be comfortable, and to rest in our God. Be still. Take your Bible, turn with me to the book of 2 Kings, chapter 23. 2 Kings, in your Old Testament, we are almost to the end of this series on the divided kingdom, God's word to a divided kingdom. We're just a couple chapters until the end. So 2 Kings 23, we'll cover the first 30 verses this morning. There's an outline inside your bulletin you can follow along that will help you as we study God's word this morning. You know, it's really hard to make change last, isn't it? It's hard to do things and make it last. You know, you want to get discouraged today is go back and look at your New Year's resolutions, you know. It's October. And if you went back and looked at them, I'm sure you'd say, well, you know, I could just strike 2024 and write 2025 at the top of the page and everything would be fine. Some of you, congratulations, you've done great, but we've all made commitments at the beginning of the year to change things, to lose weight, to start eating better, to save money, whatever. And most of the time, New Year's resolutions or commitments we make are focused on things we want to change about our lives. And change is hard. You know, the story of the divided kingdom, we've come through first and second kings. We've been at this a long time, and it's a downward spiral with occasional bright spots of obedience. But mostly it's just downward as people constantly reject God. And last week, we finally arrived at the righteous king, King Josiah. If you remember the story, they're clearing out the temple of God. They are going to where no one's been before. In a long time, they're cleaning out old things, dusting off old books, and they find in there the book of the law, long neglected, long ignored, and what Josiah does is he commits himself to being obedient to these written words of God. Now, I want you to consider for a second, put yourself in Josiah's shoes when your past is filled with failure. When God's spirit through his word has convicted you of your sin, what pattern should you follow so that through his grace you can correct course and change can really happen? You follow what I'm saying is that the past is full of regret. And you think about what the future needs to be. How can you get there? What can you do so that you can actually make real change? What does real reformation look like? Where does spiritual reformation begin? Because nothing gets better by itself. Nothing gets better. Nothing course corrects without a lot of effort. If you want to engage in spiritual reformation, it will not only take a lot of effort, it will take a map, it will take a plan. And so this morning we see a picture of spiritual reformation, and we can glean from that true spiritual principles for how we ought to be spiritually reforming our hearts. Father, we ask you today to give us grace. Give us wisdom, Lord, as we look into your Word. Thank you for stories like this that show us the hope of turning to you and trusting you and believing you and obeying you. Help us, Lord, to focus on your word and to reform our hearts to be in accordance with it. Thank you so much for this time we have together in Jesus' name. Amen. Before we begin verse 1, I want to just ask you briefly, what would you do if you knew the end was coming? How would you lead God's people? Remember, Josiah's already been told by this prophetess Hilda that the end is coming, it's all going to be downhill, God is not going to rescue you. It would have been very tempting for Josiah with the years he had left to just ignore any attempts to reform anything, but he knew that to please the Lord, He had to engage in spiritual reformation. He was not content to wait for his own peaceful death. He was going to move forward and do what God had called him to do. Notice what we have to do. We start off with this first challenge. We must recommit to the Word of God. If you are going to have change in your life, the Word of God must take center. If you write, you'll find the bulletin inside your, or the notes inside your bulletin. You can find some of the blanks to fill in here, and you can follow along if you'd like. There's a Bible in the chairs in front of you if you don't have a Bible and would like to read along this passage. Recommit to the word of God. What does recommitment involve? Well, first we see that recommitment involves everyone. He says, now the king, verse 1, sent them to gather all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to him. And the king went up to the house of the Lord with all the men of Judah. and with him all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets and all the people," notice this phrase, both small and great. Josiah knew if there was going to be real radical spiritual reformation, it would start with leadership, but it would involve everyone. that the people needed to be convinced they needed to change. Notice the leadership. He gathers the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. He went to all the men of Judah, all the nation, and he gathers them together, all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the people in the city, the people who were important people. They were religious people here, priests, prophets and people who weren't religious, you notice, or necessarily involved in religious things. All the people, he says, small and great, regular people, important people, everyone was called to be there because Reformation involves a commitment from everyone. Recommitment