God Uses His Word to Transform People's Lives

Well, good evening, friends. And for you, friends, who are joining us online, good to have all of you here tonight. And it is, I'm just grateful to be able to fill the Interpaster Dan tonight as he teaches the 101 Class. You know, when you have a steady schedule of 101 Classes, you know what that means. It means that the Lord is still drawing new people to Johnston Chapel. He is creating within their hearts by his spirit, a desire to know more about the church. And some of those folks will be led of the Lord to join here. So let me just study stream of new people coming. And that's a blessing. So I'm grateful to be a part, a small part of the team that helps Pastor Dan be able to do that on Wednesday evenings. If you were here last week or you heard online the message from last Wednesday, you know that Pastor Dan started a new series on the book of Daniel, called Culture Shock. And it has to do with the culture in which Daniel was placed and how he had been sovereignly prepared by God in his spirit, his mind, his heart, to be able to withstand the pressure to conform to that culture. I'm certainly not going to try to jump back into Daniel tonight, but Pastor Dan made a comment last week that I thought about a lot this week. And that was the part that Josiah, King Josiah of Judah, may have had in impacting the life of Daniel. And so I thought tonight we'd take a look at the life of Josiah. Josiah was a godly king in Judah who reigned for 31 years. He led a revival that transformed the nation of Judah. And his story is described for us in the book of 2 Kings, chapter 21 to 23. So that's what we're going to look at tonight. 2 Kings, chapter 21 to 23. You say, oh my, if you've heard me preach before, three chapters, oh we're in trouble. We're going to scan those three chapters and just pull some principles out of them this evening. But we did need a little bit of background first to kind of introduce us to Josiah and help us understand how we got to the point where we needed, where Judah needed a revival like Josiah led. So let me introduce you to the three kings that preceded Josiah. The first of those would be Hezekiah. Hezekiah was Josiah's great grandfather. He reigned in Judah. Let me back up a little bit. It's probably important if you know your Old Testament history, you already know this, that the nation of Israel after King Solomon divided into two separate nations. The northern 10 tribes who pulled away from the temple and from the worship of God in Jerusalem and so forth, the northern 10 tribes kept the name Israel and they had a succession of kings all of whom were wicked, all of whom were evil and corrupt. And so God sent them into captivity to Assyria in 722 BC. The two southern tribes, Benjamin and Judah, took the name Judah as a nation and they had a mixture of good kings and bad kings. And so they had some great kings, had some very wicked kings. And there was enough wickedness in the nation where with all the idolatry and so forth going on, they ended up going into captivity as well in 586 BC to the nation of Babylon. Hezekiah was one of those good kings. He reigned for 29 years. He was a godly man who led a revival in his own time in Judah. But his son was a man by the name of Manasse. And Manasse would become, he's now Josiah's grandfather, Manasse would become the most wicked king in all of Judah's history. And he had a lot of time to ingrain that wickedness and idolatry into the nation of Judah because he reigned for 55 years, the longest of any reign in the kingdom of Judah. And so he was very evil wicked man. Now toward the end of his life he repented and God had mercy on him, but enough evil had been done that it had become the culture of the nation of Judah. And so Manasse's son, Ammon, was as wicked as his father had been for most of those 55 years, but he was assassinated after two years of reign. So Josiah's father only reigned two years and that thrust Josiah onto the throne when he was eight years old. Can you imagine? He's eight years old and he's the king in Judah. He reigned for 31 years, as I said before, and he was the most godly king that Judah would ever had. You think, well that's amazing when you think about how wicked his father and grandfather were and that the whole culture was extremely wicked by that time. Amazing that he would be a godly king, but we'll see a little bit later some of the influences that possibly were in his life, including the king Josiah's. Interesting to see the overlap of biblical characters. Sometimes we look at these books, you know, the prophets and the kings and we think of them just as isolated people in history. And we don't realize the overlap of their lives. Josiah had been reigning for probably 15, 16 years when Daniel was born. And so Daniel grew up under the reforms of Josiah for the first 15, 16 years, we light however long it was before he went into Babylon with the first captivity in 606 BC. Probably his whole growing up years had been under the reforms of Josiah. So Josiah probably did have a tremendous influence upon him, but Josiah made some early reforms in Judah, but then something happened when Josiah was 26 years old that radically transformed him. The book of the law was found during a cleanup of the temple and it radically