Amen. So this is a great chapter in 2 Kings. We're getting really close to the end here,
but this is, of course, probably the greater chapter, one of the greater kings we're going
to read about when it comes to Josiah. Josiah, who we read about last week,
came into the throne at eight years of age after Manasseh and Amnon, those wicked kings
that had ruled previously before him. So this is like the great-grandson of Hezekiah,
so Hezekiah and Josiah are kind of the last two really good kings of Israel.
And really, you see some of the best kings kind of at the end. If you remember about Hezekiah,
it said that there arose no king like him before or after him. And then we read about
Josiah where he says there was no king that turned with all his heart unto the Lord,
neither before or after him. So whenever we find ourselves in dark times as a nation or
even in our own individual lives, and we're going through, maybe everybody around us is
falling apart, maybe everything else is falling apart, that's really the time for
us to shine the most. That's what I get out of the stories of Hezekiah and Josiah,
of course, because again, those are two great kings, as the scripture says,
but they're reigning when Judah is, it's just most backslidden. It's just a matter of just
a few decades here after Josiah, they're going to be carried away into Babylon,
into the captivity. But again, you have these last couple of kings here at the end of Judah's
reign before the captivity, Judah's existence rather. So again, it's just a great example that
we can't just look around at the people around us and just kind of throw our hands up
and just say, if you can't beat them, join them. We should always try to keep our zeal going,
always try to keep our love for the Lord hot, always try to be fervent in our spirit for
the things of God, even if those around us are not, whether it's people in our own lives,
personally, or even today as a nation, as a whole, our nation has gone very far from God.
Obviously there's a lot of lip service being given to God. There's a lot of, Jesus has
mentioned a lot, but people have turned from God in the sense that they're no longer
going back to His word. And a lot of these so-called movements for Christ are so far detached
from the actual word of God, you can't, you could call them anything but a revival.
Okay. And that's one of the things we see here in this great revival. Again, it's a,
it's a going back to the word of God and, you know, that's kind of its own sermon,
but I really want to point out here in this, another element here in this revival is the
fact that it's something that resulted from everybody's participation. If you notice here
in this chapter, the word all just keeps coming up and the first dozen, your first half dozen
chapter versus rather, the word all comes up like a dozen times. And then again at the end,
it's just all, all, all, it's just everybody's getting on board. They're taking care of
everything. It shows me that when a great revival comes, you know, it's not just the,
the, the, the effect of one man. It's not just one man getting on fire. It's everybody
getting involved. It's, it's the leader. It's the people. And what are they doing?
They're going back to the word of God. They're reading the word of God. Remember last week,
Josiah was given the book of the law that they found in the temple. They're reading that.
They're going to the prophetess. They're hearing the judgment of God that they're
going to be spared. They're turning to the Lord and they're doing the things of the law.
Okay. But again, revival is a going back to the word of God and it involves
everybody doing so. That's where great revival comes from. And really what I want to talk
about tonight is this topic of apathy because apathy is something that can creep into our lives.
It can creep into a church and apathy in your life is something that will absolutely just snuff
out God's working. It will take you completely out of serving God when you allow an apathetic
spirit to creep in to your life. And if enough people in a church become apathetic towards the
things of God, that will kill a church. A church will die if it's filled with apathetic people.
And I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself, but let me again just point out a few things here.
In verse one it says, and the king sent and gathered unto him all the elders of Judah
and of Jerusalem. So he gets, he's getting everybody involved. And the king went up into
the house of Lord and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him.
So you got all the men of Judah, right? The country, the nation, and all the inhabitants
of Jerusalem where the temple is and the priests and the prophets and all the people,
both small and great. So everybody's getting on board with this. Everybody's getting involved.
That's what's going to bring this nation around here for one last hurrah at the end
for the Lord. Ultimately, we know they're going to be wiped out and destroyed,
but God is sparing them in the days of Josiah because of the fact that everybody's getting
involved. Everybody, all the people, both small and great are getting involved. And what are
they doing? And he read in their ears all the words of the book. You know, they didn't just
sit there and speak in tongues. They didn't just have, you know, just an endless song service.
You know, they got the old fashioned Bible out and started to read what it actually said and
started to preach and teach what it actually said. And, you know, remember last week they read
when Josiah read the book of the law, you know, he was troubled. You know, he was smitten.
He was like, we're in trouble here. We have not been doing what we're supposed to be
doing. That's what revival is. It's finding out what we've been doing wrong and correcting it.
Okay. It's not just this emotional, you know, feeling that comes over you
that people call revival today. It's a going back to the word of God.
It involves all of the people. So all the people, they're all hearing the word.
So notice again, what also involves there's this other element. They're going up to what?
The house of God. They're going in verse two, up into the house of the Lord.
They're going to church. You know, if you, if people who, when they become apathetic,
usually one of the first things that go is church attendance. They'll just say, well,
you know, it's not really worth going. I can't be bothered. They become apathetic towards the
things of God. They just start skipping out on church. Church become, takes a very low
priority in their life. That's why we have such an apathetic nation today. We have people
that are very apathetic towards the things of God. That's why, you know, they spend most
of their time anywhere else but in the house of God. You know, they're busy out on the golf
course and the lakes and you know, around here they're busy pulling on their spandex and riding
their 10 speeds up and down the asphalt. You know, that's what they do on a Sunday by the
dozens is ride around on their bikes instead of getting in the house of God. You know,
they're at the park playing softball there. They've all these other things that are more
important to them. They've become apathetic towards the things of God. That's why they're
not in church. Okay. So when you, you know, one of the first signs of apathy in a
person's life is when church takes a backseat to other things in their lives.
So we see again, revival has these different elements, right? Going to church, getting in
the word of God. You know, revival is the result of everybody getting involved. You can't
just put it all on one person. You can't just say, well, okay, let's have revival. Let's
just have one leader, you know, be zealous enough to just carry everybody else on his shoulders.
