Well, if you would, go back to
that passage that Joe just read to us. My subject this evening
is Josiah and the book. Josiah and the book. As I looked at this passage of
scripture and the corresponding passage over in the book of Second
Chronicles, It spoke to me of the great need of our day. I have a burden in my heart that
there would be a rediscovery of the gospel of the grace of
God. Anybody who watches any of the
religious programs on television and who has some insight into
the very truth of the word of God. As you observe what's going
on in religion today, it is just nauseating. Last Lord's Day, we went out to eat, a few of
us in the family, and they had televisions. which I ain't too
crazy about that either, but they had televisions that you
could watch. And on one television, they had
a football game, but on several of them, they had some kind of
preacher. And I thought that's kind of
unusual to have a preacher up there. And I told a couple of
the kids in the family I said, that's one of those guys that
he wants you to sow seed money. I said, I'll guarantee what it's
about, because I couldn't hear it. And then it came up on the
screen, $58 seed money. That's what you'd
give to him. And then he's going to send you
something, going to send you some water from the River Jordan. And of course, if you invest
in putting your seed money in, then you're gonna reap a great
harvest. And I said, you know, this is typical of religion today. It has a lot of entertainment,
has a lot of enthusiasm, it has lots of music, but doesn't have
any truth. There isn't any gospel. There's
no reference really to the Lord Jesus in his sacrificial death. Oh, every once in a while they'll
mention grace, they'll talk about salvation, but they'll wind up
telling you that this salvation that's of God, it's up to you,
it's in your hands, and you've got to make good use of that
which he gives you. I got up early, as I usually
do, and one morning this week, and I was watching television,
I turned it on to one of the well-known preachers. And he
was talking about how that God has his hands full for you. but he's not going to give it
to you. So you come up and say, I want you to give me out of
your hands of your bounty. And he said, you need to understand
God can't do anything for you unless you ask him to do something
for you. And I thought to myself, oh Lord,
is this the message of the day? Where are the Isaiahs? Where
are the Apostle Pauls? Where are the men who are preaching
the gospel of the grace of God? Men who are exalting the Lord
Jesus Christ. Men who love the word of God. Don't you pray for a rediscovery
of the truth? That's what I pray for. And I
want us to keep on discovering the truth here and keep on I
sent an email to somebody this week, and I said, we're trying
to keep down the straight road of the gospel of the free grace
of God to sinners. And I don't want to deviate at
all, do you? I don't want to go astride, don't
want to go this way, don't want to go that way. I want to be
faithful to the word of God. So as I looked at this passage
of scripture, It spoke to me of the real need of the day,
a rediscovery of the Word of God. That's what's missing in
religion, the Word of God. They have everything that's conducive
to the world, the man of the world feeling comfortable in
the church. This is what it's been going
toward for a number of years. Make the worldling real comfortable
in the church so that he'll feel right at home. But here's the
problem. When the man of the world fills
it home in the church with worldly things, he brings more of the
world in with him. That's the problem. And it's
unusual for people just to want to hear the pure gospel of the
grace of God to sinners in, through, and by the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, that God would lead men in
this country and in other countries as well to dust off the word
of God and discover once again the very truth of our God. Somebody said we ought to take
a big black paintbrush and paint Ichabod over the doors of almost
every so-called church in this country. Ichabod, you know what
that means? The glory of God has departed. That's what one of Eli's daughters-in-law,
when she heard that her husband, who was a priest, and her father-in-law,
Eli, had died due to the taking of the Ark of the Covenant, she
delivered a baby shortly thereafter, and she called the name of that
baby Ichabod. For the Ark of the Covenant was
gone. The glory of God had departed. And most churches, and it's easy
to preach against most churches because they're not represented
here tonight, but I'd say the same thing. Most churches, they
have no idea of the message that really glorifies God. And the
glory of God is just not there anymore. But I'll tell you this,
I want it to be here. Don't you? I want it to be here. I want it to be over at your
place, Brother Allen. You see, where there is no gospel,
God's not going to be glorified. Where there's no gospel, sinners
are not going to be converted. Where there's no gospel, if there
are any sheep in the congregation, they're not going to be fed.
