Turn in your Bibles, please, to 2 Chronicles 35, verse 24, and then we'll move back to chapter 34. 2 Chronicles 35, 24 records the death of Josiah. He was wounded in battle, and we're told in verse 24, And he died and was buried in the tombs of his fathers. The death of Josiah was a catastrophe. Why would that be? Because there was revival under Josiah. The 57 years preceding the reign of Josiah were the reigns of his grandfather Manasseh and Ammon his father, both of whom introduced the most horrid kind of idolatry and immorality into the nation. And then at the age of eight years old, if you'll turn back to chapter 34, It says, Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 31 years. That would be from 640 BC to 609 BC. 31 years, and he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in the ways of David, his father, and he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. That phrase, not turning to the right hand or to the left, not deviating at all from the narrow path of truth and righteousness. He was uncompromised, he was faithful, he was undistracted. That's only said of King Asa and of David and of no one else other than David, Asa, and also of King Hezekiah under whom there was also reform. We're told in verse 2, verse 3 rather, for in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David, his father, and in the twelfth year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, which was a particularly depraved, idolatrous depiction, and the carved and the metal He began to seek the Lord, and in the 12th year of his reign, when he was 20 years old, the reforms began, and the idols were purged, and the temple was repaired, and Scripture was rediscovered in red, and the covenant was reaffirmed with a glorious Passover service. 2 Kings 23, 35 says, there was no king like him before or since. He was a great, great leader. So much was this recognized by previous generations of Christians that when Henry VIII died and his nine-year-old son, Edward VI, came to the throne, the Protestants began to refer to him as young Josiah because he was a very, very devout Protestant and began to see, too, the reforming of the Church of England. And so under his very short reign of six years, the Prayer Book of 1549, the Prayer Book of 1552, the 42 Articles, all very Protestant documents were approved, and when he died his His sister Mary, known to history as Bloody Mary, began to burn the Protestants. But the church survived to a significant degree because of the work that was accomplished under young Josiah, Edward VI of England. The Reformation was secured even under the persecutions under Mary. Josiah's death is a tragedy because his successors then immediately got to work to reverse his reforms, to reintroduce the idolatry and immorality that had characterized the pre-Josiah era. And so God sent the Babylonians to destroy the nation and exile its population. So what would I have us learn from this morning? That would be this. Two points, really. Number one, leadership is crucial. This is the pattern that we see throughout the Bible, and it's particularly clear at various crucial junctures. God will raise up a Joseph. He'll raise up a Moses or a Joshua. Or during the period of the judges, he was raising up the Samsons and the Gideons. He raises up a David and a Solomon, a Josiah. When the exiles return, he raises up an Ezra and a Nehemiah. In the New Testament, there's a Peter, there's John, there's Paul. He raises up these leaders. He's done that for our church over the years. We think back, where would this church be if we hadn't had the steady hand of a Don McLaurin over the decades? Where would this church be if we hadn't had the energetic leadership of a Joe Van Pufflin over the decades? This is the way the kingdom of God works. He raises up leaders. And I think that we can see that this is true in every realm of life, that leadership is absolutely crucial. So if the world of sports is yours, we can go back to the 60s and 70s for the sake of the older folk here. Where would the Celtics have been without Red Auerbach and Bill Russell? Where would the UCLA college basketball be without John Wooden? Or the Green Bay Packers without Vince Lombardi and Bart Starr? You will have your own coaches in mind. How about the 2000s? Duke basketball and Coach K, the Patriots with a combination of Belichick and Brady. I know I'm treading on ice when I start mentioning athletics, but you get the point, I think. This is why college football coaches are being paid millions of dollars. Because it's understood, leadership is absolutely crucial. It's irreplaceable. In business, where would Chrysler back in the 1980s, where would they have been without Lee Iacocca? Or Microsoft without Bill Gates? Or Apple without Steve Jobs? Or Amazon without Jeff Bezos? In other words, there would be a very different story in each of these cases, or there would be no story at all. Why? Because leadership is absolutely crucial. Second point, leadership is crucial at crucial junctures. And one of the problem with crucial junctures is that we often don't know that we are We are at a crucial point, a turning point, a point of departure, a fork in the road. We don't realize it until it's upon us. On June 28th of 1914, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. That's June 28th. The remainder of June and July, widely reported, was the most beautiful summer Europe had ever seen. Apparently the weather was perfect, absolutely gorgeous. As the negotiations were going back and forth, August 1st, war broke out. Four years and three months later, 17 million people were dead. People were spending the summer sunbathing. There didn't seem to be the awareness of the crucial moment that was unfolding before them. In the 1930s, Winston Churchill, the lone voice crying in the wilderness. He was accused of being a warmonger as he was warning about the dangers of the Nazi regime under Adolf Hitler. Largely unheeded, September 1st, 1939, war breaks out. When it ends six years later, 73 million people are dead. 1963, I'm clipping out of Look Magazine color pictures of our quote unquote advisors in Vietnam. I loved all things military, so I've clipped out the pictures and put them in my scrapbook, not knowing that in a matter of months, our president would be assassinated. The next year, we'd see the free speech movement. 