🎵Piano music plays🎵
🎵Piano music continues🎵
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to First Works Baptist Church.
Let's all find our seats. As you find your seat, please grab a song book.
Turn to song number 409.
Song number 409, the fight is on. Let's all stand together for this first song.
First song, if you're able.
Song number 409, the fight is on.
All together, nice and strong and loud on that first verse.
🎵The fight is on🎵
🎵The trumpet sound is ringing out🎵
🎵The cry to arms is heard afar and near🎵
🎵The Lord of hosts is marching on to victory🎵
🎵The triumph of the Christ will soon appear🎵
🎵The fight is on, O Christian soldier🎵
🎵And face to face in cern array🎵
🎵With armor gleaming and colors streaming🎵
🎵The right and wrong engage today🎵
🎵The fight is on, but be not weary🎵
🎵Be strong and in His might hold fast🎵
🎵If God before us is better o'er us🎵
🎵We'll sing the victor's song at last🎵
🎵The fight is on, O browsy soldier brave and true🎵
🎵And victory will assure the colon🎵
🎵The armor God has given you and in His strength🎵
🎵Forever we'll endure🎵
🎵The fight is on, O Christian soldier🎵
🎵And face to face in cern array🎵
🎵With armor gleaming and colors streaming🎵
🎵The right and wrong engage today🎵
🎵The fight is on, but be not weary🎵
🎵Be strong and in His might hold fast🎵
🎵If God before us is better o'er us🎵
🎵We'll sing the victor's song at last🎵
🎵The fight is leading on to certain victory🎵
🎵Spans the eastern sky, His glorious name🎵
🎵In every latch of honor, be the morn will break🎵
🎵The dawn of peace is nigh🎵
🎵The fight is on, O Christian soldier🎵
🎵In cern array🎵
🎵With armor gleaming and colors streaming🎵
🎵The right and wrong engage today🎵
🎵The fight is on, but be not weary🎵
🎵Be strong and in His might hold fast🎵
🎵If God before us is better o'er us🎵
🎵We'll sing the victor's song at last🎵
Amen. Wonderful singing. Let's start off our service with a word of prayer.
Dear Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us another day, Lord,
that we can come to your house and we can worship you here with these songs
and we can hear the preaching of your word.
And thank you, Lord, for being with us in this fight
and with all the churches that are fighting for your word
and fighting for the truth, Lord. Thank you for leading us all through that.
We ask that you would please just bless us this morning, Lord, during this service.
I ask that you would please bless the singing.
Fill past me here with your spirit also as He preaches unto us.
And give your spirit unto us in the congregation, Lord,
that we can take what He preaches to us and leave here edified.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
You may be seated.
Please turn your song books to song number 90.
Song number 90 as our second song.
Jesus, lover of my soul.
Song number 90.
All together on that first verse.
Jesus, lover of my soul.
Lead me to thy bosom fly.
While the nearer waters roll.
While the tempest still is high.
Hide me, O my Savior, hide.
Till the storm of life is past.
Safe into the haven died.
O receive my soul at last.
Other refuge have I none.
Thanks my helpless soul on thee.
Leave, I'll leave thee not alone.
And comfort me.
All my trust on thee is paid.
All my help from thee I bring.
Father, my defenseless head.
With the shadow of thy way.
Thou, O Christ, art all I want.
More than all in thee I find.
Raise the fallen, cheer the faint.
Heal the sick and lead the blind.
Just and holy is thy name.
I am all unrighteousness.
Vile and full of sin I am.
Thou art full of truth and grace.
Plentiest grace with thee is found.
Praise the Lord!
Let the healing streams abound.
Make and keep me pure within.
Thou of life, the fountain heart.
Freely let me take of thee.
Spring thou up within my heart.
Rise to all eternity.
Let the healing streams abound.
We're gonna sing happy birthday to those in February.
Who's birthday is in February?
Raise your hand if your birthday is in February right here.
Got two.
Both of you guys are in February?
Really?
Wow, that's weird.
I'm just kidding.
On the same day?
No, I'm just kidding.
Right here.
All right.
Anybody else?
Right here.
Who else?
Kyla right here.
Ms. Kimberly.
Okay.
We got quite a few.
Did I miss anybody else?
All right.
Let's sing happy birthday to those in February.
Ready?
Here we go.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday.
God bless you.
Happy birthday to you.
All right.
Happy birthday to you all.
You see there the list of expecting mothers.
If you can continue to pray for them.
And important reminders there at the bottom.
Please make sure that you are supervising your children in the building.
And no children should be allowed in the mother baby room alone without their parents or any other room for that matter.
Just keep that in mind.
Ms. Angela's baby shower will be on Sunday, February 12th.
That's next Sunday.
If you have any questions about that, if you want to help out, you can see Ms. Kelly Franceschini.
She'll be heading that up.
And then also the Belize missions trip.
Keep that in prayer.
That'll be from Saturday, February 26th through Sunday, March 5th.
And I know a good group is going up there.
And so pray that we get a lot of people saved.
Collect a lot of information in preparation for the trip in November.
And so please pray that we'd have a prosperous trip there.
The men's prayer night is on Friday, March 3rd.
And that will be here at the building.
And of course dinner will be provided.
And then we do have the ladies tea party on Saturday, March 18th.
You see the regular reminders there at the bottom.
No food or drink allowed in the main auditorium except for water and coffee.
Make sure you're not loitering in the foyer or fellowship hall during the preaching service.
And then quiet time in the building is from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. throughout the whole building this afternoon.
And please make sure you silence your phones during the preaching so as to not be a distraction during the service.
Alright.
And that is it.
Let's go ahead and sing our next song.
106 Abide With Me, song number 106.
Song number 106, Abide With Me, all together on that first verse.
Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.
The darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.
Swift to its closeness, out lies little day.
Earth's joys crowd in its glories pass away.
Change and decay in, all around I see.
Oh, thou who changes not, abide with me.
I heed thy presence.
What but thy grace can, for the tempters bound.
Who, like thyself, my guidance they can be.
Through cloud and sunshine, oh, abide with me.
Oh, thou thy cross before my closing eyes.
Shine through the blue, then point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee.
In life, in death, oh, Lord, abide with me.
Amen. Wonderful singing.
At this time, the ushers will come forward to receive the offering.
You can turn in your Bibles to 2 Kings chapter 22.
Amen.
2 Kings chapter number 22, the Bible reads,
Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign.
He reigned 31 years in Jerusalem.
His mother's name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adiah, of Boscath.
And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord,
and walked in all the way of David his father,
and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.
It came to pass in the 18th year of King Josiah
that the king sent Shaphan, the son of Esaliah,
the son of Meshul and the scribe, to the house of the Lord, saying,
Go up to Hilkiah the high priest,
and may some of the silver which is brought into the house of the Lord,
which the keepers of the door hath gathered of the people.
Let them deliver it into the hand of the doers of the work,
and have the oversight of the house of the Lord.
Let them give it to the doers of the work,
which is in the house of the Lord,
to repair the breaches of the house,
on the carpenters and builders and masons,
and by timber and hewn stone to repair the house.
Albeit there was no reckoning made with them of the money
that was delivered into their hand, because they dealt faithfully.
And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe,
I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.
And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.
And Shaphan the scribe came to the king,
and brought the king word again, and said,
Thy servants have gathered the money that was found in the house,
and have delivered it into the hand of them that do the work,
that have the oversight in the house of the Lord.
And Shaphan the scribe showed the king, saying,
Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a book.
And Shaphan read it before the king.
And it came past, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law,
that he rent his clothes.
And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest,
and Hicham the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Micaiah,
and Shaphan the scribe.
And Azahiah the servant of the king, saying,
Go ye, inquire of the Lord for me, and for the people,
and for all Judah concerning the words of this book that is found.
For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kingdomed against us,
because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book,
to do according to all which is written concerning us.
So Hilkiah the priest, and Hicham, and Achbor, and Shaphan,
and Azahiah went unto hold to the prophetess,
the wife of Shalom, of Harbas, keeper of the wardrobe.
Now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college, and they communed with her.
And she said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
Tell the man that sent you to me, Thus saith the Lord.
Behold, I'll bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof,
even all the words of the book which the king of Judah hath read,
because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods,
that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands.
Therefore my wrath shall be kindled against this place,
and shall not be quenched.