It doesn't work like that. Great churches don't accomplish things just by the efforts of one
man. You know, the preacher gets up and tries to just motivate and exhort and to teach the
word of God and to solidify the people, to perfect the saints. But ultimately if a
church is going to accomplish great things for God, the people in the pew have to get
zealous themselves. They have to have their own walk with God. They can't just rely
on the zeal of somebody else. And they sure can, surefire cannot become apathetic
towards the things of God. And that's something we all have to be on guard against is apathy
creeping into our lives. So again, they're going into church. Look at verse three,
and the king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the Lord to walk after the Lord
and to keep his commandments. So again, this is all, it's all centered around the word of
God, this revival. It's walking after God, keeping his commandments, keeping his testimonies
and his statutes. Here's these words again, with all their heart and with all their soul
to perform the words of this covenant. Not to just hear it and say, well, that sounds nice,
but to actually hear those things. And then with all their soul and with all their might,
perform those things. Okay. And it's, again, it's everybody that's doing it. Yes, the king,
the leader is getting up and saying, here's what we're going to do. This is what the Bible
says. And then everybody is saying, hey, we're going to do these things with all of our soul,
all our might. Everybody's getting involved to perform the words of this covenant that are
written in the book. And it ends there, and all the people stood to the covenant. And they
said, amen. They said, we heard what he said. We're going to do it. They stood to it. Okay.
So Josiah, he kind of just is speaking on behalf of the people. It's not like he's, you know,
telling them how it is. You know, everyone's hearing the word. They're hearing what the
Bible says and they're standing to it. He's kind of speaking on their behalf when he's
swearing unto the Lord that they're going to keep the covenant and the statutes and to walk
and these things. He's kind of speaking. He's just, he's the mouthpiece that's speaking for
everybody. Okay. It's not really that he's barking orders. It's just that he's saying,
here's what the Bible says. And everyone's saying, that's what we need to do. And they're,
he's standing by the pillar and kind of speaking for everybody because all the people
stood to the covenant. So it's assumed, you know, everyone's there because they love God.
You know, say, why are those people there? Are they there because Josiah is just the
most charismatic and just most, you know, entertaining and just best looking and most
well-spoken leader that they've ever had. They came there because they just, they just want to
sit and bask in the glow and the presence of Josiah the King. No, they're there because they
love God. They're there because they want to hear the preaching of the word of God.
They want to have their hearts stirred. They want to be moved towards the things of God.
And it's just assumed, you know, that's the way it is in any church, any church that's
doing anything for God. It's just assumed that the people that show up,
they're there because they love God, because they want to serve God. It's assumed that's why
people are here. Okay. Let's go on to verse four. Again, just notice throughout this whole
chapter, it's just all, all, all. The theme is revival. The theme is everybody getting involved.
Okay. And the King commanded Hilkiah the priest and the priest of the second order and the
keepers of the door to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord, all the vessels that were
made for Baal. So they're getting right and they're not saying, well, let's get right with
God, but let's keep a few of these other vessels that we were using to worship Baal in
God's temple. Okay. If you remember, that's what Manasseh set up, right? And they're saying,
no, we need to get all the vessels and for the grove and for all the hosts of heaven.
So they're worshiping the stars and the planets. He's saying, let's get all of these
things out of the house of God. Let's get everybody back in there and let's follow God with
all of our heart. You know, that's what, that's what the opposite of, of apathy looks like is
when you, when you're going to follow God with all your heart means you're going to,
it's going to push out all these other things in your lives. It's going to push out
all the sins. It's going to push out, you know, all the things that have taken the place
of God. It's going to push those things out of the, out of the temple of the Lord,
so to speak, to make room for him and to make room for the service of God.
So again, he's taking out all the vessels he's taking that they used to worship for
all the hosts of heaven. And he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of
Kydron and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel. So I love that he's not just like,
well, let's just go put it in these idols in the storage shed, just in case, you know,
we change our mind later, you know, just in case, you know, this whole worship of the
Lord thing doesn't pan out and we want to go back to Baal. You know, we can go back and
we could go up into the attic and we could find that box that, that is labeled that says
Baal worship. You know, we can find our, our box of whatever that we stowed away, you know,
in a container and bring it back out and say, no, we're not only going to take these things
out of the house of God, but then we're going to burn them. And then even that wasn't enough,
right? Cause then he burns them. And he says, now take the ashes and go spread them on the
Brook Kydron and Bethel. So then they take even the ashes weren't good enough to stick
around. And again, that's what this, this unapathetic spirit, this is what zeal looks
like when people get on fire and get revived for God. You know, they don't want even the,
just the, the, the, the ashes of Baal worship sticking to them. They don't even want,
it's not even that they don't want, you know, the, the possibility of Baal worship to
be there. They don't even want the hint of, of Baal worship in their life. Oh, what are
those ashes? Well, that's what we used to worship Baal. We burned all that. They don't want
any evidence of those things that have happened. Okay. They want to get them completely
out of their lives. You know, that's, sometimes that's what people, God's people need to do in
their Christian life as they grow as Christians. When they get convicted and they find out about
certain things and they develop standards, you know, they need to get rid of those old
things. You know, when they start to learn about music standards and, you know, you might
have to take, you know, I don't know if anyone today would, I guess it would be the equivalent
of, you know, of, of emptying the desktop on your computer or your phone or whatever,
into the, the digital trash can and then hitting empty, right? Back in my day, back in my day,
you took a CD, you know, and you burn the CD in the trash barrel. That was this little disc,
kids. And we put it in this little tray and it played music. Yeah, it was amazing.
You know, it's like, I sound like the guys my day when they were talking about records.
Okay. That's a whole nother thing. And tapes, you know, like I'm not talking about the
stuff you use to wrap Christmas presents. All right. I'm talking about the little,
the little tape players. Some of you have no idea what I'm talking about, right? But hey,
you know, we, when we would get convicted about that back in my day, you know, we would take
that tape player and we'd burn it. We wouldn't, we wouldn't just take, you know, our favorite,
you know, top 40 hits or whatever, who was popular, whatever, gangster rap or
rock and roll we were listening to and just say, well, let me just put it in a shoebox
and then just hide it over and tuck it away over here in the closet, just in case,
you know, I feel like, you know, not serving God later. Just in case, you know, I,
this, I get a little tired of the Christian life and tired of singing the hymns and tired of,
you know, going to church and all that. Then I'll know that, you know, when I get tired of that,
I'll go back to, well, let me just, you know, go ahead and clue you in on something.