No gospel means no light. No gospel means people will go
through life in spiritual darkness and deadness. Oh, that God would
rekindle within our hearts a desire to hear and keep on declaring
the pure Word of God, pure, unadulterated Word of God. That people would
find out who God is in His sovereign character. That people would
find out that God has His eternal purpose and it stands forever
sure. and nothing will ever frustrate
or interfere with His eternal purpose. Oh, that people would
find out who Jesus Christ is. He's not a reformer. He's the
Redeemer. He's the Savior. He's the Sovereign. He governs all things by virtue
of the fact that He was obedient unto death, even the death of
the cross. And oh, that people would find
out who the Holy Spirit is. This preacher I watched one morning
this week, he said, I was praying in the Spirit, speaking in tongues,
and he said, I have learned this, if you ask God for what you want,
speaking in tongues, He'll give it to you. And I thought, what
a fool and what fools to listen to him because the speaking of
tongues in the Bible was the speaking of the gospel of the
great works of God in languages that people could understand
without the preacher having any prior knowledge of that foreign
language. We live in a day of spiritual
ignorance, don't we? And that was exactly the situation
in Judah in Josiah's day. His father, Ammon, for two years,
he had led a revolt against the worship that his father had reestablished,
his father Manasseh. He was a rebel to begin with,
but God saved him by his grace, and then he reinstituted the
worship of his father, Hezekiah. In fact, at this time in Israel's
history, the northern kingdom, and in the history of the southern
kingdom, they had all departed from the true worship of God.
It's hard to believe. The people of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob had departed from true worship and fallen headlong into
idolatry and evil. Evil kings had reigned, covetous
priests. financially hungry prophets had
led the people into greater and greater idolatry, turning the
hearts of Jerusalem and Judah away from the living God. But
the Lord removed King Ammon. He took him away from here in
a violent act because he was assassinated. And God raised up his young son
and put him on the throne, a young man by the name of Josiah, who
was eight years old. You see, God had arranged for
another king to rule. He wasn't finished with the kingdom
of Judah, but a sad fact, Josiah is going to be the very last
godly king that they'll ever have. The rest of them were lousy. They walked in evil practice
as did so many of their forefathers. But this young man, Josiah, he
was made king. His name means he whom the Lord
has healed. God was going to heal him by
his grace, healing him of his spiritual diseases. Because He,
like all the rest of us, has the disease of leprosy. The healing
is in the wounds of the Lord Jesus Christ. And by His stripes
we were healed, is what Peter says in 1 Peter 2. And we found out about the healing
of our spiritual diseases when the Spirit of God brought the
Gospel home to our hearts. This young man, he was crowned
the king when he was eight years old. When he was 16 years old,
according to 2 Chronicles 34, he began to seek after the God
of David. And when he was 20 years old,
he began purging idolatry from throughout the land. And I mean
to tell you, he went after them wholeheartedly, destroying the
idols, the groves, killing the priests, killing the sodomites,
whose numbers are always multiplied by idolatry. And by the time
he was 26 years of age, he had purged the land of idolatry,
and then he began to repair the temple of God. And he hired workmen. To go in. The temple was in shambles. That's where God said, I'll meet
with you and you'll meet with me. Right there at the brazen
altar. That's where the sacrifices were
to be offered. All of them pointing to the Lord
Jesus Christ. The sacrifice of God who put
away the sins of His people. Everything had fallen into disrepair. Josiah said, we're going to clean
things up around here. And he set to do that. He ordered
the idols to be destroyed and reprobate priests. He ordered
them killed. And then he sent word out the
temple was to be cleaned out and the worship of God to be
restored. I mean, he just rolled up his
sleeves and went to work. And he started out as an eight-year-old
king. Well, the temple was being repaired. The idols were being removed.
And while they were cleaning out the temple, the high priest,
the high priest was Hilkiah, he found a book. Didn't know
what, didn't know quite what to make of it. It was a most
important book. This was the Word of God written
by Moses, the first five books of the Bible. This book was the
book of the law of the Lord God given by Moses. So Hilkiah, the
high priest, he found this book, the Word of God, and he took
it to a man by the name of Shaphan, and he's a scribe. Now, here's the job of a scribe. to copy the Word of God. But I don't know what the scribes
had been doing because they hadn't been copying the Word of God. That's the only copy they had. And the question needs to be
asked, and I'm sure it cannot be adequately answered. During
Jehoshaphat's reign, During Hezekiah's reign? During Manasseh's reign? Why hadn't somebody sought to
find the Word of God? And as they were cleaning out
the temple anyway, they found this book which seems to indicate
they really weren't looking for it, they just kind of happened
upon it. There it was. Good kings and
bad kings have come and gone, but there was the Word of God.
