Second Kings chapter 22 is the
story of one of the godly kings of Judah. His name was Josiah. He was the great-grandson of
Hezekiah. Remember, we talked about Hezekiah
and how he did right in the eyes of the Lord. This Josiah was
his great-grandson. Look at verse 20, verse 1, Josiah.
was eight years old when he began to reign. Eight year old king.
And it said he reigned 31 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name
was Jedida, the daughter of Edea of Boscheth. And it says in verse
two, 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. Josiah was one of the few what
we call godly kings of the southern kingdom of Judah and Again, you
remember now as we go through Passages like this and we read
about these Kings when it says he did that which was right we're
not talking about a person who is perfect or who kept the law
perfectly or One who had a right standing with God based upon
their own righteousness achieved by their works. That's not what
it means. I It simply means, it's like any leader or spiritual
leader, let's put it that way, any spiritual leader who realizes
what he's there for and leads the people in the ways of God. Why was the king there? Well,
the main thing that the kings of Judah were there for were
to lead the people in the law of Moses Which law exposed their
sinfulness and their need of a righteousness they can't produce?
And to drive them to the promises of God made back in Abraham's
day concerning the coming of Christ, the coming of the Messiah. And that's what David did. And
that's what Solomon did. Now, we know they had their problems. We know they had their imperfections.
They were sinners saved by the grace of God. I always think
about this with David, you know, Lord, if thou Lord shouldest
mark iniquities, who would stand? David, he wrote that. He knew
that if God judged him based upon his best efforts to be a
good person or to establish righteousness, he'd be damned forever. Solomon
the same way with all of his problems now. And you can speculate
on Solomon and talk about what he did and what he did wrong.
The Bible's not secretive on that. It's right there out in
the open. And then King Hezekiah who came along and before Hezekiah
there was Ahaz who was one of the most wicked kings. Well,
Josiah, he was the great grandson of Hezekiah. He was also the
grandson of Manasseh, who was one of the worst kings ever,
promoted idolatry, even child sacrifice in Israel. That's hard to imagine, isn't
it? Could you imagine living in a country in a time when people
would bring their children to sacrifice them to a false god?
Now that's hard for us to imagine, but I'll tell you what, if the
Lord let us go, We can't imagine how far down we would descend
into the depravity of the mind. And then after Manasseh was,
now Manasseh, I think he reigned for 55 years, 55 years of pure
idolatry, unbelief, and evil. And then his son, Ammon, who
was Josiah's father, Ammon, he reigned, I think, for two years,
and his own servants killed him. But here comes Josiah at eight
years old. And it says that he did that
which is right in the sight of the Lord. Jim asked me a question
last week that I think is pertinent. You think about now, before Hezekiah
reigned, there was Ahaz who was evil. Well, where did Hezekiah
learn the truth? Well, the scripture doesn't really
tell. Well, first of all, we know this,
that if any king or any individual knows the truth and believes
the truth, God's the one who teaches them, we know that. Even
God who uses human instruments to communicate that truth to
us. If you hear me preach the gospel
or Jim or Randy or Mark or whoever preaches here, if you hear the
gospel and you believe it, you heard it from one of us, but
if you believe it, God's the one who taught you, isn't that
right? God's the one who gave you a new heart. a new mind,
I can't do that, I can't even, you know, somebody, there was
a story about some famous evangelist, and I don't know what the man
preached, but he was doing a revival, they call it, in New York City,
and his hotel was just down the street from where the church
was, and he was walking down the street after a night of preaching,
and this drunk stumbled out of a bar while he was walking, and
he looked at him, And the drunk looked up at him and he said,
I know you, you're that preacher, you saved me. The drunk said
that. And the preacher looked down
at him and said, well, you look about like some of my work. And that's
what, I can't save myself. I'm a sinner saved by grace,
and that's what you. So whenever we talk about these
kings like Hezekiah and Josiah, where did they learn it from?
