MJ was confused. He had looked at the dial on the time machine, and the next name was Manasseh. MJ had never heard of this person, and wondered who this person was, and what he did in life. The Professor told MJ and Precious that Manasseh was also a king. He was the 12th king to come after King Solomon, and he became king when he was only 12 years old.
It was time to bring King Manassh for a visit. Precious turned the dial to Manasseh’s name, and MJ pushed the button.
Nothing happened for about 30 seconds, then the booth began to shake like a mosquito who had too much caffeine, there was the sound of thunder, and the air was filled with a heavy feeling of evil!
King Manasseh burst out of the booth with a sword in his hand! He yelled, “I just got a new foreign god, and all of you must bow down and worship this god!” The Professor answered and said, “We will not worship your false god, we only worship the true God in heaven!”
King Manasseh yelled, “Then I will kill you with my sword just like I killed the prophets of God!” Manasseh started ran toward the Professor to attack him, and the Professor said, “Ooops!” Just before he got to the Professor, King Manasseh saw MJ and Precious by the booth. He turned towards them, raised his sword and yelled, “I see children! I will kill you and burn you as a sacrifice on an alter to one of my gods!” He was going to kill MJ and Precious! They were so scared that they could not move! The Professor rushed to rescue MJ and Precious. As he was running to them, he grabbed something to use as a weapon. Unfortunately, he grabbed a roll of Christmas wrapping paper! King Manasseh and the Professor had a sword fight! The only problem was that Manasseh had a real sword, and the Professor had that roll of wrapping paper. The Professor’s wrapping paper sword kept getting shorter and shorter as Manasseh sliced pieces off it. The Professor said, “Ooops!”
MJ and Precious now sprang into action! On the table there was a full spool of ribbon to put on presents. They grabbed the ribbon and unrolled it. They used the ribbon to tangle Manasseh’s arms and legs, and he fell to the floor! Manasseh was furious! He tried to rip the ribbon off his arms and legs with one hand, and Precious stomped on the other hand that held the sword. Manasseh dropped the sword, and MJ kicked it across the room.
The Professor now charged into the battle, but his feet got tangled in the ribbon and with a loud cry of “Ooops” he fell on top of Manasseh and stunned him! While Manasseh lay stunned on the floor, the Professor, MJ, and Precious grabbed his legs and dragged him into the booth and slammed the door. Precious pushed the button. Nothing happened for about 30 seconds, King Menasseh recovered and tried to break down the booth and escape. Then the booth began to shake like a mosquito who had too much caffeine, there was the sound of thunder, and King Menasseh was gone!
The Professor, MJ, and Precious sat down to catch their breath and rest for a minute, then Precious asked the Professor why he had decided to bring such a dangerous person to their lab. All of them had almost been killed! The Professor looked embarrassed, and he explained that he had hoped that they would have been visited by King Menasseh at the end of his life because he was much different then, and it would have been great to hear King Menasseh tell his whole story to them. The Professor said that he would do his best to tell them the story of King Menasseh.
The father of King Menasseh was the good King Hezekiah. King Hezekiah followed the one true God, and he encouraged all the people in the kingdom to follow God also. When Menasseh became king, he was 12 years old, and he decided to rebel against everything his father had believed in. So, King Menasseh followed every false god that he heard about, and he encouraged everyone in the kingdom to worship false gods. Menasseh even put up statues of false gods in the temple of God in Jerusalem. The prophets of the one true God stood up against Menasseh, and Menasseh had the prophets killed. Menasseh also had many other people in the kingdom killed for almost any reason. One of the worst things that Menasseh did was to sacrifice children on the alters of the false gods. Menasseh was truly an evil king and he made the country an evil country.
In the Bible in Galatians 6:7 it says:
Don’t be misled – you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant.
King Menasseh learned the truth of this Bible verse. God only put up with his evil for a while, and then God sent a punishment to King Menasseh. An enemy conquered King Menasseh and took him captive. They put a hook through King Menasseh’s nose and led him captive to Babylon. After a while King Menasseh realized that the true God in heaven is real and that He cannot be mocked. King Menasseh had a change of heart, he now believed in the true God. God allowed King Menasseh to return and be king again in Jerusalem. Now King Menasseh wanted to do the right things! He tore down the alters to the false gods and tore down their statues. The King worshipped the one true God in heaven, and he encouraged the people of the kingdom to turn to the true God and ask for forgiveness. Unfortunately, the people would not turn from worshipping the false gods, they had learned so much evil from King Menasseh and now they did not want to change. The King must have been very sad to see that the people did not want to turn from the evil that he had taught them.
The Professor told MJ and Precious that it is important for people to know about King Menasseh because many people in this world have close relatives that are far from God and delight to do evil things. These relatives can be an embarrassment to their families. It is encouraging to know that Jesus also had relatives that were far from God. There were some ancestors of Jesus who embarrassed the family. Jesus understands the difficulty of living with that embarrassment.
It is also very important to know that even though King Menasseh was very evil, God was still able to reach him and forgive him. When the king finally turned to God, God forgave him and gave him another chance to lead the kingdom.
In the Bible in Psalms 103:12 we are told about God’s forgiveness, when person turns to God and asks to be forgiven:
He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.
East and west never meet, so when a person turns to God and sincerely asks for forgiveness, God removes that person’s sins completely, they are gone completely and gone for good! All this is possible because of Jesus dying on the cross to pay for our sins and then rising from the dead three days later.
No one is beyond the reach of God’s love and forgiveness. Pray for those that you know need to have God in their life. Pray and then pray some more…keep praying for them always!