involves everybody. You have got to make sure you recognize it's not just the job of the leaders in a country. It's not just the job of a leaders in a church. It's everyone's job to be recommitted to the word of God. You know, we often pray for revival in our culture. We pray for revival in our churches in Reformation, but we many times we think of Reformation as being something that happens out there. We said, Lord, bring revival, but we don't stop to think that maybe God is saying revival starts in your heart. Revival starts with you and your closet, your prayer closet. Revival starts with you and your dining room table and your time with the Word before you go to work in the morning. It involves us. It involves you. It involves everyone. For this Reformation to truly work, everyone has to be engaged. Everyone has to be involved. No one can be left out. Recommitment involves everyone, and recommitment, as I said at the beginning, must be centered on God's Word. Notice what he does in verse 2. He says, and they read, and he read. in their hearing," this is everyone's hearing, "...all the words of the book of the covenant which had been found in the house of the Lord." We cannot overstate the importance of God's Word in bringing about change for people. People need the Word, and the Word changes hearts. Through the Spirit, God's Word can convict us and draw us to Himself. Notice He reads it in their hearing, and He reads it all Now we're not going to read all the books of the law today, but can you imagine we sit and we read through the books of the law, all of it from front to back, and they hear the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord, and the word takes center stage. And so it is with any true reformation must be centered on the word. There are lots of reformations, lots of revivals out there. I don't know if you remember, last year there was something called the Asbury Revival. Remember that? Asbury University in February? They were saying 70,000 people visited this small college. They called it an outpouring, an awakening, a revival. People were talking about it all the time. It was on the news. It was on Fox News and CNN and MSNBC. Everybody was talking about this revival. The only thing that bothered me about this revival was the fact that I could not see how it was centered on God's Word. There was no preaching involved. There was just people going in. and people listening to music. There was no reading of the Bible at all. There was emotional singing, and there was some prayer, but there was no centered on God's Word. And what happens if you continue to trace, and people have done this, they say, what happened at the Asbury Revival today? Like, what results are there today from that revival last year? People have not found any. The churches in the area are not full of people who have been converted. Nobody is tracing their spirit. There's not a huge swelling of people who are tracing their spiritual birth back to those moments. And I'm not saying that God can't use a moment like that, but friends, sometimes we get swept up in things like that, saying, wow, can you believe what God is doing here? God may be doing something, but unless it is centered on the Word, it will not last. Things that are merely emotional or merely a group of people gathering together cannot last, and we will not have reformation, we will not have revival without God's Word being center. Recommitment must be centered on God's Word, and it must require, it requires complete submission. Notice how these people, as they got to God's Word, they said, Lord, we'll do it. Do whatever you say. The king stood by a pillar. And he made a covenant, verse 3, he made a covenant before the Lord. He made a promise to God to follow the Lord, to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and with all his soul to perform the words of the covenant that were written in the book and all the people could stand for the covenant. You know, they read it and then they commit to obey it. And so it is with us today. We're going to read God's word this morning, and am I commissioning to you, or my challenge to you is say, yes, we commit to being obedient to what God says. And to make a covenant is to make a promise. He said, we will promise to obey, to follow, to keep, and to do it with our whole being. He says, with all your heart and all your soul. That means to do it fully and without distraction. You're not going to let the world distract you or knock you off your course. How easy it is for us to get knocked off course. We're doing great, and then something rattles us. You know, we get news of something and all of a sudden our anxieties skyrocket or our fears skyrocket. Something happens in our life and all of a sudden our whole life gets turned upside down. We have to be centered on God's Word so that no matter what happens, no matter what hits us, we are focused on truth. Notice he says he submits himself to the words written in the book. The commitment of the king was to align himself and his power under the authority of God. Now, this is a huge recognition. Think about what he's saying here. He's a human king, okay? There are no checks and balances here. He's not a president with a Congress. He can do what he wants. He's king. And what does he do here? He recognizes his ultimate authority. The king, his ultimate authority is not himself, but rather the authority granted to him by God. And I want you to notice the humility it takes for a man who's