and wasn't sure how many people were gonna show up. Pretty much the whole children's ministry is sick. And so that was canceled for this evening between their kids and between them. But, you know, I guess that just happens sometimes. So I wasn't sure if anyone was gonna show up, so I'm so pleased. And I think you'll be delighted to be here. I'd like to begin by having everybody turn in their Bibles to Acts chapter 17. Acts chapter 17, verse 16. And this is a familiar passage. If you'll remember, we actually went through the book of Acts some years ago. And in Acts chapter 17 verse 16, it says, now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols. So there were so many idols there that it was provoking his spirit. Now, if you drop down to verse 23, and I appreciate this about the Apostle Paul, he actually used that as a springboard to share the gospel, but I want you to see what they have here. Verse 23 of chapter 17, for while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, to an unknown God. Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. Now I want to kind of key in here on the idols at the moment. And so there were so many that it provoked his spirit. And they had so many, and they didn't want to offend any, that they decided to have God called the unknown God. Just in case one came up in for the weekend, they wouldn't offend him. And then Paul brilliantly says, you don't know, you don't know the true God, so I'm gonna talk to you about the unknown God. But the idea is is that he's there and his spirit is provoked with all of those idols. I have a question. I wonder what Paul would have felt like if he were to walk through Judah at this time in the book of 2 Kings. Now we know the many, many idols. And we know that the kings brought in the idols, both in the Northern kingdom and the Southern kingdom. And I've said it before, just when you think you've seen it all, something new comes up in a bad way. Something new comes up and you haven't seen it all. Well, we're going to see something good. We're gonna see Josiah's second reform. He already had a reform. early in his reign, and now there's a second reform. But the thing that's going to stand out about this reform is how much he had to reform. I mean, it was, you go through the verses and there was an altar there, there was an altar on the roof. Everywhere you look, there was an altar. And it seemed almost like an impossibly human task for Josiah to eradicate all of these idols. So it makes me wonder, and you almost don't wonder, if Paul's spirit would have been provoked just walking through Jerusalem or Judah. Well, that's what we're looking at this evening, and we're in chapter 23 of 2 Kings, and you hate to stop in the middle of a thought, although we will if we run out of time, but we have to really cover verses 1 through 20. So this is called Josiah's second reform. And what we're gonna first see in verses one through three is Josiah's public reading of the word. You remember how the reading of the word spurred him on? Well, it's gonna spurn on the people. So we're gonna see that reformation go on there. And then I'm just gonna make some comments between the first reform and the second, because someone might just say, well, how do I know it's not the same reform just being repeated from the Book of Second Chronicles to the Book of First Kings? Well, there are some differences. And then thirdly, verses four through 20, we're going to see Josiah's eradication of the idols. And look how many verses it is. This a testament to what he did, but it's also a testament to the number of idols that had been accumulated among God's people. And so with that, let's begin with a word of prayer. Father, we thank you this evening for your word. And I'm thankful that your word does still shock us. Sin shocks us, Lord, and it ought to shock us not only in the lives of Israel or in the lives of others, but it ought to shock us when we're convicted of our own sin. Father, we pray that we will be like Josiah, that we will have many spiritual reforms in our own life, not talking about salvation, reform our lives to have salvation, but as a true children of yours who already have salvation, that we would go from mature level to mature level to mature level with a multiple of reforms. And Father, we'll just thank you for all of this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, let's take a look now at the review. How did we get here? Well, as we said before, the book of the law was found by Hilkiah, and the word had been absent. Being absent, it almost answers the question why so many kings were so bad. But here is the book of the law, chapter 22, verse eight, it is found. It's given to Shaphan, and Shaphan reads the book of the law to Josiah, and a beautiful response. He is humbled, he repents, and he tears his clothing in grief. Why is that beautiful? Because that's exactly what we are to do to the Word of God. We are to tremble, as it says in Isaiah, at the Word of God. Well, he does. And then what he does is he wants to inquire of the Lord now that he's read the word or the word was read to him. And most likely what was read were those verses that said if you do not follow me eventually you will be taken into captivity. Well, he's pretty smart and he's figuring out this is where we're at. So he wants to inquire of the Lord. And how do you inquire of the Lord in the Old Testament, especially in 2 Kings? You go to a prophet. Now, we talked quite a bit last week. They did not go to a prophet. They went to a prophetess, Huldah the prophetess. Why they didn't go to Jeremiah or one of the other prophets, it doesn't say, but the Lord does use this prophetess and she prophesies two things, judgment and mercy to Josiah. Judgment to Judah, captivity and mercy to Josiah as long as he lives. And then