Episode Transcript
Good morning.
It is 10 o'clock.
Time to start our Bible study.
We're in 2 Kings chapter 22.
2 Kings chapter 22 and verse 13 was our text at the end of our last lesson.
So we're going to pick up there today.
Allison, am I leading singing today?
Oh, okay.
Didn't know.
I'm so glad he's here.
2 Kings 22, 13.
King Josiah of Judah sent the high priest Hilkiah, and then he sent the scribe Shaphan and his son, And he sent his own servant to inquire of the Lord for the king, but also for the people and for all of Judah.
And the subject of this inquiry was what was written in the book of the law that had been found in the house of the Lord.
The words in the book were greatly concerning to King Josiah because they had to do with the wrath of God that had been kindled against Judah.
We were studying that word "kindled" when the clock so rudely interrupted us.
So, you know that happens every week to me.
But I also am aware that the attention span of a person is about 45 minutes if you're telling them something they're interested in.
It's less than that.
And the ones with the smallest attention span are toddlers or people who are acting like toddlers.
But you guys have a great attention span.
We don't ever want to press that.
So, as we looked at the word "kindled" and it was from the part of the verse there, and we're in 2 Kings 22, 13, if you're just joining us.
It was from the part of the verse that said, "For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us."
So that's why Josiah was so concerned about this inquiry of the Lord.
That's why he sent these men to find out, "Hey, what's going on here?
Are we about to receive the things that are in this book?"
And I believe he believed they were.
So Josiah wanted to know about the words of the book of the law, specifically the ones that concerned the wrath of God being kindled against Judah.
And he said that wrath is kindled and we learned that the word kindled means to set on fire.
Now when I was a young boy, I was in about fourth grade.
Now I took Cub Scouts, I went through Cub Scouts in third grade and then they had the next group that was called Weebelos.
I always thought that was a strange name but that was in fourth grade.
And then in fifth grade I got to go into Boy Scouts.
And after fifth grade that was it.
I was way too cool for Boy Scouts.
But I went into Boy Scouts and that was before they went far left and started letting girls in there to ruin the thing.
Girls had Girl Scout and they had Girl Scout camp and boys had Boy Scout and we had Boy Scout camp and they weren't on the same hill.
And we didn't have any in-between Scouts.
It was boys or girls.
A lot of things were that simple then.
But my scoutmaster, Mr.
Webb, taught me how to make a fire.
And so he would take shavings of wood, and he showed me how to do that with a knife.
He showed all of us how to do that.
And then he put them in there with-- underneath some small twigs.
And he lit a match, and he placed it on that kindling.
So what we call it was kindling.
And once that kindling caught fire, then we'd put bigger sticks and bigger branches.
And then you could finally put a good size log on there, and you'd have a good fire.
And that was what we needed to roast hot dogs or make foil dinners, put the coals on.
It was a lot of fun.
I have fond memories of that.
But that's where I learned about what kindling is.
And so if that helps you understand how the wrath of God is kindled against a nation, then good, I'm glad I said it.
But the very fact that God's wrath is kindled against Judah means that he is angry.
It means Judah is in trouble.
When God is angry with you, you'd be in trouble, wouldn't you?
We don't want God to be angry with us and he's, thankfully for those who are his in Christ Jesus, he's already poured that wrath on us out on his son, so we don't receive it.
And the fact that God had not yet poured his wrath out on Judah meant that God was long-suffering and it meant that Judah still had hope.
There was time to repent.
And King Josiah recognized that the subject of God's wrath deserved immediate attention.
And so those were the words most important to him in the book of the law that was found in the house of the Lord.
In other words, what had Judah done to deserve God's wrath?
Well, they had forsaken God and turned to idols.
Same song and dance as all of the generations of Judah and Israel before.
They tried to be like the world and they served idols and turned their back on God.
You know, the feel-good religions don't like to talk about the wrath of God.
They just don't.
Now they love to talk about the blessings of God and how they think you should go about obtaining those blessings.
But when you bring up the wrath of God, the feel-good preachers will bring up the mercy of God.
