Lessons from the Life of King Josiah

Well, as you know, God's Word was not created like a big encyclopedia. If God would have wanted the whole world to know all the truths, He could have made the Bible from A to Z, and everybody would have had everything spelt out. But that's not the way He did it. He wanted this Bible to be understood by those that were willing to submit to Him, to His teachings, not to change them around, not to add or take away, and to be able to simply follow Him as He is taught. And so He created this Bible with many stories, with the principles there, and as He knew that many people were not going to be theologians and college graduates, the way He wrote the Bible was in such a way that children could read it. Abraham Lincoln, in a little wooden log cabin, he read the Bible and was educated through the Bible. And he used many Bible quotes throughout his life, this government for the people and by the people and all of this. That was in one of the last parts of chapter in Romans. And so this is a book to educate ourselves, not only the mind but the heart, our spiritual self.

And so God composed it of lessons that would be so practical that they not only would apply in ancient times in the Old Testament, but also in modern times. The things that happened to these people could very well happen to us, for good or for evil. We can make the same mistakes, or we can apply the same principles of life that are healthy and that are profitable. But it's up to us.

And so, just like it tells us in 1 Corinthians 10 verse 11, it tells us, now all these things happen to them as examples. And they were written for our admonition, for our learning, for us to heed those lessons upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

So we have biblical examples to learn by. God not only provides us with a theory, provides us with a theory, but also with the practice. One can say, in living color, when you start studying each one of these personages in the Bible, they come alive. You identify with them. God has put their practical examples that can happen to us, just like it happened to them. And we learn from such examples. Now I'd like to cover a very fine biblical personage that usually he's not given much credit, but there are so many valuable lessons to learn. It was one of the best kings of Israel. And the Bible mentions he had a heart like David. He fully was committed to God. He did things wholeheartedly, as very few of the kings of Israel did. And we can read about him in 2 Chronicles chapter 34 verses 1 through 2.

If you'll turn there, I'll go ahead and read it to you. I'm talking about King Josiah.

And it says that Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned 31 years in Jerusalem.

He was only 39 when he was killed. And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of his father David. He did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.

He followed his ancestor David as an example, and he didn't turn to the right or to the left. He followed faithfully God's teachings. Now one little known fact about Josiah was that he was predestined to be a king in Israel. He was prepared by God.

He had a mission to fulfill. That is why God can intervene in man's affair whenever he chooses.

And he allowed many things to happen in Israel, and for them to pick their kings. And they had all kinds of ups and downs. But God said, I reserve the right to bring a king that I will raise up, and he will do my bidding. And that king was King Josiah. Notice what it says in 1 Kings chapter 13 verses 1 through 3. He's talking here to Jeroboam.

He rebelled against Solomon, and then he had wars with Reoboam, Solomon's son for many years.

This is around 940 BC, and it says, and behold a man of God, a prophet, went from Judah to Bethel by the word of the Lord. And Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. Jeroboam was starting a false system of religion in Israel. And so God sent this prophet to warn Jeroboam. Then he cried out against the altar by the word of the Lord. This was an altar that was not authorized by God. This was kind of like setting up a church where God had not authorized. Another place where they would start worshiping in the name of God, but with different laws and different priests. And this man of God said, O altar, altar, thus says the Lord, behold a child, Josiah by name. Josiah's name in Hebrew means God will support. This is the one that God will uphold.

He shall, it shall, he shall be born to the house of David, and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and men's bones shall be burned on you. Well talk about that. A little bit of archaeology doesn't do anybody any harm. So he predicted that Jeroboam's false system would be cursed sometime in the future by this king who would be named Josiah.

So God permits evil to flourish until he decides to intervene. And in this case, it was 300 years that God allowed different kings to come up and come down and change. But he reserves the right. And it's always important to remember, especially as we come up to elections and people think, well, we've got to take hands.

We've got to do this or that. Just remember, God is the ultimate determiner. And sometimes he allows people to have the leaders that they deserve. And so, but he reserves the right. He can change people's minds. He can change votes from one to just changing people's minds back and forth. I was impressed going through a Bible study that I'm doing throughout the entire Bible. And we're in the book of Hebrews. And here this author mentioned that the way the Sabbath was kept in chapter four of Hebrews, it mentions about there is a keeping of the Sabbath.

