A (0:00)

So when we left off last time in chapter 21, it was the death of Ammon, King of Judah. And there's been an evil legacy up to this point. Ammon's father was Manasseh. Manasseh was the most evil of the kings of Judah. And he has a son, Ammon, who continues to be evil as he was. But Ammon was so evil that some of his cabinet members decided to assassinate him. So Amnon dies, and he's only 24 years of age. And so because he dies at such a young age, his son Josiah rises to the throne. But Josiah is only 8 years old. And so he becomes king, which, you know, do the math. If amnon dies at 24 and he has an 8 year old son, amnon had Josiah when he was 16. And so Josiah is this kid, but now all of a sudden he's King of Judah. I mean, you're eight years old. Like the biggest decision you've had up to this point, you're in third grade, like, do you want Mac and cheese or peanut butter and jelly? That's, you know, his biggest decision he's had to make in his life. And now he's ruling a nation. And so this is young Josiah. He's 8 years old. His, his name in Hebrew is Yoshia, which means founded or supported by Yahweh, by, by God. And, and so we talked at the end of chapter 21 about how even though Manasseh was evil and Ammon his son, was evil, Josiah, the next of the descendants here. So Josiah's the grandson of Manasseh and the son of Ammon. Josiah is the most righteous of all the kings. So he comes from a very evil heritage. But it doesn't really matter where you've come from. What matters is who are you in the Lord yourself? And so we ended chapter 21 looking at this principle that a bad heritage doesn't make us bad and a good heritage doesn't make us good either. We must know the Lord for ourselves. And that's what you're going to see here in the Life of Josiah. A couple of chapters are devoted to him here in Second Kings. And he is a righteous young man. And even into his adulthood, he maintains that righteousness. When you see some good kings in Israel to the north, or some good kings in Judah to the south, it is often that they start out well, and then there's a bump in the road and they don't always finish that well. But Josiah starts out well. He continues to walk worthy of the Lord, and he Dies well, so he's not going to live to be very old. He dies at the age of 39. He's going to be killed in battle. But nevertheless, for the duration of his life, he is a very righteous king, really the best of all the kings. And so here in chapter 22, we read this verse 1, that Josiah was 8 years old when. When he became king, and he reigned 31 years in Jerusalem. So obviously do the math. That's how we know that he dies at 39. We'll get to his tragic death a little bit later. But he reigns for 31 years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath. And he did notice this, and he did what was right in the sight of the Lord. How refreshing is this? And he walked in all the ways of his father David, meaning King David. So he's talking about his ancestor. He did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. And then it says in verse three, now, it came to pass in the 18th year of King Josiah. Okay, so just kind of pause there for a moment because now we've jumped from his first year at the age of eight to his 18th year. So obviously now he's 26. One of the benefits you have of the Bible is that the Bible is often the best commentary on the Bible. And there's a gap here that Kings doesn't tell us much about, but 2 Chronicles does. So I'm going to. You can turn if you'd like, but I'm just going to read a little bit from 2 Chronicles, chapter 34, just a couple books over to the right, because it tells us some important things about Josiah in between when he's 8 years old and when he's 26, some very important things happen in his life that really shape the trajectory of the rest of his life. And so here in chapter 34 of 2 Chronicles, I'll start at verse 1. I'm just going to read down through verse 7. It says Josiah was 8 years old when he became king, and he reigned 31 years in Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord and walked in the ways of his father David. And he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left for verse three in the eighth year of his reign. Okay, so now he's 16 years old. In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David. Okay, that's an important statement. He began to seek The Lord for himself. So he's 16 years old. It's a very, you know, pivotal time in his life. This is a very pivotal time in anyone's life. You know, when you're a teenager, this is the time to really seek the Lord. Because if you don't really seek the Lord during your teenage years, statistically, the older someone gets, the less likely they are to trust Christ. And because those teenage years can be so challenging, it is important to decide who's going to be Lord of your life. And Josiah, at 16 years of age, makes this commitment to the Lord. He seeks the God of his father, David. He wants to be a devoted follower of the Lord. And it adds there also in verse three. And in the 12th year, that's the 12th year of his reign. So now he's 20 years old. He began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places. Okay? Now, the high places were the places of idolatry that previous kings had allowed, had actually even cultivated. That includes Josiah's father and grandfather. And he's going to go through and start to destroy these various idols and images and things in the land that are idolatrous and disgraceful to God. So it says now he's 20 years old. He began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places. The wooden