WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.120 Good morning. Just want to reiterate what Kunle said earlier. If you are feeling hot and 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:15.019 ! distracted by that, in the downstairs meeting room there is air conditioning and a live stream 00:00:15.019 --> 00:00:23.039 ! for you to enjoy the service and pay attention. We value God's word and the listening of it. 00:00:23.039 --> 00:00:27.920 And if it will help you to be there, I promise you I will not take offense if you get up right 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:34.160 now and walk right out of here because I know where you're going. I trust. So, just wanted to 00:00:34.160 --> 00:00:40.679 reiterate that. As we turn to God's word, let me pray and ask for God's help this morning. Lord, 00:00:40.740 --> 00:00:47.200 I thank you for this time to look into your word. Lord, I pray that you would be with us by your 00:00:47.200 --> 00:00:59.600 spirit. Lord, I want to pray that the words of Psalm 19 would be ours this morning. Let the words of my 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:07.719 mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. 00:01:07.719 --> 00:01:20.480 Lord, I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. So, can you name the top 10 influencers on social 00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:29.180 media in 2024? Anybody? I can't. I'm sure I couldn't. I looked it up. The internet does not agree on who 00:01:29.180 --> 00:01:34.480 they are because there are so many different platforms and algorithms. But here's a list. 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:38.939 Forbes Magazine. I thought this was a little better than some of the other sources I found. 00:01:39.240 --> 00:01:46.760 Forbes Magazine listed these 10. Mr. Beast, Dar Mann, Matt Rife, Charlie D'Amelio, 00:01:47.420 --> 00:01:55.900 the Stokes Twins, Dixie D'Amelio, Mark Rober, Alex Cooper, Rhett and Link of Good Mythic Morning, 00:01:56.460 --> 00:02:04.040 and Cabby Lane. How many of you know those people? Oh, come on. A few of you. 00:02:04.040 --> 00:02:10.620 A few. Yeah? A few. You guys don't know who Mr. Beast is? He does these great, like, internet things 00:02:10.620 --> 00:02:18.500 and, like, gives away money and, you know, if you win the $100,000 if you're the last guy to 00:02:18.500 --> 00:02:24.840 survive keeping your hand on the car, you know, for, like, five days or whatever. And Mark Rober, 00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:28.600 by the way, does really cool science. If you're ever interested, if you're homeschooling, 00:02:28.599 --> 00:02:38.900 Mark Rober does cool science. But I will say this. These people, as much as we here maybe don't want 00:02:38.900 --> 00:02:45.379 to admit it, they have a lot of influence in our world. Their voices are speaking loud. I added up 00:02:45.379 --> 00:02:54.900 the estimated combined followers of these people. It's 1.4 billion plus people follow these 10 00:02:54.900 --> 00:03:02.500 influencers. And we know that there's more out there, right? And this isn't even including people 00:03:02.500 --> 00:03:09.819 like Cristiano Ronaldo, the famous soccer player, who by himself has more than 1 billion followers over 00:03:09.819 --> 00:03:17.539 multiple platforms. Unbelievable. We live in a world where there are a lot of people 00:03:17.539 --> 00:03:29.899 with a lot of followers and a lot of voices speaking into our ears every day. Now, maybe social media 00:03:29.899 --> 00:03:37.539 isn't your thing. What about news media? Some of you listen to Newsmax or CNN. Some of you listen to 00:03:37.539 --> 00:03:44.340 Fox News or CBS. Some of you read the New York Times. Some of you read the Wall Street Journal. 00:03:44.340 --> 00:03:52.659 And my guess is that many of you listen to a podcast. Some of you may listen to talk show hosts. 00:03:53.539 --> 00:04:02.379 The voices in our lives have multiplied in the last 30 years. Consider the fact that social media didn't 00:04:02.379 --> 00:04:11.219 exist in the year 2000. It just didn't. The internet barely existed. It did. Okay, it did. But not as a 00:04:11.219 --> 00:04:18.040 common phenomenon, not in our pockets. There are so many voices. And we can now, because of our lovely 00:04:18.040 --> 00:04:24.540 little handheld devices that we call phones, we can now have this in our cars, in our workplace, in our 00:04:24.540 --> 00:04:33.660 homes. Wherever we go, we can be listening to these voices. And listen, you know me. I am not a professional 00:04:33.660 --> 00:04:40.439 on these things. I am about as Luddite as you get. Although I can tell you about Adam Cleary and his 00:04:40.439 --> 00:04:47.080 analysis of British Premier League soccer and the Pony, the Prancing Pony podcast and its analysis of 00:04:47.080 --> 00:04:53.260 the Lord of the Rings. Because those are things that I listen to. So, that's my entertainment. That's my... 00:04:53.260 --> 00:05:00.720 But the fact is that there are a lot of voices out there. And not all of them are bad. But we need to be 00:05:00.720 --> 00:05:08.980 aware of the fact that the voices we listen to have the power to influence how we think about important 00:05:08.980 --> 00:05:17.400 things. How do we think about human beings? How do we think about what's going on in the world? 