And this author mentioned that this was something that was kept in the first centuries. And he says, and then it changed in the fourth century when Constantine basically put himself as in charge and that this was changed and that then men's power, the politics came in. Then you had Christian soldiers come in. And I can't forget what he said. And he said, but those that continued with the ancient traditions, they were like Abraham of old. They were sojourners in the land. They visited, but they were not the citizens as such. They still maintained themselves spiritually pure wherever they went.

Yes, they supported what was done, but they continued to be these faithful people that weren't all caught up in worldly politics and that they maintained that purity throughout time. I thought, boy, what an interesting comment from one of the scholars, a commentator on his name is Lang, L-A-N-G. You can look it up in the Internet and just go through that, where he admits that where he belongs is not part of that pure church. So going back here, it talks about God raising up Josiah, just like he's going to raise up the two witnesses at some time.

God is always in control. Some people think, oh, well, this is just going to go against God's will, and God can't do anything about it. No, he is in total control. He knows what he's doing, what he allows, and when he needs to intervene and why he needs to do so. Talking about Noah's Ark, I've been involved in the past 30 years researching this information about Noah's Ark, and I've been in contact with a group that's called the NAMI Group, which is Noah's Ark Ministries International.

They have their headquarters in Hong Kong, and in the past 14 years, they've been going up to Mount Ararat. Back in 2010, they actually discovered an object up there, and they filmed going in. They thought everybody would be so happy. What did the secular press do? They suppressed them. They criticized them. They said they had built this up here, sort of like a movie prop up 14,000 feet. If you've ever been up a mountain 14,000 feet, you can hardly breathe air there. How are you going to take all that wood up there and put it in such a way that everything fits, and you don't have nails?

Because this was what they call the late Stone Age period. This was before the Bronze Age. We're talking about thousands of years, and they built the ships with what they call putting in a pinion inside the wood, wetting it, and fitting it just like a Lego piece together. They uncovered an Egyptian ship, which is right next to the pyramids in Giza, where I went there.

That ship is like 2,500 years old, and it's built the same way without any nails. So anyways, I do believe one day God is going to open that discovery up for the world, and they will know that there was a witness, that there was an ark, and that that is going to appear again, as God reminding them that he is still actively intervening in world affairs.

Right now, they've kind of run out of money. It's still something that has not been fully authenticated. They just filmed, but I've talked to three of those that went into the ark there. They said their lives have never been the same. They are going to say the truth, no matter what their persecution is, and it changed their lives. So going back here to how God raised up King Josiah. Just to remember, God is in charge. And the first lesson about King Josiah's life is that our decisions determine our faith.

No one else is ultimately responsible. So here we see this young man. He didn't know everything that was destined to happen. But it says here in 2 Chronicles 34, verse 3 and 4, it says, And for in the eighth year of his reign, remember, he was only eight years old. Our oldest grandson is eight years old. Can you imagine having him crowned at that age? And yet, he had counselors around him. They took care of the business of running the country until he was older. And when he was 16, this is what it says, for in the eighth year of his reign, when he was 16 years old, he wasn't out there partying and having a good time, a 16-year-old. What was he doing? He was turning to God. While he was still young, he began to see God of his father David, the God of his father David. He started wanting to follow David's example. So, and then, this is when he was 20 years old. In the twelfth year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, these false pagan altars, the wooden images, all the idols that were in the land, the carved images and the molded images. That took a lot of courage to do that. Remember, there's a 300-year gap between the time that the prophet told Jeroboam in 640, I mean, in 940, and basically Josiah lived 300 years later. That's longer than the United States. That would have been like from George Washington's day, that somebody would have prophesied that somebody was going to become a president one day and would remove all the high places in Israel. And so at 20, he took concrete actions. Still a very young man. So it took him about four years to study and to commit before he started taking physical action. I remember what happened to me, just it's nothing comparable, but we all go through stages that remind you. I remember as a Catholic boy in Murphy, North Carolina, I came across through the Odell family that started attending here from Murphy. And Sammy and I were high school students. We played chess in his house. That's the way I became familiar with the church literature. And so I remember reading that booklet, The Ten Commandments, and coming across the second commandment, which was, you shall not have idols and you shall not have any images representing God. And here I was looking at my wall, and one of the things my mother brought from Cuba was this beautiful silver cross that was brought from my school at that time. It was made out of pure silver. She always had it there, kind of like protection.