what's going to happen? What happens at this point when he receives that revelation from the Lord? Each time he receives a revelation from the word of God, whether it's being read or whether a prophet or prophetess is sharing, he responds correctly. And let's pick it up then in verse one. This is 2 Kings chapter 23, beginning in verse one. Then the king sent and they gathered to him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem. And so he responds with humility and obedience. He responds with humility as the Lord's anger is against Judah. We must humble ourselves before him. And of course, the next principle is he gathers the leaders. the elders, he gathers them. And this is exactly what you want to see happen. You want to see the elders affected by the word of God. The elders affected by the revelation given to them by the Lord to a prophetess. And so we have this. Now, what are they gonna be gathering for? Well, I think we already know. Public reading of the word. And if I could just say it here, I'm just gonna start preaching right away. This is the power of the word of God. This is why you need the word in your life. especially in those areas that you may struggle in, or you wanna change in, or you wanna be directed in, or you want wisdom in, there is no other way. It comes from the word of God. In fact, we could have taken each one of those categories I just mentioned, and we could go back into the scriptures and see the answer to that, solution to that. is the word of God to each one of those. The word of God is so powerful and we're getting to see just a beautiful example of it one more time. So this is what he's going to gather them for. We see in verse two, look at verse two. The king went up to the house of the Lord and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests and the prophets and all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant, which was found in the house of the Lord. Well, now Josiah is not only influencing the elders, and I think it's a strong influence, but he's strongly influencing all of the inhabitants. Everyone has to hear the word of God. It is akin to Martin Luther bringing the word of God to the common people. Where would he have gotten such an idea from the word of God, such passages like this? And so all the men of Judah have been gathered and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that they might hear the word of God. All of the priests and all of the prophets too. Now, in reading this, someone said, well, that would probably include Jeremiah and some of the other prophets. Maybe, I don't know, it doesn't say that. If they were in the vicinity, I'm sure they came. But again, one wonders why Jeremiah wasn't consulted. But nevertheless, what's being done is correct. And small and great, It's it's read to them and there's going to be an effect. In fact, there's going to be several of them but the first one we're going to see is that there's going to be a second reform by Josiah and Everyone the priests and the people are all going to be on board with it Now I want to mention something here in verse 2 Where it talks about the book of the covenant which was found so again Number one, it doesn't say how much was found of it, perhaps all of it. If we're talking about the Book of the Covenant, we're probably talking about the first five books of the Old Testament called the Pentateuch. Some call it the Law of Moses. It's also called the Torah. And when it was read to Josiah, what was uncertain was exactly what was read to Josiah. Maybe the whole thing was read. There's nothing wrong with that, but it has been estimated by many a commentary that with Josiah what was at least specifically mentioned were all of these passages in the book of Exodus, in the book of Deuteronomy that talked about if you turn away from me and begin to worship false idols, I will bring my punishment and ultimately have you taken to a foreign country. I will take you out of the promised land. So we at least got that idea. And that's what Hulda said. She kind of reinforces that. It's judgment. but you, Josiah, you will have mercy. So that more likely was what he wanted to know about. So what was read here? We really don't know. It could be the same thing, or it could have been the entire Pentateuch. We really don't know, but there's a sense in which it doesn't really matter. The word of God is powerful, living, and active. I think there were certain verses and certain chapters that they needed to hear, and maybe those were emphasized, but the word of God is powerful. So let me just give you an example about that, of the power of the word of God. So if you were to ask me, what are the one section of scripture that solves the problems of the world? I would say to you, well, that depends on which verses I'm preaching on that week. I mean, I can't help but ever come away from that. It's like, oh my word, this passage is so powerful. It solves all of the problems of the world. The same thing when you go to church and you may hear a sermon on something, you may not exactly have been looking for that, and it may not seem like it's exactly hitting your problems, but it does. There's always that. I think the underlying principle is that we need to submit to the word of God. We need to submit to the Lord. If you take that principle and you apply it to your life in any situation, There is going to be reform and revival. So this is what we see here. Now again, I think there's going to be still two takeaways here. It doesn't matter what all they read. There's going to be two takeaways. Number one, Josiah, you as the king, must not follow idols. That's number one. And so far, so good, because he hasn't been doing that. And we already know he's the good, good king. Starts good, finishes good. But there also is going to be the second