Verse 25, now this is speaking of Josiah
and it says, like unto him, I'll wait for my late wife to sit down. Verse 25, and like
unto him was there no king, Before him, that includes David, Hezekiah,
Asa, Jehoshaphat, all of those good kings. And like unto him
was there no king before him that turned to the Lord with
all his heart and with all his soul. And with all his might,
according to the law of Moses, neither after him arose there
any like him. Let's pray. Lord, we come into your presence
in the high and the holy name of thy blessed son. And we ask
in his name that you would be pleased to meet with us, that you would speak to our hearts
from your word, that you would reveal thy son to us. Oh, that we might be found in
him. We confess our sin and our sins. We pray for forgiveness,
cleansing. We pray that we might be enabled
to look to thy blessed son as the Israelites looked to him
when they were bitten with those snakes that we might look and
live. We pray for all your people wherever
they meet together. Lord, give us grace to believe,
to love you, to love you more, and to love one another more. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Now, Josiah can be argued to
be one of the greatest characters in the scripture. I mean, that
description I just read of him is remarkable, isn't it? Nobody
liked him. And he's including David, Hezekiah,
all these good kings. There was nobody like Josiah. Best king to ever live. Nobody
measured up to him, before him, or after him. That's what kind
of man he was. And what I think is very interesting
about Josiah, Josiah was prophesied 500 years before his birth, and
his name was given. Look in 1 Kings chapter 13. And
this is 500 years before the birth of Josiah. Chapter 13, verse 2, and he cried,
this prophet cried against the altar, that altar that Jeroboam
had built. He cried against the altar in
the word of the Lord and said, O altar, altar, altar, thus saith
the Lord, behold, a child shall be born into the house of David,
Josiah by name. And upon thee shall he offer
the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee,
and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee. Now, I want you to
think about that. 500 years before he was born, they mention his
name. And I bet sometime during his
life, somebody came up to him and said, do you know that you're
in the scripture? You were prophesied that this is gonna take place
with you. And I bet that was, well, I don't know how you'd
respond to something like that, but here is Josiah. the greatest
king of all. Now, also through him, I don't know how to say this, but
it seems like through him there was a great reviving that took
place. And I want to be careful how
I use that term because I remember particularly growing up, churches
would always have what they call revival meetings. We're going
to have a revival this week. We're going to have a revival,
as if you can call that down from heaven. Well, we're going
to have a revival. Well, it doesn't work that way. Just the way Josiah,
this reviving didn't take place because he decided we're going
to do this. It began with God, didn't it? It began with God's
prophecy 500 years before this took place. And it really began
with God's prophecy before the foundation of the world. But
under his reign, Israel was in better shape and more obedient
than they'd ever been. It was amazing how Israel conducted
themselves under his reign. Now, what's sad, as soon as he
died, they went back. And that makes you think that perhaps
they saw that if you didn't straighten up, he's going to kill you. Because
that's what he did. I mean, at this time, he had the sodomites,
the false priests, he had them all put to death. He had their
bones. He took the bones of false prophets
out and burnt them on this altar. I mean, he was so zealous for
the glory of God. And I'm sure when you watched
the way this man conducted himself, you thought, ah. I better line
up or things aren't going to be good with me. Because as soon
as he was dead, they went back to the idolatry that they had
practiced and the Babylonian captivity began. Now look in
2 Kings 23 verse 21. 2 Kings 23, beginning in verse
21. And the king commanded, this is what happened during his reign.
And the king commanded all the people saying, keep the Passover
unto the Lord your God, as it is written in the book of the
covenant. And look at this description
of what took place during this Passover under his reign. Surely there was not holding
such a Passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel,
nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor the kings of Judah."
Now he put such an emphasis on the Passover. No other king did
the way he did. And you know, the Passover is
that glorious type of the gospel where God says, when I see the
blood, I'll pass over you. Doesn't that thrill your soul?
You think about this. God says, when I see the blood,
not when I see your works or your sincerity or your efforts
or anything about you. When I see the blood, I will
pass over you. And there's great detail in the
Chronicles account as to how they kept the Passover. You remember
how he said you're to eat it roasted with fire. We eat Christ
crucified. You're to eat it in haste. You're
not to right now. You don't wait to believe on
Christ. You believe on him right now. You're not waiting for some
kind of experience. Believe right now. Now that's
what was going on. It was so scriptural in the keeping
of the Passover. Now there are three things to
me that are striking about Josiah. We're going to look at those
things. And remember what an important man this is. This ought
to stir up our interest. I want to be this man. I want
to be this man who turns to the Lord with all my heart. and with
all my soul and with all my strength, and I know only by the grace
of God I'll do this, but I want to be this man. You want to be
this man, Josiah. Now, there's three things that
strike me about this man. Number one, and if you read Kings
and Chronicles, you're not going to be able to miss this, his
utter intoleration for that which was contrary to the gospel. utter intoleration for that which
is contrary to the gospel. You know what that was born from?