And I looked at that and I said, and here the second commandment tells me you shall not have anything that is made in God's image. And here's one that supposedly is Jesus Christ's image. So I went, took it, opened the window, and threw it in the woods.

That was it! That was my carved idol! I got rid of it! And that was something that I wasn't just going to listen and read. I was going to act on what I believed in. And so my life started changing because I started applying. I was breaking just about all the commandments of God. I was breaking the Sabbath. I was breaking my money. I knew that I wasn't tithing. And so in two weeks I was starting to keep the Sabbath day. It was very fast. And I always sort of look back and say, if I hadn't had that experience in Cuba, if I'd have just grown up, a kid that just used to his good life. But my trauma was like leaving Egypt with the clothes on your back. And I was walking a spiritual desert, and I knew that there was a promised land. I didn't want to miss out on that. And so that happened. And again, when you have the truth, you have to be willing to apply it. Truth requires accountability, responsibility. You can't just sit there and say, oh, it's nice. One day I'll do this. I think I'll do that sometime.

And so Josiah was a great example of a young person that can choose to follow God while still young. Some youths can be a Josiah today. They can step out of the ordinary and say, I'm going to put God first in my life. That was the best decision I ever made. I would have made all kinds of horrible decisions if I would have just go with the flow of society. And that was such a blessing. The second lesson we can learn is that our conversion always depends on how deeply and seriously we take God's ways and laws. So it's just not a matter of converting, which means changing to this new way of life. But it is deepening it, strengthening it, working on that foundation, not leaving it as it is. The key condition is our heart. It's in the Bible, it's called the seed of our emotions and attitudes. Is our heart fully with God, or is it half committed? Notice in 2 Chronicles 34, 2 Chronicles chapter 34 verse 5, Josiah was not a politically correct ruler. He went against all the norms. Verse 5, it says, He also burned the bones of the priests on their altars and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. Remember how the prophet had said one day this altar, he's going to take the bones and he's going to burn them, which is the way that you make the thing impure. He made it to be in a cursed place by burning the bones of those places, that it is filthy. One day it's going to happen when Christ comes back. All of those temples and places, they're going to be toppled. They're going to be leveled. They've been a competition to God's true way of life, and it's been allowed. All the high places. Continuing on, it says, and so he did in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, as far as Naftali, and all around with axis. They went there, tore things down, because they were disobedience to God. This was a way of going, and he just said, we're not going to tolerate this anymore.

And when he had broken down the altars and the wooden images, had beaten the carved images into powder, so they could never be used again, and cut down all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem. Well, there's a lot of unemployment that he created. All of the press would have said, oh, look at all of these priests have been put out of work, and all of these altars with all the relics, all the people that were making idols, they ran, they don't have jobs anymore. Well, the thing is, they were going to be created new jobs with the right way of worship.

But first, you've got to clean out what's wrong, and he did so. And when you follow God, good and unexpected things start to happen. That's the blessing of it. You start walking by faith and obedience. You don't know exactly what's going to happen, but God starts guiding your life as long as you trust Him. I remember reading Psalms 26, where it says, if your father and mother forsake you, God will be your father. And so I had to say, well, God, my parents, they don't back me.

They don't even want me where I'm living at that time. When I started keeping the Sabbath, we were pretty hardcore. I must say, maybe a little too much so. But we would come to Chattanooga three times a week, and we'd take that hour and a half drive. Sammy would have the car. I didn't have a car at that time. And so we would come for the Bible study on Wednesdays.

I mean, no, sorry, it was the Spokesman's Club on Wednesday, then Friday Night Bible study, and then the Sabbath. And so my parents, they said, what is he doing? What's going on and everything? And of course, I didn't have the wisdom to not try to convert them. I tried to convert them, and I just pushed them farther from me. And so I got to the point where my dad one day, he told me, I think it was on Friday, he said, if you leave to go to that place on Saturday, don't come back to the house.

I hadn't even finished high school. And so again, that was a test for me. Am I going to put God first, or am I going to put my parents first? Well, I decided I'm going to put God first. And so I called the minister at that time. It was Bill Swanson and said, Mr. Swanson, looks like I'm moving to Chattanooga. I'm going to have to finish high school. You're going to have to find a place for me to live.

He kind of panicked. He said, I didn't like that type of a job. And I said, well, he's not going to allow me to keep the Sabbath anymore, my parents. So I'm moving to Chattanooga, and you're going to have to find a place for me. And so I went back to the house, and I started packing my stuff. And my parents thought that I would never do that.

