Chapter 22, they come in this
order, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and then after that
is 1 and 2 Chronicles. But in the 2nd book of Kings,
chapter 22, Our subject this morning, which
is, after we read that chapter you'll
understand why, and there are a few others just like it close
by, Not only 22, but 23, and several
chapters in 1st or 2nd Chronicles. I don't remember now which it
is, but it's immaterial because we're going to be dealing with
this particular psalm. Not psalm, my goodness, this
particular chapter. 2nd Kings chapter 22. Our title is The Recovery of
the Gospel. And we'll get down to business
as soon as we have begged our Lord's blessing on our being
here. I'm so very glad it's not who
I am that makes the difference. What makes the difference? It's
who God is. That's the difference. Our Lord, in His public life and ministry
in this world, He used more things and people
than you can imagine. It is mind-blowing that God would become a man,
the God-man, and spend 33 years in this world. That's incredible. knowing when he left heaven to
come to earth everything it entailed from start to finish. From being
born of a virgin and to be crucified on Calvary's tree. But he came
anyway. Let's look carefully at this
chapter because it is a reflection on our day. Baptist religion
hasn't always been in such sad shape as it is now. But you are hard-pressed to find
anybody in any church in any denomination who truly believes
that God is God. Well, thank you very much. I
ain't never gonna forget that. Alright, you patty people. One
up on you today. And there's a new one in your
ranks. You hadn't met him perhaps or didn't realize it. Mr. Doug West. They do strange things sometimes
when you don't expect it. Oh boy. Let us pray. Lord, thank you for letting us
meet in this place this morning. Your mercy Your grace, your love,
your power is all vested in our precious Savior, the Lord Jesus,
about whom we've just sung. Now, Lord, it is difficult to
take a passage such as this chapter in 2 Kings There are so many names that
appear, to me at least, to be rather weird, and they're not
easily pronounced. But we pray that you would keep
that from being a hindrance to our understanding of what this
chapter is about. Lord, You know. We hardly know anything, but
You know everything. You're aware of what religion is all about in our
day. 99.9% dishonest and no gospel that
can save us sooner. Lord, if and when that day comes
to this place, Oh, that there'd be at least some left here that
say it's time to shut the doors and go someplace else. But Lord, if you would help us in this 22nd chapter of 2 Kings,
oh, help us to see what we see every day in this
chapter. We ask for your mercy and we
beg for your blessing. Enable us to honor, glorify,
and worship the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Lord Jesus
Christ. We thank you in his dear name.
Amen. Alright, I've forewarned you
about these words now, so you can tell me afterwards what's
the correct pronunciation and I'll be beholden to you. 2 Kings
chapter 22. A fellow named Josiah has become
king in Israel. You know how old he is? Eight
years old? That's a tad early, isn't it?
That's what it is. Eight years old. Josiah was eight
years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 31 years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jedidiah,
the daughter of Adam, Adiah, and Boschath. I don't guarantee any of those
pronunciations and he said that which was right in the sight
of the Lord and walked all the way of David his father and in
the Old Testament in a genealogy they call David his father though
he's several generations removed and turned not aside unto the
right hand or to the left." They've not had a king like this probably
since David. And it came to pass in the 18th
year of King Josiah, he's been king now for 10 years, 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, that he may turn the silver which is brought
into the house of the Lord, which the keepers of the door have
gathered of the people, and let them deliver it into the hand
of the doers of the work, that is, of rebuilding the temple. that have the oversight of the
house of the Lord. And let them give it to the doers
of the work, which is the house of the Lord, to repair the breaches
of the house, unto carpenters, and builders, and masons, that
is stone 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. And Hilkiah the high priest said
unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law." What
book is that? The first five books in our Bible. And their religion was so wonderful
they didn't even know where it was. And our day ain't a bit different.