But the king of Judah which sent you to inquire of the Lord,
there shall ye say to him, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
As touching the words which thou hast heard,
because thine heart was tender, thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord,
when thou heardest what I spake against this place,
and against the inhabitants thereof, that they shall become a desolation and a curse.
And as rent thy clothes and wet before me, I also overheard thee, saith the Lord,
Behold, therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers,
and I shall be gathered unto thy grave in peace.
And thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place.
And they brought the king word again.
Let's pray. Dear Lord God, I would just thank you for your word,
thank you for this church, and for our pastor,
just ask that you would be with her now.
Please just fill him with your Holy Spirit and strengthen him to preach your word with boldness.
And please just be with us and prepare our hearts to hear your word with all readiness of mind.
And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen.
Okay, we are in 2 Kings chapter 22 this morning.
Look down at your Bibles at verse number 1.
It says, Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign.
He reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem.
And his mother's name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adihiah, of Boscath.
And he did that which is right in the sight of the Lord
and walked in all the way of David his father and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.
And this morning I want to preach a sermon entitled The Reformation of King Josiah.
I want to talk about King Josiah this morning
and a lot of the good works that he did during his time in office, so to speak, as the king of Israel.
And one of the reasons I want to do this is because last week I preached a sermon called
Things That Will Get You Killed By God.
And I actually, one of the last examples that I gave was King Josiah.
What's interesting about King Josiah in that regard is that if you look down at your Bibles at verse 20,
it says, Behold, therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace.
And thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I bring upon this place, and they brought the king word again.
So, you know, we obviously know that Josiah was a man who was right with God.
He was a righteous person. He loved the Lord.
We're going to see a lot of the exploits that he did throughout his ministry, so to speak, or his time in office.
And because of that, God basically told him, hey, you're going to die in peace.
Everything's going to go well with you.
You're going to go to your grave in peace.
You know, he's basically telling them you're going to die basically the way most people would want to die,
you know, with no conflict or no peace.
But then when you actually look at how he dies, he dies in battle, he's hit,
and then he ends up perishing there, and you kind of wonder what's taking place there.
Why did that happen?
Well, obviously, one of my points from last week was that, you know, he got involved in the wrong battles.
And what we see with Josiah is that as long as he stayed in the right battle, everything would go well with him, right?
As long as he fought the enemies of the Lord, obeyed the Lord God, and actually did what was right inside of the Lord,
you know, he would essentially get God's promises, he would get God's blessing upon his life.
But the moment he decides to get involved in someone else's business, some other nation's battles,
some political warfare that has nothing to do with him, well, all bets are off.
And that's why he died the death that he did because of the fact that he got involved in things that did not pertain unto him.
Now, I would say that out of all the things that took place in Josiah's life, that would be like the only blemish that he has there, okay?
The fact that he got involved in wars that did not pertain to him.
And in fact, from last week, we see that the king of Egypt basically told Josiah,
hey, God told me to come and destroy this other nation and so don't get involved in this because if you do,
you're going to get punished by this.
Josiah decided not to listen, he got involved, and he ended up dying because of it.
So I want to start off with the negative first, right?
You know, anytime someone tells me I got good news and I got bad news, what do you want to hear first?
I want to hear the bad news first.
Because I want to leave off on a good note, amen?
And so I always want the bad news first.
And so that's the bad news regarding King Josiah.
But everything else is great about the guy, though, okay?
And we're going to see this morning why he was such a great king.
Now, we read there in the first two verses that he was essentially began to reign at the age of eight, right?
He's a very young king.
And the reason why he began to reign at the age of eight is because his father was assassinated.
His father was a wicked king.
And so he takes the throne.
And in verse two, it tells us that he did that which is right in the sight of the Lord.
He walked in all the way of David, his father.
And the Bible says that he didn't turn aside to the right or to the left.
What does that mean?
It means he's on the straight and narrow.
You know, he's doing that which is pleasing in the eyes of the Lord.
So the first thing I want to mention regarding Josiah is that he did right in spite of his forefathers, okay?
Because when you study the life of the previous kings, his father and his great grandfather, they're very wicked, okay?
You have Ammon who when you look at his life and everything that he did, he was a very wicked king.
And then his great grandfather Manasseh was really bad.
I mean, this guy was involved in all types of idolatry.
He promoted infanticide.
He was very murderous and just, you know, killed a lot of people during his time in office.
And you kind of wonder like, man, this guy is just wicked.
He's just evil.
However, when you actually study the life of Manasseh, what you see is that God ends up allowing him to be taken captive to Babylon.
And when he's taken captive to Babylon, what happens?
The Bible actually tells us that in his affliction, he seeks after the Lord, right?
So he seeks after God.
He's greatly humbled because of his affliction.
He cries out to the Lord.
And because the Lord is so gracious and kind and merciful, he ends up allowing him to come back.
He's gracious to him.
He reinstates him as a king.
And then Manasseh actually begins to institute biblical laws.
He takes out the idolatry.
He essentially kind of, you know, get things right with God.
He cleans up the nation of Israel and he does right.
He ends up dying, of course.
But, you know, we see that he actually got right with God, okay?
But unfortunately, you know, him getting right with God doesn't necessarily overshadow all the wicked things that he did, okay?
So he did a lot of wicked things.
And then, of course, Ammon, who is the son of Manasseh, learns from that and then becomes wicked as well.
He's idolatrous.
He's murderous.
He commits all types of things.
But then you have Josiah who, you know, could easily say, well, my dad was wicked.
My grandfather was wicked.
Hey, why not?
I'm just going to go ahead and do infanticide as well.
I'm going to serve false gods as well.
I'm going to do wrong because, you know, I got this victim mentality and, you know, I was dealt a bad hand.
And so I'm just going to go ahead and live a wicked life.
But that's not the attitude that Josiah had at the age of eight.
At the age of eight, the Bible tells us that he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord.
And he didn't use his parents or his great grandparents as an excuse why he couldn't serve God.
It says a lot about Josiah.
Okay.
And one thing that we can learn from this is that, hey, we need to stop blaming the past for whatever failures you got going on today.
You know, whatever failures you got going on today are your fault.
And you can fix those things and not try to shift the blame on your mom, on your dad.
Well, you know, you don't understand.
You know, we were poor growing up or you don't understand.
My mom fed me with a slingshot or you don't understand.
My dad was an alcoholic.
My dad did this and that.
You know, who cares what the past, you know, now you're saved.
You have the word of God.
You have salvation.
You have the Holy Spirit of God abiding within you.
You have a local New Testament church.
You have so much going for you.
You really don't have an excuse as to why you can't serve God and do that which is right in the sight of the Lord.
Okay.
Now, obviously, you know, we get baggage from our parents.
Right.
There's things, you know, character flaws.
You know, there's things that we said essentially inherit from our families because we grew up with them.
You know, shortcomings or whatever it may be.
But even then, God expects us to correct those things that are not in line with God's word.
He expects us to renew our minds and allow the word of God to transform us so we can live a life that's pleasing unto the Lord.
And you know what?
He's not going to take the excuse of, well, my dad was Ammon, though.
Well, Manasseh was my great grandfather.
He's not going to accept that because every individual is responsible for their own personal actions.
Okay.
So the first point that I want to make there is that, hey, first generation Christians, you know,
you can't use your parents or your grandparents or whatever past you had as an excuse why you can't serve God today.
Okay.
Why you can't read the word of God today.
Well, I just learned to read like last year or something.
Well, good.
Then start finishing up the Bible then.
You know.
Oh, you know, I never, I didn't grow up in church.
But you're in church now, though.
You know.
Oh, man, I didn't know all these things, but you're learning them now.
And so can't use that as a crutch.
You can't use it as an excuse.
And in fact, you have an eight year old here who's not who's obviously not using that.
And some of the greatest people who come up with the greatest excuses are eight year olds.
Right.
They never want to take personal responsibility for anything.
And your little kids don't like to think they always shift the blame on their brothers, on their sister,
or the conditions aren't right, you know, the temperature, whatever.
You know, they always got someone they want to blame, not Josiah.
And obviously, we can surmise that he probably had some good influences around him during his time in office.
He probably had some people encouraging him and showing him and teaching him.
But for the most part, we see that he's the one who decided to serve God.
Okay.
You know, we can have people influencing us and encouraging us and exhorting us to be on the right path.
