Brother Shannon, as you heard, I'm preaching to your audience this morning and you get mine next week, so be good to them. We do have a lot out this morning. Don't feel sorry for me. I don't mind preaching to smaller crowds. It doesn't matter to me if there's one here or if there's a thousand. As Walter says, I'm just going to unload the whole load. It doesn't matter how many. The cows come out the faster, you know. Of course, I don't feel sorry for me, but I do feel sorry for the audience, though, when there's a small crowd, because it's easy to feel like a spectator when you go and there's a really big group. But when there's only a few, you feel like the preacher's preaching right at you. So I do feel a bit sorry for you this morning in that regard. And in that regard, some might think that when I speak, perhaps I'm a little too hard on my audience. Perhaps I come across as just a little too bold, maybe a little too harsh. I just want you to know that if I've ever said anything from God's Word that offends you, please believe me. All right. Turn in your Bibles, if you will. Turn in your Bibles, if you will, to the book of Jeremiah. We are going to be continuing to look at this same series. Take heed lest ye fall. pulling our theme from Corinthians where it says that these things that were written aforetime were written for your learning and so there are examples unto us that we take heed lest we too fall. We've been looking at a lot of the kings of Judah and we're going to be continuing to look at the life of Josiah. Last time we began studying the life of Josiah and just By way of review, I don't know if you want to write these things down, just kind of a little reference point for yourself as we go through the message so you can kind of keep track of what happened at what time. Josiah was born when he was zero years old. You probably don't have to write that one down. You can probably figure that one out on your own. But he became king when he was eight years old. That's when he began his reign. And he inherited a very idolatrous kingdom from his father. Yet, in the grace of the Lord, he began to seek after the God of David at the age of 16. So he began his reign at age 8, and began seeking the Lord at age 16. When he was 20, he began to purge the land of idolatry. So he began to cleanse the land at age 20. And these are just for your reference points, so you can glance back at them, because you're going to forget these throughout the message, and it'd just be helpful for you to glance back and see these things. When he was 26, that's when he began to repair the temple. And at some point in that repairing and cleansing is where the Word of God was found, somewhere around the age of 26. So that just kind of helps you with a few reference points. Now, in the middle of those last two items that I gave you, when Josiah was about 21, the prophet Jeremiah actually began his ministry. And Jeremiah gives that very clearly there in just the first couple of verses of the book of Jeremiah. So most of today what we're going to be doing is kind of taking a detour in our study of the life of Josiah and maybe pick up some hints, maybe pick up just a few thoughts from the prophet Jeremiah. Hopefully this will provide some insight into the life and times of King Josiah. Now before we go down that detour road, first let's just rehash the two major points, the two major lessons that we learned last time about King Josiah. First of all it was this, the principle that God gives more light when we respond to the light that we've been given. Josiah inherited a kingdom where the people were idolatrous, the people were going after false gods, he was very young of age, and yet somehow Through the graciousness of the Lord, he begins to seek Yahweh. He begins to seek the true God in the midst of all these things. At this time, they did not have the Word. They did not have the Scriptures. They did not have these instructions. We can tell that very clearly by the reaction that King Josiah had when they found the scrolls, when these Scriptures were found. And so we find this principle that God gives more light to those when they seek after him, God gives more light than truth. And number two, we saw Josiah's response to the word of God. And I believe it was an appropriate response to the Lord. We looked at the severity. He did not try and justify himself. He did not try and blame it on his forefathers. But he just looked at the law of God and he was Basically, it stopped his mouth, as the Bible says the law is to do. It's a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. He just looked at the situation. He says, woe is me. And basically, you know, hoped and wondered if perhaps God would have mercy. But he took it very seriously, with much severity. And this was his reaction to reading it for the first time. And so we talked about maybe ourselves, maybe we should go back and read the scriptures again for the first time. And we talked about that for a little bit. Now I have one question for you to see how well you've been listening to past lessons. This one goes way back, so you're going to have to have a real good memory for this one. But which king in Judah's history was crowned at a younger age than Josiah. Josiah came to the throne at age eight. Who was crowned king younger than age eight? Shana knows the story but he can't think of the name. I can tell back there. It does start with a J. Very good. It is Joe Ash. Very good. Very good. That came from my wife and I did not give her the answer before the meeting. It was Joe Ash. He