transformed his life, and God didn't use him as a transformation agent to radically transform the whole nation of Judah. It's a fascinating story. If you were coming to a play tonight in this drama, this biblical drama kind of unfolds like a play, it probably would be entitled something like this, God uses his word to transform people's lives. So that's the real big idea of what we're getting across tonight. That's the real theme of this study tonight. God uses his word to transform people's lives. And you would probably find on that play bill if this were a play that there are three acts to this biblical drama. Act number one is in second Kings chapter 21, and it would be entitled this, the neglect of the word brings confusion. The neglect of the word brings confusion. And we're going to pick a few verses, read some, lead out some, and so forth from these three chapters, but I want to begin by reading the first nine verses of chapter 21, where we find described for us Judah's spiritual confusion. Now this is all under the reign of Manasseh. Remember the most wicked king? Rain 55 years? Josiah's grandfather? And so this is what happens under his reign. Look at the spiritual confusion in verses one through nine, chapter 21. Manasseh was 12 years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem 55 years. His mother's name was Heps of a. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord following the detestable practices of the nations. The Lord had driven out before the Israelites. He rebuilt the high places. His father, Hezekiah, had destroyed. He also erected authors to bail and made an ashera poll as A. H. King of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshipped them. He built authors in the temple of the Lord of which the Lord had said, in Jerusalem I will put my name. In the two ports of the temple of the Lord, He built authors to all the starry hosts. He sacrificed his own son in the fire. Just think of that. Practice divination, sought omens and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the Lord arousing his anger. He took the carved ashera poll he had made and put it in the temple of which the Lord had said to David into his son Solomon in this temple in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel. I will put my name forever. I will not again make the feet of the Israelites wonder from the land I gave their ancestors. If only they will be careful to do everything I commanded them and keep the whole law that my servant Moses gave them. But the people did not listen. Manasseh led them astray so that they did more evil than the nations. The Lord had destroyed before the Israelites. You can see just from this description of Manasseh's reign and all the spiritual idolatry and wickedness and confusion that he introduced into Judah, you can see that he made every effort possible to pervert the Hebrew faith by a complete idolatrous contamination of the nation. I don't want to appear too graphic or crude or shocking in any way, but I want to reframe this in terms of Johnston Chapel. I want to try to put us in the temple if we can imagine what it would be like. Let's say you come into church through those doors in the back, that front entrance, and as you walk into the lobby, you find that the lobby is covered with a canopy. And it has all kinds of planets and stars on it. And right over the door to the auditorium there is an image of the sun. And you are being asked, as you walk in, to bow down to the sun god, who gives us warmth and provides light for us, and dictates the seasons and so forth so important in the just the outplay of all of nature. You're being asked to worship the sun god, and then to look up to the starry hosts, and to worship them, and thank them for giving us guidance. He needs to say, what is going on here? And so you walk into the auditorium. And on this side of the platform, you see a large wooden pole that reaches almost to the ceiling, and it is carved to look like a fully-unclothed male. That's the pole that is for bail. He's the god of fertility, the god who brings rain and gives fertility to the land that brings forth the fruit of the crops. And so that's the bail pole. And there's another pole on this side of the auditorium. It reaches almost to the ceiling as well. It has been carved to represent a fully-unclothed female. And there are people standing on each side, and you wonder, what are those god-or-ly dressed people doing up there? Well, they are male and female prostitutes who are there to offer their services to anyone who wants to worship bail or ashera. Obviously, being the fertility gods, that's the way they were worship. And you're getting disgusted now. You're getting sick to your stomach, and you run out of the auditorium, and you think, my teenagers down in the youth ministry, I better go down and make sure they're okay, and you walk down there, and as you're going to where the teenagers are, you walk by a room where your Bible fellowship meets. And you walk into that room, you just step in because you see something that looks strange. There are glass cases around the perimeter of that room with snakes in them, slithering over and under and between each other. And then you notice that the front of the room, there is a pole. It looks like, yeah, could that be a bronze serpent like