When it comes to the service of God, you're going to get tired. You know, the honeymoon,
I preached this about two or three years ago at anniversary service. I said, hey,
the honeymoon is over folks. This is where a lot of people start to fall off. You know,
this is where people start to realize that going to church, even a new IFB church,
even faithful word Baptist church is work. That it takes discipline, that it takes character,
that it takes, you know, a zeal to actually stick with it. And sometimes just doing things
you don't want to do when you don't feel like it. That's what real zeal looks like
is, you know, you stay zealous for the things of God. And I said, hey, the honeymoon's over,
you know. So if you're the type of person that's sitting there saying, well, maybe when I
go back to this, you will go back to it. You know, that's why they had to burn
all of the idols. That's why they had to get rid of all forms of Baal worship
because they would go back to it. I mean, that's one thing we've learned
from the book of 1 and 2 Kings is that they are continually going back. I mean,
all the way leading up to Josiah, you have this king did good, this one did evil. This
one worshiped the Lord, this one worshiped Baal. If the Baal worship is there,
if it's an opportunity, you'll go back to it. Look, sometimes in the Christian life,
there's things you just have to cut ties with permanently. You know, there's certain people
you might just have to cut ties with permanently. Maybe there's certain items of
clothing that you just have to cut ties with permanently. You know, when my wife got right
on her dress standards, when she started dressing like a woman, you know, meaning not in pants,
you know what she did with her pants? She didn't just stick them in a paper bag in
her closet like, well, maybe when I feel like going back to that, no, she got rid of them.
I don't know if she burned them or not. I don't know what she did with them, but they're not in
the house. They're nowhere near. You know, when she got rid of, we got rid of all the movies,
we got rid of all the tapes, we got rid of all the everything. Sometimes you just have to
go home and clean things out and not, and not put it into storage because if it's there,
you'll go back to it. Because if you think, well, when I, if I get tired, you will get tired.
You will get, apathy will begin to creep in. And when apathy has a foothold,
when it can find something you can latch onto and go back to that which is familiar, it will.
That's why you have to just get rid of these things. You just have to get rid of them
completely out of your life because then they're just not there to go back to.
So he's getting rid of all these things in verse five, and he put down the idolatrous priests
whom the king of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the city of Judah.
So he didn't just say, oh, you guys can start worshiping the Lord again.
He got rid of these guys. And in the places round about Jerusalem,
them also that burnt incense unto Baal, to the sun, and the moon, and the planets,
and to all the hosts of heaven. And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord without
Jerusalem and unto Brook hydrant and burned it at the Brook hydrant and stamped it small of
power and cast the power thereof upon the graves of the children of the people.
So now he's not just breaking down false original. Now he's actually desecrating graves.
Now he's making an example by going into the, like basically it's like going into graveyards
and just kicking over headstones, right? Which is not something you should ever do.
You know, that's, that's a terrible form of vandalism. And I say that because I know
sometimes the stupid things that go through teenagers minds where they think, oh,
let's go down to the graveyard and kick over headstones. You know, obviously, you know,
we're not, we're not going to go down to the Catholic cemetery and desecrate the graves
down there. And this is a very special, you know, set of circumstances, right?
Where he's turning a whole nation back there. And he's going down to these people that were
the graves of these people that have been worshiping Baal and he's spreading the ashes of
these things on their graves. Verse seven, we all love verse seven. And he break down the house
of the Sodomites that were by the house of the Lord where the women wove hangings for the
grove. So the fags and the fag hags, right? He got rid of them. You know, all the women
that were all like, oh, they're so sweet. They just love each other. You know,
they're not that bad. You know, let's weave hangings for the grove with our fag friends.
You know, he got rid of all of that. You know, he didn't just, you know, sit there and say,
oh, well, you know, you guys can be in the children's ministry. You know, as crazy as
that sounds that I, that a Baptist preacher getting up and even suggesting that, you know,
it would even be a thing that anyone would even think of that we would invite a fag into a
Baptist church and say, hey, be in charge of the children's ministry. As ridiculous as that
sounds, I have to say it because literally independent fundamental Baptists today
have gotten this notion and have been so bold as to say, hey, let's have fags come in and
teach the kids. It's like, what in the world? I mean, what are we talking? We're talking,
we want to talk about apathy. We want to be talking about being apathetic towards the things
of God. You know, having literal faggots come in and put them with the children,
but a bunch of predators with kids. That's where we're at as a nation. Why? Because of
apathy, because people become apathetic towards the things of God because they come apathetic
towards the Bible. Okay. Now let's move along. And he says, and he brought all the priests
out of the city of Judah and defiled the high places where the priest had burned incense from
Geba to Beersheba and break down the high places of the gates that were an entering of
the gates of Joshua, the governor of the city, which run a man's left hand at the gate of
city. So, I mean, he's just, he's just getting rid of all of it and he's getting rid of
the fags. He's getting rid of the fag eggs. He's getting rid of the idolatry. He's desecrating
graves. He's just getting rid of everything. Does Josiah strike you as an apathetic person?
Does he seem like a person who's kind of, you know, take it or leave it kind of
approach to Christianity? Just kind of, you know, the whole thing of the Bible, you know,
kind of, you know, take it or leave it. No, it sounds to me like he's zealous for the
things of God. It sounds to me like he's into this. Like he says, hey, I'm a child of God.
I'm of the nation of Israel. I worship the true and living God. He's gone all in,
you know, and this is how we have to approach the Christian life.
We have to go all in with the Lord. I mean, isn't that the word we keep seeing over and
over and over? All, all, all, all. We don't want to be half in, half out. We don't want
to be lukewarm because that will lead to us being apathetic because in the Christian life,
you have this continual day to day, week in, week out, month in, month out, year in,
year out, decade after decade battle against the flesh and the apathy that it breeds in our lives.
Our flesh is going to fight us every step of the way to heaven. Understand? The old man
is still there. You know, all things are made new in Christ, but, you know, we still have
this carcass called the old man that we have to drag through this life. And he wants
to constantly go back to his old ways. He constantly wants to just take us out of church,
keep us from reading the Bible, keep us from going out and preaching the gospel,
and just tell us there's no point, no one wants to hear it, you know, that you're just wasting
your time. You know, the devil and the old man, they just want to, if they can't, obviously they
can't take away our salvation, but you know what the next best thing he wants to do is to just
numb us towards the things of God and make us apathetic and make us worldly and care only
about the things of the world, care only about pleasing our own flesh and never doing anything
for God. That's what the devil does. If he can't take us to hell, he can just try to keep us from,
you know, getting anybody out, pulling anybody else out of the fire on our way to heaven.
