He's such an interesting man,
Josiah. He began to reign when he was
just eight years of age, and he reigned 31 years. He died
at the age of 39. His father, Ammon, was an idolater. He sought to undo the good that
his father Manasseh had done. Manasseh was himself a vile and
wicked man, ungodly, an idolater who devoted his life, most of
his life, to worshiping false gods. But amazing free and sovereign
grace got a hold of him, and God did a work in his heart And
he was brought to believe Jehovah the Lord and to see the necessity
of being found in Christ, the only Savior of sinners. And he
sought to undo much of the evil that he had brought upon the
kingdom of Judah. But then when he passed, Ammon,
his son, took over. And he immediately brought idolatry
in to the nation of Judah. As for Josiah, his father set
a wicked example for him. Fathers, I say to you, be examples
of men who love the gospel, who love the grace of God. Be examples
to your children. Be examples to your grandchildren
of men who stand for the truth of God, men who love the Lord
Jesus Christ, men who always put the Savior first. Be an example
to them. I'll tell you this, we are being
examples in one way or the other, aren't we? We're being example,
all of us adults, we're being examples to our young folk, to
our older children, either of faithfulness to Christ Jesus
or of unfaithfulness. Oh God, help me to be faithful.
Help me to adorn the gospel, as Paul says in the book of Titus. As for Josiah, though he had
a wicked, wretched father, he had a heavenly father that he
knew nothing of. A heavenly father who had watched
over him from old eternity. A heavenly father who chose him
unto salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. He had an eternal surety. One who represented Him in the
covenant of grace and the counsel of peace. Little did He know
that He had God the Father watching over Him. He knew nothing, in
fact, of being adopted into the family of God before the world
ever began. But He had been. Just like those
of you who believe the gospel, you're part of the family of
God, and you've always been the children of God. And the Lord
watched over us in His prevenient grace, in our days of unbelief,
from our infancy through our teenage years until whenever
it was that God was pleased to send the gospel to us in saving
power. The Lord watched over us. We
were His children then. We didn't become His children
when we believed. We believed because we were already
His children. and He had a fatherly love for
us. Yes, Josiah's father, his earthly
father, Ammon, was an ungodly wretch, but he had a heavenly
Father who would not let him perish, who would not let him
go in the way of Ammon, a heavenly Father who had ordained his eternal
salvation and brought him into the kingdom of God. Josiah had
a good and faithful mother, Jededah. Her name is only used once in
the scriptures, but her name means God's darling. I love the meaning of that. God's
darling, literally one who's beloved of God, as are all of
God's children. And apparently she sought to
teach Josiah in the way of truth, in the way of life. She brought
him up teaching him as much as she knew about Jehovah God. And he didn't forget those things,
though he wasn't converted when he took office as king when he
was eight years old. He didn't forget the things that
his mother taught him. At age 16, Josiah sought the
Lord. God put it in his heart to seek
him. Isaiah says, seek ye the Lord
while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. The Lord said through Jeremiah,
who ministered, who prophesied during part of the reign of King
Josiah. Josiah said of the Lord, of those
who would be saved, he said, you shall seek me, that is, seek
the Lord, and find me when you search for me with all your heart.
No wonder Solomon said, Quoting the Lord, my son, give me thy
heart. Give me thy heart. Oh, for a
heart knowledge of God, for a heart knowledge of the truth of the
gospel of God's grace. I know Josiah sought the Lord
when he was 16 years old, but he sought the Lord because the
Lord sought him. And the Lord found him. And if
you believe the gospel tonight, if Christ is your all, if he's
all your hope for salvation, that great shepherd who laid
down his life for you, he sought and found you. I don't know where
he found you. He may have found you in the
bar room. He may have found you in false religion. That's where
he found me. But I guarantee you this, If
you've ever been brought to seek our Lord, Jehovah Christ, the
Savior, it was because he sought you first. After all, he is the good shepherd
who laid down his life for the sheep. And he said, my sheep,
hear my voice. We hear the gospel. We hear the
declaration, as Tim said in one of his messages. We hear the
report. of that which has already happened,
salvation fully accomplished, redemption accomplished and finished
by the substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Ezekiel
quotes our Lord in Ezekiel 34, Behold, I, even I, will both
search my sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh out
his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered,
he says, so will I seek my sheep and deliver them in all places
where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. So at age eight, Josiah began
to reign. At age 16, he sought the Lord. At age 20, he began to purge the nation
of idolatry. He sought to lead the people
out of religious error. And they were filled with error.
