Episode Transcript
Well, good morning.
It's no longer 10 o'clock.
I just let it slip right to 10. 03, didn't I?
We've still got some coming.
No, I'm not.
I got a full night's sleep last night, so I'm.
That's different for me.
2 Kings chapter 23 and verse 3 was our stopping place last week.
So let's go ahead and turn there today.
Second Kings twenty-three three When we left off last week, King Josiah, the prophets, the priests, the men of Judah, and all the people of Jerusalem were gathered at the house of the Lord.
And on behalf of the people, King Josiah had begun to make a covenant with God.
And we looked at how man-made covenants like that are destined to be broken.
They're just going to be broken.
If you think about covenants, which we would call contracts, the wording in there I don't know the last time you actually read one of those before you hit I Agree.
But if you ever are looking for something to read and you're totally bored Read a contract, read an agreement that you have with your cell phone provider, and it is full of legalese, and it tries to address every Single deviation that a person might have made from a contract before.
The reason for long contracts is because the handshake went out of style.
And when the handshake and the person's word became no good, or at least was suspect, then the written contract came into play.
And that's sad.
But man-made covenants are broken at some point.
And as a type of Jesus Christ, King Josiah represented the people.
Of his kingdom to God as he made this covenant on their behalf.
And the weakness in this covenant is that it was made by man.
And even Josiah, who was committed to the Lord, could not keep this covenant.
And here is why he and the people would not be able to keep that covenant.
As we look more specifically there in verse 3, it says, in the middle of the covenant, They were to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book.
That was the last thing the king said as he stood by the pillar in the temple.
And made this covenant with the Lord for Judah, not just him, but for Judah to walk after the commandments and statutes and testimonies of the Lord.
So he said to perform the words of this covenant that were written in the book.
This wasn't just about reading God's word.
But it was also about doing God's word, perform.
To keep the commandments is to guard them.
That's what that word keep means.
And it's to guard them with the objective of actually doing them.
But to perform the commandments is to do them.
One follows the other.
And think for a moment how exacting and how demanding this covenant is.
Just think of how flawless and dedicated a person would have to be to actually follow through with this covenant.
And to confirm this promise of the keeping of the law, it says at the end of verse 3.
And all the people stood to the covenant.
So this was an outward sign that they agreed to it.
Some translations have the words entered or were in favor of instead of the word stood.
So some translations have and all the people entered into the covenant.
Or were in favor of the covenant.
So that's the significance of standing to the covenant.
So their standing to the covenant was like the signing of a contract.
They bound themselves to every word, every precept, every requirement of the covenant of the book of the law.
I remember when we decided to move from Rowlette back in 2004.
We'd had a drive-by shooting on the street next to us and a few other things that told me we were no longer in a neighborhood, we were just in the hood.
And so we built a house.
Over in Fate.
And I said, I'll tell you what, I told my wife, I only ask that it be one story and let's keep it under a certain amount.
And brick on the outside, so I don't have to paint it every 10 years.
Other than that, color, inside, walls, carpet, wood, doesn't matter.
You pick all that, and she's good at that.
And so we ended up with a two-story house that was about 70% above budget.
But my kids were so excited, and I said Well, I'm not sure I want this house because that's an awful lot of vacuuming and cleaning, and y'all are just going to mess it up.
They said, No, no, daddy, daddy, we will help mom keep it clean.
It's a brand new house.
Well, you know what happened there, right?
They broke the covenant.
They didn't realize the agreement to which they had bound themselves when they told their daddy, Oh, we're going to help mom keep it clean.
And so anyway, that's because they didn't understand the full impact of that covenant.
Now you think about A person who makes a covenant with God who says, God, I'm going to obey every word in the book of the law.
They really don't understand what they just agreed to.
Verse 4 And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest and the priests of the second order and the keepers of the door Now let's just stop right there before we go into what he actually commanded.
And let's think about what it means for a moment.
That the king commanded the high priest and the priests Now if the high priest had been obedient to the Lord's word before this, then Josiah would not have had to command the high priest to do anything.
The king wouldn't have had to tell the high priest and the other priests what to do because they would have already been doing it.
Numbers chapter 1, verse 50.
Numbers chapter 1, verse 50.
We're going to go back to when the priests received instructions about how to carry out their duties.