We're not told specifically, but I do know this about Hezekiah.
The main prophet in Hezekiah's day was Isaiah. So maybe he heard
it from Isaiah. And Isaiah, he was, tradition
says that Isaiah, was a relative of the royal court. Remember King Uzziah started
out and then in the year that King Uzziah died and then Hezekiah
came along. So Isaiah was the prophet. So
maybe Hezekiah heard it from him. What about Josiah? Well, we don't know. I was trying
to think who the prophets were in Josiah's day. I think I've
got it listed here in your lesson. That Josiah, I think Zephaniah,
yeah, Zephaniah, and then later on, Jeremiah. Because Jeremiah,
you know, he came up probably at the end of Josiah's reign.
But look over in 2 Kings 23. It says here, in 2 Kings 23,
it says, let me make sure I got the right one. I may have missed. No, I'm sorry, 2 Chronicles 34. I knew I would get it if I thought
about it long enough. Yeah, 2 Chronicles 34 gives us
a little more information about Josiah in the first seven verses
of chapter 34 of 2 Chronicles. where it says in verse one, Josiah
was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem
one and 30 years. And he did that which was right
in the sight of the Lord and walked in the ways of David his
father. That is, he led the people. He
realized that he was a sinner saved by grace. He realized he
was a type of Christ. He led the people in the law
of Moses, which was not a system of work salvation. It was a system
of works, but not for salvation. And it says, he declined neither
to the right hand nor to the left. And look at verse three,
for in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young,
he began to seek after the God of David, his father. And in
the 12th year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the
high places, the groves, the carved images and the molten
images. In the eighth year of his reign, he began to seek the
Lord. Now you and I both know, based upon biblical truth, that
no sinner by nature is going to seek the Lord unless the Lord
moves that sinner to seek him. That right? And that's just as
true in Josiah's day as it is in our day. The Bible says, seek
ye the Lord and you'll find him. And if you ever seek him and
find him, you'll find out that he sought you long before you
sought him. And that's the way it goes, isn't
it? Because no sinner's gonna do that. We'll look back at 2
Kings 22. I entitled this message, Rediscovering
the Truth of Christ. And the reason I entitled it
that is because this is the story about how King Josiah rediscovered
the law because the Lord moved him to refurbish the temple. Look at verse three of 2 Kings
22. It said, 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, go up to Hilkiah, the
high priest. The high priest's name was Hilkiah,
that he may sum the silver which is brought into the house of
the Lord, which the keepers of the door have gathered of the
people. He's gonna take a tally here, an accounting of the silver.
And he said, and you know, silver is an emblem of redemption. And so he says in verse five,
let them deliver it to the hand of the doers of the work, that
is the artisans, that have the oversight of the house of the
Lord and let them give it to the others of the work, doers
of the work, which is in the house of the Lord to repair the
breaches of the house. Josiah had in mind that he wanted
to repair the temple. It had been neglected for so
long, that temple. And what is that indicative of? Whoever was their leader didn't
care about the law of the Lord, didn't care about the things
of God, the law and the gospel even, because you know, the law
that was written in the Ten Commandments, which exposed their sinfulness,
and then you had the ceremonies, the priesthood, the blood sacrifices,
the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat, all of that, the
high priest, All of that pictured Christ. And they had lost sight
of that. The kings had lost sight of that.
Josiah, God brought him to rediscover that. And listen to how it happened.