There were idolaters, idols everywhere. Idols in the temple, idols in
the holy place, idols throughout Jerusalem, and idols throughout
Judah. He sought to lead the people
out of paganism. And then at age 26, he rebuilt
the temple and instituted that true worship of God. And you
know in this, he was a type of our Lord in the way that he deals
with sinners. Because what Josiah did, he first
of all tore down the idols. He got rid of the idolatry. And
having done that, then He brought in true religion, which is salvation
by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's
exactly how God still deals with people today. He rips the false
gods out of our heart. He exposes the fact that we've
been worshiping the wrong God, the wrong Jesus, And after ripping
those out, then He pours the truth of the gospel into our
hearts, and we see who Christ is in all of His greatness, and
all of His majesty, and in all of His successful work of redemption. So at age 20, He begins to purge
the nation of idolatry. At age 26, He rebuilds the temple. The idols had been destroyed,
making way for true worship. Brother Barnard said, the first
thing a preacher has to do by the grace of God, by the enabling
power of God, is kill a man's God. And only then will he receive
the message of the true and living God. At age 26, that's when the
Word of God was discovered. And Josiah sent word to a prophetess
by the name of Huldah to find out what was in store for the
nation of Judah. And she said, the nation's gonna
be destroyed, gonna be cut off and that without remedy. But
she said, as for you, King Josiah, you'll go to your grave in peace.
I think I'm probably going to preach on that next Wednesday
night. I want to go to my grave in peace, don't you? Peace with
God, peace in the heart that all is well with Christ. Well,
then after rebuilding the temple, he reinstituted the Passover
And he led in the observance of the greatest Passover since
the days of Samuel. And he persuaded the people to
acknowledge salvation of the Lord. Wouldn't it be wonderful
if there was a resurrection of the truth that salvation is of
the Lord? In our church, amongst all the
people who attend, and in our friends and neighbors and especially
in our relatives. Oh, that God would teach them
how sinners are saved, that the Lord has to save them. It's not
by works, it's not by man's will, it's the sovereign will of God
who administers spiritual healing to the heart and grants faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 18 it says here in chapter
35, there was no Passover like to that kept in Israel from the
days of Samuel the prophet. Neither did all the kings of
Israel keep such a Passover as Josiah kept. And the priests
and the Levites and all Judah and Israel that were present
and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And as far as I know, in the
rest of the Old Testament, the Passover was observed in the
book of Ezra. And that was insisted upon by
Cyrus. You remember Cyrus released the
Jewish captives from Babylon and sent them back and said,
rebuild the temple. And then having rebuilt the temple,
then they reinstituted the Passover. And then it's mentioned again,
though not specifically, but the elements of the Passover
were mentioned in the book of Malachi. But really, through
the rest of the Old Testament, there's hardly anything said
about the Passover. And yet that Passover was so
important because it pictured Christ, our Passover, who was
sacrificed for us. In fact, after the book of Malachi,
the Passover was instituted again, and our Lord Jesus, He observed
the Passover, He attended the Passover feast in Jerusalem,
and then finally at the appropriately called Last Supper, the last
Passover feast, He instituted the Lord's Supper. The Lord suffered. And He said, of the bread He
blessed, He said, this is My body. This is My body broken
for you. This represents Me. It represents
My flesh. It represents He who came down
from heaven, even Myself, the Son of Man, the Son of God. And
He said, My blood. My blood is the representation
Or the cup, rather, of wine is a representation of my blood.
He said it's the blood of the new covenant. And he instituted
the Lord's Supper. And yet, the Jews kept on observing
the Passover, not realizing, as it says in 1 Corinthians,
Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. Our Lord Jesus is that Passover
lamb. And I'll tell you, in the instant
that our Lord finished taking the Passover and he instituted
the Lord's Supper, in that very moment, the old covenant passed
away. And the new covenant of grace
of salvation by the sacrifice of Christ began. Well, let me tell you two or
three things here about Josiah. Because finally, after living
39 years, he wasn't an old man when he died. At age 39, he died. and the death of Josiah meant
at least three things. Number one, he entered into the
paradise of God. You see, the nation of Judah,
it was condemned. That's what Huldah said. And
God had said, I'm not gonna turn my wrath away from Judah, but
Huldah the prophetess told Josiah, as for you, you'll be just fine. You who are the people of God,
and I presume that's all of us in here tonight, and many of
you who are watching, know this. No matter what happens in this
world, you'll be just fine. For you see, death for a believer,
death for Josiah, meant he entered into paradise. And your death, your death, means
that you'll exit the body, the shell. Your soul will make an
exodus and go right into the presence of the Lord. It's like
Lazarus the beggar. The angels took him into Abraham's
bosom, took him into the presence of the Lord. Josiah having lived
39 years and that was the full allotted time God gave him. He
died in battle. He was wounded. He was wounded
in defending his countrymen. And the scripture says he disguised