images, the carved images, and the molded images, they broke down the altars of the Baals in his presence. BAAL is a false God of the Canaanites. And the incense altars which were above them, he cut down. And the wooden images, the carved images, and the molded images he broke in pieces, and he made dust of them, and he scattered it on the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. And he also burned the bones of the priests on their altars, talking about the false priests who practiced idolatry. And he cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. And so he did in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim and Simeon as far as Naphtali and all around with axes, when he had broken down the altars and the wooden images, had beaten the carved images into powder and cut down all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel, and then he returned to Jerusalem. So I thought that that section was important to read because you can go back here to 2 Kings now, you know, 2nd Kings goes from 8 years old to 26, but it doesn't tell us what Chronicles does that. There's some pivotal moments in Josiah's life when he's 16 and when he's 20 and when he's 16, he begins to seek the Lord, let me tell you, when you begin to seek the Lord with all your heart, he's going to reveal himself to you in powerful and personal ways. And when he does, it begins a cleansing process in your life. Because when the Lord begins to show you who he is and you become more surrendered to his lordship, you have a desire then to cleanse stuff that's impure in your own life, in your own heart. You have a desire to get right with him. And that was Josiah. This is a guy who's 8 years old when he becomes king. Not by his choice, his father's been murdered. All of a sudden he is thrust into the limelight. He's king of Judah, but he begins to seek the lord when he's 16. And then when he's 20, he starts to go through and cleanse the land of all this sin and idolatry and impurity. So he doesn't just have a personal walk with the Lord, he brings spiritual reform to the whole nation. And as the leader goes, so does go the nation. So back here in 2 Kings 22, now back to his age, 26, 3. Now, it came to pass in the 18th year of King Josiah that the king sent Shaphan the scribe, the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullom, to the house of the Lord, saying, go up to Hilkiah the high priest, that he may count the money which has been brought into the house of the Lord which the doorkeepers have gathered from the people, and let them deliver it into the hand of those doing the work who are the overseers in the house of the Lord. Let them give it to those who are in the house of the Lord doing the work to repair the damages of the house to carpenters and builders and masons, and to buy timber and hewn stone to repair the house. Okay, pause there for a moment. So part of this spiritual journey that Josiah is on, when he gets his heart right with the Lord and then he starts to bring spiritual reform to the nation, he also looks at the condition of the temple, and he says, this temple has fallen into a state of. Of disrepair. And why is that? Because his father, Ammon, king of Judah before him, had no regard for God. So he's not interested in keeping the temple well and in good condition. And Ammon's father before him, Manasseh, he was also evil. They're not even going to church. They could care less about the temple of the Lord. So it falls into a state of disrepair. And Josiah says, well, this is going to be a great Episode for hgtv. We're going to do a remake, a makeover of the temple of God. Wouldn't that be fantastic? Like hgtv, like doing a makeover of the temple of God. But anyway, it's not here now, but anyway. And so that's what Josiah embarks on. He's like, I got to repair all this. And so he receives offerings from the people and he gives them to the carpenters and to the stonemasons and to the builders, and they buy timber with it, and they buy. And they. And they make hewn stone to repair the house. And I want you to notice verse seven. This is a. This is an important verse, verse seven. However, there need be no accounting made with them of the money delivered into their hand because they deal faithfully. And I found that to be a very challenging principle that I, I put down for us. If you're taking notes, live your life with a reputation for integrity. These builders had such a good reputation for integrity, they didn't even need to give accounting for the money that they received. Their lives were such a testimony of integrity and righteousness that they didn't even have to account. Money was given to them. They were faithful. They did their work, they received their pay. There was no under the table money. There was no mismanagement of money. They were just doing what God told them to do, and they didn't even need to give account for it. So that, that just speaks to me that we should be also hopefully living our lives with such a reputation for integrity that people don't question us. We're giving no reasons for people to wonder because we're living with integrity. Well, it says then Hilkiah, the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. Now what happens is in the process of this restoration project of the temple, they find the book of the law that obviously has been neglected over the last many years because no one knew that it was missing. Right? See, can you imagine if you're like, you know, where's my Bible? Okay, well, you got to find it. Maybe you left it in the car, you left it around the house. But if you don't even know it's