Episode Transcript
Good morning.
Brother Rick and his trusty assistant Jeff have us ready to go this morning.
So it's 10 o'clock, top of the morning to you if you're here, if you're on the internet, and it's time for our Bible study.
I've told people outside the church that I'm the adult Bible study teacher at my church, but I also have some in here and who are not quite adults yet.
So that shortens my title just a little bit doesn't it?
Just Bible teacher, that's fine.
2 Kings chapter 22 and verse 11 was the verse we finished last week.
2 Kings Kings chapter 22 verse 11.
You all probably don't realize how technical and demanding the, it's not just the sound crew, they do the video, the everything associated with broadcasting our lessons and our 11 o'clock hour as well.
And Brother Rick has, he's got a profile on me.
He said the first thing you do is you look left.
He said it's the first place you look when you look up.
So he tries to have that camera ready for me.
And I've tried to improve on looking at the cameras while I'm talking as well as looking at you.
And the reason I look left, this is deeply rooted in me from my days as a young highway patrolman and also my current job as a patrol sergeant.
When I'm on a traffic stop, the most dangerous thing that can happen is a car driving off of the roadway and running over me and my violator, whoever I'm talking to.
And so I face that road and I look back and check traffic often.
I keep my head on a swivel, that's what we call it.
Your pastor did the same thing and he probably still does it without even knowing it.
So that's a natural inclination for me to look left to check traffic.
So I'm checking traffic when I'm looking over here first but it's internet traffic.
Alright, we finished verse 11 last week so today we'll begin in verse 12.
Now during the last two weeks we've marveled at the fact that the book of the law was found in the house of the Lord where it had been the whole time.
And we studied the far-reaching effects of this temporary loss and neglect of the book of the law.
And that was a precious book, or it should have been, to Judah and to all of Israel.
And now it's been found, now it's been read, it's most recently been read to King Josiah who is the king of Judah.
So let's look at verse 12 and continue here. 2nd Kings chapter 22 verse 12 if you're just joining us and we're glad you're here.
"And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest and Ahicham the son of Shaphan and Akbor the son of Micaiah and Shaphan the scribe and as a higher a servant of the Kings saying go ye inquire of the Lord for me now we'll stop right there for just a moment and the king commanded these men that we just read about to go inquire of the Lord now to inquire is to seek.
And if you remember the high priest was to be God's representative to the people and then the people's representative back to God.
He was a mediator in those days and he represented the Lord Jesus Christ.
He wasn't Jesus Christ, he wasn't equal to Jesus Christ, he was simply a type of Jesus.
The high priest would show us who Jesus would be to us and who he is to us.
He represents his people to God and God back to his people.
And so Josiah asked this high priest, Hilkiah, and these others who are mentioned to go and seek the Lord to go inquire of the Lord and I find it interesting that Josiah didn't just tell Hilkiah the high priest to do this because that would have been reasonable to tell the high priest I need you to go inquire the Lord he sent others with him and what that tells us I believe is that Josiah wasn't completely confident that Hilkiah would carry out this mission because he hadn't done it before.
He had been the one who was neglecting his duties as the high priest.
He should have been inquiring of the Lord for the nation of Israel this whole time.
The king should have never had to ask the high priest to go seek the Lord for the nation.
And that high priest should have been the example of God's word to the people and he should have brought God's word to the nation for their instruction.
Those people should have known the Old Testament books and the prophets and the law and all that was given to them at that time.
So Josiah sent not just the high priest, but he sent sent Shaphan the scribe who we know was a faithful man and he sent Shaphan's son.
And remember Shaphan was the one who when the book of the law was found by the high priest he gave it to Shaphan and Shaphan read it and then he read it in the ears of the king.
So he was a trustworthy scribe.
But don't you know Well, he was probably quaking in his sandals whenever the king tore his clothes after hearing Schafe and read the book of the law.
That couldn't have been the reaction he was anticipating, but he certainly got that.
Now something I noticed, and I hope you remember, that the king rent his clothes.