So we have to continually battle against apathy. And apathy is just, you know,
a lack of interest. You know, when you don't have any interest in something,
you're apathetic towards it, right? It's a lack of interest, it's a lack of enthusiasm,
it's a lack of concern. When you're just not interested, you're not enthusiastic,
you're unconcerned with something, you're apathetic towards that. And look, a lack of interest,
obviously the world is going to be apathetic towards the things of God. You know, the natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, for they're
spiritually discerned. He doesn't have the Spirit of God. You know, it's very, you know,
obviously it's to be expected when we go out there that we're going to find people that are
uninterested. When we have people, I'm apathetic towards some people that come to my door,
you know, I had some Jehovah Witnesses come to my door, you know, last Saturday,
after, you know, when I showed up here for soul winning, and I was the only person here,
and I went home, and then Jehovah Witnesses showed up my door, I tell you, I was in a great
mood at that point. You know, when the Jehovah Witnesses are showing up at my door,
when I'm supposed to be out there soul winning, you know, I was pretty apathetic towards
them. You know what I said? I'm not interested, slam the door. Okay. So, you know, that's
what it means to be apathetic, to have no interest, right? To not be interested in those things,
or to have, you know, that we would expect that of the world, right? We might even be
apathetic in that way towards some things, to be not interested. What about a lack of
enthusiasm? You know, that's something that can affect us as God's people. We can become
unenthusiastic about the things of God. We can develop a lack of concern, right? We can
start to say, you know, preaching the gospel has kind of lost its first love to me. It's
not really, I'm not as excited as I used to be about soul winning. And you know what?
Then we'll find ourselves going one, two, three, four, five weeks without soul winning,
six, seven, eight. Then, you know, maybe our whole lifetime goes by. We've never
preached the gospel to anybody. Why is that? It's because we're unconcerned. We're
unenthusiastic. We're apathetic. And look, apathy is something we have to be
on guard against in our lives. And if we search our hearts and we find apathy in our
lives, you know what you need to do? You need to burn that stuff to the ground, take the ashes,
and scatter it on the river of Kydron and not let it back in your life. And keep apathy at
bay because apathy will come in and it will just squelch the flame and the love of God in
your life. It'll take it right out. And you'll go a whole lifetime without serving God.
And you'll be completely unenthusiastic about the things of God. You won't want to
hear the things of God. You won't want to do the things of God. That happens to people
all the time. Happens to God's people constantly. I mean, how do you think Israel got to the place
where they're in? Because of apathy. And I'll prove it. Look at verse nine. It says,
Now the priests of the high places came not up unto the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem,
but did eat of the oven-loved bread among their brethren. And he defiled Topheth,
which is the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or daughter
to pass through the fire of Molech. So he's destroying, you know, this idle
Molech that they literally were worshiping their children to. God's people have gotten so
neck deep in idolatry that they're literally sacrificing their children to idols. Burning them.
Passing through the fire. They're burning their children, their infants and things,
unto this false god. Say, how does God's people get to that place? I'll tell you how.
Apathy. That's how they got there. They became apathetic towards the Word of God.
Because that's what's fixing everything, isn't it? That's what's curing everything.
The preaching of the Word of God is what's fixing the apathy in their heart, which means this.
The reason how they got there is there was a lack of the Word of God in their life. A lack
of preaching. A lack of church attendance. A lack of Bible reading. That's why it makes
people apathetic. That's how they got here, was apathy. And I'll prove it again.
And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the son at the entering
the house of the Lord. So some other idol they'd set up by the chamber of Nathan,
Nelech, the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the
sun with fire. He's just burning everything. I wonder if Josiah maybe is a little bit of
a pyromaniac or something, but he's just burning it all. I love it.
And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the king
Judah had made, and the altars of Manasseh, which in the two courts of the house of the
Lord, the king beat down and break them down from thence and cast the dust of them
under the brook hydrants. I mean, he's just breaking everything down.
And the high places that were at the Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of
corruption. I mean, what a great name for a mount. What's that mount that you have there?
Oh, that's the mount of corruption. That's the mount of corruption. What do you call
that mount over there? That's where we corrupt ourselves with idolatry. That's where
we corrupt ourselves before the Lord. Do we have a mount of corruption in our lives?
We should get it out. Now, notice who set this all up, which Solomon, the king of Israel,
had builded. For Asheroth, the abominations of the Idonians, and for Chemosh, the abomination
of the Moabites, and for Milcom, the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile.
So Josiah here is breaking down all these false idols that Solomon built. Solomon.
Now, Solomon, if you remember, the son of David, was one of the greatest kings that have
ever lived, if not the greatest. But what was his downfall? Apathy. Apathy. And what did it lead
to? It led to what we're seeing here, where another guy has to come up and cast off the
apathy and get zealous for the things of God and set things right. But it all comes from
Solomon. Now, go to 1 Kings 11. Keep something there. We're going to look at two
passages of 1 Kings 11 regarding Solomon's apathy. Now, let me say something about apathy.
Apathy is not laziness. Don't confuse laziness with apathy. You can be apathetic about one
thing and be really involved in something else. People get really apathetic towards the things of
God, but they're very zealous about some other thing. They get real zealous about a hobby.
They get really zealous about a business. They get really zealous about work. They get
really zealous about whatever. Sitting at home and watching TV. People get really
zealous about some program. People get really zealous about anything. And they get involved.
People can go out and start working long hours. They can start getting really involved
in some hobby. They're volunteering at something else. It's not that they're lazy. It's just
that they're apathetic towards the things of God. Really, would you call Solomon a lazy guy?
Because he wasn't. Remember, he's the one that directed the building of the temple.
I mean, he's bringing everybody in. He's getting it all set up. He's dedicating it.
He put a lot of his effort in his early reign into establishing the house of God.
That took a lot of work. So it's not that Solomon was lazy. He said he was apathetic.
It was something that he became. Because you remember the Lord appeared unto him twice,
right? And he's talking with the Lord. He's asking for wisdom to guide God's people.
I mean, Solomon was a great king. However, apathy crept into his life. And it ruined him.
And it had far-reaching effects. So let me just point out two avenues by which apathy
can creep into our lives. 1 Kings chapter 9 and verse 1. But Solomon loved many strange women.
And that doesn't mean the goth chick. He's talking about women from foreign countries.
Together with the daughters of Pharaoh and women of the Moabites and Ammonites,
Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites. So he's just got this multitude of wives,
which the Bible commands a king not to have.
Of the nations concerning which the Lord had said unto the children of Israel,
You shall not go into them, neither shall they come unto you.
For they will surely turn your heart after their gods. Solomon clave unto these in love.
And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines.
So he's got a thousand different women in his harem. And his wives turned away his heart.
So it's not that his heart was always evil. It's that it was turned away. It became apathetic.
