Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to the second book of Kings,
chapter 22, and reading from our text, verses 19 and 20. Because thine heart was tender
and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord, when thou heardest
what I spake against this place and against the inhabitants thereof,
they should become a desolation and a curse, and hast rent thy
clothes and wept before me. I also have heard thee, saith
the Lord. Behold, therefore I will gather
thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt 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. 2 Kings chapter 22 verses 19 and
20. In the three generations of kings there is a change from one king to another
that you might say is not consistent with what went before. We have
Hezekiah, a very godly king, and his life was spared when
God said that he had to put his house in order, he would die
and not live, and the Lord added to his life 15 years. And in that time Manasseh was
born. Without that additional time,
the line to our Lord Jesus Christ would have been broken. It was
a vital extension of Hezekiah's life. But Manasseh, who came
to the throne at only 12 years of age, he lived a very ungodly
life. The streets of Jerusalem ran
with blood through the evil that he committed and he seduced Israel
to do such terrible evils. And yet he lived and he had a
55-year reign. But the Lord did meet with him. We read this in Chronicles, how
that God humbled him. He was taken by the Assyrian
armies, brought to Babylon, and there he entreated the Lord. He was found of him, and he was
restored back to his own land and own kingdom, and then he
did to many reformations in Israel, many changes that really indicated
that that was a real work of grace, a real change. Nevertheless,
it was for the wickedness of him, and of course the king really
is only the figurehead because all of the wickedness and evil
was also done by the inhabitants of the land. And it was through
Manasseh's reign especially that God sealed on it that Israel
would be carried away. The temple would be destroyed. They would accomplish 70 years
in Babylon. Then we have, following the wicked
reign of Manasseh, we have Josiah also coming as a young lad of
eight years of age, and he's not following In his father's
wicked ways, it may be he had seen the Reformation, he had
seen that which was good. We're not sure exactly when the
change in Manasseh took place, but with Josiah being only eight
years of age, it is possible that he only saw that which was
actually good in his father. But right from the beginning
then, where we read in The first verse of this chapter, Josiah
was eight years old when he began to reign. He reigned 31 years
in Jerusalem. And we read that he did that
which is right in the sight of the Lord and walked in all the
way of David his father to not a side to the right hand or to
the left. And so we have the interesting
accounts of one generation to another. We know that the grace
of God does not come through bloodline. It is not inherited. But we do know that God visits
the iniquity of the fathers and to the children and to the third
and fourth generation of them that hate Him. Very often it
is the children do, following the wicked ways of their parents
And yet in the grace and mercy of God, we find again and again
that chain is broken. One child or great grandchild
will rise up and they will turn unto the Lord. But what is vital
is that we have been given that sovereign grace of God, made
a difference, not because of how we were brought up, but because
of divine grace, because of what the Lord has done in our souls. Now what stands out and in our
text and what is that which is upon my spirit is a heart made
tender. The very first words of our text,
because thine heart was tender, the blessings and that which
was spoken to Josiah when he had heard these words, of the
book of the law of God, it was his tender heart that made all
the difference, and how vital it is that we are given a tender,
softened heart, not a hard heart. So I want to look this morning
at the Lord's help. Firstly, the word of the Lord
found. That is how this began, when
Josiah had ordered the cleansing of the house of God, the word
of the Lord was found. And then secondly, reading with
a tender heart. When we say reading, we have
in this account that it was read to the king, but when The blessing is pronounced, it
is spoken of as if he had read the word. And so, whether we
are reading the word ourselves, maybe we're sitting in the house
of God or in our home, and the word is being read before us,
it is to have the same effect, that we read it or hear it read
with a tender heart. And then thirdly, seeking the
Lord concerning those things that we have read. In other words,
we're not just reading it and then just going on with no effect. And then fourthly, the blessing
of the Lord. We read that Josiah was to be
gathered unto his fathers, which Obviously implies this, not only
was he kept from seeing the evil, but that he had a hope beyond
the grave as well. A blessing not just in this life,
but in that which to come. So I want to look first at the
word the Lord found. It's a solemn thing to think
that here is the people of God, the children of Israel, And they've
got into such a low place that the word of the Lord is lost. It is not read every day. It
appears not read even every year. And it is not even readily available. It's hidden. It's only when they
start to renovate that they find the book. And we read in Hilki
the high priest, said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the
book. He's a high priest, and even
he hasn't been reading the book. He hasn't had the law of God.