That means he tore them.
He was in anguish and grief about the words he heard because Judah was in disobedience.
But what I didn't see is the high priest tearing his clothes, rending his clothes.
I didn't see any of the others doing that.
And when God's Word is read it ought to, if you're in disobedience to it and you're a Christian, it ought to make you want to tear your clothes.
Now don't do that.
You don't have to literally tear your clothes.
This reflects a condition of the heart.
And I've checked 2 Chronicles 34, which is another passage that describes these same events, and it doesn't say that the high priest rent his clothes or any of the other men, just the king himself.
And then one of the men whom the king sent with the high priest to inquire of the Lord was a man named Azahiah as we just read.
And Azahiah was the king's own servant.
And so the effect of sending him would be to make sure that this job got done.
And he would be sure to return to Josiah with accurate information about what happened at the inquiry of the Lord.
And this inquiry of the Lord was to be made, if you'll look back in verse 13, he said, "Go ye inquire of the Lord for me."
For me.
The king himself wanted to be personally informed of what the Lord said.
Now he didn't say leave all that religious stuff to the priests.
I'm the king I don't have time for that.
He didn't say now let's keep the church in the government separate here.
He said inquire of the Lord for me.
Now he wasn't the high priest.
The king wasn't even a keeper of the door in the temple in the house of the Lord.
He was the king and God's word was important to him.
In fact it was so important that he rent his clothes whenever Chaffin read those words to him.
Now I know nothing of what actually goes on in the president's private study or in the governor's mansion and I've been inside the governor's mansion.
I was given a tour by some of my former fellow state troopers who guarded that mansion.
It's very nice, very old, but well taken care of.
But I don't know what goes on inside the governor's mansion.
He wasn't there, nor was his family.
But I wonder when was the last time that such a leader whether it be a governor or president a mayor rent his clothes whether literally or on the inside because his decisions or his words his actions went against God's Word.
You know in our church we don't select a hot topic and preach on it.
Now I know some churches do that and it's easy to get bad doctrine when you do that because if you say well I'm gonna preach to these people on such and such topic and go pull a bunch of scriptures together and try to make a point.
Well you end up with bad doctrine doing that because you misinterpret those verses.
You read them out of context.
It can happen.
But when we do come upon a topic in our verse-by-verse studies, and that's what we're doing today is verse-by-verse studies, we take advantage of the opportunity to speak on that topic because it presents itself like it does right here.
And the topic that seemed to jump off the page at me here was this notion of separation of church and state because this king said I want you to go inquire the Lord for me.
He was the head of the state wasn't he?
That was the most important thing to him was don't go check on the military and see how they're doing.
I'm not worried about what the economy is doing right now.
I want you to go inquire the Lord for me.
And if you've been a Bible student for very long you may ask or be asking or wondering where does the Bible say that there should be a separation of church and state that is to keep religion out of politics and politics out of religion well I'll make this easy for you God not only never said that but his perfect will was for man to be under his government not under man's government.
In the Genesis to Jesus class or the creation to Christ class whichever of the two you took you may have heard brother Fulton mention God's government.
Do you remember that phrase?
God's government.
And that government was instituted on earth when God created man and he was their creator and he was their ruler all at once and Adam and Eve were his subjects and when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden they threw off God's government.
They said we don't want these rules this rule one rule don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil the tree that was in the midst of the garden for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die that's what God told him so they threw off God's government and they instituted a different one they submitted themselves now to the prince of this world which is another name for the devil.
So in a sense man tried to become his own God because he rejected the God who made him.
Now if you fast forward from there to Genesis chapter 17 verse 8, if you're taking notes you can write it down, Genesis chapter 17 and verse 8.
Hello people, am I right?
God said this to Abraham, "And I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God."
He said he would be their God.
And that word for God is Elohim.
We've come across that.
It's a Hebrew word which is also translated as the word judge and as the word mighty.
And moving to Exodus from there where the children of Israel had been ruled for over 400 years by these earthly rulers which were called Pharaohs.
