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Hello my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
I begin today with a simple but very important question: ‘What role does the Bible have in your daily life?’
Does that seem like an ‘out of touch with reality’ question? I’m dedicating a sizeable portion of each of my days to help you understand the Bible, God’s Word, because it makes all the difference in my life, and I believe history verifies this vital life principle: “Blessed is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the midst of sinners or sit with mockers. But their DELIGHT is in the Word of the LORD and on God’s Word they meditate day and night. That person will be like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither…” (Psalm 1:1-3) That my friends, is my hope for you and me and that’s why I prepare the “Walking with Jesus” everyday.
So what role has God’s Word had in your life in this tumultuous year of 2020? These days we’re looking at the life of Josiah who was thrust into leadership of his nation at the age of 8, when his father was assassinated! Yesterday we saw how his hunger to know God shaped his young years. When Josiah was 26 yrs old something remarkable happened which changed his life and the course of history. It’s recorded for us in 2 Kings 22:3-20 and 2 Chronicles 34:8-28.
A discovery was made in the Temple as they were cleaning it and repairing it from the many years of disrepair under the reigns of Amon and Manasseh. The workers brought forward a scroll which they had found somewhere in the rubble of a back room of the Temple. It was likely one of the Scrolls of Moses, perhaps what we know today as the book of Deuteronomy. It was brought and read to king Josiah. Listen to what happened next:
“When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his royal robes…and gave these orders to his officials: ‘Go and inquire of the LORD for me and for the people about what is written in this book. Great is the LORD’s anger that burns against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book…” (2 Kings 22:11-13) It’s possible they were reading from Deuteronomy chapter 28 in which God was very graphic and clear about what would happen if His people abandoned Him as their God and turned away from His Word.
Have you discovered how easy it is to allow the Bible to become insignificant in your life? Have you noticed that days can turn to weeks or months and suddenly you realize you haven’t opened God’s Word for a very long time? Have you taken the time to evaluate your life journey and understand the mysterious but direct relationship between the time you spend reading, memorizing and meditating on God’s Word, and the condition of your life? Do you remember God’s advice to Joshua as he took over the reigns of leadership from Moses? “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth: meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be successful.” (Joshua 1:6-8)
So how did it happen that God’s Scrolls were forgotten, buried in the rubble of the disregarded Temple? 80 years before this discovery, king Hezekiah who was Josiah’s great grandfather, had led a remarkable spiritual reformation and revival in Jerusalem including reopening the Temple of God and re-establishing worship there, as God had instructed. But time. . . Time passed. Hezekiah’s generation all grew old and died off. Isaiah the prophet had died and the leaders who followed Hezekiah turned away from God and replaced worship of Holy God with construction of idols all around Jerusalem. The Temple had fallen into disrepair over the decades. God’s Scrolls ended up in a back room covered with cobwebs.
Now before we criticize them, let’s consider our own history. What was life like in your heritage family back in the 1930’s and 40’s? What about the community or even nation where you live? How far have things drifted morally, spiritually in the past 80 years? In fact, let’s be honest, how far have things drifted in only 20 years?
This week my wife and I have been visiting our family who live in Africa. We have five grandchildren, all of whom think 1999 is ancient history! When I told them I was born in 1951 the look on their faces was priceless. When I told them my father, who they know as “Bumpa”, was born in 1927, one of them asked if there were dinosaurs on the earth then! Time changes everything doesn’t it…especially when time leads people AWAY from God and His Word!
King Josiah was shaken to the core as he heard God’s Word, and he wanted a thorough explanation. More than that, he wanted advice as to what he should do to lead the people in view of this newfound truth of God. Do you notice where the High Priest and other leaders went to gain a fresh word from God? Look at 2 Chronicles 34:22 “Hilkiah and those the king had sent with him when to speak with the prophetess Huldah…She lived in Jerusalem in the Second District.”
Please don’t miss the significance of this my friends. The prophet Isaiah had died perhaps 40 years before. In a few years the prophet Jeremiah would be raised up by God as His spokesman to His people, but in the interim here’s a woman essentially unknown to history, but evidently well known to the religious leaders of her day… Huldah the prophet. Even the Jewish High Priest and the king sought from her a much needed fresh word from God!
The anointing of the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifting from God for the accomplishment of His purposes in our world is not based on gender but on condition of the heart. Paul explains that in 1 Corinthians 12. God desires a passionate relationship with EVERY person… man or woman, young or old, educated or uneducated, regardless of ethnicity or family heritage or geography! At this strategic moment in history, as God’s eyes searched Jerusalem and the surrounding area, evidently He found Huldah to be the one person whose heart was just right with God, that God could speak His profound truth through her which changed history for Israel!
I urge you to read those next verses carefully which are God’s profound warning and promise that Huldah gave to Hilkiah the High Priest, and he in turn brought to the king. She began with these words: “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel says: Tell the man who sent you to me, This is what the LORD declares: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people – all the curses written in the book that has been found …because My people have forsaken Me…My anger will be poured out on this place and not be quenched...” (2 Chron. 34:23ff)
There’s a very important truth here my friends. God is timeless (Malachi 3:6) and He does not change, nor does His truth or His standards and expectations. Justice and judgment will be unleashed on every person of all time, according to God’s justice. (2 Corinthians 5:10; Hebrews 4:13) Of course a wonderful assurance is that the mercy and forgiveness of God are extended to the repentant person through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. But for all the unrepentant, justice and judgment are inescapable.
In view of that powerful truth, in closing today let’s look at the remarkable last word of hope which Huldah gave to those who had come seeking God’s Word for this moment in history: “Tell the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of the LORD, this is what the God of Israel says concerning the words read to you; Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before God…I have heard you. Now I will gather you to your fathers and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place and on those who live here. So they took her answer back to the king.” (2 Chron. 34:27,28)
So here’s the question for all of us, as God’s judgment approaches your country and mine: as God simultaneously looks at the combined sinfulness of the people of our nations, He also sees your individual life and mine. Is there a significant contrast? Does God see you and me as repentant and seeking to nurture our vital relationship with Jesus and live our lives as God honoring as we can, even if the leaders of our nations or communities turn their backs on God?
Do you see the clear warning which came from God to Josiah through Huldah? Judgement was coming on Jerusalem and the nation of Judah, God’s people, because generation after generation they had turned away from God. But in response to Josiah’s humble repentance, that judgment would be delayed for a generation or two! Now ponder that my friends!
Could it be God has stayed His hand of judgment in past generations because of the repentant, God pursuing lives of people who preceded you in your family, your church, your community? If God is now looking to be merciful and continue to delay His righteous justice, His judgment, will He find you and me and millions like us to be the ones in our generation which will ‘stay the hand of God’ for yet another generation?
Tomorrow, we’ll consider what Josiah did with this information. For today… I wonder what you will do with it as you read 2 Chronicles 34:14-28 and prayerfully ponder your attitudes toward God’s Word, your hunger for God’s Word and your vital role in your society as a man or woman of God. Perhaps some of you around the world are modern day Huldah’s, through whom God can speak His fresh Word for our days?
Oh God I lift up before you every person reading this or hearing my voice. Please stir in us a desperate hunger to BE a repentant people of God pursuing God honoring lives,,,
Click to read today’s chapter: 2 Chronicles 34:14-28. (At the top you can choose a different translation.)
NEW FEATURE: Click here to listen to a dramatized reading of 2 Chronicles 34.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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