Josiah Isn't the Messiah

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 in salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. Our readings tonight are taken from 2

Chronicles chapters 34 and parts of 35. Josiah was 8 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 31 years in Jerusalem.

He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and he walked in the ways of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.

For 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.

And they chopped down the altars of the Baals in his presence, and he cut down the incense altars that stood above them.

And he broke in pieces the asherim and the carved and metal images, and he made dust of them and scattered it over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.

He also burned the bones of the priests on their altars and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.

And in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, as far as Naphtali, and in their ruins all around, he broke down the altars, beat the asherim and the images into powder, cut down all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel, and then he returned to Jerusalem.

Now, in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had cleansed the land and the house, and sent

Shaphon the son of Azaliah and Mosiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Jehoaz the recorder to repair the house of the

Lord his God, they came to Hilkiah the high priest and gave him the money that had been brought into the house of God, which the

Levites, the keepers of the threshold, had collected from Manasseh and Ephraim, and from all the remnant of Israel, and from all of Judah and Benjamin, and from the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

And they gave it to the workmen who were working in the house of the Lord, and the workmen who were working in the house of the

Lord gave it for repairing and restoring the house. They gave it to the carpenters and the builders to buy quarried stone and timber for binders and beams for the buildings that the kings of Judah had let go to ruin.

And the men did the work faithfully. Over them were set Jehoth and Obadiah, and the

Levites of the sons of Merari and Zechariah and Meshulam of the sons of the Kohathites had oversight.

The Levites, all who were skillful with instruments of music, were over the burden bearers and directed all who did work in every kind of service, and some of the

Levites were scribes and officials and gatekeepers. And while they were bringing out the money that had been brought into the house of the

Lord, Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of the Lord given through Moses. Then Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphon the secretary,

I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphon. Shaphon brought the book to the king and further reported to the king all that was committed to your servants they are doing.

They have emptied out the money that was found in the house of the Lord and have given it into the hand of the overseers and the workmen.

Then Shaphon the secretary told the king, Hilkiah the priest has given me a book. And Shaphon read from it before the king.

And when the king heard the words of the law, he tore his clothes. And the king commanded Hilkiah, Ahikam the son of Shaphon, Abdon the son of Micah, Shaphon the secretary, and Asaiah the king's servant saying, go inquire of the

Lord for me for those who are left in Israel and in Judah concerning the words of the book that has been 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 this book. So Hilkiah and those whom the king had sent went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shalom the son of Tokath, the son of Hasra, keeper of the wardrobe.

Now she lived in Jerusalem in the second quarter and spoke to her to that effect. And she said to them, thus says the

Lord, the God of Israel, tell the man who sent you to me, thus says Yahweh, behold, I will bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants, all the curses that are written in the book that was read before the king of Judah because they have forsaken me and have made offerings 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 will not be quenched. But to the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of the

Lord, thus shall you say to him, thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, regarding the words that you have heard, because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard his words against this place and its inhabitants, and you have humbled yourself before me and have torn your clothes and wept before me,

I also have heard you, declares the Lord, 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 its inhabitants.

And they brought back the word to the king. Then the king sent and gathered together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem, and the king went up to the house of Yahweh with all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the priests and the

Levites and all the people, both great and small. 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 in his place and made a covenant before the

Lord to walk after Yahweh to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all of his heart and with all of his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book.

And then he made all who were present in Jerusalem and in Benjamin join in it, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the

God of their fathers. And Josiah took away all the abominations from all the territory that belonged to the people of Israel, and made all who were present in Israel serve

Yahweh their God. All his days they did not turn away from following Yahweh, the God of their fathers.

Josiah kept a Passover to Yahweh in Jerusalem, and they slaughtered the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the first month.

He appointed the priests to their offices and encouraged them in the service of the house of Yahweh.

And he said to the Levites who taught all of Israel and who were holy to Yahweh, put the holy ark in the house that Solomon, the son of David, the king of Israel, built.

You need not carry it on your shoulders. Now serve Yahweh your God and his people Israel.

And after all of this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Necho, the king of Egypt, went up to fight at Carchemish on the

Euphrates. And Josiah went out to meet him. But he sent envoys to him, saying,

What have we to do with each other, king of Judah? I am not coming against you this day, but against the house with which

I am at war. And God has commanded me to hurry, cease opposing

God who is with me, lest he destroy you. Nevertheless, Josiah did not turn away from him, but disguised himself in order to fight with him.