What a low place it was that they had got into. And yet in God's wonderful providence,
the word of the Lord was found. We think of the years under the
The dark ages when the word of God in this country and throughout
Europe was shut up by the Roman Catholic Church. Only the priests
were allowed to read it, interpret it. It was shut up in a language
most people couldn't read in Latin. And that word then in
the Reformation was found. It was translated into a language
people could understand. It was then read in their hearing. In many cases in this country,
the Word of God, the Bible, was chained to the pulpits and those
that could read it, they stood and they read the Word of God
and others came that could not read and they listened. And in
that way, in this country, the beginning of the Reformation,
so vital for any reforming the finding of the word of God. And
yet really we find Josiah here, he did have a love to the house
of God. He began to do that reformation
before he read the word. And often encouraged in preaching,
and I go from chapel to chapel, if I pull up outside of a chapel,
maybe I haven't been to that one before, And I see it all
neatly kept, the gardens kept, the building all kept neat. Then
I go into the chapel and it's all very clean and nice inside. Before I've ever seen anyone
or preached the word, I lift it up. I'm encouraged because
here is a people that value the house of God, that love it and
that keep it nicely. And it is very good. when we see that. It's very disheartening
to pull up at a chapel and it's all overgrown and the paint is
peeling off the front door and you think this place is just
not cared for, it's just not looked after. Now of course there
are some times that it might be that people have been ill
or there's some good reason why it's not being kept up to date. You know, sometimes you find
it year after year, maybe the same chapel's got the same peeling
door, the same looks to it, and it makes a visiting minister
sad. But here, it was through that
renovation that the Book of the Lord was found. There's another
way that it may be found as well, You know, many people in this
land do not have the Word of God. Many have not heard it at
all. And this is why we have the free
offer of the Bibles. Those who have even an inclination
to have the Word can very quickly and easily obtain a copy of the
Word of God. And in that way, the Word of
God can be read, sometimes for the very first time. And yet
there are churches, most solemnly, and we've heard of them many
years ago, that have had a worship service and the Word of God has
not been opened. They have done all sorts of other
things and then said, well, we haven't got time to read the
Word of God. We'll read it next time. What
a solemn thing. In the Word of God, we read that
there shall be in the latter days a famine. not of bread and
of water, but of hearing of the words of the Lord. And we find
in many, many assemblies that if you were to look at the service,
maybe an hour, hour and a quarter service, and see how many minutes
were spent actually reading the word, or how many expounding
it and preaching on it, the word of God would have a very small
part in that worship, and it's a very solemn thing where that
is so. The other way it can be hidden
is through a bad translation. We believe that Lord can use
a translation that is bad, but very often the truth is veiled
in a bad translation. It's not giving the true rendering,
the true message is being hidden. And so it's a blessed thing if
we have the Word of God in a faithful translation that we have. And we might say, well, how do
we know that it is the Word of God? The Muslims have their books,
others have their holy books, and how do we know? that it is
the Word of God. Well, of course, we know that
there is only one true and living God, the God that made the heavens
and the earth. In Jeremiah, we read that the
gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, they shall perish
from under the heavens and the earth. And in the Bible, the
Holy Bible, it begins with the creation. It begins and covers
the whole of the history of the world and sets forth the future
that is to come. And so these documents, the Word
of God, it is a reliable collection of historical documents and is
important when we look at the Old Testament where our text
is, and we find especially in Chronicles, but also in the books
of the law, many books where there is names after names, chapters
after chapters, and it's recording that which is real. They're not
cunningly devised fables, it is recording the history of the
world from the creation right through to the coming of our
Lord and the establishing of the Church of God. And so these
documents as well were written by eyewitnesses, and they were
written during the time of other witnesses who could have said,
well, that's not a true record at all. Paul speaks of having
500 brethren at once that were witnesses of the Lord's resurrection
appearing to them, and he could easily have had that refuted.