God from that bondage and he led them through the wilderness and he placed them in the promised land and what he did not do is say okay let's see we need a king like that Pharaoh to be over you.
He said I will be their God and they shall be my people and he said that more than once but in the promised land what did the children of Israel do?
They once again rejected God and they instituted governments of men.
Then you go forward to 1st Samuel chapter 8 verses 1 through 7. 1st Samuel chapter 8 verses 1 through 7 and it's going to be real plain here at the end of this passage you'll hear it.
And it came to pass when Samuel was old that he made his sons judges over Israel.
Now the name of the firstborn was Joel and the name of the second Abiah and they were judges in Beersheba.
And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after Lucre and took bribes and perverted judgment.
Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together and came to Samuel unto Ramah and said unto him behold thou art old and thy sons walk not in thy ways now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.
But the thing displeased Samuel when they said give us a king to judge us and Samuel prayed unto the Lord and the Lord said unto Samuel hearken to the voice of the people and all that they say unto thee for they have not rejected thee but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them."
Okay, now there are many more verses both in the Old and the New Testament that make this same point.
In the garden before sin entered into the world, man had no mediator between God and them.
Can you imagine that?
He created Adam and Eve and there was no sin in the world and God as it were walked with them in the garden.
They had unbroken communion with God.
That didn't last long.
Now we don't know how long it was from the time God created them to the time they sinned but I don't think it's very long because I wouldn't give the best five seconds of my life, for my efforts in this earthly body to please God.
I'm glad Jesus did that for me.
But however long it was, I don't think it was very long, but they had no mediator between God and man.
There was no need for one.
But when sin entered into the world, God performed those animal sacrifices.
He took the coats of those animals, as you know.
He had to slay them, he had to shed their blood.
And he put those coats on Adam and Eve to cover them, to cover their nakedness, which before they'd not known, before it was not a shame and now it was.
And that act showed them that blood, the shedding of blood was required for them to be accepted by God.
And from that moment on, they had to have a mediator.
Now Jesus has always been that mediator, Old and New Testament.
But it wasn't recognized, as it were, by the people until He came and fulfilled all of that.
The prophets said, "Oh, there's going to come one.
There's going to come one."
They told about Jesus.
They told about Jesus.
And the people who believed on the Lord in the Old Testament days, when they saw the high priest, when they saw the sacrifices, they knew of whom that spoke.
That spoke of the one who was preached about in Genesis 3.15.
The one who would bruise the serpent's head one day and the serpent would bruise his heel.
But Jesus would be that mediator.
The one who would now represent God to man and man to God.
And later we would see in the Old Testament, we would see the high priest made from Aaron and then from his sons.
And that high priest would perform those duties that would represent the people to God and God back to the people.
He was a type of Jesus Christ who is our high priest.
And that's declared in the New Testament.
But the people would continue to sin.
So God placed judges over them like he did Samuel.
And the last judges were those crooked sons of Samuel that we just read about.
So the children of Israel, rather than obeying, rather than demanding a judge who was righteous like Samuel to give them God's word and teach them the way to walk, they said, "Well, we don't want a judge at all.
We want a king."
And why did they say they wanted a king?
They said we want to be like the other nations.
We want to be like the world.
It's exactly what that was.
So you get the picture?
This whole notion of man-made government was never part of God's perfect will.
But like he told Samuel, he said listen to the people.
We'll give them a king.
If that's what they want, they can have a king and we're going to let them see what kind of king this will be.
And if you were with us in our studies of 1st and 2nd Samuel, God told them exactly what this king was going to do to their sons and their daughters and to that nation.
And every word of it came true.
And it wasn't good.
But God permitted it in the days of King Saul, who was that first king after the period of the judges was over with. gave them Kingsall because of the hardness of their hearts.
And since then God has continued to set up kings and to take them down and all that proves is that he is the Almighty One not the kings.
After all as we've been studying about Nebuchadnezzar in the book of Daniel which you'll hear about in the next hour from the pastor, in his prime who on earth would have been able to down.