He did not listen to the words of Necho from the mouth of God, but came to fight in the plain of Megiddo.

And the archers shot King Josiah. And the king said to his servants, Take me away, for I am badly wounded.

So his servants took him out of the chariot, carried him in his second chariot, brought him to Jerusalem, and he died and was buried in the tombs of his fathers.

All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. Jeremiah also uttered a lament for Josiah.

And all the singing men and singing women have spoken of Josiah in their laments to this day. They made these a rule in Israel.

Behold, they are written in the laments. Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, his good deeds, according to what is written in the law of the

Lord and his acts first and last, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and of Judah.

O Lord, have mercy on us. In the name of Jesus. What is it with these kings of Judah, man?

Even the ones that are like the best ones, like Josiah legitimately, he is the last good king of Judah, the last of them.

And he had such a spectacular reign as far as doing what is right in the eyes of the

Lord. Now, here's the thing. We Lutherans get accused of, Well, you believe in the proper distinction of law and gospel and salvation by grace through faith apart from works.

So therefore works aren't important. Belogna. And by the way, that is the proper way to pronounce this word.

I've seen it. Just read it out. Belogna. It's on the packages of Ostermeyer. You can see it, right?

But all that being said, scripture is clear. Salvation is by grace through faith apart from works.

As it says in the book of Ephesians, For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing.

It is the gift of God so that no one may boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.

Or as James says it, Just as the body that is not breathing is dead, so faith without works is dead.

You'll note that works do not save us, but as our hymn writers have noted, works show that faith is present inside of us.

And you'll note that Josiah, as good a king as he is, he is a king in the midst of rank apostasy.

I mean, things have gotten really bad in Judah. And it has been for the better part of a hundred and something years.

If you were to go back, flip back a few pages, you can read the account of his grandfather's reign.

Manasseh. Manasseh was the guy who made all of these changes in how the temple was operating.

He's the one who brought in the incense altars to Baal. He was the one who thought it was a great idea to give

Yahweh a girlfriend. If you're not sure what the significance of the fact that there is an

Asherah pole in the Holy of Holies, you've just got to think of it this way. In the pagan

Gnostic way of looking at things, it is incomprehensible that there would be a male deity without a female deity as a binary couple.

And so they solved the problem by checking on the spiritual pagan Tinder sites, and they found

Asherah and brought her into Yahweh and put them behind the closed curtains in order to solve that particular problem.

And it really is a mess. And you'll hear a little bit later just how far off the rails things have gone, which kind of begs the question, were the reforms that Josiah brought about, did they lead to true faith in the heart of people?

Or were they following the law in order to not be punished? You'll note that if the reason why you're doing your good works is so that you don't end up in hell, that's not faith.

That's a form of self -righteousness, and that cannot save you. Josiah has true faith, it's very clear from this text.

In fact, let's walk through some of these things, and it's important to note that in his early years, he's never read the

Bible. So when Manasseh was king, not only did he make all of these innovations and changes in how things were operating in Solomon's temple, on top of that, if you read kind of between the lines between what's going on in 2

Kings and 2 Chronicles, as it relates to Manasseh, it was very clear what was going on.

While these innovations were taking place, and the church was sliding into these rank pagan practices, there were those who were speaking out against these changes and against the idolatry.

And do you know what happened to them? Well, Manasseh unalived them. That's how people talk nowadays, what a weird way to talk about it.

He flat out murdered these people. So murder was abundant during the reign of Manasseh, but you'll note that 2

Chronicles also tells us that Manasseh in his later years repented, but he never got rid of the things that he put in place.

His son Ammon follows in his footsteps, and he's evil, and now Josiah is king.

He's made king at eight years old. That is a young and tender age for somebody to be made king.

So it says he was eight years old when he began to reign. He reigned for 31 years in Jerusalem, which means he died, what, at 39, 40?

He was just a kid. You know, I'm 55, I can say that now about 40 -year -olds, they're just kids.

He did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh. He walked in the ways of David his father. He did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.

