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The focus of the first Passover was a lamb. A lamb slain with its blood applied to the lintel and two doorposts of the home. A lamb’s blood that marked out the redeemed, saving them from the destroyer, and delivering them unto life. (Exodus 12:21-27)

But now, the celebration of redemption by the blood of a lamb had been abandoned. The Passover was not kept. The worship of the Redeemer had ceased. (2 Kings 23:21-23)

The focus of the church is the Lamb. The Lamb slain with his blood applied to the lintels and doorposts of our hearts. The Lamb’s blood that marks us out as the redeemed, saving us from the destroyer, and delivering us unto eternal life.

How can we not celebrate such redemption?

Join us Sunday at First Magnolia as I preach from 2 Kings 23:21-27 and 2 Chronicles 35:1-19 on Celebrating the Gospel.

In spite of all of King Josiah’s righteous reforms, the prophecy of Huldah will hold true (2 Kings 22:14-20). As promised, judgment will befall the nation of Judah even as it did Israel (2 Kings 23:26-27).

So, why bother with all the reforms? Why get all worked up about idolatry? Why be so committed to obeying the Word of God? If the prophet has spoken, why not just go along with the culture and enjoy the ride while you can?

I sense that tension. While a prophet has not spoken, our culture feels like it is doomed. I pray that it may yet be revived, but the speed of the immoral revolution is astounding. So why not just go along with the culture and enjoy the ride while we can?

Because God is worth serving in any and all circumstances. He will still be who he is when American culture is no more. He is worthy because he alone is God.

Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god. Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me, since I appointed an ancient people. Let them declare what is to come, and what will happen. Fear not, nor be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.” (Isaiah 44:6-8)

Because God’s Word accomplishes God’s purposes in any and all circumstances.

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10-11)

Because God is merciful to those who repent.

“But to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the LORD, thus shall you say to him, Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Regarding the words that you have heard, because your heart was penitent, and you humbled yourself before the LORD, when you heard how I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and you have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, declares the Lord. Therefore, behold, 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 disaster that I will bring upon this place.’” And they brought back word to the king. (2 Kings 22:18-20)

So, repent and live for the God who is and will ever be.

Moreover, Josiah put away the mediums and the necromancers and the household gods and the idols and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might establish the words of the law that were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD. (2 Kings 23:24)

That’s why King Josiah was so doggedly determined to purge Judah of its idolatry – “that he might establish the words of the law.”

You can’t follow the counsel of God while listening to the counsel of mediums. You can’t hear the voice of the living God while conjuring up voices from the dead. Your family can’t serve the God of heaven while trying to appease the household gods. You can’t adore Jehovah God while staring at idols.

You can’t follow God’s Word while pursuing the way of the culture. Period.

And yet we try. Yes, we – you and way too often me too.

So, what do we do? We develop a rhythm of repentance.

Every day we open the Bible and listen to God’s Word. Every day we let God’s Word search our hearts and root out any idolatry. Every day we talk to God about everything, including the struggle we feel with our idols and the sins we too often commit. And every day we rise up by God’s grace in his forgiveness to establish his Word in our lives.

Jared Wilson calls it “The Rhythm of Spilling Your Guts”.¹ Spill ‘em. Today and every day.

¹The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can’t Get Their Act Together by Jared C. Wilson

The Passover celebrated the miraculous deliverance of King Josiah’s ancestors from Egyptian bondage by the power of God. Josiah’s ancestors had received this commandment when God brought them out of Egypt:

This is a day to remember. Each year, from generation to generation, you must celebrate it as a special festival to the LORD. This is a law for all time. (Exodus 12:14)

Yet, it had been three generations since the Passover was kept at all. And it had been many generations since the Passover had been fully kept according to God’s Law.

For no such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, or during all the days of the kings of Israel or of the kings of Judah. But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah this Passover was kept to the LORD in Jerusalem. (2 Kings 23:22-23)

The Passover had gone the way of the Book of the Law, forgotten and abandoned, replaced with altars for false gods, incense burned to false gods, and idols forged, hewn, and carved of false gods.

Our hearts are not worshipfully neutral. Wandering from God and his Word, we will inevitably wonder at the gods of the culture.

Oh, to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be
Let that goodness like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart, oh, take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above

(Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing; Robert Robinson)

It’s Monday. What are you doing today about yesterday? You know, Sunday.

You were in church. You heard God’s Word sung, prayed, read, and preached. So, what are you doing today about the Word you heard sung, prayed, read, and preached yesterday?