Look at verse six. He's gonna give this money to
those who repaired, to repair the temple. Verse six, unto carpenters,
builders, masons, and to buy timber and hewn stone to repair
the house. Howbeit there was no reckoning
made with them of the money that was delivered into their hand
because they dealt faithfully. That's a miracle itself. In other words, nobody skim money
off the top for themselves. That's the act of God, because
we know the nature of man, don't we? And so here they are, this
temple, remember this now. And the next lesson that I've
got for next week that I've been working on, it has to do with
David bringing back the ark to Jerusalem. You see that temple,
represented everything that was holy concerning the God of Israel. Everything that set him apart
and identified them as the people of God. Everything about that,
remember the tabernacle? Well, now we're talking about
the Temple of Solomon here. And that temple, just like the
tabernacle, that temple, the main reason it was built was
to house the Ark of the Covenant within the Holy of Holies. and
the mercy seat, and you remember how the high priest would go
in once a year, taking blood from off the brazen altar, blood
and fire and all of that, and then coming into the temple on
the day of atonement and sprinkling the blood over the mercy seat,
all of that. was a picture, a metaphor, a
symbol, a type of the Lord Jesus Christ and how God saves sinners
based upon his blood, which is the righteousness of God freely
imputed to God's people and received by God-given faith. How God can
be just and justify the ungodly. That's what that temple was all
about. It wasn't just about the Ten Commandments. If the only
thing that was in that temple was the 10 commandments, you
know what the outcome would have been? Death. Because that's what the law does.
It condemns sinners who have no righteousness before holy
God. And that describes all of us
by nature, Romans 3.10, there's none righteous, no not one, there's
none that doeth good, none that seeketh after God. You see, that
whole system of government, the whole economy, that whole system
of the old covenant law of Moses, the Ten Commandments and the
ceremonial law, the dietary laws, the laws of feast, that whole
system was designed to show in picture and type that man cannot
be saved by his works. You can do your best to keep
the law, you will always come short. We've all sinned and come
short of the glory of God. We will always come short of
the perfection of righteousness that God requires. But that whole
law, when you bring it to the ceremonial law, it showed us
that righteousness can be attained, not by our works, but by the
grace of God in Christ. And that's what that temple was
all about. Now, the majority of the Israelites missed it.
They turned it into a legal system of salvation by works, and they
failed miserably. Romans 9 tells the story, summarizes
it perfectly. Beginning in verse 31, Israel,
who sought after righteousness, but they didn't find it. Why?
Because they sought it not by faith, that is by looking to
Christ, but they sought it by works of the law. They were sincere,
they were dedicated, but not according to knowledge. And what
knowledge did they miss? They missed the knowledge of
God's righteousness, what God requires, God's justice for salvation. And they went about trying to
establish a righteousness of their own. They were trying to
be good enough to please God and they didn't make it. In fact,
they were so far from it, I mean, think about it, they were under
Manasseh and under Ammon They were just in utter idolatry.
There was immorality, sacrificing their children. So where is righteousness
to be found? Well, if you saw the reality
of that law, you'd see it in Romans 10, 4, Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believe. Christ
is my righteousness. Not the Ten Commandments. We
don't keep them. I like what Brother Tim James
said, you know, talking about in certain cities they have,
they want the Ten Commandments put up on the wall or engraved
in stone. He said, he said, I can save
them a lot of time and trouble. He said, why don't they just
write up their one word, condemned? Because that's what it means.
Well, Josiah said, we're going to, we're going to refurbish
that temple. We're going to reestablish the
worship of God. And then down here in verse eight,
now look what happened. This is why I titled this message,
Rediscovering the Truth. Rediscovering the truth of Christ
specifically. It says, and Hilkiah, this is
verse eight, Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the
scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the
Lord. I imagine they were scraping
away and sweeping away and moving away all the rubble and the debris
and all that. And he found the book of the
Lord, book of the law, which Moses had written and he'll Kai
gave the book to shape in and he read it. Verse nine, it says,
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 of the house of
the Lord. And Shaphan the scribe showed the king saying, Hilkiah
the priest hath delivered me a book, a book of the law. Shaphan read it before the king.
