiful picture there.
And so be sure to congratulate them.
And if you would like to help out with the meal train,
then speak to Mrs. Amanda Wright or Mrs. Sarah Ventura.
Below that, of course, this Sunday,
first Sunday of the month, as always,
we'll have coffee and donuts
in honor of those celebrating their birthday
in the month of February.
We've got often donations and free food and stuff over there.
We don't have the free food this week,
but we often do over there, so be aware of that.
And then on the back, keep praying for our expectant ladies
that they'll have a safe and healthy pregnancy
and delivery, speaking of which this Sunday afternoon,
we've got a baby shower at two o'clock right here.
All adult ladies and teenage girls are invited to attend.
There'll be food provided.
And of course, this is in honor of Lola.
and then other upcoming events. I'm going to be preaching this Friday night in Oklahoma City if
you happen to know anybody in that area. Anchor Baptist Church with Pastor Dylan Oz. So I'll be
preaching there and you'll be able to catch it online as well if you're interested on Friday
night at 7 p.m. Oklahoma time. And then below that we've got Pastor Shelley coming and preaching
And then we've got the Bahamas cruise mission strip coming up March 23rd through 28th.
It's going to be a good one hitting several receptive stops in the Bahamas.
And so that is about it for announcements.
Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning numbers from the past few days.
Going back to Monday.
Anything to report from Monday?
Okay. Got it.
Okay. And then Tuesday. Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. Got it. Okay. And then how about today
Wednesday? Okay. Got it. Anything else from today? Very good. Keep up the great work on
All right, you should find the insert in the front of your hymnal with the hymn entitled
Rejoice in the Lord.
If you don't have an insert, you can raise your hand so you can receive one.
We'll sing it on that verse together.
God never moves without purpose or plan.
Rejoice in the Lord.
Sing it out.
We go with the end of this battle
And that I sing for when I am dry and purified, I shall come forth and forth.
This is my father's world hymn number 472
472 this is my father's world and to my listening ears
472 lift your voice on that first thing out of now
The music of the spirit, this is my fight.
Let's turn our Bibles to 2 Chronicles, chapter 33.
2 Chronicles, chapter number 33, as we always do,
we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number one.
Follow along silently with Brother Dan as he reads.
2 Chronicles, 33, beginning in verse number one.
Second Chronicles, 33, the Bible reads,
Manasseh was 12 years old when he began to reign,
and he reigned 15 and five years in Jerusalem.
But did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, like unto the abominations of the heathen,
whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel, for he built again the high places
which Hezekiah's father had broken down, and he reared up altars for Balaam, and made groves,
and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served them. Also he built altars in the house of the
and he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord,
and he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom.
Also he observed times and used enchantments and used witchcraft and dealt with a familiar spirit
and with wizards. He wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger.
And he set a carved image, the idol which he had made in the house of God, of which God had said to David and Solomon his son in this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name forever.
Neither will I any more remove the foot of Israel from out of the land which I have appointed for your fathers, so that they will take heed to do all that I have commanded them, according to the whole law and the statutes and the ordinances by the hand of Moses.
So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err and to do worse than the heathen whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel.
And the Lord spake to Manasseh and to his people, but they would not hearken.
Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns and bound him with fetters and carried him to Babylon.
And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord as God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto him, and he was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom.
Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God.
Now after this, he built a wall without the city of David, on the west side of Gihan, in the valley, even to the entering in at the fish gate, encompassed about a fell, and raised it up a very great height, and put captains of war in all the fenced cities of Judah.
And he took away the strange gods and the idol out of the house of the Lord,
and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem,
and cast them out of the city. And he repaired the altar of the Lord and sacrificed there on peace
offerings and thank offerings, and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel. Nevertheless,
the people did sacrifice still in the high places, yet under the Lord their God only.
Now the rest of the Acts of Manasseh and his prayer unto his God, and the words of the seers that spake to him in the name of the Lord God of Israel, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel.
His prayer also, and how God was entreated of him, and all his sin, and his trespass, and the places wherein he built high places, and set up groves and graven images before he was humbled.
Behold, they are written among the sayings of the seers.
So Manasseh slept with his father's and they buried him in his own house and Amon his son reigned in his stead.
Amon was two and twenty years old when he began to reign and reign two years in Jerusalem.
But he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord as did Manasseh his father.
For Amon sacrificed unto all the carved images which Manasseh his father had made and served them and humbled not himself before the Lord as
Manasseh his father had humbled himself. But Amon trespassed more and more.
and his servants conspired against him
and slew him in his own house.
But the people of the land slew all them
that had conspired against King Amon,
and the people of the land made Josiah his son,
king and his stead.
Father in heaven, thank you for this day and thank you for your son Jesus Christ who died first sins and rose from the dead
Thank you for the earnest of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of your children that I believed in your son Jesus Christ
I pray that you please bless Pastor Anderson as he preaches your word fill him with the power of the Holy Spirit and Jesus name
I pray amen
men chapter 33 of second Chronicles verse 1 the Bible reads Manassee was
12 years old when he began to reign and he reigned 50 and
five years in Jerusalem but did that which was evil in the
side of the Lord like unto the abominations of the heathen
whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.
Now the first thing that strikes us right away upon
reading this is that typically when someone does evil in the
side of the Lord they do not end up reigning for 55 years
because there is definitely a pattern where in general
the men who are right with God as kings of Israel or Judah,
the ones who are doing that which is right in the side of the Lord,
tend to have a longer reign, like a 40 year reign or something like that,
whereas the wicked people are usually cut short
and they end up having a much shorter reign.
So this is definitely out of the ordinary right away
for a wicked king to reign for this long.
Part of the reason though is because of the fact
that first of all he's starting reigning very young.
But, I think the bigger reason also is that ultimately he's going to get right with God.
And so, because God knows that he's ultimately going to get right with him, then he gives
him time or space to repent because he's eventually going to repent and get right and then end
up living a lot of days at the end where he's actually doing what's right in the side of
the Lord.
So, part of the reason why he reigned so long is because part of that time he does end up
In general though, wicked people tend to be cut short, right?
If you want your days to be long upon the earth, the Bible says what?
Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee, and that it may...
and that the days may be long upon the earth.
And so the idea here is that in general, if you honor your father and mother, you're going to live a long time.
In general, the eye that mocketh that his father and despiseeth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.
The exception proves the rule.
wicked people who live to be super old,
we could point to righteous people who die young,
but in general, the pattern, the trend is
that if you wanna live long and prosper,
you've got to follow Christ with your life
and be a good person and so forth
because the worse you are, the shorter you're gonna live.
Part of that is the judgment of God upon your life,
and part of that is just the fact that sin in general
is typically self-destructive to your body
and your health anyway.
even if God doesn't intervene.
And so Manasseh begins to reign when he's 12 years old.
We don't have a lot of detail about why he goes bad,
why he becomes evil.
We can speculate a little bit and fill in the blanks
that obviously a 12 year old is not going to just take power
and run the kingdom on his own.
He is going to be manipulated and handled by other people
for good or for evil.
If you remember earlier, we saw with Joash, he's this eight-year-old boy coming to power,
and he did what was right in the side of the Lord because he's being handled and controlled by Jehoida, the priest.