Preachers ridicule this book day after day after day. They'll tell you this word doesn't
mean what you think it does and so they substitute their own
word. I know this took place in an incident several years
ago because this woman I knew where she went before and when
she came here she came for two or three months if I remember
right. And one day she heard me say the word predestination
and some lying preacher had told her that in this Bible predestination
does not mean what you think it does. And then they tell you
what it means to them and they expect you to adopt that. So this thing is not new. By
any means, it goes all the way back this far and even further. 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, Your 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 had
the oversight of the house of the Lord, and Shaphan the scribe
showed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest has delivered me a
book, and Shaphan read it before the king. And it came to pass,
when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that
he tore his clothes, which was a sign of grief and strife in
that day. And the king commanded Hilkiah
the priest, and Hahakam the son of Shathan, and Otbor the son
of Micaiah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Azaliah, a servant of the
kings, saying, Go you, 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 wealth with the wrath of the Lord that
is kindled against us, because our fathers," now listen to this
statement, mine and yours, our fathers, have not hearkened unto
the words of this book. Your father and mine, my grandfather
and yours, unless don't leave out mothers,
because they're pretty vocal. when the true gospel is preached.
Otherwise they might not ever say a word, but it just comes
out. Some of you were here in 88 when
we experienced that. Oh, there was four or five times
as many people in here then, but I mean people would just
blurt something out and not realize they were going to say it. All they were doing was telling
that the God they believe is not the one I'm preaching. Because our fathers have not
hearkened unto the words of this book, no wonder they couldn't
find it. They didn't want to find it.
and to do according to all that which is written concerning us.
So Hilkiah the priest, and Achaim, and Abar, and Shaphan, and Azaliah
went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shalom, the son of
Tigva, the son of Harhaz, keeper of the wardrobe. Now she dwelt in Jerusalem in
the college, and they communed with her. And she said to them,
Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Tell the man that sent you to
me, Thus says the Lord, behold, I will bring evil upon this place,
and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the words of of the
book which the king of Judah has 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. They instituted
prostitutes into the very worship of God. Ask old Eli about his
two sons, whom he appointed as priests over the tabernacle at
Shiloh. That man died a disappointing
death when he heard the news that both of his sons, who had
stupidly and foolishly carried the Ark of the Covenant into
the battle, and it was captured. And he's sitting in the gate,
waiting to hear. And when he hears, he falls over
backwards and kills himself because He's like, I used to be way too
many pounds. Therefore, last part of verse
17, Therefore my wrath shall be kindled against this place,
this is God speaking through His prophet, and shall not be
quenched, but to the king of Judah, who 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 you have heard, because
your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the Lord
when you heard what I spoke against this place and against the inhabitants
thereof. And they should become a desolation
and a curse, and has rent your clothes and wept before me. I
also have heard them, saith the Lord. Behold, therefore, I will
gather you, speaking about King Josiah, I will gather you, I
lost my place, there it is, unto your fathers, and shall be gathered
into your grave in peace. And your eyes shall not see all
the evil which I will bring upon this place.' And they brought
the king word again." Now since religion as we know it in America, if you put this question to them,
one in a hundred will not be able to answer it. Preachers,
pastors, assistant preachers, whatever, deacons, all kinds,
just whatever outfit you happen to be with. My first statement to you now
about this recovering of the gospel. We have to be absolutely
clear on what must be done in order for us to be saved. Here's a simple statement by
Horatius Bonar. Have I then no work to do in
this great matter of salvation? And then it says none, not one
single thing. But preacher, don't we have to
be willing? No. God's grace makes us willing. We were born unwilling and we'll
die unwilling unless God conquers our proud soul and He can do
it. What work can we do? Everything we do, we infect with
sin. What work of ours can buy forgiveness
or make us fit for God's divine favor? What work has God bidden
you to work in order to obtain salvation? None. Not anything. His Word is very plain and easy
to be understood. to him that works not, but believes
on him that justifies the ungodly. His faith is counted for righteousness. Romans 4 and verse 5. Now here's what this means. If
it is true that God justifies the ungodly. Let me read you
the whole statement about Romans 4, 5. To him that works not... Now God's people are not idle,
but they ain't working for rewards. They don't happen to think they're
going to have finer dress than some other people who are up
in glory when they get there. To him that worketh not, but
believes on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith that God
has to give us, we can't earn it or merit it or deserve it, his faith is counted for righteousness. Now let me explain this a little
bit further. Have you ever been convinced about yourself that
you were ungodly? If you've not ever been ungodly,
we still are. I'm telling you there's hope
for a sinner in Christ, but don't go bringing your trinkets and
what you've done for him and how many people you've collared,
you know, and tried to get them to say the right words behind
you, you know, and then bingo, he's saved. That ain't salvation.