Love this. For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, that was when he began to seek the

God of David his father. So at age 16, we don't know why, we don't know what all of a sudden flipped the switch, but he began to seek the

God of David. He, for whatever reason, became disillusioned with the pagan deities that everybody was worshiping, and you'll note, not a single day of his life does he know

Solomon's temple without pagan idols in it, and it's worse than that, by the way.

And then in the twelfth year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places. So now as he gets older, he's going to work, and he purged

Jerusalem and Judah of the high places, the asherim, the carved and metal images. He chopped down the altars of the

Baals in his presence. He cut down the incense altars that stood above them. He broke in pieces the asherim and the carved and metal images, and he made dust of them and scattered it over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.

This guy meant business. I mean, not only we're going to smash your idols, we're going to grind them into powder, and then we're going to scatter them on the graves of the people who worship these things, right?

Whoa, that is quite the statement. I'm sure that the liberal media was going nuts at this time, saying, what a complete ridiculous person this was.

We need to get rid of him, right? He burned the bones of the priests, the pagan priests, on their altars.

So he took the bones of the pagan priests, dug them up, burned their bones on the altars that they had set up to these pagan deities, wow, and he cleansed

Judah and Jerusalem. Now note, he hasn't gotten everything out of the temple yet, right?

This is what we will call a good start. And in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, as far as Naphtali and the ruins all around, he broke down the altars and beat the asherim and the images into powder, cut down all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel, and then he returned to Jerusalem.

And so you'll note, he's intentionally defiling these pagan sites.

And I remember reading in a biblical archaeology review a few years back that they had found one of these sites that had been desecrated by Josiah.

And not only did he desecrate places with bones, they also suggest, the archaeologists suggest that in some sites, he desecrated their holy sites with human waste.

I mean, he did not spare anything in this thing. So in the 18th year of his reign, we learn how he first came in contact with the

Bible. He had never read those wonderful words, the first sentence of the scripture,

Barashit bara Elohim et ha -Temayim v 'et ha -Eretz. Never read those words.

Never heard of the Tohu v 'Bohu. Never heard of the six days of creation, read it out. Never read of the

Exodus from the account of Moses. And worst of all, he was completely ignorant of the actual covenant that the children of Israel were in with God regarding the land that they were in.

And so we hear of this account, how they found the Bible during a renovation, and they gave it to Josiah, had it read to him, and what did he do?

He tore his clothes and recognized, how did the Korean War veterans say it?

He realized that they were in deep kimchi, right? Years ago, there was a church that I served, and there was a fellow there who was a

Korean War veteran. That was his favorite thing to say, deep kimchi. You knew somebody was in trouble when they were in deep kimchi.

And he even, at one point, made me some kimchi for me to have, because he learned the recipe while he was in the war.

And you know what? It was good, it was a little different than I expected. It's an acquired taste, best way

I can put it, right? And so what happens at this point is that he recognizes things are bad.

So he sends some folks, he commanded Hilkiah, Ahakon, the son of Shaphan, Abdon, the son of Micah, Shaphan, the secretary, and Asaiah, the king's servant, saying, you go inquire of Yahweh for me, for those who are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that has been found, for great is the wrath of Yahweh that is poured out on us, because our fathers have not kept the word of Yahweh to do according to all that is written in this book.

And you'll note, the word of God is living and active. You cannot, you cannot legitimately claim to be a true believer in Jesus Christ and despise his word.

Christ says, the one who loves me will keep, will guard my commandments, which means they have to know what they are.

We as Christians are disciples. A disciple is a learner. What's the curriculum? The curriculum is the

Bible. And you'll note in our day, there is a growing apostasy, a growing, growing, growing apostasy.

Place after place, it calls itself a Christian church, has taken the Bible itself and relegated it to the sidelines.

It barely makes an appearance. If it shows up at all, it is now quoted out of context, stripped mine for relevant verses that proof text things that they want to talk about.

And sadly, so many people today who call themselves Christians, they are steeped in apostate practices and rebellion against God because they are legitimately biblically illiterate.

And I would note that when you point out to them, listen, you can't be doing this.

The Bible says, the first thing that comes out of their mouth, Pharisee, right?

You're a Pharisee. You're just too legalistic. You're too uptight. We are following the spirit of God.

I remember recently seeing an interview with a fellow who was an actual pastor at the

Toronto Vineyard Church at the time the Toronto Blessing broke out.

