Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Well beloved. Let's turn our attention
to second chronicles, Chapter Thirty Four.
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Second Chronicles thirty four the first of
two parts about king Josiah's reign. Let's
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give our attention to the reading of
God's word. Josiah was eight years old
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when he began to reign, and
he reigned thirty one years in Jerusalem,
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and he did what was right in
the eyes of the Lord and walked in
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the ways of David, his father, and he did not turn aside to
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the right hand or to the left. For in the eighth year of his
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reign, while he was yet a
boy, he began to seek the God
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of David, his father. And
in the twelfth year he began to purge
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Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherine and the carved and the
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metal images. And they chopped down
the altars of the bales in his presence,
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and he cut down the incensalters that
stood above them, and he broke
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in pieces the Asherine and the carved
and the metal images, and he made
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dust of them and scattered it over
the graves of those who had sacrificed to
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them. He also burned the bones
of the priests on their altars and cleansed
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Judah and Jerusalem and in the cities
of Manassa, ephrium and Simeon and as
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far as Naphtali, in their ruins
all around. He broke down the altars
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and beat the Ashrem and the images
into powder and cut down all the incense
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alters throughout all the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem, now
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in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had cleansed the land and
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the house, he sent to Shafon, the son of Ozli Az Azaliyah,
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and Maassiah, the governor of the
city, and Joah, the son of
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Jehoahz, the recorder, to repair
the House of the Lord his God.
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They came to Hilchia, the high
priest, and gave him the money that
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had been brought into the House of
God, which the Levites, the keepers
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of the threshold, had collected from
Manassei, at Manassa and Ephrium and from
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all the remnants of Israel and from
all Judah and Benjamin and from the inhabitants
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of Jerusalem, and they gave it
to the workmen who were working in the
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House of the Lord and the workmen
who are working in the House of the
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Lord, gave it for repairing and
restoring the house. They gave it to
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the carpenters and the builders to buy
quarried stone and timber for binders and beams
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for the buildings that the kings of
Judah had let go to ruin, and
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the men did the work faithfully.
Over them were sent were set Jehaf and
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Obadiah and the Levites of the sons
of Marai and Zechariah and Mashulam, the
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sons of the Koothites, to have
oversight the Levites. All who were skillful
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with instruments of music were over the
board and bearers and directed all who did
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work in every kind of service,
and some of the Levites were scribes and
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officials and gate keepers. While they
were bringing the money or while they were
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bringing out the money that had been
brought into the House of the Lord,
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Hilkia, the priest, found the
book of the Law of the Lord Given
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through Moses. Then Hilkia answered and
said to Schaffon, the secretary, I
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have found the book of the law
in the House of the Lord, and
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Hilkia gave the book to Chiffon and
Chiffon brought the book to the King and
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further reported to the king all that
was committed to your servants. They are
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doing they have emptied out the money
that was found in the house of the
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Lord and have given it to the
hand of the overseers and the workmen.
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Then Chiffon, the secretary, told
the King Hilkiah, the priest, has
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given me a book, and Chiffon
read from it before the king. And
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when the king heard the words of
the law, he tore his clothes and
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the king commanded Hilkia Ah Ahikam,
the son of Chaffan Abad and the son
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of Mik Mikah, Chaffan, the
secretary, and Asi Asaiah, the King's
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servants, saying go inquire of the
Lord for me and for those who are
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left in Israel and in Judah,
concerning the words of the book that has
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been found, for great is the
wrath of the Lord that is poured out
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on us because our fathers have not
kept the word of the Lord to do
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according to all that is written in
this book. So I'Lkia and those whom
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the king had sent went to who
hold up the prophetess, the wife of
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Shalomn, the son of Tokelf,
the son of Hasrah, keeper of the
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Wardrobe. Now she lived in Jerusalem
in the second quarter, and spoke to
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her to that effect, and she
said to them, thus says the Lord,
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the God of Israel, tell the
man who you sent to me.
