LOST
2 Kings 22:1-20; key verse: 13
INTRO
Pastor Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty writes of his daughter, adopted when only three days old. The apple of his eye, Abby, compromised her faith and morality, making choices that expelled her from College and for two years was searching for her identity, struggling why her birth mother didn’t want her. Her adopted parents continued to pray, to call, email and write but never receiving any responses from Abby. But they persisted, determined never to give up on her. One day they received an email from Abby who said she had returned to God. She wrote, “I know now that God may not have had me born of this family, but I am convinced that He has had me born into this family. I am coming home!”
A metaphor for our text – God’s people are sometimes like a lost child, seeking identity and purpose while looking in all the wrong places and turning to all the wrong people.
This period of history was full of mysterious events as well as the usual hard-life stuff:
• Prophet Elijah, chariot of fire (2 Ki2), miracles (2Ki 2, 4, 5, 6), woman’s dead son brought to life (2Ki 4)
• Political unrest … civil conflicts (2Ki 3, 18), murder of kings and ousted governments (2Ki 8)
• Social problems – famine (2Ki 4), slavery (2Ki 5), exile (2Ki 17), prostitution, poverty
• Spiritual prostitution – temple run down and “church worship” neglected (2Ki)
o 13 times (10 kings) the phrase “did evil in the sight of the LORD” from 2Ki chapter 1 to chapter 21 (2Ki 3, 8, 132, 14, 154, 16, 17, 212) and 5 times (5 kings) the phrase “did what was right in the eyes of the LORD” (2Ki 12, 14, 152, 18)
• Attempts of spiritual awakening and restoration (2Ki 10, 12); continued cycle of social/spiritual restoration and relapse; good to evil; tearing down sin’s strongholds only to slip into addiction again and again.
The people were LOST in their journey of trying to figure life out.
We enter the story in chapter 22 when King Josiah took the throne (8 years old!) Josiah followed Yahweh. His leadership included repairing the run-down temple (2Ki 22:1-7) because of Manasseh’s poor reign before him. One never knows what you’ll find when you start renovating a building. The same was true here. In the process of renovating we come to
Bible reading – start with 2Ki 22 1-10 … focus VERSES 8-10…
First mention of The Lost Book Josiah found. Believed to be parts of the book of Deuteronomy:
- 5th of Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible…)
- God’s people finally stopped wandering for 40 years in the wilderness on route from Egypt where they were slaves for 400 hundreds.
- When they finally settled in their new land Deuteronomy provided instructions about their faith, the meaning of their covenant relationship with God; God’s will for the nation; temptations they would face; it included instruction about how to live in security by following God’s plan. It’s the driver’s manual to stay safe on the highways and avoid penalties and prison for misbehaviour behind the wheel that could lead to deadly results.
Through The Lost Book Josiah noticed huge gaps in the practices of the nation and the instructions of God – VERSE 11…
• Showed signs of remorse, of grief, of deep pain with this new light. Josiah took responsibility rather than passing the buck or pushing the blame somewhere else.
VERSES 12-13…
The neglect of previous generations in the obedience and instruction of God’s law, Word, may be the reason for the hardships, evil and sin that generations faced before and up to Josiah’s time and he saw that.
Josiah shows signs of confession.
Confession is admission of something; it is an act of disclosure. Illustration: Story in the Ladies’ Home Journal as once quoted in The Reader’s Digest: Being general director of the New York opera took a toll on Beverly Sills; she ballooned into obesity. “It made me sick to look at myself. I’d reached the point where I didn’t want to have my clothes made anymore. It was too embarrassing. So I ordered everything from catalogues.”
Eventually Sills was forced to face the problem. “I woke up one day and realized I was really ill.” She went to see a specialist. “He put me on the scales. They read 215 pounds.
‘I cannot possibly weigh that much!’ I gasped.
And the doctor said, ‘Please look down. Are those two fat feet on the scale yours or mine?’”
Beverly smiled and said, “Once I faced the truth, I was on my way.”
• Josiah facing the truth…
VERSES 14-17…
George E. Mendenhall, associate professor of religious studies at Harwick in New York, defines repentance as “a reorientation of a value system and a redirection of choices and actions consistent with those values.”
King Josiah begins that process as outlined in 2 Kings 23. Though the king and people moved toward repentance (turning things around) and making matters right with God, they still lived with the consequences of their choices. Like Beverly Sills, the general director of the New York opera house, she faced her weight issue but still lived with the consequences of obesity on the road to recovery.
VERSES 18-20…
Personal message to the king who, upon learning of the transgression, and acted to turn things around. There is a realization that there are National consequences in process but personally the King’s heart and response gets God’s favour.
LIFE LESSONS
1. GOD IS ALWAYS PRESENT
Even though there were significant struggles, wars, famine, etc., God was still working in the midst of the people’s rejection, spiritual blindness and self-obsessed living. God did not condone their living but in their sinful, broken, barren situations, he still called them to a higher and more meaningful life.
Quote: “Apparently a case could be put up for the Deuteronomic theory of life. In spite of the Exile and all its attendant woes, everything still was going to work out correctly according to the Deuteronomic pattern.” Meaning, cause and effect I talked about a couple of weeks back. For every action there’s an outcome; for every choice a result. And even though the results are often pretty bad, no matter what’s going on, God is faithful in shaping everything to conform to his purposes!
2. REFORM IS A MATTER OF THE HEART
Quote: “Restoring the temple was an act of attempting to restore the religion that goes with it.” After Josiah’s reforms, when new kings replaced him some time later, the nation slipped into idolatry and the old ways. The lesson: “Reform only by suppression (force) never ends paganism of any kind…the old practices would spring to life again…Josiah’s reforms dealt with externals only. They did not reach the inward spirit…The people might perform acts of worship as prescribed, yet go their way as before…True reform, in a word, is the reformation of inward motives, impulses, desires.”
Chapter 23 – Josiah’s passion for removing pagan worship and practices led to the words of the author of Kings in 23:25, “Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the LORD as he did – with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.” (Citing Deuteronomy 6:5, the very book that started the reform)
We learn through the prophetess’ response in the text that God’s blessing on Israel, on his people, is only contingent on our submission to God’s will, a willing act, not a forced expectation.
3. SOMETIMES OUR EFFORTS TO FOLLOW GOD LEAD TO MISTAKES
Promise to Josiah – “buried in peace” (22:20) yet 23:29 Josiah was killed in battle. Mendenhall helps us understand that Josiah’s death was premature. Josiah was not the only king working toward expanding his empire. Pharaoh Neco of Egypt had an alliance with the king of Assyria to start a war with the Babylonians. Josiah saw him as a threat. He got involved when he shouldn’t have and, attacking Egypt was killed in battle.
Josiah was passionate about following God. He didn’t get it right all the time though. Cases in point: (1) his death, which was a biggie! (2) The priests of the North were executed for their pagan practices but the priests of Jerusalem were re-instituted in the service of the temple, of Yahweh (God). But people observed his life and intentions as making him a godly person.
CONCLUSION
We are given hope. Sometimes feels like God is nowhere near us. Even then God is never far from us!
He especially shows up when our motivation is to follow Him. Even when our efforts are not always aligned with his intentions and we make mistakes and sometimes make a mess of things, he knows the heart and that makes all the difference to His response. And God takes the worse of our mistakes and fumbling and turns things around to advance His Kingdom and bless our lives.
When the day is done, God works everything so that it conforms to His cosmic purposes and design for life.