And this is a fellow who credits the fact that his mother and his grandmother, not his father, but his mother and his grandmother made sure to teach him the

Bible when he was a young boy. And as a result of it, he began vocalizing that the practices that were taking place at the so -called

Toronto Blessing were contrary to the word of God. And guess what?

He was moved out. In fact, he was confronted and told that he was standing in the way of this move of the spirit, but the things that he vocalized that he was complaining about were true.

And he was right. The word of God does not permit these things to be happening. And now the

Toronto church is now called Catch the Fire or whatever, and they functionally do not read the scriptures legitimately at all.

But they get all kinds of words from so -called prophets and prophetesses. And so you'll note in our day, things are not much different than they were in the days of Josiah.

And so at this point, as the king has told them, they go to inquire of Yahweh because he knows that God's wrath is going to be huge as a result of what he's read in the book.

So Hikayah and those with him, legitimate top guys in Josiah's administration, they go to a woman by the name of Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shalom, the son of Tokah, the son of Hasra, keeper of the wardrobe.

Now she lived in Jerusalem in the second quarter and spoke to her to that effect. And she said to them, thus says

Yahweh, the God of Israel, tell the man who sent you to me, thus says Yahweh. You'll note that as a prophetess, she's really hearing

God's words. And as a result of it, she knows exactly why they are there, right? So she says, behold,

Yahweh says I will bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants and all the curses that are written in the book that was read before the king of Judah because they have forsaken me, they have made offerings 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 it will not be quenched.

And you know what? She was right. That's exactly how it went down. Read the prophet

Jeremiah. But to the king of Judah who sent you 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 tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard his words against this place and its inhabitants and you have humbled yourself before me and have torn your clothes and wept before me,

I also have heard you, declares Yahweh. And here's where you're gonna note, this is an important point, is that when confronted with sin and seeing it defined by God's word, notice that Josiah didn't sit there and go, well, you know, after all, this is the 8th century,

BC, and we are a progressive people, we just need to embrace the times and stuff like this.

No, not at all. What did he do? He said, God's right, we're in the wrong. He humbled himself, he lamented, he wept, he repented.

And even of his own ignorance, things he should have known, in reading the

Torah, he would have realized that it was his job upon his ascension to the throne, a requirement of the

Mosaic Covenant, that he was to write, handwrite his own copy of the

Torah, the first five books of the scripture. That's a requirement of the kings of Israel. He recognizes that not only did he not do that, this is the first time he'd read those words and how old is he now?

That's how far they've gone. And so, she says, Notice it says, he read.

For this account, the Bible has been rediscovered and the king of Judah himself now is teaching all the people, reading for himself, reading out loud so they can hear the words of this book.

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 in his place and made a covenant before Yahweh to walk after Yahweh and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all of his heart, with all of his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book.

And then he made all who were present in Jerusalem and in Benjamin join in it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the

God of their fathers. Josiah took away all the abominations from all the territory that belonged to the people of Israel and made all who were present in Israel serve

Yahweh their God. All his days they did not turn away from following Yahweh, the

God of their fathers. And in fact, in the book of 2 Kings, we have a little bit more of the details of Josiah's reforms.

And let's just say the reforms give us the bigger picture of just how far gone the religion of Israel had gone.

It says this in 2 Kings 23, the king sent and all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem were gathered to him.

The king went up to the house of Yahweh and with him and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets and all the people, great and small.

And he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant. And then it says this, 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 Yahweh.

Now comes the deep cuts. We want these out of Solomon's temple.

What did he want taken out of there? Well, to bring out all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, for all the starry host of heaven and their ashes to Bethel.

Oh, sorry, and the host of heaven and they burned them outside of Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel.

In other words, the host of heaven, by the way, if you've ever seen the inside of like a preserved Egyptian religious site, you'll note that there's stars painted on the ceiling.

And there's a reason for that is because the stars were a vital part of the pagan Gnostic religion of Egypt.

In fact, the pyramids of Giza, they don't make a straight line when you look at them from above.

They fit the exact pattern of the stars found in the belt of Orion. That's on purpose because the

Egyptians were very much into the worship of the starry host of heaven. So Josiah says, get these out of the temple.

They have no business being there. And he's right. And I'm sitting there going, who thought that this was a good idea, right?

Okay. So he burned them. 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.