And so I called their bluff. And so then they came back and they said, well, we'll let you stay. And so I said, boy, that was a close one. But they never bothered me again, because they knew. They did not control me. And thankfully, I was accepted to Ambassador College the following year. And then I never came back to live in this area again. It was all just very fast and graduated and was asked to be part of the ministry and started working in the Spanish area.

But again, do you think I regret? I do regret not being more diplomatic, because I realized my parents, they were doing a natural thing. But I do not regret facing those trials, because later on you're going to face them again. That's why when they told me back in 1994, early part of 95, they said, well, you've got to preach that now the Sabbath is not required anymore. And I said, I've already given up all these things for the Sabbath.

You think I'm going to give it up for a man telling me this? Of course not. I'm going to follow God. He's the one that's getting into trouble. I don't want to get into trouble. And so I just wrote a letter and I said, you know, I learned at 17 that the Pope was not God, and he was not my authority. The Bible's my authority. And now I am telling you that the Bible continues to be the authority, and here I am.

If you want to fire me, fine, but I'm not quitting, and you're going to have to fire me, because I'm not doing anything. You're the one that's doing the wrong thing. And I tell you, I thought 90% of the ministry would stand up to these faults, and I was really disappointed how the minority were the ones that stood firm. And then as you grow older, you learn. Christ has the right to test the bride any time He wants, and any way He wants, because it's like a husband. He wants to know if the bride is going to be faithful or not.

And sometimes if you're the only guy in an island, you don't know exactly if she would have married you. So you're going to need to have a couple of other competition that she chooses you because she really wants you. So God allows competition. You want to be in some place else? Fine. That's not the bride I want. I want a bride that's committed to me in the good days, good times and the bad times, in health or in illness.

You know, this is a lifelong commitment. And so again, I'm just explaining a bit how God prepares you through life. If you don't have enough trials, it can be easy to give it up. If you've gone through a lot, you've paid with blood, sweat and tears, you're not going to give it up because some man gets up and all of a sudden changes his mind on things. So remember, our conversion always depends on how deeply and seriously we take God's ways and laws. Notice in 2 Chronicles 34 verse 8, it says, in the 18th year of his reign, now he was 26, see things, good things started happening.

When he had purred to the land and the temple, they still had Solomon's temple, but that had become a pagan shrine. He sent Shaphan, the son of Azalea, and I'm not...Mazea, the governor of the city, and Joah, the son of Joahath, the recorder to repair the house of the Lord his God had been fallen into this repair. When they came to Healkiah, the high priest, they delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites who kept the doors had gathered from the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, from all the remnant of Israel, from all Judah and Benjamin, in which they had brought back to Jerusalem.

And believe me, that principle that Christ says, wherever your treasure is, that's where your heart is. And so as people turned back to God, then they started tithing, they started giving offerings, and then this temple and the ministry could be repaired.

Let's... He repaired the temple in verse 14. It says, Now when they brought out the money that was brought into the house of the Lord, Healkiah, the priest, found the book of the law of the Lord given by Moses. Then Healkiah answered and said to Shaphan, describe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.

And Healkiah gave the book to Shaphan. This is generally understood to be the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. And God had instructed that next to the ark there was a place where the original copy of the five books was placed.

And from there, the scribes, the Levites were supposed to have copies, but you had the master copy there. And what had happened? Through 300 years, there was a lot of just following from what ancestors had done, from the memory, there were a lot of maybe some remnants left of the Bible at that time. But when Healkiah found the master copy, they had the entire five books. Again, good things happen when you start obeying God. God starts intervening. Why wasn't this found 50 years later or earlier rather? Well, nobody was looking for it. Nobody was obeying God in this way. And notice what it says here, verse 19, and then does it happen? When the king heard the words of the law, he tore his clothes. And then the king commanded Healkiah, and the rest it mentions here, Go inquire of the Lord for me and for those who are left in Israel and Judah concerning the words of the book that is found. For great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured out on us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord, to do according to all that is written in the book. The curses were about ready to fall. The invasion, captivity, all of that was about ready to happen.

