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Welcome to day four of week seven of our look through first and second kings.
We're going to focus on chapters 22 and 23 of second kings today. And now we
turn to Josiah, the third of these three great kings at the end of the reigns of
the kings of Judah.

We looked at Joash who rebuilt the temple, the place of worship, and we learned
how to have outstanding faith from him. We looked at Hezekiah who tore down the
high places and we learned how to have outstanding faith from him. And now we
learn from Josiah who renewed the covenant.

Now Josiah is an unusual king because he started young and he stayed faithful.
In verse one of chapter 22, verses one and two, Josiah was eight years old when
he became king and he reigned in Jerusalem 31 years. His mother's name was
Jedediah, son of Ediah, and she was from Boscath.

And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and he walked in all the ways
of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left. He had an
outstanding faith and he teaches us, Josiah teaches us some things about how to
live with this kind of outstanding faith. One of the keys is you have to renew
your commitment to living God's promises.

You have to renew this covenant of God's promise in your life. I'm living by
God's promise. And how do you do that?

If you look at the experience of Josiah, it's very clear what you and I need to
do. First thing you've got to do is you've got to rediscover or discover the
word of God in your life because that's where the promises are. Listen to what
happens in verse three.

In the 18th year of his reign, King Josiah sent the secretary, Shefan son of
Azaliah, son of Mahulam, to the temple of the Lord and he said, "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. Have them entrusted to the men appointed to supervise the work on the
temple and have these men pay the workers to repair the temple of the Lord, the
carpenters, the builders and the masons, and have them purchase timber and dress
stone to repair the temple. But they need not account for the money entrusted to
them because they are acting faithfully.

" So he starts off to rebuild the temple. But then listen to what happens in
verse eight. "Hilkiah the high priest said to Shefan the secretary, 'I have
found the book of the law in the temple of the Lord.

' And he gave it to Shefan who read it. And then Shefan the secretary went to
the king and he 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 of the temple. ' And then Shefan the secretary informed the king,
'Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.

' And Shefan read from it in the presence of the king. " This is God's word.
This is the Old Testament that they're reading.

They had for generations apparently lost the law. They weren't reading from it.
Where was it?

Where was it hidden that they hadn't seen it? I don't know. But they weren't
reading from it.

And here they find God's book. They rediscover it. If I'm going to enjoy God's
promise in my life, I've got to rediscover God's word in my life again and again
and again and again.

Now God's word, you probably know what shelf it's on or what app it's on in your
phone if you scroll over to it. That may be a little better than the people of
Israel had done because they lost it seemingly for generations, but really in
one way it's no better. Are you reading it?

Are you letting God's word come into your life? You may need to make a
rediscovery of your own to rediscover the meaning of God's word in your daily
life. Start reading it again as if your very life depends on it because it does.

And if you've been reading it that way, keep reading it that way. It's one of
the keys to living this life of promise, this covenant life, this outstanding
faith life. The other thing you do is you honestly admit where you fall short.

You rediscover God's word, but to live a life of promise you have to admit where
you fall short where you're not living a life of promise. Listen to what happens
in verses 11 to 13. "When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he
tore his robes, and he gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest, Iakim the son of
Shafan, Achbor the son of Micaiah, and Shafan the secretary, and Asiah the
king's attendant.

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 here that are
concerning us.

" So Josiah immediately recognizes their failure to follow. He tears his robe.
He gathers the people.

He recognizes God's judgment is going to be upon them because they know what to
do now and they haven't done it. Here's a man, here's a king who was not afraid
to say, "We have done terribly wrong. " He wasn't afraid to admit it to himself.

He wasn't afraid to admit it to God. He wasn't afraid to admit it to others. If
you're going to live a life of promise, you've got to honestly admit where you
fall short of that life of promise.

Now this may be the most difficult of the three steps we're going to talk about
because with this one, I've got to let go of my pride. With this one, I've got
to trust God instead of trusting myself. But the truth of the matter is I do
fall short of God's promise.

So short sometimes. I do fall short of all that God has for me. I get caught up
in my own selfishness.

I allow myself to focus on the little details of life rather than the grand plan
that God has for me. I think it's all about me instead of remembering that it's
all about him. Honestly admit where you fall short.

And then the third thing you do is you follow God's directions. You do what God
has said to do. In the next chapter, they begin to see that God's word's going
to have this visible impact on their lives.

They read what's in this law and they start doing it. And so the articles of
Baal are removed from the temple. Oh, those aren't supposed to be in there.

Look right here, it says so. The pagan priests that they had, it says right
here, don't have any pagan priests. We've got to get rid of those guys.

All the pagan shrines are defiled because the Bible says not to have any of
those. Listen to what happens in verses 21 to 23. The king gave this order to
all the people.

Now I want you to notice something in these verses. First they celebrated the
Passover like never before. They followed the directions.

But also notice when they did it in the 18th year of King Josiah. Remember when
they discovered the law in the 18th year of King Josiah? He immediately followed
the directions of God.

There's no years of waiting. He celebrates the Passover. Verse 24, he gets rid
of all the mediums.

He just sort of reads through what they're supposed to do and he does it. He
heard God's word, he acted on what he heard. He heard God's word, he acted on
what he heard.

And so look at what the Bible says about Josiah in verse 25. "Neither before nor
after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did with all
his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength in accordance with the
law of Moses. No other king like him.

" Here's the one king who gets a credit that's higher than even the credit of
David. No other king like him. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all
your soul, all your strength.

" He did it with all his heart, all his soul, all his strength. He's one of the
examples, one of the models for my life, for your life. But the question is, how
can I follow his example?

In your life right now, where do you need to rediscover God's word? Well, you
might be reading it, but you need to rediscover it at some point, at some place
of your life. You're not applying God's word to your business or to your family
life or to your conversation or to your sex life or to your habit life or to
your hobby life or to the life that you have with your friends.

You can just imagine the list. Where do you need to rediscover God's word at
that point in your life? How do you need to admit that you fall short?

Just simply recognize, God, we need you because we do fall short. And how do you
need to follow God's directions? When you start to do that, you're going to
begin to discover the promises of God becoming more and more real in your life.

And so Lord, we come to you and we ask that you help us to be people of your
promise. But to do that, we've got to let your word sink into our lives. Forgive
us for sometimes just reading it.

Help us to see how it fits into the very most needed places of our lives. And
Lord, in those places where we need to rediscover your word, help us to see that
right now. And God, help us to admit where we fall short.

Instead of our pride guiding our lives, help us to humbly just say to you, we
need you because we do fall short. We all do. And God, help us to follow your
directions because the directions that come, they come not out of some desire to
control us, but they come because you love us and you created us and you know
what's best for us.

You know how we're going to live the most joyous, the most satisfying, the most
significant life. So Lord, help us to follow the directions you give because we
know they come from your love. We ask for this in Jesus name.

Amen. Well, join us tomorrow. We're going to end our study of 1st and 2nd Kings
with a look at the greatest lessons in these books.