Second Kings, Chapter 22, that's in the Old Testament, kind of closer toward the front
part of your Bible.
When you read through the books of Kings and Chronicles, which are very similar, not too
much difference there, you read about a lot of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.
And Israel, they never had a good king.
Every king that Israel ever had.
When God's people split into two different groups, Israel never had a good king.
Judah had a few good kings.
Not many, but they had a few good kings.
One of those good kings they had was Hezekiah.
I'd encourage you to read his story.
You can flip back a few chapters before where this is and you can read about Hezekiah.
He was a good king that Judah had.
And from the time of Hezekiah to Josiah, who we're going to talk about today, there weren't
any good kings in Judah.
But Josiah was a good king.
And we're going to see why he was a good king in this passage today.
So we'll start in verse 1.
We'll read through verse 11.
And then we will pray.
Second Kings, Chapter 22, verse 1.
Josiah was eight years old when he became king and reigned 31 years in Jerusalem.
His mother's name was Judiah, the daughter of Adaiah.
She was from Boschath.
He did what was right in the Lord's sight and walked in all the ways of his ancestor
David.
He did not turn to the right or to the left.
In the 18th year of King Josiah, the king sent the court secretary, Shafan, son of Azaliah,
son of Meschilam, to the Lord's temple, saying, Go up to Hilkiah, the high priest, so that
he may total up the money brought into the Lord's temple, the money the doorkeepers have
collected from the people.
It is to be put into the hands of those doing the work, those who oversee the Lord's temple.
They in turn are to give it to the workmen in the Lord's temple to repair the damage.
They are to give it to the carpenters, builders, and masons to buy timber and corage stone
to repair the temple.
But no accounting is to be required from them for the money they put into their hands since
they work with integrity.
Hilkiah, the high priest, told Shafan, the court secretary, I have found the book of
the law in the Lord's temple, and he gave the book to Shafan, who read it.
Then Shafan, the court secretary, went to the king and reported, Your servants have
emptied out the money that was found in the temple and have put it into the hand of those
doing the work, those who oversee the Lord's temple.
Then Shafan, the court secretary, told the king, Hilkiah, the priest, has given me a
book.
And Shafan read it in the presence of the king.
When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes.
Let's pray.
Father God, we come to you.
I pray, God, that you would hide me behind the cross, that you would help me to preach
your word in a way, dear Lord, that's going to bring glory to you, God.
I'm incapable of saying a single word that's worth anything, God, if it does not come from
you.
So I pray, dear Lord, that your Holy Spirit would speak through me and to each one of
us today, that we would hear from you, God, that we would hear your word, that we would
long to grow in your word and read your word, that your word would be an important part
of our life, dear Lord, that we would continue to seek your word day in and day out.
So God, I pray that your Holy Spirit would be with us today.
In Jesus' name I pray it.
Amen.
God's people were in a bad shape by the time we are getting to this passage of Scripture
here.
God had been patient with his people for quite some time.
The northern ten tribes of Israel had already fallen.
They had been overtaken by the Assyrians some years before because of their disobedience.
However, because Judah had some of those good kings, Hezekiah being one of note, God was
patient with the people of Judah a little bit longer.
In the days of Hezekiah, he spoke up and did what was right by the Lord in the same way
that Josiah did.
And so God was patient with the people of Judah a little bit longer.
But times were not good.
And this would soon be the end of the people of Judah.
It would not be long after King Josiah that the nation of Judah would fall and that God's
people would be taken into captivity into Babylon.
That's what we see in the book of Daniel.
But there's one little glimmer of hope.
There's one little bright spot right here at the end of Judah.
And that is King Josiah.
So things were bad.
God's people were worshiping idols.
They were worshiping false gods.
They just they were not doing good.
They had not done good.
You and I, we don't always do very good either.
They constantly find themselves worshiping idols, worshiping other gods.
And God, Yahweh, their God, the only God, should have been at the center of everything.
They should have been worshiping God and focusing on God and having no other gods before Him.
That's what He commanded them.
But they didn't do that.
They would do it for a while and then they wouldn't do it.
And what they needed was good, strong leadership.