takeaway. Not only follow, you're not to follow idols, but you eradicate them. Every king was supposed to eradicate the idols. But what we see and what we're gonna even see from these passages is that most of the time the kings brought in the idols. He's gonna take care of this idol, which this king brought in, and he's gonna take care of that idol, which that king brought in. And so there's only a few, and we've talked about a few, Hezekiah was one of them. There's only a few kings that did indeed eradicate the idols. And we're going to see scripture is going to give in really honor to Josiah as one of the most prolific kings getting rid of these idols. And by the way, let's just look at a couple of scriptures real quick. Deuteronomy chapter seven, verse 25. It says, the graven images of their gods, you are to burn with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves or you will be snared by it for it is an abomination to the Lord. Over in chapter 12 of Deuteronomy, beginning in verse two, You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. You shall tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and burn their asherim with fire. And you shall cut down the engraved images on their gods and obliterate their name from that place. And it goes on and on and on. And what's interesting is, is not only was every king supposed to do that, but how about the epitaph of almost every king? He did what was right before the Lord, but he did not remove the high places. That is an underlying theme. This is what they were supposed to do. And by not doing it, They indeed tempted and led the people of God into sin. And so this is what we see here with Josiah and the reading of the word of God. And this is what he's going to do. Now, look at verse three. Because again, I just appreciate this example. Everything in this scripture is everything I wanted to say tonight. Verse three. The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord to walk after the Lord and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul to carry out the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people entered into the covenant. So again, first of all, the covenant that he made, no doubt, was not to follow idols and to remove all of the idols, because that's what he's going to start doing in verse four. But I just want to take a moment and talk about Josiah making a covenant, a public covenant, but nevertheless, a covenant before the Lord. I've said this before, it reminds me of the application that we'll hear from time to time to dedicate your life to the Lord. You know, that can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. I've even heard some Christians that are against that type of thing. Basically, the idea is you don't need to do that because the Lord's working in your life and you're living it out. I also believe that it's good to do that. I believe that what He has worked in, what God has worked in, both the will and to do, it says we are to work out. And I think sometimes that means dedication. Now sometimes we think about young people going to camps, Christian camps, and the Lord gets a hold of their lives and they dedicate their lives to the Lord. fantastic I'm on board with that I have no problem with that at all and to be honest with you there are those that will end up going into full-time ministry because of such a dedication like that but I also think that there needs to be a dedication like that at times or even every day, we're in the word of God. And we kind of go through the motions, which I'm glad, we need to be faithful, but we also need to make a decision on what we've read. And there needs to be a dedication. In other words, Lord, I see here, I see what principle you're talking about. And yes, Lord, I see my life. My life needs that. I need improvement in that, Lord. And by your grace, Lord, that which you have worked in, I am going to make a covenant. or I am going to dedicate my life to serving you in that principle or maybe even in serving the Lord in general or in specific. So I think this is a good thing and we see Josiah doing it. And then guess what? The people see it and then the people do it. So, in a way, what's good about this, I see an application, so here I am as a pastor, and I need to be doing this, and I also need to be encouraging the congregation to do this. Not only do we need to read the word of God, but we need to be serious about the word of God, and we need to put it into practice. By your grace, God, I will do this. Well, the people themselves enter into this covenant and we really do have a revival. You remember before when Josiah first received the hearing of the word, there was a revival that went on. Well, this is another revival. And it's specifically going to be his legacy, or one of them, but it's a great legacy. And that is Josiah's eradication of idols, verses four through 20. We're gonna see him doing this. This is what the point of this whole thing was. He's finally, God finally has gotten a hold of a king who is going to dedicate himself to doing what God wants him to do and get rid of the idols. Well, just quickly, I want to talk about that this is the second reform. So if you remember, the first form we saw was in 2 Chronicles, and if you'll turn there, 2 Chronicles 34, verse three, because the Book of Kings didn't talk so much about that initial first reform. And so we went to 2 Chronicles. Now the thing about this is, how do we know it's not the same reform? I mean, it's very similar, but it's not exact. Well, one of the reasons is, is the timeframe. Look at 2 Chronicles 34, three. For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still a youth, he began to seek the God of his father, David. Okay, you remember that? So the Lord had his heart from the beginning. In the 12th year, He