On the other hand, the other extreme, you have what would be known as the hellfire and brimstone preachers who talk so much about the wrath of God that they don't ever include the mercy of God.
Listen, both wrath and mercy are from God, and we need to teach them just as the Bible teaches them.
We don't need to avoid one or the other.
Both punishment and blessings are from God, and they need to be preached just as they are in the Bible.
So we ought never show any favoritism for one doctrine over another, for one Bible truth over another.
They're all equally important and if we teach them like they're supposed to be taught, then we'll have the right understanding of wrath and mercy.
Now when we study God's wrath in His Word, we're not going to run away from it.
We're not going to go to some other passage that's more comforting to us than that, because we need to learn about God's wrath.
And when we study God's mercy, we don't depart from it quickly to keep from appearing to be soft.
I am so glad for God's mercy and you ought to be too and I believe you are.
But you can't really and fully appreciate the mercy of God unless you understand the wrath of God.
And you can't understand the wrath of God.
In fact, if you didn't know about the wrath of God, the mercy of God wouldn't mean anything to you.
Perhaps you've heard the oft-told story, maybe the younger ones haven't, so I'll tell it to you so you can pass it down.
As an illustration of this, the man who is on an airplane and one of the flight attendants comes up to him and says, here, put this parachute on.
And the man says, why do I need a parachute?
I'm perfectly comfortable.
We're on a good airplane.
And so the flight attendant says, this plane is about to go down.
Put the parachute on.
Well, the man puts the parachute on.
Now, that story's been told that way, and the cynical me says, why does it matter if you have a parachute on if you're inside the plane?
You deploy it, you're still gonna be in the plane.
But I just ruined my illustration by declaring the obvious, didn't I?
So that man doesn't have an appreciation of the parachute until he realizes that plane's gonna go down, if somehow he can get out of the plane and activate his parachute.
So that's a very poor illustration, but it is one about understanding the mercy of God.
If you understand the wrath of God, you realize nobody can abide the wrath of God.
We have to have God's mercy.
And a proper understanding of one leads to a proper understanding of the other.
So Josiah said the reason for this wrath is, look back in your text, verse 13, in the middle of the verse, "Because our fathers not hearkened unto the words of this book to do according unto all that which is written concerning us.
If their fathers, and by that they mean their ancestors, their forefathers, not just their biological fathers who were alive in that day, but their fathers and their fathers and going back in time.
If their fathers had not hearkened to the words of the book of the law, then neither had the Jews who were living in Josiah's day.
Because as their fathers did, so they would do.
And God showed his mercy to Judah by placing Josiah on the throne.
He Remember King Amon?
He wasn't on the throne a very long time compared to his son.
But he did not seek the Lord.
He did evil in the sight of the Lord.
But to Josiah, the book of the law, the word of God, carried great weight, unlike it did for his father.
And through this inquiry, Josiah isn't asking the Lord for vain things.
He's asking about his wrath.
That's what he's concerned about.
And you know this verse reminds us that God hates sin.
Why would he pour his wrath out upon Judah?
He hates sin.
Romans chapter 1 verse 18, Romans chapter 1 and verse 18, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth and unrighteousness."
Now that is a truth that both the Old Testament and the New Testament saints knew, they all knew it, that the wrath of God is revealed against unrighteousness, against ungodliness.
And in the case of Judah and before King Josiah's time on the throne, the truth of God contained in the book of the law had been held in unrighteousness.
It had been suppressed or kept down in unrighteousness.
After The high priest didn't even know where the Bible was in the house of the Lord.
The scribe had to find it for him, or it was found for him and he had to hand it to the scribe for it to be read.
It had been held down, it had been suppressed in favor of the worldly practices that had infiltrated the throne and the temple and of course the hearts of the people.
Now look at verse 14.
"So Hilkiah the priest, and Hycum, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Azahiah, went unto Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shalem, the son of Tikva, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe.
Now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college, and they communed with her."
Okay, that's a pretty meaty verse there.
A lot of names, a lot of things going on there.