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Thus says the Lord Behold, I
will bring disaster upon this place and upon
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its inhabitants, all the curses that
are written in the book that was read
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before the King of Judah, because
they have forsaken me and if made offerings
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to other gods that they might provoke
me to anger with all the works of
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their hands. Therefore, my wrath
will be poured out on this place and
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will not be quenched, but to
the king of Judah, who you sent
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to inquire of the Lord, thus
you say to him, thus says the
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Lord, the God of Israel,
regarding the words that you have heard,
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because your heart was tender and you
humbled yourself before God when you heard his
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words against this place and its inhabitants, and you have humbled yourself before me
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and have torn your clothes and wept
before me. I also have heard you,
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declares the Lord Behold. I will
gather you to your I will gather
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you to your father's and you shall
be gathered to your grave in peace,
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and your eye shall not see all
the disaster that I will bring upon this
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place and its inhabitants. And they
brought back word to the king. Then
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the king sent and gathered together all
the elders of Judah and Jerusalem, and
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the king went up to the House
of the Lord with all of the men
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of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem
and the priests and the Levites, all
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the people, both great and small, and he read in their hearing all
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the book, words of the Book
of the Covenant that had been found in
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the house of the Lord, and
the king stood in his place and made
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a covenant before the Lord to walk
after the Lord and to keep his commandments
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and his testimonies in his statutes with
all his heart and all his soul to
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perform the words of the Covenant that
were written in this book. Then he
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made all who were present in Jerusalem
and in Benjamin join in it, and
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the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to
the Covenant of God, the God of
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their fathers, and Josiah took away
all the abominations from all the territory that
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belonged to the people of Israel and
made all who were present in Israel serve
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their God all his days. They
did not turn away from following the Lord,
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the God of their fathers, since
the reading of God's word, and
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he bless it to us. This
is the story of a reset, the
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story of what we might call Covenant
Renewal. You might imagine a husband and
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wife, for example, that get
married, they establish their covenant with one
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another, they make their promises,
but over of a period of time,
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for various reasons, they fall apart
from one another and, sadly, they
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perhaps break the terms of their covenant. They struggle against one another, they
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fight with one another, maybe there's
even an infidelity of some kind. But
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then, one day, sorting through
old papers, they find the vows that
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they once made, the promises that
they may do each other, and they
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read them and they look through them
and they say, they decide we need
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to start again, not to be
remarried in a way, but because they're
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already married, but to renew the
Covenant that they've made, to say their
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vows again. Perhaps, maybe you've
even known people who have done this,
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who've renewed their wedding vows. Something
like that is going on here in Judah.
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Good King Josiah has a heart for
the Lord, even from a very
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young age. Children, this should
be a great encouragement to you to know
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that this boy, when he was
only eight years old. Some of you
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are children that are older than eight, when he was only eight years old
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he began to reign. Now,
no doubt he had difficulty being king over
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over all of this country and no
doubt God provided him with advisors and servants
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who helped him. But the point
that God makes here in his word is
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that this king, who was a
boy, was benefited and Strang benefited and
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did well, not because of all
of his great advisors, but because God
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had done something in his heart.
God had moved in his heart to make
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Josiah a boy who loved the Lord. This little boy we read in verse
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two, did what was right in
the eyes of the Lord. He walked
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in the ways of David, his
father, and he did not turn aside
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to the right hand or to the
left. This expression of turning to the
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right hand or towards the left has
is the image of staying straight right,
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if you were to walk down this
aisle right here in the middle of the
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middle of our hall here. If
you were to turn to the right,
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you'd end up in chairs right,
if you turn to the left, you'd
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end up bumping into chairs. But
if you stay straight, you move,
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you move without obstacles. This is
what Josiah did. He stayed on,
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as we say, the straight and
narrow. He didn't wander off right or
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left, but stayed true to God's
words in Josiah. Here we come to
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understand what the Lord Values as faithfulness. This is very helpful because there are
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times in our lives where we wonder
what it is God wants of us.
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We think about this, and this
is important. Paul says in Romans that
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should we should strive to determine what
it is, what is the will of
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God. Well, here we are
told, we're given an example of what
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faithfulness looks like, and Amazingly we
get it in this in this young boy.