Love to Christ. Not just I'm right and they're
wrong. I don't want to have that kind of attitude. I got a letter
from a guy this week. He offered to show up at the
church to hold a debate to prove who's right and wrong. He said,
you're wrong, let's have a debate. Okay, yeah, I'm gonna have you.
No way I'd do anything like that. The truth's not up for debate.
But at any rate, I'm right and you're, I don't want to have
that kind of attitude. I wanna have this attitude of
hating that which is contrary to the Lord Jesus Christ and
contrary to my hope in the gospel. Now, that was Josiah. He was utterly intolerant toward
that which was false. Number two, he put such an emphasis on the
Passover. He restored the Passover like
no other king, including David, had done. Oh, the glories of
the Passover. And number three was his profound
reverence for the scriptures. You remember how the copy of
the Bible had been found? He'd never heard the scriptures
read. He'd heard orally what he ought to do, and he did it.
But when they found that copy of the scripture in the temple,
we considered that last week, we'll consider it again, he had
such reverence for the scriptures that it broke his heart that
they had departed so far. He didn't realize until he heard
the scriptures read how bad things had become. Now, he was the son
of Amnon. He was the grandson of Vanessa.
And it began to rain when he was eight years old. Turn to
the Chronicles account in 2 Chronicles chapter 34. I don't know why
God gives two accounts of these historical narratives in Kings
and in Chronicles, but evidently it's important. And I've read
one fellow that said Chronicles is God's perspective and Kings
is man's perspective. You know if God put it here for
a purpose, but look in chapter 34 and Josiah verse 1 Josiah
was 8 years old when he began to reign and he reigned in Jerusalem
1 in 30 years He was 39 when he died We're gonna consider
his death next week, but he was 39 when he died. He was a good
king But somebody says that's an untimely death. There's no
such thing He died at God's appointed time, according to God's purpose.
Same thing's gonna happen with me and you. But he was a young
man when he died, this special young man. Verse two, and he
did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked
in the ways of David his father, and declined not neither to the
right hand nor to the left. Now, it's not me, is it? No, I don't have my phone on
me. We read in chapter 3, in the 8th year of his reign, when
he was 16 years old, he began to seek the Lord. There's something
very special about that. 16 years old, the Lord moved
him to seek Him. And when he was 20 years old,
after seeking the Lord for these four years, this reform began.
Look what happened in verse 3. And then the eighth year of his
reign, when he was yet young, he began to seek after the God
of David, his father. In the twelfth year, when he's
20 years old, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the
high places and the groves and the carved images and the molten
images. And they break down the altars of Balaam in his presence. and the images that were on high
above them he cut down, and the groves, and the carved images,
and the molten images, he break in pieces and made dust of them,
and strode it up on the graves of them that sacrificed unto
them. And he burnt the bones of the priests upon the altars
and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem." I mean, you go on reading about
this cleansing that took place. And then when he was 26 years
old, he ordered the beautification, getting rid of all the bad stuff
in the temple, and hired people to repair it. And during that
time, that's when they found the copy of the Bible. Let's
begin reading in verse 14 of this same chapter. And when they
brought out the money that was brought into the house of the
Lord, Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of the Lord
given by Moses. And Hilkiah answered and said
unto Shaphan the scribe, I found the book of the law in the house
of the Lord. And Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan. And Shaphan
carried the book to the king and brought the king word back
again, saying all that was committed to the servants they do. And
they've gathered together the money that was found in the house
of the Lord, and have delivered it into the house of the overseers,
and into the hand of the workmen. Then Shapin, the scribe, told
the king, saying, Hilkiah, the priest, hath given me a book.
And Shapin read it before the king. And it came to pass, when
the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his
clothes. He was so torn up. He was devastated. He didn't know things were this
bad with him or with the people. He rent his close. And the king commanded Hilkiah
and Ahiachem, the son of Shaphan, and Abednon, the son of Micah,
and Shaphan the scribe, and Uzziah, and a servant of the king, saying,
Go inquire of the Lord for me and for that that are left in
Israel and in Judah concerning the words of the book that is
found. For great is the wrath of the Lord that's poured upon
us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord
to do after all that's written in this book. And Hilkiah And
they that the king had appointed went to Huldah, the prophetess,
the wife of Shalem, the son of Tichbeth, the son of Hazareth,
keeper of the wardrobe. Now she dwelt in Jerusalem, in
the college. And they spake to her to that effect, and she answered
them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Tell ye the man that
sent you to me, Josiah. Thus saith the Lord, Behold,
I bring evil upon this place and upon the inhabitants thereof,
even all the curses that are written in this book, which they
have read before the king of Judah. 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. Therefore, my
rash shall be poured upon this place and shall not be quenched.