But I want you to see, they went to a prophetess.
Boy, Judah was in bad shape that a high priest would have to go to a prophetess to inquire of God.
Now you ask yourself if you're an Old Testament student, ever seen that before?
You just don't see that.
It's very seldom that God does this this way.
But here's what should be embarrassing to Hilkiah and that is that a prophetess was closer to God than he was.
There shouldn't have been anybody closer to God than the high priest.
And so how humbling this must have been for the high priest, a man, to go to the prophetess, a woman, to hear what God said.
Now right here is a place, another place, where a controversial topic is presented to us in our study.
Now there shouldn't be any controversy about it.
Man is the one who makes these things controversies.
God didn't.
He said, "Here's what my orders are and you follow them.
This is what my word says."
But man has imagined a controversy and so it exists in some denominations who have taken this passage and passages like it and used these passages to justify having women as preachers, as pastors.
And some have said they have women in their churches who prophesy, so they call them prophetesses, modern-day prophetesses.
Well let's go back to where God gave instructions about who was to inquire of him and how that was to be done.
Write down Deuteronomy 17 verses 8 through 10.
Deuteronomy 17 verses 8 through 10.
"For God told Moses, and Moses told the children of Israel, 'If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates, then thou shalt arise and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, and thou shalt come unto the priests, the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and inquire."
Where did God send them to inquire?
To the high priest and the judges, and inquire, and they shall show thee the sentence of judgment; and thou shalt do according to the sentence which they of that place which the Lord shall choose shall show thee; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee."
So God's original design for this high priest and for these Levites among whom were the judges in those days.
God's original intent and clear instructions were if you Jews have a problem and you can't solve it, whether it's between family members or between pleas or any of those things, you go to the Levites, to the judge, and whatever they tell you to do, you do it all the way.
You don't hold back.
You don't change it.
Why is that?
Because the Levites were the ones who ministered to the Lord in the tabernacle.
They were the ones who made sure that all of the ordinances, everything done pertaining to the tabernacle was done exactly the way God said for it to be done.
God gave laws to the people.
He gave them criminal laws.
He gave them civil laws.
However, there would be some cases where it was hard for the people to determine what the proper course of action was.
So they would bring those cases to the Levites and the judge in that day, and they would inquire of them.
You know, just this morning about two o'clock when all of you were sleeping comfortably, I hope, I was working.
We had two grown people, one of whom called 9-1-1 and laid the phone down.
And they were hollering and fussing and screaming at each other.
Of course, I already knew alcohol was involved, being that time of night.
These were people, these were folks who were in their 40s and 50s.
These aren't little kids, they're acting like it.
And they had a controversy.
And they weren't able to settle that controversy between themselves.
So what did one of them do?
Dialed 911.
So that controversy then became ours to solve.
And we did.
We solved it.
And a great many of the calls for service we receive in my line of work are from people who have a controversy and can't seem to fix it.
And so instead of going to the Lord, they call the police.
That's the wrong... we go!
We don't want blood being shed, we don't want property being torn up, so we go.
But where should they go for their controversy?
They should go of the Lord.
And then they wouldn't have it.
It wouldn't last long.
But in our text, the very men, the very place where the king should have gotten his answer about what the Lord says concerning his wrath, that very place, that temple, was so defiled and the men there were so defiled that God had to send them all the way to a woman for the answer.
And we know that sending the high priest to a woman was not God's perfect will, but it was His permissive will, wasn't it?
He said, "This is the way you all want it?
I'll tell you what we'll do.
We'll humble you a little bit.
I'll send you to a woman to get the answer. since you men aren't fit to occupy the office of the priest.
And if you read Leviticus chapter 14, just write that down, just that whole chapter, I'm not going to read it to you.
If you read Leviticus 14, you'll see that the priest would be the one to present the offerings to the Lord on behalf of the people.
And what you never see in the instructions about the high priest or the Levites is that a woman should be used for that service.
That was not her role.
It was the Levites, not the women, and in fact it was the Levites, not the men of any other tribe.