been given this kind of authority to say, I will live in submission to someone else, to the God of the universe, to the king of all kings. I will be complete submission to the words and the commands of God. The king who could have done anything, knew the right thing to do was best to obey the king of kings. And the people agreed. People submitted along with him. They took a stand, it says in the end of verse three, for the covenant. They took a stand for the covenant. Friends, you can recommit to the Word of God this morning. Before we have any kind of revival in our hearts, before there's any kind of reformation, we must center ourselves and commit ourselves to the Word of God. There's a second part of this, though, is that we not only should commit ourselves to obeying the Word of God, we need to look around and remove the obstacles to pure worship. Because here he looks around, it's one thing to make a verbal commitment, he looks around, he notices there's a problem. That the culture of Israel, the culture of Judah had been totally run through with idolatry. And as he looks around, he sees problems everywhere. And so he begins by cleansing the place of worship. Look at verse four, because if you follow along, there are 10 actions I counted, 10 actions taken by Josiah that demonstrate his work to correct the worship here and to remove the obstacles of pure worship. And what he's doing is he's resetting back to Solomon's timeframe, before Solomon. He's resetting to David's time, because when Solomon came in, remember, he had foreign wives whom he loved and he built alters to their gods and he involved or he embraced a loud false worship. So notice with me in verse 4 we first see the cleansing of the temple itself. He says, the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second order and the doorkeepers to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the articles that were made for Baal, Baal is the storm god, a false idol, made for Baal, for Asherah, it's a female fertility goddess, and for all the hosts of heaven, thus star worship. And he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and he carried their ashes to Bethel. Then he removed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places all around Jerusalem, and those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, the moon, and the constellations, and to the hosts of heaven." Notice this cleansing of the temple. He empties out the temple of the articles that had been there to worship Baal. How perverse that you have the temple of the Lord, and inside the temple of the Lord is a place for worshiping Baal and Asherah. There was a syncretism of worship. They would worship the Lord, but they'd also worship Baal. They'd worship the Lord, but they'd also worship an Asherah. There was not wholehearted commitment, full commitment, single-hearted devotion to the Lord. They wanted to spread things out, play the odds. Of course, yes, the Lord is good, but you know, we really need our crops to grow, so we really should worship Baal because he'll probably send rain. We really need more babies, so we probably should worship Asherah, because she's a fertility goddess. Yes, the Lord is good, but we've got to, you know, manage our expectations here and spread out the load. We've got to worship everything. And Lord is saying, you can't do that. If you worship anything else besides me, you're not worshiping me. Because God says He is the one true God. The place of worship must be cleansed. Secondly, look at verse 5. He deals with these pagan priests who staff these high places. That's the second action I see. Not only does He clear out the temple, He removes these pagan priests who were there and installed by leaders. Did you see that? The kings of Judah had ordained these priests to burn incense. Then verse 6. He brought out the wooden image from the house of the Lord to the brook Kidron outside Jerusalem. He burned it at the brook Kidron and ground it to ashes and threw its ashes on the graves of the common people. Then he tore down the ritual booths of the perverted persons that were in the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the wooden images. First, he burns the asherah pole that Manasseh had placed in the temple. When Asad brought in this pole that represented a female goddess and he stalled it in the temple, he takes it out, not only does he burn it, he grinds it down. He wants to make sure nobody can worship this way. And then he demolishes this place. This is the fourth act he does. He tears down verse seven, the ritual booths. Booths are like little huts. And there were these huts that were committed to these perverted persons, which are male cult prostitutes. I'm not gonna get into the details here, but essentially what was going on in this kind of pagan worship where there was prostitute activity, cultic worship activity connected with sexual activity. And these male prostitutes had these booths set up there on site, and he said, this cannot exist if worship of the Lord is to exist. This has to be gone. Further, he removes the women as well who are hangings on the wooden images. I did some research here, and I think the best, we're really not sure exactly what this means, but the best idea is this probably involves that these women were clothing and feeding these statutes, weaving garments for these idols. They were taking care of these idols. He says, we're not gonna do that anymore. going to clean this out. He cleanses the place of