Episode Transcript
We're in 2 Kings chapter 23 and verse 9 2 Kings chapter 23 and verse 9 And while you're turning there, I'll show off this.
Brother Fulton got me this iPad.
He teaches off of one.
And actually, he's pretty fancy.
He's got the window divided where he can teach on one side and look at all the Facebook comments on the other.
And I'm just a white belt at this, so I'm going to start off with just a simple lesson.
But it's really nice.
It allows us to store these electronically, saves money on print cartridges.
And we don't kill as many trees as we normally would.
Save money on paper and all that.
So I'm very thankful, and I really appreciate him doing that.
2 Kings 23 verse 9.
Last week we ended our time by learning about organized religion and therefore disorganized religion.
And King Josiah had enough of the disorganized religion.
So he began to dismantle it by tearing down the sinful places That had been built for this disorganized religion.
And as we read, those were the groves, the houses of the Sodomites.
And the places where the women wove these hangings for Asherah or the groves And Josiah began to remove not only the places of the disorganized religion, but also the perpetrators of the disorganized religion.
He did that by taking out the Sodomites and the wicked priests who put up with him.
So today.
We're going to look at how the priests responded to this cleansing of the house of the Lord.
And that's found in verse 9.
So hopefully you're there by now.
2 Kings 23, verse 9.
Nevertheless, now that's not a good word to start off with.
Nevertheless, the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem.
That's not what we wanted to see, was it?
That's not what the Lord wanted to see.
And I Asked myself why would they not go up to the house of the Lord after all of that?
And I saw two possible reasons for that based on the text.
One, Perhaps those priests were ashamed.
They had ignored the organized religion that God gave Moses.
The religion by which the Levites were supposed to serve in the tabernacle and now the temple, as we're studying the time when the temple had been in use.
The Levites or the priests in this day had ignored the religion by which the children of Israel were to live and move and have their being.
And now these priests have been called out for their misdeeds.
You know, I wonder how many of those priests shacked up with those Sodomites.
Whose houses were next to the house of the Lord?
How many of those priests burnt incense to false gods and Therefore disobeying the first and great commandment, Thou shalt have no other gods before me or as Jesus taught us, the two great commandments, Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart.
With all thy soul, with all thy strength.
And so these priests didn't go to the altar of the Lord.
Even though that was the place where the sin offering was made in those days.
And as we think about this altar, as we think about the house of the Lord.
Let's think about what it represents.
And when we do that, we'll understand better How significant it was that the priests did not go up to the house of the Lord.
They came not up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, as the text tells us.
Now from your lessons about the brazen altar, you learned about the sin offering.
Listen to Exodus chapter 29, verses 10 through 14.
Exodus 29, verses 10 through 14.
Where we learn about the sin offering.
And God told Moses, And thou shalt cause a bullock to be brought before the tabernacle of the congregation.
And Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the bullock, and thou shalt kill the bullock before the LORD, by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
And thou shalt take of the blood of the bullock and put it upon the horns of the altar, same altar we're talking about.
With thy finger, and pour all the blood beside the bottom of the altar, and thou shalt take all the fat. that covereth the inwards, and the call that is above the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them.
And burn them upon the altar.
But the flesh of the bullock, and his skin, and his dung, shalt thou burnt with fire without the camp.
It is a sin offering.
Where was the sin offering made?
It was made on the altar that was by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
The only altar at that location was the brazen altar.
Now the other altar was the altar of incense.
And as you walk into the tabernacle You would see that altar of incense right in front of you before you go into the Holy of Holies, just outside that veil.
I want to read you some verses from the tenth chapter of Hebrews that help tie all this together.
Remember, we're looking at the significance of the priest not going up to the altar of the Lord.
Hebrews chapter 10, verses 10 through 12.
If you're taking notes, Hebrews 10, verses 10 through 12.
Where it says, By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
And every priest standeth daily ministering, and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins.
But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God.
So you see that the writer of the Hebrews is taking what happened at the brazen altar and what happened at the cross and showing you that one represents the other.
And I think that's a very basic principle that you learn when you're going through the Genesis to Jesus or Creation to Christ class.
Or, if you've had some other method of teaching that, we've taught it in here as well.
But when Jesus was offered for sin, He was not cut up and placed on the brazen altar.
He was nailed to a cross.
He was cut up all right.
He was beaten and had the crown of thorns and all that.
But that cross is the New Testament altar.
And his blood was shed.
They pierced his hands and his feet and his head.
And then his side was riven with a spear.