So if a man of the tribe of Issachar was to say, "Well, I'll take care of that this time," he'd be just as out of line as if a woman were to go try to take care of that business.
And we also have New Testament passages that forbid the woman from taking the place of the man in certain matters.
These didn't come from me or man.
These came from God.
1 Timothy chapter 2 verses 9 through 13.
1 Timothy 2 verses 9 through 13.
Paul wrote to Timothy, who was a young pastor emphasis, "In like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with broidered hair or gold or pearls or costly array, but which becometh women professing godliness with good works."
So the jewelry of a godly woman is good works, not everything else.
It's the good works.
"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection, but I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man but to be in silence for Adam was first formed then Eve."
So what this teaches us is God gave women a specific role that he did not give to men.
He gave the women to be a help meat to their husbands.
He did not give men the role of being a help meat to their husbands because that's an abomination.
Although the LGBTQT alphabet group believes that to be the case, including some who call themselves pastors who are of that persuasion.
One of them just left over here.
He's not a pastor over here anymore.
He never was a pastor, but he used to be over here.
Well, he's gone on to infect some other failing church denomination, but God didn't give men the role of bearing children.
He gave that to women, although some perverted medical practitioners have tried to figure out how to make men bear children.
And as the passage in 1 Timothy teaches, the one I just read you, God gave the role of teaching and having authority to the men, not to the women.
Listen, this whole controversy is about man's objection to the roles God gave to the two genders.
You know, you'll have a Christian who may say, "Wow, homosexuality is an abomination."
And yet that, let's say that's a woman, and yet that same woman may very well turn around and say, "Well, I don't understand why I can't preach."
Well, you just got through saying that homosexuality is an abomination, and the Bible says it is, because you have at least one person in that relationship, actually two, who are taking on roles that God never assigned them.
And yet, God didn't assign you, lady, the role to teach men or to usurp authority over men, but you're okay with taking that.
You can't have it that way.
If you're going to agree with what God says about our roles, Whether they're gender roles or roles about what gifts you've been given or what your position is in a church, we're either going to believe it all the way or we're not.
So, this whole controversy is about man's objection to the roles that God gave to the two genders.
And in Moses' day, the controversy was about the role that God gave to Moses and Aaron.
And so these sons of other Levite families were jealous of them.
In Paul's day and in our day, God gave certain gifts to people.
One person's gift is not another person's gift.
If I try to pretend that my gift is the one that God gave my wife, well, he's given her more gifts than one, but the one, the mercy and compassion, It's not that I'm an unmerciful or uncompassionate person, but that's not my strength.
My strength is teaching God's Word.
My strength is directing and bringing calm out of chaos, and those are some gifts that God's given me.
But if I try to pretend that mine are my wife's, or she tries to pretend hers are mine, when that may not be what God's given her, then we're both out of line, aren't we?
There shouldn't ever be a controversy because of what the Bible says.
And so if you ever find yourself bristling when you hear certain passages read, you need to take a deep breath and calm down because that was your God who wrote those through man.
That was not your pastor who wrote those.
It wasn't your Sunday school teacher who came up with that.
But only people who are rebellious will turn truth into contention.
Did you know that?
Only people who are rebellious will take God's truth and make it contentious.
There's no reason for contention.
Do you want to know why there are...
Now this is going to hit men right in the gut.
Do you want to know why there are women preachers today?
There are two reasons in my estimation.
One, ungodly women who desire a position God has not granted them.
But two, ungodly men who refuse a position to which God has assigned them.
I'm gonna repeat it.
In my estimation, there are two reasons we have women preachers today.
One, ungodly women who desire a position God has not granted them.
And two, ungodly men who refuse a position to which God has assigned them.
Godly men who are gifted to teach the Bible are looking for one thing and that's an opportunity.
Not somebody to take their place.
And when these godly men teach, their godly women will learn in silence and everybody will be edified.
Everybody will be built up in the faith.
And that's what we want.
So, knowing that it was not God's perfect will for the high priest to seek truth from a prophetess, then let's look further into who this prophetess was.