But at the end of the day, it has to be in here.
We have to be the ones to actually do it.
So I'm sure he had some great influences in his life at the age of eight.
But God's not talking about them.
He's talking about what's going on in Josiah's life and the fact that he didn't turn his side to the right hand nor to the left in spite of what took place with his great grandfather and his father.
Well, you don't understand.
You know, I grew up in a false religion, but you're in the right religion now.
So I mean, what's the excuse?
Okay.
You know, stop wasting time making excuses and use the time you have now to actually correct those flaws, correct whatever, you know, lack of character you might have, lack of wisdom that you might have, whatever it is in your life that you feel is holding you back or whatever from serving God.
You know, you have everything at your disposal to become successful for the Lord, for the things of God, for your family, for work, whatever it may be.
Okay.
Stop using excuses.
And you know what?
Excuses are like armpits.
We all have them and they all stink.
Okay.
Maybe not all of them, but for the most part.
Okay.
And you know what?
No one's going to give you any mercy.
No one's going to give you any leeway because you haven't came up with an excuse.
It's better to just buckle up.
It's better to just say, you know what?
Yeah, I had some stuff happen in my past or whatever that I think might have hindered me from being successful.
But I'm not going to announce those things.
I'm going to go ahead and just be as successful as I possibly can with the resources that I have today.
Okay.
And so he did right in spite of his father's.
We can do right.
And you know, obviously, first generation Christians, they could have the tendency to love the Lord more, actually.
Okay.
We see principles of that in the New Testament, but they can also have the tendency to be, you know, kind of come up with excuses and say why it is they can't do what they do or what they're supposed to do.
But at the end of the day, we have this great example here.
Now, what's another thing that we can learn from King Josiah?
Well, another thing we can learn is that he actually responded to the light that God gave him.
Okay.
Now, what do you mean by that?
Well, look, if you look down your Bibles at verse three, it says,
And it came to pass in the 18th year of King Josiah, that the king sent Shaphan, the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshulam, the scribe to the house of the Lord,
saying, and we're going to read this in just a bit.
But obviously, in this portion of scripture, we see that this is where he goes into the house of the Lord to repair the breaches of the house of God.
And that's where he finds the law of God, right?
And the scribes bring him the law of God.
They read it.
He realizes that Israel is in a lot of trouble with God, that God's wrath is on Israel.
And in light of that, he essentially creates this great reformation in the land where he begins to take out all the idols.
And we're going to look at some of those things now.
However, that's from 2 Kings 22.
You got to understand, a lot of these stories, there's parallel passages to this where another portion of scripture will actually give you more details of what's taking place.
So when we read it just at face value here, 2 Kings 22, we think that a lot of that took place after he read the law of the Lord, right?
But go to 2 Chronicles chapter 34, if you would.
Hold your place here in 2 Kings 22.
Again, this is the story that we're most familiar with is that, oh, he went into the house of God and they found the law of the Lord in the house of God.
He read about all the plagues that were going to come upon Israel.
And then he just starts cleaning house right away, okay?
And he does do that to a certain extent after he finds the law of the Lord.
But look at 2 Chronicles 34, the parallel passage here in verse number one.
I want you to notice a couple of things here.
It says in verse number one, Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign and he reigned in Jerusalem one in 30 years.
2 Chronicles 34, verse number two says, and he did that which is right in the sight of the Lord and walked in the ways of David his father and declined neither to the right hand nor to the left.
We saw that in 2 Kings.
For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father.
So we know that according to 2 Kings 22, even at the tender age of eight, he has a heart that desires to seek the Lord, okay?
Now, let me pause here for a minute, okay?
You know, give our kids some more credit, amen?
You know, don't think, well, you know, they're little kids, what do they understand?
You'd be surprised, some of these little kids might be more on fire for God than you are.
Some of these kids actually might want to seek the Lord a lot harder than you do sometimes.
Because their heart is so tender, they don't have it engrossed with the things of this world.
You'd be surprised with the kids in our church actually desiring their hearts they love the Lord, okay?
And that's why, and here's the thing, when you see that spark in someone's heart of the child, you know, throw some gasoline on that thing.
You know, feed that fire, okay?
Don't try to put out the fire.
You're like, you have a little kid who wants to go soul-wanting, he's just like, well, I don't want to go soul-wanting.
You're quenching that spirit right there, okay?
Well, he's like, I want to read the Bible.
Well, you don't want to get too caught up in that, you know.
Don't read too much, just a little bit at a time or something like that.
You know, let them read the word of God.
Read it to them, read it with them.
Let them develop a heart that loves the Lord through God's word, okay?
Don't have this Steven Crowder attitude that says don't read the book of Revelation to your kids because it's just too extreme for them or something.
That's nonsense.
Don't get your advice from Steven Crowder, this cross-dressing weirdo who's telling us how to parent our kids as Christians and saying we shouldn't read the book of Revelation to them.
That's nonsense.
The word of the Lord is pure.
We should read it all to them, okay?
By the way, that's why we have a family integrated church.
We don't have Sunday school classes.
I don't know if you noticed, but there's a lot of noise going on in this church right now, you know, and not just from my mouth.
There's kids here, and that's okay because they're in here listening to the preaching of God's word, and you're saying, yeah, but how much of it are they actually soaking in?
A lot.
They're actually getting a lot, okay?
And I could personally tell you from my family, and I've got little ones, that they'll remind me of things that I preached months ago, you know, that was already deep into the sermon or something,
things that they remember because they're actually listening to the word of God.
They actually love the Lord, and so we want to develop that zeal in the hearts of our kids, even at the tender age of eight, because you know what?
They might be seeking after the Lord at this moment, okay?
He says, and in the 12th year, listen to this, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places and the groves and the carved images and the molten images.
Now, in 2 Kings 22, the Bible tells us that he goes into the house of the Lord to repair it at the age of 18, okay?
So at the age of 18, he goes into the house of the Lord, he finds the law of God, he gets it read to him, and then he begins to purge the land.
But in 2 Chronicles, we see that at the tender age of 12, he's already purging the land, okay?
Look at verse 4, and they break down the altars of Balaam and his presence and the images that were on high above them.
He cut down the groves and the carved images and the molten images, and he break in pieces and made dust of them and strode them upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them.
And he burned the bones of the priests upon their altars and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.
When? When he was 12!
Verse 6 says, and so did he in the cities of Manasseh. By the way, he's the king, so who's going to tell him not to?
Right? The kid's like, I want to burn all these bones of these false prophets, and his advisors are like, well, he's the king, I guess we got to do this, you know?
So he did the, so he did, excuse me, and so did he in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon, unto, even unto Naphtali with their Maddox roundabout.
And when he had broken down the altars and the groves and had beaten the graven images into powder and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.
And then he goes into the house of God at the age of 18.
So this basically tells us, from the age of 12 to the age of 18, he's on this campaign, going out just destroying idols throughout the land.
Now, you say, why are you making a big deal about that? Because this is before he finds the law of the Lord.
So what is he doing? He's responding to the light that God gave him.
Because he wants to do right in the sight of the Lord. He loves the Lord. He's seeking after his God.
And in light of that, he's just like, you know what, I'm going to destroy a bunch of these idols who are against God.
So he goes on this campaign from the age of 12 to the age of 18.
And lo and behold, God puts it in his heart to go repair the house of God, which is where he finds the law of God, which is what confirms that what he's doing is right.
You say, what's the principle there? Well, here's the principle, folks, is that when we respond to the light that God gives us, he gives us more light.
I mean, think about in the New Testament, Apollos, right?
Apollos was preaching God's word. He was getting people saved only knowing the baptism of John, the Bible says.
But he was a mighty preacher. He's doing great works. So what does God do?
He sends, you know, he sends disciples unto him. He sends the Apostle Paul and they show him the way of the Lord. What? More perfectly.
So then he knows the name of Jesus as he's preaching.
And when he knows the name of Jesus, then he goes to Corinth and he begins to preach Jesus Christ.
And he just becomes a more well-rounded Christian because now he knows the name of Jesus.
So what we see here is like Josiah is like an Apollos in the sense that he was already doing right.
He's responding to the light that God gave him. And so God gave him more light.
And now what? He knows the way of the Lord more perfectly after he found the law of the Lord in the house of God.
OK. And you know what? There's people like this today where they may not be saved.
