If you have your Bibles this morning, we're turning to 2 Kings. 2 Kings. And looking at 2 Kings chapter number 23 this morning. 2 Kings chapter number 23. I will say there was no greeting time in my schedule of events this morning. So I had planned, tried to slow down my talking this morning. The problem is now they only give me thirty five minutes. Now I have to speed it up to try to get everything in. And so, brother Learman, we tried. I tried. I tried. That's good. All right. I tell you what. The opportunity to teach God's word is fun. It really is. And I get excited. I tell you what. I get excited to have the opportunity to teach his word. And there's so many great truths in his book. There are so many wonderful truths, and I tell you what, if you don't have a personal walk with God, I challenge you, get one. Set a time, set a place, set a couple times. And for a while there, I struggled trying to find an exact time, and so in my life I set two or three times. And if I missed the first time, I had another time and then I had another backup time to make sure what God's word is vital for our lives and the importance of it is unbelievable. Second Kings chapter twenty three. I want you to look with me at verse number twenty five. Second Kings chapter number twenty three. Verse number twenty five. Well, says there and like unto him. Was there no king before him that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses, neither after him arose there any like him. What a great testimony. What an unbelievable testimony of this man, this king named Josiah. Let's have a word of prayer this morning. We'll jump into this message. Lord, we love you. And once again, we thank you for the opportunity to open up your word. The opportunity to study it, to read its pages, to hear the Holy Spirit talk to our hearts. And Holy Spirit, I ask you this morning that you'd please meet with us. Yes, we're here in 845 service, Lord, but when your word is opened, Lord, you promise that you'll help us and that you'll speak to our hearts. Lord, I pray that our hearts will be open this morning. Lord, I pray that you'd move me aside and let your word speak. And Lord, we'll thank you and praise you for the work that's done in your precious name. Amen. As I read this verse here about Josiah, I was thinking about what my epitaph would be one day. And it's very interesting reading through First and Second Kings and First and Second Chronicles. They give you many short synopsis of people's life. And I was I was thinking about why what my epitaph would be. I was looking up some epitaphs and these actual actual epitaphs on tombstones. Touch humor, some of them in Tombstone, Arizona, there's one that said, Here lies Lester Moore, four slugs from a 44, no less, no more. And that's always a good one. I like this one from Hartscombe, England. On the 22nd of June, Jonathan Fiddle went out of tune and that was a good one. Stinker to the memory of Anthony Drake, who died for peace and quietness sake. His wife was constantly scolding and scoffing, so he sought for repose in a twelve dollar coffin. And that was an interesting one. I'm laughing on the inside very hard. I was belly laughing last night as I was looking at my wife. She's like, what are you doing? She didn't think they were humorous. Oh, this was a good one. The children of Israel wanted bread and the Lord sent them manna. Old Clerk Wallace wanted a wife and the devil sent him Anna. That was for Anna Wallace in England. That was a good one. I like this one, Richmond, Virginia, Margaret Daniels. She always said her feet were killing her, but nobody believed her. Now, I don't even know. I don't think this one is true. I mean, it says these are all actual tombstones. I don't think somebody can have the heart to do this one. Here lies my wife. I bid her goodbye. She rest in peace. And now, so do I. And that was rough. I'll give one more. This is a cemetery in England. A man wrote, as he said, Remember, man, as you walk by, as you are now, so once was I. As I am now, so shall you be. Remember this and follow me. And a man scribbled on the tombstone there and wrote his own and said, to follow you, I will not consent until I know which way you went. And I like that one. I saw spiritual one at the end. I was thinking about that, though, what what would people say and what do they say? What do they say now? I think if the Lord or a scripture was penned concerning myself or others, what would that scripture say? Though many are concerned with what others would say about them, I'm very interested to know what the Lord would say about me. Matter of fact, I'm a little scared. What would the Lord say about me if he were to pen a portion of Scripture? We look here at the list of kings and it gives many different references. And we're just going to have a small little Bible study here, if you don't mind. I want you to take your Bibles and turn back to Second Kings, chapter number nine. Second Kings, chapter number nine, no doubt you've Had the opportunity to read through these. I love the book of First and Second Kings and First Chronicles. I love the action involved in it. It's very fun to read. But yet in every one of these king's lives, there's truths that can be taken from it and applied to our life. Look at Second Kings chapter number, actually, chapter number eight, if you would chapter number eight, look at verse number 16. Here's just a couple just by way of example, in the fifth year of Joram, the son of Ahab, king of Israel, Jehoshaphat. being the king of Judah, Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, began to reign. Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord. And I think about that and say, well, I never want that to be said of me. Look in chapter number nine. Let's skip over to actually chapter number 10 here, verse number 30, chapter 10, verse number 30. And it said here, the Lord said unto Jehu, because I was done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes and has done unto the house of Ahab, according to all that was in mine heart, thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel. Well, I love that part. Because you obey me, because you follow me, your children are going to sit on the throne for four generations. But look at the next verse, verse number 31. But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart, for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin. Oh, he was so close, so close to be a good king in Israel. But yet here he did not follow God's word. If you look at Chapter 12. Chapter 12, verse number 1 and 2. In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash began to reign. In forty years reigned he in Jerusalem, and his mother's name was Zivia of Beersheba. And Jehoash did that which was right in the sight of the Lord all his days, wherein Jehoiada the priest instructed him. We have quite a bit of a good testimony there. Now, there's a little bit more to that testimony there, given of Jehoash. And I'm going to actually talk about that in Sunday school this morning. But if you look at chapter 13, verse number 1. In the three and twentieth year of John of Joash, the son of a hazy-eyed king of Judah, Jehoias, the son of J who began to reign over Israel and Samaria and reigned seventeen years. He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord and followed the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which made Israel a sin. He departed not therefrom. Another just awful testimony. Look at chapter thirteen, verse number ten. In the thirty-seventh year of Joash, king of Judah began Jehoash, the son of Jehoaz, to reign over Israel and Samaria. And he reigned sixteen years, and he did that which is evil in the sight of the Lord. He departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel a sin, but he walked therein. Let's look at one or two more. Chapter fourteen. We have Amaziah here, another king of Judah. In the second year of Joash, son of Jehoaz, king of Israel, reigned Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah. And he's twenty five years old when he began to reign and reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jehoiadin of Jerusalem. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. Notice this is very interesting. So here's just another tidbit of information. He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, yet not like David, his father. Some are going to be compared to David as you look through the kings of Judah. But this one he did right, but not to the complete extent that David, his father, did. I thought that was very interesting. Look at verse number twenty three in that same chapter. In the fifteenth year of Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria and reigned forty and one years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. He departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. And we could go through, very honestly, we could go through chapter by chapter by chapter by chapter. And you have these short synopsises, or you could almost say epitaphs, of these kings of Israel and these kings of Judah's life. You get to chapter 21, and I want to talk about two characters this morning, just a little bit more detail. Chapter 21. Look there with me. In verse number one and two, chapter 21, second Kings, verse number one and two, Manasseh was 12 years old when he began to reign and reigned 50 and five years in Jerusalem. That's a long time. That's a long time to be king in one place. And his mother's name was Hephzibah. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord after the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. Manasseh here is born and Manasseh becomes king at a fairly young age. He reigns 55 years and the Bible says of him that he followed after the things that the nations around them followed after. It didn't just stop there, though. Manasseh here could go down as the worst king in Bible history. It could go down. When you think about it, he started at 12 years old, reigned 55 years. But Manasseh built the high places, the groves, the idols, he built them all back, the ones that his father had destroyed. His father had cleaned house in Israel. His father had tore down the groves, had pulled down the idol worship, had pulled down the Baal worship. Yet Manasseh, at a young age, says, you know, I'm going to build all those things back up. Not only that, but he built again the high places there, the altars to Baal. He even took God's house and he took God's house and he started building altars to other gods worshiping nature inside God's house there. Not only that, you look at verse number nine. This is just a. Verse number nine, but they hearken not and Manasseh. talking about the children of Israel, seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel. What a testimony. Manasseh did so much evil here that he seduced Israel into committing even more sin than they would have just naturally having an evil king. Uh, you get the second Kings chapter number 21. Look at verse number 10 there with me. And the Lord spake by a servant to prophet saying, because monastic King of Judah had done these abominations and that done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, which were before him and have made Judah also to sin with his idols. Therefore, thus say the Lord God of Israel, behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah that whosoever hears of it, both his ears shall tingle. That's very interesting. God says, you know, I'm going to punish Manasseh and I'm going to punish the children of Israel so bad. It's going to be so awful at the time that when somebody hears about what takes place, their ears are going to tingle. That was bad. That's awful. Keep going here. And I will stretch over Jerusalem, the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab. And I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wiped by the dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. And I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance and deliver them in the hand of their enemies. And they shall become a prey and a squirrel to all their enemies, because they had done that which was evil in my sight, and that provoked me to anger since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even unto this day. God says of