And so the Word of God is established that it is by reliable witnesses. The courts of our land, they
rely upon witnesses to bring someone that has been brought
before the courts to justice or to be released. It's relying
on witnesses, and those witnesses being a faithful witness. In this book also, it is setting
forth those things that are supernatural things, those that are miracles,
those events that not only have happened, but they've been foretold
that they should happen. In the Book of Psalms, a thousand
years before our Lord came, it records of the Lord's sufferings
and death at Calvary, describing in very minute detail exactly
how he was crucified. and how he suffered. We think
also of the very claims in the Word of God, that it is a divine
book. 500 times we read the statement,
thus saith the Lord. It is not just those who read
it saying it is the Word of God, it is testifying to it itself. And we think when our Lord came
upon earth, He also quoted from the Word of God, and quoted from
translation also, the Septuagint. And, of course, the Lord knew
the Word better than any, being the author of it, the incarnate,
the written Word, in all things the same. And if it is God that
is telling us that it is His Word, you can't get a higher
authority than that. If God says that this, the Holy
Bible, is His Word, Are we going to go to a man, to a professor,
to one who's got a degree, and ask him, do you think that this
is the Word of God? What, asking a poor fallen man
to judge what is the Word of God? If men were to think of
it, they'd say that would be foolishness. You go to the highest
level. And of course, if one book is
saying it is the Word of God, that highest level is God himself. Another thing that is very remarkable,
and I hope we notice it whenever we read it, is the consistency
right through the Word of God. Though it was over a period of
1,500, 1,600 years that it was written, inspired by Almighty
God and over 40 penmen that were used to write it, yet the majesty
of it, the consistency of it, You don't read, as it were, in
one style, in one book or another, in another. Yes, each of the
writers have their style, but there's that stamp of reverence,
there's that stamp of being the Word of God. If we were to pick
up a secular book, if we were to look at even the Apocrypha
and read some of the books of the Apocrypha, which we don't
include in the Inspired Word of God, the Roman Catholic Church
does, You see a very different style, very different look. And of course, the scriptures,
they complement each other. They don't contradict each other. They work together for good. And very much the statements
in the Old Testament, they are brought forth, they're expounded
in the new. Our Lord quotes them, Paul quotes
them. He applies them, he opens up
those passages and you can see the reason why things were written
those thousands of years before, the purposes, one great plan,
one great author. And so we have the Word of God
before us and it describes this world, the world that we are
in and it gives us an explanation Why, on the one hand, it's so
beautiful. Why, on the other hand, there
is so much evil and hurt and suffering and sin. It explains that. It doesn't
brush it away. It explains it. And so may we
be persuaded when we come to the Word of God that it is the
Word of God. And may it be found You know,
Jeremiah says, Thy words were found and I did eat them. They
were to the joy and rejoicing of my soul. It could be that
we've had the word from our youth, and many of us have, but we've
got so hardened, so used to it, that we just read it, and in
effect it is a closed book. It doesn't speak to us anymore. Now I want to look in our second
point. at reading with a tender heart. We've sung in the hymns that
we've sung so far of what it is to feel to have a hard heart
and by nature we are. Our hearts are unfeeling, they're
unmoved, they're not moved by what we read and they're not
affected by it. We think this doesn't affect
us, it doesn't mean what it does say. We think that it won't come
to pass, these things won't happen. But to read it with a tender
heart, reading it with an impression, he that hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Or when our Lord
was speaking in parables, he that hath an ear, let him hear. Not all have an ear that is a
tender ear, or an ear that will hear and enter into a heart that
feels it, is impressed by it. You know, if we had a letter
from a loved one, and they told us terrible things that had happened
to them, would it not touch us in our heart? Of course it would,
for sure. If we were told things that were
going to happen in our street, in our area, if we had a letter
or a notice from the council, wouldn't we take notice of that? Wouldn't we realise these things
were coming? If the street was going to be
dug up, if we were not allowed to park our cars in it for the
week, wouldn't we act according to that word? We're used to those
sort of things every day, when we have documents, worldly documents,
letters sent to us, notices sent to us. We hear these, and we
hear them in a way that we'll act upon them. But when we come
to the word of God, part of the fall, part of the sentence, in
the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. is that
our hearts are hardened against the word of the Lord. It is a
spiritual book, and may we remember it is a spiritual book. The things
of God are spiritually discerned. The natural man receiveth not