So they went to the prophetess Hulda, and then she said in verse 23, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Tell the man who sent you, which was the king. Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will bring calamity on this place in its inhabitants, all the curses that are written in the book which they have read before the king of Judah, because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands. Therefore my wrath will be poured out on this place and not be quenched. But as for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire the Lord, in this manner you shall speak to him. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, concerning the words which you have heard, because your heart was tender.

Remember how important the attitude is?

You did not turn against God, and it's so important to have a tender heart. When you make a mistake, you repent and you turn back to God. The worst thing is to harden, to get used to breaking God's law. It becomes like a callous. You no longer feel. But as long as your heart and conscience is tender, you can go back. Just like it says, because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard his words against this place and against its inhabitants, and you humbled yourself before me, and you tore your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, says the Lord. Surely I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace. And your eyes shall not see all the calamity which I bring on this place and its inhabitants. So Josiah spared his generation of going through all of this calamity that happened following his generation. From Josiah, he was the last of the good kings. Everything went downhill afterwards. His son, others were assassinated. The Egyptians came and captured a group of them. And then finally the Babylonians came and destroyed the temple. But he was spared that. And so we are talking about a question of heart. Do we have a heart that is tender before God, that we are going to obey him? Nobody does it perfectly. But if your heart is turned to him, you say, I'm going to do this. It's a lifetime commitment. Then if you mess up, you always go back. And God says you've turned. You're not going to receive the punishments that you could have if you had not done so. And this takes us to the third great lesson of King Josiah, to remember our commitment to follow all of God's reminders. Because God places during the year reminders, which are Sabbath days and feast days, to have that commitment not being half-hearted or lukewarm about it. So as King Josiah removed all the idols, the fear of God rose up. It got better, and then people started keeping the Sabbaths and the feast days like they had not done in the past. Many years had gone by without keeping it. Notice in 2 Kings chapter 23, 2 Kings chapter 23 verse 1. I'm not going to be able to read the entire chapter, but I urge you to do so when you have enough time. It says, Now the king sent them to gather all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to him. The king went up to the house of the Lord with all the men of Judah and with him all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets and all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant which had been found in the house of the Lord. Then the king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the Lord to follow the Lord and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people took a stand for the covenant. See, people will follow according to the leadership. That is sometimes a blessing. That can be a curse. Because we've gone through the ups and downs because not all the leaders were faithful. When I came to the church, I was enamored. When I heard the first sermonette, and I remember it was Carl Franklin giving a sermonette about what was happening in 1970 with the atomic explosions in the atmosphere and how they were experimenting to be able to knock out the electric systems through that. And how dangerous that was, and how that was a prophecy of why God is going to have to intervene. Well, later on they had to do a treaty to ban all of these tests with atomic bombs in the atmosphere because it was so dangerous.

And even today, just with two or three hydrogen bombs in the atmosphere, it would burn up all the electronics. No iPads, no computers because of that electromagnetic pulse. Well, I heard that back in 1970. And I'm thinking, I went to church since I was a little kid in the Catholic Church. I never heard something about what's happening today. That got my attention, that the Bible is a time machine. You can go back and see what the history to the present and to the future. And it was telling us about what was going to happen at that time.

And so the people took a stand. They said, yes, we want to follow King Josiah. The problem is, after King Josiah died, hardly anybody continued and took the baton forward. And the whole thing just petered out with the death of Josiah. So people are whimsical. They'll follow the leaders just like we see today. We're just celebrating what? Not, it's a terrible one, but it was only a little over a year ago that the Supreme Court allowed for gay marriage and things. And look at today, a year later, now we're talking about transgender bathrooms.

And there was this caricature where this person was standing and there were eight different bathrooms, you know, for bisexuals, for gays, for trans... And he was saying, well, where's my bathroom? I'm a gay transgender. I don't have a bathroom here. And there were eight of them. Is this the nuts? How are we going nuts with this? Notice that you're going to give everybody who believes in some warped idea all the rights to it. And so we try to teach people, don't put leaders first. Put the Bible first. That is not going to change. And if I had to live on an island by myself, I still have the Bible truth. I'm not going to be out there changing and say, oh good, now I'm going to eat pigs and be able to break the Sabbath and do everything, because I'm on... No, I've got that way of life. I'll do it on an island. I'll do it wherever, in prison, if I have to.

