Episode Transcript
Good morning.
2 Kings chapter 22 is our text.
It's 10 o'clock.
And we're ready to roll.
2 Kings chapter 22.
We finished verse 8 last week.
You may wonder what I do when I'm sitting up here in preparation for the Sunday school lesson.
And this morning I undertook quite a spiritual adventure.
I watched a short video of my youngest granddaughter blowing raspberries as she was getting her diaper changed.
So that's why I have a big smile on my face right now.
Second Kings 22 verse eight.
Last week we read about the law or the book of the law being found in the house of the Lord.
We learned that it wasn't concealed in a cave, it wasn't hidden in a tomb or in a mayonnaise jar, it was found in the house of the Lord.
And as I meditated further on this, it became even more significant to me that the book of the law was found in the house of the Lord by the high priest and it was first read in the house of the Lord by the scribe whose name was Shaphan.
And I thought, how about that, the book of the law has been in the house of the Lord this whole time and it hasn't been used.
And what the priest in those days believed and practiced dictated what happened not only in the house of the Lord, but what happened in the house of the Lord determined the direction of the nation of Israel.
When things were right in the house of the Lord, things were generally right with Israel and with Judah.
And when the high priest has no idea where his Bible is, the house of the Lord is in bad shape.
And when the house of the Lord is in bad shape, the people are in bad shape.
And when the pastors of today's churches don't know where their Bibles are or what's in them, then their congregations suffer.
They're in bad shape.
Oh, you can have a Bible in your hands.
I've seen this and you have too.
A preacher holding his Bible up and you can wave it around and slam it on the pulpit and talk about it, but if you don't read it, pastors, I don't know if any of you are watching us, but if they are, we can say that.
If you don't read your Bible and know what's in it, can you imagine what you're going to tell your people on Sundays?
What do these pastors across the world tell their people on Sunday morning if the pastor doesn't know what's in the Bible or the book of the law as we've seen it called here in the Old Testament.
And then I thought what did Hilkiah do?
He's the high priest we're talking about.
What did Hilkiah do with all of his time before he found the book of the law?
After all he didn't have to work a secular job did he?
The scriptures are pretty clear about that.
His service to the Lord was to be inside the temple and before that in the tabernacle and there was plenty of work for the high priest to do.
But most likely Hilkiah got caught up in the social and religious things that people expected him to or that he thought were useful and what happens to a pastor who gets caught up in all the extraneous things that surround his church and there can be a lot of them.
Well when that happens the study of the Bible takes a big hit.
After all, if you think about it, here's your Bible and here's all the people and all the things to do.
And the Bible doesn't call the pastor on the phone.
The Bible doesn't text the pastor or email him.
The Bible doesn't make unannounced visits to his house.
But people do all of that, don't they?
Let me tell you, I know if I need to talk to my pastor, all I have to do is call him and he'll answer.
I don't ever worry about that.
But because I know how tight his schedule is and how much time just his pastoral ministry demands of him.
I'm not talking about his family time and those other things, chores around the house.
Because I know that, I don't just call him to chat mindlessly for hours upon end about things that really don't matter.
I don't call him about vain and light things.
Oh, I'd love to talk to him every day, but he doesn't have the time for that, and I also don't have the time for that.
If you look at the average pastor of the average church, you'll often find a man who is bombarded with things that could be taken care of by other people.
Now why is this so important?
down Acts chapter 6 verses 1 through 4.
Acts chapter 6 verses 1 through 4.
And with Hilkiah in mind here I think it's important for us from time to time to be reminded of just what the pastor's job is.
Acts chapter 6 verses 1 through 4 says, "And in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplied," now that's a good thing isn't it?
"There arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration.
Then the twelve," those are the twelve apostles, "called the multitude of the disciples unto them and said, "It is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.
Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.
But we, he's talking about the apostles here, we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
So the apostles recognized the need for others in the church to handle here a particular need that was taking a lot of the time up that the apostles should have been spending on prayer and ministry of the word.
The widows, now the Bible tells us what a true widow is.