And Jehoida is a godly man, and he's guiding him in the right way.
And so as long as Jehoida was guiding Joash, Joash did what was right.
Then after Jehoida dies,
He comes under some evil influences of some wicked princes and nobles of the children of Israel and then they end up taking him down a dark path and he becomes wicked and gets judged by God and so forth.
So chances are in this situation Manasseh is coming under some evil influences as a 12, 13, 14, 15 year old boy that are steering him in a wicked way.
That doesn't excuse his actions but it's probably what happened.
there's nothing new under the sun and guess what right now 12 year olds 13
year olds 14 year olds 15 are under some evil influences today in our country or
at least there's a potential for them to be under the influences of evil people
and obviously these are very formative years 12 13 14 15 at that age as a
teenager you're sort of figuring out who you are
and you're making a lot of decisions
that are going to affect the rest of your life
and who you hang around with during that time,
who is mentoring you or guiding you,
whether it be Jehoi'dah or whether it be
these wicked princes of Israel,
you know, it's gonna have a huge impact on who you are.
And so if you are a teenager
under the sound of my voice right now,
you're 12, 13, 14, 15 years old,
understand
that having rotten friends around you
is going to destroy your life
and take you down a dark path.
Okay, you are right now,
or you soon shall be,
what your friends are.
hanging around with bad friends is going to corrupt you and make you bad like
them whereas getting around good godly influences is going to make a big
difference as well and look today I think that it's harder than ever for
teenagers in America to avoid bad influences because of just
the electronic aspect that's new with the internet and social media I was just looking at a statistic
yesterday that like 70 percent of boys you know have already seen porno or something like that
and then it was some of it was like 67 percent I said that they'd watched porno for at least a
half hour or something in their life and then and then you know some other percentage 50 some percent
over 10 times or something like that, right?
And I mean, it's just that kind of stuff
is so damaging to your brain.
It is so bad for you.
It has such an evil influence on your mind
and it can just put all of these sick, weird, perverted,
stupid, foolish, idiotic ideas into the head
of some curious 12, 13, 14, 15 year old
that's gonna carry around all this weird baggage with them
for the rest of their life.
because they're looking at that stuff.
Well, you know, I wonder how kids end up looking at that stuff.
It's true that maybe they could just hop online
and just go seek out those things
and fall down some wicked, evil rabbit hole.
But you know what?
I have a suspicion just because, again,
there's nothing new under the sun.
I have a suspicion that the way most kids are getting into it
is a buddy saying, hey, check this out,
sending them a link, handing them some kind of a media
or something and pointing them to it.
talking to them about it they hear someone talking about it and then they go check it out and so forth now look
Thank God that when I was a teenager this stuff wasn't around because the internet
Barely existed when I was a teenager, okay, and I'm not that old all right
I'm 43 years old, but when I was a teenager the internet barely existed
I remember when the internet kind of came out and
When the internet came out I was around like 14 15 years old. It was dial-up internet
And so you didn't look at pictures on the internet
because it would just be too slow.
Like if you wanted to look at a picture on the internet,
it would literally take about 40 minutes.
to download one picture, or to get one picture to load.
Video was unthinkable because you couldn't even get
a picture to load.
So I remember one time, I was at a buddy's house,
I was 15, he was 15, and we're on the internet,
we're chatting with other teenagers and whatever.
And obviously it was stupid for us to be talking
to strangers, but you know, kids do stupid things.
And basically, somebody sent us a pornographic image.
But here's the thing.
This image was loading like one line at a time
at a super slow snail's pace to the point
where like you just started to see a little bit of skin,
like there's no image, it's just like a little bit of skin,
like there's just a few lines
and you're starting to see a little bit of bare skin,
you don't know what you're looking at,
but you could just kind of tell, okay,
this is going the wrong direction
and you could X out of it as opposed to waiting
the next 37 and a half minutes to get this image.
Okay, whereas nowadays though somebody sends these young people that and then it's just like it's just popping on the screen
Just bad like lightning fast some filthy images on the screen, right?
And then a lot of these seedy shady kind of sites will just start just hitting you with just pop-ups and just bam
Right, and you know it seems like on a Mac computer this you know, and I'm not you know
I'm not sponsored by Mac here or anything seems like this doesn't happen on a Mac computer, but it seems like back
Back in the days when I was using an old PC computer, you'd accidentally click on the
wrong link or something, and then all of a sudden pop-ups would just be like, and you're
just like, and just shut the laptop, and it's just like, control, alt, delete, because you
accidentally push the wrong button, and all this weird crap is coming at you.
But the problem is, for a teenager, they're not necessarily going to have the sense to
scream and slam the laptop shut.
They're basically instead maybe gonna be like who what is this?
I'm curious and
Curiosity's gonna get the better of them and let's not forget that the original sin in the Garden of Eden was pretty much a sin of curiosity
You know, it's like, oh, well, what is this fruit like?
I've never tasted it.
I've never had it.
Oh, wow, I'm going to have knowledge of things
that I don't have knowledge of, right?
The knowledge of good and evil and Satan is telling Eve,
oh, you know, this knowledge is something
that God's trying to hold you back from.
And so she wants to know.
Why did she eat the fruit? She obviously wants to know about good and evil.
She wants to know something.
And what does the Bible say that we should be wise concerning that which is good and simple concerning that which is evil?
We don't need to know about every weird sinful thing that's out there and so it's easy for
Children to fall into the trap especially teenage boys to fall into this trap of being curious or
Just maybe they're not even setting out for it
But somebody sends it to them some wicked friend some other teenager sends it to them and tries to be a bad influence on them
And you know chances are just human nature kicks in and and more often than not apparently
you know, they're falling for this and it is so bad and so I hope that you teenagers are smart
enough to realize how bad pornography is and not to look at it. Look, sin takes you further than
you want to go, it keeps you longer than you want to stay and it costs you more than you're willing
to pay, all right? And so what happens is you might set out to look at something and you're
because of the fact that these websites are, you know, they're run by evil, wicked people
that just want to put all kinds of weird, perverted garbage into your mind.
And look, you say, why are you talking about this? This isn't wholesome.
I don't like to talk about it, but at the same time, just looking at these statistics,
it seems like somebody needs to say something about this stuff.
And here's the thing, if you're a faithful word Baptist church,
if you're a teenager, a faithful word Baptist church,
and some other teenager comes up to you
and starts talking about perverted sexual stuff
that they've seen online or, you know,
oh, it's funny, you know what?
You need to shut them down immediately.
You need to slam the door in that person's face right away.
And you know what? Come tell an adult and tell somebody.
Go tell their parents.
You say, oh, he'd be a snitcher.
Hey, I'm sorry, but we don't need a bunch of sexual deviancy
and perversion in the minds of our young people.
And so if we have teenagers that talk about these things,
and look, how do I know that teenagers will talk about stuff
like this, because guess what?
I was a teenager in an independent fundamental Baptist
church, I was a teenager in a non-denominational
Christian school, in an independent fundamental Baptist
Christian school, and there's always those bad kids.
that are talking about this stuff and bringing out this kind of stuff.
But thank God, the internet wasn't around.
So, you know, we didn't have access to anything like that.
And so therefore I never got exposed to this stuff as a teenager because it just
wasn't a thing because you didn't have the internet.
