I Have Found the Book

I have found the book!

• 2 Kings 22:8

"And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it."

Now, this takes place during the reign of Josiah. And we read in verse two, that Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign over Judah.

• 2 Kings 22:2-3

Israel, or Judah specifically, has gone through 57 years of evil kings. You had King Manassah, who reigned for 55 years. He did evil, much evil. Now he did repent. And I love that story about Manassah, how at the end of his life, how he came back and he repented and he tried to restore and undo the evil that he had done. But, it was too little, too late. And he passed away. And his son Ammon reign for two years and he was an evil king.

The Reign of Josiah the King

Josiah comes on the scene as an eight-year-old boy, the son of Ammon. He, as a young child, becomes king. And I have no doubt that there were some great influences in his life now that his father is no longer in the picture. That he has Hilkiah, the priest, and he has Shaphan, the scribe. I believe these are mentors to Josiah along with people such as Jeremiah, and others. And so, he had a great support network, you might say.

And so he did that which was right in the sight of God. He didn't turn to the right or the left. He did that, which was good.

Beginning Repairs of the Temple

Now because of the rulers that they'd had for 57 years, the temple is not in a very good state. It is in a state of disrepair and neglect, just like any physical structure, if you don't take care of it, is not going to hold up. It's going to fall down. It's going to have problems.

• 2 Kings 22:3

And so eight, he's been on the throne for 18 years now. He ruled as a young child, and so he is about 26 years old, and it says the temple is in disrepair.

So really, you think back from the times of Hezekiah, which I have no doubt, he took care of the temple. 75 years have elapsed and this building is in disrepair through neglect.

• 2 Kings 22:3-7

And so, they handed the money to the faithful the builders and workers, the doers of the work. And they began the job of restoring the temple.

Discovering the Book of the Law

And so, Shaphan, the scribe, finds a discovery as they are maybe clearing out some of the rubble. He finds the book of the law and he has it brought to the king.

Now, the book of the law had been lost, and now it is found. And so we can learn a lot as we see the attitude of Josiah toward God's book.

• 2 Kings 22:8-10

He read the book. Shaphan has found a book.

Life Without the Book

You know, what about the book? What happened to those who were without the book? You know, without the book, they were without faith in God.

• Romans 10:17

Without the book, what did they do? You think about, what Manassah did. You think about, what Ammon did. They installed idols and idol worship all throughout Jerusalem. Even in the temple of the Lord, they put up idols. Without the book, they made gods for themselves.

Now, how could the book be lost? Neglect, I guess.

• Deuteronomy 17:18-19

A good way to learn anything is to write, when you were in elementary school, your teacher says, well copy out page 10 of your book. At least they did when I was in school. And you learn every word that is in there because you're writing it out by hand.

And so, you think, if you're going to take the Bible and you're going to take your Bible and lay it in front of you and go down it word by word and write your own copy, in your own writing, think about how much that's going to imprint on your brain.

Apparently, this had not been done, maybe for generations. And so the book was lost. And the consequence of this course of action has much influence on future generations as it did on the generation that lost them. And so imagine if Manassah had been brought up studying and reading from the law all the days of his life.

We know that when he was finally brought low when he was finally brought to repentance, he, gave his whole heart to trying to restore, and undo all the evil he had done. Imagine if he had begun with a knowledge of God's work. You know, without the book, all blessings from God are cut off, and we cannot have faith.

• Romans 10:17
• Matthew 4:4
• 2 Timothy 3:15

To be fully mature as a person of God, we need God's word. Without it, we cannot be what God wants us to be because it is the book of God that tells us, and demonstrates for us, what it is that God wants for us.

The Reading of The Book

And so we see his attitude. First of all, he read the book or he had it read in his presence.

He wanted to know what it said. We also notice the attitude that he took toward the word of God. He had the right attitude about the word.

• 2 Kings 22:11

And so his heart was not hardened when he heard the word. So many people, when they hear the word of God and it [the word] condemns them rather than change their life.

I always find it interesting that Jonah hated the Ninevites. He didn't want them to be saved. Yet, They heard the message and they immediately repented. They changed their hearts and they changed their action.

You know, we see that with Josiah as well. A lot of people though their hearts are hardened by the word of God. When Jesus came, he found hard hearts.

• Matthew 13:14-15

He said their heart is wax gross. It's become hard. It is hardened over. It is not willing to listen.

Josiah though, in contrast, recognized the importance of the message of the book, and he recognized also the urgency of the matter. You know, his turn from sin was the evidence.

• Acts 2:36

There were some on that day that heard the message and they turned to God because of the message. And so we see that attitude also with Josiah. And notice, he acknowledges the consequences of what happened because their parents, the previous generations lost the book. He recognizes that, but he doesn't use it as an excuse. He doesn't hide behind it.

The Sharing of the Message of the Book

And so, he had the right attitude. And then, also he saw a need to go and teach others.

• 2 Kings 23:1-3

He saw their situation because they did not have the book. They did not have God's word, and they were walking according to their own ideas and their own thinking. He saw a need to teach the word to other people. You know, the book affords us the knowledge that we need to spread the good news to others.

Such knowledge should never be gained or could never be gained anywhere else. The only way to know how to be saved and how to go to heaven is to look at God's word and read what it says.

Josiah saw a great need to go out and to reach out to others. He saw the message as necessary for all, just like Christ's message is necessary for all of us, everyone in the world.

• Matthew 28:19-20

Josiah recognized the need to teach it to others. He could reform himself and do what's right and be saved. Or could he? Unless he went out and reached out to others. And so he saw a need to teach others.