The Bible tells us what a widow is who needs to rely on the church.
It's not somebody whose husband died and who has children or nephews or family who can take care of them.
It's someone who's, a woman who's absolutely desolate.
She has nobody.
She's a widow.
And so the Bible tells us how widows were supposed to be taken care of, and in those days those widows were not having their earthly needs met.
The Grecian, the Greek, and they criticized the Hebrews for that.
And what this passage tells us is that these earthly needs that the widows had, had to do with serving tables, and what that means is serving meat or food.
The word tables and the word meet are from the same Greek word as we are in the New Testament there in Acts.
And so this was an important responsibility.
It was a daily responsibility, one with which the church had been charged to carry out.
But I want you to notice what happened, I want to emphasize what happened, when the apostles themselves served the tables.
Looking back in verse 2 it said that they left the Word of God.
He said it's not reason that we should leave the Word of God and serve tables.
So for them to serve tables meant they had to leave the Word of God.
For them to serve tables that was an important ministry.
They of these deacons, these seven who were appointed under this, was that they could do that job and the apostles could give themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word.
So to serve the widows, they had to set aside the study of God's Word.
And that defeats the whole purpose of having the apostles because those apostles were gifted to preach God's word.
God had given them special gifts to be able to do that.
And most Christians are not gifted to preach the gospel or to teach the Bible.
Every Christian ought to learn the Bible and every Christian father and mother ought to teach their children, the Bible.
There's no doubt about that, but all Christians, whether they are gifted to teach or preach the Word of God or not all Christians can serve.
Every Christian can serve in one way or another.
God's given us all different talents and abilities and gifts and in this even in a small congregation like we have those gifts are thoroughly expressed by the various members of this church and I'm thankful for that.
So Hilkiah would have done well to know and abide by this principle that he had a job to do and God told him what that job was.
In fact, all the specifics of the job of the high priest have been outlined in the Old Testament books of Leviticus and Exodus and Numbers.
You can read very specifically about those and what that high priest was to wear and what he was to do and when he was to do it.
He had a full-time job.
Second Timothy chapter 2 verse 15 here's another passage for us.
Now Timothy was a young pastor of Ephesus.
He was a disciple of the Apostle Paul, well he was a disciple of Jesus, but under the Apostle Paul's ministry and so he was now a pastor at Ephesus and in second Timothy 2 15 here's what Paul told him, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."
So here the Apostle Paul gives instructions to Pastor Timothy to study to show himself approved unto God that he may rightly divide the word of truth.
Now that's what this is, rightly divide the word of truth.
And you might wonder, "Well what does that mean to rightly divide the word of truth we don't use that phrase much.
Well the Greek word that's translated into the two English words rightly divide means to make a straight cut and that's exactly what God's Word does.
The sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God the Bible tells us makes a straight cut and it was and that if that was Pastor Timothy's charge if that was his assignment to make a straight cut, then he had to study the Word of God, didn't he?
You can't make a straight cut with the Bible by just flipping it open and deciding, "Well, I think I'll preach out of here."
I remember a Baptist pastor in the town where my dad grew up, and I met him, oh, I guess I was in my early 20s, and he told me, he said, "Sometimes, Andy, I don't even know what I'm gonna preach when I get up there.
I just opened the Bible and let the Holy Spirit guide me.
Well I didn't know what all that meant later on.
I thought, well you're just lazy.
You don't want to study.
Because teaching this book requires a lot of study and that's okay.
That's what we're called to do.
But Timothy, if that was his charge to rightly divide the Word of Truth, then anything that detracted from that would have been burdensome.
It would have negatively affected his ministry.
Timothy should not have had to cut the grass.
He shouldn't have been the one cooking the monthly dinners or cleaning the church or fixing the plumbing, visiting every single sick person that somebody wanted him to visit.
He shouldn't have to run the sound room.
They didn't have one back then, he just had to have a strong voice.
He shouldn't have had to lead the singing or handle the books, the accounts, or drive the bus.
He was just like the Apostles in that he was to give himself to the ministry of the Word and prayer.