But you know what? They know idolatry is wicked. They know that, you know, worshipping a false God is wicked.
They know that, you know, spiritism and Buddhism and Hinduism and all this nonsense of these false religions that are sending people to hell.
They know it's wicked and but they're not even saved. But then they actually do something about it.
They begin to tear down those idols, tear down those altars. And what are they doing?
They're responding to the light that God gives them and therefore God gives them more light.
John chapter three, you don't have to turn to verse 19 says,
And this is the condemnation that light is coming to the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.
For everyone that doeth evil, hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
That's for all those truthers out there who reject Jesus Christ.
Right? Because if you're truly a truther, the truth will bring you to the foot of the cross.
And if you reject the foot of the cross, if you reject Jesus Christ, it only shows that your deeds are evil.
Because now your deeds are being reproved that you're wrong and you need to trust Jesus Christ as your savior.
And if they reject that, they're not really a truther. They're a faker. They're a poser.
Verse 21 says, But he that doeth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God.
Now that explains Josiah perfectly because he is purging the land of all these idols.
He's purging the land of the priest. He's cleaning house, so to speak.
And then when he comes back from that excursion of his, you know, he goes to the house of God.
He finds the law of the Lord, and then he realizes, hey, what I was doing is right.
In fact, we need to do more of this. And then he really begins to clean house thereafter.
Okay? And you know what? This not only applies to unsafe people, but it applies to safe people too, right?
Because safe people, you know, maybe they're using the King James Bible.
They have the right salvation. But maybe, you know, they're off in some doctrines or whatever it may be.
But then when someone shows them the way of the Lord more perfectly, they just become that much more zealous.
They become that much more passionate and zealous over the things of God.
And essentially, they become more effective in their service for the Lord. Okay?
Go back to 2 Kings 22. 2 Kings 22. Now, I don't want you to miss this.
The fact that this is happening when he's 12. Okay?
I mean, you know, it's hard to get a king who's in his 20s or 30s to do something like this. Right?
Let alone a 12-year-old. And this is by his own desire, his own wish, that the fact that he just loves the Lord.
And this should help us to realize how important it is to raise our children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord.
Okay? You know, it's important for us to teach the Word of God unto our children.
But not just that. Listen to this. We need to impart zeal into their lives as well. Okay?
You say, well, how do I do that? Well, obviously, we can't necessarily inject them full of zeal and inject them full of passion or whatever it may be.
That's obviously impossible. But we could exemplify it though.
And you know what? If church is boring to you, church will be boring to your kids too.
You know, if serving God is a burden to you, serving God will be a burden to your children as well.
You know, if reading the Bible is not exciting to you and serving the Lord is not exciting to you,
it's just kind of a burden, you're just kind of apathetic towards the things of God,
okay, then that's probably going to be passed on to your children thereafter as well. Okay?
Unless you have a child like Josiah who, you know, the wickedness of his forefathers wasn't passed down,
but do you really want to roll the dice on that though?
Well, I'm just going to serve God kind of and just hopefully I just get a Josiah out of it.
Hopefully, you know, he'll just be better than I am even though I suck as a Christian.
Doesn't work that way, my friends. We need to do the best that we can with the resources that we have
to impart passion, let our kids know that we love the Lord too.
Let our kids know, I love the Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to love the Lord Jesus Christ.
I want you to serve him all the days of your life. I want you to love God's Word.
I want you to love souls. Let's, and by the way, exemplify it for them.
Okay? Talk about spiritual things when you're with your kids.
Talk about spiritual truths. Talk about what you read in your Bible.
Talk about things that you learn in God's Word. Talk about the souls that you want to Christ.
Like, well, you know, we kind of don't do that stuff. You know, that's like for church or whatever.
Yeah, compartmentalize God and see how that goes for you when your kids grow up.
You want to make Christianity real to your family? You actually live it when you're home.
And I'm not saying be hyper spiritual or anything like that. I'm just saying, you know,
when you get a truth out of God's Word, go talk to your wife about it with your kids and say,
hey, this is what I learned. You know, I'm having trouble trying to figure this out.
What do you think about this? This is what I believe it is. And just explain it.
And then allow your kids to just listen because then they realize, like, this is what my mom and dad do.
They just talk about the Bible. They talk about souls. They talk about serving God.
OK, but he's 12 years old and he's doing this. And I'm just impressed by this.
You know, it reminds me of Jesus Christ, obviously. Right.
At the age of 12, he's going back and forth with the with the with the scribes there,
the doctors of the law, because he obviously is God himself.
But also at the age of 12, he's he has a hunger for God's word as well.
You know what? We need to develop an appetite for the word of God in our children as well.
OK, and so good stuff. Josiah, the age of eight, he takes over.
He's not going to be some lame little king, bratty little king or whatever, you know,
some child monarch that just, you know, doesn't really care what goes on.
He actually has a heart that wants to seek the Lord. And then when he turns 12, he's like.
I'm the king. Let's just go destroy a bunch of I mean, what kid doesn't like to break stuff?
Right. Children love breaking stuff.
And even if they don't love it, they're going to break it anyways. Kids break stuff all the time.
Now, you put that kid in a nation full of things that need to be broken, destroyed and burned.
Oh, man. That's like an amusement park for them.
No wonder it took from him from from 12 to 18 to do it.
He's just like, there's so much to break. And then he gets to tell people what to do.
You just like dig that grave up and break that down. Smash it to powder.
He's not just smashing. He's grinding it to powder.
You like, oh, man, I don't know. That's kind of like, you know, that's a little too much here.
Not for God. It wasn't. God saw that zeal and he loved it.
You know, God likes extremism. He likes when Christians are just extreme about certain things,
but especially when they're like 12 years old. That's like a pure form of passion and zeal.
OK. And so great job, Josiah. And he's pleasing the Lord here.
Now, go back to Second Kings 22. Look at verse number look.
Verse number five. It says, of course, he goes.
He essentially tells these guys to go. They've collected a bunch of resources to repair the house of God.
It says in verse number five, let them deliver it into the hand of the doers of the work that have the oversight of the house of the Lord.
And let them give it to the doers of the work, which is in the house of the Lord to repair the breaches of the house.
So after he comes back from this excursion, he goes and he says, look, we've collected a lot of money.
We got a lot of like an abundance of resources. Let's fix God's house.
And he says, I want you to repair the breaches of the house. What are breaches?
They're like little holes here and there, you know, little things that just kind of been neglected, things that need to be fixed.
And I think this is a great passage here because it shows us that he was emphasizing the little things. Right.
And if we're to apply this in a spiritual way, it would be like us making sure that the house of God,
that there are no breaches in this house at all, even of the littlest of cracks in our temple, so to speak.
Because, you know, the Bible says that we are the temple of the Holy Ghost, which we have of God, and we are not our own.
Well, in like manner, we as Christians could also develop breaches, you know, blind spots, things that have been neglected spiritually.
OK, that you just kind of neglect it, whether it's maybe it's your prayer life, maybe it's the Bible reading, maybe it is soul winning,
maybe it's church attendance, whatever it is, there's some sort of breach.
You know, we need to be like Josiah and actually use whatever resources we have to seal up those breaches.
OK, and fix whatever needs to be fixed there.
He says in verse number seven,
Howbeit there was no reckoning made with them of the money that was delivered in the hand because they dealt faithfully.
So he's just like, I'm not even going to keep track of whatever money is being spent because I know that they're faithful.
They're getting the job done.
Verse number eight, In Hilkiah, the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe,
I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.
Well, whoop dee doo.
I mean, isn't that where we should find the word of God is in the house of God?
Now, why is it surprising? Well, because of the fact that it's nowhere else, apparently.
So it's like, oh, hey, there's a Bible in this church.
But you know what? Today in 2023, that would be surprising, though.
Right? We're to go to some random church is like to see if they even have like a physical Bible,
because I often put the screens up with the verses or whatever, or if they even use the Bible at all.
Or if they even use the right Bible. Right?
And our church is a King James only church.
If you want to know why, go watch that documentary the steadfast just put out.
You know, the Preserved Bible. It's a great documentary explaining the history of the King James Bible,
because a lot of people talk a lot of smack on the King James Bible, and they like to degrade the word of God.
But in all reality, it is the inspired and preserved word of God for the English speaking people.
So it stood the test of time over 400 years.