was crowned when he was seven years old. OK. Before we get into the book of Jeremiah, I want to remind you of something that was in the book of Deuteronomy. Now, the first part of this, you're going to be very familiar. If you're like me, you can be real familiar with this first part. And then you're going to say, oh, I hadn't thought of the second part, or, oh, I forgot about the second part. It was the instruction that God gave about the future kings of Israel. You remember, it was never God's will for them to have a king, but they said they wanted a king, and so God gave them a king, and he gave some guidelines for those kings. And there in Deuteronomy 17, 16, you don't have to turn there, because this is going to sound very familiar to you. God says, but he shall not, speaking of the kings that would come to the throne in the future, but he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to the end that they should multiply horses. For as much as the Lord hath said unto you, ye shall henceforth return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart not turn away, neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold." These are probably sounding familiar to you, but listen to what's next. God's just given us two verses on all the things that the king, two verses spent on all the things that the king is supposed to stay away from. Now listen to this, the next verse, Deuteronomy 17, 18. And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priest the Levite. And it shall be with him, and he shall read it therein all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them. that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, to the end that he may prolong his days in this kingdom, he and his children, in the midst of Israel." After those two verses of all that he's supposed to stay away from, we get three verses about how he's supposed to hold on to the Word of God. He's supposed to make a copy of it, he's supposed to read from it all of his days, so that he can instruct his people. This is what was being forsaken in the land of Judah. They didn't even have it. They come across it being hidden, tucked away in a corner somewhere in the temple that wasn't even being used. And that's what we talked about last time, how they found these scrolls and they brought them out about the time Josiah was around the age of 26. So that's just a little bit of a background, a little bit of a history So how is it that this young man, Josiah, how is it that he could reign and reign righteously at such a young age? You know, you take a young child and you can convince them of a lot of things and you can give them counsel and they can make an informed decision. It could be even as complicated as things about war. I mean you could, you could, I don't think Josiah at his young age had to deal with this, but you know, counselors could describe and could explain, you know, you've got this enemy over here and if we travel this far then they'll wear our guys out, we won't be able to fight, but you know, if we fight them here then we're fighting uphill and that's always a disadvantage, but we don't want them to come here because then they'll attack us at our city, you know, and you can have counselors explain these things to a pretty young child and they can make a decision. So a king can, you know, even at a young age, in the multitude of counselors, there's much safety. But, you know, when it gets into all the nooks and the crannies and the nuances and the complexities of politics, you start to lose a child. And a child, all of a sudden, you know, when it comes to public opinion and all these kind of things, they see more things more black and white. And those politics don't muddy up the waters so much. And I think, you know, I think, you know, with good counselors and especially with the help of the Lord, you know, I think Josiah was making some pretty big decisions and some pretty good ones right off the bat. You know, it just took somebody with a heart that said, I want to do what the right thing was. You know, the king before him is almost in a competition to see if he could be worse than the one that was before him. You know, to see if they could do even more wickedly. Now, here's something else that I was thinking about. I don't know if you've ever been cleaning out your garage and you found something of great value. I don't know, it might be a coin collection that your grandfather had or maybe something of sentimental value. These things are great because you find them of great value. If you had never found them, you never would have thought about them. But now that you've found them, it's of great value to you. But it's different when you're cleaning off the clutter from the coffee table or the kitchen table and you find something, a piece of mail or something that had an obligation attached to it and a timeline. on it. Perhaps there was an expiration date on the bill that you didn't get paid, or the invitation that you didn't respond to, or maybe a jury summons that you didn't get to because it was locked in the mail and it was sitting there. I don't know if you've ever had an experience like that. Imagine, even though you're glad to find it and now know what you've done, or that you've messed up, or that you've missed this obligation. It's good to know, but you get that mixed feeling now, because now it weighs heavy upon you. Whereas before, ignorance was bliss. You just didn't know about it, so you didn't have to feel guilty about it. It leads me to this other thought also about Josiah and the people