And that's when he starts setting up idols to which the children of Israel
literally sacrifice children to. It's the danger of apathy. It can take us to dark places
we would never have imagined ourselves being in. You would say, oh, I would never be there.
Yeah, but little by little apathy can wear us down to where we're like, oh,
I guess it's not that bad. And then, you know, we would be shocked
to find ourselves in some of these places. For it came to pass when Solomon was old,
that his wives turned away his heart after other gods. So this is something that took
place later on in his life. And Solomon's heart was not perfect to the Lord his God,
as was the heart of David his father. So there's two avenues by which apathy crept into
Solomon's life. The first one was age. Well, it's not maybe not the first one,
but that's I'm going in that order. You know, he it came with age. And let me tell you
something. This is something that people have to be on guard against in their lives.
The older you get, the more you just want to sit back and take it easy.
You know, whether that's, you know, literally, you know, in your physical age, you know,
as we progress through our years, because obviously we do slow down in our the older we get,
we can't do everything that we once did as a young person, we don't have the energy, our body
literally begins to break down. Okay, and you young people can go ahead and make fun of that.
But you know, your day's coming too. So keep it up. Right? You can go ahead and
poke fun all you want. But you know what, I remember being the young man kind of sneering
at that too. And, you know, I'm still that young man, still sneering that way. I just
learned not to sneer. I'm just kidding. You know, now I have like, well, I've already
told too many jokes about me being old. But you know, here's the thing, you know,
that's something that can creep in as we get older, right? And obviously, we are going to,
we're already going to be limited in some way. You know, maybe we're not going to be able to
do everything we once did. But you know, it should literally take that it should take some
literal physical, you know, limitation that we can't overcome before we start slowing down.
And that's not an excuse to just completely throw our hands up and say, well, I guess I'm
just done. You know, I fully expect that I'm going to slow down. You know, I pray, Lord willing,
I'll preach to the day I die. But you know what, I don't expect, I mean, it'd be great
if it was, but you know, just the natural progression of things is that the older I get,
probably the less likely it is I'm gonna be able to get up and preach three times a week
with the same zeal and vigor that I have now. You know, in all likelihood, I'm probably
going to slow down more and more as I get older. And hopefully, you know, the church
still being around when a time comes, I will begin to pass this torch on to somebody else.
And another young man is going to have to rise up and carry on, take over the mantle.
But you know, that doesn't mean I should just from one day to the next, let's say, you know,
when I get into my 70s, 60s, 70s, 80s, whenever it is that we have to begin to think about,
okay, let's get, you know, let's get the deacon out of the pulpit here, you know,
get another, get some fresh blood in there. You know, it's not just going to be like that.
You know, I like to think that, you know, we go independent, I become the pastor,
the church grows, another young man rises up to become the pastor here,
and then learns it's kind of under my tutelage, he's my protege. And then eventually, when it's
time for me to kind of step down, you know, I'll still have the ability to get up and preach,
you know, at least once a week. You know, even in my old age, I hope to be able to preach,
you know, until they lay me in the grave at least once a week. I mean, obviously,
I'm probably not gonna be able to do it three, I mean, maybe, maybe the Lord will, you
know, bless me like he did Caleb and Moses. But you know, that was kind of the exception as I
preached several weeks ago already, you know, that that was something that, you know, we can't
really rely on, you know, that, that it was actually that should be more of a warning to us
that we're not all promised, you know, to have that youthful zeal like they did that,
the natural progression of things that we slow down. But that's what should, you know,
that's, that's not apathy, okay, that, you know, that's a slowing down. But, you know,
as we get older, even spiritually, you know, we've been saved longer, we can start to think,
you know, I've been doing this long enough, it's time for somebody else to do it.
You know, I've been doing the soul winning for, I've been soul winning for 20 years,
you know, somebody, it's somebody else's turn to do the soul winning, I'm just done.
You know, I've been going to church faithfully for decades, you know, I'm kind of,
I've put in my time, that preacher's not gonna tell me anything I don't already,
haven't already heard, no, you know, I'm just gonna scale my church attendance back to like
once a week, you know, I'll show up when I feel like it, that's apathy. And that could creep in
when we get old, when we start, when we've been around a while, that's when we kind of get,
can start to get lax. You know, I typically don't find apathy being, you know, always
necessarily something that, that plagues young people. You know, young people are, when you
think about zeal and vigor and people wanting to be on fire things, you think, you typically
think of young people. But, you know, that doesn't have to be the case, even in our seasoned
older age, even as, you know, more mature Christians, we can always have fire in our belly,
a fire in our bones, to be zealous for the things of God all the way through our life,
you know, maybe the physical limitations that we run up against kind of hold us back a little
bit, but that's what it should take to stop us from serving God. You know, it should take
something like, you know, a physical ailment to take us out of the fight for God, not just
because, well, I don't feel like it, or I've been doing it long enough, somebody else's
turn. That's apathy, friend, and that'll take you right out of the Christian life completely.
So one of the first things that we see with Solomon, the apathy crept in his life
with age, because it says there that in his old age, when Solomon was old, his
wives turned away his heart. The other thing that'll make you apathetic is sin.
You know, sin will just quench your heart towards the things of God.
When we let sin into our lives, you know, it will just take us away from the things of God.
That's what the Bible tells us to not quench the Holy Spirit, to not grieve the Holy Spirit,
and that the Spirit and the flesh are at enmity one another so that you cannot do the things
that you would. You know, we have to walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh.
That's a decision you have to make. You're not just going to wake up and say,
well, I guess I can just automatically walk in the Spirit like some kind of zombie. You know,
you're going to have to wake up every day and say, am I walking in the Spirit today or am
I walking in the flesh? Am I going to pray and read my Bible and seek the things of God
and meditate on things of God, or am I just going to be given over to my fleshly lusts and
my fleshly desires and just be apathetic towards the things of God? That's a decision you have
to make every day. And Solomon here in his old age and because of sin became very apathetic
towards the things of God. And look, if it can get to Solomon, obviously there's not a one of us
that's immune to it. Every single person in this room can be taken out of the service for God
if they let apathy creep into their lives. And here's another way it gets into people's
lives is they think, I know I'm apathetic, but it only affects me. And this is the real
tragedy about being apathetic towards the things of God is you don't understand the far-reaching
implications of your apathy. Parents need to think very carefully about how their apathy
or lack thereof is going to affect not just their children, but generations to come. Because
this is the illustration that we see here. Josiah is 300, some 300 years removed from
Solomon. And here he is finally dealing with the sins of Solomon, 300 odd years later.