Moses erected in the wilderness, and the Israelites later would worship as an idol? Is that what that is? And you ask somebody in the teacher of the class, yeah, we're here to worship the snake god who gives us cunning and insight, and you're shaking your head. What is happening here? This must be some terrible dream. So you make your way down to the youth room, and you find that the youth leaders are working with the young people in groups, and they're gathered around tables, but they're not studying their Bible, they're playing with Ouija boards, and doing say-ances, and using other means of contacting evil spirits and the demonic world, so that every kind of evil, demonic influence is being taught to your young people, and then you think, oh, no, I've got a child in the children's ministry as well. I better go see what they're doing, and you run down to the children's room, and you find they're having some kind of dedication service down there, and their parents down there, and they're dedicating their children to not god and themselves, not to god, but they're dedicating themselves to moleck, a god named moleck, and the parents who have first born children are being ushered out through a door to that backfield where there's a bonfire, and you are in horror, as you see, those parents allow the youth leaders to take that child and throw it in the fire, and you can't believe what you're seeing, what you're hearing, what you're feeling, and you try to get your children and rush out of that place. Now, again, I'm not trying to be too graphic or shocking, but that's maybe if you understand a little bit now about how you would feel if that's what you saw here at Johnston Chapel, then you may be understand, maybe I can understand just a little bit, a tiny bit of the holy wrath that God must have felt when he saw what was happening in his house in his temple, because all of that stuff and more was going on. What spiritual confusion, we can't imagine what that would be like if we were to be experiencing that, and God sees all of that happening in the house where twice in the verses we read, God said, that's the place where I had attended to put my name, the place where my name who represents my infinite glory and majesty and supremacy and all that I am and look at what's being done in that place, that's the spiritual confusion that was brought into the country of Judah, into the very temple, but that kind of spiritual confusion then led to moral confusion. As it always does, spiritual confusion always leads to moral confusion. And so what you find in verses 10 through 16, we're not going to read those verses, but I want to pick out two statements that really, to me, serve to really highlight the kind of moral confusion that we find in Judah at this time. The first one is in verse 11, where it says, monastic king of Judah has committed these detestable acts, he has done more evil than the amurites who preceded him. Just think about that. You may be familiar with the amurites, that name is a particular tribal group that existed in the ancient near east, near Israel's territory, the land of Canaan. But that name is also used as kind of a representation of all of the tribal groups that inhabited Canaan before Israel took the land. In fact, in Genesis 15, when God was reaffirming the covenant he had made with Abraham in Genesis 12, he says this to him. He says, your descendants will go down to a land where they will be for 400 years and they will become servants in that land. And we all know he's talking about Egypt. And he says, there'll be there 400 years. And the reason why he leaves them there 400 years is he says in Genesis 15 and verse 16, because the iniquity of the amurites is not yet full. In other words, the terrible sinful immoral godless pagan devastation that the Canaanites, the amurites, would bring into the land of Canaan has not yet reached its peak for 400 years. After 400 years, it has come to the point where God says, that's enough. I'm going to send my people Israel into that land to exterminate those tribes and bring my judgment on them. It took 400 years. It took monastic less than 50. To do the same thing. Less than 50 to surpass the iniquity of the amurites. The second statement that kind of gives you the idea of the moral confusion here is in verse 16. Moreover, an asset also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end. Besides the sin, he had caused Judah to commit so that they did evil in the eyes of the Lord. He shed so much innocent blood that it was as though the city of Jerusalem was filled with blood from one side of the city to the other. Which gives us some indication of how many children, for instance, were being sacrificed to the god Molec. But it also probably gives us an idea of how many prophets he killed and how many other godly people he sought to exterminate from the land. Jewish tradition tells us that it was in Manasseh's reign that the prophet Isaiah was martyred by being placed into a hollow tree and then the whole thing cut in half, cutting right through the body of Isaiah. Manasseh was certainly capable of that kind of thing. He filled Jerusalem with blood. So you can just get a glimpse, a little picture here of the pervasive spiritual confusion and moral confusion that exists in the nation of Judah. What about