The only time that I ever had the opportunity to view pornography though was
someone offering it to me.
Again, I was a teenager around 14, 15 years old and a kid in my school came up
to me with a VHS tape.
video cassette and it was a it was something that was going around and being
passed around amongst the boys in the school it's a Christian school you know
that's King James and the right gospel and everything and you know I was
offered this VHS tape and I turned it down but this VHS tape had made the
rounds from different
You know students or whatever and it I believe it all started because some kid found his dad's video tape
That was hidden his dad had this video tape and then he got ahold of it
And then he's you know exposing other kids too and so here's the thing
You have got to stay away from these kind of rotten people in your life
Because look if you're young and dumb and you're in your teens and you're being offered this stuff a lot of times
You're gonna be too stupid to turn it down
whether it's drugs, alcohol, pornography, whatever.
Look, do not hang around with wicked people.
And you know what?
If some teenager tries to offer you drugs, alcohol, or pornography, or something, slam
the door on them, shut them down, respond with anger, because here's the thing, if you
respond with anger, they're probably not going to offer it to the next person.
Because they're going to realize, oh, well, if I'm at church and I'm offering this,
and I don't, I don't think that we have any problem with this at our church at all.
But you know what, maybe people out there listening online, maybe they go to a church
where there's a problem with this. And you know, and maybe there is something like this
that I don't know about, because sometimes we as adults don't always know what conversations
are happening amongst teenagers and so forth. And so, you know, I'd rather get ahead of it.
I don't know of anything that's going on but I'd rather get ahead of it and just say these
things as a preventative because we want to have a culture that says it is not okay to
bring up these filthy things.
It is not okay to have that filthy communication proceeding out of your mouth of talking about
things that belong in the bedroom, things that belong between a man and woman within
a super, just bizarre context of pornography or whatever.
And here's the thing about that is that,
you know, kids are curious and,
oh, well, I just want to know about the birds and the bees
and I need to know these things.
Look, porno is not going to teach you
about the birds and the bees.
Okay, thinking that porno is going to teach you about the birds, and look, full disclosure,
I have not watched any porno to know exactly what it's like.
But I can guess right now, based on the Hollywood movies that I've seen, and based on the stuff
that I have seen, that probably watching porno to understand those things is probably about
as accurate as watching like a Rocky movie and saying I'm learning how to be a boxer.
You know or I'm watching the karate kid and now I came because you know, you know, it do right impossible defend
You know, I doubt that this is impossible to defend against because otherwise otherwise
You'd see all kinds of guys going into the UFC MMA octagon or whatever and they're just gonna be like
You know and and do an impossible defend
You know, that's, you really think that you're going to watch The Karate Kid and be a martial arts expert?
Okay, then you know what? Go watch all of these sex scenes in movies and go watch a bunch of R rated and X rated movies and porno and then yeah, that's going to make you an expert on those things.
That is stupid and ridiculous! It's fake! It's not real! It is designed to corrupt and pervert your mind.
And you know what the end game of these bunch of Jews and others that are running these porno websites?
You want to know what their end game is?
Their end game is to make you a pervert.
That's their end. It's Satan. You think God's behind it or Satan?
Okay?
They're not just like, oh, here, let me just allow you to have some kicks.
No, no, no.
What they want to do is take you further than you want to go, keep you longer than you want
to stay, and cost you more than you're willing to pay.
And so what they want to do is they want to turn you into a deviant and a pervert and
expose you to a bunch of weird, sodomite stuff and whatever.
And look, I'm so sorry to even bring up these things, but apparently they need to be talked
you know, I wouldn't have thought so, but apparently this is the world that we're living in.
But you know, and I'm going to be super vague right now about the way that I say this, okay?
But let me tell you something. There's something that fags do, okay? And you know,
the Bible talks about how evil and gross they are.
There's something that fags do, and there's an agenda to try to get normal, married people
to do what fags do.
And I'll tell you why that agenda exists, to try to make them seem more normal.
And what they do is gross, unsanitary, filthy, stupid, weird, and they're basically trying
to get you to do that just so that it can seem more normal.
And you say, I don't know what you're talking about.
But you know what those who know know and let me tell you something it is if some teenager talks to you about that
You know what you need to slap them down
Oh, that's oh, that's right. No everybody's against slapping
Well, you know what I'm against a bunch of faggots and weirdos perverting our minds with filth
That's what I'm against and you don't think the people running these websites are a bunch of reprobates and sodomites and weirdos and pedophiles and freaks
and they're out there trying to get in your mind,
corrupt your mind, twist your mind.
Look, teenager, I understand that you have
some normal biological drives.
God has provided a way for you to satisfy those things
rightly and normally within marriage.
And you have your whole life ahead of you
to enjoy those things with your wife.
But guess what?
Looking at a little bit of porno
when you're a teenager can screw you up
to where you're not even gonna be able
to enjoy those things anymore
because your mind is just gonna be so screwed up.
and so ruined and so twisted.
Stay away from that stuff and where does it come from?
It comes from a kid at school saying here,
watch this video tape.
and that's outdated now it's here look at this real or look at this smartphone
you know there I'm showing you this video here click on this link or watch
this website or whatever however it's being exposed now okay do not get around
people who are sending you those kind of clips or showing you those kind of
clips get around somebody who's gonna send you a preaching clip
Who's going to show you a sermon? Who's going to show you something godly, righteous, productive, helpful, true, honest, just, pure and lovely of good report?
Not a bunch of filth and garbage.
Look, when you're 12 years old, you could go either way, right?
And obviously, Manasseh went the wrong way. He must have had some evil influences in his life.
And you young people, you need to make sure that you get some good Christian friends and the people that are
The types that would try to get you to go down these dark roads, they should be shamed
They should be shame. That's what I'm saying. Just slam the door in their face say gross
You're stupid. You're gross shut up. Get this crap out of my face
Don't ever show me this crap again. You freaking pervert and then it's like oh, let's be mean
No, because you know what, if they showed that to one person and that's how they're treated,
and then they show it to a second person and that's how they're treated, you know what they're going to figure out?
I can't show this to people with a faithful word.
Right?
You know, and here's the thing, we need some shame in our society.
There need to be some things that are humiliating and embarrassing to where people won't cross those lines
and where people will realize, hey, if I talk to someone about porno or show someone porno,
I'm going to get the door slammed in my face so hard.
And then that little weird, creepy person can just kind of keep that to themselves, right?
Instead of infecting all the other teenagers with it.
And I'm telling you, I saw that videotape go around and a lot of people were saying no to that videotape.
But there were people that were saying yes to it, you know what I mean?
And they're getting corrupted with it.
And, you know, I don't know what was on the videotape, but I have a suspicion
it was probably mild compared to a lot of the stuff that's online right now that's even beyond.
what was around in those days.
I mean, we're living in superilless times,
and so here's the moral of the story for the parents,
because I'm kind of preaching to the teenagers,
hey, get around the right influences,
but here's the moral of the story for the parents.
Do not give your teenage sons unfettered access
to the internet.
Do not give them unfettered access to the internet.
They are not smart enough to avoid these things.