began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, the carved images, and the molten images. Now, he's about to do that again. And we're going to find out that it's a different timeframe. And the timeframe is when they found the law. This is when they found the law. And in 2 Chronicles, that whole scenario begins in chapter 22. So turn over to 2 Kings 22, verse three, and it begins with this. Now in the 18th year of King Josiah, and I'll just stop there, so we've moved on. This is gonna talk about when he was gonna pay the workers and they went into the treasury and Hilkiah the priest found the law. Okay, found the law, was read to him, had an impact. He wanted to hear what God had to say, so he inquired of the law of the prophet. He received the word, and now he's back to the word of God again. He's made a covenant with the word of God, and now he is about to bring forth a second reform. Almost, if you will, a reform with a real conviction and motivation. So just like a rededication, we can have re-reforms in our life. I'll talk about that a little later. But this is what we see. And it's not so much the area, it's not so much the area because in the first reform, he does go all the way up to Naphtali. All right, so. All right, so in his first reform, what we read there in 2 Chronicles 34, 6, you don't have to turn there, but it says he was doing his reform in Jerusalem and Judea, but it also included Manasseh, and there we see Manasseh, and then Ephraim, there's Ephraim, and then Simeon, which is actually down south, so he was going the whole gamut, And then also Naftali, which is in the north. So his second reform is going to be just as wide. but it's gonna be greater in intensity, greater in detail, and it's gonna be greater in even some specific areas. So that's the difference that we're talking about here. In fact, what we're going to see is it's going to talk about this reform going from Geba to Beersheba. So that basically is a way of just saying, you know, most of that region, that's a way of saying that. So we'll pick that up. All right, with all of that in mind, let's turn now to verse four. Let's begin this eradication. And we'll get to see some of these false gods that they worshiped again. 2 Kings 23, verse four. It says, then 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 vessels that were made for Baal and Asherah and for all the host of heaven. And he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. Well, let's just work our way through this. You know, we don't know exactly how much time passed between verse three and verse four, but judging by the context, judging by the motivation, It wasn't that much time. It might've been, okay, now we've all made a covenant, let's go put it into practice. And by the way, that is exactly what we are to do when we share devotions from the word of God. We need to have an application at the very end. You remember Jesus closed his sermon on the mount with the parable of the man who built his house on the sand and the winds blew and beat upon and it was destroyed. He said, that's someone who hears the word, hears the word and doesn't do it. And then Jesus said, but the man who hears the word and puts it into practice is like a man who builds his house on the solid ground and the winds come and the rains come and they beat upon it and it does not fall. This is really where we're headed. Josiah does it right. Okay, who's with me? Who wants to serve the Lord? And everybody raises their hand. He says, all right, line up. Here we go. We're going hunting. We're going idol hunting. So, that's what we have there and and notice as as we do pick it up in in verse 4 we have all of these individuals and it's it begins with the vessels So in his first reform, he did go into the temple, and he did go into places and get carved images. We're gonna find out some are still there. That goes to show how many were there. But now he's gonna talk about the vessels. Let me just stop here for a second. Okay, if it's not bad enough that you have carved images of false gods in the house of the Lord, Now you have vessels that people would drink to these false gods and different utensils and they were all made. In other words, they literally replaced the worship of Yahweh with the worship of these false gods. And Josiah says, I've got my eye on them. Nope, I got them in my target. Go in and get those vessels, get them out. Because there's vessels in there for Baal, there's vessels in there for Asherah, and there's vessels in there for the host of heaven. And we've talked about those, but we'll go ahead and do it again quickly. What about bail? Well, there was a bail for every town and a bail for every situation. And it was not only a carved image, but they were very careful to make little bails that you could carry bail with you. Only problem is, he never bailed you out. That's the problem, because he wasn't real. Well, Baal is mentioned some 35 times in 1 and 2 Kings. He was the Canaanite god over storms, thunder, and lightning. He was associated with rains and storms, and he was also the god of fertility. that they wanted, they made their God. We need agriculture, we need our crops to grow, so let's make him a crop-growing male, Baal. And that's what he did. So here's a picture of him. Let's see here. You can see in his left hand that is supposed to be a lightning bolt, and of course there is some sort of a mallet there in his right hand, whether that's supposed to be thunder or war or whatever, but this is Baal. Of all the little bales that I've seen, this is probably one of the nicer sculptures. I've seen some pictures of bale that made him look like Harpo of the Marx Brothers. You know, a little hat and all of that. But anyway, this is Baal. And then there's Asherah. And she is mentioned some 12 times in 1st and 