00:05:18.360 --> 00:05:26.380 What we think is important to talk about, to think about, to set our minds on? What we think is right 00:05:26.379 --> 00:05:36.839 and what is wrong. So many voices. How are we to think about this as Christians? Well, there are lots 00:05:36.839 --> 00:05:43.639 of things to say. But I'm hoping this morning the passage that we're going to look at today will put 00:05:43.639 --> 00:05:50.279 it into some... will give us some perspective on that question. We're continuing in our series in 00:05:50.279 --> 00:05:56.079 2 Chronicles. If you haven't been here or if you're visiting, we're in 2 Chronicles chapter 00:05:56.079 --> 00:06:04.259 34 today. So, 2 Chronicles, that's page 358 in your pew Bible. If you want to turn there, we will be 00:06:04.259 --> 00:06:14.399 looking at it. And as we look at it together, my hope and prayer is that it will give us some 00:06:14.399 --> 00:06:20.879 perspective on these questions about voices. Now, as we turn there, let's remind ourselves a little bit. 00:06:20.879 --> 00:06:27.699 This is in the retelling, right? Chronicles is the retelling of the history of the kingdom period 00:06:27.699 --> 00:06:40.779 in Israel when from David to the exile of Babylon, roughly 800 to 586 BC. Roughly, it covers that span of 00:06:40.779 --> 00:06:48.159 time. And it's talking about the different kings of Israel and how they led people. And if you remember 00:06:48.160 --> 00:06:57.600 from last week, right, we read in chapter 33 about terrible kings. There were two successive terrible 00:06:57.600 --> 00:07:10.460 kings, Manasseh and Ammon, and combined 57 years of kingship that led the people and the nation of Israel 00:07:10.459 --> 00:07:21.799 away from seeking God and trusting God. They led them on other paths to worship other gods, to listen to 00:07:21.799 --> 00:07:31.539 other voices, to trust in other things. And it is in this context that Josiah, as a six-year-old, 00:07:33.120 --> 00:07:40.339 comes to the throne. I had a whole other introduction about how to come from a broken family background, 00:07:40.339 --> 00:07:47.560 because, man, think about it. His father was killed by his servants in the palace because he was such a 00:07:47.560 --> 00:07:54.539 bad leader. Can you imagine coming to the throne in that context? That's a sight of… Anyway, he came in 00:07:54.539 --> 00:08:01.959 in remarkable circumstances, and he was young. And yet, the beginning of 2 Chronicles chapter 34 tells us 00:08:01.959 --> 00:08:08.199 that he was a good king. That, say, verse 2, it says, he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. 00:08:08.199 --> 00:08:14.459 He did not turn aside to the right hand or the left. He began to seek the God of David his father, 00:08:14.459 --> 00:08:22.599 and he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of various forms of idolatry. And 1 through 13 tells 00:08:22.599 --> 00:08:29.659 us of this great plan, and Josiah was zealous. He didn't just tear down these places. He took the 00:08:29.659 --> 00:08:34.580 idols, and he burned them until they were ashes, and then he scattered the ashes so they could never be 00:08:34.580 --> 00:08:43.080 repaired. He was so zealous to try to restore the kingdom again. And if you've been here for a while, 00:08:43.160 --> 00:08:50.660 or if you… We've gone over that passage a lot, or that theme quite a bit already in this kind of 00:08:50.660 --> 00:08:58.460 how God restored the turning from idolatry back to God. And so, what I want to focus on this morning is 00:08:58.460 --> 00:09:05.600 what happens next. Because in verse 14, something remarkable happens. So, let's look at that together 00:09:05.600 --> 00:09:12.300 and its implications. So, we're going to start in verse 14 of chapter 34, and we're going to read… 00:09:12.299 --> 00:09:29.919 Here it is. Okay. So, 8 through 13 is all about the rebuilding of the temple, and in that context, 00:09:30.759 --> 00:09:33.859 verse 14 says this, 00:09:33.860 --> 00:09:39.000 While they were bringing