worship. Then he moves further and he cleanses not only the place of worship but the practice of worship. Look at verse 8. He brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and defiled the high place where the priests had burned incense from Geba to Beersheba. That's from north to south. And he broke down the high places at the gates which were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the governor of the city, which were left in the city gate. Nevertheless, the priests of the high place did not come up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread among their brethren. He defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or daughter pass through the fire to Molech. He corrected what was wrong. You know, correcting what is wrong in worship is a hard thing to do. He not only cleanses the place of worship, he deals with their practice, and look at all he does. He desecrates the high places from the north to the south, from Geba to Beersheba. The sixth thing he does is he destroys the shrines and the city gates. There's this fascinating phrase, look at verse eight, I don't know if you have a different translation than I do, but it says, he broke down the high places at the gates. The word gates there is the same word, it's just slightly different vocalizations, slightly different vowels in the Hebrew language, for the word a goat demon. And it appears that these people were worshiping goats, so they were worshiping demons at this place. In fact, in 2 Chronicles chapter 11, we have this phrase that all the way back when Rehoboam took over the southern kingdom, it says, Rehoboam appointed for himself priests for the high places for the demons, for the calf idols which he had made. The demons there are the same word as gates. It's a similar word as gates. And it's very likely that what he's saying there is that they broke down these demon altars that were there, even at the gate of Joshua. In fact, in Leviticus 17, this was forbidden. Leviticus 17, they shall no more offer their sacrifices to demons. After whom they have played the harlot, they shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations. You notice here in verse eight, he destroyed the shrines and these city gates. And then in verse 10, the seventh act he did, which he defiled this place called Topheth. Topheth was a place where they made child sacrifices in honor of a king or a god named Moloch. And scholars believe that what happened here was that a great iron furnace was made inside a great molten god. And this image of a beast with his arms outstretched, people would offer sacrifices of babies to this Molech. They would pass them through the fire, burning alive human beings. Horrible, horrible things. And he gets rid of it. Next, look at verse 11. The Reformation outside the temple area, he removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun at the entrance of the house of the Lord by the chamber of Nathan Mulloch. The officer who was in the court, he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. Such an interesting phrase. These ornamental horses that were dedicated to the sun. Now for a long time, people didn't know what this meant. Most people assume they were alive horses that were somehow dedicated to the sun, but in this woman named Kathleen Kenyon, she's a famous archeologist, discovered there in the city of David, she found these little figurines that look like this. Now, I don't know if you can see that or not, but that is a horse with a disc on its forehead that likely is a horse dedicated to the sun. These were little figurines that people would have and they would use for worship there, and likely this is exactly the kind of thing that Josiah took and destroyed and burned. It says here that he removed them, the horses that were dedicated to the sun, he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. This is likely the kind of thing that he found. If you keep going to verse 12, it says the altars that were on the roof the upper chambers of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, the altars when Manasseh had made, and the two courts of the house of the Lord, the king broke down and pulverized there. We have altars that were put up probably to worship the stars. They were probably set aside to worship these stars, because they were on the roof, and they were there facing the sky. Verse 13, finally, the king, verse 13, defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem, which were on the south side of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon, king of Israel, way back in 1 Kings, had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, for Milcom the abomination of the people of Ammon. And he broke in pieces the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden images and filled their places with the bones of men. He lastly defiled the high places that had been there a long time, that had taken a long time to build and were part of their culture. He said, I cannot allow this to stand because God has called us to be pure in our worship. Notice here, removing the obstacles for worship. He said, I'm going to cleanse the place of worship, I'm going to correct the practice of worship, and he condemned the perversion of worship. This last part of the story, starting in verse 15, harkens back to one of the greatest perversions of worship that we've seen in the book of 1 and 2 Kings, which involved a man named Jeroboam. who took the northern kingdom right when they were split. When