2 Kings 22:3-13 ~ September 20, 2015 ~ Heritage Lutheran Church

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Thomasine Barrett
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1 Turning Point 2 Kings 22:3-13 ~ September 20, 2015 ~ Heritage Lutheran Church Almost everybody, if they think about it, can remember a time or event that became a turning point in their lives. For me a very critical turning point in my life came in A lot of things happen for me in that year. My daughter Karen was born. We finished up our ministry to Faith Lutheran Church in Great Falls and took a new call to Calvary Lutheran Church in Kalispell Montana. Those seem like pretty big events, don t they? But the event that actually became a turning point in my life happened during September that year. At the time, Kris and I were vacationing in the Twin Cities. I can clearly remember standing in the electronics store in Roseville, Minnesota. I was carefully and patiently explaining to my wife why it was so important for me to spend $100 on a Timex Sinclair 1000 computer. For those of you that are interested in the history of the computer industry, the Timex Sinclair 1000 was the first computer to be priced below $100. It seemed like an amazing opportunity at $ That didn't actually make it any more affordable for us, but that day my dear wife started her patient lifelong endurance of my infatuation with computers. It was a turning point. It is hard to overestimate how that tiny little computer changed my life. It was a little plastic box with Chiclets keys and almost two kilobytes of memory, less than what now comes in Christmas ornaments. It became the first in a long line of machines that my family graciously accommodated. As some of you know, I have been the lead director for computer technology in three separate educational institutions. The 20 years that I spent in IT management was an important part of my life that started from the purchase of that Timex Sinclair 1000 computer. As influential as it was, the Timex Sinclar 1000 was not the only turning point in my life. God s word had still greater power and authority. And I say with all sincerity, that it's a joy to be back in the pulpit again and serving as a preacher and teacher of God's holy Word. And that brings us to our text for today. In the eighteenth year of his reign, King Josiah sent Shaphan, the court secretary, to the Temple of the Lord. He told him, Go to Hilkiah the high priest and have him count the money the gatekeepers have collected from the people at the Lord s Temple. Entrust this money to the men assigned to supervise the restoration of the Lord s Temple. (After a time when the work had progressed) Hilkiah the high 1

2 priest said to Shaphan, I have found the Book of the Law in the Lord s Temple! Then Hilkiah gave the scroll to Shaphan, and he read it. Shaphan went to the king and reported, Hilkiah the priest has given me a scroll. So Shaphan read it to the king. When the king heard what was written in the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes in despair. Then he gave these orders Go to the Temple and speak to the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah. Inquire about the words written in this scroll that has been found. For the Lord s great anger is burning against us because our ancestors have not obeyed the words in this scroll. We have not been doing everything it says we must do. This story about King Josiah, His secretary and the high priest of the temple is a really important turning point in the history of Faith in God. And in some odd ways it's not completely unlike the experience I had with that Timex Sinclair 1000 computer. Let me explain. Up until the point where this story takes place in second Kings there is not been much talk about the written word of God in the Bible. That sounds odd, doesn t it? The Bible does not talk about itself in the early part of its own story. It talks a little about writing. You remember that God wrote with his finger on stone tablets for Moses. And those stone tablets for placed inside the Ark of the Covenant. That certainly was a form of writing. But it was not meant for every day usage. You just don t curl up with a pair of stone tablets in your favorite reading place. The writing on those stone tablets was primarily symbolic of the covenant between God and his people. There are other indications in scripture that the written word played some part in life of faith. But in the beginning, the word of God was meant to be taken into a person s heart and obeyed from memory. This is what we read in Deuteronomy 11: You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth. 2

3 So there was a little writing taking place. They wrote on door posts and gates. But evidently that was not enough. Something had happened between the time the children of Israel entered the Promised Land and the time of King Josiah. In fact a lot of things have happened. The whole business about King Saul, King David, and King Solomon took place as the heyday of ancient Israel. But by the time we get to King Josiah things have definitely taken a downturn. The children of Israel are no longer united. They have split into two separate countries. The northern kingdom was called Israel. It was ruled by a series of evil kings that turned their back on God and led the people into idolatry. The southern kingdom fared only slightly better. That kingdom was called Judah. Even though there were some evil Kings, there were more good kings that tried to return them to the true worship of God. King Josiah was one of the good Kings. Today's text tells us about his efforts to restore the temple and in the process return it to the center of worshiping the one true God in Judah. And King Josiah did succeed in returning the kingdom of Judah to the worship of the true God. As wonderful as that is, the story in today's text is about more than that. It is about a turning point in the history of God's people. Today's story is about the time that the people of God also became the people of the book, the people of the Bible. This turning point changed the history of believers in God. Faith in God is not just about traditions. Faith in God is not just about cultural memories. Faith in God is about what is written. Specifically, faith in God is about what is written in the Bible. Have you ever asked yourself why we need a Bible? That's actually a pretty good question to ask. It's good to ask because it brings us to a better understanding of what God s Word in the Bible means for us. It helps us to understand what God s word in the Bible does for us. This story is about King Josiah rediscovering the written word of God. It is about the word of God that had been lost in in God s own temple. It had become lost because the temple had fallen into such terrible disrepair. The temple was no longer in regular use by God s people. They had been running after other gods. But Josiah set out to change that. He was determined to return true worship to the Temple. But he had to start by cleaning it up. He had to restore the temple so that it could be used. And amidst the debris, the trash heaps, the bad masonry, and the rotting timbers was an ancient scroll that contained the Word of God. That scroll explained the covenant relationship between God and his people. That scroll told about the promises of God. That scroll laid out God's expectations for the life of his people. 3