They didn't even know it was there. Look at verse 8 again. And Hilkiah the high priest said
unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in
the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah gave the book to
Shaphan, And he read it. He read it. He finally read the
Word of God. He read it. His job as a scribe,
as I've also already said, was to make copies of the Scriptures.
What had scribes been doing for so many years? Now the Word of the Lord, the
Pentateuch, the five books first five books of the Bible were
very important. In fact, and I'm thankful God
ordained that the book, the first five books of the Bible be found,
but if they hadn't been found, our Bibles would have begun with
Joshua. But they were found. Now I want
to show you a couple of references. Go back to Deuteronomy chapter
17. Go back to Deuteronomy chapter
17, and three verses, 18, 19, and
20. Deuteronomy 17, 18, 19, and 20. Talking about the king
of Israel now. And it shall be when he, the
king, sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he, that
is whoever the scribe is, shall write him a copy of this law
in a book out of that which is before the priests, the Levites. So a scribe was supposed to make
a copy for the king. That's every king, when a new
king ascended the throne, he's supposed to have a fresh copy
of the Word of God. And the only Word of God they
had was the first five books of the Bible. Verse 19, and it
shall be with him, he shall read therein all the days of his life. Every day. Every day the king
of Israel was to be reading the Word of God. that he may learn
to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law
and these statutes to do them. I said to you this morning that
remember under the old covenant, there was a lot of ritual worship,
a lot of busy things, lots going on all the time, all kind of
offerings, all kind of feasts, And it was easy then for them
when a godly king left the scene and an ungodly king came on board
to sit on the throne. It was easy then for idolatry
to set in because they were already doing ritualistic things, but
those were according to the law of God. What's the purpose of
this? Verse 20, that his heart be not
lifted up above his brethren. He must not get too big for his
breeches. That's what that means. And that he turn not aside from
the commandment, to the right hand or to the left, to the end
that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children
in the midst of Israel. So every time a king took the
throne of Israel or Judah, when the kingdom divided, a scribe
was supposed to make a copy of the first five books of the Bible
and give it to him. And you know what? You can read
through 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, read about these kings, and you
don't find them reading the word of God. Kind of wonder what happened. Now here's another reference
I want you to look at. Deuteronomy 31. Deuteronomy 31. Actually, the first five books
of the Bible were to be read publicly. Publicly. Every seven years. Deuteronomy
31. Look at verse 9. And Moses wrote
this law, and by that is meant Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy. And Moses wrote this law, and
delivered it unto the priests, the sons of Levi, which bear
the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, saying,
At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year
of release, in the Feast of Tabernacles, when all of Israel is come to
appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose,
thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing.
Gather the people together, men and women and children, and thy
stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that
they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to
do all the words of this law, and that their children, which
have not known anything, may hear and learn to fear the Lord
your God, As long as you shall live in the land, whether ye
go over Jordan to possess it." Every seven years, everybody's
to stop. And take Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and they're to be read publicly.
So that the people would be reminded of who God is. and reminded of the gospel in
picture. Because you see, we know the
types and pictures of our Lord Jesus Christ. You're well schooled
in that. In Genesis 1, the creation, that's
a picture of the new creation of us in Christ Jesus. When God
created man, he created male and female, created he then,
because Adam and Eve was in the loins of Adam even as we were
united to Christ in old eternity. And as you go through these first
five books of the Bible, type after type, picture after picture
of our Lord Jesus Christ is laid down, and yet, for years and
years, those Scriptures weren't even read. How's anybody going
to learn the Word of God unless the Word of God is read to them
and preached to them? It was a sad time, especially
here in Josiah's day. Thank God there was a copy of
the Bible, maybe in a cupboard somewhere,
covered up with dust. Notice back here in 2 Kings 22,
when the book was given to Shaphan, the scribe, he dusted it off
and he took it to the king. I want you to watch something
that's kind of amazing to me. Look at verse 9. He's got this
book, and he read it, the book of the law of God. And I'm sure they were excited
to find it. But look at the first thing he
did. Verse nine, 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 and they have the oversight
of the house of the Lord. We paid the workers. That's the
first thing he told the king. We paid the workers. Oh, it's
good news, isn't it? And then he said, Verse 10, And
Shaphan the scribe showed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest
hath delivered unto me, and this is interesting to me the way
he phrases, a book, a book, not the book, a book. And Shaphan read it before the
king. This is the book of all books. It's not a book among many. It's the book of God. It's the
book that tells us of God's creative glory, of God's providential
glory, of God's saving glory. So he began to read to the king. And the king rent his clothes.