But if you watch that documentary, it'll show you the history from the time of the word of God's inception all the way up into the King James Bible.
It explains inspiration preservation. It's a great documentary.
But here's the thing is that most churches, they need to watch the documentary because most churches don't use the King James Bible.
Okay, they use them some false version of the Bible reverses are being removed.
Verses are being added. Weird stuff is being taught.
Okay, and don't take that subject lightly.
You know, we have a we have a church here. And you know, sometimes, you know, we have a lot of new people here,
maybe new to Christianity or new to this brand of Christianity.
And often they can think, Well, what's wrong? I mean, like, I got a, I got a new King James, or I got a ESV.
I got an NASB. Is there something wrong with those Bibles?
Absolutely. There's all types of mistakes and errors within those Bibles within those books.
They're not necessarily a Bible. They're books that have all types of errors,
either nefariously made that way or just because the editors are just really dumb and they're just missing all types of stuff or whatever.
But most of it is because they have a nefarious agenda to screw up the word of God in order to deceive people.
Okay. And not just words, not just verses, but just key doctrines of the Bible.
Okay. And so, you know, yeah, Hilkiah is right for responding that way.
It's like, well, the law of the Lord is in the house of God. That's where it should be. Right.
But not only that, the word of God should have been with Josiah as well,
because the king was commanded in the Book of Deuteronomy to write himself a copy of the law to keep it before him.
So he knows what God expects of him as well. Okay.
And so maybe said of our church that the word of God will always stay in the house of God.
And we don't mean literally. Obviously, you know, there's always going to be a Bible here, physical Bible here.
If you don't have a Bible, we'll get you a Bible. But I'm saying from the preaching of God's word,
may the word of God always thunder forth, may not be like Reader's Digest or Charles Spurgeon's scriptural key of knowledge or something,
or some devotional that people want to give out or something,
some 15 minute sermon of a movie that just came out and you just want to make spiritual application
or put a screen up here with the chosen being shown or something like that.
You guys know what I'm talking about? The chosen, the movie, the chosen.
I don't know if it's a series or whatever. TV show Cody knows, of course.
Apparently he has a subscription. You know, it's a TV show that highlights supposedly the life of Jesus Christ.
But the guy's a Mormon. They make a mess of scripture.
You know, people love watching those things and they think that that's actually Bible.
They think it's scripture, even though they're adding a bunch of stuff to it. Jesus didn't look like that.
He wasn't a Mormon. And then the same guy is getting up telling people how to pray the rosary.
This isn't Christianity, my friends. So look, you know, we need to put the law of God back in the house of God.
Stop showing that at your church. OK, if you're going to show a movie, show the preserved Bible. Amen.
Show a movie. Show after the tribulation. Show dispensation of heresy if you need to have a movie night.
But you know, we don't need necessary movie nights. What we need is the word of God to be shown for it, to be preached, to be thundered.
We need the gospel to go out. We need people to be familiar with this book.
It's like, oh, man, it's kind of divisive. Know the people who are trying to deceive you are being divisive
because they're trying to separate you, divide you from the actual truth. OK, what you need is the King James Bible.
You need King James preaching. Well, it's too hard to read. It's not hard to read.
These newer versions are harder to read. You know, they I mean, in their attempts to try to sound smart or whatever.
You know, trying to sound legitimate. They always add these words that are not common necessarily in the English language.
They always get on the King James and they're like, oh, you know, the King James uses such archaic words.
But these modern versions use these obscure words that no one understands as well.
So it's a ridiculous notion that people try to bring forth.
We need to have the law of God in the house of God and not be surprised when we have like a Bible here.
You know what I mean? It's just like a pastor preaches quotes Leviticus 2013.
It's just like, oh, oh, man, he's he's quoting Leviticus 2013.
It's like, well, that's where you should hear it is in the house of God.
Like, oh, you're preaching for Romans one. Yeah, that's that's kind of extreme.
These progressive Christians like that's.
I mean, it'd be nice if we could hear it everywhere else, but for sure, we should hear it in the house of God.
You should come expecting hearing to hear the Bible, right?
It's like people come to church like, I can't believe you said that, but it's like it's a church.
That's where you're supposed to hear those truths, truths about the sodomites, truths about abortion, truths about fornication, about drunkenness.
You should expect to hear the law of God in the house of God.
It's like pastors make the news for saying something so crazy.
It's just like, oh, wow, a pastor believes the Bible.
That's wild. That's so crazy. I can't believe that.
Why? Because they're so used to having pastors who don't have the law of God in the house of God.
Look at verse number 10.
So they're fixing it up and then they're just you know, they find the word of God.
They're just like, whoa, you know, they're just like, there's a Bible in here.
Look at verse 10.
So he's like, we found a book and he begins to read the law of God and Josiah is listening at the age of 18 and then he rents his clothes.
Now, this doesn't mean like he went and got a tuxedo or something like that.
OK, like he rented.
He's just like, no, wait, hold on a second.
Let me go get some. Let me go get a new suit or something.
You know, rent means like he tore his clothes.
OK, that's not something people do today.
You know, they don't tear their clothes when they hear bad news.
But in the Bible days, they would do something like that, where if they heard something that was just abominable or something that was just like judgment of God,
that caused great grief and sorrow, they would often put ashes upon their head, dirt upon their head, and they would tear their garments apart.
And what it was supposed to signify is the tearing of the heart.
OK, you know, you hear a lot of wimpy dudes say like, you broke my heart.
You know, like you broke my heart.
And that's that's like a biblical concept.
The difference is this should break our hearts.
Like sin should break our hearts.
Right. People going to hell should break our hearts.
People who are being destroyed by sin should break our hearts.
Not some online, you know, girl or something like that that you've never met before.
You know what I mean?
OK.
You know, the Bible is telling us here that he rent his clothes and it signified the tearing of his heart.
He's like, man, my heart is broken because we're disobeying God.
Verse 12 says the king commanded the priest and a high come the son of Shaphan and Akbar, the son of Micaiah and Shaphan, the scribe and as a highest servant of the king.
Same go ye inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah concerning the words of this book that is found.
For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us because our fathers have not hearkened into the words of this book to do according unto all which is written concerning us.
Josiah is kind of like us right now.
So why do you why do you say that?
Well, because, you know, there's a lot of things that happened in the 50s, 60s and 70s that we can't control.
Our forefathers have sinned greatly.
You know, our parents and great grandparents and the people of this nation, the boomers of this world, they messed up our country.
They messed up our nation.
Right.
And then we see what the law of God says regarding that sin is just like we it breaks our hearts.
We can't do anything about it, but we can do is change what's going on now.
We can preach and live right now.
Right now, as we'll see later.
As righteous as Josiah is, as much of a reformation that he's trying to bring forth.
God's like, you know, I won't bring evil in your day, but I'm still bringing evil upon this nation.
So he's able to delay the judgment of God upon the nation because he's such a righteous king.
And even to the poor, he like in Second Chronicles 33, he's just like everyone serving God.
That's the law.
All right.
He like made it a law to serve God.
He's like, everyone's going to go to the house of God and you're serving God, you're serving God.
You're a brand new Christian.
Yeah, you too.
No one is exempt from this rule.
He wants to make sure that everyone is just like in lockstep with God.
Okay.
And here's the thing, though, but wrath still came upon Israel because of the sins of Manasseh,
because of the sins of his father and not just them.
Like, I mean, hundreds of years have passed by of wicked kings who have done wickedly.
And, you know, the nation has to pay.
Let me say this.
America has to pay, my friends.
You know, like, are you interested in delaying the judgment of God?
No, not really.
I'm interested in like us living righteously and having God's hand upon us
so we can save as many souls as possible and preaching righteousness.
But I'm a doom and gloom kind of guy.
I'm just like, Lord, just bring the wrath.
Just do it because they deserve it.
So many babies have died.
People that are being kidnapped.
So much evil is taking place in this nation.
It's just like this place needs to be judged by God.
Okay.
But even if I have the attitude of like God delay your judgment or don't bring your judgment,
God's still going to judge America because it's so wicked.
And so, you know, he's like, go inquire of the Lord for me.
You know, that he would be merciful because we have it done according to that which is written.
Look at verse 14.
So this is sad right here. Okay.
And ladies, don't get offended at this.
Do not be offended at what we're about to read right now
and what I'm about to say.