You know chances are they're and look here's the thing. I was a straight-laced kid
I was a virgin when I got married. I'd never seen a naked lady when I got married the first naked
Private parts I ever saw was my wife's and I'm thankful for that
but here's the thing about that is that if I'm honest with myself when I was young and stupid 14 15 16 I
Can see how if it would have been easy to just anonymously look at something secretly without getting caught
You know, I could easily see myself having looked at something like that if it would have been that easy
You know, but back then you probably would have had to go to some weird,
skeevy part of town and go into some weird, gross,
skeevy business with some weird person to even find those things.
And so thank God,
I'm glad I didn't grow up in the internet age because, you know,
I just, as the apostle Paul said,
you know what, I could, in my...
flesh in me that is in my flesh well no good thing you know we're all susceptible to these
kind of things and I remember being young stupid curious teenager I could easily see
how I could have fallen for that if I would have had this tool of just unfettered access
to the internet you know you're going to look at one thing and then one thing leads to another
Do not give your teenagers unfettered access to the internet,
especially teenage boys, do not give them unfettered access to the internet.
And you say, well, but when they turn 18, they're on their own,
they're going to do these things anyway.
But you know what?
Here's the thing, by then hopefully they're smart enough not to look at these things.
By then, hopefully, they're smart enough to have learned and realized.
But when they're 12, when they're 13, when they're 14, they are not mature enough, wise
enough, knowledgeable enough to, you know, apparently, you know, according to the statistics,
70% of the time they're not smart enough to avoid these things.
And so therefore, they need to be protected by their parents.
And I know I'm off on a tangent.
Maybe we'll talk at Manasseh at some point tonight.
But here's the thing.
OK, here's the other thing about that
is that the later that someone dabbles in these things,
the better.
It's always bad.
But here's the thing.
I don't think that you should ever drink alcohol.
I'm a tea toddler.
I'm 100% against drinking alcohol.
But you know what the statistics show?
That the later someone starts drinking alcohol,
the less likely they are to abuse alcohol
and become an alcoholic.
So there's a reason why we have a drinking age of 21 years old and the reason why is
that if someone waits until they're 21 years old to drink alcohol, the chances of them
abusing alcohol, binge drinking or becoming an alcoholic are very low after they're 21.
13, 14, you are very likely to abuse alcohol,
take it further into drugs,
and become an alcoholic, an addict, or whatever.
And look, I really,
one of my favorite genres of book to read
is I love biographies.
you know I love autobiographies so I've read a lot of autobiographies and a lot
of them were athletes and things like because I'm really into running so I've
probably read like 15 different like running autobiographies and I've just
read a lot of other autobiographies just about various people that I just like
that genre I think it's really interesting and you know I've read a lot
of autobiographies of people who were an alcoholic at some point in their life
And when you read about people who've gone through that in their life where they're a drunkard or an addict or both,
every single time they started when they were a little kid, you know?
And you read these books about alcoholics and it's like, oh, I tried beer when I was 9, 10.
12 it's always super young you're like what in the world and why did they do it because they took it from their parents
You know they they they stole it from their parents or they're at a friend's house and stole it from their friends parents
And they you know you never read about somebody's like oh, I never drank till I was 21 and then I became an alcoholic
I've never read anything like that. I'm sure it's out there the exception proves the rule, but I've never read anything like that
I've read a lot of stuff of people where they started young what the same thing applies here the younger
You get into any sin the more likely you are to go even further down that dark path
And you know what the thing is that you know if you can make it to your thirties or forties and you haven't touched these things
You know chances are you're not just going to start up in your forties
Just be like well, you know what? It's time to just start snorting cocaine or something
He just doesn't it just doesn't happen like the statistics are like almost zero
of people just living a clean life,
you know, abstaining from extramarital relations,
abstaining from alcohol, abstaining from cigarettes,
abstaining from drugs, and then all of a sudden,
just at 35, you're just gonna get into these things.
That's not really the way it works, friend.
You know when you get into these things?
When you're 12, when you're 13, when you're 14, look,
you've got to make it through those teenage years
without getting into those things.
And then it's gonna get easier for you, my friend.
As you get older, it's gonna get easier and easier
because you've set a pattern of your life
of not being involved in these things, okay?
And so I know it's a bit of a tangent,
but I feel like it's really important
that we're reading about this 12-year-old
who literally has just a godly, righteous, wonderful father,
but then this 12-year-old
is gonna be worshiping Satan in a few verses.
He's obviously coming under some really evil influences and today those evil influences are still there
They want to give you alcohol. They want to give you drugs. They want to get you smoking
They want to get you looking at porno. They want to get you fill in the blank, right?
They're gonna get you into sin doing vandalism random acts of violence or whatever
don't be stupid don't be an idiot and you know a lot of christian teenagers will have this tendency of like
oh i want to be a little bit edgy and kind of like i want to show that i'm not this little goody two shoes
i'm kind of a bad boy or whatever do not be an idiot okay that's just called being a fool
Okay, there's no reason to think it's cool to be all sinful and edgy.
No, you know, you really want to be a rebel?
Well, the best way to be a rebel in 2025 is being a straight-laced, King James toting, clean, Christian young person.
That's pretty much the most radical act of defiance you can do today, is just by being a clean cut.
I mean, you're like, yeah, I'm going to be different, yeah, get a tattoo, yeah.
It's like, dude, everybody has a tattoo.
If you really want to be different, just show your army.
I go, yeah, check this out, it's just bare.
Ah, what now? Zero minutes in the chair, brother.
You know, that's how you'd be different.
All right, but let's get back to the passage here after that commercial break.
Did that was, was evil on the side of the Lord?
Like unto the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.
How long ago was that?
I mean, we're talking hundreds and hundreds of years earlier.
That's when the heathen were cast out before the children of Israel.
Because remember, Hezekiah is one of the last kings of Judah, Manasseh is one of the last
kings.
We're getting to the end, right?
Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amen, Jude, Josiah.
We're getting to the end of the road here, right?
If we go back to the Lord casting them out, there was 400 years of judges.
Right? We've had now hundreds of years of kings.
So we're talking about literally like 700 years
roughly has gone by.
And we're saying that Manasseh's doing the sins
of 700 years ago.
Does everybody see that?
He's doing the same sins of the people who got cast out 700 years ago or whatever and roughly don't quote me on that
But it's it's about how long it was and so here's the thing about that is people will try to tell you sometimes and say
Well pastor Anderson you just don't get it because you were raised in a different generation
You were raised in the 80s and 90s. You don't understand things are totally different now
Now that's just not true because 700 years can go by it's the same sins
same devil, same sin, 700 years later.
So I really don't think that 17 years later
it's really that different.
The big difference is what I pointed out,
the technology just makes it so much easier
to get involved in sin.
So much easier to go down that dark path, but the the the sand is the same the influences with it's still some guy telling you
It's just instead of handing you a VHS tape
He's sending you a link or he's holding out a phone to you
He's taking you into a corner and showing you a video or something like that. It's really the same thing and
again
Young people will constantly test each other out
and keep upping the ante.
You know, they'll talk, they'll tell a dirty joke.
Ha ha, they get a laugh,
then they tell a little bit dirtier joke.
They get another laugh, they tell,
and they're gonna keep escalating it,
is what they're doing, they're testing you out.