Let me think about this for a second here. He deposed what priests? Well, who ordained these priests? The previous kings of Judah.

So you'll note that Manasseh and Ammon, his father, what did they do? They ordained their own priesthood.

And basically, these priests were designed on purpose to fulfill their wishes to worship and offer sacrifices to these pagan deities and to offer sacrifices in these high places.

And so what, since they were put in place by an official royal command, Josiah gives the official royal command, you guys are out of a job.

And so he deposes every single one of them. And he also deposed those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, the constellations, and all the hosts of heavens.

And he brought out the Asherah from the house of Yahweh. Oh no, Yahweh and Asherah get divorced.

Bummer. I don't even think they were properly married. They were illegally cohabitating. In fact,

Yahweh didn't ask for any of this. So they got rid of Asherah. They took her out of the house of Yahweh, outside of Jerusalem to the brook

Kidron, burned the Asherah pole at the brook Kidron, beat it to dust, cast the dust of it upon the graves of the common people.

And he broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes who were in the house of Yahweh where the women wove hangings for the

Asherah. Yeah, that's right, I've pointed this out before. Solomon's temple now had a new religious experience.

For the proper price, you can experience a male cult prostitute as part of the religious worship of Solomon's temple.

And Josiah got rid of all of that as well. He brought out, he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings from Geba to Bereshiba.

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.

That hints at this idea, that despite the fact that it was now illegal to worship these false gods, all of their high places have been defiled, that none of these people, having had their high places torn down, their idols destroyed and ground into powder, then repented and trusted in Yahweh.

They were just biding their time, waiting for a change of administration.

He defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, so that no one might burn his son or his daughter as an offering to Molech.

Amen, right? Child sacrifice is now off the table, and I'm sure those people who believed in Molech were not thrilled with this.

And he removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun at the entrance to the house of Yahweh by the chamber of Nathan -Melech, the chamberlain, which was in the precincts.

He burned the chariots of the sun with fire, and no, that's not where we got the name for the movie,

Chariots of Fire, that's not where that comes from. And he burned them with fire, and the altars on 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 broken pieces, cast the dust of them into the brook

Kidron, and the king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem to the south of the Mount of Corruption, which

Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth. Note here, the place where Solomon had built worship centers for his pagan wives, now in Scripture is referred to as the

Mount of Corruption. And so, Josiah gets rid of all of this, so that means he got rid of Ashtoreth, the abomination of the

Sidonians, and got rid of Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and the one set up for Milcom, the abomination of the

Ammonites, and he broke in pieces the pillars, cut down the Asherim, filled their places with the bones of men, and moreover, he wasn't done.

He leaves Judah and heads north into the territory where the Samaritans are, and he tore down the altar at Bethel, the high place erected by Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made

Israel to sin, that altar with the high place, he pulled down and he burned, reducing it to dust.

He also burned the Asherah, and as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the mount, and he sent and took the bones of the tombs and burned them on the altar and defiled it according to the word of Yahweh, the man of God who proclaimed, who had predicted these things.

Wow. That is quite a dossier of, how does 2

Chronicles describe these as? Good works, right? Now you'll note that all the lawyers at this point are losing their minds, the lawsuits are being filed left and right, he's being accused of these hate crimes against these religious minorities or majorities, whatever they were at the time, right?

You could just hear the grumbling going on, but here's the thing, you destroy someone's idol, that doesn't mean that their idol is destroyed in their heart, and that's the point.

Now Josiah then, having read in the scriptures the requirement to keep the Passover, it's been a long time since there's been a

Passover in Jerusalem, and what does he do? Well, it's time to celebrate the

Passover. Ah, that type and shadow celebration which points to the sacrifice that God will give so that we can be set free from slavery to sin, death, and the devil, the sacrificing of the lambs, and all of that, recounting what took place in the

Exodus, that points us to the finished work of Christ. He prepares that, and they fulfill that, things are going really well, and you'd think this is the best king ever, right?

Well, here's the thing, Josiah is not the Messiah, Josiah is a sinner like you and I, and as a result of that, despite all of his good, he is also prone to the same kind of sinful foolishness that we all are prone to, and this is something we must keep in mind, that even our best good works, they do not save us, and even our best good works still are tainted with sin, because in this lifetime, we still have a sinful nature to contend with, and as a result of it, what follows next is, well, the closest thing that I can read in scripture that really reminds me of the concept of an

Achilles heel, right? But there's something hidden in here that I think is interesting, if you were to consider it in the types and shadows, and here's how this goes, then.