out the money that had been brought into the house of the Lord, 00:09:39.700 --> 00:09:48.320 Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of the Lord given through Moses. Then Hilkiah answered 00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:54.700 and said to Shaphan, the secretary, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And 00:09:54.700 --> 00:10:00.800 Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan. And Shaphan brought the book to the king and further reported to the king 00:10:00.799 --> 00:10:06.079 all that was committed to your servants their doing. They have emptied out the money that was found in 00:10:06.079 --> 00:10:09.719 the house of the Lord and have given it in the hand of the overseers and the workmen. 00:10:10.279 --> 00:10:14.719 And then Shaphan, the secretary, told the king, Hilkiah the priest has given me a book. 00:10:16.019 --> 00:10:18.539 And Shaphan read from it before the king. 00:10:21.819 --> 00:10:28.279 They found a book, and not just any book. It was the book of the law. 00:10:28.279 --> 00:10:36.000 The book of the law that was recorded from Moses. And the first thing that I want to see here is that 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:40.360 how striking it is that they had actually lost 00:10:40.360 --> 00:10:47.980 this book, right? Hilkiah knows what it is when he sees it. He says, 00:10:48.139 --> 00:10:53.299 Oh, look, it is the book of the law of the Lord given through Moses. Now, we don't know exactly what was 00:10:53.299 --> 00:10:59.399 found. Many commentators speculate that it was a part of Deuteronomy. It might have been all of 00:10:59.399 --> 00:11:03.779 Deuteronomy. It might have been more than Deuteronomy. It's not clear how big the book was. 00:11:04.259 --> 00:11:09.299 But it was clear that it was a book that contained the writing of Moses, which is usually, 00:11:09.839 --> 00:11:15.059 therefore, we would assume that it came from the first five books of the Bible called the Pentateuch 00:11:15.059 --> 00:11:24.139 that Moses wrote. And he found this book, and he recognized it. But interestingly, Shaphan didn't 00:11:24.139 --> 00:11:31.799 think it was very important, did he? Because he said, Oh, yeah, here's my report, king. We did all 00:11:31.799 --> 00:11:36.399 these things. We got the money. We've continued in a building project. Oh, yeah, and they found a book. 00:11:37.099 --> 00:11:42.119 He didn't think it was important. He was like, I don't know what this is, but the priest gave it to 00:11:42.120 --> 00:11:47.179 me to show it to you. So, I guess I'll show it to you and see what you think, which is fascinating, 00:11:47.299 --> 00:11:58.100 isn't it? Because it underscores that for 57 years, it had been lost. And it raises a question in my 00:11:58.100 --> 00:12:04.379 mind, why? Why would they have lost God's Word in God's temple? Because it was found in the temple. 00:12:04.539 --> 00:12:09.720 It wasn't like somehow, you know, the temple got burned down and destroyed, and they found an extra 00:12:09.720 --> 00:12:16.080 copy somewhere. It was right where it was supposed to be. Now, maybe it was there because it had been 00:12:16.080 --> 00:12:22.000 hidden by priests at some point for fear that it might be destroyed by the evil kings that had led 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:30.600 before. It's possible that it was hidden so that the priests couldn't find it by those kings that it 00:12:30.600 --> 00:12:36.740 was somehow put away so that the priests couldn't find it and try to bring restoration. It's possible 00:12:36.740 --> 00:12:43.519 that because the kings led Israel away from the Lord in so many ways, it simply got forgotten, 00:12:43.519 --> 00:12:51.919 and it wasn't important. Whatever the cause was, the effect was great. Think about it, 57 years. 00:12:52.379 --> 00:13:00.360 That's two generations of people that had grown up without the book of the law in its midst. 00:13:00.360 --> 00:13:08.300 Josiah had grown up without this instruction. All of his impulse to seek the Lord, all of his 00:13:08.300 --> 00:13:15.580 impulse to follow David wasn't instructed by the book of the law. It was whatever the source it was, 00:13:15.600 --> 00:13:24.659 it came from other things. And as we will see, God speaks to them important words in this book that 00:13:24.659 --> 00:13:35.059 is found. But before we get there, let's consider for a minute God's Word in our time. Because friends, 00:13:35.199 --> 00:13:42.439 God has continued to give us His written Word. This Bible is the collection of it. It is His Word. 00:13:44.659 --> 00:13:50.659 And it's very possible for us in our day to lose God's Word in our