The Rejection of Every False Way

• 2 Kings 22:20-23
• 2 Kings 23:4-9
• He dealt with the worship of Baal.
• He destroyed their temples, the high places, and everything dedicated to Baal.
• He destroyed those that were priests who had dedicated themselves to Baal.
• He stepped out the worship of the God of the Ammonites Molech which is where human sacrifice took place.
• There were those that had set up some kind of idol that worshiped the sun. He got rid of the horses and he destroyed the chariots.
• He destroyed even the temples that had been built by Solomon and some of the other kings for their foreign wives, their foreign gods, and false idols, he destroyed all of those places of worship.
• He went as far as Bethel, in the former northern Kingdom of Israel, and destroyed the golden calf they had set up, 1 Kings 13:1 a fulfillment of prophecy.

And so, he destroyed the idols and the priests also throughout all of Samaria. He did everything he could. He destroyed witchcraft, 2 Kings 23:24, in Judah. All of those that were involved in witchcraft, he put 'em to death.

You know, he was not a passive servant of God.

• Psalm 119:104

As he came to an understanding of God's will and God's precepts, he hated every false way and he did everything he could, everything within his power to get rid of all of this false worship. He destroyed the heathen idols and he restored the worship of God to Judah.

The Restoration of Worship as Found in The Book

• 2 Kings 23:21-23

He kept the Passover, you think about that and all of the history of Israel since they had been in the land. Never was there a Passover that was observed so rigidly or with so much devotion as it was on that day. That's quite a statement when you think about hundreds of years. Never was there a Passover like that one. What a restoration that he brought.

• John 4:24

There are two elements there, worship in spirit, spirited with the right attitude, not an attitude of obligation, but an attitude of love, and adoration. But, also in accordance with His will, in accordance with His word.

• Jude 1:3

He had a desire to do God's will and he was going to contend for God's word. He was not going to sit idly by while his nation fell further and further away from God and fell into idolatry further and further. You know, in all the history of Israel, no king turned to the Lord as fully as Josiah did.

• 2 Kings 23:25

You think about all the kings that came before this man, some great men there; Hezekiah, David.

The greatest king. That's, what I get from that. The greatest king that Israel ever had, that the people of God ever had when they had King Josiah. That says a lot. He hated every false way.

The Book of the Law Brought Salvation

• 2 Kings 22:16-20

You know, without this book, Josiah was lost. Without the discovery of the book and the subsequent revival that took place as short-lived as it may have been. Without that he would've been lost. And that generation, his generation would've been lost without the book. Though there was salvation possible both for him and a nation of people.

• 1 Timothy 4:16

Notice the same with Josiah. He saw the book of the law, recognized that he was in the wrong, he rent his clothes, and he wept, but he did something about it. He started this great revival and he wanted to teach it to others. He saw and recognized that he was lost without the word.

If he is lost without the word, so is everyone else. And so he did everything he could to restore to Israel, to Judah, the proper worship of God.

With the Book of God and with the right disposition of mind all the blessings of Heaven can be ours. You know, I think about our country a lot and the direction that this nation is going, it's a ship that's sinking, and I don't know that it can be saved. I don't know that I want it to be saved as a nation. Who wants Sodom to be around? Who wants Gemorah to be? It's a ship that's sinking. But you know what ships have, they have lifeboats?

I can think of a great example, I can't remember his first name, Seamen Flores, the US Coast Guard. He was on a buoy tender boat. They're the ones that go out and they put the buoys out there and they were just out in Tampa Bay, not out in the middle of nowhere or anything. They had a collision with another ship tore a big gash in the ship, tore a hole in that ship, and it went down fast. It sunk in like 15 minutes and Seamen Flores kept going to the life jacket locker, pulling out life jackets and taking them to other people without putting one on for himself. Now here, basically what happened is he had one for himself. It was the last one, and he saw somebody needed it, he gave it to them. And, he went down and sank with the ship and died. But the attitude was let's save as many people on this sinking ship as we can. That's our mission.

That's really what Judah was to do or what Josiah was doing. God told him clearly this ship is going to sink a couple of generations, but let's save as many as we can.

And, that's what we need to think about. There's the urgency. The house is on fire, and the people inside are gonna die if we don't get them out. And there's an urgency to that, isn't there? Once the ship starts sinking, it's going to go down. Once the house catches on fire, it's gonna burn, you know, minus a firefighter, and so forth.

We need to have that attitude and that urgency to not only save ourselves but others, as many others as we can. You know the book of the law, the right disposition of mind, all the blessings of Heaven can be ours. It's all right here [in the Bible].

You know, there's no one verse in the New Testament that tells us what we need to do to be saved. But, when we look at all the things that are combined in that, that saves us, belief certainly, which comes from the word of God. That's one of the points without the word we cannot believe God. We've gotta have faith. We've got to confess our belief. We've got to repent of our sins, we've got to be baptized, and we need to live a faithful life. That's how we are saved.

You know, we can be saved. But salvation also, just like the book was lost by neglect, salvation can be lost by neglect. But, it can be found again by diligence.

• Hebrews 2:1-3

We have God's book today. It is not lost. You can get a free copy of it just about anywhere online. It's available. There's no excuse for us not to know God's will and to not do it. I urge you if you have not been doing God's will to put on Christ in baptism.

If you're a Christian but haven't been living faithful, turn back to God. It's like King Manassah did. He was evil. He did terrible things, but he came back to God.

God is willing to bring you back, and let you come home if you're willing to come home.

If you're subject to a change of heart, a making a change in your life, let us know by contacting us.

Speaker: Jack McNiel | Series: Sermon Archives