Manasseh, Manasseh has caused my people to do so much evil or more evil and more heard to me. Then you could take them all the way back to win the show visual in Egypt. That right there is an awful testimony. That's an awful testimony. But yeah, I think this is very interesting. We're going to jump to our text chapter there. Manasseh had a son and Manasseh's son was Ammon. A-M-O-N. And we read about them in the next chapter. And Ammon basically copied his father. He copied him to the extent that the conspirators there, or the people in Israel, were so upset that he continued in the same sin that he only reigned for two years and was killed or murdered in office only after two years because the people couldn't put up with it. They put up his son, Josiah. It's very interesting. Josiah becomes king at age eight. I want you to look there with me. Let's see. Oh, we'll go to. Oh, I should have wrote that one down. That's right. I got another one written down here. Josiah becomes king at age eight. And it's very interesting. here studies David. What a great man to study. If you're a king of Israel, he studies David and instead of Josiah, that he turned not to the right hand or to the left of all the ways of David. Now, you got to remember, his grandfather, his grandpa was Manasseh, the most wicked king of Israel. His father had been in office for just two years, and because of his wickedness, God removed him. Yet Josiah takes over as an eight year old boy and Josiah does everything different. Now, the scripture doesn't go into too much detail. I don't you don't know if it was the king's advisors being eight years old. I'm sure he had people that were above him and helping him and moving the kingdom pieces around. But yet the testimony is given of Josiah here that he departed not to the right hand or to the left of all the ways. It's very interesting. He repairs the temple at age 18. And he decides that the same temple that his father had put idols in and had redecorated, worshiping the gods of nature, he says, you know, I'm going to go ahead and we're going to rebuild that. He organizing he organizes the repair of the temple while the repair takes place. He'll tie the high priest finds the book of the law hiding there in the temple and he'll tie it takes it to shape and ascribe there. Somebody was supposed to study the scriptures. And he takes it to him and says, you know, we need to take this book to the king and he takes it to Josiah and Josiah has it read before him. And it's very interesting, Josiah, as the book is being read, the Bible says that he rents his clothes. And he sends the scribes and the priests to talk to God for him. Look at verse number 19 and chapter number 23. I believe it's actually 22, 22 verse number 19. You got to remember, Manasseh, God has already pronounced judgment on Israel. God has already said, Israel, you're done. People are going to wince when they hear their ears are going to tingle when they hear the destruction that's going to take place. But yet, Josiah, look, this is what God's response was. Verse number 19, because thine heart was tender. And thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord, and when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and as rent thy clothes and the wet before me, I also have heard thee say to the Lord, Behold, therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace, and then I shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place. And they brought the king word again." Well, I love that. God tells Josiah, Josiah, because you had a soft heart to my word. Because when you heard my word, you rent your clothes and you hung with yourself before me and you repented of the evil that was done. And Josiah, you have turned the kingdom around for me. He says you're not going to experience the judgment that will take place. Revival breaks out. Josiah has the book of the law read before the entire congregation of the people. calling them to turn from their idols, their idolatry, calling them to turn to their Baal worship, calling them to return from everything that they were doing in the wrong, calling them to return back to the house of God. And things change. Josiah starts reforming everything. Idols are removed. High places are torn down. The city of Topheth, which was used as an altar to the god of Molech to offer their children, he went and just destroyed the city, just took the whole thing out. He cleans out God's house, repairs it, remodels it, establishes establishes the Passover again. They put it off for so long and he says, you know what? God's word says this is what we need to do and let's go ahead and do it. And so he brings back the Passover. Amazing revival takes place because a man says, you know what? Here's God's word and I'm going to apply it to my heart. I'm going to have a soft heart and I'm going to apply God's word. What is God going to say about Josiah? God has summed up all these different kings of Israel and kings of Judah. When he comes to Josiah, what is his verse or two of fame going to be? That's the verse we read there in chapter number 23, verse number 25. And like unto him was there no king before him that turns to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul. And with all his might, according to all the law of Moses, neither after him arose there any like him. Was he a better king than his great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather or relative there, David? No, I wouldn't say that it wasn't a better king. I believe David still was a man after God's own heart. David still spared many of these kings to follow because God would not destroy them because of David, because of his promise to David. But the testimony that is given of Josiah is that when it came to this book right here. When it came to God's word, there was not a man before him and not a man after him that followed God to the whole extent of what his word said. I don't know about you, but what a testimony. What a testimony. I don't know what the Lord would say about me. I don't know what the Lord would say about you. But. As I read this passage, as I read what God said about this man named Josiah