Title of this message, Back to
the Book. Back to the Book, and I'll be
looking at 2 Kings, chapters 22 and 23. If you want to follow
along, turn to 2 Kings, chapters 22 and 23. Now, this is an interesting
story, but more than a mere interesting story, it's a very needful message
today. The state of things in Israel
nearly 3,000 or more years ago is the state of things in our
day. Now, this is the true story of
a former king in Israel named Josiah. In 2 Kings 22, it says
of Josiah, verse 2, he did that which was right in the sight
of the Lord, and walked in all the way of David his father. He turned not aside to the right
hand or to the left. He did right. He walked the way
of David. He was a believer, a worshiper,
a follower of God, a man after God's own heart like David, who
sought the glory of God, the will of God, the worship of God.
And he turned not aside to the right or the left. That is, he
was uninfluenced by either side, but a seeker of the truth. I
thought to myself, when I read that, a man like that would never
be elected to any office today, neither right nor left. Well,
Josiah's father, the former king in Israel, was an evil man. He
did not seek the Lord. He did not consult the Word of
God. He tolerated and allowed anything
and everything to go, especially in religion. And so, therefore,
religion was in a mess. and it was so far removed from
God's Word, from the true worship according to God's Word, that
the whole land was full of many different faiths, so to speak,
many ways of worship. When God had set forth in His
Word very clearly that there's one faith, one way to worship
Him, And so there were many different so-called faiths, and therefore
many different priests and prophets and persons who applied for these
jobs, hirelings, all of them, all of them false. Now, as I
said, Israel was far removed from the Word of God, literally.
The Word of God had literally been stored away in a back room
of the temple. The priests in the temple didn't
even know the Word of God existed. They weren't reading it. They
didn't know it existed. They didn't know what it said.
Well, to make a long story short, they were in the process of doing
some building around the temple. Oh, they were very active. These
religious leaders were very active with their building committees
and finance committees, doing the Lord's work, so to speak,
they thought, yet ignorant of God's Word, and in violation
of God's Word. Now, I'm reading from 2 Kings
22, verse 8. It says, Hilkiah the high priest
said unto Shaphan the scribe, now here they were working around
the temple and counting money and so forth, and he said, I
found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah
gave it to the scribe and he read it. He said, I found the
book. Well, here's a book in this back
room. And he dusted it off and said,
read this, see what it says. And it was the five books of
Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. It was
the book. He said, I found the book. They
had found God's word, the book, the word of life, the book, the
only revealed will of God, way of God, worship of God, salvation
of God, the book, the absolute truth, the whole truth and nothing
but the truth. The book without which all is
false and a lie, all is merely man's thoughts, man's opinion,
man's way, ways which seem right unto man, but the end is death
and destruction. Hilkiah said, well, I found the
book. I found a Bible. Wonder what
it says. The priests hadn't seen it before.
The scribes who were supposed to be making copies of it hadn't
seen it. Oh, they were all busy, though,
about the Lord's work. People, listen to me. All who
listen to this this morning, you listen to this fellow. There's
one work of the Lord. There's one thing which the preacher,
the minister, the elder, the leader, and the church is to
be about. That is, the preaching and teaching of God's Word. There's
one thing which the church is to be about. That is, the preaching,
the hearing, the studying of God's Word. Not social programs,
not building programs, not this and that program, but the book. Back to the book. The hearing,
the reading, the studying, declaring of God's Word. Buildings are
merely places to keep out of the rain so we can study the
book. Well, in verse 9, it says that
Shaphon the scribe reported back to the king. And the thing he
was coming to report was about the finances and the work on
the building. And verse 10, Shaphon the scribe
said, Oh, by the way, King Josiah, by the way, the priest found
a book. and he read it to King Josiah. And upon hearing the words of
the book, in verse 11 it says, Josiah ripped his clothes. Now this was an old-fashioned
way of showing one's great anguish. of showing that one feels horribly
ashamed, fearful, fear and trepidation. The king ripped his clothes in
anguish and fear and shame and unbelievingly what had been going
on in his day. He had not seen it himself, and
only now when he heard the book And it says in verses 12 and
13, King Josiah gave forth a command. He said, in short, we've got
to start seeking the Lord. We haven't been seeking the Lord
by his word. to get all this religion out
of the way. We've got to get it all out of
the way so we can start worshiping God the right way. We've been
doing things expressly against what's written in God's word.