But if they tell you the first dirty joke
and you shut the door on them,
they're gonna realize, okay, this isn't going anywhere.
You know, and you know, that's just the way it works people are always going to be
Testing you and you got to give me the right answer. It's funny. I was thinking about this the other day
Is that I have been pastoring for I'm in my 20th year of pastoring now
Okay, I've been married for almost 25 years
and I'm in my 20th year of Pastry
and obviously I have a big target on me
to be attacked by the devil.
Like I've had a lot of attacks and everything
because I've obviously been out there doing stuff
for the Lord and all that will live godly
in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
So I obviously have a big target on me.
I could point to tons of persecution
and satanic attacks over the last 25 years
but it's kind of funny that in the last
Almost 20 years of pastor. You know what has never happened to me?
Never have I ever had a woman come on to me in the last 20 years ever
Not even one time. It's not like some woman came on to me and I had to be like, you know
It never it literally never happened. You say well, that's because you're ugly pastor Anderson. Okay, maybe maybe that's why maybe
It's my teeth. They don't like the teeth or whatever, but
But here's the thing about that. I don't believe it's because I'm ugly
You know and by the way, it's not some point of pride to just be out there flirting with the opposite gender when you're married
You know what I mean? That's not cool. So I'm not out. It's like, oh, it's so embarrassing. Pastor Anderson
No, it's it'd be embarrassing if you are constantly being hit on as a married man
And I'll tell you why I believe that I've not been hit on in the last 20 years ever
I've never had any woman throw herself at me in the last 20 years
And I'll tell you why is because I don't put out a vibe that says that I'm open to that
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
Like, I'm not putting out a vibe that is open to that.
Therefore, literally, no one has tried it
because I guarantee you that probably they're looking
for signals that aren't there.
Cause I'm not interested.
But what's funny is when I was a teenage boy,
I did have girls throw themselves at me a few times.
And guess what?
The reason why is because I was a teenage boy
and I was on the market and I was open
to those kind of relationships.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
Obviously not fornication,
but I was really open to a boy-girl relationship
because I was a teenager, I was interested in that,
I wasn't married, I was single.
But once I got married, it's like,
okay, I'm married now, that's over.
Dating is over flirtations over and so therefore because I'm not putting out that vibe
I'm not getting that response from people and here's the thing we could take that same principle and
Apply it in other areas of life where basically and look I'm not saying if if if some
Sleazy woman throws herself at you that it's your fault or something. Okay. That's not what I'm saying
I'm just saying, just anecdotally, in my life, it just has never happened.
Maybe you're just way better looking than me, or way cooler, or have bigger muscles,
or whatever.
Maybe sell.
Hey, whatever.
But the point is that in other areas of life, this goes the same way.
You need to put out a vibe that says, don't tell me a dirty joke.
You know what I mean like like I'm just thinking about various young people in our church and and everything and I'm thinking to myself
You know, I'm thinking about certain young people in our church like you know
And I don't want to single people out or make it weird or anything
But I'm just thinking like Daniel Hernandez the song leader
I just can't picture somebody walking up and telling Daniel Hernandez a dirty joke
I don't know maybe people are walking up and telling them dirty jokes. I don't know, but I just can't picture anyone thinking
Daniel Hernandez wants to hear a dirty joke. I just can't picture that thought going through anybody's mind
I think most people would just look at him and I'm not trying to single him out or anything
He's just kind of he popped in my mind because he was standing up here a couple minutes ago
But the thing is like I just feel like most people would just kind of look at him and his testimony and just think like
No, he's not the audience I'm looking for.
And here's the thing, you know, you want to be the type of person
where people look at you as a 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 year old
and think to themselves, this is not my target audience for a dirty joke.
This is not who I'm going to send a porno link to.
This is not who I'm going to offer alcohol or drugs.
Now apparently Daniel and I put out some kind of a vibe that we wanted marijuana in Jamaica because we got offered to make
We got offered weed in Jamaica like 20 times and we weren't interested
I'm joking
But my point is look when someone does offer you those things you've got to shut the door on them
You slam the door in their face and then it goes no further
But oh, you don't know what you're talking about Pastor Anderson. You're living in the 80s. You're living in the 90s
Hey, I don't care if I was living in 1300 AD
because 700 years can go by and it is still the same devil in the same sins and
so we see Manassee
Indulging in the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel so long ago
There's no new thing under the Sun
And then it specifically goes into what those sins were,
for he built again the high places
which Hezekiah's father had broken down
and he reared up altars for Baalim.
And made groves and worshiped all the hosts of heaven and served them also he built altars in the house of the Lord
Whereof the Lord had said in Jerusalem shall my name be forever
And he built altars for all the hosts of heaven and the two courts of the house of the Lord
So the first thing that we see here is of course that he's getting away from worshipping the Lord and he's involved in a polytheistic
Religion right bail him is a plural word. It means bails plural like with an s on the end like lots of different bails
bail him, the I am ending is a plural ending.
So he's worshiping various bails
and he's worshiping the whole host of heaven.
Think about how the planets
are named after false gods, aren't they?
It was the same thing back then.
Even thousands of years ago,
the planets are named after false gods in many cases.
So what are the planets called?
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, right?
And if you study history and if you study classics,
you understand that those are Roman gods.
right Roman gods are where the planets get their names and so the host of heaven they're looking up
and they're worshiping the sun god and the moon god and they're worshiping venus and mercury and
all these different things and so it's polytheism but then not only does he reject the god of the
bible and get involved in a polytheistic religion but he also practices infanticide also not new
Also, something that is happening in every generation all over the world.
Infanticide, okay?
Because people, you know, are the same human nature even thousands of years later.
And so, what does it say?
Verse number six,
He caused His children to pass through the fire in the valley of the Son of Hinnom.
Now, there are two things going on here when He makes His children to pass through the fire.
Number one, it's an act of worship to the devil.
He's worshiping the devil.
He's worshiping false gods.
You say, why would that be the same thing?
Because the Bible says the things that the Gentiles
offer and sacrifice unto idols,
they sacrifice unto devils.
So idols and false gods, if you worship them,
you're worshiping Satan, you're worshiping demons.
And so it says here that he made his children to pass
through the fire in the valley of Hinnom.
This is an act of human sacrifice.
It is an act of worship toward the devil.
But not only that, it is a practice of infanticide
And you say, why would anyone not want to have children?
Because having children is hard, it's difficult,
it's hard work, it's expensive.
And so throughout history,
people want to have that marital relationship,
but they don't want to have the kids as a result,
or maybe they produce children
through fornication or adultery.
And so there's not even a home to even bring them into,
that's a nuclear family.
And so they just want to discard the children.
And so they end up murdering.
human life and that's what you're doing when you practice any kind of infanticide, right?
And of course, abortion is infanticide. It doesn't matter whether it's inside the womb or outside of the womb.
You are still murdering a human life and life begins at conception. Anytime you're killing that child after it's conceived,
it's murder, okay? And so what we see here is that he is
worshiping the devil, he's involved in pagan religion,
and he's involved in, we could say, abortion, right?
Because that would be the modern day analog, abortion.
So he's basically promoting abortion,
he's opening up Planned Parenthood
in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and murdering children.
Not only that, it says he used enchantments
and used witchcraft and dealt with a familiar spirit
and with wizards.
and he wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger.