the things of God, neither can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned. In the word of God it tells us
the terrible condition that we are in as sinners, how that we
are under the law of God, we have broken the law of God, the
sentence of God is upon us, we shall die, we know we shall,
we see we have graves outside the chapel, we attend many funerals,
but even that we can be so hardened to, as to think, well, there'll
be many days ahead, and it doesn't really affect us, we don't lay
it to our heart. The Word of God tells us that
death is not the end. There is a judgment to come,
and that we of ourselves, we cannot stand. We must be condemned. We must be banished to hell,
to outer darkness, under the wrath of God forever and forever. The Word of God sets this before
us, what our danger is. It also sets before us the way
of escape from the wrath to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through His life, His death, His sufferings, that which puts
away the sin of His people, and that gives hope that because
Christ has died and endured the wrath of God and met the demands
of the law, the soul that sinneth it shall die, that then there
is hope for those for whom He has died. that they do not die,
their debt is paid, and that his life will be imputed to them
as their own righteousness, as if they had lived a perfect life
like he did. This is the gospel, that whosoever
believeth in the Lord Jesus Christ should not die, but should have
eternal life. And that gift of life is given
by God. He gives faith to believe the
word, He gives faith to act upon that Word and to seek from Him
the way of salvation and mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ. But what a step that is, what
a first encouraging step to read Him and to realise we have a
tender heart. that those things that we are
reading, they are affecting us. We read that they are concerning
us as sinful fallen sons of Adam. We may ask ourselves, I ask myself,
I ask you, can you remember the first time you read the Word
of God with a tender heart, the first time that those words
that you read were producing an effect upon you. It certainly
is not something that we are born into, it is not something
that is by nature, and it is a change then that Though it
might not be in one hearing time, but over maybe a series of months,
but to be brought to be really softened, and to realize that
we now read the Word of God, and we're reading it very, very
differently. One of our former members, Dulcie
Jealous, In her testimony, she said, when the Lord began with
her, then the Bible became a new book, and the hymn book became
a new book. They were the same, but how she
was reading them, it was different. It was new. And that is a vital
thing for us, that when we read the word of God, we're reading
it, and our heart is soft, we're impressed by what we read, It's
being applied to us. It's speaking to us. It's not
speaking to the person in the next seat. It's not speaking
to others. It's speaking to us. The word
came expressly unto me. How vital that that is. And then we don't just read it
with a hard heart. Now we have some contrast. We
have the solemn account of the King, Jehoiakim, that was brought
the word of God, this same word, this same law, and all he did
was to take the leaves of it, it was the word of prophecy of
Jeremiah, and he just cut it up, threw it into the fire, and
he wasn't troubled, he wasn't alarmed by it at all. We read
also in this account as well, because
we read that Shaphan, he read the Word of God. Hilkiah had
the book, he gave the book to Shaphan and he read it. We don't
read at that point, as in verse 8, that he feels any tenderness or alarm
or anything, but it is brought before the king. And then it
is read before the king. And immediately there is a difference,
there is an effect. In verse 11, came to pass when
the king had heard the words of the book of the law that he
rent his clothes. A difference. Have we and do we know that difference
when we read the Word of God? Maybe the Word finds us out this
morning that once it did make a difference, but now it doesn't.
We become heartened with the influence of the world, the effect
of the world upon us, the distance from the Lord. Maybe view this
as a great blessing to have a tender heart. Maybe our prayer, Lord,
Make my heart tender. Make me, when I read the Word
of God, read it with a softened heart, leaving it not hardened
so that word never enters, never softens, never does any good. On to look then, thirdly, of
seeking the Lord concerning what was read. Now in effect here,
in these days, to seek the Lord, to inquire of the Lord, they
had to go and send to the prophet or prophetess, in this case.
And so the king says, go ye, inquire of the Lord for me. How many times have our prayers
been shaped by the Word of God, whether it's been read by us,
by a minister, or whether it's been preached? that that affects
what we pray, that our prayers are not all the same day by day,
but they vary, and they vary as to what we have heard, what
we have read. As the old saying, join prayer
with each inspection, That is for understanding, for enlightenment
upon the Word. But when we do understand, and
Josiah he understood that there was wrath upon the people. He understood that this spake
to them. He knew what Israel had been
doing. He knew the wrath of God was
upon them and is for this reason Now, really notice on this, he
doesn't despair. There might be some, and Israel
was like this when Jeremiah spoke to them, reproved in his day.