There's a whole lot more that has to take place than just words
between men. If we've never been ungodly,
I don't mean isolated incidents either. I'm talking about the
rule of our life. Virtually everything we do and
touch is contaminated. His faith is counted for righteousness. So if you've never We've never been an ungodly person. If I've never been an ungodly
person, I'm still lost, dead in trespasses and sins. Now let's
see what we can find in our Bibles to help us understand this recovery
of the gospel. Now since I don't have one of
those little notebooks like my buddy Doug, I'll have to settle
for printing scriptures. I thought that was pretty high
tech, but evidently it's gone by the wayside. Alright, I'm
going to need you to turn some places. I want to turn to Romans
chapter 1 and I would like very much if you'd just camp out right
there. The recovery of the gospel, Romans
chapter 1. Let's just read the first seven
verses. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, Parenthetical
statement, verse 2, which God had promised before by His prophets
in the Holy Scriptures. God always keeps His Word. He
says He's going to do something, just consider it done. And this promise, verse 3, is
concerning His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. who was made of the
seed of David according to the flesh. Josiah is a descendant of David. And so Paul here makes this statement
about this wonderful, wonderful consideration. Declared to be
the Son of God with power. Now how much power does Christ
have? All of it. Everywhere. Every day. All the time. according to the Spirit of holiness
by the resurrection from the dead. By whom we have received grace
and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations
for His name, among whom are you also the called of Jesus
Christ. To all that be in Rome, beloved
of God, all true believers in Rome, called, The words to be
is not supposed to be there. They're called saints because
they are saints. They ain't waiting to be. All
believers are holy in Christ. Therefore, they are to be considered
as saints. Grace to you and peace from God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. just to get us some background
so we can have something to refer to in regard to this matter.
The first thing I want to address is that in the recovery of the
gospel is a necessity to recover the truth. The truth. This gospel that is the gospel
of God, has to be found. There's no foundation for God
to work upon without this one. The triune God is the sole, complete
author of this entire matter. He planned, He executed, He applied,
and He has sustained this glorious gospel of Christ. I bet if we
could possibly, it would take more computers
than all of you guys put together, but if we could just go back
through the last 2,000 plus years in professing Christianity and
find out who believed what, And how many were true to the gospel
and how many weren't? It would be beyond our ability
to calculate. Everybody and his brother believe
God owes them. He's indebted to them. I wish
they'd show me that in this book because I can't find it. Everything God does for a sinner
is for Christ's sake. Nobody else. Christ's sake. And you can't change this Christ
that's defined in our Bibles. Oh, people do every day. But
He's no longer a Christ. He's a curse. Secondly, in recovering this
Gospel, It has to be the gospel of God's
glory. Let me read you a statement. My mind is so bad, if I don't
tell you what it is, I'm sorry, but I'd like to, but I want to
read it first. For you see your calling, brethren, how that not
many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble
are called. But God has chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise, and God has chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which
are mighty. And base things of the world
and things which are not despised has God chosen. Yes, and things
which are not to bring to nothing, things that are that no flesh
should glory in His presence. But of Him, of God, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit, of God, you are in Christ Jesus. He put you there. Of Him are you in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption." The whole nine yards, there ain't nothing left
out of that. There's nothing for us to do
except thank God for His grace and mercy and to enable us to
live in a world that has gone completely nuts. It just, it ought to be unbearable
to us and it indeed is. It is. Thirdly, this recovery has to
do with being the gospel of God's grace. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 puts
it this way, for by grace... By the way, that other reference
was 1 Corinthians 1, 26-30. In Ephesians 2, 8, for by grace
are you saved through faith, and that faith is not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. Now we go back to Romans again
in chapter 1, the very third verse in our discussion. This gospel that must be recovered is concerning God's Son, Jesus
Christ, our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according
to the flesh." So this gospel is an ancient gospel. You know where it started and
when it started? In the Garden of Eden. Adam fell, and the whole human
race fell in him. But at its beginning, I can't tell you how long ago,
but it's been thousands of years, and it's been about millions
and millions of years. People can't even tell you what