So he's also using the Ouija board, casting spells,
and getting involved in the occult, dark arts,
whatever you want to call it, necromancy, the psychic reader,
all these different things that he's getting involved in,
using enchantments and so forth.
observing times, he's looking at the horoscope
and involved in all these occult practices.
Okay, now what's interesting about this guy
is that ultimately he is actually going to get saved
and get right with God, which is kind of surprising
because you would think that somebody who's this far down
a dark path, it's too late for them.
But here's the thing about that is that
extremely wicked people can still get saved.
Right, and here's the thing anybody who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved
Anybody but whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved
Jesus said him that comeeth to me. I will in no wise cast out
Nobody's gonna come to Christ
Put their faith and trust in Christ and he's just like no you've been too wicked you've done too many sins
And I think that there are some extreme examples like in this like this in the Bible to really drive this home to us
so that we don't just think,
oh, let's only witness to good people.
Let's only witness to nice people.
Let's only witness to people that are not
really deep in sin.
The Bible is showing us a guy who's extremely deep in sin,
way deep and really extreme.
Because how many people have you really known in your life
that are just literally murdering babies
and worshiping Satan?
Okay, a lot, you know, since 25% of women in America
have had an abortion.
But anyway, you know, I mean, it's pretty extreme though.
He's building idols, he's publicly worshiping demons
and killing his children and he's dealing with wizards
and sorcerers and witches and warlocks
and everything else, it's bad, right?
And yet this guy does ultimately get saved.
And obviously at our church, we believe something
that we affectionately call the reprobate doctrine.
And what's funny is that nowadays, if anybody talks about the reprobate doctrine across
America and Baptist churches, people will be like, you belong to Stephen Anderson, which
is hilarious because I didn't invent this doctrine.
I wish I could take credit for it, but it's literally something that's been taught obviously
over the centuries by multitudes of Christians.
you know it was a big thing it's a big theme and I even preached a sermon a while back called
the old-time reprobate doctrine and I just went through all the preaching I heard as a kid in
the 80s and 90s teaching the reprobate doctrine in a bunch of different churches not in one church
in independent Baptist churches all over America and big name famous preachers that all preached
And, and so because we have this thing called the reprobate doctrine, I don't have time
to develop that, but if you don't know what I'm talking about, go to our church website
and the search bar is working better than ever.
And so if you go to thepreaching.com, go to the search bar, type in the word reprobate.
Several sermons will come up and you can go to any of those sermons that have reprobate in the name and
listen through that sermon and you know listen to all of them if you're slow and
Make sure you learn that doctrine because it's a good doctrine
Now listen to all of them twice if that's what it takes because it's really important
But here's the thing about that is that the idea behind the reprobate doctrine just on the back of a postage stamp is that it is?
Possible for a person to come to a place where they are beyond the hope of salvation
But the key thing to understand about this person who is a reprobate reprobate is just a fancy word for reject
The person who becomes the reject who is beyond hope of salvation
Here's the key thing is that the Bible says that they are incapable of believing because their heart is hardened
Their mind is black as darkened and so forth and so like it for example in John chapter 12
It says they could not believe
It says those exact words they could not believe because God has blinded their minds and hardened
their hearts and said they can't believe.
So here's what the reprobate doctrine does not teach.
The reprobate doctrine does not teach that someone could believe on Jesus and it's just
like, nope, you're a reprobate.
No, everyone who believes will be saved.
Whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life.
That's what the Bible says.
And look, there's eight billion people in the world.
That verse is saying that he that you know everyone who believes has eternal life
He that believes on me has everlasting life
So that's not what we're saying what we're saying is that a person can get to a point where they lose the ability to even believe on
Christ, they're so hard-hearted that God gives them over to a reprimand mind. He hardens their heart like you harden Pharaoh's heart
He blinds their mind. He's sick of them. He's done with them
And so it's too late for that person and you say, oh, how do I know if I am a reprieve?
Here's the thing like if you don't hate God, you're not a reprobate
It's the people that hate God that are the reprobates it's the people that have rejected him ultimately in their heart
And they're incapable of believing in Jesus. Okay. Now do those people exist absolutely every in my experience
And here's the thing
Unfortunately, I did not grow up just in one church my whole childhood because unfortunately
We moved houses multiple times,
and a lot of churches were changing and apostatizing.
So we kind of did a bunch of church hopping
throughout the 80s and 90s, unfortunately.
But, you know, it worked out in one sense for good,
because at least I got exposed to a lot of different churches
and a lot of different ideas, and it was just,
like I said, it wasn't one church that was teaching this.
It was a theme in independent Baptist churches back then.
They taught this subject.
Now, they didn't necessarily connect it with homos.
Sometimes they did.
but they didn't always connect it with homos
because the fact that homos weren't a thing.
Openly, I'm sure behind closed doors
there's nothing new out of the sun.
But openly, no one was openly a homo.
Going to school and someone being openly a homo
would have been unthinkable.
It would have been a death sentence, you know, it just never would have happened.
It would have been Leviticus 2013 on the playground.
Okay, you know what I'm saying?
So it would have just been unthinkable.
It never would have crossed our mind.
The first time I read those things in the Bible, I'm just like,
I don't think that we need this verse.
Now I'm like underlining it, bolding it, highlighting it.
But as a kid, I was like, I don't think we need this verse.
What, who the heck is this?
Is this what cannibals are doing on some island somewhere?
Cause yeah, this isn't a thing.
But here's the thing is that,
where was I going with that?
The reprobate doctrine.
Yeah, the reprobate doctrine.
And here's the thing.
Just because we believe in the reprobate doctrine,
we don't want to just get this wrong equivocation that says,
oh, if somebody's super wicked, they're a reprobate.
That's not necessarily true,
because there could be some really super sinful people
that are not reprobates,
and committing really bad sins,
because I mean, this guy's committing some really bad sins.
He's worshiping Satan, he's killing babies,
and he's using witchcraft.
I mean, that's pretty extreme.
And yet this guy gets saved, so he's clearly not a reprobate, which shows that people can commit some very wicked sins,
be very ungodly, very blasphemous, without being a reprobate.
What did Jesus say?
All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men.
But the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.
But that shows that you can blaspheme Jesus and still get saved later.
You can blaspheme God and get saved later.
That's what the Bible says and so we don't want to misapply the reprobate doctrine and think oh lots of sin equals reprobate
Wrong, and I think that's part of why we have this extreme example
Now the reason that we label homos as reprobates is because Romans 1
Literally connects those two things and again listen to the sermons on it
And because of the fact that there's really no other explanation for why people would do that sin because it doesn't come naturally to anyone
you know, normal people are repulsed by it and so you can see why there's a temptation
to do abortion or infanticide or worship the devil. I mean, you know, I'm sure all kinds of
little kids are, are, you know, reading Harry Potter and want to get into dark arts or whatever.
You know what I mean? You can see how people can get into that and get sucked into these things
or think it's fun to go to the psychic reader. It's fun to go get the Milton Bradley Ouija board
A dude being intimate with another dude is just gross and weird, and it's not really
on anybody's radar as a normal person, okay?
And so, again, I don't want to go off on a big tangent about that, but one of the things
I love about the story is it shows that a really rough person could still get saved.