2nd Kings. She is the Canaanite goddess associated with Baal. She's depicted as the goddess of fertility, also of the sea. It was very much a custom to carve her out of wood or a tree, especially if that tree grew on a mountain. It was perfect place, perfect situation for this goddess to be worshiped. Now here's one of the pictures there of her. There's another one that we see many of them were in trees. I said before it kind of makes you look like Groot of the Guardians of the Galaxy. We see the head and we see the feet. And then it even mentions the host of heaven. And I don't really have any great pictures here, but the host of heaven usually means it's the worship of the heavenly bodies, the planets, the stars. And many times these gods, were assigned to them, okay? They were assigned to them and that was indeed who they were. So it was also of the occult, it was astrology. This was astrology here. And so here was the only picture I could really get. It just shows of all the astrology there and just the things. But there's one little comment that said that in Uruk, an ancient Sumerian cities, southern Iraq, a 3,000-year-old tablet specified the celestial identity of Ishtar as an eight-pointed star. And so they're putting their worship into these gods. That's a star. By the way, what you see there in the bottom right, that is the god Melech. That's the one that they would sacrifice their children to. In fact, he had this furnace underneath him, and that's where they would sacrifice their children. But anyway, this is the idea of the host of heaven. Again, can I remind you? We're talking about God's people. We're talking about in the promised land. And beloved, I've only started in verse four. we're gonna move our way to verse 20. And here it says at the end of verse four, it says that he took these things and burned these things outside of Jerusalem, not inside of the Holy Jerusalem, but outside in the fields of Kidron. And then they carried the ashes to Bethel. Now what's going to happen is we're going to see him taking these ashes and putting them on all of these high places which is going to defile these high places of false gods. When it says he's going to go to Bethel you remember what Bethel is that's where Jeroboam built his altar to the golden calves, and they started their own false worship in the northern kingdom, Bethel. And that's where he's going to take the ashes and spread it. All right. Now, let's look at verse five, and I'll try to move on a little quicker at this point. All right, in verse five, it says, he did away with the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense in the high places in the city of Judah and surrounding area of Jerusalem. And those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, and to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven. Just when we thought we've seen it all with the idol worship, this is what was still surviving at this time. And Josiah said, that is it, it's going. And it began with here, he did away with the idolatrous priests. What do you think that means? Well, I do think that means he slaughtered them. I think it means he slaughtered them. This isn't the first time we're gonna see that. This is all in keeping with Josiah following the law. It is interesting that these particular priests here, we're not talking about high priests that are Israel's priests, we're talking about like false god priests, even astrologer priests. They're called by the name of Kemarim, and it means black robes. So they're walking around in black robes. So we're thinking of the occult. I mean, we have the occult around today, but they had the occult back then. But they had the occult in Jerusalem. And did you notice? It says, whom the kings of Judah had appointed. The kings of Judah had appointed. It's almost as if we knew, but we didn't know. We didn't know to the extent of it. Look at verse 6. Verse 6, He brought out the Asherah from the house of the Lord outside Jerusalem to the brook Kidron and burned it at the brook Kidron and ground it to dust and threw its dust on the graves of common people. Evidently we're either talking about these vessels or maybe there still were some lingering images and he has them burned and he gets the ashes of that and what does he do with it? He throws it on the graves of some of the common people. Now, in 2 Chronicles, we see that he did the same thing, only he threw the ashes on the graves of dead false idolatrous priests. It defiled them. It defiled their grave. Now, he's going so far as to say even the common people who followed them, which you should have never done. You should have served the Lord and not served these false gods. He's taking these ashes and he's throwing it upon them. We are shocked by the amount of idolatry, but we are enamored with the motivation and the reform of a humble, obedient Josiah. Well, let's go on. Verse 7. He also broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes, which were in the house of the Lord, and where the women were weaving hangings for the Asherah. And so from the very beginning, you're shocked with hearing about the male cult prostitutes. We were familiar with the female cult prostitutes, but there were male cult prostitutes. And then it's gonna talk about the women were weaving hangings, and there's an indication that this is talking about female prostitutes. Okay, let me read a quote. Male shrine prostitutes who served as part of the pagan worship had set up tents in the temple courtyard. These Josiah tore down as he did the shelters that had been erected there where female idolaters wove materials for hangings or shelters used in some way in the worship of Asherah. And of course, another quote says, the hangings were used by women who were devoted to Asherah in which they made hangings and committed