Now what if the high priest Hilkiah had been surrounded by other Levites, other priests, who expected him to give himself to the ministry of the Word in prayer.
What if they would have said, "Hilkiah, don't you worry about anything else.
We'll take care of that.
You do what God called you to do."
Our church is very blessed to have people who take care of the physical needs of this church.
We really are.
And that allows your pastor, our pastor, to tend to the spiritual needs of this church.
But if he has to take care of the physical needs of this church too much, then the spiritual needs suffer because it takes his time away from the ministry of the word and prayer.
So to every one of you who do that, who take care of those needs, thank you.
We really do appreciate that.
So as the high priest goes, so goes the house of the Lord.
And I'm going to strongly suggest to you here that if the churches in this country were right with God across the board in all these areas, then our nation would be right with God across the board and all these areas.
That's where it starts.
Most of our nation's leaders, our state's leaders, our local leaders have some sort of affiliation with a church.
And so the question is if they have some sort of affiliation with a church, why then is there such corruption and disarray and ignorance of God's Word among them?
I'm not talking about the atheists among them, the nature worshippers.
I'm talking about people who say, "I believe in God.
I go to church.
I attend this church over here."
Or perhaps they go to prayer breakfasts or whatever expression of religion they may have.
I'm talking about the ones who claim to be Christians.
If their church was right with God, then how would they be able to say that it's okay to kill an unborn baby?
If a leader's church was right with God, then how could that leader endorse marriages between men or between women.
So in the case of the nation of Judah as well as the United States, having things right in the house of the Lord must precede, it must go before having things right in our nation.
If the church is not right, the nation is not going to be right.
But there is a place being right with the Lord has to first happen before it even happens in the church and that's in the home.
It's got to happen in the home first.
Let's go back to our high priest Hilkiah.
Before he found the book of the law in the house of the Lord there was a time period in which he did not know where the book of the law was.
That makes sense, doesn't it?
He found it.
That means before then he hadn't found it.
To him it was lost.
And if he wasn't, if he didn't know where the book of the law was in the house of the Lord, there's a pretty good chance he didn't know where the book of the law was in his own house.
If he wasn't studying and preaching and practicing God's word in the house of the Lord, there's little chance he was doing so at home.
When you come to the house of the Lord, if you have been a student of the Bible the other six days of the week, then you're going to profit greatly on the seventh day, on this day.
Well this is the first day of the week.
America's got that old backwards, don't we?
We call it the weekend.
The weekend is actually Friday and Saturday, it's not Sunday.
But says it is.
The Lord said it's the first day of the week, but if you have been a student of the Bible those other six days of the week when you come here on the Lord's Day then you're in a position to where you can profit from the Bible being taught.
Now at the same time if a person was a student of the Bible six days a week and then they went to their church on the Lord's Day and it was just filled with entertainment and feel-good statements and all of that then they'd go away hungry wouldn't they?
They got fed, fed, fed, fed, fed, fed six days a week and on the seventh day they didn't eat.
However if a person is like Hilkiah, if you're like Hilkiah, whether you're watching or here or whatever, perhaps you've neglected your Bible throughout the week.
You haven't studied it, you haven't read it, maybe you haven't even opened it.
You've checked your Facebook, make sure you didn't miss a like or a thumbs down or whatever.
You've checked your Instagram, you know everybody's business, but I want you to consider the far-reaching effect that neglect of God's word has on you.
First of all, by neglecting God's word, you have neglected to nourish your own inner man.
I can promise you that people who neglect to nourish their own inner man have not neglected to nourish their flesh.
They haven't missed too many meals, but they've neglected their inner man.
This flesh, this outer man is going to die, isn't it?
The inner man will not.
You're starving your inner man by failing to feed it with the strong meat that is the scriptures.
So in that condition, in that spiritual condition, when you go to work, you now have a starved inner man who's trying to function in the workplace.
And every one of us in here who work or who have worked, if you're retired, knows that there is stress in the workplace.
It may come from outside, it may come from inside.
