You Say You Want a Reformation

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church.

Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota.

We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew chapter 11 verses 12 through 19.

From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and

the violent take it by force.

For all the prophets in the law prophesied until John and if you're willing to accept it he is the Elijah who is to

come.

He who has ears let him hear.

But to what shall I compare this generation?

It's like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates.

We played the flute for you, you did not dance.

We sang a dirge, you didn't mourn.

For John came neither eating nor drinking and they said he has a demon.

The son of man came eating and drinking and they said look at him a glutton and a drunkard and a friend of tax

collectors and sinners.

Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

In the name of Jesus.

Hear the words again from our gospel text.

From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and the violent

take it by force.

What a strange gospel text for Reformation Sunday.

It kind of sparks the occasion.

Have you ever wondered or doubted the need for the Reformation?

I want you to kind of think about that.

Have you ever thought who did Martin Luther think that he was?

Opposing the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church and her Pope.

We talk about people who get a little too big for their britches or a wee bit uppity.

Was Martin Luther just being uppity?

Was he just being arrogant?

Who was he to challenge what the church had been doing?

Well, didn't Jesus say that the gates of hell would not prevail against the church?

What if we've overreacted?

What if we have?

Have we?

Hmm.

You see, I want you to note something and that's this.

That Reformation actually follows a pattern and that pattern is quite clearly laid out in

scriptures.

And one of the most if not the most stunning examples of Reformation in all the scriptures is recorded for us in the Old

Testament in the book of 2 Kings chapters 22 and 23.

If you'd like to turn there, we're going to spend some time in 2 Kings 22 and 23 today.

This, by the way, is the account of King Josiah.

Now normally when I work back through an Old Testament text I like to give the full historical

context so that you can be properly oriented in the story.

Today I'm going to let the historical narrative from 2 Kings reveal this context to you.

Because oddly enough the context is revealed to us in chapter 23, not chapter 22.

So note, all I'm going to say at the moment is that the church in the time of King Josiah,

and that's how you have to think of ancient Israel, as the church, those who believed in Christ or at least

claimed that they worshipped the same God that we worshipped.

All I'll say about that church is that it had become apostate.

She had abandoned the scriptures and by doing so embraced mythology, man -made and demonic doctrines

and practices and had brought them into the temple itself.

We're going to see that in a minute here.

And what they brought into the temple, I hate to say it, is probably going to make you gasp.

It's that sinful.

2 Kings 22 verse 1.

Josiah was 8 years old when he began to reign.

He reigned for 31 years in Jerusalem.

His mother's name was Jedediah, the daughter of Adediah of Boschath.

And he did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh.

And he walked in all the ways of David his father.

And he did not turn aside to the right or to the left.

So already we know a little bit about this fellow.

He's a straight shooter as they like to say.

And you'll note that he's following the ways of his father David, although David is his great -great -great -great -great -great -great -great -great

-grandfather by this time.

So it says this, in the 18th year of King Josiah, the king sent Shaphan, the

son of Azaliah, the son of Meshualam, the secretary to the

house of Yahweh, saying, Go up to Hilkiah, the high priest, so that he may count the money that has been

brought into the house of Yahweh, which the keepers of the threshold have collected from the people.

And let it be given into the hand of the workmen, who have the oversight of the house of Yahweh, and let them give it to the

workmen, who are at the house of Yahweh, repairing the house, that is, to the carpenters

and to the builders and to the masons, and let them use it for buying timber and quarried stone to repair the

house.

So think of it this way.

Solomon's temple is getting a little long in the tooth.

Some of the beams are starting to corrode and rot.

Some of the stones have been broken and crumbling.

It's time for a wee bit of touch -up work, a repair job of sorts, if you would.

And so this then starts what becomes, no joke, one of the most

startling reformations in all of Scripture.

So Hilkiah, the high priest, said to Shaphan, the secretary, I have found the book of the

Torah in the house of Yahweh.

Now, note something here.

Note the surprise, the shock, the what?