himself when he went out to battle. And I see a picture of our Lord
Jesus Christ there. Our Lord Jesus did not disguise
himself to be like us. He became like us. He's a real
man. Really the son of God and really
the son of man. and he entered into a battle
in defense of his people. But unlike Josiah, who died on
the battlefield, and that was the end of his earthly existence,
our Lord Jesus died. He laid down his life in defense
of us. He died for us, that's who he
died for. The results of his death were
good results for us. I recognize the fact that first
and foremost he died for God. But Paul says he died for our
sins according to the Scriptures. And he was buried and he was
raised again for our justification. Josiah entered into the paradise
of God. Hear me people of God, death
is not to be dreaded by God's children. It's not to be dreaded. Those who believe that we must
face God and give an answer for our sins, they would have you
to believe that you should dread ever seeing the face of the Son
of God, the Judge. They're absolutely wrong. You
will not find in the Scriptures any child of God who was unwilling
and who dreaded going to the presence of the Lord. They look
forward to it. And I know there's that issue
of death that we're gonna have to deal with, and that's kind
of frightening right now. But I'll tell you, after death,
we enter into the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. We're blessed in dying. Doesn't matter when we die. Doesn't
matter where we die. Doesn't matter how we die. Those
who die in the Lord are blessed in the expectation of what's
on the other side. A joy that we can never imagine. In the presence of the Lord,
there's the fullness of true satisfaction. to see our Redeemer
face to face. We're blessed in dying. We're
blessed after dying, after dying. Revelation 14 says, Behold, blessed
are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. When a
child of God leaves us, when one of our fellow saints departs, There's an element of sadness,
but it's sadness for ourselves because we'll miss them. But
there's no sadness for the child of God who departs. Everything is bright and cheerful
because they enter into the presence of the Lord. One writer says, once we drop
this robe of flesh we shall wrest from our labors. He said in heaven
there will be no ignorant ones to teach, no erring ones to rebuke,
no sins to confess, no despondency to comfort, no weakness to strengthen,
no error to oppose, No needy ones to supply. No enemies to engage. No fences
to mend. No strifes to heal. No sick ones
to visit. No bereaved ones to console. No straying ones to correct. No sinners to witness to. and no tears to dry. Oh, what joy awaits the people
of God. Tell you something else about
Josiah. He didn't live to see the destruction
of Jerusalem and Judah. He knew it was coming, but the
Lord said, I'm gonna spare you from seeing what I'm gonna do. And I'll tell you, Nebuchadnezzar
came in, he destroyed the temple, he destroyed Judah, he took the
people into captivity. But Josiah didn't have to see
that. That's good of the Lord to spare
him that, wasn't it? That was quite merciful of God
to spare him. And then, let me say this. For the believer, death is not
death at all. It's the beginning of life. Josiah
went out on the battlefield. Apparently, he didn't want the
king of Egypt, Pharaoh Necho, he didn't want him coming through
Judah. to fight the northern enemy.
And so he went out in his bravery. Even though Neco, and I'll be
honest with you, when Neco said, the Lord has sent me, I don't
know what to make of that because he didn't know God. Only God
he knew at worship was raw. But he did say this, notice in
verse 21. He sent ambassadors to Josiah
saying, what have I to do with thee, thou King of Judah? I come
not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I
have war. For God commanded me to make
haste. Now, I don't know. I don't know
how that is. I don't know. I really don't
know how to take that. Because he wouldn't have believed
in the Lord. He didn't believe God. But it
could have been that the Lord laid it upon his heart to know
that this was Jehovah who spoke to him. And he said, don't you meddle
with God. In verse 22, nevertheless Josiah
would not turn his face from him. but disguised himself that
he might fight with him. He hearkened not unto the words
of Necho from the mouth of God. He came to fight him in the valley
of Megiddo. And he was mortally wounded. Learn this, no matter how faithful
you are to the cause of God, and Josiah was, you're still
gonna die. God can do without any of us. He said Josiah was such a good
man. He loved the Lord. He loved the
gospel of grace. He loved reinstituting the Passover
and looked forward to seeing the Passover lamb someday, Christ
the Savior. But he fulfilled his usefulness
and then he died. And I'll tell you exactly when
we're gonna die. Not the date, I can't tell you
that. But I can tell you when you're gonna die. When you've
fulfilled whatever purpose God has put you in this world to
accomplish. And then you're leaving. You're
leaving. And he died in the defense of
his nation. May we who are the people of
God, when time for us to die, may it find us being soldiers
of the cross of Christ, still faithful, like you've been faithful
all these years, Marty, and several more here. When the Lord ready
to take us home, May he find us looking unto Jesus, the author
and the finisher of our faith. Loving him, loving his gospel,
and confessing he's our Lord, he's our savior, he's our righteousness,
he's our hope for glory. May he find us looking unto him,
our prophet, priest, and king. Then we'll go home. Go home. Let's get our song books. We'll sing closing song here. 275. I thought about this song
too. Preparing this message. I belong
to the king.