Rehoboam and Jeroboam split after Solomon's death, we have the splitting of the kingdom in north and south. And the northern kingdom was ruled by Jeroboam, the southern kingdom was ruled by Rehoboam. And Jeroboam, in ruling the northern kingdom, decided that he must have two locations of worship apart from Jerusalem. And these two places were Dan in the north and Bethel in the south. And in Bethel, there was a scene that happened in 1 Kings chapter 13, which we won't turn to yet, but it's going to be very important. But first, let's see what the text says in verse 15. It says that, moreover, the altar that was at Bethel, that's the one we talked about just a second ago, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel, sin had made, both that altar and the high place, Josiah broke down. And he burned the high places and crushed it to powder and burned the wooden images, verse 16, as Josiah turned. He saw the tombs that were there on the mountain, and he sent and took bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar and defiled it according to the word of the Lord, which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaim these words." This is a huge moment in this story. Because if you remember all the way back in 1 Kings 13, I mean, it was like the third sermon I preached, and we're on like sermon number like 28. Way back in 1 Kings 13, we have this story that a man of God goes to this place in Bethel. Notice, it says, Behold, a man of God went from Judah to Bethel by the word of the Lord. And Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense, and he cried out against the altar by the word of the Lord and said, O altar, altar! Thus says the Lord, Behold, a child, Josiah by name, shall be born to the house of David, and on you, that's the altar, he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and men's bones shall be burned on you. And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the Lord has spoken. Surely the altar shall be split, the ashes on it shall be poured out. And it came to pass, when King Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, he cried out against the altar in Bethel, that he stretched out his hand from the altar, saying, Arrest him! Then his hand, Josiah's hand, which he stretched out toward him, withered, so he could not pull it back. to himself, and the altar was split apart, and the ashes poured out from the altar according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord." Here, the prophecy given in 1 Kings 13 finally comes to pass. The king that was named Josiah has finally come, and they do exactly what he says. He breaks down the altar, he burns the high place, he finds the, he looks in the mountains and sees the burial places. They would have these ossuaries, these places that bones would be kept. People would die, they would take their bones and put them in a box. He takes the bones out, he burns them on the altar to desecrate it, to make it defiled so they could never use it as a place of worship again. And as he's doing this, he's going through, he comes to one grave that is different from the others. And he stops, look at verse 17. It says that while he's doing this, he comes there and he said, what gravestone is this that I see? He doesn't understand what's before him. So the men of the city told him, it is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things which you have done against the altar of Bethel. And as he is doing, if you remember the story, he is buried in a special place there, the man of God is buried. And we don't have time to go back and see the whole story, but there he is. And Josiah recognizes this is the man of God who predicted this. In verse 18, he shows honor. He said, let him alone. Let no one move his bones. They left his bones alone with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria. Josiah honored this man by not allowing his bones to be used to desecrate this altar. He took away, verse 19, all the shrines in the high places that were in the cities of Samaria. That's going north. which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord to anger. He did to them according to the deeds which he had done at Bethel. He executed all the priests of the high places who were there on the altars. And he burned men's bones on them and returned to Jerusalem. Question for you, what is pure worship today? Spent a lot of time walking through his work to reduce that false worship. We don't have altars like that around here. We don't have a temple with sacrifices being made. The New Testament worship is different from the Old Testament worship. In the Old Testament, worship with the nation of Israel was prescribed, it was very detailed, because God placed meaning behind every single offering, every single worship. They had no right to change what God had established. Everything in the law was intended to point to the coming Christ. In the New Testament, we no longer come to God through burnt offerings. In Hebrews, it tells us this, Christ came as a high priest of the good thing to come with a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, not of this creation, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own precious blood. He entered the most holy place of all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled the unclean sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offers himself without spot to God, cleanse you from dead works to serve the living God? This is the pure worship that we