Is it Ever Too Late to Turn My Life Around? That’s a great question and we are so glad you asked! Let’s see what the Bible has to say.
“When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity and dies because of it, for his iniquity which he has committed he will die. Again, when a wicked man turns away from his wickedness which he has committed and practices justice and righteousness, he will save his life (Ezekiel 18:26-27).”
In 933BC united Israel split into two separate countries, the Northern Kingdom, and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Jeroboam rebelled against the Davidic King, Rehoboam, and was the Northern Kingdom’s first king. Rehoboam remained the king but now ruled only the southern half of Israel.
Nineteen kings ruled in the Northern Kingdom, and when God evaluated them at the end of their reign (at death), according to God, none were good. God used the Assyrians to defeat the Northern Kingdom in 722BC. The Assyrians deported most Jewish residents and resettled the country with foreign peoples (1 Kings 13-2 Kings 15).
Twenty kings ruled in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, not including Saul, David, and Solomon, who ruled over united Israel before Jeroboam’s rebellion (2 Chronicles 10-36). These kings continued the Davidic line of kings. Yet God evaluated only half of them as good.
Manasseh was considered one of the worst kings of Judah:
“For he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD. He made his sons pass through the fire in the valley of Ben-hinnom; and he practiced witchcraft, used divination, practiced sorcery and dealt with mediums and spiritists…. Thus Manasseh misled Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the sons of Israel. 2 Chronicles 33 5-6, 9).”
He came under the Lord’s discipline for his evil ways:
“Therefore the LORD brought the…king of Assyria against them, and they captured Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze chains and took him to Babylon (2 Chronicles 33:11).
How did Manasseh respond after God severely disciplined him?
When he was in distress, he entreated the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. When he prayed to Him, He (God) was moved by his entreaty and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God (2 Chronicles 33:12-13).”
When Manasseh returned to Jerusalem and his reign, he corrected his evil:
“Now after this he built the outer wall of the city of David….He also removed the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the LORD, as well as all the altars which he had built.…He set up the altar of the LORD and sacrificed peace offerings and thank offerings on it; and he ordered Judah to serve the LORD God of Israel.”
No matter what we’ve done, we can turn our lives around and serve the Lord. Manasseh was evil personified until he turned his life around. According to his testimony, another man who personified evil, Ted Bundy, became a Christian on death row. Some, even God-saved Christians themselves, feel it is unfair if God allows Ted Bundy to enter heaven. If we assume that his conversion testimony is true, he will be there. If he’s there, it is because Christ died for him and offers His salvation freely to all who believe. We all must come with empty hands and have dirty hands. This is good news for all of us, for all have sinned, and Jesus promised that He will forgive all sins that people commit (Mark 3:28):
“But the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ Are My ways not right, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are not right (Ezekiel 18:29)?”