You may be the cause of it, but whatever it is, there's always stress in the workplace.
And so now you've got a starved inner man going to work, and the first time he gets frustrated, he says something profane or lashes out in anger.
Or that starving inner man may be trying to parent a rebellious child.
So rather than disciplining in love, you lash out in anger.
Now why do those things happen?
They happen because your inner man is starving.
That place in you that's designed for the Word of God has been filled with the things of the flesh.
You're going to fill it with something.
Your mind's not a vacuum.
It's not just going to be empty.
You filled it with worldly pleasures, worldly motives, and worldly responses.
And then you may come to church here and there, if you come at all.
You come maybe to see other people or eat a good lunch or some of those things, but because you've starved yourself during the week of spiritual things and you filled yourself with worldly things, then when you come here you're not hungry for spiritual things.
You're not hungry for truth.
To some people, truth is boring.
They can't wait to get out of here or any whatever other church you may be talking about, They can't wait to get out of here and go do something they call exciting go to the lake go the golf course All those are fun things to do But if that's what people are looking forward to do when they come to the Lord's house Then it might as well not come and I don't recommend you don't come I recommend you come and put that other stuff aside for a little while You like our high priest he'll kaya You're standing in the house of the Lord like he was but your inner man has lost the book of the law you're not meditating on truth or chewing on it or Living by it you're not being spiritually built up by that truth and It shows in the way you deal with your family your friends your co-workers.
It shows in the way you worship Standing in the house of the Lord with the book of the law Hilkiah situation reminds me of what the Apostle Peter wrote in 1st Peter 4 17 1st Peter 4 17 For the time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God and If it first began at us What shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God now that word obey means to believe So there's a judgment that Peter is talking about here the one that begins at the house of God and That judgment I've taught on this before the Judgment seat of Christ, which is a different judgment Than the great white throne judgment But this is a the judgment seat of Christ is where the rewards or losses of rewards are seen and it's only for Christians it's not for unbelievers and For our purposes today We will look at where judgment begins.
It says at the house of God This isn't this judgment is not the condemnation that the unbelieving world will receive but rather it's God chastening his people, God rewarding his people, God taking those rewards.
And it's found in 1 Corinthians 11 verses 29 through 32.
First Corinthians 11, 29 through 32.
And in that chapter you learn about the Lord's Supper and you also learn about those who took it unworthily, in an unworthy manner.
It says, "For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep," that means they're dead, "for if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world."
So you understand where it says damnation, discerning and judging, and not condemned.
That's telling us that this judgment is not a condemnation of a man's spirit.
This has nothing to do with sending a person to hell.
This judgment is for Christians.
Now what was wrong with the high priest and the other Levites in the house of the Lord during Josiah's reign?
They had not judged themselves.
They had not discerned themselves.
They had not discerned that what they were doing was wrong.
How could they?
They had lost the book of the law.
So all they had was their own worldly moral compass. though they were very religious they were still operating with a worldly moral compass and the problem with a worldly moral compass is it changes with the times north becomes west and south becomes east but it's not so with God's Word it never changes God doesn't change and neither does his Word and so you can be sure that what's true today is true tomorrow and it was true a thousand years ago.
And now that his word has been found and read in the house of the Lord, look down in verse nine, 2 Kings 22 verse nine, "And Shaphan the scribe came to the king and brought the king word again."
Now let's just look at that for a moment.
Remember a scribe was one who told, one who declared or numbered.
He gave the news like Walter Cronkite, that's the way it is.
There wasn't any political slant one way or the other.
That's what a scribe did.
And here in our text he took news from one place and told it straight to the king. says in verse 9 and here's what he told him, "Thy servants have gathered the money that was found in the house and have delivered it into the hand of them that do the work that have the oversight of the house of the Lord."
Verse 10, "And Shaphan the scribe showed the King saying, "Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a book."
Now let me tell you the words that that Shaphan spoke in verse 9 were important, they were good.
It was good for him to tell the King, "Hey all the money has been counted, it's been delivered to the hands of the workers."