missing and you stumble upon it, you're like, oh, my Bible. And so like, the priest is in the temple and they're like rebuilding, refurbishing, and they're cleaning stuff up and they're like, hey, the Bible. Now listen, you have to remember, like, this is before the printing press. So they have a scroll here. It says the Book of the Law. It's probably a scroll. And you gotta think of this also. This is the scroll that has been preserved. And because it's been found, we really have Hilkiah, the high priest, to thank for us having our Bibles, because it could have gone unnoticed and been forever lost. Now, when it says the Book of the Law, it probably doesn't mean the entire Old Testament that we have in our Bibles. This is probably a reference to a specific book, and it's the Book of Deuteronomy. Now, here's how we suspect that. And you can just listen. I'll turn back to Deuteronomy, chapter 31. When God had given Moses instructions and he wrote down through the book of Deuteronomy, at the end of deuteronomy, it's chapter 31, verse 26, Moses. Then verse 25, Moses commanded the Levites who bore the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, saying, this is the instruction of Moses, Take this book of the Law and, and put it beside the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God that it may be there as a witness against you. In other words, the standard of God is going to bear witness to what is right and what is wrong. And so it is referred to the book of Deuteronomy itself is referred to as the Book of the Law. So here in Second Kings, when they discover the Book of the Law, it is likely that it's referring to the book of Deuteronomy itself, which was kept by the Ark of the Covenant as a standard of what is right and what is wrong. But because there has been unrighteous leadership in the land for all these years, no one knew it was missing. No one was living up to it. So when Josiah hears about this, so notice. So Hilkiah finds it and keep reading with me. And so Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan. Shaphan was the scribe, and he read it. And so Shaphan the scribe went to the king, bringing the king word, saying, you, servants came, have gathered the money that was found in the house and have delivered it into the hand of those who do the work. Okay, so we passed along the pay for the skilled laborers who oversee the house of the Lord. And then Shaphan the scribe showed the king, saying, hilkiah the priest has given me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. And now it happened when the king heard the words of the Book of the Law that he tore his clothes. Okay, now this is A sign in ancient times of grief because he just, you know, he just tears his robe because he is. He is convicted that the people have. And now he's king, so he owns it himself. They have neglected the commandments of God. They've neglected the commandments of God. And because God has said in the book of Deuteronomy, you walk in obedience, you'll be blessed. You walk in disobedience, you'll be. You're going to be cursed. And when he hears the book of the law read and he hears the blessings and the curses, he's like, whoa, we are in trouble because we have not been living according to the word of the Lord. And so he rips his clothing as a sign of grief and mourning. Here, now look, this is another principle to us that we're going to see carrying on in this chapter. And number two is to make God's word central to your life. The word of God had not been central to the life of the nation of Judah, and they had neglected the word of God. And so Josiah knows we're going to suffer the consequences for walking in disobedience all these years. Now he's going to make course correction here. But he's. He's just first. So stricken by their own disobedience as a nation. And here they have found this, you know, the book of the law. This is. This is just amazing. Again, it just strikes me how they. They, like, didn't even know it was missing. And they find it, you know, buried under a bunch of dust and debris. And here comes, you know, Shaphan reading it. He's got to blow the dust off first before he starts to read it to King Josiah. But verse 12 rather says, and then the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam the son of Shaphan, Achbor the son of Micaiah, Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah, a servant of the king, saying, go and inquire of the Lord for me, for the people, and for all Judah concerning the words of this book that has been found. For great is the wrath of the Lord that is aroused against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book to do according to all that is written concerning us. So he gives instructions to some of his cabinet officials. I want you to go inquire of the Lord for me. So who do they go to? Well, verse 14 says, so. Hilkiah, the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan and Asaiah went to Huldah, the prophetess, the wife of Shallum, the son of Tikvah, the son of Harass, keeper of the wardrobe. She dwelt in Jerusalem in the second quarter. Now you can circle Huldah's name there. She is an important figure, but not mentioned in other places. But this is a rare example of a prophetess, a woman who is gifted by the Lord to receive a word from the Lord. Now, she's not the only one in the Bible. You remember that Miriam, the sister of Moses, was considered a prophetess. She is called that in Exodus 15:20. Deborah 1, who's also considered a prophetess during the period of the judges. Judges 4. 