And God told Moses here, but thou shalt appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of testimony and over all the vessels thereof. and over all the things that belong to it.
They shall bear the tabernacle, and all the vessels thereof, and they shall minister unto it, and shall encamp round about the tabernacle.
And then skip down to verse 53.
But the Levites shall pitch round about the tabernacle of testimony, that there be no wrath upon the congregation of the children of Israel.
And the Levites shall keep the charge of the tabernacle of testimony.
That means they were in charge.
So in his instructions to Moses, God gave the Levites commands concerning every aspect of their work And you can read all about it, and we have studied it in years past: every detail of every job they had in that tabernacle.
And even more than that, they were given instructions on what to wear and where they lived.
How they were to deal with leprosy, how to offer various sacrifices, and even how to deal with dead bodies.
All of that was given to the Levites.
And so when you hear Levites, just to remind you, that's where the priests came from.
The priests came from the tribe of Levi or Levi, as they will pronounce it Now what's one thing you notice about the children of Israel from the time they left Egypt until they reached the promised land and divided the land into lots?
One thing you notice is that they were never under an earthly king.
They never were.
And because they were not under an earthly king, God's instructions to the children of Israel never entailed having a king tell the children of Israel what to do.
Or having a king tell the priests or the high priest what to do.
That was never part of the chain of command in God's design.
So, do you see the far-reaching consequences of man throwing off God's government?
That's what Israel did.
1 Samuel chapter 10, verses 17 through 19a.
1 Samuel chapter 10, verses 17 through 19a.
And Samuel called the people together unto the Lord to Mizpah, and said unto the children of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel.
I have brought up Israel out of Egypt, and delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all kingdom of them that oppressed you and ye have this day rejected your God, who himself saved you out of all your adversities and your tribulations, and ye have said unto him, Nay, But set a king over us.
So until that day, Israel had not been under a king.
Moses led them through the wilderness or through the wilderness, but he died before they went into the promised land.
God killed him.
Joshua led them after that.
Then they had the days of the judges, because there was no king in Israel, and every man did that which was right in his own sight.
And you read the book of Judges.
And it's not until 1 Samuel chapter 10 where Israel had a king So, all of God's instructions to the children of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai, in the reading of the commandments and the law, and all the ordinances given to the priests.
All of the civil law, the ceremonial law, never involved a king.
So this The notion of a king, Josiah, telling the high priest and the priests what to do is foreign, but it's there.
So God gave these hard-hearted people what they asked for.
He gave them a king, and that was Saul.
And we've studied the aftermath of that ever since we began studying 1 Samuel.
And what have we seen?
We've seen that most kings were evil.
We've seen the division of Israel into two nations, the northern and the southern kingdom, and we're studying the southern kingdom, Judah, right now.
And now we're looking at a king, Josiah, who is having to tell the high priest and the other priests to do something that they should have already been doing.
In fact, what he commanded them to do should never have been necessary in the first place.
He commanded them, look back in your text, to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal.
And for the grove, and for all the host of heaven.
Now, if you'll recall, Josiah's grandfather, Manasseh.
Had originally built up the high places.
He started off as a wicked king.
He built those high places and the groves and had idols made.
And in his latter years, Manasseh repented, and he had all of those idols and strange gods and images cast out of the house of the Lord.
Well, when he died, his wicked son Amon succeeded the throne.
And he sacrificed to those images that his father had made.
And then Amon's son is the one we're reading about now, Josiah.
And when Josiah was 16, he had already been king of Judah for eight years.
Now, I want you to listen to 2 Chronicles 34, verse 4.
2 Chronicles 34, verse 4.
And this speaks about Josiah.
We're in Kings, but Chronicles parallels the Kings and gives us details that we don't have in the Kings, so it's very useful.
It says, and this is under Josiah, and they break down the altars of Balaam in his presence, and the images that were on high above them.
He cut them down, or he cut down, and the groves and the carved images, and the molten images, he broke in pieces, and made dust of them, and strode it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them.
And I believe we covered that verse in our study a few weeks ago.
So you see, Josiah cleared out the damage that his father had done.
Why now is he having to do it again?
He's having to do it again because the wicked priests Including the high priest, had reintroduced idols back into the temple.
That's the only explanation.
And if you go back and look at each of the wicked kings of Israel and Judah, you will see that those wicked kings were greatly responsible.