that found the Scriptures, the Word of God. Did somebody have the foresight To hide these things away, perhaps, or perhaps even the, you know, maybe somebody was led from the Lord to to tuck these things away to where only somebody who is cleansing, only somebody who is serious about serving the Lord was going to was going to find these things. You know, it wasn't just next to the silver and the gold pieces that, you know, later they would come in and take away for some other purpose. But perhaps they were hidden away by someone. I don't know how to really apply that, but just kind of a thought that occurred to me in some of my readings and some of my studying from some other men who have studied the same passage. Hopefully by now you're to the book of Jeremiah. I think I've given you plenty of time to turn to Jeremiah. Chapter 1 in verse 1, it says, the words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Amathoth, in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign." Now, he began to reign when he was eight years old, so this would make him 21 years old. You should have that in your notes already, that Jeremiah began his prophecy when Josiah was about 21 years old. This is right about the same time that he's starting to clean up the land, but before they found the scrolls and the scriptures. Verse 2, to whom the word of the Lord came, we just read verse 2, verse 3, it came also in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month. Now these two verses are very helpful in looking at the book of Jeremiah. It gives exactly the timelines. He's giving these prophecies, he's giving these messages in between these two dates. Now some of them get really specific and really helpful and they'll say things like in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, this word came unto the prophet Jeremiah, and then you've got a specific message for that time. Others are not so helpful. They just say, and again, the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah. And so, you know, because the book is not laid out chronologically and the chapters are not chronological necessarily in the book of Jeremiah, we don't always know exactly what was going on at that time because his ministry covered such a long period of time. But we're going to do the best we can as we look at some of these things and just see whether or not they may apply to the times of Josiah. As we continue reading, please note that we're going to pick up at verse 4 where we just left off and we're going to be reading, and these words apply to the prophet Jeremiah. These are things about Jeremiah. But, keeping the context in mind, and what we already know of King Josiah, as you're reading these words, you're going to have a lot of trouble not thinking of Josiah as you read these words about Jeremiah. Verse 4, Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. And we talked about, you know, there's some similarities here. If you remember last time, the King Josiah was prophesied of about 300 years before, even by name, before he came onto the scene and the things that he would do. Verse 6, Then said I, Ah, Lord God, behold, I cannot speak for I am a child. But the Lord said unto me, Say not I am a child, for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms to root out and to pull down and to destroy and to throw down and to build up and to plant. It sounds a lot like Josiah's reform. So I just point that out to kind of see some of these men, their contemporaries and look at what they had in common in the Lord's call upon their lives. But what's interesting in this regard is that I don't find any record of these two ever encountering one another. If you remember back to our lessons on Hezekiah, you have several chapters in the Kings and the Chronicles, and even in the book of the prophecy of Isaiah, where Hezekiah and Isaiah, they have these encounters. And not so with Josiah and Jeremiah, at least that I found in my studies. I don't find these two having encounter. And what's so strange about that is that when they first found the scrolls, we know that they find the scrolls about five years after Jeremiah had begun his ministry. So Jeremiah is already a prophet, and yet when they find these scrolls, Josiah doesn't send the men to Jeremiah to ask him. He sends them to some prophetess named Huldah, which I don't know too much more about. But it's interesting he doesn't send them to Jeremiah. And I don't know why that is. It could have just been a distance issue or a timing issue. I don't know. But I just found that to be interesting. Here these two are contemporaries and we don't read of the encounters between the two. Let's take a look at another prophecy from Jeremiah. Go ahead and turn to chapter four. Just a few pages over. This may have come in the days of Josiah, right as Josiah began to purge the land, but before the scroll was found. Or perhaps, maybe this is a prophecy that took place long after the days of Josiah, after they had once again lost the scrolls and tucked them away and not been paying attention to it. Regardless, we know that this is the time, this describes a time when there's a lack of the word of God among the people. And listen to this. Chapter 4 in verse 22. For my people is perverse. They have not known me. They are foolish children and they have none understanding. They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. Very interesting words here. They are wise to do evil. Do you know anybody like that? They're brilliant when it comes to doing bad things. When it comes to underhandedness, when