And as for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the
Lord, so shall you say unto him, thus saith the Lord God of Israel
concerning the words which thou hast heard, because thy heart
was tender and thou didst humble thyself. before God. Now that word tender means weak.
Weak. It doesn't mean just tender as
in sensitive. It means weak. If I hear the
word of God, one thing that's going to come clear to me, I'm
weak. I'm weak. And if that's not my
response to hearing the word of God, I've not really heard
it. You saw your weakness before me, and you're broken down. That's
what happened to him. You're broken down. Because thy
heart was tender, weak, and thou didst humble thyself before God,
just the way the publican in the temple did. God be merciful
to me, the sinner, when thou heardest his words against this
place, and against the inhabitants thereof. And you humbled yourself
before me, and didst rend your clothes, and weep before me,
not before men, but before me. I have even heard thee also saith
the Lord, behold, I'll gather thee to thy fathers and thou
should be gathered to the grave in peace. Neither shall thine
eyes see all the evil that I will bring upon this place and upon
the inhabitants of the same. So they brought the king word
again. Now here's what they said. You're
not going to see any of the stuff that I'm going to have. I'm going
to cause to take place. And after his death, you know
what began? A succession of three kings that lasted very little
space. And then the Babylonian captivity,
everything was destroyed and people were massacred after this. But he said, you're not going
to see any of this. Verse 29, then the king sent
and gathered together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.
And the king went up into the house of the Lord, and all the
men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests,
and the Levites, and all the people, great and small. And
he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant
that was found in the house of the Lord. And the king stood
in his place. and made a covenant before the
Lord to walk after the Lord and to keep his commandments and
his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and with all
his soul to perform the words of the covenant which are written
in this book." Now, does that mean he was saying, I'm going
to make an agreement to never sin again and never break the
law? Well, that is our desire. But what he's saying is, I want
scriptural worship restored. I want us to observe the Passover
as it should be observed. I want us to keep all the laws
of this book. He was talking about the gospel.
He wasn't talking about, he had some understanding. This was
a man that God had taught. Now let's go on reading. And
he caused all that were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin to
stand to it. He was going to make sure everybody's
going to do just what he did. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem
did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers.
And Josiah took away all the abominations out of the countries
that pertain to the children of Israel, and made all that
were present in Israel to serve, even to serve the Lord their
God. And all his days they departed not from following the Lord,
the God of their fathers." Now, we don't read of a time like
that in all of Israel. Now, like I said, it's... somewhat
questionable as to whether it was real in their hearts because
it says he made them do it. He made them do it. And soon
as he was dead, you know what took place. Now, was this a revival? Was this a reformation? Now revival is what God does. Reformation, I'm not talking
about the Protestant Reformation, I'm not talking about something
like that, but I'm talking about when God does something, there
will be results. There will be results in the
people that he has revived. Now, when I read about revivals
in church history, I put at first in my notes, I don't believe
most of them, but I don't believe any of them. Everything I've
read about, it's always the emphasis is on your feeling, you know,
the people would fall down and scream and cry in their repentance,
or people would start speaking in tongues, or people would,
all kinds of physical, fleshly garbage. And that's what it is.
I mean, even under men like Edwards, it was not, who believed sovereign
grace, yet the emphasis was how loud you yelled, how deep your
conviction was, what your experience was. And I'm just, I'm sorry,
I'm utterly skeptical of that. It's fleshly. And I just don't
look at, I don't look to any of it. And the revivals, like
when I've grown up, I don't know if they, I guess they don't do
it anymore, but they always have revival week. Revival week, revival
week. That's silly. Why did this take place under
Josiah? Because God purposed it. He said
this was gonna take place in his word 500 years before it
took place. Now, when I say I'm skeptical
of all of this man-made religion revival stuff, it's still true
that the Bible speaks of reviving. David said, will thou not revive
us again? I think of what Habakkuk said.
Will thou not revive thy work? What was he asking to revive?
By work. In the midst of years. This is a scriptural concept,
and every believer knows what it means. I mean, I might not
be able to give a formal definition of it, but I said, Lord, quicken
me. Raise me from the dead. Quicken my, give me faith. Give
me repentance. Give me love to your person.
