Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to our reading, the second of
Chronicles, chapter 32. And we will read just the last
part of verse 33. The last four words of chapter 32. Reigned in His stead. Reigned in His stead. These words
occur, this phrase occurs some 63 times in the Word of God. And each time it is an occasion
like we remember today, where one monarch dies and another
takes their place. Our Queen now has been the longest
reigning monarch. In fact, on the 9th of September
2015, Elizabeth II became the longest reigning British monarch. and at the same time the longest
reigning female monarch in world history. The longest reigning monarch
over Judah and Israel was Manasseh. That is why I've chosen this
particular change in the history of Judah, the change between
Hezekiah and then going through to Manasseh, his son. You might say, well, what would
we remember Manasseh for? Would it not be not a very good
comparison with our own queen? There are several things, of
course, that Manasseh was very unique in. One was that he was
born and he was in the line to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He is listed in the list in Matthew
1 that traces right from Abraham through to Joseph, the kingship
line. He was also in a way unique,
a miraculous birth, because his father Hezekiah had been told
that he should set his house in order, that he should die
and not live. And Hezekiah poured out his heart
to the Lord, he prayed unto God, and the Lord added to his years
15 years. And it was in those years that
Manasseh was born. Mind so naturally speaking, if
Hezekiah had died, the line to Christ would have been broken. And it was God's purpose to clearly
show he was able to restore life from Hezekiah's sickness, to
raise him up again, and to bring a continuance of the line of
the kings and the line to Christ. What a reminder it is. I've just
mentioned that King George VI, our Queen's father,
that he died at the age of 56. Relatively young, as it were. About younger than Manasseh would
have been. reigned for 55 years, we're told
here, and that he was 12 when he began to reign. And so we have 67 years that
he lived. With King George VI, he died
of illness. If it was the Lord's will, he
could have raised him up. He could have spared him. And
we are reminded in this with Manasseh and his father, and
that change between, you know, Hezekiah did eventually die.
But in the meantime, Manasseh was born, obviously born very
early in that 15 years, within three years of when Hezekiah
had been ill. Our lives, the lives of sovereigns,
are in the Lord's hand. Sometimes we look at those in
history and there have been godly men, ministers, and they've had
very short lives. They've died at 22, 15. Those who the Lord has seen fit
to take away rather than give them to remain. And yet we have
with Manasseh, we have with our present Queen, the Lord sovereignly
granting that long life. And so in one thing then common
with Manasseh and our Queen is the length of time that was served. However most solemnly as we read,
one thing that Manasseh is remembered for is his great wickedness and
his sin. And no doubt all Judah going
along with him in that wickedness and in all that he did, not single-handedly,
but with the will of the people as well. But then we have an
event that is recorded in this passage in Chronicles that is
not recorded in the same account that is in Kings. And that is
Manasseh's repentance. God used the fact that he had
brought the king of Assyria to carry him away captive. Now normally
if that happened, they would never bring them back to their
own land again. They would never restore them
back to their own kingdom. And yet God brought that about.
He brought Manasseh to be humbled To pray unto him, we read those
beautiful words, when he was in affliction, he besought the
Lord his 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. It was a miracle that God changed
his heart. That is a miracle. And that the
Lord brought him back to his own land. That was a miracle.
And we see the proof of the change in Manasseh in how that then
he took away those altars and his repentance was clearly seen. in the change in his life, and
what Manasseh had, we would desire for our Queen, and we know that
each of us must have that change. It's a very solemn thing that
of the kings of Judah, 22 of them there were, half of them,
half of them were evil, positively evil, Some of the others were
borderline, as it were, with King Solomon, you might say,
good on one side, but then again followed those idols of his wives. So he was half and half, if you
like, a good king, but a king that departed from the Lord.