4 The written word is an incredibly transformative technology. It has the same kind of power to transform cultures that computers have today. Even after centuries of disuse that scroll was still readable. It's still contained the vital information that could transform readers into the people of God. No doubt some ordinary work man discovered that scroll. He had sense enough to know that it should go directly to the high priest. I can just imagine the sense of wonder, elation, and despair that overcame the leaders of Judah as they first encountered the clear, concise written word of God meant to impact and shape their lives. The Bible itself records King Josiah s response. It says, When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes. Just think about it. King Josiah was about the business of trying to do everything right as he understood it. But he only had memories distorted by time. What were they supposed to be doing in their covenant relationship with God almighty? But then they discovered the book. It was part of the book that we call the Bible. And that book laid out in a clear and concise terms exactly what the people of God were supposed to be doing. And when Josiah heard this he knew that Judah had been failing God; failing to worship God properly; failing to keep the covenant God had made with his people. It was a failure of Biblical proportions. It was a gigantic failure that brought Josiah to instant despair. And so he ripped his kingly clothing as a sign of his incredible grief. This is what books do. They remember. The people of God had forgotten. Their memories were faulty. And the tradition that was passed to Josiah was corrupt. But books are different than human memory. Different than tradition passed from generation to generation. Books record accurately. Books remember accurately. And no matter how long a book sits forgotten in a dark unknown corner, when it is rediscovered it brings out the truth. It supplies the wondrous accuracy that was recorded into it. We call ourselves Christians and that is fundamentally true. We believe in Jesus. And we depend on his grace to save us from our sins. His salvation makes us into children of God. But there is more to being a Christian that an occasional expression of faith. This is what Paul is talking about when he says in Romans 6: Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 4

5 This is exactly the turning point that King Josiah arrived at when the Scroll of the Law was discovered during the temple restoration. I m wondering if any of us are at that turning point in our lives. How are we doing on discovering the wonder of God s word in the Bible? Christians are people of the book. Our lives of faith are rooted in our Bibles. We live in an age when the word Google has become a verb. Whenever we want to know something, we just google it. But what do we get when we google our most fundamental questions? We get options. We get opinions. We get the thoughts and the meanderings of millions of people spread across the world connected to the Internet. Our lives are not that different king Josiah. Our life with God can fall into desperate disarray. But hidden under the mess of our life, or available as an app on your cell phone, is the word of God written, WRITTEN in the Bible. Its presence there represents thousands of years of God's people being used by God himself to write his word in a way that enables the spirit of God to speak to us directly this very day. This is why our spiritual enemy, Satan, is so desperate to keep us out of the Bible. He tries to convince us that we are too busy to read it. He tries to tell us that we won t really understand it. He makes us think it is too old, too culturally distant, and too arcane to have any meaning for our lives. Well, those things are all wrong. CAPITAL WRONG! The Bible is written in a way that reveals itself to us as we read it. Just as King Josiah understood, we too will understand. This congregation is fully dedicated to making God s Word in the Bible an active, powerful part of every member s life. Our engagement in our yearlong study of the Divine Drama is to help everyone build a framework for a better understanding how God speaks directly to us from the pages of Holy Scripture. Our hope and our prayer is that each of us will find a new turning point for our lives as we deepen our relationship to God through the study of his Holy Word. God himself has preserved that Word down through the ages precisely so you can read it. He promises his spirit to help as you study and understand. Take him at his Word! Pick up your Bibles and trust. It can be the turning point for your life. It is a chance for a fresh start in the Kingdom of God. The cross is full. The tomb is empty. Jesus is alive and leading us out to go, make, baptize and teach disciples. Let us take up our cross and follow him. 5

The Young King Josiah

The Young King Josiah Josiah was eight years old when he became king of Judah. He obeyed God s law and like his ancestor, King David, he stayed faithful to God. In the eighteenth year of his reign he sent