Because it's something already internalized. I don't need a leader to tell me to do it. Christ is my leader. God the Father, they're up there. Nobody's knocked them out of the throne. And so leaders should always be secondary in importance. Yes, test them out. As long as they follow what the Bible says, follow them. But the moment they turn right or left, don't follow them. You're going to end up having the same condemnation as Jeroboam and his group of priests. So let's continue on. He says, verse three, then He removed the idolatrous priests from the kings of Judah, whom the kings of Judah had ordained, to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places all around Jerusalem, and those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and constellations of astronomy. Astrology was being practiced like they do today. Witchcraft. And he brought out the wooden image from the house of the Lord. They even had a wrong, they had an idol in God's temple. And people just allowed. Why? Well, because the leaders tell us to do this. And so people don't stand up for the biblical principles. And verse seven, then He tore down the ritual booths of the perverted persons that were in the house of the Lord. You know what these are? These were temple prostitutes that you paid to the temple to have sex with them. And these were men having sex with men, where the women wore hangings for the wooden image. They were involved as well. They had temple priestess. And He brought all the priests from the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense. So He went all out to clean up the horrible mess that Israel was in. Verse 19, Now Josiah also took away all the shrines of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord to anger. And He did to them according to all the deeds He had done in Bethel. He executed all the priests of the high places who were there on the altars and burned men's bones on them. That's the way He desecrated that land. And He returned to Jerusalem. Talk about a man that cleaned up. This is what's the greatest religious reformer that Israel had, that all the way back to David. We had a couple like Hezekiah, which was his great-grandfather. But even Hezekiah never touched the high places. He was the only one that did it. Verse 21, Then the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant. Such a Passover, surely, had never been held since the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.

Yes, they had kept it, but never wholeheartedly, fully. Why? Because when you clean yourself from false idols, when you remove all the falsities, then you can put in God's truths. But as long as you've got contaminated teachings, you can't fully purify your mind, your heart.

And they did so.

In verse 24, moreover, Deceit put away those who consulted mediums and spiritists. So he got rid of the witches and everybody that's out there. Again, this was Israel. This was God's people. This was God's country. And so he said, we're not going to have any competition here. It's just going to be God's way.

And verse 25 is a good tribute to him. He says, Now before him there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses. Nor after him did any arise like him. Young man, God gave him the courage, the strength to do what was right. And I tell you, everything prospered in Israel at that time. But again, it wasn't the people. It was the leader that led the people into this way.

Unfortunately, there is a downside to King Josiah.

And so the fourth lesson is watch out for pride. When things are going well, Josiah took matters in his own hand.

He forgot about God. He thought, I can do it without God. I'll decide this. I can fix this.

And a person can drift from God when things are going very well. In 1 Corinthians 10 verse 12, we have this warning. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

That happened even to David with Bathsheba, with the senses. He had a couple of slip ups, but he always returned to God.

Even his great grandfather Hezekiah, talking about Josiah, his pride, he showed all the beauties of the temple and Jerusalem and how wonderful it is. He showed it to all these ambassadors to Babylon and he boasted and he showed them all the riches when he didn't have to.

And these ambassadors went back to Babylon and that's when they decided, hey, we've got to invade this place.

It's like going into your house and opening up your safe and say, look, look at all the millions of dollars I have here before a stranger. Well, you're asking for trouble. And sure enough, they later came because they saw all the secrets.

I once had a message years ago about the warning, living in Latin America, how naive the Americans are that they show all the military bases. They give potential enemies, technology, and they bring in Chinese generals and they show them everything's here and there's nothing secret anymore.

And we have committed Hezekiah's sin. A lot of countries lust after what the United States has. And one day they're going to take it.

So in 2 Chronicles chapter 35 is Josiah's sin.

You'd think such a great leader, so great in God's way of life. And yet he was human. He let pride get the best of him and it cost him his life.

2 Chronicles 35 verse 19.

It says, in the 18th year of the reign of Josiah, this Passover was kept. And after all this, things are going well.

Sometimes even in churches, if things go too well, we commit Josiah's sin. Start thinking how great we are, how all things are, and pride sets in.

And God decides to humble the church.

It says, after all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, everything was going well.

Niko, king of Egypt, came up to fight against Karchemish by the Euphrates, and Josiah went out against him.

But he sent messengers, talking about the king here of Egypt, he sent messengers to him saying, what have I to do with you, king of Judah?

I have not come against you this day, but against the house with which I have war.

For God commanded me to make haste, refrain from meddling with God, who is with me, lest he destroy you.