What they needed were good kings and good priests, but very seldom did they have that.
And so we see kind of the trouble when we read through this passage.
The temple was in bad shape.
Why?
Because God's people weren't keeping up the temple.
They weren't doing what they should do in the temple.
They weren't taking care of the temple.
They weren't offering sacrifices like they should.
They weren't observing the Passover like they should.
All these things that God had commanded them and things that He had instructed them to
do, God's people had totally failed.
And then Josiah becomes king.
Well, what does he do?
He sends word by a secretary.
He says, I want you to go to the temple.
I want you to tell Hilki.
I want you to tell the priest.
I want you to tell the people who oversee the temple that they need to take all the
money that they've gathered up and that they need to hire some workers because the temple
is in bad shape.
Now I don't really know how much Josiah knew about God's word and God's commands.
It appears as though maybe not too much.
It appears as though that all of God's people or most of them were in pretty bad shape because
he gives this command for them to go and start cleaning up and repairing the temple.
And as they begin to clean up the temple and repair things, the priest of the temple finds
a book.
He finds the book of the law.
Now this is most likely what we would refer to as Deuteronomy, either all of it or part
of it that gave a lot of the law and instruction to God's people.
And that tells us that they probably didn't care too much about God's word, that it had
somehow got covered up and stuck on a shelf and all of a sudden out of the blue, the priest
says, oh, wait a minute.
What is this book?
They rediscovered the book of the law.
Now you would think that God's people, that God loves, that God has called, that God has
instructed, that God has sent prophets to, that God has given the law through Moses to
his people.
You would think that the people would say, okay, if God is our God and he's given us
instruction, let us always live by that instruction.
But it doesn't appear when we get to this portion of Judah's history that they were
living by God's word at all.
Why?
Because they'd lost it.
They didn't even know it was there.
They started cleaning up and they come across this old book and dusted it off and they said,
wait a minute, look at this scroll right here.
This is God's word.
This is the word of the law.
Wait a minute.
This is the words that our ancestors have passed down through all these years and praise
the Lord.
They recognized that it was significant.
So Hillkeye sends it back by Shefan, sends it back to Josiah and says, look, Josiah,
everything's going pretty good.
Everything is going pretty good.
Those guys that you wanted to repair the temple, the repairs are going well.
And oh, by the way, when we started repairing the temple, when things started to be cleaned
up, we discovered this book of the law.
And then he proceeded to read it to Josiah.
And listen to what Josiah does here in verse 11.
When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes.
Now why in the world would he do that?
Why in the world would he tear his clothes?
Well, we see this language from time to time in the Old Testament, even in the New Testament
song, that people would tear their clothes or that they would put on sackcloth and ashes.
A lot of times you kind of see these same things together.
And all of these things, the action of tearing our clothes or putting on sackcloth and ashes,
all of those actions are representative of something.
And they're representative of repentance.
When Josiah heard the words of the law, he knew instantly that God's people were sinning.
He knew instantly that they had not been living by the words of the law.
That leaves me to believe he probably didn't know the words of the law.
That as important as God's words were, that God had spoken to Moses, that God had given
the Ten Commandments, that God had given the stone tablets and some 600 plus other laws,
that God had given through Moses, that God had given to his people, that his people knew
that his people should have been living by.
And yet, throughout the years, as time had gone on, God's people, it appeared, had completely
forgotten the word of God.
Praise the Lord that Josiah rediscovered the word of God.
And when the word of God was read to Josiah, Josiah tore his clothes.
Why?
Because he knew that he had done wrong.
He knew that God's people had done wrong.
He knew that they were in a bad shape.
He knew that what he had just heard, that God had called them to, they had failed at
miserably, and they had sinned miserably, and they were still in their sin.
And when he heard the word of God, he tore his clothes because he knew he was guilty.
He knew he was sinful.
Continuing on in verse 12, then he commanded Hilkiah the priest, Ahicham son of Shefan,
Achbar son of Micaiah, Shefan the court secretary, and the king servant, Asiah.
Go and inquire of the Lord for me, for the people and all Judah about the instruction
in this book that has been found.