That's three centuries, a quarter of millennia later. And Solomon might've just said, well,
I know it's a thousand wives, but I've been ruling and running. I built the temple.
I did a lot for God when I was younger. I'm older now. Can I just take it easy? I know
it's just a little sin, but after all, it's just between me and God. It's just going to
affect me. It might make some, my wives, my thousand wives might get jealous with one another.
So what? No, Solomon, actually 300 years later, God is just being held back, just barely held back
from just pouring out his wrath and then destroying the entire nation by one man who
decided to get zealous for the things of God again and rally the people of God
for one last time. And then God is going to pour it out. Look, that's all the result of
Solomon's doing. So don't sit there and think that this is the dangerous avenues of apathy,
how it creeps into our lives. Just thinking this attitude, this mentality of, well,
it's only going to affect me. It's only going to affect me. I'm the only one who's
going to suffer. You know, maybe it's not going to immediately, even if it doesn't
immediately impact the people around you presently, it'll have far reaching implications
into the generations of your family to come. You know, we could, you could break off an
entire spiritual branch of your family tree through apathy, just through thinking, well,
you know, it's just some sin. I've served God long enough. I'm not really interested
in the things of God anymore. I'm not enthusiastic about the things of God anymore.
I'm unconcerned with the things of God anymore. I mean, and it just whole generations
will just be lost because of one person's apathy. That's reality, folks. That's reality.
You know, and the good news about that on the flip side, the hope of that is that,
you know, you can, you could, you know, graft in a new spiritual branch. You know,
maybe if you're kind of broken off, you know, an unspiritual family, maybe if you come from
a long line of unsaved people, you know, if you were unapathetic, if you were zealous for
the things of God, if you were concerned and enthusiastic and involved in things of God,
you know, you could start a new branch that could go on for generations. You know,
of people serving God and your children serving God, your grandchildren, your great grandchildren,
just for generations, just souls by the thousands getting saved, because one person said,
you know what, I'm not going to be apathetic. I'm going to be on fire for the things of God.
I'm going to be involved in the things of God. I'm going to stay on fire and I'm not
going to be one of these apathetic, half in, half out, watered down, lukewarm, lame-os.
So, and again, because it has these far reaching implications, I mean, we could,
verse nine, the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned from the Lord God
of Israel, which it appeared to him twice. And he commanded him concerning this thing,
that he should not go after other gods, but he kept not that which the Lord commanded.
Wherefore, the Lord said in a Psalm, for as much as this deed is done of thee,
and thou hast not kept my commandment and my statutes, which I have commanded thee,
I will surely punish you. No, I will rend the kingdom from thee and will give it to thy servant.
Right? And that's when we see Jeroboam and Rehoboam. And you see, that's,
that's when the split between the two kingdoms come.
And look, we have to stay on guard against apathy in our lives, personally,
because, you know, I, excuse me, apathy is something that's always creeping,
trying to creep in. I mean, just think about, you know, in Solomon's case,
generations later, they're still dealing with it, because in Solomon's day, he dropped the ball.
Right? And we saw the kings who came along who had to kind of pick that ball up again,
but then another king would drop the ball. So this is, generation to generation,
we have to constantly be, you know, thinking about these things and, and, and going back
to the Word of God, going back to the service of God, rekindling these fires.
I mean, just think about it in our own time. Have not previous generations in our day
dropped the ball? Big time. I mean, think about the old IFP. And look,
a lot of good things are going on and have come out of the old IFP. You know,
I came out of the old IFP. You know, but honestly, I don't, and, you know,
I was pretty smug, but it's kind of a half joke, but a lot of good things have come out
of the old IFP. You know, a lot of great preaching is done in the old IFP. A lot of
great zealous soul winning has done, has been, and I'm sure certainly goes on in the old IFP.
But have they not dropped the ball in a lot of ways? They certainly have. But here's the
thing. You know what? Just because you walk through the door of a new IFP church,
that doesn't make you immune to apathy. You know, it could be in a few generations,
the new new IFP will be saying the same things about the new IFP that we're saying about the old
IFP. Remember, remember, you know, we'll start saying, well, remember back there at old,
that new IFP church in Tucson, they used to be on fire for things and then just,
you know, now we got to start all over again. Just like we kind of brag on and complain
about the old IFP and rightfully so, because they've dropped the ball on some things.
You know, that's how Zionism crept in. So their Schofield notes and the pre-tribulation rapture
through their Schofield notes, instead of just being satisfied with the word of God,
their Zionism, their pre-tribulation rapture. So now they're, you know, as I went off earlier,
just hope, you know, extending their arms to a bunch of sodomites.
You know, that's, that's the generation previous. We're the ones that are kind of having to
come along and say, dust this thing off and say, no, this is what the Bible says about all
that and re-preach it and get people back on fire. But you know what? We're, we're,
that doesn't make us immune to apathy. You know, just because we're in a new IFP church
and we love hard preaching and all that, that doesn't mean that in our own personal lives,
and yay, it could take over this whole church because it's not just up to one man,
you know, it could ruin a whole church, even a new IFP church. You walk through those doors,
it doesn't make you automatically sell us for the things of God. That happens outside of
church. That happens day to day in your, in your life. That's where the zeal really is.
So let's just move along here. And he says in verse 14 of 2 Kings 23,
and he break in pieces the images and cut down the groves and filled their
places with the bones of men. So now he's, he's digging up graves. I mean,
he's crushing everything. Josiah's zeal is what we see here. This is his lack of apathy.
And what I really like about this, if you notice, if you pay attention to the details,
he's cleaning up in Judah, right? He read about here in this first half, how he's just tearing
it up in the temple. He's getting rid of all the idols. He's burning down all the idols,
casting the ashes on the graves of the people, casting these ashes over here,
tearing down this mountain of, I mean, he's just going to town. You know what? He didn't
stop there. Then he said, you know what? After he kind of looked around and he's kind of
cleaned everything up in Jerusalem and in Judah, he says, you know what? Let's, let's go,
let's go up to that Beth, let's go up to Bethel there. Let's go up into Israel.