We've got to get back to doing things by the book. according
to God's word. We need to call on God. We need
to consult God. Not men, not our ways and opinions,
but God's only way. God's only thought. God's word. So the king commanded,
we've got to start worshiping God according to the book. And
so the king called a meeting. And in chapter 23, Chapter 23
of 2 Kings. It says, The king gathered all
the elders and the people. Verses 1 and 2. He gathered all
the elders and the people to himself. And the king himself
began to read the book in the ears of all the people, both
small and great, young and old, the people and their children.
He read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant
which was found in the house of the Lord, it said. King himself
read it. He wanted to be sure that the
people heard God's word as it was written in all its truth
and in its entirety. The King himself declared the
living and true God to the people. The King himself declared from
God's Word the true and only way to worship God Almighty.
As I read this, I thought, what a representative of Christ Josiah
is. What a type of picture of the
Lord Jesus Christ this man Josiah is. For our Lord himself said,
No man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son
will reveal him. And the Lord Jesus Christ, the
true man, the just man, the man of God, the Holy One of Israel,
the man sent by God, The Messiah, the Christ, came to declare the
living and true God, came to declare the will, the way, the
word of God, to reveal to God's people the only way to worship
God, the only way to come before God, the only way to be accepted
by God, the only way to be made righteous, the only way to be
allowed into God's presence. The King, Christ himself, plainly
declared, saying, I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. Christ said, by my righteousness
imputed, you will only be made righteous. By my death remitting
your sins, only by my blood will your sins be put away. By my
intercession, God hears me and me only. By me. No man cometh
unto the Father but by me. There is only one faith. And
that's the faith of Christ. Well, Josiah, this true and just
man of God, he proceeded to destroy everything in and around the
temple that was not according to the true worship of God as
set forth in God's word. Does that sound familiar? When
the Lord Jesus Christ entered Israel as a 33-year-old man,
the first thing he did was made him a whip and went into the
temple of God and drove out all those money seekers, all those
false religionists, drove them out, cast out all the false ways
of worship. Well, Josiah proceeded to destroy
everything in and around the temple that was not according
to true worship. And it says in verse 4 of chapter
23 that he brought out all the vessels and burned them, all
the religious paraphernalia, all the objects of worship. He
said God is to be worshipped in spirit. We don't need all
these things. God is to be worshipped from
the heart. Without all these props, God is to be worshiped
according to his word. All we need to worship God is
a Bible. Verse 5, he cast out all the
false preachers who were in this thing for the money, who were
doing it as a job, who were hirelings. Verse 7 says he tore down the
houses of the Sodomites. Well, you figure that out yourself,
folks. And it says there were women throughout those houses
who were sewing and doing all their tapestries and so forth. In other words, they were having
a quilting bee for the Lord. Josiah cast them out. Tore down,
cast out, and burned up all the pictures, statues, idols, all
the trappings of religion, all the religious props and objects. He cast them out. And down in
verse 20 it says, finally, he slew all the priests. And then
in verse 21, the king, King Josiah, commanded all the people, saying,
There's one thing we need to do. There's one thing I read
in this book, and it's throughout this book. In all five of these
books that make up the book of God's law, God's Word, there's
one thing throughout this book that I read. One thing God has
commanded us to do. One way to worship God. One way
to be accepted by God, to be justified by God. We've got to
keep the Passover as it is written in the book of this covenant." Oh, my people, all who listen
to this today, do you hear this? Josiah said, we've got to keep
the Passover, the Passover of God as it is written in the book
of this covenant. In other words, the blood of
the Lamb. The blood of the Lamb is the
only way to worship God. There is still only one way to
worship the living and true God, and that is through the preaching,
the hearing, the worship of God, God's Word, the Gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of Truth, the Gospel of Christ.
Oh, may God turn our generation back to His Word, back to His
Christ. Old Josiah made a lot of enemies
that day. A lot of people hated what he
did and what he said. He brought his nation back to
God. And may God raise up a Josiah in our day, is my prayer. Until next Sunday, Amen.