sexual sins. And we read, they were in the house of the Lord. That's where they were. That was the religious place. There is a horrible logic to this, but there is a logic to this. So the place of worship is where you go to worship, and if you worship false gods, that's the place you go to worship false gods. But Josiah, Josiah was bent on destroying it. Look at verse eight. We've still got a long way to go. Verse eight, then he brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense from Geba to Beersheba. And he broke down the high places of the gates, which were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the governor of the city, which were on one's left at the city gate. Now, quickly in verse eight, as he's talking about these priests, very well could be talking about the Levitical priest. So he brought the Levitical priest, you come and help, there's a lot to be done here. That's one of the ideas there. And then as he's breaking down all of these high places, guess where else they have idols? Or should I say, Can you name a place where they didn't have an idol? At the gates of the entrance of the city. Number one, it made the worship of the false gods very accessible. Number two, it says, when you come into Jerusalem and you see these idols at the gates, you know who we worship. You know who our God is. This is what was wrong with idolatry. And then, of course, he mentions Joshua the governor. Now, I don't know if that meant he still was living and he still was a false worshiper. I don't know if, or if it was just by a location, but we see these locations. And then verse nine. Nevertheless, the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread among their brothers. Okay, so here it is assumed that they're talking about Levitical high priests that have begun to worship at high places. The Bible knowledge commentary explains it this way. The Levitical priests who had offered sacrifices on the high places were not allowed to serve at the rededicated altar in the temple. but Josiah did permit them to eat the unleavened bread brought to the temple. They were disqualified for service. They were disqualified for the worship of Yahweh and leading Judah and Jerusalem into worship because they had done this. This is what is so bad. and they were able to eat. So that's, you know, it's assumed that in some instance, Josiah wouldn't let him worship, but permitted them to eat. Verse 10, he also deviled Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom. And no one, that no one might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire for Molech. So we've talked about this numerous times. And of course there's, here is a museum in Germany where they have a replica of Molech, a very hideous looking thing. But you want to see something even more hideous? Look at the very bottom. There are couches there. So you go to the museum, and you get to recline while looking at Melech and probably hearing something about the history of Melech. No thank you. Not for me. Here's kind of a close-up. And as I said, usually it is described as somewhere there's a portal, somewhere where there's a furnace, and that's where children Children are literally sacrificed. And this is what some of the children of Israel were doing. This is what some of the kings were doing. Manasseh being one of them. This is in the valley of Hinnom, southern end of Israel on the steep cliff where they would have a dump. And it's what Jesus referred to where the worm never dies and the fires never quenched. That was his illustration to talk about the reality of hell, where the worm never dies and the fires never quenched, talking about eternal punishment. But this is where this would take place. And I'm gonna read this, and I've mentioned it before. I mentioned this to our guide in Israel, and our guide in Israel never said anything about that. But John MacArthur writes, the meaning of topheth could be a drum and identifying the area in the valley of Hinnom where child sacrifice occurred. perhaps called drum because drums were beaten to drown out the cries of the children being sacrificed. So anyway, that's a possibility. We don't know for sure if that's it, but this is this horrible God of Melech. And if you remember, even Solomon erected an altar to Melech. Verse 11. He did away with the horses which the kings of Judah had given to the sun, sun God, at the entrance of the house of the Lord by the chamber of Nathan, Melech, the official, which was in the precincts, and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. Now, where didn't they put Worship to false idols not even among their animals. So so they had these horses that were dedicated to the Sun God we're talking about Israel and how many times have we gone through first and second Kings and saw that they prayed to the Lord and the Lord deliver them sometimes by just the hand of the Lord alone and They still had horses in apparel to the worship of the sun god and the chariots, and he said, nope, he did away with them. He slaughtered them. They did not cease. They ceased to exist. Verse 12, and I'll just go through these rapidly. the altars which were on the roof. Come on, seriously? The altars which were on the roof, the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah, there we go again, do you see the repetition here? It's the kings of Judah who brought this in, had made. And the altars which the infamous Manasseh who is the evil good king, but the evil good too late king, too much, too little, too late. God said, it doesn't matter because of him, you're done Judah. Which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord. The king broke down and he smashed them there and threw their dust into the brook Kidron. And so they have them on the roost. They probably had it everywhere. Everywhere where there was