2 Kings 22: 1- (New International Version)
1 Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years. His mother's name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah; she was from Bozkath. 2 He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and walked in all the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.
3 In the eighteenth year of his reign, King Josiah sent the secretary, Shaphan son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to the temple of the LORD. He said: 4 "Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him get ready the money that has been brought into the temple of the LORD, which the doorkeepers have collected from the people. 5 Have them entrust it to the men appointed to supervise the work on the temple. And have these men pay the workers who repair the temple of the LORD - 6 the carpenters, the builders and the masons. Also have them purchase timber and dressed stone to repair the temple. 7 But they need not account for the money entrusted to them, because they are acting faithfully."
8 Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, "I have found the Book of the Law in the temple of the LORD." He gave it to Shaphan, who read it. 9 Then Shaphan the secretary went to the king and reported to him: "Your officials have paid out the money that was in the temple of the LORD and have entrusted it to the workers and supervisors at the temple." 10 Then Shaphan the secretary informed the king, "Hilkiah the priest has given me a book." And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king. 11 When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes.
2 Kings 22: 11
12 He gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Acbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary and Asaiah the king's attendant: 13 "Go and inquire of the LORD for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the LORD's anger that burns against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us."
14 Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan and Asaiah went to speak to the prophetess Huldah, who was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the Second District.
15 She said to them, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me, 16 'This is what the LORD says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people, according to everything written in the book the king of Judah has read. 17 Because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods and provoked me to anger by all the idols their hands have made, [a] my anger will burn against this place and will not be quenched.' 18 Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the LORD, 'This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says concerning the words you heard: 19 Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people, that they would become accursed and laid waste, and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the LORD. 20 Therefore I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.' "
So they took her answer back to the king.
Introduction: The new minister was asked to teach a boys’ class in the absence of the regular teacher. He decided to see what they knew, so he asked them who knocked down the walls of Jericho. All the boys denied having anything to do with it or knowing anything about it for that matter. The preacher was, of course, appalled by their lack of Bible training.
At the next deacons’ meeting he told his deacons about the experience. “Not one of them knows who knocked down the walls of Jericho,” he whined. The group was silent until finally one seasoned veteran spoke up. “Preacher, this appears to be bothering you a lot. But I’ve known all those boys since they were born and they’re good boys. If they said they didn’t know, I believe them. Let’s just take some money out of the repair and maintenance fund, fix the walls, and let it go at that. And if it’s that bad, our insurance will probably cover it.”
So I guess I won’t embarrass any of you by asking who actually did knock down the walls of Jericho. Here are some recent figures of Biblical ignorance. According to Christian Pollster, George Barna, only 4 out of 10 Christians know who spoke the Sermon on the Mount. The majority of American citizens cannot name the four gospels. And Only three out of every ten teenagers knows why we celebrate Easter. And slightly less than half of all Christians cannot name all of the ten commandments. Oh, by the way, 8 out of ten Americans identify themselves as Christians.
Today we are going to look at a story of a king of Israel who found the Bible after it had been missing for a long time. His response is telling and hopefully, we will be able to understand what it tells us. Amen?
The Bible Society of the United Kingdom calculates that the number of Bibles printed between 1816 and 1975 was 2,458,000,000 Bibles. By 1992 the estimated number rose to nearly six billion. Furthermore, worldwide sales of the Bible number more than a staggering 100 million each year, far more than any other book in history. Without a doubt, the Bible is the best selling book of all time. As of 2007 approximately 7.5 billion Bibles have been distributed throughout the world—with the vast majority still available for use! These figures do not include the various digital versions of the Bible being used today. Currently, the complete Bible has been published in over 450 languages. The New Testament alone has been published in nearly 1,400 languages. What all these numbers mean is that there is approximately one Bible for every living person on Earth! The caveat, however, is that the average American household contains four Bibles each. 59% of the Americans from those households reported that they read the Bible occasionally. We have a lot of Bibles. So if you are ever in the position where you can’t find one, . . just go ask your neighbor because he’s got four of them. You know, I would love to call people up and ask them where there Bible is, just to see if they know just to illustrate how easy it is to misplace the Bible. Because I think that even with all those Bibles, we don’t know how to find God’s Word.
Today’s story is about misplacing the Bible. It’s about losing and then finding God’s Word. How does this happen? Especially when you are a country like Israel whose very existence is based on the first five books of our Bible. How can this happen in a country whose government and religion is to be found in those five books. That’s like the United States somehow misplacing the Constitution.
To find out how this could happen, how Josiah could become king of Israel and not know what the Law says, we need to start with King Manasseh, Josiah’s grandfather.
Manasseh was king for a long time. He actually ruled for 55 years which is like forever in king time. But he was a king during a very turbulent time in the history of the Middle East. You’re gonna tell me, “Allan, it has always turbulent in the Middle East.” Well, this was extra turbulence. This was like getting a conflict club sandwich with extra turbulence. The reason for this extra turbulence was that the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, and the Egyptians were all trying that part of the country into their own empire and Israel is kind of like right in the middle of it. King Manasseh has to learn to walk a tight rope in order to stay king and to keep his country from getting rubbed out. Very difficult political place to be.
Now, theologically, we have to remember that there were no atheists back then. This is around 650 BC and everyone believed in some type of god or usually gods. The idea of there only being one god was very unique to the beliefs of Israel. However, King Manasseh was not totally convinced that there was only one god and so he began to import others. In fact, he imported a lot of gods and more than a few other religions. You might say that he adopted a quite modern stance towards religions and faiths.