Okay.
Because this is obviously showing us.
Let me ask you this.
Is Israel in a good condition at this moment?
No.
It's in a really bad state.
I mean, there's all kinds of idols everywhere.
Idol worship, paganism, death.
I mean, it's just really bad and Josiah is doing his best to clean everything up.
But there's a lot of problems here.
And let me say this.
In the Bible, when a nation gets away from God,
when you have a woman preacher, even if it's like a righteous woman preacher,
okay, who's saying the right things, that's not a good sign.
You say, well, what are you, like a misogynist?
Sure.
I mean, you can call.
I'm a biblicalist is what I am.
When a woman begins to lead the nation spiritually, according to the Bible, listen to this.
Ladies, don't get mad.
You're going to get mad anyways, but I'm just saying.
Listen to this.
That is a curse upon the nation.
According to Isaiah chapter number four, God says, I will have women rule over you.
That's not like a gift to the nation.
He's like, you guys are so righteous, I'm going to have women rule over you.
That's because what is he talking?
He's actually in context referring to judgment.
He's like, babes and women shall rule over you.
That's like God's curse on a nation whenever a woman is leading spiritually.
Now, here's a great example of this.
Deborah in the Bible was a righteous lady.
She's a godly woman in the Bible.
And you know what?
She knew the Bible.
She knew the word of God.
She knew what God demanded of the nation.
But she was, in her time, it was the time of the judges.
And the Bible says that every man did that which is right in their own eyes.
I mean, this is when like, you know, women were being chopped up to pieces, right?
This is when women were being raped.
They were being gang raped in the Bible.
They're being chopped up to pieces because no one is executing the laws of God.
You know, around that time, you know, when things are just not going well,
there's no magistrate in the land to put the people to shame, the Bible says.
Well, during that, you know, special time in Israel's history, Deborah was there.
And everyone was going to Deborah for biblical advice.
He said, what's wrong with that?
Well, I'll tell you what's wrong with that.
It's man's responsibility to preach God's word.
And you made your answer to that would be like, well, you know, yeah, there's no man, so that's why the woman's doing it.
Exactly.
So that's the problem.
So I'm not getting on Deborah.
She's not wicked because they came to her, right?
She's not a wicked person.
In fact, God's hand was on her.
She obviously loved the law of the Lord.
And look, let me say this.
There's women in our church who know the Bible.
There's women in our church who know the word of God.
They know the scriptures.
They know how to lead people to Christ.
They study the word of God.
And that is fantastic.
But let me say this.
There will never be a woman behind the pulpit preaching the word of God because the Bible strictly forbids that.
Okay.
And if that rubs you the wrong way, you've just been influenced by feminism in this in this country.
And, you know, you've been you've been influenced by the independent spirit of this nation.
We need to be influenced by the Bible.
And so nothing wrong with Deborah.
And in fact, there's nothing wrong with this lady here other than the fact that she's just an indicator that the nation is going down the toilet fast.
Because it says in verse 14.
So Hilkiah, the priest, and Ahicham, and Achbor, Shaphan.
Look at all these guys.
And as Ahicham went to Huldah, the prophetess, you know, to basically say, like, what should we do?
So one, two, three, four guys are coming to Huldah to find out what does God require of us?
Priests who are supposed to know the Bible.
They're going to go have a Bible study with Huldah to find out what God is like.
Isn't this your job?
Shaphan?
You know, isn't this your job?
Achbor?
Why aren't you reading the Bible?
But it's just showing you the spiritual condition of the nation.
Okay.
You know, basically, like what we have today, right?
Where we have, what's your name?
Joyce Myers.
You just know all the right answers, Cody.
All the wrong answers.
No, I'm just kidding.
You know, you have Joyce Myers, and she's preaching heresy, obviously.
You know, and you say, well, I know one pastor lady who is just like, you know, she's actually preaching the right doctrine.
Well, let's say that exists, which I don't believe it does.
But let's say it does exist.
It's still wrong because the Bible says that a pastor or bishop, as the Bible calls the pastor, is to be the husband of one wife.
That's the qualification for a pastor, the husband of one wife.
Tell me how you can be a woman pastor and be the husband of one wife.
That's a sermon for another day.
Okay.
So then look at verse 15, and she said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Tell the man that sent you to me.
Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, upon the inhabitants thereof, and even all the words of the book which the king of Judah hath read, because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger with all their works in their hands.
Therefore, my wrath shall be kindled against this place, and shall not be quenched.
She's like, I'm going to destroy this place.
It's too late.
Okay.
Look at verse 18, though.
He says, But to the king of Judah, which sent you to inquire of the Lord, thus shall you say to him, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, as touching the words which thou has heard, because thine heart was tender.
That's the key word there.
Tender.
What does that mean?
Humble.
Okay.
You say, what's the big deal?
Well, apparently it was a big deal to Josiah.
Enough that it broke his heart over everything that was taking place.
Let me say this.
It better break your heart over all the abominations that are being done in this land.
The sins of our nation should break your heart, because that would show that your heart is tender towards the things of God.
He says, Because thine heart was tender, thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord.
When thou heardest that I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse.
And as rent thy clothes and wet before me, I have also heard thee, saith the Lord.
And then, of course, he gives them the promise that he's going to have peace.
The wrath is not going to come in his time.
It'll come thereafter.
Okay, now go to Chapter 23.
So he hears this and he's not like, Oh, well, I guess we could just live however we want now.
Now he's just like, well, I'm going to clean house because he's obviously upset over the abominations of the land.
He's upset over the fact that this has been allowed to continue.
So now he's going to put in some work.
Verse three of Chapter 23 says in the king stood by the pillar, made a covenant before the Lord to walk after the Lord and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and with all their soul to perform the words of this covenant that were written in the book and all the people stood to the covenant.
And the king commanded Hilkiah the high 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.
Now you say, how bad was it?
It's bad enough that they had idols.
Baal is Satan.
So let's just put it in modern terms.
It's like if someone were to put a statue of Baphomet here, which is wicked, right?
It's like satanic.
If they put a statue of Baphomet here, well, in those days, they had statues of Baal, vessels of Baal, these accoutrements, cups and everything that were dedicated to Baal worship.
They had it in the house of God.
So they're worshipping Satan in the house of God.
This is bad.
And for the grove and for all the host of heaven.
And he burned them without Jerusalem in the field of Kidron and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel.
And he put down the idolatrous priest.
Now, what does it mean to put down?
You know, like if a dog is like going to die, it's sick.
You got a cow.
What do you do?
You put it down.
It means you kill it, right?
Like if someone runs over a dog or something that's going to die and it's just in misery, you know, you got to put it down.
OK, so putting down is just like, OK, guys, come down.
No, I know you.
Yeah, we're just not doing this anymore.
He's killing them.
He put down the idolatrous priest whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places round about Jerusalem.
Them also that burned incense at the bale to the sun and to the moon.
Oh, look at this and to the planets.
I guess planets really do exist.
Flat earthers.
The worst planets in the Bible right there.
And to all the host of heaven.
And he brought up the growth from the house of the Lord without Jerusalem unto the Brook Kidron and burned it at the Brook Kidron and stamped it to small to powder and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people.
So he's like grinding it to powder because obviously he has he has experience with this now.
You know, he was doing this from 12 to 18.
OK, so he's doing this and then he's just like he's he's like desecrating all of the accoutrements of Baal worship.
So he's not just taking it down and throwing it in the trash.
No, he wants to let the people know who worship Baal.
I hate this stuff.
I hate it so much.
I'm going to grind it to powder and just disrespect it completely.
Well, you know, Josiah should have really just respect other people's religions.
God doesn't respect other people's religions.
And he gets mad at God's people when they have respect unto other religions, especially when you're worshipping Satan.
Flat out.
Look at verse seven.
And he break down the houses of the Sodomites.
So then, you know, aside from the Baal worship, he's just like, all right, let's take care of these houses.
So apparently, because it says that we're by the house of the Lord where the woman wolf hangs for the grove.
This is how bad it's gotten.
You have the house of God and then you have a bunch of sodomites living outside of the house of God.
Like are basically they're just right there.
I mean, just essentially just mocking the house of God.
Mocking the things of God.
So what did he do?
He broke the houses of the sodomites and they're probably in there when he did it.
So no one is safe from Josiah right now.