lives as well. 00:13:50.659 --> 00:13:58.019 It strikes me there are a couple of reasons why we might do this. First, we might lose God's Word. That 00:13:58.019 --> 00:14:06.799 is, set it aside and count it as unimportant because we actually lack confidence that it's actually God's 00:14:06.799 --> 00:14:14.279 Word. We live in a world today, if you go up to the Yale Divinity School and you ask most of the 00:14:14.279 --> 00:14:20.039 professors up there, they would not tell you that the Bible is God's inerrant and infallible Word, 00:14:20.039 --> 00:14:26.139 that will bring you life when you read it. They may be interested in it. They may speak well of it. 00:14:26.240 --> 00:14:32.740 They study it for a living, at least many of them do. But they don't see it as actually God's Word. 00:14:32.860 --> 00:14:40.059 Instead, they see it as a human document, corrupted, unreliable, with errors and culturally bound 00:14:40.059 --> 00:14:49.239 to its time that doesn't really have authority. It might have power to inspire us to think better 00:14:49.239 --> 00:14:58.919 thoughts, but it doesn't have authority. And so, that might be one reason. Now, there are good 00:14:58.919 --> 00:15:04.619 responses to that. There are good reasons to believe, as we do here at Trinity, that the Bible 00:15:04.620 --> 00:15:11.000 really is God's Word, and that it's been preserved for us, and that it really is what God has to say. 00:15:11.639 --> 00:15:16.539 That would be a whole other sermon. I almost preached that one, but I thought, no, it's too much 00:15:16.539 --> 00:15:23.000 because there's so much good stuff. If you're asking this question today, can I have confidence 00:15:23.000 --> 00:15:30.379 in God's Word? I implore you, come talk to me after the service. Talk to one of the elders. If you want 00:15:30.379 --> 00:15:36.679 to go home and order, Why Trust the Bible by Greg Gilbert, or just Google the Gospel Coalition, 00:15:36.879 --> 00:15:43.299 Why Can We Trust the Bible, as a starting point for you to begin to engage, because the fact is there 00:15:43.299 --> 00:15:51.340 are really good answers. Christians are not stupid people who believe superstition for the fun of it 00:15:51.340 --> 00:15:56.759 or because it makes us feel better. Christians are thoughtful people who've explored and found that 00:15:56.759 --> 00:16:06.539 there is good reason to believe what we believe in the world. The Bible itself claims that all 00:16:06.539 --> 00:16:16.899 scriptures are God-breathed. And if you're questioning that, then I implore you to explore it and find good 00:16:16.899 --> 00:16:24.600 answers to those questions. I think the second reason we might lose God's Word is simply because we don't 00:16:24.600 --> 00:16:33.540 like what it says. Right? The Bible is always challenging some prevailing values in every culture. Right? 00:16:33.659 --> 00:16:39.279 No matter where you go around the world, throughout history, the Bible will find resonance in some 00:16:39.279 --> 00:16:45.200 parts of culture and then will challenge others and say things that are uncomfortable. 00:16:45.200 --> 00:16:58.040 I think the Bible today questions our individualistic spirituality that we just assume is good. It exposes 00:16:58.040 --> 00:17:06.000 that we live in a world of greed and selfishness that drive our economic activity. It challenges 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:13.900 our religious activities and our human desire to say, God, can't we do works good enough for you to accept 00:17:13.900 --> 00:17:24.259 us on our own merit? It confronts our views of humanity, affirming gender and sexuality without 00:17:24.259 --> 00:17:35.660 considering God's plan and shaping of it. It offends all of us by calling us to account to the God of the universe 00:17:35.660 --> 00:17:47.400 for all of us for all of us for all of us for all of us for all that we do. And it humbles us by lifting up God 00:17:47.400 --> 00:17:55.920 in the midst and saying, the world is not about us, but it is about Him. These are some of the ways the Bible 00:17:55.920 --> 00:18:05.340 challenges our Western culture here. And every generation seeks to challenge, 00:18:05.660 --> 00:18:12.120 to avoid God's Word to us. And so I think the second reason why we might lose God's Word is for 00:18:12.120 --> 00:18:16.240 just because we don't want to hear what it has to say because it's uncomfortable. 