But of the 19 kings of Israel, all of them were evil. From the
time that the kingdom was separated in the days of Rehoboam, until
they were taken away by the king of Assyria, who is not one godly
king amongst them. What a solemn thing, because
they carried away Israel, those ten tribes with them, in departing
from the law. Well, I want to think then briefly
this morning. A king replaced by another reigned
in his stead. And there's four things that
I would bring before you this morning. We'll look at them as
we come to them. Firstly, changing sovereigns. That is many. In the early chapters
of the Word of God, we have a whole list of those that lived, men
that lived many, many years, hundreds of years. And there,
instead of the words reigned in his stead, we read again and
again, and he died. Very often throughout the Word
of God, it is highlighted the necessity of death upon fallen
man. In the day that thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die. And that is emphasised in the
word in the beginning, it's emphasised in the change of kings, of monarchs,
it's emphasised in the change of high priests, that the high
priests could not continue ever but they were a changing priesthood. And yet when we read the history
of Israel through the words of scripture, we see what an influence
those monarchs had, how quickly it changed. Just in this one
change we have in our text, Hezekiah was a good king. He did much good, was greatly
blessed, the Lord was with him. But we read in verse 3 of 2 Chronicles
33, he built again, this is Manasseh, built again the high places which
Hezekiah's father had broken down and he reared up altars
for Balaam. He undid all of the good work
of Hezekiah. The influence that in the days
of the scriptures, those kings had. Yet of course they were
not alone. They had those that did their
bidding. Of course with us now, our monarch
and the royal family is really just ceremonial. Since 1649,
when Oliver Cromwell established the Order of Parliament, then
it is that our laws are made in Parliament, they're ratified
by the throne, and there are certain things that must go through
the throne. But the Lord has given us a Queen
that does have a big influence as a role model, you might say,
as a peacemaker, keeping out of of politics as it were, but
in many ways being sympathetic to the people and one that relates
to the people. So of course we do have a different
situation, we have more a situation where when we get a change of
government, then our laws change and the things that are done
in the land change according to the government that is in
power. Nevertheless, we do see this
principle that with a change of those that are in power, in
this case the change of a sovereign, does greatly impact in a nation,
in a people. Even God's ancient people, they
proved this. So we have then first a picture
before us Changing sovereigns, changing ones that have influence
over a people. But then secondly, an unchanging
sovereign. That is Christ, our God. The children of Israel first
asked for a king in the days of Samuel. Samuel was very grieved
that they did so, Their one aim was to be like the nations of
other lands. And the Lord said to Samuel,
they have not rejected you, they have rejected me. But he bade
him still to make them a king and do as they had said. But
he gave them those solemn warnings that they were still to obey
the Lord, the Lord was still to be their God, and if they
still serve the Lord, then both them and their King would be
saved. The Lord would bless them and
be with them both. And that would be a wonderful
thing, wonderful blessing in this land, if as a land and as
a sovereign, we serve the Lord. And the Lord in the days of Samuel,
He joined those two together, how the King should act, how
the people would act, And the king would not be in the place
of God, but they should both, king and people, or queen as
in our case, and people, serve the Lord. For he is the King
of kings and Lord of lords. And he is the unchanging sovereign,
our Lord Jesus Christ. And this contrast we mentioned
with the kings, but also with the priesthood. This is taken
up in Hebrews especially, that because they must needs die,
there was a changing priesthood. It went from one hand to another. And here, it goes from one to
another. One moment, you have a good king. Next moment, you have a bad king.
One moment is influenced for good. and the other for bad.