it comes to cheating someone out of something, they're brilliant. And yet, when it comes to doing good, they have no knowledge. They wouldn't even know how to do it if they tried. They don't know what good is. This is what Jeremiah says about some of the times over which he prophesied. Turn to chapter 15. It's a very scary situation to be in a time when You are not under the sound of the word of God when you're not in possession of the scriptures to be studied. Jeremiah 15 and let's read verse 16. Thy words were found and I did eat them and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart For I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts. I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoice. I sat alone because of thy hand, for thou hast filled me with indignation." I don't know when Jeremiah penned these words either. It's not specific in the prophecy. But indeed, Jeremiah, his prophecy was marked, his ministry was marked by one who As these words said, verse 17, I sat alone. There were many times in his ministry that he sat alone. He seemed to be forsaken by everyone, and yet faithfully preached God's message for such a long period of time, through trial, through tribulation, through abandonment and everything. Here you have Jeremiah faithfully preaching the word of God. But I wonder, If we make a connection with Josiah here somehow, maybe just in thought or maybe even afterthought, after reading it, you go back and you look and you say, as it says in verse 16, thy words were found and I did eat them. You know, Josiah, when he found the word of God, he consumed it when he had the priest sit there and read it to them until he had consumed it all. And then he acted upon it. And so I think of Josiah here, and even though, you know, Josiah, when he read the words, it doesn't say, as it says there in verse 16, here Jeremiah is saying that, you know, thy word was unto me joy and rejoicing in my heart. You know, that didn't come right away for Josiah. It was fear and trembling. But once the nation had turned and they began to celebrate the Passover like no other king ever in the history of Israel celebrated the Passover, the joy and the rejoicing did come eventually from having the words of the Lord there. And so we see here another connection, perhaps, with Josiah. And verse 17 makes me wonder something else about Josiah. It says, I sat alone. And, you know, we know that that describes Jeremiah. But I wonder about King Josiah, if there was ever a time that he had to sit alone. And when we read through these accounts, you know, we see him cleansing the land of idolatry and grinding the false gods to powder and tearing down the high places and all these things. We read of him doing these reforms. But then again, he was king. And when the king was idolatrous, the people did what the king said and commanded. And when the king was righteous after the Lord, they did what the king said. It doesn't mean that 100% of the people followed the king and thought it was a good idea. It doesn't mean that everybody's heart was in it. just because they tore down the high places at his command or did whatever. Or sometimes I think we get that impression when we read about the reforming kings that 100% of the people, woohoo! No, he was taking away something from them. All the sinful practices and the worship and the things that the people loved and sought after in their flesh, all those things were being taken away with those forms of worship, with those false gods. And so he was taking something from them You know, it's really hard to get elected when you, you know, when you, good thing these kings were chosen by God and in the lineage, you're not elected. When you're taking things away and you're not promising to give things, you don't win the popularity contest. And I wonder where Josiah was towards the beginning, how often he had to stand alone. Now we know that towards the end of his life, when he dies, and we'll get into that in a future message, when he dies, there's this great mourning. Even the prophet Jeremiah wrote this great lamentation about Josiah. So as we'll see, the passing of Josiah was something that the people mourned greatly. But as for him during his day, during the beginning of his reforms, he was a young man. And there may have been some times where he had to stand alone, but he did it anyway, and he did it faithfully. And it's just a good encouragement to us. Again, him and Jeremiah, they could relate to that and had that in common, perhaps, throughout their ministries. Let's turn to Jeremiah chapter 25. For another thought. And here we're going to read an astounding seven verses, so brace yourself, it's going to be a long read. The word that came to Jeremiah, Jeremiah chapter 25 in verse 1, the word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. The witch Jeremiah, the prophet, spake unto all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, From the thirteenth year of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah, Even unto this day, that is, the three and twentieth year, the word of the Lord hath come unto me, and I have spoken unto you rising early and speaking, but ye have not hearkened." Very interesting that he gives us the exact dates and he purposely includes from the time of the 13th year of Josiah. That would have been the 13th year of his reign. He would have been 21 years old at that time. You see, from the time that Josiah was 21, that's before, that's right when he begins to cleanse the land, before they even found the scriptures, before they celebrated