And when a person places his faith in Jesus' finished work on the cross.
Then by faith, he has come to that altar.
You don't physically go, you go by faith.
He has by faith Presented Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, as his sacrifice for sins.
Those priests presented those animals that the people brought them as sacrifices. for sin.
But as the Hebrews text told us, those sacrifices couldn't take away sin.
They just represented the one who would when he came to die on the cross.
Listen To what Jesus said in John chapter 5, verses 39 through 40.
John chapter 5, verses 39 through 40.
Remember, these priests went not up to the altar of the Lord.
Jesus said, Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life.
And they are they which testify of me and ye will not come to me that ye might have life Now I underscored ye will not come to me in my notes.
Now we can't come to Jesus physically.
But we come to him by faith.
That's how we do that.
So when we come to Jesus by faith.
This is the same thing as coming to the cross, which is our altar, by faith.
And coming to the cross, coming to Jesus' perfect sacrifice, is what physically coming to the brazen altar signified.
So, when those priests came not to the altar of the Lord, they were doing the same thing as those who refused to come to Jesus by faith.
Now, many churches, Baptists included, because I've been in them, have told people that coming down this aisle to what they call an old-fashioned altar.
Is what they're supposed to do if they want to come to Jesus.
How many times have you heard or seen that?
Maybe you did it yourself.
They said, you know, come to come to Jesus.
And I mean, they're wanting people to come down the aisle.
And all that is just get your steps in for the day.
That's all.
It's called an old-fashioned altar.
It's bizarre, if you ask me.
The thief on the cross did not come down the aisle.
He put his faith in what Jesus did right next to him, and then he died.
And even if an old-fashioned altar Like the brazen altar in the Old Testament.
Let's say ABC Independent Baptist Church decided: you know what, we're going to have a real old-fashioned altar.
We're going to build one.
Just like the brazen altar.
And they had one down the front of the church.
And they told people, You come on down to this old-fashioned altar, because that's actually an old-fashioned altar.
Well, nobody'd ever be saved by coming to it, would they?
They weren't saved by going to that old-fashioned altar in the Old Testament.
So they wouldn't be saved by coming to an old-fashioned altar today.
Now you know why this can't qualify for an altar, don't you?
It's got steps.
And God said he didn't want his priests going up steps to his altar, that their nakedness might be exposed.
So the steps don't qualify.
All those steps are is because I'm not six foot six and I can't see out for all y'all to see me.
And it gives Brother Doug something to jump over when he comes Up here and gives us our scripture memory.
And if you ever don't, if you ever take every step, I'm going to get a wheelchair because something's wrong with you.
I bet nobody else has a brother Doug in their church.
There is no way.
God broke that mold, and I'm glad he did.
But you know Old Testament saints were not saved by bringing a clean animal.
To the tabernacle for a sin offering.
What they were doing with that clean animal as they brought it and it was sacrificed, they were.
Doing something that represented the one who would one day come.
In his sermon in Acts chapter 3, verses 20 through 22.
Acts 3, verses 20 through 22, Peter said this about God And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things. which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.
For Moses truly said unto the fathers A prophet shall the LORD your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.
It is what happened at the altar of Jesus' cross that forgives sins.
The blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin, the Bible says.
And those unbelieving priests in Josiah's day Had been shaken to their core by the actions of their king as he tore down those Sodomites' houses and those weavings, those Shrines for Asherah, the houses they made for them, as he removed those priests and cleansed that temple.
Those priests had been shaken.
Their daily routine had been turned upside down.
And you would think that those events would cause them to tremble.
You think those events would cause them to turn to the Lord for salvation, but they would not.
If you're unsaved, it's not that you cannot be saved.
It's that you won't be saved.
You would not.
You don't want to.
Just like those priests, you're without any excuse.
Now, another possible and I think probable reason That the priests did not come to the altar of the house of the Lord there in Jerusalem was their hard-heartedness.
You know the most difficult person to convince is the one who has been doing it wrong for so long that he thinks he's right.
He says it's the way I've always done it.
Those are that's a death sentence for a business right there, isn't it?
Those are famous last words in the corporate world because you'll be left in the dust pretty quickly if you just live on, well, that's the way I've always done it, except for my plumber.
He doesn't use Facebook when he's underneath the sink with half his body under the Kitchen sink, and somebody calls him, he'll answer, Master's Touch Plumbing, thank you for calling.
How may I help you?
This is Bob.
Bob's 67 years old.
Now, Bob is never going to change.