Think about it, King Josiah, let me read you something. And
look at verse 11. And it came to pass when the
king had heard the words of the law that he rent his clothes. He tore his clothes. Now, why
did he do that? You know, that was in the Old
Testament, that was a sign of sorrow over sin and repentance. That's what that tearing of the
clothes was. Look at verse 12, he says, the king commanded Hilkiah
the priest and Ahicham the son of Shaphan and Achbor the son
of Micaiah and Shaphan the scribe and Asahiah 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 kindled against
us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words
of this book, to do according to all that which is written
concerning us. Think about that. Now remember,
this book of the law is not a manual on how to be saved by works of
the law. It goes farther than that. But we're told over in
2 Kings 23, now you can read this, I've got these scriptures
marked, that King Josiah, when he discovered this book and understood
what it was saying, and of course, how do we know that he understood
it says it did? And it was by the revelation
of God, wasn't it? God brought this king to repentance
over the law. Now, I don't know about the time
spans here and all of that, you know. Don't worry about that
stuff. Just get into the truth of this. What did he do? He rediscovered
the law. And he called for a time of national
repentance. This, the people need to know
this, he said. They need to hear this. what
people today, they need to hear the gospel. They have a book,
people today have a book called the Bible, but it's hidden among
the rubble of self-righteous legalistic religion. And they
need to see what this book says. And that's what we do when we
witness, isn't it? We tell people that this book's
about Christ. This is about who he is. Who is he? He's the God-man. He's the one mediator. He's the
surety of the covenant. What does that mean? That means
that if I'm saved, It wasn't conditioned on me and what I
do or what I decide. It was all conditioned on Christ.
The debt was his. My debt was his debt. He came
and my substitute and he redeemed me with his blood. And he worked
out the righteousness of God by his death on the cross. And
what is that righteousness? I need to hear that. It's the
merit the value of Christ's work as God manifests in the flesh
in my place to enable God to be just, to justify me and the
power of giving life to me from the dead, saving me from my sin,
based on his righteousness imputed. Every generation it's kind of
like this with with that happened to in Josiah's day in every generation
there has to be a rediscovery of Christ or as I say here a
recovering of the truth Because it does get lost But God won't
let it he won't let this light be totally snuffed out. He always
has his witness He always has his remnant But I love this passage
and you know, excuse me. When I read this about Josiah,
now when God brought him to see the reality of this law, what
it means and what it's all about, the first thing Josiah did as
king, you know what he did? He called for national repentance
and he started tearing down, he'd already started that, But
he finished, he was tearing out all idolatry. All idols that
the people had erected under Manasseh and Ammon. The high
places, the groves. This country has to be purged
of idolatry, he said. And that's what he did. And called
for national repentance. Said the people need to hear
this. And that's what we do when God shows us the gospel of his
grace in Christ. We want everybody to hear it,
don't we? Especially our loved ones. And, you know, sometimes
in our infancy as regenerated, converted people, we think, I
know they'll want to hear it. And then you find out later on,
you know, Not necessarily, this is the life that the world hates.
But still, we want Christ to be rediscovered. Now we know
that nobody's gonna discover Christ whom God doesn't reveal
Christ to. We know that it's all of God.
We know our place, don't we? I believe King Josiah knew his
place. But I'll tell you something I thought about here before I
finish. You remember King Nebuchadnezzar later on? Nebuchadnezzar was the king of
the Babylonian empire. He's the one who sent his armies
in and actually destroyed the temple. And probably that was
when the Ark of the Covenant was taken away and never to be
rediscovered again. But anyway, you remember later
on how God dealt with Nebuchadnezzar. I think it's recorded in Daniel
chapter four. Nebuchadnezzar was such a, proud,
self-righteous man. And he got so full of himself,
and this is man by nature, and he looked out over his kingdom
talking about, look at what I've done, look at what I've built.