the Passover, before all of his reforms. He says from the beginning there, of Josiah's reforms all the way up until this time, and now this is even after Josiah's dead, he says, I preached a word to you faithfully, rising early and speaking, but you have not hearkened. So you see, we did have some division there. Not all the people were on board. Not all the people followed after the Lord during these times. Because obviously he's speaking to more people. It says that he's speaking to all the inhabitants of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. So I find that to be very interesting, very telling as well to what we've just been discussing, the fact that Josiah perhaps stood alone during some of these times, or perhaps I shouldn't say stood totally alone. He probably had others. He obviously had others with him, but met with opposition, meeting with opposition in trying to serve the Lord. Verse 4, And the Lord hath sent unto you all his servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, but ye have not hearkened nor inclined your ear to hear. They said, Turn ye again now every one from his evil way and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the Lord hath given unto you and to your fathers forever and ever. and go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me to anger with the works of your hands, and I will do you no hurt. Yet ye have not hearkened unto me, saith the Lord, that ye might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands, to your own hurt." The prophet Jeremiah specifically includes this time, even before Josiah's reforms, in this statement when he tells the people, you have not hearkened. Now this is a statement you have to understand when the prophets speak these words, it's a statement of generality. You know, he's not pointing out any specific individual because obviously there were those that did turn to the Lord. Obviously, there were those that were away from the Lord during this time. But so he's speaking to a nation as a whole, excluding specific examples of individuals. And he says that as a whole, you did not hearken unto me. As a whole, you did not do what I have commanded you to do. Now let's turn to 2 Chronicles chapter 34. We've got our introduction out of the way and now we can start into the actual passage of reading about Josiah. 2nd Chronicles chapter 34, we're beginning right in verse 21, which is right basically where we left off last time. After they have found the scrolls, after they have found the word of God in the temple that they were cleansing, that they were repairing, they bring the scroll and they've read it for the first time to King Josiah. He says, verse 21, Go inquire of the Lord for me and for them that are left in Israel and in Judah concerning the words of the book that is found. For great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured out upon us because of our fathers, because they have not kept the word of the Lord to do after all that is written in this book. And Hilkiah and they, that the king had appointed, went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shalom, the son of Tikvah, the son of Hazrah, keeper of the wardrobe. Now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college. And they spake to her to that effect. And she answered them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Tell ye the man that sent you to me. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the curses that are written in the book which they have read before the king of Judah, because they have forsaken me and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands. Therefore, my wrath shall be poured out upon this place and shall not be quenched. And as for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, so shall ye say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel concerning the words which thou hast heard, because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God when thou heardest his words against this place. And against the inhabitants thereof, and humblest thyself before me, and didst rend thy clothes, and weep before me, I have heard thee also, saith the Lord. Behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace. Neither shall thine eyes see all the evil that I will bring upon this place, and upon the inhabitants of the same. So they brought the king this word again. Now, for the remainder of our time, I just want to take a look at this last point and really hone in on verse 27. Notice the poetry that we see here in verse 27. The heart was tender, thou didst humble thyself before God when thou heardest his words. And then you get down to the end, and because thou has heard the words of the Lord, we see I have even heard thee also, saith the Lord. Because you have heard my words, I have heard thee also, saith the Lord. Now, prior to this we just read the prophet Jeremiah saying to all the people that I told you what God said and I warned you what he would do if you didn't listen, but you would not hearken. Those are the words of the prophet Jeremiah. Now I want you to take note that that word hearken is the same word in Hebrew as what we see here, the word heard or to hear. This is the word shema in Hebrew. Sometimes translated to hear, sometimes to hearken, sometimes to understand. If you have a really good memory, you might recall from our Names of God series that Jehovah Shammah is the Lord is present, the Lord who is there. This Hebrew word is different. It's not Shammah, it's Shammah. It's basically just the difference on where you put the emphasis