God uses sometimes even secular leaders for his own purposes. And this was something that God had, just like he used King Nebuchadnezzar to do his will, King Cyrus to do his will.

He told this king, the Pharaoh, to go up to this area because there was an event that was going to happen that was fighting against the Assyrians, and God intervened. And so Josiah did not heed. He did not consult with the priests. He should have consulted with God.

If you would have remembered that, before such a momentous decision to bring a whole army of Israel against this, you should consult with God. He did not. In his pride, he made the decision on his own.

Even with the warning that God was using this messenger to tell him, look, stay out of this.

Verse 22, Nevertheless, Josiah would not turn his face from him.

So he was stubborn. He had pride, but disguised himself so that he might fight with him, and did not heed the words of Niko from the mouth of God.

So he came to fight in the valley of Megiddo, and the archers shot King Josiah, and the king said to his servants, Take me away, for I am severely wounded.

His servants therefore took him out of the chariot, and put him in the second chariot that he had, and he brought him to Jerusalem. So he died, and was buried in one of the tombs of his father, and all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.

The prophet Jeremiah lived at that time, also lamented for Josiah.

And to this day all the singing men and the singing women speak of Josiah in their lamentations.

They made it accustomed in Israel, and indeed they are written in the laments.

Now the rest of the Acts of Josiah and his goodness, according to what was written in the law of the Lord, and his deeds from first to last, indeed they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah.

And so we have the example that you better be careful in your way of life.

Sometimes things are going well, and a person drifts from God.

Oh, I've got enough money. I've got enough situation here. I don't have to be close to God.

I can figure things out on my own. I don't need to consult, seek advice.

That was Josiah's sin.

That was a foolish decision, and many times it happens toward the end of a person's life.

You don't consult with God. You take things for granted.

And God is not a respecter of persons. Even with King Josiah, he allowed that to happen to him. And so God doesn't bend the rules. Even with a man that was so faithful, he said, you're going to pay the punishment because of your pride and stubbornness in not consulting with me, just as he did not allow Moses to enter the Promised Land. Was Moses faithful? Yes, he was. But he paid a price for not giving God the glory when he struck the rock.

He didn't attribute the miracle to God. He said, must we bring the water from the rock and did not give God the glory?

So you can take things for granted. Things are going well. Sometimes in the ministry. Oh, look, I can preach. I can do all this. And you start feeling your oats and thinking that it's you that's doing that.

Forget we're nothing. We have to pray every day to be humble before God and man, because it's a very high fall when you fall from grace before God because of our stubbornness. The final lesson is we need to stay close to God, to consult with Him in the major decisions, especially the latter part of a person's life, where you can just coast along and drift from God.

Paul's warning in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 24, tells us we can at the end forsake God because we got comfortable.

Oh, yeah, we all know it all. Oh, yeah, I know the Bible. Oh, yeah, I've been keeping the Sabbath and feast for such a long time.

I don't need to stay close to God. I've already put in my hours. I've already developed a relationship. I don't have to keep that going. And so you can become lukewarm. 1 Corinthians 9, verse 24, it says, Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? We have to feel that way. Nothing is taken for granted. We have not received our salvation yet. We have to cross the finish line. There are runners right now. The Olympics is starting. And what happens if they fall after running the marathon, which is like, what, 25 miles, 40 kilometers? What happens if they fall 10 yards from the finish line? Do they get a medal? I mean, they might have been the first one. They might have done a wonderful job. But if you fall 10 yards short of the goal, you don't get anything. And people can do that. We cannot take it for granted. So he says, do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. Every day is a race, a spiritual race toward God's kingdom. And we can forsake God's way any time with some temptation that comes along. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. We have to maintain self-discipline. We have to control our own desires. Now, they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Some of these athletes trained for four straight years. I remember reading about this Swedish lady diver, and she would jump off a platform a hundred times a day, and seven days a week, for four years. Of course she won the gold. You try to crash into the water a hundred times. How many hours? But she became so proficient, she won the gold. Now, how many of us do that with prayer? And we really push and get close to God. We're not going to jump a hundred times into water. Sometimes we're not even able to make the equivalent of climb one time to the tower. Maybe I'll just give this prayer to God before I finish today. And he says, therefore I run thus, not with uncertainty, thus I fight not as one who beats the air. It's nice to be a fighter when you're shadow boxing, right? You can do all of them. The shadow is not going to hit you, and the kisser, but it's when you're fighting the person in front, you find out what you're made of. So he says, I'm not just fighting the air, not as one who beats the air, but I just discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. He knew he could end up 10 yards from the finish line. The Apostle Paul could have failed at the end. That's why he never took it for granted. And we must not take our salvation for granted. In Ecclesiastes chapter 10, we don't have much left here. Bear with me. I notice people never mind you finishing early. They do mind you finishing late.