That's a good reporting.
It was necessary to report what was done with the money, to properly count the silver and to deliver it into the hands of those faithful carpenters and masons and builders we studied about.
But the news that Hilkiah had delivered the book of the law to Shaphan was the biggest news of the day.
In fact, that may have been the greatest event that happened in all of Josiah's 31-year reign.
I remember seeing photos of our brothers and sisters in Africa whenever they received Bibles from us.
You all have seen some of those pictures on Facebook.
And those Bibles, you could tell by the look on their faces, those Bibles were the greatest thing they ever received in the mail. beat any Amazon delivery, now I don't know how the Bible's got there, maybe Amazon, but their faces showed it.
And you notice the book of the law found in the house of the Lord was now taken to the king of the land.
And we've discussed how the spiritual condition of the house of the Lord frames the spiritual condition of the people and how its influence, that is the spiritual condition of the house of the Lord, how it extends to the government as well.
Shaphan took the book of the law from Hilkiah, who was the priest, and he presented it to Josiah the king.
Now he'd already read it.
Shaphan had already read the book of the law back in verse 8, and now he's going to read again and this time he'll read it to the king and I'm of the opinion that when verse 8 says he read the book of the law I believe he read it out loud to Hilkiah it would make sense instead of him just standing there in front of the high priest reading it silently what good would that do I mean what would you do you'd say what does it say tell me what it says right you do that when your wife is on looking at her text messages for a long time you go who's that what are they saying right but certainly with the book of the law and you know the king must have been swamped on a daily basis with things to read there must have been people coming in one after another wanting something wanting to tell him something.
Military updates and economic news, social demands, and so forth.
And even if the king retained every word that he heard and every word that he read pertaining to those areas, those words could not trump what Chafin was reading to him that day when he read aloud the book of the law.
In fact, the hearing of those words from the book of the law would shape the hearing of the rest of the words.
Now I'm going to tell you what that means.
If a national leader is a Christian, he's trusting in the Lord, he reads the book of the law, he knows what it says, and you come to him and say, "Mr.
President, I just want you to know that in Saudi Arabia today, they executed 14 people for committing some kind of crime."
He'd say, "All right, what was it?
Were they guilty?
All right, that's what they get."
Now, somebody who's politically correct may say, "Oh, no, no, no.
We shouldn't kill people.
The Bible says not to kill anybody."
Well, they don't have a proper understanding of what the Bible actually says, do they?
So hearing the Word of God would shape Josiah's response to national issues, to social issues, to even things in his own house among his own children.
And no matter how religious or a senator or representative is, no matter how many Bible verses they quote, the real test of whether they've read and understood and believe the scriptures is in the actions they take.
The real proof is in the convictions they hold, especially when those convictions cause them to go against the current public sentiment.
The same could be said for us as well.
Somebody may tell you how much they love Jesus, how much they love his word, but wait until adversity comes into their life and when you see them remain faithful you'll say that guy's the real deal right there.
Boy, I've seen it.
And it encourages my heart when I see a Christian who goes through some rough times, and I know some right now, some of you are, and I know others who are going through some tough times, and they remain faithful.
Matthew chapter 7, verses 15 through 18, "Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Here's the key, ye shall know them by their fruits.
How do you know a false prophet?
By his fruits.
Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?
Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, And neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
And as we've learned, King Josiah sought the Lord early in his life when he was very young.
And now the book of the law has been read in his ears.
And by his fruits, the nation of Judah is about to know if their king really believes all the things that are written in that book.
Look down in verse 11, "And it came to pass when the king had heard the words of the book of the law that he rent his clothes."
Well, we weren't expecting that, were we?
He rent his clothes, that means he tore his garments.
And in the Bible, that is a sign of grieving or anguish.
In fact, there were three kinds of responses the king could have had after hearing those words.
One was jumping for joy.
Two was apathy.
And three, was rending or tearing his clothes in anguish.
And he did the latter.
Those words were grievous to him.
And in the next verse we'll see why.
But first, I want to talk about that second response that he could have had but he didn't.