00:18:18.120 --> 00:18:24.740 A third reason is that the Bible may be drowned out by the many voices of our day. We've already 00:18:24.740 --> 00:18:31.480 talked about social media and digital society. We didn't talk much about how it tunes our brains to 00:18:31.480 --> 00:18:38.220 listen to things in a 30-minute sound, 30-second soundbite. And so I'm already, I've lost a third 00:18:38.220 --> 00:18:43.759 of you already because you're so attuned to social media that you've, you're like, gosh, he goes on and 00:18:43.759 --> 00:18:51.360 on and on, right? So just recognizing that it does. The thing is that a social media diet is kind of like 00:18:51.360 --> 00:18:57.460 junk food a lot of times, right? We love it and so we want to keep eating more. It's like Doritos. You just 00:18:57.460 --> 00:19:05.360 can't eat a few, right? But it fills us up, but it fills us up with empty things. We don't, and it turns 00:19:05.360 --> 00:19:12.400 our appetites away. So we like Doritos more and more, but we don't like vegetables, right? And the Bible 00:19:12.400 --> 00:19:18.819 sits on our shelf ignored while we pick up our phones again to look at something new, to hear some 00:19:18.819 --> 00:19:27.440 other voice. Now look, I want to acknowledge social media can be used for good. Some of you use social 00:19:27.460 --> 00:19:34.880 media podcasts that help you seek the Lord, that lead you to God's Word, and we can say praise the 00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:42.880 Lord for those things. I am not against all of social media, but we need to recognize how many voices speak 00:19:42.880 --> 00:19:51.660 of things that aren't leading us to God, and to be aware of how distracted we can be. 00:19:51.660 --> 00:20:03.180 And so this text forces us to consider, have we lost God's Word? And if we have, what steps can we 00:20:03.180 --> 00:20:11.019 take to find it again? Now I'm going to punt here. Back in May, I preached, or in June, I preached a 00:20:11.019 --> 00:20:17.660 whole sermon on chapter 17 and 18 about loving God's Word, about loving its teaching, about loving its 00:20:17.660 --> 00:20:23.940 hearing. And if you want to get a lot of practical advice about how to pursue renewing reading God's 00:20:23.940 --> 00:20:30.920 Word, I encourage you to go back to our, go to our website and listen to that sermon. Because our text 00:20:30.920 --> 00:20:37.540 doesn't tell us today how Josiah listened to God's Word and renewed it in his life. It just, it tells us 00:20:37.540 --> 00:20:42.300 something different. And so we're going to take the rest of the sermon in a direction about what the 00:20:42.299 --> 00:20:49.480 passage points do. But if you want that application, go back and listen to that sermon again. And yes, 00:20:49.519 --> 00:20:55.099 that means you'll probably need to use your phone and find our podcast so you can play it. Or you 00:20:55.099 --> 00:21:00.019 could go to our website, which is also our, and if you really don't want anything, come and talk to me 00:21:00.019 --> 00:21:06.119 afterwards. I'll take down your email address and I'll email you the notes. All right. So, all right. 00:21:06.119 --> 00:21:15.119 Having said that, so they lost God's Word and then it reappears. And we saw at the end of the passage 00:21:15.119 --> 00:21:26.259 that I read, Shaphan read the Word of God to Josiah. Let's see what happens in response to that. So, 00:21:26.259 --> 00:21:33.519 now we're in verse 19. Let's read verse 19 to 28. And when the king heard the words of the law, 00:21:33.519 --> 00:21:43.240 he tore his clothes. And the king commanded Hilkiah, Ahicham, the son of Shaphan, Abdon, 00:21:43.440 --> 00:21:51.480 the son of Micah, Shaphan, the secretary, and Asaiah, the king's servant, saying, Go, inquire of the Lord 00:21:51.480 --> 00:21:57.539 for me and for those who are left in Israel and in Judah concerning the words of the book which has 00:21:57.539 --> 00:22:05.119 been found. For great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured out on us because our fathers have not 00:22:05.119 --> 00:22:12.119 kept the Word of the Lord to do according to all that is written in this book. So, Hilkiah and those 00:22:12.119 --> 00:22:20.539 whom the king had sent went to Huldah, the prophetess, the wife of Shalom, son of Tokath, son of Hazra, 00:22:20.539 --> 00:22:27.579 keeper of the wardrobe, now she lives in Jerusalem in the second quarter, and spoke to her to that effect. 00:22:28.039 --> 00:22:35.039 And she said to them, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Tell the man who sent you to me, 00:22:35.599 --> 00:22:42.240 thus says the Lord, Behold, I will bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants, 00:22:42.240 --> 00:22:49.359 all the curses that are written in the book that was read before the king of Judah. 