4. Deborah's called a prophetess. Anna in the New Testament, in Luke chapter 2:36, When Jesus is presented for his circumcision in the temple. And also the four daughters of Philip are mentioned in Acts chapter 2. And so in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, you have these women who are prophetesses, but they are not often spoken of. And so Huldah is mentioned here. By the way, when we go to Israel, those of you going with me in a couple weeks, one of the gates at the top of the southern steps is named for her. It's called the Huldah Gate. And so she is a prophetess, and God is going to speak through her. And so they consult her verse. Well, this is the middle still of verse 14. And they spoke with her then verse 15. And then she said to them, thus says the Lord God of Israel, tell the man who sent you to me. Okay, so this is a word for King Josiah from the Lord. Thus says the Lord. Behold, I will bring calamity on this place and on its inhabitants. All the words of the book which the king of Judah has read, because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands. Therefore my wrath shall be aroused against this place and. And shall not be quenched. But as for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, in this manner you shall speak to him. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, concerning the words which you have heard. Because your heart, King Josiah, was tender, and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they would become a desolation and a curse. And. And you tore your clothes and wept before me. See, God saw all that. I also have heard you, says the Lord. Surely, therefore, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace. And your eyes shall not see all the calamity which I will bring on this place. So they brought back word to the king. I want to just focus as a principle on this last part, and then I'll come back and summarize all of it. I love what the Lord says through Huldah to Josiah in verse 19. Because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the Lord. I think that's just a great challenge for us, number three, to keep your heart tender and stay humble before the Lord. Because Josiah was tenderhearted towards the Lord and humble before him. The calamity that is being prophesied upon the nation of Judah will not come to him in his lifetime. God is going to be merciful to him. Now, this is around 623, 625 B.C. and what Huldah is prophesying here is the fact that even though Josiah is a good king, there have been such evil and such wickedness, such evil kings before Josiah and such wickedness among the people in the land that they're going to have a price to pay for their idolatry and their wickedness and their sin. It goes back to what I was mentioning on Sunday. I mean, we reap what we sow. And even though there's a new king on the throne, the people have been in idolatry for years, and they're going to suffer the consequences of their sin and their idolatry. And what's going to happen is in 586bc we know it now looking back, but Huldah is prophesying it into the future. This is again like 625 BC but in 586 BC the Babylonians are going to come and they're going to besiege the southern kingdom of Judah, and they're going to ransack Jerusalem and they're going to take people hostage and they are going to become a dominant world power. And so Huldah sees this coming, that God is going to allow the Babylonians to come to besiege Judah, and they will be used as the rod of his discipline. And so she's giving this warning, this is what's going to happen. But there's this consolation at the end for Josiah himself, because he's been a righteous king who has sought the Lord. And so God says, it's not going to happen in your lifetime. You're going to die. And when you die, you're going to die in peace. And they bring word back to the king. Now, chapter 23. Josiah is going to continue with his great Spiritual reform. And all of chapter 23, just about all of it, we get to his death here in the two thirds into chapter 23. But you're going to read here just all this extensive reform that he brings to the nation. And it's very detailed here. So there's not a whole lot of commentary I'm going to give as we read through this 23rd chapter. But. But I want you to notice all that he does to wipe out idolatry and to wipe out all of the sinful practices in the nation of Judah. So here we are. Chapter 23, verse 1. Now, the king sent them to gather all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to him. And the king went up to the house of the Lord with all the men of Judah, and with him all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests, the. And the prophets, and all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant which had been found in the house of the Lord. Okay, so he's going to take the entire book of Deuteronomy and the king himself, not the prophets. And Jeremiah was a prophet at this time. Zephaniah was a prophet at this time. He's not asking anyone else to read this. He himself as the king, he's going to set the example. And he reads the entire book of Deuteronomy in their hearing. And so it says, then the king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the Lord to follow the Lord and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And, and all the people took a stand for the covenant. Okay, now, a biblical covenant. This is. This is something significant in, in Old Testament times, when a covenant was made, it literally means to cut. So when it says that he made a covenant, it literally means in the Hebrew, he cut a covenant. Why does it mean that? Because when someone would make a covenant, they would take an animal