happened yesterday, let alone a million years ago. Believe that stuff, help yourself. In the Garden of Eden, Abel offered a lamb as a sacrifice. His brother, older brother by
the way, his name is Cain, he did his little religious thing
too and he brought things that he had grown, vegetables and
so forth, and he offered that to God. And God refused it. Wouldn't accept it. And we meet up with Cain twice
more in our Bible. One is in the book of Jude, and
the other is in It's either the letters of Peter
or the letters of John. I didn't expect to talk to you
about that, but sometimes I actually have thoughts that come to my
mind. And then Abraham comes along. Our Lord Jesus said about Abraham,
Abraham saw my day and rejoiced." By the grace of God, Abraham
saw the God-man, our Mediator, who would come to this earth
many, many centuries later. But he saw the importance and
the significance of it Our Bibles also teach us, by
the very words of Christ himself, not only did Abraham see my day,
but Moses wrote of me. If I remember correctly, it was
in the desert, the backside of nowhere, We had a place like
that where we grew up and we called it Egypt. I don't know
what y'all call it, but it's just off the beaten track. You
have to know how to find it. And this statement regarding Moses' writing
of Christ is just absolutely wonderful. Moses is the one by
whom God gave us those commandments on those tablets. But Moses knew, oh, there's something
more than this. We cannot keep this. My goodness,
read about the last chapter in Joshua, and he spells it out
as plain as it can be said. But Moses met God in Christ where? at the burning bush. You remember? One of the oldest books in our Bibles, if they
were chronological, would be Job's God finding Job and revealing
to him this wonderful kinsman redeemer. Let's see. I don't think I saved
myself that, so we'll move on. We've got to. These are not big pages, goodness
me. This Gospel in third place is
concerning God's Son, the Lord Jesus. Now you understand that God is
in heaven and yet He's everywhere present. But our Lord came down
here and put on human flesh. And if He wasn't wickedly treated
by His own kin people, by His own nation, by the priests and
Levites by and large that serve that humongous cathedral of theirs. Oh my goodness. Our Lord Jesus died. Why did he die? Why? For whom did he die? Romans 5, 6? Anybody? Christ died for the
ungodly. When did He die? I think both
of these statements are in Galatians. First of all, when it pleased
God. When the time was come. Secondly, He is said to have
come in the fullness of time. In the fullness of time. Then we come to the subject of
his resurrection. Let me see if I've got this particular
verse. I don't think, yes I do. And if Christ be not raised, if Christ is not risen from the
dead, Our faith is vain and we are still in our sins. If the Christ of the Bible is
not this day living, doing exactly as He pleases, saving whom He
pleases and damning whomever He pleases, This world is totally stupid
when they talk about universal redemption. That Christ died
for everybody alike. But there's going to be a whole
lot of people who leave this world who don't have a clue what
that means. Just don't have a clue. I was going to talk to you about
how exalted and magnified and raised up the Lord Jesus is at
this very moment in heaven. But I do want to put one more
scripture in front of you. If we have a hope, it must be a hope in Christ. There is no way for us to go
around Christ to get to God. There's only one way to go to
God, and that's through His Son, the Lord Jesus. His life, His
death, His resurrection, His coming again. Here's what it
says in Colossians 1.27, To whom God would make known What is the riches of the glory
of this mystery among the Gentiles? Which is Christ in you, the hope
of glory. And that's the only place you
can have this hope. It is hope in Christ. In Christ. Now, I've got one extra page here that I want
to run by you, if I may. Oh, I've got plenty of time. That's only five minutes to ten,
right? Right. Today's Gospel calls on proud men to stand up
for Jesus and be counted. This, today's gospel, I'm sorry, THE gospel, calls
on men to bow, to bow down and worship the Lord Jesus Christ. Today's gospel gives people a
title to heaven, with no sincere love for Jesus Christ, what are
they going to do up there? Are they going to be miserable?
They'll be trying to get out of heaven. The true gospel emphasizes what
men... I'm sorry, today's gospel emphasizes
what men should do for God rather than what God must do for men. Today's gospel makes salvation
an offer rather than a free gift. I'm telling you, if God gives
it, you will have it. And if He doesn't, we won't. Today's gospel presents a salvation
that depends on the will of man and not the will of God. It also
identifies a Christian by what he does not do, rather than what he is, what
we are. Without Christ, we perish. Today's gospel tries to get people
to change their habits and their ways, lose weight and go to the
gym and all of these things. You wonder which is important,
the preaching or the exercise? Obviously for them it's the exercise. This gospel This gospel, that is the gospel
of God in Christ, identifies a Christian by what he does not do, but rather what he is. Today's gospel tries to change
people's ways without changing their hearts. And it cannot be
done. These are sobering thoughts.
I hope the Lord will bless them to me and you.