In verse 20 of chapter 35 of 2 Chronicles, it says, after all of this, when

Josiah had prepared the temple, Necho, the king of Egypt, went out to fight at Carchemish on the

Euphrates, and Josiah went out to meet him. So a little bit of what's going on here. So Necho is pharaoh of Egypt, he's the king of Egypt, and he's heading up to, well, to wage war against Carchemish.

Well, guess whose highway they have to travel on, and which territory they have to travel through. That would put them going through Judah.

And you'll note that I think it's a little unnerving, having a large army from Egypt traveling through your neck of the woods in order to go to fight a battle against Carchemish, and so it's no wonder that Josiah wants to do something about this.

But you'll think about this, he should know that the right thing for him to do, if he's really, truly having anxiety and believing that Necho has designs on Judah, who should he be inquiring of?

Who should he be praying to? What should he be relying on? He should be relying on Yahweh.

We know that he can inquire of Yahweh through Huldah the prophetess. We also know from the

Torah that he can inquire of God through the high priest, because of the Urim and the Thummim, he can ask

God questions and God can do things. And we also know from the account of his great -great -great -grandfather

Jehoshaphat that he is capable of praying to God and calling out to Him in time of trouble, and this is what he should have done.

But instead, he relies on his own, well, strategies, his own sneakiness, his own designs, and it goes terrible for him.

So here's what happens, he goes out to meet Pharaoh Necho, and so Pharaoh Necho sent envoys to Josiah saying, what have we to do with each other, king of Judah?

And now listen to what comes next. I'm not coming out against you this day, but against the house with which

I am at war, and God has commanded me to hurry. Weird thing in the

Hebrew here, we have God is the word Elohim, but he's using singular verbs.

God has, he has commanded me. That's odd behavior for a pagan

Egyptian king, which means Necho is legitimately on a mission from God, because you wouldn't expect somebody who believes in the gods of Egypt to be talking in this way.

So Necho is compelled, and so he says, listen, God has commanded me to hurry, so please cease opposing

God who is with me, lest God destroy you. Nevertheless, Josiah did not turn away from him, but, listen to these words, he disguised himself in order to fight with him.

You know, that didn't work so well for Ahaz, did it? No, it didn't really work for Ahaz, and it didn't work for Josiah either.

So he disguised himself in order to fight with Pharaoh Necho. He didn't listen to the words of Necho, and listen to what the text says.

He did not listen to the words of Necho from the mouth of God, but he came to fight in the plain of Megiddo.

If Josiah had just inquired of Yahweh, he would have heard from Yahweh that Necho was doing

God's business, but he didn't even check, didn't even ask, didn't even pray.

He thought he knew better. He's now disguised himself, and here's what it says at Megiddo, hmm,

Armageddon. Have you heard of the term Armageddon? This is the same place where the last battle will be fought on earth, the plain of Megiddo.

It says, the archers shot King Josiah, and then the king said to his servants, take me away,

I'm badly wounded. So his servants took him out of the chariot, carried him in his second chariot, and brought him to Jerusalem, and he died, and he was buried in the tombs of his fathers.

All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah, and this, notably, Jeremiah also uttered a lament for Josiah.

Poor Jeremiah, man, the weeping prophet, because with all of these things happening, you can just see that there was a glimmer of hope in Jeremiah, that somehow, that things would turn around, and now with the death of Josiah, what would come of all of his reforms?

Where would Judah go? And in all the singing men and singing women who have spoken of Josiah and their laments to this day, they made these a rule in Israel, behold, they are written in the laments.

The rest of the acts of Josiah, his good deeds, according to what is written in the law of Yahweh, and his acts, first and last, behold, they are written in the books of the kings of Israel and of Judah.

And we know what happens when you read the history of Judah, and what comes next. From that, the time of Josiah's death,

Judah goes on a pagan religious bender, is the best way

I can put it. All the things that they had been forbidden to do are now back on the table, and they pursue them with all of their heart.

And as a result of it, God does follow through on his threats, and he ends up acting in wrath against Judah.