They said, there is no hope. We'll go on everyone in our own
ways. Josiah did not do that. However
much the word of God might condemn us, however much it might show
us our sin, However much you might take away, hope that we
once had, maybe in our own works, maybe in our own doings, our
own faith even, maybe not give up hope. To pray, to still pray,
to still seek unto the Lord. There's a great encouragement
here to do it. Still praise, says the hymn writer,
for God will all explain, nor shall thou seek the Lord in vain. And this is, in this account,
a real encouragement to go to the Lord. Even though the Word
condemns us, go to the Lord. Take it to Him. You know what Josiah found was
personal blessing. Though the wrath was still going
to be coming on Israel, yet mercy was to be shown to Him. And in
the message of the Gospel, this world shall be burnt up. The
wrath of God shall be upon the wicked. But there is mercy. There is a people that know His
grace, that know the way of escape, that know the Lord Jesus Christ. In Noah's day, the Lord was going
to destroy the earth. He did, but Noah found favor
in the eyes of the Lord. He built an ark by faith, the
saving of his house, and in the gospel sense, that hope the Lord
Jesus Christ is our ark, he's our hiding place, he's our refuge. Every poor sinner condemned under
the word is invited to the Lord Jesus Christ to come, to cast
their burden upon Him, to call upon Him in the day of trouble,
to present their petitions for mercy. And we have those cases
like the publican in the temple, God be merciful to me a sinner,
like the Canaanitish woman with her afflicted daughter Lord help
me, though he answered her not for a while, yet she gave him
no rest and he blessed her, commended her faith. Have those encouragements
that wherever the heart is tender and falls before the word of
God and before the Lord and then comes to the Lord and confesses
and owns that judgment as just, that the Lord shows mercy and
grace and shows the way of escape from wrath to come through the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's time to look lastly at the
blessing of the Lord. In verse 20, Behold, therefore,
I will gather thee unto thy fathers. Thou shalt be gathered into thy
grave in peace. You might say, well, Josiah actually
died when he was fighting against Pharaoh. He died in battle. You say, is that in peace? What is meant here is he did
not see the wrath of God upon Israel, the temple destroyed,
The whole land brought into captivity. He did not see that. And in fact,
it was in a day of peace because the King Pharaoh had said to
him, don't meddle. It wasn't a battle he should
not really have engaged in at all. He's meddling in business
he shouldn't have done. But the Lord used that means
so that he was taken home early. When we think he was 8 years
old when he began to reign, and we read that he reigned 31 years,
so he's 39 when he died. So he died young. But the Lord
speaks of this as a blessing. I wonder how many today, they
would say, well, he's cheated of his life. He had so many more
years of life left in him. Terrible tragedy, one killed
perhaps in a car accident, one killed in some other way, when
they're young, or some illness. We think of what it was with
Jeroboam's son, how that he died. And it was said there, because
he only, in him, has found some good thing toward the Lord God
of Israel. And so again, it was counted
as a blessing that he died young as a child. So he didn't see
all the wickedness and evil of this world. But there's implied
in this case and in that one, that they are brought to heaven. They are brought to know the
blessings of glory earlier. Instead of going through this
life and all its tribulations and sorrows and sin and death,
They're brought quickly home to glory. How often do we think
of what the Lord has prepared for them that love Him? How often
do we say perhaps when someone has been in a very dangerous
situation, their life has been spared? I know it was said once,
someone was recording about how they'd been spared. The person
they were speaking to turned to them and said, spared from
what? That person had a good home.
So what, spared from an early entrance into heaven? Spared
from, absent from the body, present with the Lord? Yes, we value our life here below
and we'll do all we can to lengthen it. But where we do have that
good hope beyond the grave, then every day that we are here below
is a day that we're not in heaven, we're not with the Lord. And
we're still on Satan's ground, and still tempted and tried,
and still able to see all the sorrows and griefs. How often
it is said, concerning maybe our parents or grandparents,
we're so glad they didn't live to see that. live to see their
children forsake the house of God, live their children to do
this or that, or to things that have happened in the land. No, in one sense with just before
the flood Methuselah, he died the year of the flood, not in
the flood, the year of it, in Lamech five years before. But
they are preserved from seeing that wrath of God come. May we
have a right view of the Lord's providence and of what He calls
a blessing, and that which is good for our souls, and also
to value that which is above, that which we have a hope beyond
the grave. So may the Lord grant us to see
our blessings, grant us to read the word with a tender heart,
to take what we read to Him in prayer, and to lay it before
his throne and maybe view those things that the Lord has done
in and through his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in this
way, through the sorrows, through the sentence of death, viewing
our Lord enduring death and rising from the dead and ascending up
on high. We have that same hope, same
hope beyond the grave. The Lord bless this word and
give us, above all things, a tender heart. And if it is hardened,
if we feel it is, and the word finds us out this morning, may
that be part of our prayer too. Lord, soften my heart. Make it
soft. Dear Job, he says, he maketh
my heart soft. And the Lord is able to do it,
and only he can. We have sung in our hymn, what
can soften hearts of stone to Jesus' precious blood alone. May the Lord grant it so. Amen.