King Josiah, personally convicted after hearing God’s Word, called his people together and read it to them. Then, together with the people, he covenanted to obey God’s Word. Then, he continued the destruction of all the idols and altars erected for all the false gods. Then, he and the people served the Lord their God. (2 Chronicles 34:29-33)

So, again, what are you doing today about yesterday? How has hearing the Word of God brought about repentance in your heart and changed the way you live on Monday?

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. (James 1:22)

“I’m sorry! I’ll never do it again!” That’s the common response to getting caught with the hand in the cookie jar. At least that was my response.

It’s a promise I made time and time again. But for some reason, my parents never seemed to believe me. Probably because I had to keep pleading it time and time again. Being sorry for getting caught didn’t stop me from trying again.

Repentance is not being sorry because one got caught. Repentance is sorrow at the realization of one’s sins against the law of God and against the God of the law. It is a return to the word and way of God. It is a purging of idolatry from one’s life.

Our sermon for Sunday at First Magnolia comes from 2 Kings 22:3-23:20 and 2 Chronicles 34:3-33. Read it with particular attention to the effect of God’s Word toward repentance. Search your own heart before God this weekend. Be ready to hear the Word of God afresh this Sunday.

We need revival.

I’ve heard that statement all my life. I’ve said it on more than one occasion. You may have, too.

But what do we mean? What do we want? What is our idea of revival?

I fear that for far too many of us, our longing for revival is a longing for a time and place we remember, or think we remember, from yesteryear. An idyllic time when people were good, moral, decent. When all was right with the world and everyone went to church and loved their neighbor. You know, the good old days.

But that’s not so much revival as it is moral reformation. And that only if those good old days actually ever existed.

“When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes.” (2 Kings 22:11)

Josiah had already begun to seek the God of David and to cleanse the kingdom of idols. He was already doing right things for the right reason.

Yet, when he hears the Word of the Law read for the first time, he is so personally convicted of his own sin and the sin of his people that he tears his clothes in anguish and sorrow. The repentant king is repentant again. And with the people, Josiah makes a covenant to walk after the Lord and keep his commandments. (2 Kings 23:1-3)

That’s revival. Hearing the Word of God afresh. Personally repenting of sin. Pledging together with the people of God to obey God. Cleansing self and church of idolatry.

May God send such revival!

And Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord.”(2 Kings 22:8)

The Book of the Law – God’s instructions for how his people were to live before him as recorded by Moses – was found in the Temple. Which meant it had been lost in the Temple, abandoned and forgotten in the midst of all the altars built and ceremonial vessels collected for the worship of Baal and Asherah and the gods of the sun, moon, and stars. Not to mention “the houses of the male cult prostitutes who were in the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah.”(2 Kings 23:7)

Thankfully nothing like that could happen today. Among God’s people. In the church. Could it?

As surely as the idolatry of the place and people occupied by Judah infiltrated and influenced Judah, so can the idolatry of the place and people occupied by the church infiltrate and influence the church. And when it does, the Word of God is marginalized, watered down, even abandoned. After all, who wants to hear the clear concise commands of God while breaking them?

So, what does the placement of God’s Word in your church and your life reveal about the God or god(s) you are serving?

The God or god(s) we seek affect the way we live.

We read of Josiah that “in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David his father, and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, and the carved and the metal images.” (2 Chronicles 34:3)

The God of David was incompatible with the gods of Josiah’s father and grandfather. Seeking Jehovah was incompatible with cultural idolatry. Things had to change. The idols had to go.

If worshiping God is just about a Sunday morning experience, we are not worshiping God. We’re just having an experience.

Worshiping God is a lifestyle incompatible with cultural idolatry. Seeking God, things have to change. The idols have to go.

Who does your lifestyle reveal your God or god(s) to be?

1, 2, 3…8, 9, 10. Ready or not, here I come!

I never liked being the seeker in Hide-and-Seek. Are they behind the tree, up the tree, around the house, behind the car, in the ditch? Where to begin to look? Clueless, frozen, alone, I never liked being the seeker.

We read of Josiah that “in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David his father…”(2 Chronicles 34:3)

Given our childhood Hide-and-Seek experiences, we might imagine Josiah clueless, frozen, alone, wondering where God is hiding. Where would one start to look to find God if God didn’t want to be found?

Seeking the God of David wasn’t a game. It was repentance. Josiah rejected the gods of his father and grandfather and instead sought and worshiped the God of David. Josiah turned from the gods of his culture and instead pursued Jehovah.

Humanity’s problem isn’t that God is hiding up a tree where we he can’t be found. Humanity’s problem – our problem – is that we don’t want the God who reveals himself to us. Instead, we seek our own gods.

Don’t believe me? Take time right now to read Romans 1:18–23.

Then repent, turning from the gods of culture to the God of David.