and they would cut it in half. And. And they would place the two parts separate from each other with a path in between the two cut parts. And then someone making a covenant would walk in between those cut pieces of an animal. And the basic statement was, may it be done unto me the same thing done to this animal if I break covenant, if I break my promise on this arrangement that I'm agreeing to. That was how serious it was. And that's why it was considered a blood covenant. It was this promise that someone would make that was binding. And that if they broke the promise, and it's greater than a contract, it was a covenant because it was sealed by a blood arrangement, that if they broke their word, if they broke their promise, then it could be done unto them the same thing that was done to this animal. So he cuts. You know, it's not specific here, but that's what covenant means in the Old Testament. So he cuts this animal. He. He walks between it. The people must walk between it. They're like, we want to obey God and we want to serve him. And may it be done unto us. What's done to this animal if we don't serve the Lord and obey him. In verse 4. And the king commanded Hilkiah, the high priest, the priests of the second order, and the doorkeepers to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the articles that were made for BAAL and for Asherah and for all the host of heaven. Notice this host of heaven is talking about the starry host. They were into occult worship of the stars, of the moon and of the sun. And they even had altars made to articles and altars made to BAAL and Asherah. These are these false God and goddess of the Canaanites in the temple of the Lord. They had desecrated the temple of the Lord in previous reigns of kings before Josiah. And so Josiah's like, cleaning house, taking out these articles. And it says, and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. And then he removed the idolatrous priests whom the king of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places, in the cities of Judah and in the places all around Jerusalem. And those who burned incense to BAAL and to the sun, to the moon and to the constellations and to all the host of heaven. And he brought out the wooden image from the house of the Lord to the Brook Kidron outside Jerusalem, burned it at the Brook Kidron and ground it to ashes and threw its ashes on the graves of the common people. I want you to notice the language here. Burned it, ground it to ashes. And then he tore down the ritual booths of the perverted persons that were in the house of the Lord where the women wove hangings for the wooden image. Okay, now, the wooden image was an image to Asherah, the female goddess of the Canaanites. This was a sexual symbol because Asherah was the goddess of fertility. So this was very perverted, pornographic stuff that was in the temple of the Lord. Imagine this. And he grounds it to. He burns it grounds it to ashes. Also has to cast out tore down the ritual booths of the perverted persons. Some of your footnotes says those practicing sodomy and prostitution in religious rituals. The Hebrew word here for perverted persons is kedashim. Kadeshim actually means those who are righteous. And it isn't that those perverted people were righteous. It means that they were practicing their sexual perversion and their prostitution as religious rituals. And that was going on in the house of the Lord. So, I mean, what he's doing here to bring reform is so necessary. And just think how the place of worship has become basically a brothel and it's become a place of perversion and it's become a place of gross sexual immorality. And, you know, look, the condition of the modern church when it endorses things like same sex marriage and transgender, you know, all this stuff, look, the modern church today that has gone so woke, it's just as perverted. And so what we're seeing here is this reform. It says in verse 8, and he brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense from Geba to Beersheba. Also, he broke down the high places of the gates, which were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the governor of the city, which were to the left of the city gate. Nevertheless, the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread among their brethren. And he defiled. Now, when it says he defiled, it means, you know, he's ruining the idolatrous stuff. So it's not defiled in a bad way, it's defiled in a good way. And I want you to notice this next one. He defiled, verse 10. He defiled topheth, which is in the valley of the Son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech. Okay, make note, in your Bible, Topheth is from a Hebrew root word, toph, which means drum, the kind that you beat or play. Now it's called Topheth and it's referencing here, the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, otherwise known as the Valley of Ben Hinnom. The Valley of Ben Hinnom is in the southern part of the Kidron Valley, which is just east of the Temple Mount of Jerusalem. So I want you to imagine this as I break it down. Here you have the temple of the Lord and the valley right next to it is the Kidron Valley. And at the bottom of the Kidron Valley is the Valley of Ben Hinnom. Do you know what. What Israelis call Ben Hinnom today? When you go to Israel, there's a plaque to remember the Valley of Ben Hinnom. It is referred to today as the Valley of the Children because it was there that children were sacrificed, babies were murdered in worship to the false God Molech. And the place is called Toph in the Valley of Ben Hinnom because they would beat drums