00:22:50.079 --> 00:22:56.140 Because they have forsaken me and have made offerings to other gods that they might provoke 00:22:56.140 --> 00:23:02.180 me to anger with all the works of their hands, therefore my wrath will be poured out on this 00:23:02.180 --> 00:23:09.640 place and will not be quenched. But to the king of Judah who sent you to a choir of the Lord, 00:23:09.640 --> 00:23:17.360 thus you shall say to him, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, regarding the words that you have 00:23:17.360 --> 00:23:24.380 heard, because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God, and you heard his words against 00:23:24.380 --> 00:23:29.580 this place and its inhabitants, and you have humbled yourself before me and have torn your clothes and 00:23:29.580 --> 00:23:37.480 wept before me, I also have heard you, declares the Lord. Behold, I will gather you to your fathers, 00:23:37.480 --> 00:23:45.220 and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I 00:23:45.220 --> 00:23:52.319 will bring upon this place and its inhabitants. And they brought word, and they brought back word, 00:23:52.319 --> 00:24:11.039 word to the king. In this section we see that God's hard word is listened to. Josiah hears God's words, 00:24:11.039 --> 00:24:20.879 and it is not comforting. Again, maybe it comes from Deuteronomy. Let me read to you a couple of 00:24:20.879 --> 00:24:29.799 passages from Deuteronomy 28 that talks about the blessings and curses of being covenant people with 00:24:29.799 --> 00:24:37.960 God. This is what God says to those who have forsaken him, the way he described in this passage. 00:24:37.960 --> 00:24:45.880 So, Deuteronomy chapter 28 verses 36 and 37, we'll put it up on the screen so you can follow along 00:24:45.880 --> 00:24:51.460 there. And the Lord will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you 00:24:51.460 --> 00:24:56.500 nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, and you shall 00:24:56.500 --> 00:25:03.840 become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you away. 00:25:03.839 --> 00:25:08.299 And then skipping down to verse 45, God says this, 00:25:08.299 --> 00:25:14.579 all these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed because 00:25:14.579 --> 00:25:20.740 you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God to keep his commandments and his statutes that he 00:25:20.740 --> 00:25:27.980 commanded you. They shall be a sign and a wonder against you and your offspring forever because you 00:25:27.980 --> 00:25:33.079 did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart because of all the abundance 00:25:33.079 --> 00:25:38.699 of all things. Therefore, you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you 00:25:38.699 --> 00:25:45.359 in hunger and in thirst and nakedness and lacking everything. He will put a yoke of iron on your neck 00:25:45.359 --> 00:25:51.139 until he has destroyed you. The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away from the end of 00:25:51.139 --> 00:25:57.259 the earth, swooping down like an eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand, a hard-faced 00:25:57.259 --> 00:26:08.539 nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young." There's more, but that gives you a flavor. 00:26:09.599 --> 00:26:16.259 The book of Deuteronomy promised that if God's people were unfaithful, that God's judgment would 00:26:16.259 --> 00:26:22.619 come upon them and that it would be terrible, that it would be frightening, that it would be fearsome. 00:26:22.619 --> 00:26:29.939 And Josiah hears words, something like this, because his first response is to tear his clothes 00:26:29.939 --> 00:26:33.759 and to weep and to grieve. And in verse 21 he says, 00:26:34.279 --> 00:26:41.539 go inquire if I've understood this rightly because it sounds like great is the wrath of the Lord that 00:26:41.539 --> 00:26:48.619 is poured out upon us because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord. He sends to the prophetess 00:26:48.619 --> 00:26:55.759 to say, did I understand this right? Because if I got this right, we are all in so much trouble 00:26:55.759 --> 00:27:02.059 and all these reforms and everything that I've been doing, what is it going to, where is it going to lead? 00:27:02.179 --> 00:27:06.119 What is God doing? His response 00:27:06.119 --> 00:27:12.199 showed that he viewed God's Word so highly. 00:27:12.200 --> 00:27:22.100 He wanted confirmation. And this is what the chronicler emphasizes, right? Because it gives us 00:27:22.100 --> 00:27:29.799 Hulda's words. And the word that Hulda gives in response to this is twofold, right? The first part 00:27:29.799 --> 00:27:36.600 is a confirmation. Yes, you have heard it right. The judgment is coming. The evil that your father and 00:27:36.599 --> 00:27:43.500 your grandfather have done have so provoked the Lord that that judgment is coming. It is certain. 