For great is the Lord's wrath that is kindled against us because our ancestors have not
obeyed the words of this book in order to do everything written about us.
So Josiah understood that they were in big trouble.
Why?
Because the commands that God gave to his people, the instructions that God gave to
his people were very clear.
God says, if you will live in obedience to me, if you will follow my commands, and if
you will follow my instructions, I will bless you.
So many times God did bless Israel and bless the people of Judah, but that wasn't all
of God's command.
God also said, if you don't live according to my commands, if you don't live in obedience
to me, then I will curse you.
And Josiah understood when he heard the words of the law that they had not been living by
the command of God, and he knew very well what it said, that God's wrath would be upon
them, that a curse would be upon them.
And Josiah said, look, we must figure out what's going on here.
We must get all the people together, and we must try to right this ship.
We must try to refocus on the word of God.
We must try to refocus on the commands of God, because we are not living by those commands.
And so Josiah sent word to a prophetess in the area.
Huldah is her name.
If you want to skip down a few verses, if you want to skip down to verse 18, he sent
people to Huldah, the prophetess, to figure out what was going on, to get some instruction,
to get some guidance here.
In verse 18, it says this.
This is Huldah speaking here.
Say this to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord.
This is what the Lord God of Israel says.
I ask for the words that you heard, what I spoke against.
Excuse me, lost my place.
Ask for the words that you heard, because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself
before the Lord when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants,
that they would become a desolation and a curse.
And because you have torn your clothes and wept before me, I myself have heard you.
This is the Lord's declaration.
Therefore, I will indeed gather you to your fathers, and you will be gathered to your
grave in peace.
Your eyes will not see all the disaster that I am bringing on this place.
When they reported to the king.
What does the prophetess say here?
She tells Josiah, she says, look, because your heart was broken, because your heart
was humbled, because when you heard the word of God, you responded in a proper way with
a heart of repentance, and you tore your clothes because your heart was humbled before God,
God sees that, and God's going to take care of you.
Why did she say that?
Because God was about to bring destruction and devastation on his people.
Why?
Because they were not living by the word of God.
Now we see that Josiah, when he heard the word of God, that he humbled himself, that
his heart was genuinely changed, that he repented of his sins, but that doesn't appear at all
to be the case for the rest of God's people.
Now certainly there was a bit of a revival during this time when Josiah was there with
the people and they read the word of God to the people.
There was some response to the people there, but there really wasn't the real change that
needed to occur.
There was a momentary change, but not a real genuine change of heart like we see in Josiah.
And that's what God really desired.
That's what God really desires in you and I, that our hearts would really be changed
when we hear his word.
But let me ask you this question today.
How many of us have forgotten God's word?
How many of us leave God's word tucked away on a shelf somewhere and haven't read it in
days or weeks or months or years?
And you know what happens when we don't read the word of God?
We don't live by the word of God because we don't know the word of God.
And when we don't live by the word of God, we find ourselves in a whole lot of trouble.
Maybe for us today we need to rediscover the word of God.
Josiah rediscovered the word of God.
God's people rediscovered the word of God.
And maybe for some of us today we need to be in the word of God.
Maybe you've read it before, maybe you haven't read it in a long time, maybe you don't ever
read God's word.
Well, today is a good day to begin to read the word of God.
To let God's word begin to speak to us, if we are going to be God's people and live by
God's commands and live for God, then how are we going to do so if we don't know the
word of God and what God commands us to?
There is nothing more beautiful that we have in our presence in this life than God's word.
On this earth, this is the most beautiful thing that we can put our hands on, that we
can possess, that God has given us, and that is His very word.
Too many times we sit it on a shelf somewhere, we sit it in a closet somewhere, we don't
even take it home with us, we leave it on the pew on Sunday, and too many times we don't
read the word of God, and when we hear the word of God, even worse, we don't listen to
the word of God.
But if we want to be God's people who are going to live by God's word, we have to know
God's word.
So maybe there are some of us today that need to rediscover the word of God in our life.
I'll tell you that whenever I read God's word, I feel a lot better than when I'm not reading
God's word.
When I don't read God's word, I don't feel good.