on which syllable. The word Shama, the Lord who is present or the Lord who is there, would be the translation there. Here we have Shama, and in connection with the Lord, we could say the Lord who hears, the Lord who understands, the Lord who hearkens unto your cry. The word Shama is to hear intelligently, often with the implication of paying attention, having obedience, or consent to. It's to diligently discern and to give ear. A lot of times you'll see that in the scriptures. Give ear to my words. There's a big difference between hearing and listening. Hearing and hearkening. I think here when we translate it, hear, it's a little too weak for the way that we use the word hear today. Hearing takes place. when there is sound made, and those sound waves are created, and then it creates some sort of vibration in the eardrums, and that sends messages to the brain. I don't know, I didn't pay very well attention in science, but it's something like that. And the messages tell the brain that there's noise. That's hearing. Basically, anyone who is not deaf can hear. Listening, however, is where communication takes place, and that there is an understanding of the message that has been conveyed by the sound. In other words, you have to be able to discern the noise, to discern the sound, the meaning of it, in order to be listening, as opposed to just hearing. And then hearkening requires the first two also, But it requires that the one who has listened, furthermore, has to agree with the message and has to follow suit with it, has to be compliant with it. This is shema. This is to hear and to hearken. Now, as long as you're, like I said, as long as you're not deaf, you can hear. A deaf person cannot hear, but a deaf person can listen. Deaf person can read lips, or they can read the text, or they can watch body language, and they can know more about what is being communicated than often somebody who is hearing the words. Deaf people are not exempt from being able to listen, although they cannot hear. We can hear even when we're sleeping. If there's noise going on, it maybe doesn't wake you up, but your brain is still processing these things, even when you're not thinking about them. People that work in factories have this problem when it's constant 8 or 10 hours of clanging and banging and sound and noise, and then they get off work, and even if they didn't work that hard, their body may not be worn out, but they're exhausted, their mind is exhausted. Because even though they weren't paying attention to the noise, their brain's been processing the noise all day long. And so they hear the noise, even though perhaps they were not listening to the noise. I'm just trying to differentiate between these two concepts of hearing and listening, so that we get this. I hear everything that my wife says. the noise coming from her mouth hits my ears and my brain says that I hear something. But very often if she says, you're not listening to me, she's right. Because I'm not processing the information. Now I defend myself. I say, yes, I was listening. And then I repeat back everything she just told me. But as I'm doing so, now I'm listening to the words as I say them back to her and I think, oh, there was a message there. and I wasn't getting it, I wasn't paying attention. You can hear while you're sleeping, but you cannot listen unless you're paying attention, unless you're giving attention to. So there's a difference between hearing and listening. And then the next level is what brings us to this word Shema. That is, not only hearing, not only listening to, but then agreeing with, and responding appropriately to the message that is heard. Here's an example. If we go back to the first mention of this word, Shema, we go back to the Garden of Eden, and we'll see there that they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden, and what did they do? They hid themselves. Why? Because they understood, they heard Him coming, but it wasn't just noise, they understood the implications. of God coming back and meeting with us where we have disobeyed His Word. They didn't understand all the implications, but they understood that something was wrong. And it says, just a couple of verses later, that Adam said, when he was talking with the Lord, he says, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. You see, he understands the implications of these things. And so not only did he hear, but he understood And maybe you wouldn't say complied with, but he acted upon that knowledge and agreed with the fact that he was in the wrong, that he was naked and he needed to hide himself. And so he, in that sense, he listened or he shema, he heard the Lord coming. Now, a few verses later, it says that God is talking to Adam and he says, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hath eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it. And then he pronounces his curse upon Adam. Shema, there, is hearkened. You hearkened unto your wife. He heard God when God said, Don't eat of the fruit. He understood. But it doesn't use the word Shema when God communicates this to Adam, and Adam He doesn't shema, because he doesn't fall into line with the Lord. It's with his wife. He actually hearkens unto his wife and to her when she says, here, let's eat of this fruit, and he partakes with her. So he did not hearken unto the Lord in that situation. Another example is at the Tower of Babel. You have this communication going on within the Godhead. And you see them say, let us go down, and there confound their language that they may not understand one