Caused me to be poor in spirit. Caused me to mourn over my sin. Caused me to be meek before you. Caused me to hunger and thirst
after righteousness. Caused me to be pure in heart. Caused me to be merciful. Caused
me to be a peacemaker. Allow me to be persecuted for
righteousness sake, the beatitudes, which describes what a believer
is. And there is certainly a sense in which we say, Lord, revive
me. I feel dead. I feel lifeless. I feel like
there's nothing there. Revive me. Now that's a scriptural
concept. Lord, revive me. Turn us again, O Lord God of
hosts, cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. Now let me make four statements about this thing
of reviving. And like I said, it is a scriptural
concept. And I think if you look at what
happened in Israel, it doesn't seem like it was a
personal reviving. They were scared of Josiah. And
that's about as far as their revival went. I don't want to
be like that. I don't want to just be influenced by a man. I want
the Lord to revive me on a personal level. But the first thing that
comes to my mind when I think about this, when the Lord does
revive, it's like Josiah, it's because he purposed it. It doesn't
begin with man. It doesn't begin with me in any
way. It begins with him. Now, I thought
of that passage in Ezekiel chapter 36 when God talks about all the
things He's going to do. He's going to give a new heart. He's going to give a new spirit.
He's going to do all these different things He's going to do. It's
what He does. And then we read in verse 37
that He's going to cause Israel to ask Him for it. I'll yet be
inquired of the house of Israel to do it for them. Now, that's
what I'm doing right now. Lord, do this for me. Give me a renewed,
simple faith in your son. Cause me to look to him only.
Deliver me from looking to the flesh. Revive me. Grant me true
repentance. Grant me a greater love to your
person. Preserve me. That's what you're doing. You're
asking the Lord to revive you because, but it doesn't begin
with your asking. It begins with his purpose. Now
when he does something, there will be a profound reverence
for the Word of God. Now how you and I view God himself,
how you and I view Christ himself, how you and I view God the Spirit
himself is seen in our attitude toward this Word. God wrote this book. Every word God the Holy Spirit
wrote. Holy men of God spake as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost. Now this book is the inspired
Word of God and when there is a reviving there is a profound
fear of the Word of God. This is You know, somebody says,
well, did so-and-so 200 years ago believe what you guys believe?
Who cares? I don't care if he did or not.
What does the Word of God say? That's it. I don't care what
so-and-so believed or what this church believed or what somebody
believed 200 years ago. I've heard that all my life as
a believer. Well, so-and-so didn't believe
that. Does the Word of God teach it? That's all we bow to, the
Word of God. Oh, when Josiah heard the Word
of God, that's when he ripped his clothes and wept before the
Lord, seeing how far off he was. And he was weak before God, and
he humbled himself before God. Now, whenever this reviving takes
place, and I want to say this right, whenever this reviving takes
place, there will not be a toleration for that which is not the gospel. There will not be any toleration
for that which is not the gospel. Now that makes, a couple of things
that does to me, Lord teach me what your gospel is. Cause me
to know the gospel and cause me to have such a love for you.
Because this is another thing I've seen over the years. When
somebody's zealous for the gospel, people think, well, you're just
being partisan. You're just being zealous for
your position. It doesn't have anything to do with it if I love
Christ. It's because I love Him and I hate that which is contrary
to Him. And another thing, when I hear that which is contrary
to Him, it takes away the only hope I have. The only hope I
have is that Christ did everything. And if you tell me that you bring
something else in, you're taking away my only hope. That's where
I get upset. Now, when this reviving takes
place that comes from the Lord, there will be no toleration for
that which is contrary to how God saves sinners by Christ. And when the Lord speaks, When
the Lord revives, the truth of the Passover becomes everything
to me. Everything. Let me repeat, everything. When I see the blood, the blood
of that paschal lamb without spot, without blemish, speaking
of the perfect life of Christ, Slain, the blood put over the
door. The only place of safety was
in the house with the blood over the door. And I love the instructions
given to eat it. You're to eat it, roast with
fire, not sodden with water, not boiled, not watered down,
but roasted with fire. Christ crucified, roasted under
the wrath of God. You're to eat it in haste. Don't
wait for anything. Believe on Christ right now.
I don't care what your experience is. Believe on Christ right now. Eat it in haste. When the Lord
revives us, oh, how we delight in Christ crucified, the Passover. May we as individuals, as this
church and all of God's churches have this reviving that takes
place with Josiah. May the Lord grant us that for
Christ's sake. Amen.