She was, our text tells us there in verse 14, "the wife of Shalem, the son of Tikva."
In the Old Testament, there are 14 men named Shalom.
I didn't realize that was such a popular Hebrew name, but apparently it is.
And this Shalom was of no special significance.
He was the son of Tikva who was the son of Harhas.
And the only thing we know of Harhas is that he was the keeper of the wardrobe.
And the word wardrobe means about what you think it does.
It means garments or clothes.
Which is how it's normally translated in the Old Testament.
Garments or clothes.
And although we don't know exactly whose wardrobe this was, the next few words in this passage give us a little bit of a clue.
It says, "Huldah the prophetess," look down there, it says, "now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college."
The college, that's an interesting word in the Hebrew language.
It comes from a Hebrew word that means second, like second place, or the next thing.
College was the next step in the work of a prophet who was instructed in God's Word.
That's where you went to get the instruction.
We use the word "college" to describe the next level of education after you've graduated high school.
And it's understandable here that the prophet's college was located in Jerusalem because that's where the temple was.
And it says in the text, "And they communed with her."
That is, they spoke with her or had a dialogue with her.
In verse 15, "And she said unto them, 'Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Tell the man that sent you to me.'"
And then we'll read what he says in a moment.
So let's put aside the fact that God used a prophetess to pass on his message, and let's look at the message that he sent her to pass on.
She started off saying, "Thus saith the Lord."
So, to Huldah the prophetess, what God said is front and center, as it should be.
And if it was front and center to Hilkiah, he would have never had to go to Huldah.
She said, "God said, 'Tell the man that sent you to me.'"
So what we learn here is that Huldah, the prophetess, was nothing more than a conduit, a pipeline from God to the king.
That's all she was.
That's all I am.
I'm just a vessel.
That's what you're looking at up here is a vessel.
Kind of an oddly shaped vessel physically, but spiritually I'm just a vessel.
I'm taking what's here, using the gifts God's given me, and transmitting it to you in a way hopefully that you can understand in a way that will build you up and not leave you confused or doubting unless you're doubting lies that you heard and we want that to happen and you notice she called the king a man rather than referring to him as a king.
In the sight of men, Josiah was a king But in the sight of God he was just a man.
She said, "Tell the man that sent you to me, thus saith the Lord, 'Behold, I will bring evil upon this place and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the words of the book which the king of Judah hath read."
Now the word evil which we've studied a few times means wickedness.
It also is translated as trouble or affliction and other words that are like that.
And we come across this from time to time where the Bible tells us that God brings evil upon a place.
And so I've gone over it before but today we may have listeners either here or on the internet or maybe you just forgot what I said like I forget what I said and so we'll go over it again and that is how could God bring evil on a place isn't God good and of course he is so I want to remind you of some things first of all God is holy he's righteous and he is never evil there's nothing evil about God.
Secondly, since man ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden, the Garden of Eden, then evil has been present in the world.
So there's evil in the world.
And when God brings evil upon a place, what he is doing is simply directing the evil that's here to hear.
He's moving evil and he does that for a certain purpose.
When man sins, man should expect for evil to come upon him in some form.
Whether it's physical, financial, emotional, spiritual, whatever it may be.
We don't know exactly what form it will take.
We know ultimately the evil that will come upon an unbelieving sinner, one who's rejected Christ, is the lake of fire, and that is an eternal evil.
And that's what we're seeing happen in Judah in our study is that evil is going to come upon them and look back in the text and it says that upon the inhabitants thereof.
So it wasn't just geographical Judah.
It wasn't just the land itself, the land and the water and the mountains, all that.
Where the evil would come, it was upon the people of Judah.
They specifically would be recipients of the evil that God would bring upon them.
When God turned the waters of Egypt to blood, that evil also affected the people of Egypt.
And because of the people of Judah, the land of Judah will suffer this evil as well.
So to what extent was this evil going to take place?
I mean how big a deal was this going to be?
She said, "Even all the words of the book which the king of Judah hath read."
That's right.
Everything God said would happen would come to pass.
