24/12/2012 - When God is not willing to forgive

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Surely at the commandment of the LORD this came upon Judah, to remove them from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, and also because of the innocent blood that he had shed; for he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, which the LORD would not pardon.

II Kings 24: 3, 4

After Hezekiah’s death the kingdom of Judah displayed a bunch of evil kings, except for Josiah who was wise in his conduct. Manasseh, Hezekiah’s son and successor was one of the most ruthless kings of that nation though. Being the successor of the fearful Hezekiah a similar conduct to that of his father was expected but his attitudes were like those of the worst impious men of that land.

Manasseh completely opposed The Lord as he loved the idolatry adopted by Ahab’s house in Israel; that way he maculated the people of Judah with horrific deeds to face the Living and Holy God (II Kings 21: 2, 3). So, even in Manasseh’s days God said that the price to be paid would be the destruction of the people of Jerusalem, that nation’s capital (II Kings 21: 10 to 16). How mad and foolish are those who daringly face The Lord!

His awful model happened to contaminate the whole nation and The Word declared that they perpetrated even worse deeds than those nations which had inhabited Canaan before the children of Israel came to take possession of them (II Kings 21: 11). That’s the reason why they had to pay too high a price for their negligence regarding The Lord’s instructions. And the same will happen to those people who, once saved and enlightened, sadly turn their back to The Most High to take the wrong way instead.

Ammon, Manasseh’s successor, also walked in his father’s footsteps and carried on with the same conduct till Jehoiakim was crowned king of Judah by Pharaoh Necho. Although they were the people of God He could not forgive their so infamous sins. When the situation gets to the point of preventing God – a God whose very essence is love itself – from forgiving it turns out that nothing else can be done in the end (Hebrews 6: 4 to 6; 10: 26 to 31). Be careful not to – on account of your recklessness over the holy issues – let yourself be caught up in that dreadful situation. 

We’re not accountable whenever tempted but when we let a temptation become part of our lives and rejoice with it, we’re actually accepting the devil’s proposals and so we begin being accountable for our wrong decisions. Yet, before our downfall The Spirit of God tries to convince us of our sins by showing how much wrongdoing we’ve been committing and He does strive to prevent us from falling. If we don’t answer Him, if we insist on transgressing we can be sure that the punishment will come in the end.

Although Manasseh had been favoured by The Lord before that was still not enough for His next decision to be cancelled. Manasseh was ultimately tied up and taken into captivity to Babylon; but then he turned to repentance and looked for the divine favour. At that point God made the Babylonian monarch turn him back to his kingdom but, even though, the divine sentence for his evil deeds was not cancelled (II Chronicles 33: 11, 13).

We must never offend The Spirit of God. If you have fallen into temptation you ought to ask for forgiveness the sooner the better and, once you’ve reached it, you must do all you can not to turn back to the same error. 

In Christ, with love,

R. R. Soares