When I don't read God's word, I don't act right, but when I do read God's word, it makes
me feel good.
Even when I'm reading the stuff that really convicts me.
Now sometimes you'll read God's word and there'll be stuff in there and it's like, whoa, that's
heavy stuff.
Whoa, that really convicts me.
Whoa, that really brings some fear into my life.
Praise the Lord.
Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, the scripture says.
And all the beauty that we see in God's word, not just the stuff that convicts us, but just
the encouraging word.
The wonderful stories we see of how God works and the love of God and the love of Jesus
Christ.
These are things that we see in God's word and that is why we should be in God's word
day after day.
That's why we come here week after week, hearing some of the same scriptures maybe that we've
heard our whole life a hundred times, but yet we come to continue to hear and listen
to the word of God.
Why?
Hopefully it's because we need God's word in our life and we know that.
And we come to seek God's word because we know that there is nothing else in our life
that is going to lead us in the right direction other than the word of God.
So maybe today we're guilty, just as the people of Judah were guilty, of not listening to
the word of God, of not reading the word of God.
We need to be a church, brothers and sisters in Christ.
We need to be a people who read God's word and make an effort to read God's word and
take time to read God's word.
There's never been a time in my life when things were not going good, when my attitude
wasn't right, where I was depressed, where I was worried, where I was angry, where I
was whatever I was.
There's never been a time that I did not read God's word, that it did not lift me up.
It will.
If we take the time to read the word of God, it will meet us where we are and speak to
us in the way that we need to be spoken to.
It's amazing how once we begin to get into the word of God, that God uses that in our
life.
You begin to read the word of God.
It's amazing how many opportunities and how many situations that something will come up
in conversation that will go along or remind you of something that you've read, but you
cannot be reminded of something that you've read if you have not read it.
And so we need to be in the word of God.
And we might be amazed at how much our life would change if we started with just that
one simple step of rediscovering the word of God.
Maybe some of you need to discover it for the first time.
Maybe you've been to church a lot.
Maybe you've got a Bible, but maybe you've never really read it.
Maybe today you need to discover the word of God.
Maybe for some of you, you need to rediscover the word of God.
But the question is, once we read the word of God, how do we respond to it?
We see how Josiah responded to it.
Praise the Lord.
He responded in a right way.
He responded with a heart of repentance.
He tore his clothes.
His heart was humbled before God when he heard the word of God.
How did we respond to the word of God?
When we read it, when we hear it preached, how do we respond?
Sometimes, I'm ashamed to say in my life that it's in one ear and out the other.
Maybe that's the case for you too.
Maybe there are days that we read it and days that we hear it, but days that we really don't
just sit and focus on it and really eat it up.
Maybe there are other days that we really do sit down with the word of God and read
it and grow in.
Praise the Lord.
That's the way it should be.
When we read the word of God, it should have an impact on our life.
It should affect us.
It should affect our attitude.
It should affect how we live.
It should affect how we treat other people.
So we want to be those who, when we hear the word of God, that we respond rightly to the
word of God.
Praise the Lord, Josiah did.
Josiah is a good example for us.
Sadly, however, Josiah's son is not a good example.
If Josiah is the example of what to do, then his son Jehoiachim is the example of what
not to do.
You can read about Jehoiachim.
If you want to, flip with me to Jeremiah chapter 36.
Jeremiah chapter 36.
You can also read about Jehoiachim and Kings as well, but part of the story we want to
focus on this morning comes from Jeremiah.
Jeremiah was a prophet during those times.
Josiah was a good king, it tells us, who did what was right in the Lord's sight.
Sadly, the apple fell far from the tree when it came to Jehoiachim.
He did not follow in his father's footsteps, and he did what was evil in the sight of the
Lord.
It's a very common phrase you see as you begin to study the kings.
You see quite often that it says of them that they did what was evil in the sight of the
Lord.
Jeremiah chapter 36 verse 3.
Now, you remember in the passage we just read in 2 Kings that God had said that he was going
to bring devastation on God's people.
He was going to have some mercy on Josiah because of his obedience, because of his humble
heart because of his faith, but he said he was going to bring devastation.