Let's go into the Northern Kingdom where old Jeroboam set up that golden calf. Let's finally
do something about that. Because you remember that golden calf that was, that was the original
thing that kind of kicked it all off, Jeroboam. That was the thorn in Israel's side for
generations. Josiah is like, I'm not just done with what I'm doing here. I'm going to go
up to there and take care of it. That's what he says in verse 15. Moreover,
the altar that was at Bethel and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat,
which again, it's almost 500 years or 300 years previous, whom it made Israel the sin,
had made both the altar and the high place. He break down and burn the high place and stamped it
to small powder and burn the grove. So he goes beyond his borders, you know, into another land
and he gets down to the root of the problem. Because even in Israel, you know, we saw revivals
like little revivals take place, but they never took care of this thing, of this golden calf,
this idol that Jeroboam set up. And this is kind of, this isn't even really,
I don't even know if Josiah needed to do this to be right with God. And he's cleaning things
up in the house of God, you know, but he's just, he's, this is who he is. This is what
makes Josiah, that's why it says of him, you know, there was no king like him or after
that turned with all of his heart unto the Lord. Because he wasn't just, okay, well,
I did my duty. He's like, you know what, I did my duty and then I went above and beyond.
I went above and beyond, you know, the call of duty. I didn't just clean up things
around my house. Then I went up to, up to, I went beyond my borders into Israel and took
care of that nasty, stupid golden calf that Jeroboam set up. I mean, this is the complete
opposite of apathy. Apathy would have just said, well, we straightened up things up here.
We can just leave that calf. We don't have to worry about that. That's apathy creeping back in.
You know, I've gotten all these other sins out of my life. I don't need to worry about
that one. That's apathy. You know, I've cleaned up this in my life. I've cleaned up that in my life.
I just got this one thing over here. It's not that big a deal. That's that golden calf that's
going to turn your whole heart away from God. That's how apathy works. It creeps in. It
doesn't just take over all at once. It's just little by little, it'll wear you down.
Oh, you know, it's, it's just another soul winning time. I can miss that. Oh,
it's just another church. It's just another day of Bible reading. And then it's just,
now you're just completely out. That's how it happens. Little by little, it wears you down.
That's how apathy works. I got to hurry up. Verse 16 is long chapter. And as Josiah turned
himself, he spied the sepulchres that were in the mount and sent and took the bones out
of the sepulchres and burned them upon the altar and polluted it, according to the word
of the Lord, which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words. Okay. Now,
if you would, if you kept something in first Kings, I should have told you,
go to 13 chapter 13, first Kings chapter 13. There, if you remember first Kings 13,
there was a man that was sent to cry against the altar, right? When this altar was first being
set up, Jeroboam's there and the man of God is sent out there. And we never learned this
man of God's name. It's an important detail. He's the same guy that later, you know,
the old prophet came and lied to him and said, come and eat with me, if you remember that.
And he wasn't supposed to, and he goes and eats with him. And then the old man prophet,
the spirit comes upon that old man at the dinner table. And he says, you know,
I'm paraphrasing obviously, because you haven't obeyed the voice of the Lord,
you know, you're going to be punished. And then he sets him upon his ass and sends him away.
And then that lion came and tear the ass and the prophet, or it didn't tear the ass,
but it tore the prophet. And they came and found him. And the old man's like,
bury his mind. You remember that story? That's who this is referring to. First Kings
chapter 13, verse one, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the
Lord unto Bethel. So again, a man of God doing God's work, going beyond his borders.
And Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. And he cried against the altar in the word of
the Lord and said, oh, altar, altar, thus saith the Lord, behold, a child shall be born
under the house of David, Josiah by name. And upon thee shall he offer the priest of the
high place that burned incense upon thee. And upon men's bones shall be burnt upon thee.
And he gave a sign the same day saying, this is the sign in which the Lord hath spoken.
Behold, the altar shall be rent and the ashes that are on upon it shall be poured out.
So he goes and he prophesies against this thing.
And again, there's this warning being given to Jeroboam that this is going to happen,
but it doesn't happen for another 300 years. And again, apathy would be dismissive of that.
Apathy would hear the preaching I'm preaching tonight and just say, yeah, probably not.
It's not really like that. That's not going to happen in my life. That's apathy.
It might not show up right away. The apathy might not bear fruit in our lives right away,
but you give it enough time, it'll build up. It'll be there. It'll be evident to everybody.
When a guy named Josiah comes along and does exactly what he said was going to happen
300 years later, there'll be no denying it. When he starts taking the priest's bones and
burning on that same altar, that prophecy from way back when has just been fulfilled.
You know, the apathetic person would look at that story and just say, yeah,
it's not, you know, they hear this preaching and say, that's not going to,
that's not going to happen to me. I don't need to heed that warning because I'm different.
The preacher's just going off tonight. He's just, he's just worked up. He's just got a burr
under his saddle. You know, he's just got an ax to grind. No, what I'm doing is I'm warning
you. I'm warning you about the real danger of apathy in people's lives. Because again,
apathy is not laziness. Apathy is people when they become unconcerned with something.
We don't want to become unconcerned, unenthusiastic, and uninterested in the things
of God in our lives. And the other story, and I guess this is really just a whole another
sermon real quick. Hopefully it's not such a hard shift. But the other story, the great,
cool thing about the story that you hear about, well, let me just read it here.
It says in verse 17, going back to 1 Kings 23. And then he said, what title is that that I
see? So they're taking out all the bones, right? And they're burning them. They're taking the
bones out of the sepulchres, and they're burning them upon the altar. And while they're doing that,
the king says, what title is that that I see? So there's some kind of an inscription
above one of these sepulchres. And the men of the city told him, oh, it's so and so.
Is that what they said? They don't give a name, right? Because they didn't know the guy's
name. The guy's not named in scripture, this prophet, right? Because the sepulcher that
he's looking at is that prophet that came and prophesied against Jeroboam.
They say it is the sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these
things, the things we just read about 1 Kings 13, that thou has done against the altar of
Bethel. He's saying, this is the guy that prophesied about you, Josiah, 300 years ago,
and said you would come and do this. That's who this is. They didn't give a name,
because there was no name. And he said, let him alone, let no man move his bones.
You know, hey, I got a fan, you know. So they let his bones alone, and the bones of the prophet
came out of Samaria, and the prophet that came out of Samaria. And what I get from this is
that all that's going to matter in life is our acts. It's the things that we did.
It's the things that we accomplished for God. That's all that's going to matter.