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What is faithfulness in the Lord's eyes? Faithfulness is seeing things according to
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God's vision of the world and not
his own. He did what was right
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in the eyes of the Lord.
He saw things as God saw them,
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not according to his own desires,
his own wishes or the way that the
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world presented them, but it wasn't
just correct vision, there was action attached
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to it. Faithfulness to the Lord
is not just seeing things according to the
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God's perspective, but it's acting accordingly. He not only saw things this way,
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but he walked in that way.
He did what was right in the
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eyes of the Lord. He walked
in the ways of his father. What
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did that look like for Josiah?
For Josiah that looked like a several different
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things. The first thing we see
is that he puts away idolatry, all
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of the the the idolatry that had
built up in his land over the years,
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the worshiping of false gods, the
false worship practices. Josiah decided to
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put it all away and symphasized really
strongly there multiple times. We have repeated
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that. He broke things down in
pieces, that he crushed them up into
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powder, and then he did it
all over the place. He wasn't selective
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about this. Sometimes it's easy to
do the right thing when it's easy,
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instead of doing it extensively and in
every place, Josiah is thorough. Why?
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Because his heart is for the Lord. He cares about the Lord.
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He doesn't want to see in his
country and his house, people worshiping those
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that are false gods. Well,
he not only puts away idolatry and serves
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God alone, but he also puts
effort into establishing true worship. We read
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that he invests in the temple,
in the House of the Lord. He
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makes sure that the donations that are
given for the upkeep of the temple go
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there. There's order, there's leadership
as the temple is is repaired and and
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built, especially after the days of
unfaithfulness of Manassa and am and. Well,
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now he goes about the work of
the temple and there are carpenters and
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there are workers, there's that's a
busy place. And what happens? God
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blesses him with something very wonderful.
Somehow, as they're in the middle of
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all their work, they see a
book, or rather a scroll, better
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translated. Most likely, they see
a scroll and they open it up and
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they realize that this is the very
word of God that God had given Moses
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those many, many years ago.
This could have been all five books of
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the Old Testament, the first five
books of the Bible, sometimes called the
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Pentituke it. It more likely was
deuteronomy itself. This is a book that
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is often referred to as the book
of the law. It is the actual
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covenant that God made with his people. Josiah reads this. He he gains
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the word of the Lord and he
hears it eagerly. There's kind of an
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excitement that's going on as he hears
the words, but as it has read
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to him, the excitement and the
joy of having found it goes away.
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Why? We read in Verse Nineteen
that when the King heard the words of
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the law, he tore his clothes. Why? Why did he tear his
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clothes? Why did he rip his
clothes? It wasn't because he hated the
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law. It wasn't because he despised
God. All of a sudden, he
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tore his clothes as an act of
frustration, as an act of mourning,
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as an act of sorrow. Have
you ever been so sad or so angry
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that you feel like you just want
to rip something, that you're so sorrowful
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that you just have to express it
in your body somehow? This is something
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of what Josiah does. He tears
his clothes and he's so sad and he's
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so sorrowful because he realizes that things
were, because he realizes how serious the
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idolatry has been. He realizes not
just how bad it was but the consequences
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for it. Want to tell read
to you what Josiah heard. This is
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in Deuteronomy Chapter Twenty eight. In
Deuteronomy Chapter Twenty Eight and in a twenty
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seven as well, we have these
blessings and curses. This is at the
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end of Deuteronomy. And throughout Deuteronomy
you have the giving of the law and
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which God gives such to his people, all of his commandments and statutes,
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reminds them over and over how they
ought to keep them. And then at
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the very end of the book,
God speaks to them and declares that if
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you do these things, if you
don't go after the way of the Canaanites,
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if you stay with me, if
you follow after my ways, if
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you seek me, then I will
bless you, but if you fail,
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I will curse you. So,
for example, we can look at Deuteronomy
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twenty seven, verse eleven. That
day Moses charged the people, saying,
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when you have crossed over the Jordan, these shall stand on Mountain Garowzeem to
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best the people, and then he
lists tribes. So you have one set
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of tribes on one mountain, and
then the other set of tribes on the
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other mountain, the Levites, or
them, to declare, between these two
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mountains, these words, starting in
Verse Fifteen. Cursed be the man who
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makes a carved image or cast metal
image and abomination to the Lord, a
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thing made by the hands of a
craftsman, and sets it up in secret,
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and all the people shall say on
men. Cursed be anyone who dishonors
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his father and mother and all the
people shall say a men. Cursed be
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anyone who moves his neighbor's landmark and
all the people shall say a men.