Nobody but God and only those who God allowed to do it and he would lose his kingdom just as well.
And as we've been learning in Daniel the kingdoms represented by this image that's in Nebuchadnezzar's dream.
You know the one that had the gold and the silver and the brass and then the iron and clay down at at the bottom, at the feet.
That image, as you've learned, that represents the kingdoms of this earth.
And it tells us that you have one, it's replaced by another, and it's replaced by another one image, but different metals, different kingdoms.
And so what God is showing us is that the result of mankind's choices to have the kings of this world reign over them are these that we've learned about.
And so this notion of the separation of church and state is an unbiblical notion because there never would have been state rule of any kind if God's people had simply worshipped him and followed his word, followed him as their creator and their king and their judge.
Now, I suppose you could trace the term separation of state, separation of church and state back further than the 1600s, But for the sake of the United States or the colonial states at that time, we can go back to Roger Williams.
That may-- if you haven't studied history in a while, you may say, Roger Williams, I've heard of that name.
Well, you did.
And he was the founder of Rhode Island, and he was also a Baptist minister.
And he wrote about what he called a hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world.
And he believed that government had no business trying to enforce the matters of the church, but that government was to restrict itself to the civil order of society.
The first part of the First Amendment of our Constitution says that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof and I agree whole heartedly with that but it's the Word of God that made laws respecting religion and it's free exercise the Constitution was not the first time that was come up with.
It was God who commanded man to worship him in the way that he said.
He didn't leave it up to man to write a constitution to decide how we should worship our Creator.
And so I hope you see the problem that Mr.
Williams, Roger Williams' statement exposes there.
He said he wanted government to focus on civil matters.
Well the problem is that all matters whether they're civil or criminal or social or religious, political, all of them are addressed by God's Word.
They're all taken care of in the Bible.
They don't need a man-made government in order to enforce them.
God's already got that taken care of.
If right and duty to prevent theft and murder it was first God's right to prohibit those same things.
God didn't need a second set of laws.
You know we have the Ten Commandments that God gave us in the book of Exodus chapter 20 and one of them is thou shalt not kill, which is murder.
Well, we have a Texas penal code.
And in there, it tells you that it's an offense for you to kill somebody in an unlawful manner.
In other words, and I won't go through the legalese of it, but if you just walk up and you shoot somebody and they die, that's crime.
Well, it was already a crime before the Texas Penal Code was ever written, because God said it was.
So if man is gonna have a government, he better agree with what God's word says.
The problem is that when you get away from very basic things like that, laws, ordinances, policies, regulations, drift away from God's word and they allow all kinds of foolishness.
And that's why we're in the mess we're in. man decided he could write the law about man's behavior better than god but the first set of laws was good enough for all of mankind in every situation you know the devil loves separation of church and state because those who are submitted to him have not yet yielded themselves They haven't yielded the powers of government to God.
Instead, they've tried to usurp or take God's authority over man's affairs away from God and give them to man.
That's exactly what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden.
God had authority over them and they didn't want to submit themselves to God's authority so they handed that authority to the devil.
They said we're gonna listen to him.
That's what they did.
He said God's lying, you won't die if you eat of this fruit.
And Eve said okay, well I'll give it a try.
I like your rules better than I do his.
And her husband did too.
He liked what his wife said better than he liked what God said.
What a mess has been made of governments since Adam and Eve sent in the garden.
And that's where you go back to.
That's where we always go back to when we're trying to find out when bad stuff started happening.
Go back to Genesis.
Go back to the garden.
And nobody has ever come up with a better form of government than God.
But unfortunately, we are now stuck, aren't we?
We're stuck with this separation of church and state until Jesus comes and redeems his creation.
And then there's not gonna be any more separation.
There's gonna be reconciliation.
God's going to redeem his creation and all of these governments of men, all the kingdoms of this earth will become whose kingdoms?
The kingdom of our God and his Christ.
And I'm looking forward to that.
Colossians chapter 1 verses 17 through 20.
