A Second Chance

F. W. Boreham, the Australian Christian of a century ago, wrote, “Grandfatherism gives every man a second chance. If his parents fail him, his grandparents may yet prove his salvation.”

Perhaps history’s most dramatic illustration of that truth is King Manasseh in 2 Chronicles 33. Manasseh was the son of good King Hezekiah, but even good men can have prodigal sons, and Manasseh was a twelve-year-old terror.

When Hezekiah died, Manasseh assumed the throne, a teenage tyrant, horribly wicked. The parallel account in 2 Kings 21 also tells us that Manasseh slaughtered many of his own people, establishing a reign of terror in Jerusalem. How would you like this man as your grandfather? Don’t answer too soon for there’s more to this story.

After a lifetime of violence, demonism, bloodshed, immorality, and the worst moral pollution the world had ever seen, Manasseh came to the Lord. When he died at age sixty-seven, having served as Judah’s king for fifty-five years, his son Amon, age twenty-two, took over.

He did such evil in the sight of the Lord that his own people assassinated him after only two years, and his eightyear-old son Josiah became king, and he was among Judah’s best kings-a godly - man who repaired the temple and reestablished the worship of Jehovah among the people. How can we explain Josiah’s passion for godliness? His grandfather had died two years before, but he had enjoyed his grandfather during his first six years.

In other words, the last six years of Manasseh and the first six years of Josiah overlap; and the last six years of Manasseh were his repentant years, his godly years, his years of reform and contrition. It was too late for him to influence his own son Amon, but it wasn’t too late for Josiah.

We can easily picture the old king spending long hours with his small grandson saying, ‘Josiah, someday you’ll be king of this land; and you must never do the things that I did. You must serve the Lord Jehovah . . . . “ The story of Josiah is the story of a grandfather’s influence.

1Jay Kesler, “Grandparents in the Gap,” Focus on the Family, March 1999, 3.