a nook and a cranny, there was probably a little figurine of one of the gods. You remember the Lord says on numerous occasions, these are your gods. Let's see how well they protect you. Let's see how well they deliver you. And of course, within short order, people realized that those gods could not protect. But only the Lord God, and he would show himself over and over, and yet they kept going back. They kept going back and doing what the other nations were doing. They were doing it in the promised land. And you could see now why through the book of Kings, first and second, God's anger is being kindled and kindled and kindled to where he says to Jeremiah, Jeremiah, I don't even want to hear your prayer. Don't waste your breath. Verse 13. The high places which were before Jerusalem, which were on the right of the Mount of Destruction, which Solomon, the King of Israel, had built for Ashtoreth, the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom, the abomination of the sons of Ammon, the king defiled. And if you remember this, if you remember when he did this, this happened 300 years earlier. In 1 Kings 11, verses seven through nine, Then Solomon built a high place for Camash, the detestable idol of Moab, on the mountain which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech, the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon. Thus also he did for all his foreign wives who burned incense and sacrifice to their gods. Now the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel who had appeared to him twice. This is where we're at and looking at this sad, sad scenario. Verse 14, he broke in pieces the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherim and filled their places with human bones. The placing of human bones defiled them and thus rendered these sites unclean and unsuitable as places of worship so that they could never be worshipped upon again. Four more kings left. There will be places of worship. Unbelievable. Verse 15. Furthermore, the altar that was at Bethel and the high place which Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, that's a familiar phrase, had made even that altar and the high place, he broke it down and he demolished its stones, ground them to dust and burned the Asherah. And so you remember we've looked at this there in Bethel. And by the way, Bethel, Bethel is right there at that borderline of the red line, the borderline of what divided southern kingdom from the northern kingdom. He built it there so that people didn't have to go into Jerusalem where the temple was. to worship and then he also built one all the way up at Dan and if you can see the very very top I should have maybe highlighted it but you see the word Dan there was another one there in fact the one that The place, not the altar, that's a replica made out of aluminum, but that place, the stones, that is there in Dan where the second altar was made to the golden calf, false worship. It mentions Jeroboam, and finally, finally, one of the kings does what is right. And he broke it down, he demolished its stones, ground them into dust, and burned the Asherah. Verse 16, now when Josiah turned, he saw the graves that were on the mountain. And he sent and took the bones from the graves and burned them on the altar and defiled it according to the word of the Lord, which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these things." So, first of all, he is taking these bones of these people who worshiped false gods and He's taking them from the graves and burning them and putting them on the altar. And I wanna remind us, this was fulfilling, and I don't know that he knew it per se at the moment, but this was fulfilling a prophecy in 1 Kings chapter 13, verses one through two. Let's turn there. 1 Kings. I love it when it all comes together. 1 Kings 13. Verses one and two. Now this is when Jeroboam was first promoted as the king. Okay, so this is that time. But a prophet, a man of God, and we don't know who this is, but he's from Judah, that's all we know, this is what happens. First Kings 13, one. Now behold, there came a man of God from Judah to Bethel by the word of the Lord, while Jeroboam was standing by the altar to burn incense. He cried against the altar by the word of the Lord and said, O altar, altar, thus says the Lord, behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you and human bones shall be burned on you." Isn't that incredible? And we saw that when we went through, but now it has so much more meaning now that we have seen Josiah on the scene. And then going back to 2 Kings quickly, Verses 17 and 18. So he looks and he sees these graves and he says, dig them up, get the bones. But something happens in verse 17. Then he said, what is this monument that I see? And the men of the city told him, it is the grave of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things which you have done against the altar of Bethel. It's his grave. And this is what he says in verse 18. He said, let him alone, let no one disturb his bones. So they left his bones undisturbed with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria. So there was another prophet later on in that chapter from Samaria. So those two graves remained. Now, I don't know if they're still there to this day. We didn't really, we weren't told that they were. And most graves are not able to be found. And then if they are, they're just tourist attractions that someone said this was the grave. So, but that would be very interesting. So if I get a chance to go back, I'm gonna ask, where's the grave vat from the prophet from Judah who prophesied about Josiah? All right, verse 19, we're winding down. It's almost too much anyway. Josiah also removed the houses of the high places, which were in the cities of Samaria. Okay, so now he's in Samaria, you know, the