Ecclesiastes chapter 10 verse 1, dead flies putrefy the performer's ointment and cause it to give off a foul odor. So does a little folly to one respected for wisdom and honor. That's where we get to say the fly in the ointment. It ruins the perfume because you have a chemical reaction with the dead fly. It doesn't smell good anymore. And so it's the same way, a way of life. And then you blow it in such a way that it ruins all the history and background you had. Well, this happened in a way to King Josiah. He put the fly in the ointment at the very end. If he would have just heated God, turned his armies around, how many more wonderful years?

That was a critical moment in Israel's history and Judah's history because he was a king of Judah. But after that, they never had somebody follow God the same way with the same zeal and dedication. And from then it was all downhill until the Babylonians came and ransacked the whole place, destroyed the temple.

Why? Because of the fly and the ointment.

And that's why we have to stay close to God. Never take it for granted. In Hebrews chapter 5 verses 12 through 6 verse 1, it says, I'm going to read it in the Amplified.

For even though by this time you ought to be teaching others, you actually need someone to teach you over again the first principles of God's Word. You have come to need milk, not solid food. For everyone who continues to feed on milk is obviously inexperienced and unskilled in the doctrine of righteousness, of conformity to the divine will and purpose, thought, and action. For He is a mere infant, but solid food is for full-grown men. For those whose senses and mental faculties are trained by practice to discriminate and distinguish between what is morally good and noble, and what is evil and contrary, either to divine or human law.

Therefore, let us go on and get past the elementary stage in the teachings and doctrines of Christ. Advancing steadily toward the completeness and perfection that belong to spiritual maturity, let us not again be laying the foundation of repentance and abandonment of dead works and of the faith by which you turn to God.

So we need to grow. We need to develop. Yes, some people looked at me today and said, Oh, I want to get this person that knew you before to see how much you've changed or not. Well, you know what? Sure, we all change outwardly, but I'm interested in how we have changed inwardly. Have we spiritually grown in maturity? Are we able to discern or are we still falling in the same old faults? Are we still falling in the same old traps? Or are we one? That yes, we fought our battles and we are hardened veterans of the faith. Now, nobody's going to come and pull the wool over our eyes very easily and by staying close to God. So let's go over those five lessons again before we finish. Number one, the lessons of the life of King Josiah. Our decisions determine our fate. No one else is ultimately responsible. At 17, I had a chance to just follow the course of the world, to just go into medicine and become a physician and maybe have a good life and be one of these nice houses out here and living with a nice family and being part of the world. But I chose that least-threaded path, that path which is to follow God in faith. Let Him fight your battles. Let Him guide you. Number two, our conversion always depends on how deeply and seriously we take God's ways and laws. This is something we just do on the Sabbath and then we proceed to violate all these principles. The rest of the week, that's not going to cut it. Number three, remember our commitment to follow all of God's reminders. The Sabbath and the feast days. To do it with our heart. The feasts are coming up. Are we getting excited? Is this going to be a spiritual injection that we're going to have to strengthen us and to keep us, each one of those, our spiritual oasis in the desert of time, of the desert of this society? We've got these little oasis, each Sabbath, to drink of God's Word, to imbibe the spiritual food so that we can be strengthened the rest of the week. Number four, watch out for pride and stubbornness when things go well and take matters into our own hands and we drift from God and we put the fly in the ointment. Things don't smell good before God anymore. Finally, number five, let's stay close to God. Consult with Him, especially in the latter part of a person's life. Not take things for granted and not drift from God. So let's remember, brethren, these lessons of King Josiah. God wants us to learn them during our whole lives, to put them into practice and to be blessed and enter God's wonderful kingdom, which was what I looked at the first time I came to Chattanooga as 17. God's kingdom, that was going to be my goal. I'm still walking towards it. I don't know if I'm going to make it, but that is my ultimate goal. Been wonderful being with all of you.