1965 to 67, we would see a massive escalation of troops in Vietnam to half a million. And then following that, a divided nation, student protests, race riots, the unleashing of the Pandora's box that we know as the sexual revolution. We didn't understand that in early 1963. What about the current trajectories? Well, the current trajectories are decades old, but they're accelerating with alarming rapidity. There's a decline in religious observance and religious affiliation that has been hastened by the pandemic, which we are now nearly two years into, and it's being commented upon very broadly. It's being recognized. I mean, thankfully, we're about where we should be as a congregation. But I'm being told in various reports that for many churches, attendance is about half of what it was. And then especially among the young, there's a massive problem of disconnect with religion in general, with Christianity specifically, which is our concern. It's a decades-old trajectory of moral anarchy. There seems to be no limits in our civilization. No limits, no absolutes, certainly no. No limitations can be placed on any lifestyle or mode of conduct or behavior It's just all up to the individual and whatever he or she wants to do and to be. There's a growing social tribalism that we're recognizing. And we're dividing up more and more according to immutable external characteristics or sexual preferences. Basic rights are being challenged, the right to free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly. And there's a unmistakable growing hostility to Christian orthodoxy in all of its forms, whether it's Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox or Orthodox Protestant, in all of its forms. There is a hostility that is unprecedented, certainly in my lifetime, And I would say unprecedented in the whole history of our society, of our civilization. There's never been anything like it. And the problem with these trajectories is that they are not sustainable. A civilization cannot collapse with these trajectories if they go on for very long. Now, that's my opinion. That's my assessment. You can take that for what it's worth. You know, Jesus criticized the Pharisees for not understanding the times, not understanding the time in which they were living, not understanding the signs of the times. There's a certain amount of discernment that is important and necessary, that it's important that we understand what is going on around us and be ready for what might be coming next, because unless the nation draws back and corrects its current course, there will be a very different world for the Christian community in the years ahead. And that brings me to point number three. Did I say it was a two-point sermon? Well, actually, it's a three-point sermon. Why did I not know that? Because I hadn't yet turned the page. Point number three. Realize what we do here, year in and year out. What we're doing is we're trying to identify those individuals who can serve as officers of the church. We're looking for those in whom there is a spirit of wisdom, spiritually minded individuals who are spiritually devout and morally straight. And we're very careful about it. We go through a lot in order to try to identify them. You know, we have a requirement that you be a member for a certain amount of time so that we're able to observe our men. At least at some level, we're able to observe their character and their commitments. Then we look for recommendations from the congregation. For a month, we're meant to be pondering, now who out there is qualified to serve as an officer of the church? We spend a month doing that, gathering names from the congregation. Then we have 13 weeks, we're about to expand that to 15 weeks, in which we carefully study the Westminster Confession of Faith, Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and thoroughly discuss their meaning. And they go home with homework every week, and they're meant to fill out the answers to all the questions. And then when they've done all of that, then they have a written final examination and an oral examination from the session of the church. We're careful about it, and here's why. We're careful because there is, under the sovereignty of God and the lordship of Christ, the future of the church is in their hands. That's what we need to recognize. The future of the church is in the hands of the leadership of the church, the kind of church it's going to be, the kind of ministry it's going to conduct, what the shape of that ministry will be, what are the particular commitments of that ministry, what's going to be emphasized and de-emphasized, and how we're going to respond and adapt to the circumstances that are taking place around us. are going to be determined by the leaders of the church. Now, we're confident in the long term. Christ will build his church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Never mind the gates of Washington, D.C. All right, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. Christ will build his church. And it will succeed in its great commission. In the short term, however, decisions are going to determine whether we see revival or ruin, whether we are renewed or wrecked as the challenges of the future are faced. And this is understood biblically. This is why we have the kind of lists that we have in Acts 6, 1 to 7. In 1 Timothy 3, long list of character qualities and behavioral characteristics. Another long list in Titus. And then we have the Apostle Paul's speech to the Ephesian elders. recorded in Acts chapter 20, all of which is shouting to the church to be careful about leadership, be careful about those individuals that you place in positions of leadership, in positions of authority. Why? Because the church will be either revived or