He recognized it immediately. This is God's word. It's not
a book, it's the book. And the king commanded Hilkiah
the priest, and Ahicham the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son
of Micaiah, and chafing the scribe, and as a higher, a servant of
the king, saying, Go ye and 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 God." We have neglected this
book. And God's wrath is kindled. You
neglect God's Word, His wrath is going to be kindled, I promise
you that. You neglect His gospel. You neglect
His Son. It's going to be kindled, He
says, against us because our fathers have not hearkened unto
the words of this book to do according to all which is written
concerning us. The Word of God had been ignored. God helped the people who ignore
the Word of God, but He won't. He won't. The king had never read the word
of God before. He had never heard anybody read
it. It must be acknowledged and it
must be confessed that in our day the word of God is not being
taught and it's not being preached. The religion of this age, and
I'm talking about professed Christianity, has no resemblance whatsoever
to New Testament Christianity. And the preachers of this day,
by and large, bear no resemblance to the gospel preachers of the
New Testament. The entertainment and the foolishness
that go on in the name of modern religion today would make the
prophets of Baal blush with shame. I want you to remember this, the
most horrible thing in our country today, that's a lot of bad stuff,
but the most horrible thing in our country today is false religion. False religion. The will of man
and the works of man, that's what's being exalted. A false gospel is the welcomed
message of most people. Oh, God help us to remind people
salvation's by grace alone. By grace. What does the book
say? By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves,
it's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Salvation's
by grace alone, sovereign grace, free grace, God's grace, almighty
grace, grace that's effectual, that gets the job done. Number
two, this salvation is received through faith alone, not of works. Aunts and I were in the car the
other day, and somebody in front of us had a bumper sticker on.
I can't remember exactly what it said, but the essence of it
was, if you want to be satisfied when this life is over, be kind
to your neighbor. I took that as meaning, if you
want to be satisfied, you're going to go to heaven. When this
life is over, be kind to your neighbor. That's not the way
to heaven. You ought to be kind to your
neighbor, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with the salvation
of your soul. That's salvation by works, and
you see that permeates, it permeates just about everything. All religions. See, they have a name today,
they call it Christianity. It's a great big umbrella that
covers a multitude of churches and denominations, but it doesn't
cover the true church of Christ that believes the gospel of His
free grace. Salvation is by faith alone in
the Lord Jesus, not of works. And I'll tell you, salvation's
in Christ alone. I know I have people who have
contacted me, I've had people who've left me, and they say,
you just preach the gospel too much. My response to that is, I'm embarrassed that I haven't
preached it even more. Would to God that all of my sermons
were painted red with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. This salvation in its entirety
is of God and found in the Lord Jesus Christ. And works have no part in it. Do not neglect the book of God. I warn you that. Do not neglect
the word of God, the book of all books. Psalm 119, wherewithal
shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according
to thy word. Thy word have I hid in my heart
that I might not sin against thee. Psalm 119, 11. Make me to understand the way
of thy precepts, so shall I talk of thy wondrous works. Psalm
119, 27. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
a light unto my path. Psalm 119, 105. And Peter says
in 1 Peter 1, being born again, Not of corruptible seed, but
of incorruptible. Behind the word of God that liveth
and abideth forever. And Hebrews 4 tells us for the
word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged
sword. Just turn it loose. Just preach
it. Josiah. last of the good kings
in Judah. His reign is distinctly marked by another thing that always
identifies the day of divine visitation. In the day of divine visitation,
the word of God comes back to the forefront. That's always
what happens. God help us stick to the word.
Stick to the word. Well, let's sing a closing song,
shall we? Abide With Me, 75.