us? What does that mean to us? We don't know anything about that, do we? Yes, we do. Because we live in a land of great spiritual confusion. In the latter half of the 19th century, the 1800s, something called religious liberalism swept through, first of all, the seminaries of Germany and then on through the rest of Europe. And by the 1900s, early 1900s, it had begun to sweep through America. By 1950, religious liberalism had basically decimated every major denomination in America. And that's when you saw great movements of people moving away from those liberal denominations and forming Bible colleges and seminaries that really taught the Bible again because religious liberals denied everything we hold precious in the Bible. And introduced spiritual confusion to our nation. For instance, they said the Bible is not really a product of God's inspiration. It was written by ordinary men without any divine help. Just like all other religious books of major world religions were produced, they produced the book and being fallible men. It has errors in it. There are historical errors and scientific errors and chronological numerical errors and all those things. So that's just to be expected in any men who produce a book like this. That's what the liberals taught. They denied the Trinity saying that it was a logical mathematical impossibility. They denied the deity of Christ saying that Christ was not God. He was a man. He was a good man. Maybe the best of men. But he was nothing more. They denied the sacrificial substitutionary atonement of Christ for our sins on the cross. They basically said, that's not what saves us. What Jesus did there was he died to show us an example of being committed to your beliefs and being willing to sacrifice yourself for what you believe in. They denied his literal bodily resurrection. All they talked about the resurrection, but they talked about it. Like many of us talk about our loved ones who die and we say, oh, he's still living in my heart or she's still living with me today. And that's the way the liberals taught the resurrection of Christ. Not a physical resurrection, but a spiritual resurrection where he continues to live in our hearts. What sounded wonderful. They denied a literal physical second coming of Christ. So many major doctrines, the miracles they explained away by natural means. So they took all of the supernatural out of the Bible, all of the divine out of the Bible. What's so confusing about that is you can still go to some churches today and they will talk liberal churches. They'll talk about the Bible. They'll talk about the sermon on the mountain, the 10 to Amats and they'll talk about Christ and they'll talk about God. They'll talk about the death of Jesus. They'll talk about the resurrection, but they have redefined all the terms. And they don't mean anything close to what we believe, the Bible teaches. So spiritual confusion was brought into our land. That spiritual confusion, the reason why I wanted to say something about that was because that spiritual confusion has led to the moral confusion that we find in our country today. Isn't it interesting that all the moral confusion we find today has followed close on the heels of tossing God out of everything, including churches, tossing the miraculous, the inspired word of God and the person in work of Christ, getting rid of that, opened the door to moral confusion. And here's the reason why, if there is no authoritative truth taught in this book, the word of God. If it is not the divine scriptures, the word of God with divine authority and truthfulness, then there's only one other way to find authority and that's in ourselves. It's like the days of the judges. Every man did that, which was right and he's known eyes. If there is no authoritative right or wrong, if there is no authoritative truth, and that's what our society believes today, then the only authority left is me. So that means I get to choose whatever I want to do, however I want to live, and you have no right to tell me I'm wrong because that's right for me. It may not be right for you, you go your way, I'll go my way. That's pluralism and relativism. It is the culture that we live in today. That's why there is so much confusion today about abortion, about marriage, about the sexual expression and how sex should be expressed. That's the reason why there's so much confusion about gender identity in our world today because every person has become their own authority. The real issue we face today is not all those issues I just named. The real issue is the issue of authority. We as Bible-believing Christians must in this culture hold tightly to the truth that the Bible is God's inspired and fallible in errant word. We must believe that, we must hold to that. Now we must do that lovingly and graciously and wisely in the culture that we live. I don't think for instance our young people are going to be served well at all if we just yell at them and we're angry at them and we're pointing our finger at them. We raise our fences that we use in protest or our signs that we raise in protest. I don't think they're going to be affected by that at all. I don't think that's the need. What we need to understand is that our young people today are facing a barrage of pressure from this culture that most of us in this