ruined to a significant degree by the decisions that they make. We will either be renewed or wrecked by the leadership of the church. And consequently, it's vital that we be ever careful and ever vigilant, that we pray to discern so that we are able to identify those men who are qualified to lead according to biblical criteria. Biblical criteria, not worldly criteria. Follow the Spirit and of wisdom. There is a worldly wisdom that's necessary, but I think in too many occasions, Presbyterians in particular, because of upward mobility, have tended to put men who were successful in the world into leadership positions. on the basis of their worldly success without giving careful examination to their spiritual qualifications. We've assumed, oh, he's able to run a business, so he's able to run the church. Too often that has been the case. No, we want those who are qualified, biblically speaking, spiritually qualified, qualified according to character, for the leadership. Full of the spirit and of wisdom. Full of the spirit and so demonstrating the fruit of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. These all should characterize those that we elevate to the offices of the church. We want to be careful and vigilant as we go through these processes year by year that we find men who are qualified to lead and in whom God has placed a burden to lead. A burden to lead. How does that happen? I think it helps to have searched for a church and have been unable to find one that was satisfactory. and you love its ministry, and you want to make sure it's preserved. You're taking ownership of it. You've bought into it. You want to be sure that it's preserved. You want to be sure that it remains faithful to the commitments that it has. So you're all in. I think it happens that way. I think it happens when you have children. And you start thinking about, okay, what's going to be the environment in which I raise my children. A lot of people start coming back to church when their children are born. That is not unusual. I will tell you it's becoming virtually normal. People will go off to college and they'll wander away from the church and then they They get married, and they have their first child, and they start thinking, what are we going to teach this child about right and wrong, and about God, and about eternity, and life and death, and where are we going to teach those things? And so you start to get involved, you get involved in the community, and you start getting involved in your church, and you start getting involved in the schools that they'll be involved in. Why? Because you're motivated because Because you know that your children are going to be growing up in these environments, in these institutions. And you want to be sure that they're straight, and that they are true to their calling, and they're faithful to their commission. So you have motivation. You say, very, very busy. I've got all this on my plate already. Well, when it comes to your children, you know what? There's always a little bit more room on your plate, isn't there? When it comes to them, You'll lose an extra hour of sleep if you need to. You'll take on another job. You'll endure yet more work for their sake. And if you're single and you don't have children, you have a vision for the children of the church. and for the next generation, and realizing, look, they are the future leaders as well, and we need to be preparing them. And so I need to belong to a church that's committed to preparing them. And so it has a Sunday school, and it's emphasizing family worship, and it teaches the catechisms so that my children will be doctrinally informed. So we want those men who are qualified to lead, We want men upon whom God has placed a burden to lead. They love Christ and His church, and they're eager to work for the well-being of the church and the preservation of that well-being of the church. And all you have to do is look around the downtown, not naming names, but just look around. You're going to find a number of empty churches who abandoned the gospel. Gradually, one step at a time, over decades of time, gradually receding from the true and sound biblical teaching. Today they're empty. They have a handful of people. What happened? What happened to the vision of the founders of these churches, who were good and godly, and by whose sweat and blood the buildings were built, and now they're in the hands of people who believe very little of what their founders believed. What happened? Well, the succession wasn't handled properly. They didn't maintain the leadership succession from the apostles to the elders, to each generation of elders, the torches passed. And you can see we've got to be so careful about those to whom we pass that torch. So praying that We'll be able to identify those qualified to lead and those upon whom God has placed a burden because they love Christ and His church and they're willing to work for the well-being of the church. And we can see that the Lord has raised them up to lead. And we do this. We pray for this and work toward this so that our congregation will continue to be a gospel lighthouse for the next 266 years. That's a wonderful heritage, isn't it? We didn't build these buildings. That's not our brick and mortar. We inherited these buildings. We inherited the commitments of previous generations. There was a time when it was almost lost. It was a very narrow escape some years ago. But the church has been faithful to its commitments, to its convictions, to its understanding of the gospel. And so we're careful about these things, about identifying these leaders and placing them in office so that our congregation, established by the good and godly men 266 years ago, so that we'll pass it along for yet another 266 years as we pray together. Our Father in heaven, we pray that the gospel of Christ Jesus our Lord might ever be preached from this pulpit. Guard your church, O Lord, we pray. Be a wall of fire all around us and the glory in our midst. In Jesus' name, amen. Singing together number 194, O come, O come, Emmanuel,