And what happened, remember, the Lord God in his providence
brought that man down, caused him to lose his mind, put him
out on the woods and grew his hair and his nails, he looked
like a wild animal. And then God brought him back
out of that. And Nebuchadnezzar had a testimony,
a providential testimony. It's recorded in Daniel chapter
four and verse 34 and 35, where he talked about that Daniel's
God is the true God and all of that. And he does what he will
among the armies of the heaven. The inhabitants of there, none
can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? Nebuchadnezzar
had a recognition there. that Daniel's God was a powerful
God, maybe even more powerful than his God's. And I hear a
lot of preachers arguing, well, was Nebuchadnezzar converted
to be a Christian, to be a true child of God? Based on that,
I don't think so. Because what's the first thing
that King Josiah did when he rediscovered the book of the
law? He called for national repentance. I don't see anything in Babylon's
history where King Nebuchadnezzar, and let me tell you something
now, you understand back then the king's word was law. That's why Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego ended up in the fiery furnace. The king had made
a law, and when they broke the law, the king could not even
rescind his own law. That's why Daniel ended up in
the lion's den. The king loved Daniel because
Daniel interpreted his dreams, you remember. But when Daniel
broke the law and he prayed to his God, the king had made a
law says you can't do that or you'll be killed. The king had
no choice but to put Daniel in the lion's den. Of course, we
know the Lord delivered Daniel. But Josiah called for national
repentance. I don't see anything in Babylon's
history where Nebuchadnezzar called for national repentance
and had all the idols removed. Now, if he did, it's news to
me. But anyway, I'm just telling you, this so affected Josiah. And I think about this when God
reveals Christ to his people. It so affects you, doesn't it?
I mean, it turns your world upside down, doesn't it? Everything
that you thought you knew before concerning salvation and a right
relationship with God is wrong. Everything that you held in high
esteem before, now you count it but dung that you may win
Christ and be found in him. That's right, his blood, his
righteousness, that's all we have as far as having a right
standing with God, it's not our works. Well, we won't read the
rest of this, you can go through and read the whole thing, but
Hilkiah in the rest of this chapter, The king, obviously, or Hilkiah,
with the king's approval, sought counsel from a woman named Huldah. She was a well-known prophetess
in Judah. It says in verse 14, look, it
says, so Hilkiah the priest, and Ahicham, and Achbor, and
Shaphan, and Asahiah, went unto Huldah the prophetess, the wife
of Shalom, the son of Tikvah, and the son of Haras, Keeper
of the wardrobe, probably this man who was her husband was the
one who kept the priestly robes. So they were connected to the
table. Now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college. Why does it say,
was there a University of Jerusalem back then? No. Some translations
say the second quarter. What's the New King James say,
Mark, on that second quarter? What it was, it was like a suburb
of Jerusalem where she lived, probably close to the temple,
and it may have been a place of learning, a school there. So the King James, they translated
it college, but they went to Huldah to confer with her from
the word of the Lord. She was a prophetess. Now that
doesn't mean she had authority over men or anything like that,
I'm not gonna get into that today. But she had the word of God,
and we see that, that's happened in Scripture, with Deborah the
prophetess during the time of Judges and all that, there was
a prophetess in the time of Christ's birth. So anyway, there's a woman
whom God revealed himself to and gave him a word. And here's
what she said, basically her word to the kingdom was this,
God's gonna punish you for your sins. And that went all the way
back to Manasseh. God's gonna punish you. Sin demands
death. That's what her message is to
the people, to the nation. But she had words of peace and
safety to the king personally because he was a sinner saved
by grace. And that's what we say to this
world. This world, listen, Man can do
his best to save this world. This world is not savable. This
world is destined and doomed for destruction. Read it in the
Bible. This world will not last forever.
God's gonna punish sin. He's a just God. But there's
hope for sinners in Christ. That's our hope. Our hope is
not this world. Our hope is not even this nation.
Our hope is Christ, the one who died for our sins and put them
away and who established righteousness, the one who arose from the dead
and is now seated at the right hand of the Father, ever living
to make intercession for us. And that's what Huldah's message
represents for us. Okay.