And only a remnant of them will survive when King Nebuchadnezzar attacks from Babylon as an agent of God's wrath.

And then, those who survived were marched off to captivity in Babylon.

Such a good, right? And that's the thing.

You know who Josiah reminds me of? Me. He reminds me of you guys.

He reminds me of all of us. Despite all the good work that we do, because we are saved by grace through faith, we still sin, and we make really tragic, bad, awful decisions.

And you'll note that Josiah's death doesn't lead to salvation for Judah.

Instead, it leads them back into apostasy. But I can think of another king of Judah who also died at a tragically young age.

In fact, he reigned for just the briefest amount of time, if you were to think about it.

And I would note here, I would like to posit this idea that this king of Judah, his entire life was disguised.

Let me explain. You see, in the book of Philippians, it talks about Christ. Even though he was by nature

God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. But what did he do? He humbled himself and came to earth, was found in the form of a servant, in human form.

And he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. And you'll note then, we can kind of say about Jesus that he is absolutely

God in human flesh, but he was God in human flesh kind of disguised, if you would.

We have no accounts of people from Nazareth talking about how when Jesus was a boy, they could always tell who the

Son of God was because he glowed in the dark. Nothing like that, right? And of course, none of the kids complained and said, every time we played hide and seek,

Jesus would always know exactly where we were. Okay, nothing like that at all. And so Jesus legitimately,

God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the

Father, was found among us in disguise, if you would, incognito, turned the glory off, and was obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.

You'll note that Josiah's disguise got him killed, and I would note Jesus' disguise got him killed as well.

But unlike Josiah, Jesus' death actually has significance because Jesus didn't lose his life, he laid down his life.

And it's true that he tragically died at a young age. Jesus in his early 30s is crucified for your sins and for mine, but note here, he did reign as king of Judah for just the briefest amount of time, because as we will see in our good, in our

Palm Sunday, Passion Sunday passages, he was declared to be the king of the

Jews by none other than the governor of Rome, who was there, Pontius Pilate.

In fact, they brought Jesus out before the crowd, wearing a crown of thorns, dressed in a robe of purple, and he even,

Pilate made clear to understand, here is your king. It was a brutal inauguration, an anointing with blood for sure, and Jesus reigned for a little over six hours as the king of Judah, before he perished and died.

But you'll note his first act as king, rather than destroy idolaters, he came instead to die for them so that they can be forgiven and pardoned.

And he destroyed the works of the devil, not by destroying temples and things like this, but allowing his body, the temple of God itself, to be destroyed, to be made derelict and die, so that you and I can be forgiven and pardoned.

And Jesus, upon his death, burial, and resurrection, things don't get worse on planet earth.

In fact, you can legitimately say his word has gone forth, the good news of the gospel has reached to the ends of the earth.

People have been brought out of darkness and sin into the light of God and the forgiveness and mercy that is in him.

They went from being idolaters and enemies of God to now being sons and daughters of God himself by adoption because of the shed blood of Christ.

And I would note that this good news has gone out in such a way that it has literally destroyed more pagan temples than Josiah could possibly shake a stick at.

Because where the gospel has truly taken root, people have stopped worshiping the false, vain mythologies invented by humans and inspired by demons, and have instead repented and worshiped the one true

God. Yeah, what Josiah's death was incapable of producing,

Jesus' death did. And I would note, the parallels between the two are quite fascinating, but almost kind of like in a mirror image,

Josiah the sinner, Christ the sinless, spotless lamb of God. And although Josiah, he celebrated the

Passover for the very first time in his life, Jesus is truly our Passover lamb who takes away the sin of the world.

So don't forget these things. And so as we wrap up our midweek Lenten services,

Lent, a time of reflection on God's law, a time to reflect on our own sin and the things that which we need to continue to repent of and cry out to God to forgive us of, this is a good time to recognize that each and every one of us, we are more like Josiah than we would care to admit.

And we need to recognize that oftentimes we rely upon our own strength, our own wisdom, our own strategies, our own ideas, and that always will get us in trouble rather than trusting in what

God's word says and following what he has instructed us in his word. So let us again repent, but let us also have confidence in the forgiveness and mercy by the great, great, great grandson of Josiah who laid down his life willingly so that you and I can be forgiven and pardoned.

In the name of Jesus, Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 And again that address is

Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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