auditorium knew nothing about when we were growing up. Not the kind of pressure they're facing. There was no social media when I grew up. There was no internet when I grew up. And there are so many forces of culture today that are pushing the agenda of moral confusion at them constantly, 24 hours a day, constantly on everything they see and hear. It's not going to help them if we just get mad at them. What we have to do is we have to lovingly, patiently, consistently live out the truth of God's Word and hold out to them the truth of God's Word. And we need to be able to explain reasonably why the culture is wrong in what it sees and how it lives, how it feels about moral issues. One of the things I read just a couple of weeks ago that showed me the kind of culture we live in is a professor in a community college in Texas was fired about three or four weeks ago. I believe it was after four students walked out of his classroom and complained to the administrators about what he was teaching. So what in the world was this professor teaching? He was a biology professor who had been on that college campus for 20 years. And he was teaching in his biology classes that sex in the sense of gender was determined by the X and Y chromosomes. That's why he was fired. Now, it's been a long time since I had biology. Over half a century ago since I had any biology. But I seem to remember that's standard scientific fact in biology that gender is determined by the X and Y chromosomes. But if you go against the sexual revolutionaries today who would say that Nano, no, gender is not set at conception or birth, gender is fluid. And so you get to choose your own gender. If you go against that, you are on the outside today. But wait a second, that's scientific fact, which shows me how far we have gone in our culture. We have abandoned not only biblical truth, but even scientific truth and descended into madness and insanity. So that's where we are. The same kind of culture that menace ruled in. At one, the neglect of the word brings confusion. Quickly act to the discovery of the word brings repentance in chapter 22. You see in verses 1 through 3, Josiah's early reforms, Bible says that Josiah was eight years old when he became king and he reigned in Jerusalem 31 years. His mother's name was Jaddida, daughter of a diet. Jaddida, by the way, means beloved of God. And I think the reason why maybe her name is mentioned is because she's a special character in the life of Josiah. I think she probably lived up to her name and through the Lord, lived for the Lord, loved God and had a tremendous impact on her son. She was from Boschath. He did, he Josiah did what was right and the eyes of the Lord followed completely the ways of his father, David, not turning aside to the right or to the left. Now if you were to read the corresponding passage in second Chronicles chapter 34 and verse 3, you would find these two statements made that are not included in second kings about his early reign. When he was 16 years old, he decided to follow the ways of David. Now somebody was teaching him that. I believe it was his mother. Maybe it was one of the two prophets that prophesied during his reign, Jeremiah and Zephoniah. Probably Zephoniah. Jeremiah came along toward the end of Josiah's reign. So maybe Zephoniah had a great impact on him. Maybe one of the high priests who was still faithful to God, Hillcaya, maybe had a great impact on him. But what a reason. At age 16, he set his heart to follow the ways of David and to follow the Lord. We would probably say that was when he was converted. That's when he came to truly know God personally. That verse also says that when he was 20 years old, he began to remove the idols from Judah. So he started some early religious reforms. But something happened, as I mentioned earlier, that showed him that's not enough. We're not going to read these verses, but in verses 3 through 10, he discovered the law. He set aside some money and some people to clean out the temple, get all of that idolatrous stuff out of there. And as they were doing that, they found the book of the law. Hillcaya, the high priest, found the book of the law. Now what was that? Some people say it was the pititude. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, numbers of Deuteronomy, all five books. But the book of the law, that term, is often used in the Old Testament to refer to Deuteronomy. It was the book of the law that basically the second giving of the law to Israel before they entered the land. And that turns often used of Deuteronomy. From what's told us about how it was read and so forth, that's probably what we're talking about here. The book of Deuteronomy was found. Now try to put this in context if you can. It was probably hidden by priests early in Manasseh's reign when they realized what he was instituting and he was getting rid of everything that had to do with Jehovah. So Manasseh reigns 55 years, his son two years were in the 18th year of Josiah's reign, do the math 75 years since that book probably has been written. You know what that would be like? It would be like in the United States of America somebody was able to remove every Bible from our homes. So nobody had a Bible and some preacher in Washington, DC, hit a Bible somewhere deep underneath the church and some cellar