It's not what kind of a name you made for yourself. It's not some kind, you know,
what letters you managed to attach to the front of your name. You know,
you're Dr. So-and-so, Professor So-and-so, Mr., Mrs., you know, all these titles,
all these titles that people want to see. When he says, what's this title I say, they say,
this is the man of God. They talk about his acts. You know, I don't know if it described
what he did, but they were just saying, well, whatever was on that title, it was just,
oh, it's that guy that did this, right? So all that matters in our life are the things
that we do. Think about that. And this is very true, and I don't have time to go through it all,
but obviously we know that we'll be rewarded for our works. Jesus said, behold, I come quickly,
and my reward is with me to give every man according to his works.
Not to the popularity that he managed to achieve, not to how many people knew his name,
how many views he got, how many subscribers, how many likes, how many shares, how popular
he was in whatever circle he ran in. That, you know, I'm not against those things,
that stuff comes great. But look, that's not what we strive for in the Christian life,
popularity, to be popular with the world, to have a name or to just achieve some status.
What we need to be focused on in the Christian life is the things that we do for God. That's
all that matters. And here's the thing, you can become apathetic about that because you don't
always see the reward of that in this life. I mean, a lot of ways you do, you get blessed.
I mean, believe me, at this point in my life, I feel very blessed. You know, I have a lot of
blessings, but then I also, and I look back and I go, oh, well, there was a lot of service for
God that's been done too. I mean, I'm sure many other people can say that. A lot of people
in the room can say that tonight. They can say, hey, I serve God. He's been blessing me
in this way. So obviously we do get some of that reward here on this earth. But look, the Bible,
and I don't have time to go there. You know, in Hebrews 13, it talks about, you know,
those that wandered in goatskins and sheepskins and deserts and in caves. They were sauna, sunder.
You know, and then the Bible says of those people that the world was not worthy of them,
of whom the world was not worthy. And we don't know any of those people's names,
but you know what? God knows their name. He says, you know, your names are written in heaven.
You know, our names are written in heaven. Our name is known there. But what we want
is we want our acts, the deeds that we do to catch up to our name in heaven.
Where when time passes and someone comes along and they say, who is this? What is that title I see?
They'll say, they won't just say, oh, that's so-and-so. They'll say, this is the guy that
did this. This is the lady that did this. This is the Christian. This is the church member.
This is the son of God, the child of God that did this and this and this and this and this
and this. And just list off our acts. You stand before God and God is just going to say,
you did this. You did this. You get rewarded for this. You get rewarded for this. That's what we
want our lives to surmount to, the acts that we did in this life. You know, and it kind of ties
in this whole chapter. You got this unnamed prophet from 300 years previous who prophesied
about Josiah. He's being found out by Josiah. And when this great revival is taking place,
this pushback against the apathy that crept in against, you know, into the children of Israel,
that nation of Judah, you have that all taking place. And then you have the story of this prophet
whose name is not known, but his acts have been remembered for centuries.
All that time has passed. It's like, he's the guy that prophesied. He's the guy that came in
here and cried against this altar. You know, when we get to heaven, after all that time's
passed, what's it going to add up to? What's it going to add up to? You know, if we
let apathy creep in our lives, it's not going to add up to much. And look, I've got more in the
sermon, but I've just got to wrap it up. The other thing I'd point out with this word all,
if you just look from verses 19 through like 28, it's just, and all the houses,
the high priests were in the cities, all the acts that he had done in Bethel,
all the priests, all the people, all the days, all the abominations. This chapter is just
about everybody and everything. You know, just being all in for God, everybody getting involved
with all their heart, with all their might and getting rid of all the sin, right? Because
that's what it says there in verse 24. Moreover, the workers with familiar spirits and the wizards
and the images, you know, this is your Harry Potter and everybody else. And the images
and the idols and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem
to Josiah put away that he might perform the words of the law. He's saying, look,
I'm going to perform the words of the law. And, you know, the Bible says suffer not a witch
to live, right? So he's just getting rid of all these abominations. He's doing these things.
He's performing the works of the words of the law. He's performing the words of law,
which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found. Verse 25, and like unto him,
there was no king before him that turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul,
and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses. How did Josiah accomplish
such great works? Why is he known even to this day as one of the greatest kings of Israel?
We hear that name, Josiah. I mean, people name their children Josiah because he's such
a great king of what he represents. What does he represent? Zeal. Not an apathetic person.
Was not bogged down by the mistakes of the previous generations. Corrected everything.
Got it right. Spared, you know, the nation for a few more decades from God's imminent wrath.
How did he do all that? Because he did all the words of the law with all of his heart.
You know, that's what we want for our lives. We have to do with all of our heart. All of it.
With all of our might. Which means you cannot be apathetic about the things of God.
And if we allow ourselves to be apathetic, you know, verse 28 will not be said of us,
not the rest of the acts of Josiah and all that he did.
You know, all that will be said of us is all that we were. You know, our poor attitude,
our lack of zeal, our apathy. It won't say all the acts that we did. That's what apathy will
take from us. You know, that's what makes Josiah so great is his zeal, his lack of apathy.
And he had it in the face of the failures of the generations before him. Look, that's what
we need today because we are facing the failures of previous generations, folks.
In a nation, in our churches, we are up against the failings of multiple generations. People
have left off the Word of God, who've gotten away from the Word of God. I mean, for all we
know, God is right here with us. God's saying, I've had it up to here. And you know,
we could be that generation that just holds back God's hand for just a few more decades.
Just enough time to get some more souls saved. That could be us if we have zeal,
if we're not apathetic. You know, apathy, what does apathy do? It just admits defeat.
I mean, wouldn't that have been easy for Josiah to do? I mean, would you really have blamed him
when it's just been failure after failure? Now it finally comes down to an eight-year-old
boy takes a throne and the Word of God is dusted off. And he finds out they're judged
and that they're under the curse of God. He could have just thrown up his hand and just
said, well, what am I supposed to do about it? It's not my fault. I didn't get us in this
position. You know, it was the other generation that, you know, it was all these other Baptists
that got cold to the things of God. You know, we could just say, well, what's the point of
starting a new IFB? What's the point of starting a new church? Oh, we should just
go along with the old IFB. How are we going to fix anything? You know, it's their fault.
They're the ones that got cold to the things of God. They're the ones that got cold to
hard preaching and soul winning and taking strong stands and resisting evil and fighting
the spiritual battles that were called to fight. It was their fault. We could just throw
up our hands and be just like them. You know why we don't? Because we don't want our life
to just add up to just, you know, what we were, but what we did, what we accomplished,
the acts that we did because we weren't apathetic, because we saw God with all of
our heart, according to all of his word. Let's go ahead and have a word of prayer.