Greetings to you my friend. I am Mack Lyon In Search of the Lord's Way. Our study today has to do with something extremely valuable that was lost-- and it was found in the house of God. What was it? You might be surprised. Stay tuned.
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Somebody said the reason history repeats itself is because nobody learns from it. Whoever said that was-- oh, he was very right, wasn’t he? There's a great lesson we can learn from studying the Old Testament book of Second Kings, chapters 22 and 23. And the Holy Spirit has said in Romans chapter 15, verse 4 that those things were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. Well, you stay with us because after a hymn, led by Ken Helterbrand as usual, a prayer and our reading from the word of God, we will be back with today's message which we have titled, "God's Word, Lost And Found."
We are going to be reading today from the book of Second Kings in the Old Testament in chapter 22, beginning at verse 3 and we will read through verse 8. “Now it came to pass, in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, that the king sent Shaphan the scribe, the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to the house of the Lord, saying: Go up to Hilkiah the high priest, that he may count the money which has been brought into the house of the Lord, which the doorkeepers have gathered from the people. And let them deliver it into the hand of those doing the work, who are the overseers in the house of the Lord; let them give it to those who are in the house of the Lord doing the work, to repair the damages of the house-- to carpenters and builders and masons-- and to buy timber and hewn stone to repair the house. However there need be no accounting made with them of the money delivered into their hand, because they deal faithfully. Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord. And Hiliah gave the book to Shaphan and he read it.” And you can read the rest of the story in that 22nd and 23rd chapters of the book of Second Kings. Let us go to God in prayer. Holy Father, we are so thankful for this incident of which we have read today, and just a part of it. And we are thankful for the lessons that we can derive from it and we pray Your blessings upon us as we examine it-- the whole story and make application to our lives today. In the lovely name of Jesus, we pray. Amen!
What we read awhile ago from the book of Second Kings is an interesting bit of history. No, it isn't a fable; it is real life. It actually happened and, even aside from being a part of the inspired history of the Bible, these events are historically verifiable. It's been said, "We study history, not to be clever in another time, but to be wise always." And as we said earlier, the events recorded in these chapters of the Bible are written for the learning of Christians right now in our own generation (Romans 15:4).
Judah had suffered through the very wicked reign of King Manasseh, who was succeeded by his son, Amon. Now Amon's rule was brief, but very evil like his father's, and ended with his assassination. There seems to have been an interim period of democracy there, though, that followed his death, because the Bible says that "The people of the land slew all them that conspired against King Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah king in his stead." Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign in about 619 BC and he reigned for thirty years.
The thrust of the story is that the people of God, the descendants, mind you now, of the very people whom God had miraculously delivered from Egyptian bondage, and those who had occupied the "promised land" under the leadership of Joshua, had forsaken the simple religion of their ancestors and had turned to the pagan gods of the land. The temple-- that magnificent and glorious temple that was built by King Solomon, the holy temple of God, had been forsaken, neglected; it stood in a state of ruin. It had even been closed! In spite of the second commandment, the graven images and other customs were accepted into the worship of Jehovah. The images of false gods were set up in the temple of God, mind you, in Jerusalem. And their king had even offered his son in the fire in the foul and degrading worship of Moloch in the Valley of Hinnom. In spite of the fact that in the eighth year of his reign, at the age of only sixteen, Josiah began to do the will of God and was a good king, God never repented of the destruction which He had pronounced upon the nation for their sins under Manasseh.
In the twelfth year of his reign Josiah purged Judah and Jerusalem of pagan worship and destroyed their altars and their images. He began refurbishing the temple of God in Jerusalem. Six years later while the workmen were still doing the repair work in the temple, six years I remind you, Hilkiah the high priest made it known that he had found "the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord." He gave it to Shaphan the scribe to read, and Shaphan took it to the King Josiah and read it to him, a part of that law. When King Josiah heard the words of the book, he rent his clothes and he said, "...great is the wrath of the Lord that is aroused against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us."
Well, the book they had found probably consisted of the first five books of the Old Testament, commonly called the "Books of Moses," or "The Pentateuch," or "The Books of the Law." It was their "Bible," friend. It contained the commandments and the statutes which God gave Israel through Moses when He had brought them out of Egypt and made them a great and mighty nation. Whether it was the original copy which Moses had placed in the Ark of the Covenant in Deuteronomy chapter 31, verse 26, we don't know, but it was a copy of "the book of the law of God" for Israel then and it had been lost through neglect and disuse in (of all places) the house of God; and it was lost by (of all people) the people of God!
The original copy was to remain where Moses had deposited it in the side of the Ark of the Covenant, and the rulers were to make copies of it and it was to be read to all the congregation of Israel on such occasions as the Feast of Tabernacles every seventh year, the sabbatical year (Deuteronomy. 17:18). But, obviously that hadn't been done in some years and the people had drifted far from its teaching.
When Josiah came into possession of the book, he gathered all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem around him, and went into the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, from the least to the greatest and "he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the Lord." And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord: (1) to walk after the Lord and keep his commandments, and, (2) to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. A "restoration movement" had begun-- a restoration of authorized religion of the Jews. He ordered the observance of God's Sabbaths. He commanded the observance of the Passover as it was written in the book. And it was said, "Such a Passover surely had never been held since the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah" (2 Kings 23, verse 22). Josiah also purged the temple of every sign of false worship. He removed and burned the vessels that were made for Baal. He broke down the houses of the sodomites. He broke to pieces their images and cut down the groves and killed the priests of their gods. What a day it was! What a day of national pride and joy, my friend! That which was old was new again! And the people rejoiced! No! They had not begun a new religion, but they had returned to the true religion of Jehovah as taught in their Scriptures. Now, what is the lesson in it for us?