But does the Bible say here, oh, also Manasseh, you know, is married to a dude?
Is that what it says?
Did he say he's a child molester?
No, child molesters are reprobates.
That's not normal to be a child molester, okay?
And so again, it's another sermon,
but we want to be careful that when we're out soul winning,
if we see just some really rough looking individuals,
we don't want to just assume that that person
is a reprobate or can't be saved.
We want to preach the gospel to every creature
and keep an open mind, give the benefit of the doubt,
because I've,
In my heart, many times, looked at someone and thought,
this guy does not want to hear the gospel.
This guy does not want to hear the gospel.
I walked up to him and got him saved.
You know, and then I've walked up to other people
that I thought were gonna be receptive
and they weren't at all.
You can't really know.
You just gotta just throw the seeds out there,
just preach the gospel and let the chips fall where they may
because you don't always know
who's gonna be able to receive that message.
I got a hurry for sake of time.
I have no regrets about how I spent my time in the sermon,
but, you know, went off on some tangents.
But it says that he set up a carved image,
and so he's doing idolatry, false gods, et cetera.
Let's jump down to verse number nine.
So, Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem
to err and to do worse than the heathen
whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel.
And what you can see there is that when a Christian nation
goes bad, sometimes it can get worse than a nation
that was just always heathen.
You know and sometimes you see like if you see a kid come out of a Christian home
And he ends up being not saved not believing in Jesus
You know he could go off the deep end and be even worse than his worldly counterparts
Okay, or you think about the fact that there are nations out there that look at the US as being degenerate morally even though we
Really used to be a Christian nation in many ways. We still are a Christian nation
But yet because we're getting away from the Lord
We have a lot of worse things than certain other countries
that are, they've just always the whole time been,
you know, Buddhists or something or Islamic or whatever.
You know, obviously they are screwed up in their own ways.
But the point is though, we've taken certain things
in our country, even to a higher level.
And it shows how when God's people go bad,
it can be really bad, you know.
And so here's the thing, when I was at public school,
I came under some bad influences, you know,
back to the theme of the sermon.
It might as well stay with that theme for the sermon.
When I was a teenager, I went to both Christian school and public school.
It's funny, no one at public school handed me a videotape of porno, but they tried to
give me one at Christian school.
No one tried to get me to do drugs at public school.
I was offered marijuana at Christian school and in Jamaica 7,000 times last week.
had worse kids in it than the public school like because because there were a lot of good kids at the Christian school
But the ones who were bad were really bad
Because if you think about it, if you're at the Christian school and you're not saved
I'm talking about they I'm talking about not just backslidden saved kids. I'm talking unsaved kids in
their 10th year of Christian education
So how many times do you think they've heard the gospel?
Think about I mean you're going we're having Bible classes every day
I mean I grew up in Christian school because out of out of like what 14 years of schooling. Yes
I repeated a grade not because I was dumb but because I started early and my mom made me do it
But I did fourth grade twice. So, you know kindergarten fourth grade twice, you know all those years
I did like I think it was three years of public school. Everything else was Christian school and
You know, here's the thing when you're in public school
You know you can kind of just gravitate toward the best crowd possible
It's a big crowd and you kind of just stay away from skeevy people and whatever but but man when you're in Christian school
You know there's just a couple bad kids, and it's a smaller group, and they they end up corrupting everybody
All right, and they end up you know you get it everybody gets exposed to their sin
Or they at least try to get you into it and so you know like I said I grew up in Christian school, and I'm talking
Bible class every day in Christian school.
I'm talking Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, every day for 11 out of 14 years of
my upbringing.
I was in a Bible class.
It was like, you know, you got science, English, history, Bible, math, Bible, PE, you know,
there's one Bible class per day, every day, almost all the time.
Not only that, once a week, there's chapel where a preacher comes in and preaches to
the students.
Okay, and there's a lot of gospel being preached there and then not only that most of these kids are probably going to church on Sunday
Maybe even Sunday night, Wednesday kids have heard the gospel when you've heard the gospel like 700 times and you're not saved
You're you might be kind of a messed up person at that was there were some messed up people
And so we see here that when the children of Israel go bad
They go really bad they get worse than the heathen around them that have never known God that have never known Christ
Do you see that?
So when people knew God and glorified Him not as God, they can become way worse than
those who are just, you know, public school kids or whatever.
So a lot of people think that, oh, Christian school is just the answer to our problems.
You know, we just need to put them in a Christian school and that's going to fix everything.
Well, again, my personal experience, I was exposed to more filth and more weird things
in Christian school than I was in public school, you know.
But anyway, let's move on quickly for sake of time.
It says that in verse number 10, the Lord spake to Manasseh and to his people, but they
So, Manasseh gets the preaching of God's word and he doesn't respond to it.
So God has to do something else.
Apparently preaching is not going to do it.
So it says in verse 11, wherefore, because of this, the Lord brought upon them the captains
of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns and bound him
with fetters and keratin and bambalam.
reference to some kind of physical torture that he's undergoing because if
you remember Gideon is going to teach him with the thorns and briars you get
to teach him a lesson
obviously these are painful things just like they were used on Christ to torture Jesus Christ
with the crown of thorns okay so he's taken among the thorns he's bound with fetters fetters are
like handcuffs except that they go on your ankles and typically the fetters that are on your ankles
are not they're not going to be padded and soft and nice they're typically going to tear into the
flesh of your ankles and be painful it's going to get infected it's going to be torture so he's
physical pain, he's being humiliated, he's incarcerated,
and he goes through something very difficult
that the Bible is calling his affliction, right?
It says in verse 12, when he was in affliction,
he besought the Lord his God and humbled himself
greatly before the God of his fathers.
And so the thing is that people who are involved
really deep in sin, sometimes it's gonna take
a lot to get their attention.
Sometimes preaching is not enough.
Sometimes God's going to have to punish that person.
And so obviously we want to try to preach to people.
We want to try to show them the Word of God.
We want to try to reach them with the Word of God.
But you know what, if that doesn't work,
sometimes we have to just, you know,
deliver them over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh,
that the Spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Sometimes we need to just understand that,
you know what, I can't reach this person.
God's going to have to deal with this person.
And then if God brings that affliction into their life,
that'll maybe wake them up.
You know and that could be in a lot of different forms where God could take people through a really bad experience
To shake them up and get their attention and get them right
So Manasseh didn't just change have a change of heart. He had to be literally tortured
You know and go through incarceration and mockery humiliation
Expatriation in order to finally wake up and get right with God
But the key thing that I really want to get to I want to make sure I have time for this is why
Did God have mercy on him?
Why did God deliver him from his affliction and even restore him to being the king of Judah and allow him to be a
Successful king and have many great days ahead of him is because of this key phrase here
He humbled himself and it doesn't just say humbled himself. It says in verse 12. He humbled himself
greatly
Before the God of his fathers now his son. Amen is also
Going to be wicked and sinful
But the Bible says in verse 23 he humbled not himself before the Lord as Manassee, his father, had humbled himself.
But Amon trespassed more and more.
So you have two men, both super wicked, one of them humbles himself, one of them doesn't.
The one who humbled himself reigns 55 years.
and ends up being restored, learning his lesson and ending on a good note.