And that is apathy.
Apathy.
Means you don't care. effect you doesn't move you.
I would rather see someone filled with joy at hearing God's truth than to see someone in anguish at his words.
I would, because that means that what God's said in his word resonates with your heart.
You say, man, that's good.
I love that.
That's comforting to me.
That's exciting to me.
That's, that's a promise that I can claim.
But I would also rather see someone in absolute anguish at hearing God's word than to see them apathetic.
You know, when we rejoice in hearing God's word, it's because God's spirit is bearing witness with our spirit that we belong to him.
We rejoice because that truth is sweet to us.
We rejoice because it's delivered us from wrath.
And it's reconcile us to our God.
That truth is received with joy because the promises of God's word have outshined the misery and despair that we face in this world.
And you know, sometimes people have tears of joy too, don't they?
Not just tears of anguish.
They have tears of joy.
And when we respond to God's word in anguish, as King Josiah did, it's normally because we've been convicted by truth that points out our sin.
We read it and say, "Oh Lord, I really messed this up.
Your word convinces me of that."
And you may spend some time in anguish.
We've been wrong in God's sight and we know it.
And the words tell us the words of the book of the law, tell us truth.
And that breaks our hearts.
We're not angry with God.
We're angry with ourselves because we know God's word is right and we're wrong and that we need to repent.
So when you hear God's word, respond in joy or respond in anguish, but don't respond in apathy.
I've seen apathy in my personal life, my professional life, my religious life.
I've demonstrated it and I've watched others do it as well and it's ugly.
And when I teach God's truth, then I've been, by the grace of God, been teaching the Bible since 1995.
I hadn't been very good at it that long, I can tell you that. but I've been teaching it since 1995.
And when I've taught God's truth and people who hear it know they're not in line with that truth, sometimes they respond with apathy.
They don't care.
They say in their hearts, "I don't care what he says, I'm going to keep doing it.
And apathy takes hold in a lost person too.
When a lost person hears the gospel and they hear that after their last breath on this earth, whenever that may be, they hear that unredeemed, they're going to go to the lake of fire for all eternity and be judged for their sin.
And yet, they're more concerned about supper tonight, or that roast I've got on the counter.
They don't think a word about what's going to happen to their eternal inner man, that part of you that is either saved or lost.
And they walk away unaffected by it.
Now King Josiah was definitely not apathetic in his response to the reading of the book of the law.
He was crushed.
He rent his clothes, and as I said before, this was a custom.
You see it in the Bible often.
It was a custom associated with repentance.
In fact, the first time we see the rending of clothes, the tearing of clothes for this reason, is in Genesis chapter 37.
Genesis 37.
And in that chapter, you see the jealous brothers of Joseph, the son of Jacob.
Those jealous brothers had a plot.
They were going to make it look like wild beasts killed Joseph.
And so they took his coat and they threw him in a pit.
And they had a good mind to kill him.
And Reuben said, "No.
Don't do it."
Well, Reuben went away and when he came back, he looked in the pit and Joseph wasn't there.
Now listen to what verse 29 says, this is Genesis 37, 29.
"And Reuben returned under the pit "and behold, Joseph was not in the pit "and he rent his clothes."
Reuben was in anguish because he thought Joseph had been killed.
So there's the first use of that what Josiah is doing here.
He's re rent his clothes and anguish.
I look back in verse.
Actually, we'll have to stop right there because we're out of time and we'll pick up Lord willing with verse 12 next week.
Let's pray.
Father, it's been good to be in your house already this morning.
Your word is precious to us.
Your spirit teaches us and we're so thankful for all of that.
And now, as we continue with our time of worship and Bible study.
We pray you would receive our praise and our song with the joy that we have in our hearts, that it would be a sweet sound to your ears and that our worship would be a sweet savor in your nose.
And Lord I pray that everyone here would give their attention to the spiritual needs that they have and put aside the carnal needs that are there with us daily and we ask that you give our pastor all the grace he needs to teach your word today that your people may be built up in the faith in Jesus name amen