have. Verse 15 says, for this reason he is the mediator of the new covenant for by means of his death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant that those who are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance. What an amazing truth we have that we have here that God gives us worship. We can worship not through bulls and goats, not through this kind of offering, but now we come through one person, that person is Jesus. In fact, when Jesus talks to the woman at the well, remember this story in John chapter four, the woman at the well immediately starts to debate with him about where they should worship. This is the debate, what it's centered on. In fact, should we worship in Jerusalem? Should I worship on these high places that my ancestors worshiped on, the ones that Josiah destroyed? She says to him, sir, I perceive you're a prophet. Our father's worshiped on this mountain, in a high place. And you Jews say that in Jerusalem is a place where one ought to worship. You recognize the context of her question. Yet what does Jesus point her to? Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither worship on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the father. You worship what you do not know. We know what we worship. The salvation is of the Jews. Notice what Jesus says. The hour is coming and now is. When true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. We come to God through Jesus Christ. We come to the Father through the Son. So what are the obstacles to pure worship? This is pure worship, coming to God through Christ alone. What are the obstacles to it? Well, Jesus tells us there are drastic measures we must take. Matthew chapter 5, he says, if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better for you, more profitable for you that one of your members perish than your whole body be cast into hell. He says clearly here, that we should do whatever it takes to do right, to have pure worship. Lastly, he restores proper worship. That's the last part of this. The most symbolically rich ritual of the entire Jewish people would have been the Passover, the event that commemorates their crossing over into the land. They would take blood and paint it over the doorposts. At the time in Egypt, the death angel came by and killed the firstborn of every family. except for those who had the blood painted on the doorpost." And he says here, if you look with me, that in verse 21 he says, he commanded all the people saying, keep the Passover of the Lord. You know, it's not enough just to stop doing wicked things. Ephesians 4 puts it like this, we're supposed to put off concerning the old man. That's good. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. But the third step is to put on righteousness. So this with them, they put off the old, they reduced, they rejected wickedness, and now they're putting on what is right, and this is good ritual restored. Keep the Passover, he says, as it is written in the book of the covenant. Such a Passover surely has never been held since the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in the days of the king of Israel and the kings of Judah, for in the 18th year of King Josiah, the Passover was held before the Lord. What? Is it possible? It is. that the Passover was ordained and it was in this way, such a Passover had never been held since the last time we have reference to this is Joshua chapter five. And the people had not been obedient to God. They had not held the Passover. They had not kept the Passover. The last time we have record of is right before the fall of Jericho. But guess what? It's never too late to start doing right. It's never too late to start doing right. It may have been years since you've done what's right. You may say, Pastor, I'm at the end of my life. I have never done what is right. Well, it's never too late to start doing the right thing. God honors right ritual. And ritual, we don't like the word ritual, but you know what? Ritual just means doing something a regular basis. Getting out of bed's a ritual. That's a good ritual. Eating breakfast is a ritual. That's a great ritual. Going to church is a ritual. It's a good ritual, too. walking with the Lord, reading your Bible every day. That's a ritual you ought to have. Establish and maintain good rituals restored and also true prayer restored. I'm not going to get into super details or going late, but in verse 24, he also established this this right prayer in that there were people who were communing and praying and worshiping false gods, or they were really worshiping the dead. They were trying to commune with the dead, trying to receive help from the dead, verse 24, those who consulted mediums and spirits, and He put them away. As we conclude this passage, I want us to notice that He was a righteous man. Look at this description of Him in verse 25. You might want to circle this in your Bible. It says, before him there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his might, according to all the law of Moses, nor anyone after him. No one like him. What a great example for us to follow if we're going to have true reformation. But he was just a man. He couldn't bring true change. Because look at what happens in verse 26. Nevertheless, the Lord did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath. and his anger which was aroused at Judah because of all the provocations which Manasseh had provoked him. With the story of kings, it's a story of good and bad kings, good kings to