There's a book?

I found the book of the Torah.

I found God's word in the house of the Lord.

So Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.

And Shaphan, the secretary, came to the king and reported to the king, your servants have

emptied out the money that was found in the house and have delivered it into the hand of the workmen, who have the oversight of the house of

Yahweh.

And then Shaphan, the secretary, told the king, Hilkiah the priest has given me a book

and Shaphan read it before the king.

What does this tell you about the status of Biblical literacy in the time of King

Josiah?

It's so bad they didn't even know they had a book.

It hadn't been read.

It had been collecting dust somewhere in some nook or cranny of the temple

complex itself, and they go to repair it, and wouldn't you know it, they found it.

It's kind of like one of those do -it -yourself -or -fix -er -upper programs that they have on the Home and Garden channel, right?

Somebody's decided it's time to fix up their house.

The house has got great bones, they say.

And so they're working through the bones of the house, cleaning this up, and they open up this wall and inside the

wall they find the missing Van Gogh, and it's worth 2 .3 trillion dollars.

You know, we all wish we had a house like that, right?

And so we're looking through our houses.

It's kind of like that.

But notice here, nobody knew they even had a book.

Do you know that according to Scripture, that one of the requirements for any king in

Israel, upon his inauguration, upon his being placed in the office of king, it was

required of him that he was to actually make a copy of the Torah himself by hand.

Not somebody else's hand, his own.

He was required to go through Genesis and Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and

look at a scroll and write it out and copy it by hand.

That way he would know it.

That's one of the requirements.

You think Josiah had done this at this point?

Yeah, no.

They hadn't even heard the stories that were in Genesis.

That's how poor the state of the church was in the time of Josiah.

And do you think that they had remained faithful to God in their worship practices?

In their worship?

No way.

It's just not possible.

So, Shaphan read the book before the king.

First time he had ever heard the words, in the beginning God created the

heavens, the Shemayim, and the earth, the Eretz.

First time he had heard the Ten Commandments spelled out for him.

Heard the story of the crossing of the Red Sea read out from Exodus.

First time he had read any of these things.

And here's what Josiah did.

When the king heard the words of the book of the Torah, he tore his clothes.

He tore his clothes.

Why?

Because he can see what's happening, and he's now heard what's supposed to be happening.

And the two are as far apart as you can possibly imagine.

And like I said, I'll let the Scriptures kind of unveil for you what that means.

So the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Ahiachin the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of

Micaiah, and Shaphan the secretary, and Asaiah the king's servant saying, Go, inquire of

Yahweh for me, for the people and for all of Judah concerning the words of this book that has been found.

For great is the wrath of Yahweh that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the

words of this book to do according to all that is written concerning us.

He knows he's in trouble.

He knows the people are in trouble.

We've got to find somebody who can inquire of the Lord.

So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahiachin, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the

prophetess, the wife of Shalom, the son of Tikva, the son of Harhas, keeper of the

wardrobe.

Now she lived in Jerusalem in the second quarter, and they talked with her, and she said to them, Thus says

Yahweh, the God of Israel, Tell the man who sent you to me,.

Thus says Yahweh, Behold, I will bring disaster upon this place, upon its inhabitants,

all the words of the book that the king of Judah has read, because they have forsaken me, they have made offerings to other

gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the work of their hands, therefore my wrath will be

kindled against this place, and it will not be quenched.

But to the king of Judah, who sent to inquire of Yahweh, thus shall you say to him,

Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, Regarding the words that you have heard, because your heart was penitent,

and you humbled yourself before Yahweh 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 you have wept before me, I

also have heard you, declares Yahweh.

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.

So then the king sent, and all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem were gathered, and the king went up to the house of

Yahweh, and with him all the men of Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the prophets, all the

people, both small and great.

And he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of Yahweh.

And the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord.".

Now note, this would have been the first time these men had heard those words.

And where are they being read?

In the actual temple complex itself.

What had they been doing all these years?

What had they been reading from for all these decades?