For the altars of Baal, for the groves, the high places, the images that were made and placed in the house of the Lord, and worshipped.
And I mentioned a few moments ago the far-reaching effect of the children of Israel throwing off God's government.
But they weren't the first to do that.
What has happened since the days of King Saul is this.
The children of Israel have begun listening to what the king said rather than what God said.
When God gave the law and the ordinances to Moses, he gave them to the Levites.
Moses gave them to the Levites Including the high priest Aaron.
And once the high priest and the Levites received those very detailed instructions, It would not be necessary for them to keep asking Moses, what are we supposed to do next?
They had it.
They had the written la And all they had to do is go right back to that.
They didn't need to ask anybody else what to do.
And all they had to do was remember the word of the Lord and do it.
That was it.
That's pretty simple, isn't it?
At least in principle, it is very simple.
So how do we know the high priests and the Levites were not remembering and doing the word of the Lord since the days of King Saul?
It's very simple.
If all the priests and the Levites had been sold out to obey God's law, had been committed godly priests.
Then there would be dead priests and dead Israelites at the gates of the tabernacle and the temple.
Because godly priests would have given their lives.
To prevent the Lord's house from being defiled by idols or by anything unclean.
Godly priests would have taken the lives Of anyone who tried to defile the house of the Lord, even if the king himself sent them.
I'll take you back to Numbers chapter 1.
In case you wonder whether the Levites would participate in the taking of a person's life Numbers 1 51 And when the tabernacle setteth forward, the Levites shall take it down And when the tabernacle is to be pitched, the Levite shall set it up.
And the stranger that cometh nigh, that means near, shall be put to death.
So the years of the kings of Israel and Judah could be summed up this way.
One, kings brought idols into the house of the Lord Two, kings removed idols from the house of the Lord.
And more often than not, there were idols in the house of the Lord.
There was Baal worship.
And when the few good kings removed those idols, cut down those groves.
The few bad kings and all the hard-hearted children of Israel brought them back.
I'm sure in David's day There were people who thought, good, we finally have a godly king, and there will never be any more idols in the house of the Lord.
But even his own son Solomon built all of those things for his wives and his concubines.
And it's awful to see what happens when man rejects God's government.
When Adam and Eve did it, now Lucifer was the first one to reject God's government.
He did that and was cast out of heaven, he and his host.
But the first man to throw off God's government was Adam.
When Adam and Eve rejected God's government, sin entered into the world and then death by sin.
So nothing good came out of that, did it?
When the children of Israel did it, when they threw off God's government, confusion reigned in their countries.
There was division.
And it ultimately led to Samaria, the northern kingdom, also called Israel, being conquered.
And now Judah, in our studies, being on the brink of being conquered.
More specifically, We've seen what happens when the men whom God appointed over the business of the tabernacle in the temple now throw off God's government.
When the priests, the high priests and the Levites, throw off God's government, when they say, well, you know, it's no longer good for us to just look at God's word and go by it.
We need to consult the king.
We need to see what other people have to say about it.
And what happens when these priests, these high priests, do that, when preachers today do it?
Pastors, bishops, whatever you want to call them.
What happens when they did it then, and what happens when they do it now, is they become the pawns of man's government, just like many are today.
The idea of placing a homosexual behind the pulpit in a church began by society's acceptance of it.
Government's legalization of it, and then the church's endorsement of it.
But godly pastors and godly church members have never tolerated it.
And for that, we've been mocked and ridiculed.
We've been called hateful, saying that we don't love people.
We've been called bigoted and are generally rejected by society and government that has embraced it and approved it.
In countries that have state-run religions, the leaders of those churches submit themselves to the government.
It's no secret.
Read about the Church of England, the Church of Iceland Read about North Korea.
You say, well, that's not a Christian country.
No, it's not.
There are Christians in North Korea, and they're having to hide to save their lives.
If they're caught with a Bible over there, that's a death penalty.
But their state-run religion is submission to their great leader, to their dear leader.
And they revere him or are taught to revere him as a godlike figure, the founder of North Korea.
And the Bible, on the other hand, implores pastors to stand against the world.
And to submit themselves to the Lord, just like the Bible implored the priests in those days to stand against the world and submit themselves to the Lord Listen to the Apostle Paul's words about his own ministry.
1 Corinthians chapter 2.
Verses 4 through 7.