One moment you have those that the people would have to think,
can we really follow this king? Can we really do what he's bidding
us to do? And another, they would have
gladly felt, we can. And what he is asking us to do
is in accordance to the word of God. It might really make
us to value what we have in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We never need to think with him. Is he going to change? Is it
going to be that his kingdom will fall and another will take
his place? It is Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday and today and forever. He is the eternal God, the ever-living
God, in the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. The very beginning of the Word
of God, we read, in the beginning, God. Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but the words of the Lord shall not pass away, and the Lord shall
not pass away, for He is eternal and the ever-living God. I am
the Lord, I change not. Wherefore ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. I really want to emphasize the
blessing of an unchanging sovereign in the Lord our God. And not
only unchanging, but that he is a good and gracious, long-suffering
and merciful God. He is the God of salvation, He
has devised it, He has brought it about Himself, He has been
the One that has devised that way, that consistent with His
holiness, justness and righteousness, He could forgive sin, pardon
sin, and have those sinners to be with Him forever, and He not
be unjust, not unfair, but righteous and upright. May we remember
that the Word of God that we have before us, the Holy Bible,
is the Word of this unchanging Sovereign. That Word does not
change. It is inerrant. There's no mistake
or error in it, and it is complete. The only Word of God given to
men, and it is given that we might believe on his name. We know that there is a God by
creation. We can see it in ourselves made
in the image of God. We can see it in the wonderful
things that are made and the governance of it. But in the
word of God, we have a revelation of God himself and of the Lord
Jesus Christ and of the way of salvation. And we have that which
does not change. One of the tragedies of the Church
of God today is that they change or try to change the Word of
God. Our Lord reproved the Jews in
his day. He said, you make the Word of
God of none effect by your tradition. And he cited how the Word made
sons, daughters to honor their father and their mother. But
the Jews had said that if they said, well, the parents are somehow
benefited by the children, therefore they could be free from that
need to honor them. And the word was still there,
but by their traditions, they made it of none effect. We need
to really ask ourselves in that way, do we? Do we believe that
we have an unchanging God, an unchanging Sovereign, who has
given us an unchanging Word that is relevant today as it was when
it was first given? And that though we have that
Word, there is that danger if we're not careful to actually
make it of none effect. People read the Word so it doesn't
really mean what it says, it means something different. And
if we do that, we're walking in the same way that the Jews
were. An unchanging sovereign, an unchanging
word. The words of the true and living
God. How vital it is to know that
the Lord Jesus Christ is the true God. We have in 1 John 5,
this is the true God and eternal life. The Lord Jesus Christ,
I and my Father are one. If you've seen me, you've seen
my Father also. The authority that he had was
from his Father. The merit of his precious blood
is that he was the spotless, sinless Son of God, that he was
truly God and truly man in one person, divine. A human body
and human soul joined with is divine Godhead, the mystery God
manifest in the flesh. So then, secondly, an unchanging
sovereign Christ. But thirdly, sin and its consequences. The word of our text reigned
in his dead. You've already mentioned about
the contrast in the early chapters in Genesis of those that died. And here we have again a reminder
of death. But in this case, it is the death
of a sovereign. One you might say is the highest
of the land. It's good for us to be reminded
that death visits everyone. We read in Egypt, when the destroying
angel passed over the houses at the time of the Passover,
that every house that had not the blood, there was one dead. And there was no distinction,
whether it was the maid, or whether it was in Pharaoh's household. And in actual fact, at that time,
it even extended to the beast as well. Every firstborn was
slain. But we have a reminder of the
effect of sin. That the death, yes, of beasts
as well, the whole creation, groaneth and is in travail until
now. Adam's fall as head of creation
in God's image. It brought a curse upon all the
earth, upon all creation. Hymn writer says, all creation
groans through thee, pregnant cause of misery. What a solemn thing to look upon
that, as man that has fallen, and see what a profound effect
that we have, and really man's actions, fallen man's actions,
how that he himself causes distress to countless of his fellow mortals,
and countless of thee. animal kingdom as well. But sin has its consequences. The sentence is death, and that
is reminded in our text. Whether we be mighty, whether
we be rich, whether we be poor, whether we've been born into
royalty or born as a pauper, everyone must at one time die,
and that is because of sin. The Holy Word of God not only
explains the wonderful world in which we live in, but it also
explains the presence of sin and suffering and of death. And it also shows the remedy
and way of escape from that. Reigned in his stead, a consequence
of sin. Now we have this as well in Manasseh's
own life. We are told of his great sins. Then we're told how the Lord
dealt with him, brought him into captivity, brought him into affliction. And the Lord used that for good
and brought about a change. Now why was that? How could that
be? Well the consequence of sin is
not only in the sinner, but in the sinner's substitute. One
thing that our present sovereign can never do, they can never
die for someone else. They can never put away another
sin. They're given power to bestow
medals and honours and favours upon others, but this
one favour, they need the same. It was said of Mary, the mother
of our Lord, Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul
also. And Mary herself said, I rejoice
in God, my saviour. Well, the consequences then extend
to the substitute, to the Lord Jesus Christ, the unchanging
Sovereign. And we may almost say, well,
though He is unchanging in His person, yet He did come to this
world to take a body made for Him, a body hast thou prepared
for me, and to take a soul, and in that body to live a perfect
life, to work out a righteousness for his people. This is the name
wherewith he shall be called the Lord Our Righteousness. And
the church's name is the same, the Lord Our Righteousness. His
perfect spotless life was so vital if he was to suffer in
the stead of his people and to be able to put away their sins.