Many people today, pride themselves on being tolerant and I am not preaching intolerance. I emphasize that. I am not preaching intolerance. However, scripture, from beginning to end, does not leave room for any other gods. It very simply is called idolatry. The first and second commandments cover this. You shall have no other gods before me and you shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything. Well, Manasseh did that day and night. He did not seem to stop others from worshipping the God of Israel but he didn’t encourage it either. This man went so far as to bring in a religion that promoted child sacrifice and we are told that Manasseh sacrificed his own son. If you read chapter 23, you saw that Josiah had his work cut out for him to get rid of the incredible number of idols that Manasseh had built and brought into the country. The temple was full of idols, the countryside was full of idols, there were priests burning incense to idols in every town. There was detestable worship going on. There were male prostitutes. There was infant sacrifice, the burning alive of one’s own child. I don’t care how tolerant you are, this was over the line. Are you beginning to understand how the Bible could get lost in this kind of culture? This was a culture in which anything and everything was alright. I know that we are a tolerant people and we should be but the attitude that Manasseh had went beyond our modern attitude towards religion. Today’s philosophy says that all faiths and all beliefs lead to the same place. Manasseh believed that and hoped in more than that. He hoped that by pleasing all these gods and worshiping all these idols, at least one of them would find favor with Israel and protect them from being overrun by all these other invading armies. The theology in the ancient Middle East was that the country that was dominant, was the country that had the most powerful God. If a country was overrun or lost in war, it was because their God was weak or they had done something to displease that God. Manasseh was trying to cover all the bases. And being king for 55 years, he imported a lot of gods other than the God of Moses.
Do you see how the Bible could get lost? Do you see how the Bible could get ignored? When everything is okay, then nothing is important. The Bible is becoming unimportant in our modern society because we have the general idea that everything we believe, anything we think, makes us right with God. If I go for a walk in the woods and feel good about nature, that is good enough. If I behave according to the standards of society, that is good enough. I don’t need to pray. I don’t need to worship with fellow believers. I don’t need to make a habit of reading the Bible and doing what it says. If what I think is right or if what I feel is good enough to get me right with God, what’s the point in reading the Bible? It would be a waste of time. It’s like that now and for the 55 years of Manasseh’s reign, it was like that, the Bible became a waste of time. The Bible became unimportant and irrelevant to the religious culture.
And then the book of the Law was found. Josiah became king at the ripe old age of eight. That’s not unusual by the way. He would have an advisor rule until he was deemed of age. Then he would take over as king. Well when Josiah was 26, he realized that the heritage of his country, the temple that Solomon had built, needed work. So he has workmen start cleaning it up and in a back store room, the Bible, the book of the law, is found and it is presented to the king. There is a priest, Hilkiah, who finds it and he seems to know what it is. But not really being sure what to do with it, he gives it to the king’s secretary who doesn’t know what it is. We know this because of the way he presents it to the king. Picture it, Shaphun the secretary and Josiah the King are going through the days tasks, “we gave this money to that person, the workmen say they won’t go on strike now that they got their raise, You’re having lunch with Pharoah ketchup from Egypt , the Philistines are complaining about our sheep again, and oh by the way, the priest gave me has given me this book. He seems to think it’s important.” Then the Word of God, the Law, the Heart of the Bible, finally gets to Josiah.
There are three responses to the Bible in this passage. Hilkiah the high priest response: Shaphan the secretary response, and Josiah the King response.
Hilkiah found the Bible. He recognized it for what it was. He knew what it said but he didn’t know what to do with it. There are lots of people who know the word and they don’t do anything with it. There are lots of people who know lots of scripture, they’ve memorized verse after verse but that scripture is all here [in the head] and never goes anywhere else. It never gets to their heart; it never gets to their hands; it has no impact on how they live their lives.
Then there is the Shaphan the secretary response. He doesn’t know what the Bible is. He doesn’t care what the Bible is. The Bible is unimportant to him. It’s just a book. There are some scary statistics about Christians and the Bible. Did you know that 23% of church going Christians don’t read the Bible at all? 37% say they read the Bible about once a week, probably during the sermon. Just over a third, 36% of church going Christians, say they read the Bible every day or every other day. How can we as followers of Jesus know how God wants us to live our lives if we are not reading the messages God has already sent to us? Israel had stopped reading God’s word. It had become unimportant to them and so, as a nation, they were living their lives like everyone else not how God had instructed them to live. You see, most of the Bible is about how we live our lives here. Yeah, the Bible does have a lot to say about heaven and where you go when you die but most of the Bible is about how God wants you to live your life here, in this world, in this life.
And that brings us to the Josiah the King response. He heard the Word and it went from his ears, to his head, to his heart, and to his hands. To use some old fashioned language, he was convicted by it. Scripture says that he tore his robes. That was a common response in the ancient Middle East to bad news. I’m showing you on the outside, how I feel on the inside. My soul is torn asunder. He heard the word of God and he responded to it. King Josiah then commenced with the most sweeping reformation the country had ever seen. He went through the entire country, end to end, destroying the idols his grandfather had built. Abolishing child sacrifice. Cleaning out the temple so that it could once again be a place holy only to the God of Israel.
What is your response to Scripture? Are you a Hilkiah, a Shaphun, or a Josiah? What will you do when you hear the Word?