place of Ahab, where Ahab brought in Jezebel. Jezebel who brought in the priests of Baal, which Elijah slaughtered, okay? And so he's in Samaria now and these are very infamous places which the kings of Israel had made provoking the Lord and he did to them just as he had done in Bethel. And in verse 20, all the priests of the high places who were there, he slaughtered on the altars and burned human bones on them. And then he returned to Jerusalem. Wow. Is this a reform or what? Is this a second reform with greater intensity and commitment to the Lord? And I think that's what happens when we make a commitment to the Lord. And there's certain levels, I believe, that we grow in maturity. In fact, that is one of the applications that I want to make. Multiple reforms. There's nothing wrong with multiple reforms. Now, you probably ought to reform it right the first time, or maybe it was so impossible, now I'm at the point where I'm thinking, yeah, it was almost impossible to get it all done at once. And so this is over a period of time and there's multiple reforms being convicted with more intensity from the word of God. Well, it kind of reminds me of spiritual reforms in our own life. Now, I'm not talking about reform to be good enough to get into heaven. We know, we don't believe that. But I believe that there, just like a rededication, I believe that there are reforms. And I'm gonna call it metaphorically, a reform is a level of maturity. In other words, what's great about each new year is we can say, Lord, I wanna be at a greater, more spiritual place this coming year than I was in this last year. But there hopefully was in this last year, Hopefully in this last year, there were greater levels of maturity. I grew from last year, a greater level of reform, of commitment, of trusting in the Lord and His power that He's worked in, but a reform in specific areas. Now, everybody's gonna have specific areas. Everybody's gonna have specific things that they struggle with. It could be love. It could be being quiet. What I mean by that is not so argumentative, okay? It could be all of those things. Okay, this year, Lord, help me. Help me grow and be more like Christ in another newer level, higher level of spirituality that I have self-control and I stop my words before they come out of my mouth. It could be something like that. It could be prayer. You know, maybe this year I do have a level of prayer. Well, maybe the Lord's convicted me in your devotion or convicted you in your devotions or in a sermon saying, you know what? I need to go a little forward. I need to have another level. There needs to be a multiple reform in our lives. In fact, we ought to be striving like that, becoming more and more like Christ. And again, I'm reminded, I think it's theologically correct, because he tells the Philippians, so then my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Salvation there referring to sanctification. It wouldn't contradict all the other scriptures that talk about salvation by faith alone and Christ alone, but here's what he means. For it is God who is at work in you both to will the will and to work for his good pleasure. and we are to work it out, that which has been worked in. And I don't ever wanna minimize it and say it's not a struggle. It is a struggle. Anybody who tries to live the Christian life can know it's a struggle. But what we read from this verse is you can't say it's impossible. For the believer, it is not impossible. God has worked everything you need in And now, by faith and trusting in Him, the indwelling Holy Spirit, the new nature, in obedience to the Word of God, I now am going to work it out. And maybe you need a new dedication to work it out in a greater way. Well, the second application is looking at the sovereignty of God, of what's going on in the book of 2 Kings. What is interesting here, that Josiah is able to go up to Samaria, up to Naphtali, and he's able to have these reforms. I wanna remind us, the Northern Kingdom is under the preoccupation of Assyria. What's going on? Well, we're led into a little bit of the invisible hand of God, that Assyria is losing more and more power. They're getting weaker. And guess who's getting stronger? Babylon, getting stronger and stronger. And guess who's gonna take Judah in the captivity? Not the Assyrians. but the Babylonians. So in really kind of this poetic justice kind of way, God's sovereign hand among the nations in that the Assyrian weakness allowed Josiah's reforms. So that was one of the good things that's coming out of the hand of the Lord, weakening the Assyrians. But on the other hand, The Babylonians are being strengthened, preparing for Judah's captivity. All right, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank you for your sovereignty, that you are in control of all things. And once again, Lord, as we look at things going on in our life, there are things and nations being weakened and nations being strengthened, and it's all in accordance to your plan, which we have unfolded for us in the book of Revelation. Father, also too, in the meantime, what are we to do? We are to rededicate ourselves to you anew and afresh. We are to be committed to you, Lord. When we see there's an application in the scripture that we take it seriously. and not just say, oh, that's a good insight. It's an insight for living, Lord. And so we ask that we'll, really, Lord, there'll be multiple reforms in our lives, multiple levels of spirituality, Lord, through the same process, through the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, nevertheless, there is maturity in levels that we reach and then go on to new levels. Lord, would you help us do that for your glory? And we'll thank you then that this lesson of Josiah didn't fall on deaf ears, and we'll pray this in Jesus' name, amen.