another's speech. Again, they can hear the noise coming from the mouth of somebody who is now speaking a different language, but they cannot communicate. And therefore, there is no shema there, because they cannot understand. It is a beautiful thing here in our story when we read that Josiah heard and that is hearkened unto the Lord and that Jehovah Shema there hearkened in return. He listened and he heard. The Lord hears the humble heart of the individual. He has mercy upon anyone that will call upon his name even when he is obligated to punish the larger group. He says to Josiah, I can't change my wrath upon this people. That's a sentence that's already been pronounced. That's a road we're already going He doesn't take back his promise to destroy the people for disobedience, because that's already set. But he says, as for Josiah, I've heard your cry, and I've seen your humility, and I've seen where you've cried out to me. And he says, it's not going to happen in your lifetime. Now Josiah's life, as we'll see later, is cut short. But it didn't happen in his lifetime. He hearkened unto Josiah. He hearkens and listens unto the humble heart, and answers that cry. And no one that in sincerity and in faith calls out to the Lord, to the Lord through the name of Jesus Christ, and in faith, in His death, burial, and resurrection, no one who turns to God for mercy and cries out to the Lord is ever turned away, is ever denied in that circumstance. But it can't always be said for the larger group. Now, God can spare a country or a group of people who are running downhill towards destruction very quickly. But he doesn't always. And he can't always. If as a group, that judgment or that penalty needs to be meted out. And that was the situation here. He deals with people on an individual basis. And he also deals with groups of people on that basis as well. Because there's times in Jeremiah, chapter 7, verse 16, he says, therefore, God says, pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me, for I will not hear thee. Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? God couldn't withhold wrath. He would be unjust. To withhold wrath on those that deserved it and were unrepentant as a group. So he says don't pray for that to Jeremiah. He says don't ask for that. Again in chapter 11. He says for according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah. And according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have you set up altars to that shameful thing, even altars to burn incense unto Baal. Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up a cry or a prayer for them, for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble. And again in chapter 14, when they fast, I will not hear their cry. And when they offer burnt offering and an oblation, I will not accept them, but I will consume them by the sword and by the famine and by the pestilence. I don't want to end on such a difficult note or such a harsh thought, but we must realize that the justice of God demands that he that he bring forth punishment upon those who are disobedient. And a lot of times that's in a corporate or a group setting, the way he deals with them. And that often cannot be turned away. We can pray for that. I think it's okay to pray for that, for him to spare a nation or to spare the people who have gone from them. But when we do so, we need to realize that sometimes what's happening is you're Josiah and God's dealing with you on an individual basis. His mercy, His eternal mercy, is always there for any individual who calls upon His name, regardless of the of the destruction regardless of perhaps the punishment that he has to pour out upon nations or groups of people in his dealings with people. And I know we talked about in the past and we don't have time to get into it this morning, but just because we see difficult times, just because we see hard times and tragedy, it doesn't mean that God is dealing with a specific sin of a specific people at that time. These things are just the result of sin in general and God's timing isn't always our timing. Let's pray. God, Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word and we pray that you'd help us rightfully divide it. Some of these things are difficult to explain. I know I'm having trouble conveying the the concepts that I have in my heart, putting them into words and saying them here this morning. I pray, Father, that your spirit would do that work, that your spirit would take the words of the scriptures and the truths of your character and the way that you deal with us, that you would make that real to us, that our heart would be likened to your heart, that we would learn to think more godly and more circumspect and more along the lines of your scriptures. We thank you for the scriptures and we thank you for having them and we just look at a time in Josiah's life when they were absent and when they were void, when they did not have the scriptures and we just thank you so much that we have it and we have it in abundance and we pray that we would not be ones that neglect it, but as Josiah, when he gets it, he consumes it when that word is found and it's taken heed unto and it's acted upon and even ministered to others, as we'll see in the next message, the way that it's shared with all the people. We pray that that would be our response to the word that she's given us, that we wouldn't just have multiple copies sitting upon our bookshelves at home. We pray for your help in these things, and we ask it in the name of your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.