How did God's word get kicked out of God's house?

It doesn't make any sense.

So, he read in their hearing the words of the book of the covenant.

And the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord to walk, to conduct his life, to walk

after the Lord, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes with all of his heart, with all of his

soul, and to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book.

And the people joined in the covenant.

And now, hold on to your hats.

Because we're going to find out just how bad things had become.

Here's what it says next.

So the king commanded Hilkiah, the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the

threshold, to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels made for

Baal and for Asherah, and for all the hosts of heaven.

That's right.

In the temple itself, there were vessels that were made for the worship of Baal,

Asherah, and the starry hosts, the sun, the moon, and the stars.

They were inside the temple itself.

He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel.

He deposed the priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make

offerings in the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem.

Yeah, that's right.

The kings of Israel had ordained their own priests.

They had no authority to do so, but they did.

They ordained their own priests to make offerings in high places around Jerusalem.

And those also who burned incense to Baal.

That's right.

Priests ordained by the king of Israel who burned incense to Baal.

And of course, living in that time, you can just imagine somebody saying, well, if the king says this is okay,

who am I to speak out against the king?

It must be okay to offer incense in God's house and on these high places to Baal,

and Asherah, and the starry hosts of heaven.

Who are we to question the king?

They also burned incense to Baal, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the

hosts of heaven.

And then listen to this.

He brought out the Asherah from the house of the Lord.

That's right.

An actual idol, Asherah, the fertility goddess, had an image of her

inside of Solomon's temple.

So he brought that out as well.

Brought it outside Jerusalem to the brook kidron, burned it at the brook kidron, beat it into dust, cast the dust

of it on the graves of the common people.

And then here's the best part ever.

And he broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes who were in the house of the

Lord.

Solomon's temple had become a homosexual brothel.

Let that sink in.

So, got rid of them.

So he broke down all the houses of the male cult prostitutes who were in the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings

for Asherah.

He brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had made

offerings from Geba to Beersheba.

And he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the governor of the city, which were on one's

left at the gate of the city.

However, the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of Yahweh in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread

among their brothers, and he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, so that no one might burn

his sons or daughters as an offering to Molech.

Yeah, that's right.

They engaged in infant sacrifice to Molech.

So he got rid of that place so that couldn't happen anymore.

He removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun at the entrance to the house of Yahweh.

That's right.

There was a statue dedicated to the sun god.

Right as you're going into the temple itself, at the entrance to the house of Lord, by

the chambers of Nathan Molech, the chamberlain which was in the precincts, he

burned the chariots of the sun with fire, the altars of the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah

had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of Yahweh.

He pulled down and broke in pieces and cast the dust of them into the Brook Kidron.

The king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem to the south of the Mount of Corruption,

in which Solomon, the king of Israel, had built for Ashtoreth the abominations of the Sidonians, and for Shemosh

the abominations of Moab, and for Milcom the abominations of the Ammonites.

And he broke in pieces the pillars, cut down the Asherim, and filled their places with the

bones of men.

You'll note here that not only did he get rid of these places, he on purpose defiled them

in the eyes of the people.

This would be like somebody basically saying, we're going to get rid of all of the mosques,

and in order to make sure that no Muslim ever prays there, we're going to slather them with bacon grease.

That's literally what he's doing.

He's doing this on purpose.

Moreover, the altar of Bethel, the high places erected by Jeroboam, the son of Nabot, who made Israel to sin, that

altar with the high places he pulled down, burned, reducing it to dust.

He burned the Asherah.

And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs on the mount, and he sent and took the bones out of the tombs

and burned them on the altar and defiled them according to the word of Yahweh that the man of God proclaimed who had predicted

these things.

And they said, what is the monument that I see?

And the men of the city told him, it's the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and predicted these things that you have done against the

altar at Bethel.

And he said, let him be.

Let no man move his bones.

So they let his bones alone.

And the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria.

And Josiah removed all the shrines of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria which the king of Israel had made,

provoking Yahweh to anger.