Well, fast forward a little bit to the days of Jehoiachim, and God is so patient, and
God is so good, and God wants his people to turn, and he is long-suffering.
And even in Jeremiah 36 verse 3, listen to what it says here.
Perhaps when the house of Judah hears about all the disaster I am planning to bring on
them, each one of them will turn from his evil way.
Then I will forgive their wrongdoing and their sin.
Okay, so God is speaking to Jeremiah.
What is he speaking to Jeremiah?
He's saying, I'm about to bring judgment on you.
I'm about to bring destruction on you.
You are about to experience my wrath.
That's kind of loosely summing up the book of Jeremiah.
This is the message that Jeremiah is bringing to God's people, and what does God say?
He says perhaps, perhaps if God's people hear this message about what's about to occur,
maybe they will fear me, maybe they will humble themselves before me, maybe they will repent
of their sins, maybe they will tear their clothes like Josiah did, maybe, just maybe,
if I send one more prophet with one more word, maybe my people will listen to my word.
That's what God says in Jeremiah chapter 36 verse 3.
So through Jeremiah, God sends word to King Jehoiakam, son of Josiah.
Now remember what Josiah did.
When God's word was read to him, what did he do?
He tore his clothes, he humbled himself, he repented, he knew that he was doing evil and
the Lord sighted him and that God's people were.
Listen to what Jehoiakam does when he hears these words of Jeremiah.
Go on down to verses 23 and 24, Jeremiah 36, 23 and 24.
There's somebody here that's reading these words of God to Jehoiakam, that's what we
see in verse 23.
As soon as Jehudi would read three or four columns, Jehoiakam would cut the scroll with
the scribe's knife and throw the columns into the blazing fire until the entire scroll was
consumed by the fire in the brazier.
As they heard all these words, the king and all his servants did not become terrified
or fear or excuse me, or tear their garments.
Now that's quite a difference from the response that Josiah had.
Josiah heard the word of God and humbled himself before God.
But when Jehoiakam received the scroll that Jeremiah had sent with the word of God, as
the guy began to read off the words of Jeremiah to Jehoiakam, Jehoiakam should have said,
God have mercy on us.
God forgive us for our evil.
But that's not what he did.
As the words were read off to him, he took his knife and every time a few columns were
read, he would take that scroll and he would cut the word of God off and he would throw
it into the fire to be burned up.
And the next section would be read and he would cut the word of God off and he would
throw it into the fire to be burned up.
And he continued to do this.
He would cut it off and throw it into the fire until all of God's word was completely
burned up.
What does it say of Jehoiakam and the people?
It says that they did not fear God.
They did not tear their garments.
They had no regard for the word of God.
What about you and I today?
Are you going to leave this place being a Josiah or are you going to leave this place
being a Jehoiakam?
You say I don't even know how to say that name.
Well, you don't need to know to say the name.
You just need to know how to live a better life than Jehoiakam did.
When Jehoiakam heard the word of God, he refused to listen to it.
What about us?
Any of you ever been cutting any scriptures out of your Bible?
Surely some of you probably do that, huh?
Right?
You go through and you just cut out what you don't want and you throw it in the fire.
You say I'd never do that.
I'd never do that.
I'd never cut the word of God out of my Bible.
I'd never do it.
But the truth of the matter is maybe we might as well, no more than we listen to them sometime,
maybe we might as well cut them out because essentially we're doing the same thing that
Jehoiakam did.
No, we might not get a sharp pair of scissors.
We might not be cutting the paper, but every time we read the word of God and we hear the
word of God and we completely ignore it and disregard it, we might as well be throwing
it into the fire because we've got the same heart as Jehoiakam.
We do not want to be those people today.
We do not want to be those people who hear the word of God and the commands of God and
the instructions of God and the warnings of God and the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ
said Jesus dies for our sins because we are sinners doomed for hell.
We don't want to reject that truth and that word of God because there is no hope for us
and our sinfulness once we reject the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And so what we need to do is make an effort to begin to seek God's word, to begin to rediscover
God's word, to begin to let God's word be written on the tablet of our heart, that we
remember God's word, that we know God's word, that we live by God's word, that we don't
ignore it, that we don't put it in a corner.