But for the most part, in the corporate world, you have to you can't just say it's the way I've always done it.
If someone asks me Why we do what we do in this church.
I want to be able to give them scripture for that.
We preach the word because Jesus said, feed my sheep.
I have a reason for that.
Because Paul wrote, Preach the word.
So we preach the word.
There's the answer: we sing.
Because at midnight in the prison, Paul and Silas sang praises unto God.
The children of Israel sang praises to the Lord when he delivered them and when they believed his word.
What do you think the psalms are?
Those are songs.
After the Lord's Supper, Jesus and the disciples sung a hymn before they went to the Mount of Olives.
So that's why we sing.
I love that song, his eyes on the sparrow.
I sing because I'm happy, I sing because I'm free.
And we pray.
Now, why do we pray?
Well, Jesus said, My house is the house of prayer.
That's a good enough reason.
What we don't say is, well, that's the way we've always done it.
We say, instead, we do this because this is what Jesus commanded.
And these are the examples in Scripture where it was done by God's people.
And if only the priests, who were very likely hard-hearted, would have searched the scriptures themselves.
To see if what they were doing was what saith the Lord, then they wouldn't have been in this mess.
Well, it wasn't that the priests were totally unaffected by Josiah's cleansing of the temple.
Because the next few words we read show that they made some attempt, these priests made some attempt.
To afflict themselves outwardly.
And it says, look back in verse 9, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren.
So they wouldn't come to the altar of the Lord, but they did hang out with their brethren and eat unleavened bread.
And the word but there is contrasting their refusal to go to the altar of the Lord.
With the eating of the unleavened bread.
Now, the feast of unleavened bread is introduced to us in Exodus chapter 12 and verse 8.
When the children of Israel We're about to be delivered from Egypt.
And speaking of the Passover meal, that verse says And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
Now let's examine this response by these priests for a few moments.
Don't go to the altar of the Lord, just eat unleavened bread with the people.
The priest refused to go to the altar of the house of the Lord, but they would eat unleavened bread.
Now, that is what you call incomplete repentance.
Which means it's not repentance at all.
Biblical repentance is to have a change of mind that agrees with God's Word.
Now, those are both important.
To have a change of mind that agrees with God's word.
That is biblical repentance.
Just because I change my mind about something.
Doesn't mean that I agree with God's word.
I'll give you an example.
And there are people who believe this.
They're called.
Well, there's a lot of things they're called, but I should I'm gonna instead of getting off into all that, I'll just tell you what this group of people say If one of these men said, I believe Jesus has already come the second time and we missed the rapture.
Now, there are people who believe that.
Then you who know your Bibles well enough will say, Oh no, he's wrong.
He has not come.
That man needs to repent and believe what the Bible says, which is found.
In 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 16 through 17.
1 Thessalonians 4, 16 through 17.
This is the answer to the man who says the rapture's already come and we missed it.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together.
With them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Now, I'm one of the two.
I'm either going to be the dead in Christ or I'm going to be alive.
And I tend to think I'll be dead by then, but I don't really know whatever the Lord's timing is.
But I do know that all the things He says must come to pass, have to come to pass.
He's not going to make a liar out of himself.
So I'm going to be one or the other.
And I'm still here.
And Jesus said I'm going to be with him.
He's either going to raise me from the grave or he's going to gather me off of this earth.
And I'm going to go be with him forever.
He's not going to dump me back down here to be on my own in a sin-filled world.
So according to this passage, when Jesus comes, the dead and the living believers will all go to be with him forever.
No believer will be left behind.
So let's suppose this man, in our example, After hearing all of that, comes forward and says, You know what?
I repent of my former position on the coming of Jesus.
I now believe he has not come and will never come.
Now, has that man changed his mind?
Yes, he has.
Has he changed his mind to agree with God?
No, he hasn't.
It's repentance, but it's not repentance toward God.
And the Bible says that we have repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
So just because someone changes their mind about something doesn't mean they have biblically repented.
They have to agree with God's word.
Their newfound position must agree with God's word.
Now, the priests of the high places in our text.
Ate unleavened bread with their brethren.
And that's all that we're told that they did here.
Now, going back to Exodus chapter twelve.
Concerning the feast of the unleavened bread, I'll read you verse 17.
And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread, for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt.
Therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance forever.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Was to commemorate their exodus from Egypt.
I'll give you another passage.
Exodus 23, verses 14 through 17.
Exodus 23, 14 through 17.
Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.
Thou shalt keep a feast of unleavened bread.
Thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abe, for in it thou camest out from Egypt. and none shall appear before me empty and the feast of harvest, the first fruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field, and the feast of in gathering which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field, three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord God.
Now, during those feasts, you had the unleavened bread eaten.
However, there was an additional requirement for all the males.
They had to appear before the Lord.
And the priests in our study wanted to eat the unleavened bread, but they didn't want to appear before the Lord.
They didn't want to go to the altar of the house of the Lord.
They wanted to eat the unleavened bread, but it was not in connection with any of those feasts.
And they did this, I believe, and I think this we'll see this in a few moments in another passage.
They did this because they wanted to be seen by others as afflicting themselves.
They wanted to be seen as afflicted.
But all that made them as hypocrites.
You notice that the priests ate the unleavened bread among their brethren.
This is very telling.
They didn't want to obey God, but they wanted to afflict themselves in front of the brethren.
This was a put-on, and you've seen put-ons before.
You pretty, the older you get, the better you get at recognizing them.
And I'm sure the brethren of those priests said, Oh, look.
That poor priest is so afflicted.
He's got unleavened bread, and he goes about with a look of dejection and despair.
And because the brethren of those priests were also shallow, and most of them were in unbelief.
Then they accepted this act of affliction as truly spiritual.
The outward affliction Or the outward appearance of affliction does not impress God.
Does not.
Matthew 23, verses 27 through 28.
Matthew 23, verses 27 through 28.
Jesus said, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.
For ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
Even so, ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men.
Now, that's what these priests were doing.
But within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
Now, that truth right there that we just read from Jesus: even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men.
That truth applies to every outward attempt at holiness.
Now, before you get confused about outward holiness, let me give you something easy to remember.
Outward holiness in a Christian is a reflection of what is on the inside.
Outward holiness in a Christian is a reflection of what is on the inside.
Outward holiness in an unbeliever is the distraction from what is on the inside.
Outward holiness in an unbeliever is a distraction from what is on the inside.
Now these weak, unbelieving priests were just like the ones today who wear their fancy robes, crowns or mitres on their head.
They may carry burning censers of incense, and maybe they have an oversized Bible, but they don't believe what's in it.
The reason I have an oversized Bible and a large print is because I can't see.
If I could get by with that little pocket Bible, I'd I'd do that, but I can't anymore.
I know everybody else's vision is perfect, but mine is not.
But those that I just described, they're just like the ones who have many degrees.
Know the languages of the Bible and are presidents of associations, and maybe pastors of large churches or small churches.
Have their own television programs and so on, yet, in many cases, with all that outward appearance of holiness, they simply don't believe and practice God's Word.
They're whited sepulchers, clean on the outside, full of dead men's bones on the inside.
Their outward holiness is a distraction from what's really on the inside.
Now, look at verse 10.
As we continue with what Josiah did, it says, and he defiled Topheth. which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom.
Now Topheth means a place of fire, and it was a specific place with a specific purpose.
And it was located in the valley of the children of Hennom.
Now, who were those people?
Who were the children of Hennom?
Well, if you go back to Joshua chapter 15.
Where God had Joshua divide all of this promised land into lots given to each of the tribes in different divisions.
In chapter 15 and verse 8, we see that this land we're talking about, the valley of the children of Hinnom, that this was supposed to be the property of the tribe of Judah.
So in Joshua 15, 8 it says, And the border went up by the valley of the son of Hinnom unto the south side of the Jebusite, the same as Jerusalem.
And the border went up to the top of the mountain that lieth before the valley of Hennom westward, which is at the end of the valley of the giants northward.
So, the children of Hinnom would have been Jews from the tribe of Judah.
Can't get any more Jewish than that.
And we studied the word defiled.
Our text tells us that.
That Josiah defiled Topheth, and that means to make it unclean or polluted.
Now, Topheth, in and of itself, forgetting the people there, forgetting the activities that took place there.
The place itself was not any more unclean than anywhere else on the earth.
But it was what was done there that made it unclean.
God gave the tribe of Judah that lot of land.
And when he gave it to them, he gave it to them that they might prosper.
That they may be able to serve God and to serve Him only.
That was a place where they could grow their crops and have somebody like Ann to can some pickles for them every once in a while.
They could farm their fields and fetch their water, raise their families.
They could live their days out in Hennam.
They didn't have to go anywhere else.
God had provided everything they needed.
But now in our text, just like in Jerusalem, just like the rest of the land of Judah, and in fact just like the northern kingdom called Samaria or Israel.