He's taken out the fags of the land.
He knows that this is not acceptable in the eyes of the Lord because the Bible says in Deuteronomy that the price of a dog should not go into the house of God, let alone right outside.
The dog's referring to the sodomites.
So he's breaking down those houses.
He's cleaning house.
You know, I'm sure you've got some bleeding hearts there and like, well, where are they going to go live?
You know, he doesn't care.
He's like, why is he doing this?
Because he wants to please God.
Now, obviously, this doesn't mean that this is what we're called to do.
OK, before some of you extremists out there be confused or something like that, you know, what we're seeing here is the zeal of a righteous king.
And how far he was willing to go to please the Lord.
OK, verse 10 says, and he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire of Molech.
So then after he destroys the house, all the accouterments of Baal, he breaks down the houses of the sodomites.
Then he's like, oh, Planned Parenthood.
Let's go ahead and destroy all Planned Parenthoods of land, because it says here that these places were areas where people will make their sons and their daughters pass through the fire.
So these pagans would take their babies and throw them in the fire as an offering unto false gods.
Wicked, right?
But people do that today.
And in fact, the Church of Satan has just recently, they wanted to open up essentially a Planned Parenthood where you can actually, you know, do rituals when you abort your child.
Religious rituals, Molech stuff.
I mean, it's wicked before, but it's even more blatant and wicked now because now they're going to be offering their children unto Molech or some false god or Satan himself.
This is what's taking place.
So he goes there and just like destroy all these Planned Parenthoods, just break them all down, destroy them all.
This is why Josiah is awesome.
He doesn't stop just like the accouterments and the Baal worship.
He's like, let's get it all.
Okay, you know, like spring cleaning.
Can't just get one room.
You got to get it all.
You know, look at verse 12.
He says the altars are on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the king of Judah had made and the altars which Manasseh had made in two courts of the house of the Lord.
Did the king beat down and break them down from the fence and cast the dust of them to the Brook Kidron?
He says in the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abominations of the Zidonians.
So what do we see him doing?
He's correcting the errors of his forefathers, even those who were right in the sight of the Lord.
Because Solomon, obviously he ended his life pretty bad.
You know, he was a compromiser.
He's making these altars for false gods for his wives.
And then what is Josiah doing?
He's like, well, break it down.
I don't care if it's Solomon.
Solomon is the wisest man that ever lived, but apparently he wasn't wise when he made this.
Break it down.
It's like this.
It's like, well, Pastor Mehia, you claim to be a fundamental Baptist, but you don't have a bus ministry or something.
Or you don't have Sunday school classes.
Or you don't do, you know, this is what the Solomons in your day used to do, though.
Who cares?
We will adopt what our spiritual forefathers instituted if they were biblical.
But if they're against the Bible, they're out the door.
We're breaking it down.
We're not abiding by those laws or customs or traditions.
I don't care if it is Solomon.
That's what Josiah said.
Josiah was like, well, Solomon, you know, I don't want to get the people mad at me, you know.
I still want to be invited to go preach at different churches and I want the support or whatever.
He's like, break it down.
Solomon's a great guy, but this is stupid.
For his wife?
You know, he made this idol for his wife.
Break it down.
And you know what?
We need to tear down the false doctrines that our forefathers believed.
The ones that they held to and the ones that they want to break fellowship over, we tear them down.
And it's like, well, you know, well, don't you know that, you know, Brother Hiles believe in the pre-trib rapture?
Who cares?
So what?
He's a great man, but he was wrong on that area.
Don't you know that most fundamental Baptists who came before you, built greater churches, built greater works,
they all believed that the Jews were God's chosen people?
Who cares what Solomon did?
You know, if that's what they did, they were wrong about that.
We're tearing it down.
So he's obviously not a respecter of people.
OK.
He says in verse 14, break in pieces the images and cut down the groves and fill their places with the bones of men.
So he's getting bones.
This is pretty crazy.
And he's just like.
Moreover, the altar that was at Bethel, the high place with Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, who made Israel to sin,
and made both the altar and the high place he break down and burned the high place and stamped it small to powder and burned the grove.
Now look at verse 16.
This is this is where he starts getting pretty zealous here.
And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there 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.
So what do we see here?
He's like, you know, he's spreading bones and he looks and he's like.
Is that?
That's a grave.
That's a false prophet's grave.
Dig him up.
They're already dead.
They're long gone.
They have no influence anymore.
You know what he's like? Dig up the bones.
He's exhuming the bones of the false prophets so he can burn them.
What is he doing?
He's desecrating the name of Baal before all the people.
He destroyed the heir of the dead false prophet.
I mean, I like what it says.
You know, he spied the sepulchres that were in the mount.
He's like, oh, it looks like we missed a little something there.
Missed a little web right there.
And then, you know, all his workers are like, oh, he's going to have he's going to have us dig this up.
He's like, dig him up, dig up all the false prophets.
That's that's what's going on here.
Right.
Look, if you don't like this, you know, take it up with God, because he put it in the Bible.
And, you know, apparently he approved of all this.
God was very much happy what was taking place here.
He's digging up the dead bodies of people who've been dead for a long time, false prophets.
And he's just desecrating this.
Now, again, this doesn't mean that we go to some cemetery or something and start doing that.
But you know what we do spiritually?
We dig up Charles Spurgeon and we bring him up.
I don't care how many Bible colleges use his material in their college.
I don't care how many independent fundamental Baptists quote him from the pulpit.
We're digging up his bones spiritually.
We're going to burn them because he was wrong.
He's a false prophet.
You know, Charles Spurgeon, John Nelson Darby, Peter Ruckman, C.I.
Schofield, all these people who are highly esteemed in the eyes of fundamental Baptists.
We dig up their bones spiritually and we burn them because they were wrong.
They were false prophets.
You know what God expects us to do?
He expects us to know the false prophets of times past because of their current influences on churches.
And we expose them before the people to say these people are wicked, they're false prophets and they're burning in hell.
Well, that's not what he said.
Well, the fact that he's burning the bones is signifying that they're burning in hell.
Which is why throughout the Bible we see God's people being buried.
Because burying a body is a signification that they're going to resurrect one day because they're saved.
Whereas burning a body, cremating a body is something that pagans would do.
But Josiah is just like, this is what you typically do so we're going to burn your bones because this is exactly what's happening to you at this moment.
So this is pretty crazy stuff here.
I'm sure that was a lot of work.
Just digging up all those bones, I mean that's a gruesome job there.
Verse 17.
Now this is a really cool part.
He says in verse 17,
Now what's going on here?
This is very interesting.
Hold your place there, go to 1 Kings chapter 13 if you would.
1 Kings chapter 13.
So you know, he's just digging up bones, burning them.
And then he's not necessarily doing it at random, he's paying attention to who he's digging up.
Because then he looks at a sepulcher or a grave and he says, what title is that?
And then the guys are like, well, funny you ask.
Because this actually belongs to the guy who prophesied of the things that you're doing right now.
Now the question is, who is that prophet?
Look at 1 Kings chapter 13.
This is approximately about 300 years before.
And this is why King Josiah is actually very special.
One of the reasons why he's such a unique king is because he's actually, other than Jesus Christ,
he's the only king whose birth was prophesied by name 300 years prior to him coming into existence.
Look at verse number 1,
This is pretty cool.
So what's going on here?
Well if you remember, the kingdoms split, right?
You have Jeroboam, you have Rehoboam.
Jeroboam got 10 kingdoms, 10 essentially areas, and then Rehoboam got the rest.
And Jeroboam became just this really wicked king.
He created two calves to worship in Bethel and one in Dan.
And he would tell the people, it's too much for you to go to Jerusalem to worship.
Worship here.
And then he created his own holiday, the 8th month and the 15th day.
They would do these sacrifices.
He became just a really wicked person.
And he began to take just average people and essentially ordain them as priests.
The lowest of the people to become priests.
Jeroboam was just a really bad guy.
So then this nameless prophet comes and he says, hey just to let you know, there's a king that's going to be born.
It doesn't say when.
His name is going to be Josiah.
And then he's going to, all these guys who are here, he's going to dig them up and he's going to burn their bones.
And he's going to do all this stuff.
He's going to desecrate everything you're putting up.
So then Jeroboam gets really upset.
And he's like, get a hold of him!
And as he says that, his hand just like withers.