and his word, how he wholly followed there was not before him or after him, a man who wholly followed God's word that convicted me. That convicted me, I thought, as I read through these chapters. That if God were to write about me. Would Steve Frost be a man of God's word? Would Steve Frost be a man who wholly follows God's word? Yes, you and I, we understand we ought to be people of God's word. We are the people of the book. I like that statement. People of the book. And we understand that to be true. We know that you might say, Steve, of course, you and I are supposed to follow God's word. Of course, we're supposed to pattern our lives and read God's word and study God's word and allow God's word to talk with us and meditate on it and read it. And boy, based decision making off God's word. Of course, we're supposed to do that. But if God penned a few verses in scripture to sum up your life, would he include your love for God's word in that summary? Well, in that thought, as I read God's word struck me, just I was a young man who changed his personal heritage. Think about who his granddad was. He changed his personal heritage and stereotype by finding God's word and making it a big deal for his life. That was all introduction just very quickly here this morning. I was challenged as I read through these different things and as I studied the life of Josiah, to make much of God's word, and I challenge you this morning to make much of God's word. Make much of God's word. John Burton, a Sunday school teacher in the early 1800s, penned Holy Bible book, divine, precious treasure. Thou art mine. Mine to tell me once I came, mine to teach me what I am. Mine to chide me when I rove, mine to show a savior's love. Mine you are to guide, guard, mine to punish or reward, mine to comfort in distress, suffering in this wilderness. Mind to show by living faith man can triumph over death. Mind to tell of joys to come in the rebel sinner's doom. O thou book divine, precious treasure, thou art mine. Listen, that was a Sunday school teacher who said, boy, it is great to have a relationship with God and his word. Boy, it's a wonderful thing. Boy, God, you wrote this for me. What an awesome opportunity I have to study his pages and to read his pages. What a great blessing I have to be able to read God's word and have a personal relationship with him. And here's a Sunday school teacher who could pin that. Well, I think the fact that God preserved and inspired his words for us. But a famous little thing I had to memorize in college about it said the Holy Bible must have been inspired in God and not of men. I would not if I could believe that good men wrote it to deceive or bad men would not if they could proceed to write a book so good. It must be that God inspired the words which souls of prophets fired. We have a book that God wrote using the pen of man to talk to you and I. Would our testimony be as Josiah's testimony was? They wholly, he wholly, there was not a man before him or a man after him that followed God's word with all his heart as Josiah did. Oh, as a little kid, we're taught that song, the B-I-B-L-E. Yes, that's the book for me. I stand alone on the word of God. The B.I.B.L.E. It's very interesting. As you look at life, just about 90 percent of our decisions can be found in the pages of God's word. About 90 percent. If you take principles and the authority of God's word and based on your life, God's word takes care of just about everything else. And it's very interesting. The other 10 percent, God gives you the Holy Spirit upon salvation to help you with who he also teaches about in God's word. I challenge you this morning to make much of God's word. Well, I thought about my testimony or what God would say. I thought it was very interesting. At any time, someone can change their testimony. At any time, someone could say, you know what, maybe for the last 40 years, I've not fallen in love with God's word, but yet I'm going to start. Maybe we could say, somebody could say, for the last 60 years, I don't know if I've ever built a personal relationship and got to know God's word as I ought to. But it could not be said of me that I've wholly followed God's word or had a love and a passion for it, as Josiah did. But yet that could be a testimony. Well, what a blessing it would be if we rewrote or if God wrote our testimony to be the fact that we wholly followed and wholly loved the word of God. Well, I believe as Christians, it's our Job to read it. Revelation chapter 1 verse 3 says, Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy. I believe it's our job as Christians to memorize it. You ought to be able to commit it to memory. Psalm 119, 11. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I may not sin against thee. But I believe it's our job as a believers to meditate on God's word. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of God, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. But what a blessing that comes from getting to know this book right here. What a blessing. As God penned, or if words were penned, by the one who knows you and I best, the one who we can hide nothing from, the one who loves us supremely, cares about us, the one who sent his son to die for us on the cross, who knows not just our actions, but knows our thoughts. If you were to pin the words down about a summary of your life, let me ask you, would God's word be included in that summary? As I. Well, as the Lord spoke to me about that thought, I was convicted. I was convicted, I believe there's been times in my life, periods in my life where I might have I read God's word, I read it. But I can't necessarily say I loved it. Oh, I took the time. I took the five minutes, the 10 minutes I read my two chapters, my three chapters. I got to my Bible reading done. But you know what? I wish I could say in that time that I enjoyed and I loved it like I ought to. Well, what a challenge this morning, what a challenge God placed on my heart that as I open up its pages. Do I listen to the Holy Spirit and do I love what he has to say for me? Do I love what he's given me here? What a blessing to have a copy of God's Word.