What was once clean is now unclean.
And we get a further look at what it meant when it said.
He defiled Topheth.
Look back in the verse in verse 10 that no man Might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.
Now, Molech means king.
And that name represented the God of the Ammonites and the Phoenicians.
And so we get a look at, it sounds kind of like a paradox.
You think, wait a minute, this place, Topheth, sounds like it's already polluted and defiled.
Why would the Bible say that Josiah defiled it?
It's already defiled.
In fact, isn't what Josiah did good?
It is.
So you have to look at this from the perspective of the people, the children of Hennom, the ones who put their children through the fire to Molech.
And we'll look at that here in just a second.
But as with other sins, God had specifically prohibited This one all the way back in excuse me in Leviticus chapter 18 verse 21.
Leviticus 18, 21, where he said, And thou shalt not let any of thy seed, that's thy children, pass through the fire to Molech. neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God.
I am the Lord.
So for the people who practice this religion of passing their children through the fire to Molech, That was their attempt to appease their God, to make their God happy, to keep their God from being angry.
Not the Lord God, but their God.
And in the eyes of the worshipers of Molech, in the eyes of the people who burned their children, sent them through the fire.
The clean use of Topheth was to sacrifice children by fire to Molech.
Now that is absolutely backwards, isn't it?
So to them, that was the clean use of that place.
They would not have thought of doing anything else in Topheth.
The religion of the Ammonites and the Phoenicians.
Now, to Moses, the clean use of the brazen altar Was to sacrifice innocent animals in the place of sinners.
And if anyone brought An old mangy animal, they defiled that altar.
If anyone did anything at that altar other than what God commanded, they defiled the altar.
Because God said, this is what takes place at that altar.
So, what was happening in Tophith In the valley of Hinnom was the opposite of what was supposed to happen at the brazen altar.
And both sides, those who worship Molech and those who worship the Lord God, both thought they were clean.
And that's the way it is today, isn't it?
People who are religious believe they're clean because of their religion.
Now, many of them say, Well, I'm I'm not sure I'll stay clean.
I mean, I feel like I'm saved today, but I don't know if I will be tomorrow.
A lot of them think that.
I had a gentleman that I've been witnessing to at work, and I'm so thankful God opened this door because I wasn't real sure if I was going to get to see that door open.
But he did.
And one of the questions this man asked me, he was asking me about the difference between what we believe and what another denomination believed.
And just in short, I told him that other denomination Based on their statement of faith, they don't believe you get all of the Holy Spirit whenever you're saved.
They believe you've got to have a second baptism of the Holy Spirit.
After you've already become a Christian.
Well, the Bible says: if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
So that means if you don't get him when you're saved, you didn't get him.
And when you're saved, you get him.
That's all one act.
There are not these separate steps you have to take in order to get what Jesus did applied to you and then get the Holy Spirit.
And then there were some other things there.
But the point of that is that denomination and their practices, they believe we're clean, that we're doing it right.
And we believe that we're doing it right.
Now somebody's got to be wrong, don't they?
And that's the way it was with this religion of the Ammonites and Phoenicians that was being practiced in Topheth.
You know, you might think, now, why would they burn their children?
Why wouldn't they just go to the altar of the Lord and take animals and burn them there?
I mean, that's how it was supposed to be done.
Well, Satan's counterfeit religion always takes the form of God's true religion, takes the form of it.
And then it perverts it in order to destroy people.
John chapter 10 and verse 10 says it very well.
John 10, verse 10.
Jesus said, The thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy.
I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.
So you have the thief, Satan.
And when he comes, he doesn't come to save.
He doesn't come to be your friend.
And he's got people convinced that he is looking out for their best interest.
He started that.
Back well, he probably started that in heaven when he convinced the third of the host there to follow him in his rebellion.
But we know and we saw that he did it in the Garden of Eden too.
Tried to convince Eve and Adam that he was looking out for their best interests.
He said, He doth know that in the day ye eat thereof you'll become like gods, knowing good and evil.
In other words, he's holding back on you.
But Jesus said he's always a destroyer.
And Satan, through Molech, was a soul thief.
He was a destroyer.
And with that, we'll stop and pick up with the next few words when we meet next week.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you for the truth that we've learned today.
And I pray that you'd help us as we meditate upon it and apply it, and that it makes us stronger Christians. and makes us more able to recognize these counterfeit religions and to hopefully witness to people in a way that draws them away from those Fake religions unto the true religion of the Bible.
And we pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