00:27:43.819 --> 00:27:51.179 And God will not be turned away from it. The nation of Israel will be conquered. And we know that this 00:27:51.179 --> 00:27:59.779 happens a hundred years later when Babylon comes and destroys the nation of Israel and breaks Jerusalem 00:27:59.779 --> 00:28:10.160 and sacks the temple. And it does happen. But the second part is an unexpected word, perhaps. 00:28:12.079 --> 00:28:17.579 Unless we've been reading the whole book of 2 Chronicles, and then we see that God is both 00:28:17.579 --> 00:28:27.319 judging of evil and merciful and gracious. Because we see in verses 26 through 28 that there is a reprieve 00:28:27.319 --> 00:28:33.759 for Josiah. Because he has sought the Lord, because he has brokenhearted over the sin of his people and 00:28:33.759 --> 00:28:43.299 his nation, because he has wept and in repentance torn his clothes, God will grant him a reprieve. 00:28:44.599 --> 00:28:51.980 Now, the sense of judgment is not commuted. It is not erased, but it is suspended for a generation. 00:28:51.980 --> 00:29:01.380 Josiah listens to God's word, and his heart response is right to it. And we see at the end of the chapter, 00:29:01.440 --> 00:29:08.940 we won't read it, but Josiah then leads the people to a renewal of covenant. He leads them to renew 00:29:08.940 --> 00:29:16.500 their covenant relationship with God, to commit to loving devotion, humble obedience, and faithful service 00:29:16.500 --> 00:29:23.180 to God. And we'll see next week to renew a worship that glorifies God. 00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:27.980 What about us? 00:29:30.319 --> 00:29:34.579 I want to start with this question. When we go to God's word, what are we hoping for? 00:29:36.500 --> 00:29:43.480 I don't know about you, but often what I really want to hear in God's word is comfort and hope 00:29:43.480 --> 00:29:51.759 an affirmation. I want something to make me feel better about all the things that are wrong in my 00:29:51.759 --> 00:30:01.259 life and in the world. But God's message is actually harder as well as better than what I often want 00:30:01.259 --> 00:30:09.980 when I go to God's word. Because friends, the Bible is a story about God's work in a broken and fallen 00:30:09.980 --> 00:30:18.339 world. And it exposes the reality of how bad the world really is. And not just the world out there, 00:30:18.599 --> 00:30:29.400 but how bad our hearts really are. And then how God has worked graciously to bring a hope of redemption 00:30:29.400 --> 00:30:35.519 in the midst of the right judgment against evil that God is carrying out in the world. 00:30:35.519 --> 00:30:46.319 Friends, this is the good news of the gospel. Romans chapter 6, verse 23. In one verse, here it is, 00:30:46.920 --> 00:30:57.940 for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 00:30:57.940 --> 00:31:12.519 God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. And we similarly need to hear this hard word. 00:31:14.120 --> 00:31:21.740 We are sinners under judgment and deserving of death before God because our hearts are idolatrous 00:31:21.740 --> 00:31:31.140 and worship other things more than God. Our hearts are faithless and have loved ourselves more than God. 00:31:31.480 --> 00:31:39.279 Our hearts are selfish and we have used others for our own benefit. Our hearts are wayward 00:31:39.279 --> 00:31:47.700 and we have wanted our own way rather than God's way. We have loved darkness rather than light. 00:31:47.700 --> 00:31:54.960 And friends, we are not all as bad as we could be. But if we are honest with ourselves, 00:31:55.259 --> 00:32:04.539 we know this is in all of our hearts. And the voices of our culture today, they want to tell us 00:32:04.539 --> 00:32:11.759 we're all right. And even when they're speaking hard words, they're saying, you can fix this on your own. 00:32:11.759 --> 00:32:19.279 But friends, these are lies. They are not true and they are not helpful. 00:32:21.140 --> 00:32:28.740 Like a patient with cancer that we are unaware of, our ignorance of the truth of our sin and God's 00:32:28.740 --> 00:32:37.039 judgment will lead to our death. And our unwillingness to face this reality will lead to our destruction. 