loudly to drown out the cries of the children as they were being sacrificed. And Josiah says, no more. Not under my watch will any more children be slaughtered in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. Yes, praise the Lord for that. And so he makes this great reform, and child sacrifice will end. And verse 11 says, and then he removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. This is more idol worship of the sun, the moon, the stars. And so it appears that the horses are. Are statues dedicated to the sun that are placed at the entrance to the house of the Lord. He gets rid of that by the chamber of Nathan Melech, the officer who was in the court. And he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. These are all in worship of the sun God. The altars that were on the roof, the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh, that's his grandfather, had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord. The king broke down and pulverized there and threw their dust into the brook, Kidron. Now, look, there's more to read here, but I want to stop here because of this word pulverized for a moment. And I mentioned, as I was reading through the earlier list, he burned stuff. He ground it to ashes. I mean, he made powder out of this stuff. Why did he do that? I think it's for this good reason. If you're taking notes from chapter 23, it's not enough to simply put sinful things aside. They must be completely removed so they can't come back. See, he didn't want to just take the wooden image and lay it off to the side because he knew if it was there, it had the tendency for them to put it back. Everything that he needed to remove because it was sinful, he didn't want it to come back. Now, think about our own lives and what are some of the things that we've allowed in our lives that God says, I want you to get rid of that thing? But we just Put it on a shelf in the house. And we just, you know, well, I won't touch it anymore, but it's just going to stay there. No, God wants us to completely get rid of it because he knows our heart has the tendency to bring it right back to where it was. And so, you know, like, people have a problem with alcoholism. It's like, you can't have the stuff in the house. You can't go where the stuff is. You have to remove it. And whatever it might apply to, you know, we can never negotiate with our flesh. Cause our flesh always wants to dominate. So we can't say, well, you know, I'll just put it over here to the side. Or, you know, maybe there's somebody here tonight. You're in a relationship, you know, you shouldn't be in. And you're just like, well, you know, I'm just gonna. I'm gonna stay friends with her. I'm gonna stay friends with him. And maybe the Lord is using this passage to say to you, no, it's a sinful relationship. You need to completely distance yourself and break off the relationship altogether. Like, you can't make little concessions because our flesh is too weak for that. Remember when Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane just before he was crucified? And he's even perspiring droplets of blood because he's under such anguish, knowing that the cross is before him. And he goes back to see if his fellow disciples are praying with him in the hour of his agony. And they're asleep. And what does Jesus say? He says, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Our spirit, we have good intentions, but our flesh is so weak that when it comes to sinful things, we need to actually remove them from our lives, not put them somewhere where we can revisit it later. This is why he's pulverizing things. This is why he's making dust out of it, because he doesn't want it to come back. Are we that aggressive about sinful stuff in our lives? I hope so. Well, verse 13. Read on. Then the king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem, which were on the south of the Mount of Corruption. The word corruption in Hebrew is hamashith. This is actually a reference to the Mount of Olives. But because it's a place where they have put up idolatrous altars, it's being referred to as the Mount of Corruption, the Mount of hamashith. But it's. It's the Mount of Olives which Solomon, king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the people of Ammon. And he broke in pieces the sacred pillars and cut down the wooden images and filled their places with the bones of men. Moreover, now, verse 15, down through verse 18, I'm going to read it, and then I'm going to come back, because this is an amazing fulfillment of a prophecy. Verse 15. Moreover, the altar that was at Bethel and the high place, which Jeroboam son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, had made both that altar and the high place, he broke down. Josiah broke down, and he burned the high place and crushed it to powder. There you go. And burned the wooden image. And Josiah turned. As Josiah turned, he saw the tombs that were on the mountain. And. And he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar and defiled it according to the word of the Lord. And I'll explain it in a minute, which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words. And then he said, what gravestone is this that I see? And so the men of the city told him, it is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things which you have done now against the altar of Bethel, like a good thing, you've. You've cleaned stuff up. This was proclaimed about you. And he said, Josiah said, let him alone. Let no one move his bones, the bones of this unnamed prophet. And so they left his bones alone