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Cursed be anyone who misleads a blind
man on the road, and all the
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people shall say a men. So
here you have the levites declaring out these
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curses. Cursed, be this person, cursed, be this person, and
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all of Israel standing there saying I
will, I will, I will,
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or Amen, amen on men.
It is so, it is so,
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it is so. The specific curses
for disobedience are then listed in Chapter Twenty
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eight. Let me read some of
them to you, beginning in Verse Fifteen.
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But if you will not obey the
voice of the Lord, your God,
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or be careful to do all his
commandments and his statutes that I command
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you today, then all these curses
shall come upon you and overtake you.
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Cursed. Shall you be in the
city? Cursed? Shall you be in
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the field? Cursed. Shall be
your basket and you're needing bull. Cursed
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shall be the shall be the fruit
of your womb and the fruit of your
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ground and the increase of your herds
and the young of your flock. Cursed
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shall be when you come in,
cursed shall be when you go out.
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The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and frustration and all that you
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undertake, until you are destroyed and
perish quickly on account of the evil of
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your deeds, because you have forsaken
me. The Lord will make the pestilence
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stick to you until he has consumed
you off the land that you are entering
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to take possession of it. The
Lord will strike you with wasting disease and
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with fever inflammation and fiery heat and
withdraught and with blight and with mildew.
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They shall pursue you until you perish
and the heavens over you shall be bronze
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and the Earth shall be the Earth
under you shall be iron. The Lord
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will make the reign of your land. Powder from the heaven dust shall come
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down on you until you are destroyed. The Lord will cause you to be
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defeated before your enemies. You shall
go out one way against them and flee
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seven ways before them. You shall
be a horror to all the kingdoms of
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the earth and your dead body shall
be food for all the birds of the
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air and for the beasts of the
Earth, and there shall be no one
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to frighten the way. It goes
on like this. I have another one,
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two, three columns of these kinds
of curses. They're powerful words.
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Can you imagine, as a king
who has set your eyes on the Lord,
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who's commanded to live by his law? For some reason, this book
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going under neglect after all these years
of worshiping false idols. You dust it
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off, you open it up and
you read this terrifying he tears his clothes
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in horror for the things that they
have done, in repentance in sorrow.
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Things are very bad. Now we
haven't heard much of it here as we've
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gone through chronicles, but as you
read other parts of the Old Testament you'll
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discover that this should be no surprise
to the people as a whole. Though
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this book has been lost, of
course due to their own fault and neglect,
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but there have been prophets who have
been declaring these things, people that
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have been warning all of Israel.
The northern kingdom has been a prophetic warning
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that these things were going to come, that for lack of faithfulness as a
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people, for all of these abominations, specific things that God told them not
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to do in his law, that
they would be destroyed and go into exile.
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How does Josiah respond? Josiah responds
in sorrow, he tears his clothes,
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he inquires whether these things will be
so, and indeed, hold a
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the prophetess says they will, but
she adds this good news. She says
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to Josiah, the King, in
Verse Twenty Six. Thus says the Lord,
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the God of Israel, regarding the
words you have heard, because your
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heart was tender and you humbled yourself
before your before God, when you heard
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his words against this place and its
inhabitants. And you have humbled yourself before
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me, and if torn your clothes
and wept before me, I also have
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heard you, declares the Lord.
Behold, I will gather you to your
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father's and you shall be gathered to
your grave in peace, and your eyes
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shall not see all the disaster that
I will bring upon this place and its
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inhabitants. God is saying here that
the Covenant Has Been Broken, that wrath,
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pestilence, famine, war and all
the rest will come upon him as
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people for their breaking the covenant.