00:32:37.039 --> 00:32:46.019 But friends, just like Josiah heard a word that is hard but also unexpectedly good, 00:32:46.460 --> 00:32:55.259 so the gospel speaks a word that is hard but is unexpectedly good to us. Because God has spoken 00:32:55.259 --> 00:33:06.319 a better word, a word of hope, clearly. He has spoken to us in Jesus. In fact, he says Jesus is 00:33:06.319 --> 00:33:18.079 the word of God made flesh who came to save sinners like us. He was the one who went to the cross to bear 00:33:18.079 --> 00:33:28.339 the judgment, the same judgment that came on the evil of Israel. He bore the judgment for the evil of our sins. 00:33:28.339 --> 00:33:51.000 Jesus came not for a reprieve, but to actually give us a pardon so that those sins are judged and taken away. 00:33:51.000 --> 00:34:02.420 And instead, we get an invitation. Return to me. You see the seeds of it in Josiah. His humble heart, his weeping over his sin, 00:34:02.680 --> 00:34:07.900 his repentance. Go back and listen to Pastor Nick's sermon about repentance last week. It was great. 00:34:09.000 --> 00:34:15.639 Repentance from sin and turning to God, but recognizing that all of this is a heart response 00:34:15.639 --> 00:34:22.079 to the fact that God has already spoken the word that we most need to hear in the gospel, 00:34:22.319 --> 00:34:27.239 that Jesus has come to save sinners like you and me. 00:34:30.659 --> 00:34:38.599 This is the good news. This is the hope. This is the word that we most need to hear. 00:34:38.599 --> 00:34:43.420 And it's okay if you listen to podcasts on your way to work. 00:34:44.059 --> 00:34:47.639 And it's okay to watch the news and to find out what's going on. 00:34:48.719 --> 00:34:58.799 But do we let this gospel message shape our thoughts more profoundly than any of those things? 00:34:59.579 --> 00:35:03.559 Do we see human beings as created in the image of God, 00:35:03.559 --> 00:35:08.880 fallen because of our sin and in need of and capable of redemption 00:35:08.880 --> 00:35:11.559 through God's work in their lives? 00:35:12.279 --> 00:35:16.340 Do we think that the most important thing that's going on in this world 00:35:16.340 --> 00:35:20.420 isn't geopolitical politics, it's not economics, 00:35:20.420 --> 00:35:23.799 but it's that God is doing a work of redemption, 00:35:24.440 --> 00:35:26.599 saving people from darkness to life? 00:35:28.920 --> 00:35:31.639 When we think of what is most important, 00:35:31.639 --> 00:35:35.119 do we count all things as loss? 00:35:35.699 --> 00:35:36.719 Our self-care, 00:35:37.359 --> 00:35:40.960 our amassing a future financially, 00:35:41.440 --> 00:35:43.119 our raising our children's well, 00:35:43.579 --> 00:35:45.940 our discovering our true selves, 00:35:46.199 --> 00:35:48.099 whatever it is that the world would say, 00:35:48.659 --> 00:35:50.480 would we count all those things as loss 00:35:50.480 --> 00:35:53.319 for the sake of knowing Christ and being found in Him? 00:35:54.920 --> 00:35:56.980 Because He has been our salvation. 00:35:56.980 --> 00:36:04.139 Will we let God's Word tell us what is right and wrong, 00:36:04.659 --> 00:36:08.639 that good and evil are known through reading His Word? 00:36:10.420 --> 00:36:11.780 Do you see, friends? 00:36:12.880 --> 00:36:14.179 Whatever we do, 00:36:15.699 --> 00:36:19.619 what we are to learn from Josiah and his example this morning 00:36:19.619 --> 00:36:24.599 is that God's Word is so precious and valuable 00:36:24.599 --> 00:36:27.179 that God has spoken to us 00:36:27.179 --> 00:36:30.059 and He has spoken most fully and finally 00:36:30.059 --> 00:36:32.279 in the person and the work of Jesus. 00:36:33.440 --> 00:36:36.139 And friends, we would spend the rest of our lives 00:36:36.139 --> 00:36:38.699 meditating on and learning about 00:36:38.699 --> 00:36:40.599 and growing in understanding 00:36:40.599 --> 00:36:44.319 of how precious and beautiful and wonderful 00:36:44.320 --> 00:36:46.160 this redemption is 00:36:46.160 --> 00:36:48.880 and how beautiful our Savior is. 00:36:51.640 --> 00:36:54.080 And friends, that's the voice we most need to hear. 00:36:54.320 --> 00:36:54.860 Let's pray. 00:36:59.280 --> 00:37:01.880 Lord, I pray that by Your Spirit this morning, 00:37:02.740 --> 00:37:06.039 Lord, You would be speaking to our hearts. 00:37:06.039 --> 00:37:13.279 Lord, we pray that You would make us 00:37:13.279 --> 00:37:17.659 men and women who hunger and thirst for Your Word. 00:37:21.079 --> 00:37:24.159 Lord, I pray that where You have convicted us 00:37:24.159 --> 00:37:25.259 of sin this morning, 00:37:25.639 --> 00:37:29.199 that we would turn to You in repentance and in faith. 00:37:32.960 --> 00:37:35.960 Lord, I pray that as we go from here, 00:37:36.039 --> 00:37:38.739 that You would help us to practice 00:37:38.739 --> 00:37:44.539 seeking, finding, and treasuring Your Word in our lives. 00:37:47.599 --> 00:37:49.139 For it leads us to Christ, 00:37:50.420 --> 00:37:52.719 which is what we most need. 00:37:54.519 --> 00:37:55.420 Thank You, Lord. 00:37:56.440 --> 00:37:57.739 We pray in Jesus' name. 00:37:58.360 --> 00:37:58.639 Amen.