Colossians chapter 1 verses 17 through 20 speaking of Jesus, "And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
And he is the head of the body, the church who is the beginning the firstborn from the dead that in all things he might have the preeminence for it pleased the father that in him should all fullness dwell and having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself by him I say whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.
What the Apostle Paul just taught us right there is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has the preeminence in all things even government.
Preeminence, that's a big word isn't it?
That means to be in first place to rank number one.
So of all the women in the world that one right there has preeminence in my life.
She's number one.
There's nobody, it's not a tie.
In fact there's not even a second place it's just one.
Right?
Caught my limit.
And so Jesus has preeminence in all things and did you know that means in your family too, he's number one.
In an earthly sense my wife is in first place but spiritually speaking she is not.
Jesus is in first place and if he's not I can't love her like I'm supposed to and you can't either.
You can't love your spouse, you can't love your daddy, your mama, your children, your brother, your sister like you're supposed to if Jesus isn't first.
If you don't love him first because he's the one who shows us how to love.
But the king whom we're studying, Josiah, didn't create governments among men.
He was simply the next king that God placed on the throne of Judah.
And so when you think about God placing kings on these thrones, don't think, "Oh well God loves earthly governments."
No he but because of the hardness of man's heart he said all right you want a king I'll give you one and I'll show you what that does you're not gonna like the outcome based upon what we've studied about this king it appears that he believed that God should have preeminence should be in first place in all things including the throne of Judah because he said you go and inquire of the Lord for me.
I need to know what God's about to do.
I need to know what God's really saying here.
So next in the verse, verse 13, they were to inquire also, look back in verse 13, for the people.
Now having the king recognize the preeminence of the Lord in all things is important.
It's critical.
But having the people recognize the preeminence of the Lord is just as important.
Remember why Israel wanted a king to rule over them in Samuel's day?
They wanted to be like the other nations.
They wanted to be like the world.
That's the same thing, the world system.
And now Judah has seen what Israel looked like when they tried to be like other nations.
And we spent some time studying Israel and how, which was called Samaria, the northern kingdom, because it's now divided and has been for some time at this point in the Bible and we saw what happened when Israel tried to be like the rest of the world the Assyrians came in and conquered them carried them away and replace them in their own land and Judah was following suit Judah was doing the same thing that's what it looks like when God's people try to be like the rest of the world.
Judah and Israel worshiped idols in those days.
They worshiped those carved images, they burnt sacrifices to Baleem, which means it's a plural word for Baal, those are false gods.
And for those sins they were carried away into captivity and they were replaced by the from those lands that Assyria controlled.
And if the men sent by King Josiah inquire of the Lord for the people, here's the next question, will the people listen?
The King's gonna listen because he said you go inquire the Lord for me but what you don't see is the people say hey have them inquire of the Lord for us Now the king said go inquire of the Lord for me and also for the people.
So that's going to be the challenge isn't it?
He's committed to listening to what the Lord said and following him but what if the people aren't?
Well we'll see if they do.
Will they listen or will they reject the Lord and say no we're still enjoying this trying to be like other nations we don't mind being conquered and taken captive like our brothers and sisters in Israel were.
You know, the United States needs to quit trying to be like other nations.
I haven't been alive that long.
It's been a minute.
But even since I became politically aware, if you will, what was going on in the world, it's changed so much just in my short life.
The United States has tried to be like so many of these other countries.
And it just hasn't gone well with us.
And our government is so far gone in the sewer that it seems impossible for it to return to what it was when our country was founded.
I'm not sure that it can.
I don't believe it can doesn't mean we stop trying, does it?
Because we're supposed to be bright lights shining and everything we do is as unto the Lord.
So you are a bright light in a dark place in this country and you are to shine and to not put your light under a bushel.
But that being said this world is not going to get better.
It's going to get worse.
So don't believe that drivel you hear from some prosperity in time harvest preacher who says we're gonna have a great revival in this world and no Satan's gonna make you think there's a great revival but there will be a remnant there will only be a remnant who truly believe the rest of them will look like counterfeits to us will will see that they're not real but they'll fool the rest of the world in fact the Bible tells us that the devil or the son of perdition that we're going to be fooled.