The one who does not humble himself, how long did he reign?
Well, the Bible says he reigned for two years in Jerusalem at the end of verse 21, right?
Humble yourself, 55 years.
Don't humble yourself, two years.
Think that's a coincidence?
It's not, okay?
And so here's the thing, is that when you have been super wicked,
it's going to take a lot of humility to bring you back.
If you've done a little bit of sin, you're going to have to eat crow a little bit.
If you've done a little bit of sin, you're going to have to humble yourself a little bit.
Everybody's got to humble themselves to get where I would go.
The bigger the sin, the more humility it's going to take to restore you.
I mean, think about it. What about people, even people who just...
Let's say people just quit the church because they're backslidden.
or they quit the church for just some other stupid reason
or whatever reason they quit the church, right?
It's gonna take a little humility to come back sometimes.
And here's the thing, when people do come back,
we should always be ready to receive them with open arms.
And the last thing you wanna do when someone comes back is,
so where you been?
So why'd you leave?
Why are you back?
My policy over the last almost 20 years of pastoring
is that when people have been gone for a long time
and come back is you just kinda act like they just
have always been there.
You just kind of don't miss a beat and you just go on you just move on
Hey, I'm just glad you're here now, and you don't worry about you know
Hey, you need to explain this gap on your spiritual resume where you been for the last four months, buddy
You know who care it doesn't matter. We're glad you're back
But here's the thing somebody who had been you know obviously involved in a bunch of super wicked sin and really public about a
Bunch of wicked sins. It's gonna take a lot more humility to come back to church
The weirder the stuff you've done, the worse the sins you've committed,
it's probably going to take more humility to now come back to church.
Or maybe, you know, you got all disgruntled and had a bad attitude and got bitter
and talked crap about the church, the more crap you talked about the church,
the more humility it's going to take to say,
hey, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said those things,
and now I'm back right with God where I'm supposed to be.
It's either going to take a little humility or it's going to take a lot of humility.
The reason it took Manasseh a lot of humility is because he was very deeply involved in
incense.
But at the end of the day however much humility it takes you better find it and you better get right with God
and you better get back in church and
You know, I'm not saying you have to go to our church to be right with God
But you need to be in a righteous church. You need to be in a Bible-believing church where you're serving God
It's not optional. There is no discharge from this war
We are required to be in church and serving God
Christ has bought us with the price.
We need to glorify God in our body
and in our spirit, which are gods.
And so we need to have the humility
that if we do get out of church,
get back slidden, get involved in fornication,
alcohol, drugs, whatever it is,
we need to have the humility to get right with God
and say, I was stupid, I was wrong,
I'm sorry, but I'm right with God now.
And then hopefully when you do come back,
hopefully people will be gracious.
I'll be gracious, and you know what?
The rest of the church hopefully has been taught
to be gracious as well, but at the end of the day,
it's still gonna take some humility
to walk through those doors, right?
Anytime you wrong someone or just go off
on a sinful bender or whatever,
it's gonna take humility to then come back, right?
Unfortunately, we live in a day
where a lot of people are prideful.
They don't have that humility
and they'd rather just stay gone and it's a tragedy.
And so, he gets right with God in his affliction, verse 12.
He humbles himself, he prays to God, God's entreated of him and, you know, not only does
he get saved, and I believe it's clear that, you know, he gets saved, he's going to have
any beliefs in the Lord, whatever.
I think that's clear, but I think not only that, it's kind of amazing that God actually
restores him to his position of being king.
It's kind of surprising that God is that merciful to him.
But you know why?
It's because he humbled himself greatly.
And so he sets everything back up.
He gets rid of the idolatry, opens up the house of God,
gets everybody worshiped in the Lord again, does a great job.
It's not perfect, but it's pretty close, pretty good.
And he lives a long life, dies an old man, starts at 12,
reigns 55 years.
So, you know, lives to be a decent age old man, 67, 68,
whatever, and that's a good ending.
But then.
We see, of course, 21, verse 21,
Amen, his son does evil,
reigns two years, humbles not himself,
trespass more and more.
Verse 24, his servants conspired against him
in slum in his own house.
Now, I know it's kind of depressing
how these guys get right with God
and their son goes evil,
and this kind of back and forth is depressing,
but let me make it a little less depressing for you, okay?
Manasseh gets right with God.
First of all, Hezekiah was right with God.
Manasseh takes it down a dark path,
but then fixes things, gets right with God.
As soon as Amon starts to take things evil,
they're like, we can see where this is going.
Let's kill this sucker.
And they end up assassinating the guy,
because they're like, nah.
You know, and they assassinate him.
And then, here's the good news, we get Josiah,
eight-year-old Josiah, and he ends up being awesome.
And again, here's the thing about Josiah.
Again, he's eight years old, no eight-year-old.
How many eight-year-olds do you know
who live in their own apartment, have a career, have a job?
How many homeowners do you know that are eight years old?
And this is why I tell my kids,
because some of my kids will be a 13, 14, 15,
and they kind of think they're an adult.
And I'm like that's my year 15 and you think you're an adult you think that you're just every bit an adult
Then why don't I see all these 15-year-olds out like you know owning homes having apartments?
I'm like it's not just us that's telling you you're a kid. It's literally the entire world
It's literally the entire country that's telling you you're not an adult when you're 15
You're not an adult when you're 16 you know what I mean because you're not responsible enough
It's not just you're not responsible enough. It's that 15 year olds aren't responsible enough doogie howzer, okay?
Like it's just not a thing and
So the point is
That you know this eight-year-old is obviously now being handled by the right people
You know what I mean? He's being influenced by the right people
And it's probably, you know, because they don't want to go down that Manassee wrote.
So here's the good news is that Manassee gets things right with God and it only gets bad
again for like two years.
It's not even like a four year Biden term or something.
It's like, it's like, it's a, it's a half of a term.
It's only two years, you know, before Trump, now I'm just kidding.
It's only two more years until basically, you know, they can get things back on track
and make Judah great again or whatever.
So the point is, I'm joking, I'm not into politics, but the point that I'm making is
that even though it's like, oh man, back and forth, back and forth, the good news is that
at least the guys who are right with God are lasting longer.
You know, and then the guy who's wicked, I mean, thank God that he gets wiped out after
You know, it's like, well, I'm not saying, you know, to murder the guy, but you know, I'm glad somebody did it
You know, you're just kind of glad that at least he only reigned for two years
And we can get things back on track with with Josiah and next week. We'll see the godly reign of Josiah
Let's bards and have a pair of father. We thank you so much for your word
Thank you so much for the opportunity to be in your house, Lord
And we're living in sinful times, but of course
There's always been sin, it's always the same sins,
hundreds of years later.
But dear God, please protect our young people,
help us to have wisdom,
help the young people to shut the door on bad influences
and surround themselves with godly influences.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen, lastly, turn in your hymnals
if you need the words to song number 48.
Song number 48, I'll Be So Glad, the day is done, song number 48, we'll sing it there twice, sing now.
I'll be so glad the day is done, I'll be so glad that we're in freeze one,
I'll be so glad when Jesus comes.
I'll be so glad in David does.
I'll be so glad in every one.
There'll be no sorrow in God's tomorrow.
You