Curses and judgment will come. But we
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have a glimmer of hope in hold
as words. As she speaks the words
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of the Lord to Josiah. The
little glimmer of hope is seen in that
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God acknowledges, although I think that
words too weak. But God responds to
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to Josiah's repentance and sorrow with forgiveness. It's interesting that later on Josiah gathers
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this is in verse twenty nine.
He gathers the people of Judah and Jerusalem
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together and he calls them to do
the same. He reads the words and
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they make a covenant. They they
renew the Covenant to work after the to
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walk after the Lord, and and
this seems a good indeed. It is
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good, and indeed change is happen. You can read more about it in
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second kings. There are changes that
happen, and the summary here is given
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that the people walked and in the
ways of the Lord all his days.
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We read at the very last verse
of this chapter they did not turn away
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from following Lord, the God of
their fathers. But there's an interesting remark
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here that it is said that in
verse thirty two, that he made all
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those who are present in Jerusalem and
Benjamin should join in it. He's sort
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of by the power of the throne
enforces it. He uses this kind of
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coercive political power to accomplish this thing, and in it a way it's good.
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In his time, it is a
theocracy, after all, they are
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to be ruled after the Covenant,
and he is King, and it is
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a good thing that they follow him. But it's a far cry from the
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kind of heartfelt jubilation that we see
in other parts of this book. It's
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a far cry from people responding in
kind with Josiah, likewise tearing their clothes,
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likewise repenting of their sins. They
are like obedient children who say yes,
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sir, we'll do it, but
it's not coming from the heart.
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It doesn't seem to any way,
because after his death we see how quickly
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a things decline. In all of
this, I think there's several things that
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God intends to teach us about himself
in this covenantal context and then this covenantal
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renewal. Want to just list a
few as we conclude. One is that
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God teaches us what faithfulness is,
and I've mentioned that already. We see
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faithfulness in Josiah, an example of
what it means to follow after the Lord
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and to do what is right.
These examples that we have in scripture of
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course much more than examples, and
we will speak about that in a moment,
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but but they are examples nevertheless.
They're good to reflect on and think
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about, good to think and about
in our own lives. How do we
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respond to the things of the Lord, when we hear his word, when
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we walk in his ways or not? God describes here faithfulness. He declares
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Josiah a good king. We would
do right to study him and others who
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do well. Another thing that we
learn about God is that he does not
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wink at sin, that the commendations
of Josiah's faithfulness all have a corresponding a
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condemnation of unfaithfulness. God Does Not
Wink at sin. Faithfulness matters to him,
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obedience matters to him. God has
called to himself a people that are
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supposed to be holy set apart.
In just the last chapter, we were
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reading that the king's King, Manassa, was sacrificing his own children to false
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god, odds, the very one
of the very things that the Canaanites were
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condemned and spit out of the land
for. Another thing that we learned is
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not only that God, God,
is holy and Demands Holiness and his people,
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but we also learned that his judgment
is fierce. As you think and
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reflect on some of the the curses
that I mentioned from Deuteronomy Twenty eight and
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and indeed there are many more,
as we read here of hold us prophecy,
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as she speaks the words of the
Lord in Verse Twenty Four. Behold,
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I will bring disaster upon this place
and upon its inhabitants, all the
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curses that are written in the book
that was read before the King of Judah.
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Because of these things, because God
has been provoked to anger, I'm
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it will indeed be disaster. God
has been so slow to anger, tolerating
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disobedience year after year after year,
generation after generation after generation. But just
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because God is slow to judgment does
not mean that there will be no judgment.
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He promises that their will. This
is true not just for the people
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of Israel and Judah here in second
chronicles, but it's true for all of
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us. God promises that these things
are but foreshadowing the day when Jesus will
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return and judge all the earth,
those that follow after idols, those that
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give themselves over to the desires of
this world, those that give themselves over
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to evil, sensuality, idolatry.