with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria. Now, there's an interesting prophecy. If you were here, back in First Kings, chapter 13. I'll find it and read to you. 300 years earlier, 300 years earlier, there's this prophet who's unnamed who comes to Judah, and he prophesies about this great reform that is going to happen in Judah. And check this out. This is 1 Kings 13. I'm going to read the first couple of verses. This prophet names the one who brings Reform to Judah by name 300 years earlier. And you know the name that he mentions, Josiah. This is First Kings, chapter 13, verse 1. And behold, a man of God went from Judah to Bethel by the word of the Lord. And Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. Now, Jeroboam was the king at that time. He's going to rebuke this guy. Verse 2. And then he cried out against the altar by the word of the Lord and said, this is the prophet speaking. O altar. O altar. Thus says the Lord. Behold, a child. Josiah by name shall be born in the house of David. And on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and men's bones shall be burned on you. Isn't that amazing? 300 years before Josiah, this guy says to Jeroboam, you're a wicked, evil king. And I just want you to know there's a great reformer who's going to come. His name is Josiah. He's going to burn down this place, he's going to crush all the bones of these false priests to ashes, and he's going to bring great reform to the nation of Judah. So back here, 2 Kings, chapter 23, and verse 19. Sorry, verse what verse are we. Yeah, verse 19. Now, Josiah also took away all the shrines of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, and which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord to anger. And he did to them according to all the deeds he had done in Bethel. He executed all the priests of the high places who were there on the altars and burned men's bones on them, and he returned to Jerusalem. And then the king commanded all the people, saying, keep the Passover of the Lord your God to the Lord your God. As it is written in this Book of the Covenant. Such a passover surely had never been held since the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah. So he reinstates a national holiday, the Passover celebration, which they hadn't celebrated for hundreds of years. But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was held before the Lord in Jerusalem. Moreover, Josiah put away those who consulted mediums and spiritists, the household gods and idols, all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord. Now before him there was no king like him. Notice who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses. Nor after him did any arise like him. What a king. I want to read just a little further before we close it out tonight, because I want to get to the end of his life. Here it says, nevertheless, the Lord did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath with which his anger was aroused against Judah because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him. That's Josiah's grandfather. And the Lord said, I will also remove Judah from my sight as I have removed Israel, and will cast off this city, Jerusalem, which I have chosen, and the house of which I said my name shall be there. And now here we go. Just this section here gives us the last of his life. Now, the rest of the acts of Josiah and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? In his days, Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, went to the aid of the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates, and King Josiah went against him. Now, we're not quite sure why. Did he go to battle? Here it just says that he did. And Pharaoh Necho killed him at Megiddo when he confronted him. And the book of 2 Chronicles tells us that he took an arrow, and it says here, and then his servants moved his body in a chariot from Megiddo, brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, anointed him, and made him king in his father's place. So this is the end of Josiah's life. He's 39 years of age. He dies in battle. He takes an arrow under his armor. He survives for a little while, but by the time they get him back to Jerusalem, he is deceased. And what a great king that he was and what a great example of all the reform that he brought. But you know how it started, because when he was 16 years of age, he said, I'm going to seek the Lord. And when he sought the Lord with all his heart, it brought personal reformation and it brought national reformation. It all starts gang. It all starts with drawing near to the Lord. Watch what he does in your heart. It'll have a ripple effect for the glory of God. Amen. Father, thank you for your word tonight. Thank you for the example of Josiah. He didn't live a very long life, but in his short life, he brought such great reform to the nation because he sought you. And, Lord, I pray that we would seek you in a similar way that we would seek you with all of our heart. And then, Lord, watch what you will do in us and then through us. And so thank you, Lord, for his example. May you remind us of these things, especially the importance of dealing with sin in our own lives, that we might remove those things completely. Not making allowances, not negotiating, but really removing those things completely so that we might walk in a way that honors you and glorifies you. So challenge us tonight with anything that we need to just completely remove from our lives for your sake and for your glory. And we just give you praise and honor. We thank you and worship you in Jesus name and everybody said amen and amen.