or whatever downstairs. And that happened in 1948. Can you imagine that? That's where we are here. That's where Josiah is. The book of the law is found after 75 years. Wow. How did he respond to it? Well, verses 11 through 13 tell us two things. First of all, he tore his robes in verse 11. That's an indication of the fact that he was who brought under conviction. That as the law was read to him, he was he came under conviction and felt guilt about the way he was living and about the way Judah was going and felt guilt about not following the word of God. And so tremendous guilt of sin and disobedience. And then in verse 13 he tells the scribe and other attendants and hillkaya the high priest go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the people who were in the church. And for all Judah about what was written in this book. So when he says inquire of the Lord, that's a phrase that's used in the Old Testament. Find someone that can explain this to us. Go get a prophet. That's basically what he's saying. Go get a prophet who can explain this to us. And they found a prophet that's holed up and she explained to them what the book of Deuteronomy was saying. So the discovery of the word brings repentance. Now one of the things that really stuck out to me as I was looking at this passage is that when hillkaya found this book in verse 8, he told she fan the secretary. I have found the book of the law. But down in verse 10, when she fan brings it to Josiah, he just says the priest has given me a book. He doesn't say what book it was. He didn't mention it as the law of God. But as he starts reading it, it grips Josiah's heart like nothing he's ever heard. Which shows to me that even though he didn't realize it was the word of God, the word has inherent power, doesn't it? Inherent power, Hebrews 4.12, sharper than any two-agent sword, able to pierce into the discerning of the thoughts and intense of the heart. And that's what God was doing through his word, even though Josiah didn't know it was his word. Amazing. The discovery of the word brings repentance. Well what about us? What about us? Have we had our Bibles hidden for 75 years? Of course not. We don't live in Josiah's day. We have Bibles everywhere. We may have several Bibles at home. You can hear the Bible preach, taught. On so many different ways, it's so easy, so common to us. And that's wonderful, but it's also very dangerous because we become immune to the word of God. And we become apathetic toward the word of God. I include myself. We all do. Also, somebody's going to preach on John 14. I know that. So we put our minds in neutral. Somebody's going to talk about Psalm 23. Oh, heard that 100 times. Put our minds in neutral. And on and on it goes. Roman say whatever. Philippians, oh we just studied Philippians in our Bible study a couple of weeks ago. So I know that. Our minds go into neutral. It's dangerous. So dangerous. So what we need to do in our day is rediscover the word of God. It was discovered after 75 years of absence. Now we need to rediscover it every time we come to it. You say how do you do that? Well, I think one of the ways that we do that is we must pray. We must have the attitude as we sit down to read or study our Bible or as we come to church to hear the Bible taught or preached. We need to come with this prayer in our hearts. Lord, help me to see your word with fresh eyes, with new insight, with relevant application for what I'm going through right now in my life. In fact, I think a good verse for us, maybe to pray as we come to the word of God today. Those of us who are so familiar with it, is Psalm 119 verse 18. Open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things in your law. That's a good verse for us to pray. Every time we open the Bible, Lord open my eyes. Don't let my eyes glaze over because this is so common to me. Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things out of your law. Could I give you just a couple of practical suggestions before we quickly move toward the end? Read your Bible in different translations to make it fresh and new. Maybe this year you're reading the NIV next year, read it in the new living translation. The next year, read it in the ESV. Next year, read it in King James. Very that up some. And what you will find is with the very good modern translations and the ones I mentioned are good ones. King James is not modern, but it's still a great translation. With those translations, you're going to find faithfulness to the original text. But they will vary a little bit here or there in the way they express or the way they interpret or translate certain words. And so it will open up new insights to you if you read it in a new translation. So try that for a year or so. Use a different study Bible and read the study notes and so forth with it. And that will help bring some fresh insight to you. For instance, Genie is now reading in her personal devotions reading the Bible. I can't remember the exact name, but it's the Bible for the persecuted church. And it's in the home. It's in the new living translation. Yeah. And so it has notes in it that show how persecuted people, brothers and sisters in the world who are persecuted, how those texts apply to them. It has radically changed her prayer life for the persecuted church because it