They will be judged and it will be
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fierce. The pain and suffering that
we will suffer if we do not repent,
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as Josiah does, if we do
not seek after the things of the
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Lord and find His grace and favor, will be far worse than the curses
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that are listed in Deuteronomy, because
they will be forever and they will be
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not only for this age but also
for the next. God Does Not Wink
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at sin. You must not either. So we learn about what faithfulness looks
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like, what God will desires and
faithfulness. We also see his judgment that
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though he is slow to anger,
he does judge, he does judge sin,
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and it is fierce and fair.
But, as I mentioned before,
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there is of course hope for all
who sin. Against the Lord. There
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is for giveness, a forgiveness that's
open even as judgment is being declared.
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What a remarkable thing. The even
as God is promising that is real as
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a people will be judged. Josiah, who calls out to the Lord and
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and is sorrowful for the sins of
his people, he finds grace and favor.
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Josiah will not experience of the earthly
trials and sufferings, and I don't
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believe he will experience the eternal ones
either, though we will see in the
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coming chapter that Josiah, like every
other king before him, is not perfect
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either, and he does sin and
does have faults. He does stay true
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to the Lord. The Lord has
worked in him, and the Lord gathers
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him to his father's not just in
a way that avoids a kind of earthly
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calamity, but in a way of
it saves his soul. This is what
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God does for us. These earthly
temporal pictures are pictures of what Jesus accomplishes
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for us through his work on the
cross, through the work on the cross
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when Jesus comes as this son of
David who fulfills the role that all of
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these kings are failing to fulfill.
And various ways and various degrees, Jesus
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on the cross does both of these
things. There is on the cross you
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see God's fierce fairness as he judges
sin, but also his faithfulness in keeping
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his promises for forgiveness to all who
call on him. Even you see they're
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on the people on either side of
him, these two thieves, you remember,
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one remaining strong and and and set
in his sins, and the other
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one calling out for forgiveness even easy. Hangs there next to Jesus, and
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Jesus says to him today, you
will see me in paradise, though he
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will be judged in this earthly way
for our sins. Though the thief will
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die there on the cross, it's
not final, because Jesus accomplishes something that
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is truly great. He gives to
US and all who call on him,
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eternal life. Jesus was the faithful
king that Josiah pictures but never fulfills.
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Josiah can use political power in a
way to pressure and in force a kind
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of obedience, of visible obedience,
among the people, but Jesus has a
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way of changing our very hearts,
and you who know him know what I
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mean to follow after him heart and
soul, not nearly outwardly. Yes,
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sir, I suppose I'll do that, sir, but out of love,
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out of true joy and thankfulness.
When God changes our hearts, when Jesus
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sends his spirit into us to move
us, he changes us as in such
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a way that faithfulness becomes a part
of our lives, as it was Josiah's,
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and that when we sin, and
even when we see the consequences of
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our sin coming upon us, instead
of being hard and it in, set
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in it and angry at God,
we what do we do? The heart
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of one who has been changed as
the heart of one who criles out,
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who terrors his clothes, who goes
to the Lord and says forgive me,
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forgive us. In Jesus is work
on the Cross. We see God's fierce
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judgment and Wrath poured out upon sin
as the sun dies for the sins of
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the world. But as he does
so, we see how forgiven, forgiveness
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is open up for all of us
us, and in this we see how
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Jesus is a Greater Josiah, how
he fulfills for us the things that are
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pictured here. Josiah was a good
king, but he was not the king.
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He points US forward to a to
one who is to come. These
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are the things that God teaches us
as we read this story. These are
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the ways in which God shows to
us our savior. How will you respond?
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I would encourage you to respond and
to that good news by trusting in
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the God who saves, by looking
at your sins, by looking at the
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law and being honest about it.
Don't cover it up, don't hide it,
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tear your clothes, cut your hand
off, poke your eye out,
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whatever it takes, Jesus says,
and trust in him, because he promises
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that all who come to him in
faith and repentance will indeed enter into life,
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will not receive the curses to come, but the blessings of being loved
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by God. Let us ask that
God would work these things in our hearts.
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