That is the difference. between our Lord and any sovereign
today. They are sinners, He was not.
Our Lord, when He was baptized, He was led by the Spirit, not
by Satan, into the desert to be tempted of the devil 40 days
and 40 nights. We only read of when He began
those temptations at the very end of the temptations, really,
but the first one, if thou be the Son of God, command these
stones that they may be made bread. The first temptation,
the only temptation in the Garden of Eden was a temptation of bread,
of eating, of food, of forbidden food. Adam and Eve had everything
in that garden, they had everything plenty, everything to eat to
the full, but the one forbidden thing, in their innocency, they
fell. And therefore we all fell in
them, sin entered and death entered the world. And so when our Lord
is tempted, he is tempted not when he's full, not when he has
everything, but when he's in the desert, not in the Garden
of Eden, and when he has fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. And
then comes Satan and tempts him to use his power as the Son of
God He could have done it, but he
did not need to prove to Satan that he was the son of God. What
a picture we have of a real sovereign. For the man, if he'd given an
opportunity of proving his strength and his power, he would fall
for it, he would do it. But when you actually have that
power of mind, you don't have to demonstrate it. at the will
and whim of any. When we come before the Lord,
and like Hezekiah did, and pray and ask the Lord's mercy and
life and forgiveness, we come not demanding, command that. It is supplicating, if it be
His will, coming before Him as a sovereign, that he has a sovereign
right to either withhold or to delay or to do what he will. And our Lord did not fall to
Satan, how vital it was. One of our hymns says, our captain
stood the fiery test and we shall stand through him. But our Lord then had to suffer. He says, I lay down my life No
man taketh it from me. I lay it down of myself. This
commandment have I received of my father. I have power to lay
it down. I have power to take it again. And it was the substitutionary
offering of our Lord. I lay down my life for the sheep. The Jews, they were saying, calling
him the Prince of Devils, the Beelzebub. The Lord said to them
in John 10, ye are not of my sheep, ye hear not my word, therefore
ye are not of my sheep. Very clearly making a separation
between his hearers, those that were his sheep and those that
were not, and clearly saying that when he laid down his life,
he did not lay down his life for everyone, he laid them down
for his sheep. In Proverbs we read, The Lord
delights in a just weight and a just balance. In Numbers 3,
we have the redemption of the firstborn in Israel by the Levites. And where the number of the Levites
were not enough to redeem every firstborn in the children of
Israel, they had to pay according to the shekel of the sanctuary
to make up the difference. It was one for one. And it is
a vital thing, we realise the redemption is Christ, in Christ
is a particular redemption. It is a love that the Lord so
loved his people, and he loved them, Manasseh here, he loved
him. And in love on Calvary he bore
his sins, yes, our Lord is the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. All the sacrifices in the Old
Testament pointed to Christ. Adam's sins were put away, the
last one called by grace were put away, all at Calvary. And the Lord knew Manasseh's
sins. Manasseh's sins were laid on
him, he suffered for his sins, the same as every one of us who
are brought by God's grace to believe in his name. He had laid on Him the iniquity
of us all. So sin and its consequences,
we look upon Christ, His sufferings, His death, His agonies, and all
that the Lord did. That was done to put away Manasseh's
sin, to put away ours, if we are brought to believe in His
dear name. Election, may we always know
is known by calling. We cannot look into the hidden
knowledge of God as to who are his people, but we know who they
are because they hear the word of God, they come to receive
the word of God, and are brought to repentance. It's very noted
with Manasseh, In verse 10 we read, and the Lord spoke to Manasseh