And he did to them according to all that he had done at Bethel.

And he sacrificed all the priests of the high places who were there on the altars and burned human bones on them and then

returned to Jerusalem.

He basically gave them the death penalty for being

idolaters which God's word commands him to do.

And then the king commanded all the people keep the Passover to Yahweh your God as it is written in the book of the covenant

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 the kings of Judah.

But in the 18th year of King Josiah this Passover was kept to Yahweh in Jerusalem.

Moreover, Josiah put away the mediums, the necromancers, the household

gods and the idols and the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and Jerusalem that he might establish the

words of the law that were written in the book of Hilkiah the priest found in the house of Yahweh.

Before him there was no king like him who turned to Yahweh with all of his heart and with all of

his soul and with all of his might according to the law of Moses nor did any like him arise after him.

I would argue that that story is a lot like the Reformation.

A lot.

Because in the time of the Middle Ages, Rome had taken the word of God and locked it up.

Locked it up in Latin.

You had to be a scholar.

You had to be well educated.

You had to know Latin in order to hear the word of God and they kept the people from hearing God's word in their own languages.

And in those years, in those decades, in those centuries where God's word was locked up, Rome

creeped into ever more bizarre, mythological, idolatrous practices that make

no biblical sense whatsoever.

Even to the point of selling indulgences, telling people that their dead parents and

grandparents and relatives were burning in agony in purgatory, having their sins burnt off them

to the point where they can finally be justified or righteous enough to enter heaven and that you

can assist them.

You can assist them in their agony by putting money in a coffer.

By purchasing an indulgence so that you can lessen their time in purgatory.

This was the means by which they raised the money to build

St. Peter's Basilica.

None of it is found in Scripture.

And Martin Luther read the book.

And in that book, he learned what our epistle text says today.

That no one is justified before God by works of the law.

That salvation is by grace through faith alone in Christ alone for the forgiveness of

your sins.

And in so discovering that and returning back to the written word of God, he

ended up defying the Antichrist himself.

And it's one that we must remember.

You see, from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom has suffered violence.

And the violence, they take it by force.

For all the prophets and the law, they prophesied until John the Baptist.

And if you're willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.

He who has ears, let him hear.

Let me explain what the text is saying.

Where Jesus says, so what shall I compare this generation?

The generation that we're part of.

It's like children sitting in the marketplaces calling to their playmates.

We played the flute for you.

You didn't dance.

We sang a dirge.

You didn't mourn.

We came calling you to repent of your sins and to believe in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of

your sins.

And you said, pa, bah humbug, I'm too busy.

There's a football game on this afternoon.

But Jesus says this rather fascinating.

John came neither eating nor drinking.

And they say he has a demon.

Isn't that the way of the world?

Somebody comes to you who is greatest man ever born of woman, Christ says.

He came neither eating nor drinking.

And they said he's demonized.

Jesus comes eating and drinking and they say, look at him.

He's a glutton and a drunkard.

Friend of tax collectors and sinners.

Oh, that breaking of the eighth commandment is common among the unsaved.

Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.

So does the reformation still continue today?

Do we need one?

Well, let's be honest.

So many churches have abandoned the word of God.

Literally abandoned it.

And they have brought forward false doctrines and abominable practices including the ordination of women,

the ordination of impenitent homosexuals and lesbians.

And they sacrifice their children to Moloch through abortion.

They scratch itching ears having engaged in the reading of omens, the consulting

of psychics who masquerade as prophets of God.

They listen to preachers and people who fill their heads with nonsensical vagaries, never calling them out for their

sins and calling them to repent.

Nor do they ever placard Christ and his saving works for them on the cross.

You see from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence.

Violence still happens today.

And the violent take the kingdom of God by force.

Church Father Hilary of Poitiers wrote what violence?

People did not believe in John the Baptist.

The works of Christ were held to be of no importance.

His torment on the cross is considered a stumbling block.

Until now prophecy has been dormant.

But now the law is fulfilled.