has helped her to see how they view the scriptures and how those scriptures apply to their settings. This year I'm reading the apologetics study Bible and reading all the notes and articles in it and so forth, which is helping me to grasp better how to answer people's questions about the faith. So it's given me some fresh insights into scripture. So vary it up a little bit. Mix it up. Read a different study Bible. Read a different translation. It will open up new light for you. So neglect of the word brings confusion. Discovery of the word brings repentance. And what have you done to that clocks since I left? It's my speedered up. I think they did quickly obedience to the word brings blessing. In chapter 23 we find that Josiah in the first three verses renews the covenant with the people. Wonderful verses. He brings them all together in a great assembly. He reads the book of the law, the book of Deuteronomy, which includes the covenant that God made with Moses, the blessings and curses that are attendant to that covenant. And if you will follow this, I will bless you. If you don't, I will bring judgment upon you and all the people give their assent to that covenant. They reestablish the covenant. And then in verses 4 through 30 it shows how he demonstrated obedience to the covenant. You read some through those verses sometime. He cleaned Judah out all the junk, all of the paganism. He cleaned it out every bit of it, including the people who were involved in those pagan worship serves God. Read of them. And so he obeyed the word of God. Well, what about us? Do we just hear the Bible and then go home and don't even think anymore about it? Do we read the Bible and don't really think about how it applies to us? You know those verses in James. Don't you? In James chapter 1 where James reminds us, do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror. And after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like but whoever looks intently into the perfect law of liberty that brings freedom and continues in it. Not forgetting what they've heard but doing it they will be blessed in what they do. So where does blessing come from from hearing the word? Man, that's a blessing but not all the blessing God intends for you from reading the word. That's blessing but not all the blessing God intends for you. Blessing comes when we obey the word of God and I love the image he uses there of the mirror. I want to quickly tell you a little story about myself. I am a side sleeper and I am an equal opportunity side sleeper. I sleep on one side till a hip or a shoulder gets to hurt and you know don't you? And then I turn over to the other side and after an hour or so when that one starts hurting I turn to the other side. Well the result of that is when I get out of bed in the morning my hair on both sides sticks straight up to the middle like some kind of weird mohawk really does. And so first thing I see in the mirror my first response is I got to do no no my first response is fright and then my second response is I got to do something about this mess. Now do I just walk out of there and say who cares? I just scare half the people in the counter to death looking like that. I've got to do something to clean that up and some of you have to do something with your faces and other things you know that just need taking care of once you see yourself in the mirror in the morning. Have you ever wondered why Jeanne is so joyful? I'm sure a lot of it has to do with her her close walk with the Lord but some of it has to do with the fact that every morning she takes one look at me and breaks that into hilarious laughter. And that's how she starts her day. I mean that's a great way to start. Well you know God's word is a mirror and it's not going to show us what's wrong with our hair or face or you know our teeth or whatever it's going to show us what's wrong with our heart. And it's just as crazy if we walk away from the word when God has spoken to us and we don't do anything about our heart about taking care of what's going on in there. Sadly it would be too late for Judah to avert God's judgment which makes me wonder was this all just the people's respect for Judah for Josiah or was it a good thing? Was it also that they really came to know the Lord? I don't know but I do know this there would be a series of kings that would undo everything Josiah did and Judah would go into captivity. This truth remains God's word transforms people's lives. It's still us today. If there's any hope for us as believers it's that we not only read and study the Bible but we live it. If there's any hope for unsaved people to come to Christ it is in the fact that the word of God must be given to them. If there's any hope for our nation to avert a Romans 1 kind of judgment where God says you've chosen your way I'm turning my back on you I'm just removing my hand from you we may already be there but if there's any way for us to avert that as a culture the only hope is in the word of God. It's the word of God that changes lives. We're not going to change people with our signs and our angry yelling we're going to change people through the word of God. Let's pray. Father thank you for your word. Grant us the strength to live by your word each day. This week each day of our lives we pray in Jesus name. Amen.