follow, bad kings to avoid, but there's another more profound truth at work here, this. There's this, that no human king, no matter how good, no matter how faithful, no matter how righteous, will last forever. Human leadership cannot endure this good king would die, hand his rule to someone else, and the question has to be in your mind, then who possibly could rescue them? This was the best king Judah had experienced. This is the best king they had seen, and still they would not escape the coming judgment of God. What could it possibly take for God's judgment to be met? What could finally appease God's righteous wrath against sin? In the New Testament, we have an answer to this question. We have an answer to this question because we see Jesus, the son of David, the son of Josiah, would come and pay for the sins of the people. He is the promised Messiah who would take on himself the judgment we deserve, and as the prophet Isaiah said, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned each one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him. the iniquity of us all, your sin was paid for by Jesus Christ on the cross. He's the one who can make true reformation last. Because Jesus died and rose again and lives today, seated at the right hand of the Father, and will rule and reign forever and ever according to the book of Revelation. But we see the righteous king in verse 28 through 30 die in a tragic scene. Now the righteous King Josiah says, in a days Pharaoh Nico, verse 29, King of Egypt went to the aid of the King of Assyria and King Josiah went against him and Pharaoh Nico killed him at Megiddo. Haldah had prophesied that he would not see the destruction of Judah and this came to pass in an unexpected way that he dies in a battle against the King of Egypt. He, like all the kings before him would die and be buried and his son would take his place and just like that spiritual reformation came to an end. So as we think about our reformation, recommitments, revivals this morning, here's what this might look like in your life this week. What if you recognize your failings to God and you repent? You change your mind. You're honest about your sin and where it has taken you. You're no longer hoodwinked or deceived by sin. Therefore, you recommit your heart to the word of God. Prayer and confession. You get everyone involved in your family, you choose to completely submit to the Lord as it relates to the specific area where you have failed. And then you say, Lord, help me remove the obstacles that keep me from being obedient. What is leading me away from proper worship? God gives grace when you step out in faith and you restore what is right. No matter how much you reform your life, you cannot earn heaven on your own. Just like the king who did a great reformation but he ends up dying, guess what? Unless Christ is the one who changes you, you too will see a short-lived reformation. It's only through the power of Jesus Christ, spiritual reformation is only really available to those who are made new by the Lord Jesus Christ and their faith in Him. When you come to Christ in faith, he transforms you from the inside out. He gives you a heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone, as the Bible describes it. He makes you sensitive to the word of God, and you can then grow and change, and you can do what God has called you to do. Are you looking up and saying, well, I really need a spiritual reformation, my life is in trouble, I am in bad shape, I need to turn to Christ? Or are you saying, I need more than a spiritual reformation, I need spiritual birth. I need to have salvation. I need to have forgiveness of my sin. I need to have a relationship with God today. Both of these are offered through Jesus Christ. When you come to God in faith, you come to Christ believing He is who He says He is and accepting His gift of salvation, you have eternal life. And for those of you who know Him and are struggling I challenge you to commit yourself today, follow the path of Josiah, and live with your whole heart, your whole mind, your whole strength to serving the Lord. Father, we ask you today that you'd help us to be spiritually reforming our hearts. We thank you for this example of a good king who did what was right. The Lord, even in the end, he died and someone else took his place. We're thankful, Lord, that your salvation of us, your giving of that gift of eternal life, of bearing our sins, of our iniquity being laid on your shoulders, that you died but you did not stay dead, you rose again the third day. And that victory over sin, that victory over death gives us hope that a king like Josiah never could. We're thankful that we have this hope in Jesus Christ this morning. And Lord, if there's someone here today who does not yet know you as Savior, may today be the day where they bow their head and their heart before you. They stop trying to trust their own righteous works. They stop trying to trust any membership of a church they have or anything like that in their past. Instead, they lean wholly on the way, the truth, and the life, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. who gives us his righteousness so we might be saved, who forgives us of our sin that we might not be condemned. And Lord, one day we'll all stand before you. We'll either be clothed in the righteousness of Christ or in our own wickedness. Lord, may it be that when we come before you in the righteousness of Christ, we do so, Lord, knowing that you will