and to his people, but they would not hearken. And many of us that
know the Lord, we can look in days of unregeneracy, and the
Lord spoke to us and warned us, and we would not hearken. But
blessed be God, as with Manasseh, there did come a time when we
did hearken, and our ear was opened, and a change wrought. I want to just then briefly notice
in the fourth place that need of all men, low and high, is
to be brought to repentance. A personal change, we might say,
of reign. Our text is, reigned in his stead. Well, by nature, the one that
is reigning is Satan. We do his bidding. And sin is
reigning, and self is reigning. We serve sin, we serve self,
we serve Satan. Whom ye obey, are ye servants
to whom ye obey. Romans 6. And the vital need
then is repentance. The gift our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ has to give is to give. He is exalted to give repentance
and remission of sins unto Israel, that is, his spiritual people. If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. The message of salvation is the
finished work of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Those
who had crucified him had done that great sin. Under the preaching
of Peter, they were convinced of it, pricked in their hearts.
They bowed before the word. They gladly received the word
of forgiveness and pardon through that precious blood. They believed,
and those that gladly received the word were baptized. The message is to the darkest
and deepest and most hell-deserving sinners. Our Lord says that all
manner of sin and blasphemy against the Son of Man shall be forgiven
among men. He is able to save unto the uttermost
all that come unto God by him, for he ever liveth to make intercession
for them. He is the one that is lifted
up on the pole of the everlasting gospel. Our Lord in John 3.16
refers to the time when Moses in the wilderness was commanded
to lift up a brazen serpent in the face of all the Israelites
that had sinned. Those that were being bitten
by serpents, those that were dying, When they looked, they
lived. And the Lord says, even as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but should have eternal life. The Son of Man came not
to destroy men's lives, but to save them. May we then be blessed
personally with a change of reign, and have reigning in our heart
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It was evidenced in Manasseh
in this way. He was brought to affliction. The Lord used outward means.
Sometimes He doesn't, but other times He does. And we think of
this time in our nation with the virus and all the attendant
trials that have come with it. God can use that. I pray that
he may indeed use it in our nation. But the effect was, he was humbled. Not just humbled, but greatly
humbled. And humbled before the God of
his fathers. As one great sign of real conversion. To be humbled before God. When
you see a person that is cutting about the word and condemning
it, speaking against it, you don't see one with the evidence
of grace or repentance. When Josiah, again another godly
king, they found the law of God and he humbled himself before
God when that law was read before him. And not only humbled, prayer
was given with The Apostle Paul, Saul of Tarsus, it was said of
him, Behold, he prayeth. And it can be said here with
Manasseh as well. And prayed unto him, and he was
entreated. The Lord heard his supplication. He wrote for him, he appeared
for him. And Manasseh then knew that the
Lord was God. And he made a difference in his
life. We think of Saul of Tarsus. What a difference in the Apostle's
life, before and after that Damascus road. Has the Word of the Lord
made a difference in our lives? Is there a change of reign? The
Apostle Paul, the first thing he said to the Lord was, Lord,
what would Thou have me to do? Not, this is what I'm going to
do, I'm reigning. No, Thou art reigning, Thou art
my sovereign, what wilt Thou have me to do? And so this then
is the vital need of all men, low and high, rich and poor,
kings, queens, all their subjects, that there be this change, a
change of a reign within. Or may it be so with us that
we realize and know that that blessing is ours and the Lord
Jesus Christ reigns in our hearts. May the Lord bless this word.
Amen.