Or that, excuse me, that the world will be fooled and that if it were possible the very elect should be deceived but we won't.
And he's going to cut that short, Jesus is going to cut that time period short for us.
Thank God for that.
But these men were to inquire of the Lord for the king, for the people, and then look back in the text it says, "and for all of Judah.
So the people here possibly represented the ones in Jerusalem and then Judah was the entire nation.
That's what I made of that.
But this command from the king leaves no doubt that he wanted God's answer for every person in the whole nation including for himself.
Now what was the subject of this inquiry?
They were told to go inquire of the Lord.
What was the subject of this inquiry?
In other words, when Hilkiah and his followers, his fellows, inquired of God, what would be the specific matter of interest?
Well it says it there in verse 13, "It is concerning the words of the book that is found.
Now that was the book of the law that was found in the house of the Lord and read to the king.
So the men were to seek the Lord about what was written in the book of the law.
Now if you want to know how to pray, if you want to know how to seek the Lord, then you need to seek him based on what's written in the Bible which is the book of the law.
We have the Old and New Testament now.
But you need to seek God, you need to pray according to what he's written in his word.
Don't be praying for things that are outside of his word, because if they're outside of his word, they're outside of his will.
And interestingly, in order to do that, in order to pray according to what's in God's words, you've got to read it, don't you?
That seems simple enough, but that sometimes is the biggest stumbling block, is getting someone to open their Bible and to read it, and to do so regularly.
You know, people misuse prayer by asking God, essentially, to rubber stamp their earthly desires.
I remember hearing people pray for their team, their sports team to win a game.
When I was in school, excuse me, I went to a lot of games, football, basketball, what have you, but a lot of football games.
And before most of those games, someone would pray over the loudspeaker and they would ask for God to watch over all the players and keep them safe from injury.
You know the best way to keep them safe from injury is to keep them from playing the game.
Now I love sports, I think it's wonderful, but I think it's a misuse of prayer to say, "Now Lord, we're going to put these young guys who are fast and strong and determined out here on this field and we're going to put these helmets and pads on them and we're going to tell them to run at each other and hit each other as hard as they possibly can, but we don't want them to get hurt.
Could Now that's silly.
They're taught to violently hit their opponent in order to block or to tackle somebody.
And that's just the nature of the game.
It's kind of like boxing.
When two people get into a ring and box, their goal is to knock the other person out so they don't have to fight for 10 or 15 rounds and wear themselves out.
And I don't want these young men to get hurt either when they play.
But invoking God to protect them from injuries that are the natural result of collisions caused by them running together on purpose, in my opinion, is tempting God.
And I gave that example because the same thing happens with government officials who pray God to bless a country that is cursing God.
If a leader wants to pray for this country he ought to pray for it to repent.
He ought to look around and say this doesn't look anything like the country that was founded at all.
Especially not spiritually.
Those prayers ought to be for repentance.
They ought to be for the people to return to their Creator and to stop reproaching their Creator by trying to replace Him.
And those prayers ought to be according to the book of the law, which is the Word of God.
And that is the subject about which Hilkiah and the others were to inquire of the Lord.
And look back in verse 13, they were to inquire about these words in the middle of verse 13, "For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us."
In other words, King Josiah wanted them to seek the Lord concerning the words of the book of the law that seem to declare God's wrath upon Judah.
He was concerned about that.
Josiah said that wrath is kindled is kindled.
Now what does that mean?
Well, kindled means to set on fire.
And next week, we'll talk a little bit more about that because we're out of time this morning.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you so much for all who came and for all who tuned in for those who will watch this broadcast later on the Internet.
And Lord, we pray that you have been honored by the teaching of your word and Lord if any confusion came about that you would remove it from the minds of the people that only truth would remain and that we would be sustained and built up in the faith by this truth and live by it in Jesus name amen