Well, that's not a surprise to us if we are Bible students because that reveals the nature of God.
It reveals one of His attributes.
He's holy and when He executes judgment, He does it completely.
He has to because He has bound Himself to His own Word.
It's not because we've obligated God to do anything at all.
But God has bound Himself to His own Word.
I mean if God's Word is not good, then whose is?
Well nobody's Word is good except for God because man has lied.
First time you ever tell a lie, your word's no good anymore in the sight of God.
But inseparable.
And so we see this principle of complete execution of his wrath here in several ways.
First of all, we see that God reveals his wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness.
Remember I read you that passage a moment ago from Romans chapter 1 verse 18?
There's not a sin that God excuses.
He doesn't go easy on certain sins just because they're commonly committed or seemingly light.
The Catholic Church classifies sins as venial and mortal.
How about that?
One is more serious than the other.
The mortal sin is more serious than the other.
And I'm not sure that the Catholics understand the real difference or what they're saying, but that's what they're taught in their catechisms.
And I understand that not all sins are alike, but I know this, God's wrath is revealed against all sin.
Secondly, when God pours out His wrath on sin, He will pour it all out.
Revelation chapter 14 verses 9 through 11.
Revelation 14, 9 through 11.
"And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, 'If any man worship the beast in his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand,'" now that's speaking of unbelievers, "the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is poured poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.
And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name."
Now there's way too much in there to try to teach you what all that means, but those people are unbelievers.
That is the unbelieving class of people.
And it's said that God pours out His wrath without mixture.
The metaphor here, if you can picture a cup, is that God's wrath is poured into the cup and it's straight.
It's hundred-proof.
There's nothing to dilute it.
There's nothing to soften the blow. all poured out in this cup and then it's all poured out.
It says the wrath of God which is poured out without mixture and the only thing that's poured out of that cup is wrath.
You will not see mercy poured out of that cup or forgiveness or compassion, wrath.
There's no forgiveness mixed in with the wrath.
There's no watered-down wrath 1.0.
It's the full wrath of God.
And we know it is the pure, undiluted, fully executed wrath of God, because verse 11 said, "And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night."
It never ends.
So, we first learn that the wrath is poured out against all ungodliness and righteousness.
We secondly learn that God pours out all of His wrath.
And thirdly, we learn that he pours out all of his wrath on all ungodliness for all eternity.
It never ends.
And that's a scary truth for King Josiah to consider.
Revelation 15, 1, "And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, Seven angels having the seven last plagues, for in them is filled up the wrath of God."
And the words "filled up" mean "finished," "accomplished."
So our text tells us that all the words of the book of the King of Judah that were read will be brought upon Judah.
Now there is only one way to avoid this wrath.
To avoid this wrath means to not be a recipient of it.
Because when God pours it out, the ones who are the subject of His wrath won't be able to go, "Oh, I barely missed that."
You're not quick enough.
You're going to get it.
Paul was encouraging the believers in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and we close with this.
1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 9.
You want to avoid wrath?
Because you can't dodge it if you're the recipient of it.
"For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ."
Just as God pours out His wrath on all unbelievers, and He pours all of it out, and it's poured out for all eternity, He pours none of it out on those who are in Christ Jesus.
If your trust is in Jesus Christ as your Savior, you believe that finished work that He did, then you will receive none of God's wrath.
There's no in between.
You either get it all or you get none of it.
Because he poured...
Now if you think, "Well, then he just won't pour his wrath out on us because..."
Listen, he already poured his wrath out for us.
He poured it out on Jesus at the cross.
And because we believe in him, then we don't get it poured out on us.
It's already been taken care of.
All right, well, with that, we'll close.
Father, thank you for the good attention of the people who came.
Thank you for the ones online who are watching or have or will watch later.
And Father, we just want truth to go forth and you've given us the gifts to be able to do that.
I thank you so much for our pastor who excels in expositional preaching and can make the very complicated things simple for us to understand.
And we look forward to hearing that message as he preaches during the next hour.
In Jesus' name, amen.