Just as "the book of the law of God" was to govern the behavior and the worship of God's people in the Old Testament period, the New Testament is the book for Christianity. The New Testament is the blueprint for Christ's church. If God did not intend it for that, I am at a loss for its meaning and its purpose at all. In spite of all that is being said about God speaking to us today in audible tones and voices, my friend, you cannot know one single truth about Jesus Christ and His way apart from your New Testament. In spite of all the modern claims to special conversations with the Lord in our day, no one has ever been saved and become a Christian where the New Testament Scriptures were not first read or taught. There is absolutely no way for us to know what a Christian is apart from the New Testament. It is equally as impossible for us to know what our Lord's church was and what it should be like, except by reading the New Testament. Furthermore, without the New Testament, as Christians, you and I are totally without information on how to worship God acceptably. It's just that plain and simple, friend.
Yet, little by little we are getting farther and farther away from the word of God. What the Scriptures say about becoming and being a Christian, what the Scriptures say about the church, its organization, its worship, its mission, its teaching, its faith, its hope, and all of that is being, that is supposed to be, is veiled and concealed and yes it is hidden behind the teachings of traditions of men. Church catechisms and creeds and private conversations with God are often preferred, and considered more authoritative than the book of the law of God. Once again, the word of God to his people has been lost-- lost in (well of all the places) in the churches.
Strangely enough, the Scriptures themselves foretell a digression from true religion. In I Timothy chapter 4, verses 1 to 2, they tell us, "The Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron." And again beginning in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16 through chapter four, verse four, they tell us, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly supplied for all good works. I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season; convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap to themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables."
Well, and so it is today, my friend, right now! So many changes, omissions, additions, alterations, innovations, and modernizations have occurred over the centuries, that today what is presented to the world as Christianity in most churches, is only a slight resemblance-- if any resemblance at all-- to what we read in the New Testament. Just as Josiah made a covenant before the Lord to walk after the Lord and keep his commandments, and to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book, the people who profess to be the people of God today need to get back to the Bible for our religious teaching and faith and living.
Our Lord promised to build His church, establish His religion (Matthew 16:18). All the powers of the Hadean world would not-- no, I need to rephrase that-- did not-- prevent His building His church. He said it would be built upon the foundation of His Deity. So when He had confirmed His deity by the resurrection from the dead and was about to return to the right hand of the Father, He commissioned his apostles to go into all the world telling the good news to every creature. He promised them the Holy Spirit to guide them, and to confirm their words with miracles. When the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost (Acts chapter 2), the church was begun with 3,000 entering it the first day. The number of men soon came to be about 5,000 (Acts 4 and 4). The numbers increased (Acts 5:14) and multiplied again and multiplied over and over (Acts chapter 6, verses 1 and 7). Well, according to some historians, by the turn of the century more than a million people in a society of a half billion embraced the religion of the Man of Galilee.
And, an amazing thing about the tremendous acceptance of the teaching of Jesus is that it was so in spite of severe persecution, first from the Jews, then from Rome. Common, ordinary people readily rejected the traditional religion of their fore parents. They became social outcasts and rejects, and subjected themselves to martyrdom, to be Christians! Why? Why would they do all that? Well, obviously Christianity was more than a cold formalism or a ritual; it was more than a fellowship club or a hallelujah, hand waving pep rally. It meant something to them! It gave them faith for living and hope in the hour of death. Doesn't it seem reasonable to you that if what is presented to people under the label of Christianity today was the same now as it was then, it would be just as meaningful and just as acceptable?
Even though we are two thousand years removed from those beginnings, there is nothing really impossible or impractical or undesirable about New Testament Christianity. Sure, we live in a much more scientific and sophisticated society than those people. We wear different kind of clothing, ride in different kinds of transportation, live in different kinds of houses and all of that, but basically our nature and our needs are the same. And the Christian faith described in the New Testament fits man today just as it did in those days. Jesus said, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." And those who came to him did find rest from the guilt and the burden of sin. And all who come to accept His way of life today will too, my friend. Let’s pray. Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for its abiding principles and teachings. We thank You, Father, for the inspiration of this Old Testament passage and the teachings we receive from it. In Jesus’ name, Amen!
King Josiah didn't begin a new religion; he merely turned the people to the practice of true religion revealed in the book of the law of God that hadn't been read and observed for many years. And you won't be beginning or accepting a new religion if you simply get back to the Bible for all you believe and do in your religious faith and practice. May God give you and me the courage of Josiah "to walk after the Lord and keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all our heart and soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this Book.”
Thank you, my friend, for seeing our program today. All over the world, on every continent, there are people whose hearts thrill to the idea of believing and living the simple faith taught and lived by first century Christians. Their lives are as blessed today as the people in the New Testament era. And many of them have also left the religion of their fore parents, subjected themselves to ridicule and even persecution to be simply Christians. And they would die rather than renounce their faith. You don't need me to tell you, if you pay any attention at all what's being taught in the religious media today, you know it's a far, far cry from what you read in the New Testament. What America and the world needs today is New Testament kind of Christianity. Yes, God's Word has been lost in the churches-- lost among the human creeds, confessions of faith, supposed modern revelations. If you would like to know more about this "Restoration" ideal, why don't you write us today? We would like to hear from you.
Churches of Christ who present this program in your community invite you to worship with them at your first opportunity. We are not trying to be just another denomination, or even the only right denomination. We are simply trying to restore and be the kind of people and church that you read about in your New Testament.
If a CD, an audio cassette tape, or a printed copy of this program, will be helpful to you, you may have one free simply by requesting it. Our address is In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. God bless you now. We love you.
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