1 Corinthians 2, verses 4 through 7.
He wrote And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.
That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, that's the saved, the complete yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world that come to naught.
But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory The hidden wisdom that God ordained before there was ever a king, before he ever made the world.
And Paul said, I didn't consult with the wisdom of this world to preach.
I didn't consult with the princes of this world.
That's the government, isn't it?
I didn't consult with anyone except God and the wisdom that He ordained before the world was ever made.
And even though King Josiah, who made this covenant, is a good king, he is still a sinner who needs to be saved.
He didn't do everything right.
He himself, as committed as he was, did not perfectly obey the law.
His words were not always the right words.
And he's trying to point the people back to God.
And Josiah is a king who, along with all the other kings who've ever been enthroned, should have never been enthroned.
There should have never been a king over Israel.
There never would have been kings on the thrones of Israel and Judah if Israel and Judah had simply followed God's word.
Because God said in the days of King Saul before he was enthroned, You've rejected me.
You want a king?
The reason you want a king is because you've rejected me.
Well, now we've got them, don't we?
Now that there are kings and rulers all over the world and have been for thousands of years, it's created some spiritual dilemmas.
Matthew chapter 22, verses 15 through 17.
Matthew 22, verses 15 through 17.
Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him, that is Jesus, in his talk.
And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, We know that thou art true and teachest the way of God in truth.
Neither carest thou for any man, for thou regardest not the person of men.
In other words, Jesus didn't care what the king said.
He didn't care what the powerful people of the world said.
Tell us, therefore, what thinkest thou?
Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar or not?
Now, why was this dilemma created in the first place?
Because we had a Caesar.
We should have never had a Caesar.
Should have never had a king.
But there was one.
And that was a dilemma.
And of course, these Pharisees used that dilemma to cause a problem, not to solve a problem.
They didn't want a real solution.
They were trying to trip Jesus up with his words.
And the Pharisees' forefathers. were the ones, the very ones who wanted a Caesar, but they called him Saul.
Listen to how Jesus responded to the Pharisees' question in verses 18 through 22.
So this is Matthew 22, verses 18 through 21.
But Jesus perceived their wickedness and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?
Show me the tribute money And they brought unto him a penny, and he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?
They say unto him, Caesar's.
Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.
What happened when man demanded a king?
God gave them one.
He said, okay, you want a king?
And the existence of every king, of every president, of every government ruler since then.
Has presented a choice to the people.
Do we obey God or do we obey the king?
That's the choice.
And Jesus' answer was a reminder that even though the Pharisees were bound to obey God, Now that there was a king or an emperor, they had to obey the king as well, by giving him his due.
And those Pharisees were the same Pharisees who were presented with another dilemma.
By Pontius Pilate.
John 19, 15.
John 19, 15.
Now, this is when Pilate asked, What do you want me to do with Jesus, which is called Christ?
But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him.
Now listen to what Pilate said.
Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your king?
The chief priests answered.
Who answered?
The chief priests.
We have no king but Caesar.
Now imagine if the children of Israel had never asked for a king in the days of King Saul. then they would have never been asked such a question by Pontius Pilate because there wouldn't have been a Pontius Pilate as governor There wouldn't have been a Caesar as king.
There wouldn't have been a chief priest who says, My king is Caesar, not Jesus.
But God, in his perfect foreknowledge, in his divine plan, knew that man would choose an earthly king.
And because he's merciful, he taught us how to act in the midst of the consequences of our poor decision as mankind to want a human ruler over us.
Now, God's not against established authority.
God established authority in the garden, man rejected it.
God said, Okay, in sorrow.
You're going to give birth.
So we have children.
Will God establish authority in the home?
Parents over the children.
The husband, the wife, then the children, as they submit to the Lord.
And now man says, Well, we don't like that.
We want a king.
God says, Okay, here's your king.
Here's what's going to happen when you have a king.
You remember the terrible things that God prophesied would happen when King Saul took the throne?
He said, You don't want to know what he's going to do to your sons and daughters.
He's going to enlist them in things that you don't want them to do.
And we've studied that before.
But he was gracious enough to tell us how to behave now that we have another authority figure on this earth.
Maybe the Things that we've studied the last few moments will help you understand why it seems so unnatural, so backwards, that a king Should tell the priests to remove idols from the house of the Lord.