Every prediction is finished.

The spirit of Elijah is sent in advance through John's words.

Christ is proclaimed to some and acknowledged by others.

He's born for some and loved by others.

The violent irony is that his own people rejected him while strangers accepted him.

His own people speak ill of him while his enemies embrace him.

The act of adoption offers an inheritance while the family ends up rejecting it.

Sons refuse to accept their father's last will while the slaves of the house instead receive it.

See everything is upside down, backwards, inside out.

So Jesus says in John 8 to the Jews who had believed him, if you abide

in my word, you are truly my disciples.

And you'll note, Israel, the ancient church, did not abide in God's word.

And they wandered off into myths and idolatry.

If you abide in my word, note the word abide.

Stand firm.

Don't move from it.

Meditate on it day and night.

Walk according to its precepts.

Believe what it reveals.

If you do that, then you are truly my disciples.

And you know the truth and the truth will set you free.

Always and again once people abandon the word of God, the immediate result is the loss of the gospel,

followed by an increase in religious activity and political activity in order to weed out the last vestiges of

God's word so that God's kingdom is destroyed and antichrist's kingdom and his false worship is

built on the ruins of what was the church.

Is it any different today?

Is it?

Not at all.

And this calls us to again abandon and forsake our idols.

To abandon and forsake our opinions, our preferences, our need to see signs and wonders,

our hatred of God's truth and the order that he has established in his church.

Calls us to forsake our love for the world and its desires, its values, its religious opinions and its

myths.

Put on sackcloth and ashes and mourn.

If you think Oprah's religious opinions have any bearing on what we should believe, teach and confess in the

church, oh, then you need to doubly repent.

You see, the violence has taken the kingdom by force.

They've driven God's word out of the church.

They've erected idols in the house of God.

And maybe you've helped them do it.

Maybe your desire is to continue to help them to do it.

You see, Luther rediscovered, just like King Josiah, God's word and its truth.

He believed God and he bore fruit in keeping with repentance and he was saved by grace through

faith alone.

You see, he tore down the false doctrines and the practices of Rome and he defied the Antichrist

himself.

And this, by the way, this Reformation day is not a day to rest on Luther's laurels and glory in the crown

given him by Christ.

No, now it's your turn.

The need for Reformation is greater today than ever.

Darkness has so filled much of the church today and few are saying anything

about it.

Fewer by the day.

Today is a day to consider our own weaknesses, our own fears, and our sinful ambitions

and our desires.

Reformation begins with individual repentance and from that one and from

that once a call for others to repent and return to God's word to be forgiven and bear fruit in keeping

with repentance.

And oftentimes there are severe temporal consequences and punishments that are promised to those who dare to speak

the truth of God's word.

But do not fear the devil or the world and their growlings because you're already

dead.

You've been baptized into the death of Christ.

You have already been raised with Him.

So speak out.

Say the truth.

Call people to turn from their idols and to join Christ in His suffering.

Tell people to turn from the breaking of the first commandment and to repent and be forgiven and bear fruit in keeping with

repentance.

Announce to them that Christ has died even for their idolatry.

Consider King Josiah.

It said it was in the 18th year of his reign that he heard the word of God for the first time.

Which means for 18 years King Josiah allowed the status quo to continue.

Participated in the false worship of that blasphemous temple the way it had been

set up.

And upon hearing the word of God he turned and he repented.

And we heard from the prophetess Huldah that God forgave him.

That God gave him life.

That God said that he would go to his grave in peace.

And so know this.

That even if we have done evil, even if we have assisted the antichrist in his false religious

systems that there is even mercy now for us.

So we must repent.

Be forgiven.

Christ has bled and died for these sins.

And then bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

By standing against the false doctrines and practices of the world,

the devil, and our own sinful flesh.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Kungsvinger Lutheran Church 15950 470th Avenue

Northwest Oslo Minnesota 56744.

And again that address is Kungsvinger Lutheran Church 15950

470th Avenue Northwest Oslo Minnesota 56744.

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