It just like, it just falls apart.
He's just like, because obviously God smote him.
And he's like, man of God, you know, pray for me that my hand gets restored.
And then he restores his hand.
And then that's when the king says, hey come to eat with me.
And then the man of God says no because God told me to stay here.
You guys know that story?
And then the old prophet comes to him, deceives him.
Which is kind of interesting because this nameless prophet is kind of like Josiah.
Because they both started off great.
But at the end of their life, they kind of disobeyed the Lord.
And they both kind of died a horrible death, right?
And so this nameless prophet, he gets killed by a lion because he disobeyed the word of the Lord.
And then the old prophet buries him and he's like, hey when I die, bury me next to this guy.
You know, he wants people hundreds of years after to say, oh man these are some great men of God.
Or whatever, you know.
But you know, Josiah is not talking about the old prophet though.
He's talking about the young prophet.
So it's very interesting, this is 300 years before and he named him, he prophesied of him by name.
Now go back to 2 Kings if you would.
Pretty interesting, right?
And you know, they're both young.
Because it's like a young prophet and then you have the young king here.
And so obviously, you know, this shows us that God does have a plan for all of us.
As corny and as cheesy as that may sound sometimes.
Because people just kind of abuse that phrase all the time.
God has a plan for your life, you know.
It is true.
The Bible says we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God had before ordained that we should walk in them.
So you know, God had already thought of Josiah long before he was born, hundreds of years before he was born.
And so don't think to yourself, oh what can I do in this life?
You might be like a Josiah.
You might do something great later on.
You might do something great and obviously it's just all based upon your obedience to God's word.
Okay.
I'm almost out of time.
I am out of time but we're just going to finish this up, okay.
So let me say this.
Let me see here.
Go to verse 24.
Let me say two more things.
So after he's done, you know, doing all that, then he realizes, oh man, the Passover hasn't really been kept.
Okay.
And so he begins to institute the Passover.
And the Bible actually tells us that basically there wasn't a Passover held the way he held it since the time of the judges.
So we're talking about, you know, Saul.
We're talking about David.
We're talking about Solomon.
I mean hundreds of years passed by and Josiah ends up holding the Passover in such a magnificent way
and such a complete way of obedience that God basically says there's no king that's like Josiah who has obeyed the Lord like Josiah did.
There's no king who observed the Passover like Josiah observed the Passover.
And look, King David's the man.
We all love David.
But he sucked at keeping the Passover apparently because he didn't do it the way Josiah did.
He didn't do it the way the Word of God told him to do it.
Now what does it show us?
He reinstated biblical practices.
And you know what?
There might have been some Davids in times past in our life.
But, you know, there might be some areas that David lacked on that we need to tighten up.
And we need to observe those things the correct way.
We need to observe Romans 1 the correct way.
We need to observe Leviticus 2013 the correct way.
We need to be able to observe the Word of God.
You know, we need to defend the King James Bible the right way.
Not through Ruckmanism.
You know, we need to...
There's some things that our forefathers didn't do right or they didn't do fully.
They're still great men of God.
They're still wonderful people.
They're still great pastors who made a great difference.
But hold on a second.
I'm not David. I'm Josiah.
And you know what?
And God's commanded my generation to observe the Word of God the right way.
And if there is a way that it wasn't observed in times past, well, they're lost.
They're in heaven now.
Now we have to make sure that we do church the right way.
We need to make sure we do soul winning the right way.
We need to make sure that we preach the right way,
that we turn people to righteousness the right way,
that we hold biblical ordinances the right way,
that we do it the right way.
It may be said of us, there's no church or there's no churches,
like the churches in this generation, like in times past or something,
who failed to observe whatever X, Y, and Z.
And so he reinstated these biblical practices and everything went well for him.
And then, you know, after he does that, after he observes the Passover, verse 24,
Moreover, the workers with familiar spirits and the wizards and the images and the idols
and the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah
and in Jerusalem did Josiah put away that he might perform the words of the law,
which were written in the book of Hekiah, the priest found in the house of the Lord.
So even after all that, he's like, you know what, let's go clean some more.
So he holds the Passover, he cleans house and he's just like,
let's get back out there and go do some more cleaning.
Because I heard there's some familiar spirits out there.
I heard there's people observing the day of the dead or something like that.
And like unto him, listen to verse 25,
There's no king before him that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul
and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses, neither after him rose there any like him.
There's some pretty amazing kings in the Bible, but you know what?
He's one of the top ones for sure.
Your top 10.
I wouldn't even say the top five.
Why?
Because there is no one like him who just went fully after the Lord.
And this should encourage us as God's people to go all in, all our heart.
Just, you know, we only have so much time in this world.
So love God with all your heart.
Love him with all your soul.
Love him with all your mind.
Just strain to love the Lord.
Strain to worship God.
Strain to serve him as best as you possibly can.
Put in maximum effort to serve God.
I don't even know how to describe that.
You know, I call it because a power lift, I'll call it a grinder.
So what does that mean?
Well, there's times when you're lifting a certain amount of weight and it's super heavy, right?
And you're just kind of grinding.
You're just like.
You're like you're being caught up to the third heaven or something.
You know, you shouldn't do grinders all the time.
But, you know, you're definitely you're just like.
Everything's shaking.
Everything's trembling.
Your life's flashing before your eyes.
So what do you do there in that town?
I'm like, if I don't lift this, I'm gay or my family dies.
Just kind of motivate me.
I mean, to get it up.
And I always get it up.
Hey, grind it for the Lord.
Push forward and just say, I just need to keep, you know, it's like, well, that's hard.
Just take it a day at a time.
Tomorrow, today, when you wake up tomorrow, say, Lord, help me to love you.
Help me to serve you.
Help me to just with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, according to your law.
You know, just help me to be like a Josiah.
And so what a great man here.
And so I'm done.
But, you know, the main lesson that we can take away from this is that you don't have to be like a David.
You don't have to necessarily be like a Solomon.
But you can be someone like Josiah who just loves the Lord and was able to make a great impact in his generation.
In his generation.
And so let's pray.
We'll be dismissed.
Father, we thank you so much for your word.
Thank you so much for Josiah's example.
What a great young man.
What a great example as an eight year old, as a 12 year old, even as an 18 year old.
Help us to have that zeal and that love for your word.
And I pray, God, that you'd help us to do so.
Help us to to grind out our love for you, Lord, and do the best that we can to to serve you, to obey you.
And who cares what the world thinks?
Who cares what others think about us if we're too extreme?
May we care what you think about us.
And I pray that, Lord, you bless us as we go on our way.
We love you.
We thank you.
Pray these things in Jesus name.
Amen.
Please turn your songbooks to song number one hundred and seventy five.
Song number one hundred and seventy five.
It's just like his great love.
Song number one hundred and seventy five.
All together nice and strong on that first verse.
A friend I have called Jesus.
Whose love is strong and true.
And never fails I'll wear his stride.
No matter what I do.
I've sinned against this love of his.
But when I knell to pray.
Confessing all my guilt to him.
The sin clouds roll away.
It's just like Jesus to roll the clouds away.
It's just like Jesus to keep me day by day.
Like Jesus all along the way.
It's just like his great love.
Sometimes the clouds of trouble.
In the sky above.
I cannot see my savior's face.
I doubt his wondrous love.
But he from heaven's mercy seat.
Beholding my despair.
In pity bursts the clouds between.
And shows me he is there.
It's just like Jesus to roll the clouds away.
It's just like Jesus to keep me day by day.
It's just like Jesus all along the way.
It's just like his great love.
When sorrows, clouds o'er take me.
When life seems worse than useless.
And I were beggar dead.
I take my grief to Jesus then.
Nor do I go in vain.
For heavenly hope he gives that cheers.
Like sunshine after rain.
It's just like Jesus to roll the clouds away.
It's just like Jesus to keep me day by day.
It's just like Jesus all along the way.
It's just like his great love on the last.
Oh I could sing forever.
Of Jesus the Divine.
Of all his care and tenderness.
For this love of mine.
His love is in and over all.
And wind and waves obey.
When Jesus whispers peace be still.
And rolls the clouds away.
It's just like Jesus to roll the clouds away.
It's just like Jesus to keep me day by day.
It's just like Jesus all along the way.
It's just like his great love.
Amen. Wonderful singing. You are dismissed.