And although it was not God's perfect will for man to have an earthly king.
I am thankful for a godly king like Josiah, who stood for God's word in the midst of a wicked and perverse nation Now, what did Josiah do with those vessels and groves that were made for Baal?
Look back in your text.
Back in 2 Kings 23 and verse 4.
There in the middle, it says, and he burned them.
Without Jerusalem, that means outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron.
He didn't just throw them out.
Like his father did.
He burned them.
And you may say, from dust they came, and unto dust they returned.
That's exactly what happened.
The Hebrew word translated ashes here in the text, where it says, and carried ashes unto them.
We'll get to that in a second.
That's almost always translated as dust.
But he burned them, and burning is purifying in the absence of an antiseptic.
If you're trying to get a splinter out of your finger and you want to use a needle to do that and you don't have alcohol, guess what you can do?
You can take a match and burn a tip of that needle and kill everything that's on it and then you're less likely to get an infection.
Well, the only way to purify an idol is to burn it.
And that makes it cease to exist in its prior form.
It's reduced to ashes.
And you can burn ashes all day long, and you're going to have ashes.
And it said further in this verse, and carried the ashes of them, that is, of the burned idols, the burned vessels, unto Bethel.
So now They were no more idols, but ashes.
And what are ashes?
Well, most of the time in the Bible, that Hebrew word is translated dust, almost every time.
And the first place the word is used is in Genesis chapter 2, verse 7.
Genesis 2, verse 7.
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, same word as ashes in our text, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.
So whether it be an idol or a vessel made for bale or grove or anything else that's constructed by man's hands.
It's really no better than dust.
And no matter how much value a person assigns to a dollar bill or to a nice car, A beautiful house, a gold ring, or anything else.
It's no better than dust.
And when you realize this truth, it's very liberating.
And even though we're thankful for every earthly possession God gives us, I'm thankful for the clothes I'm wearing, the food I have, and all of that.
But they're ultimately dust.
They don't last.
I was helping my oldest daughter move some things yesterday, and Came across an old tarp.
You know, the blue cheap tarp you buy at Walmart, the very kind I would buy.
Well, after a while, in the heat in the garage, and over time.
The fabric on there starts turning to dust.
And you try to put it over something, there's just blue dust everywhere.
That's because it's really dust.
It's very useful until it's not But all of those things don't last.
They're dust.
They just have a different form right now.
And what Josiah did.
By burning the vessels into ashes, into dust, was a representation of how the Lord is going to judge that which is unholy.
In Revelation chapter 18, you read about Babylon, not the earthly country, but spiritual Babylon.
And all of those who partook in her merchandise and sold her merchandise, in other words, they peddled the wares of wickedness.
And here's what verse eight, chapter eighteen, verse eighteen says, and this is I'm sorry, chapter 18, verse 8.
Chapter 18, verse 8.
Therefore shall her plagues come in one day.
Death and mourning and famine, and she shall be utterly burned with fire.
For strong is the Lord God who judges her.
So God is going to judge spiritual Babylon.
Like Josiah judged the earthly vessels of Baal, which represented the ruler of spiritual Babylon, which is Satan.
And further down in that scene in Revelation chapter 18, we see what the merchants of spiritual Babylon do when it's burned up.
That is verse 18, chapter 18, verse 18.
It says, and they cast dust on their heads. and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness, for in one hour Is she made desolate?
Dust was all that will be left of spiritual Babylon.
Just like dust was all that remained of those vessels of Baal that Josiah burned.
Do you remember studying about the stone cut out of the mountain in Nebuchadnezzar's dream?
Listen to Luke chapter 20, verses 17 through 18.
Luke 20, 17 through 18.
And he beheld them, and said, What is this then that is written?
The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner.
Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken.
That's me.
But on whosoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
That's the unbeliever.
Friend, no matter how you look at it, all the kingdoms of this world All the religions that have exalted themselves above God, all the spiritual Babylon will be reduced to dust.
And the question is: will you weep over it?
Or will you rejoice that the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ?
And we'll pick up next week with the rest of that verse.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you for your word, and thank you for those who love your word And I thank you that your Spirit has given us the ability to both teach and to understand.
And Lord, you've.
Built us up today in our faith.
We're so grateful for it and pray you continue to do that in the next hour.
In Jesus' name, amen