It's time for us to open our Bibles if you don't already.
It's time for us to read God's word.
It's time for us to humble ourselves.
It's time for us to have a repentant heart.
It's time for us to tear our clothes so to speak.
Now if tearing our clothes was all that was required, we'd all just rip our shirts up
today and we'd be good, but that's not really going to do us any good.
Tearing our clothes off and putting sackcloth and ashes on, that's not really going to do
us any good because what God really wants is our heart to be changed.
And certainly those things are signs of repentance in the Bible time and again.
But listen to what God's word says in the book of Joel.
In Joel chapter 2 verse 13, God says this, he says, tear your hearts, not just your clothes,
and return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger,
rich in faithful love, and he relents from sinning disaster.
Boy, isn't that a beautiful, beautiful call to us today?
That if we recognize today that we are living in sin in our life that we would repent?
God says, I don't care if you tear your clothes.
He says, I want you to tear your heart.
I want your heart to be changed.
I want your sins to be forgiven.
What does it say?
For he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, rich and faithful love.
Praise the Lord.
This is the God whom we come to serve today, a God who gives us his word, who gives us
instruction so that we can follow his commands, so that we will not be those who live by sin,
who are overtaken by sin, who feel hopeless by the things of the world.
But even today if we come and we are just as rotten as Israel and just as rotten as
Judah and just as rotten as Jehoiakim, that today that we would be those who would hear
God's word and read God's word and we would repent of our sinfulness and know that God
is gracious even to those of us today, a bunch of sinners that are sitting in these pews.
What a beautiful call that is to us today.
That we would examine our lives, that we would examine our actions, that we would tear our
hearts, that we would repent of our sinfulness, that we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ
and live for him, and that we would seek to live by the word of God.
But we can only live by the word of God if we know the word of God.
So let us be those today who are like Josiah, those today who hear the word of God and whose
hearts are stirred and whose lives are changed as we humble ourselves before the Lord.
Let's pray.
Father God, we come to you today.
I thank you for your good word.
I pray, God, that you would help us to do a better job maybe of reading your word.
Maybe we don't do too good a job of it.
Maybe we need to dust our Bibles off a little bit, dear Lord.
I pray, God, that you would help us to be those who would seek your word, that we would
not just open it and read it just to say that we've done it, dear Lord, that's not really
going to do us any good, but that we would really sit down, that we'd really begin to
focus on you, dear Lord.
With our heart, we'd begin to call out to you.
With our heart, dear Lord, we'd begin to read your word and live by it, God.
So I pray that you would just help us to do that, dear Lord.
Convict us in that way.
Encourage us in that way.
God, let us be in your word and receive the blessings from your word, dear Lord.
It is a blessing.
So I pray, God, that we would all be those who would read it and live by it.
The tough that's hard, the stuff that's tough to read, dear Lord, and the stuff that's encouraging
to us, we've got to read it all, dear Lord, because it's your word.
It's going to help shape us into the men and the women that you want us to be.
God forgive us on the days that we are like Jehoiakim, dear Lord, because if we are honest,
perhaps there are days in our life that we know your word, we know what it says, we know
what's wrong, and we just disregard it.
And God, that's a bad place to be.
So I pray, God, that you would help us not to do that.
Forgive us for when we fail, dear Lord.
But let your Holy Spirit recall your word to our heart that we would remember it at
the times that we need to remember it.
God, I pray that you'd be with anyone in this room today that may not know Jesus Christ
as their Lord and Savior.
Maybe today for the first time they have heard the word of God, and it has really touched
their heart, God, and they realize that they need to repent of their sins and put their
faith and trust in Jesus.
I pray today that if there are some who have made that decision, that they would repent
in this moment even now, dear Lord, that they're praying to you, that they're giving their
heart to you, dear Lord, that they're ripping it open, dear Lord, exposing all that sin
and giving it to Jesus Christ who died on the cross for them.
God, I pray that you would help those of us in here today, maybe we're yours and maybe
we just failed at reading your word and living by it.
Help us to be faithful to do better as we continue on.
And I ask these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.