True or False?
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1 Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath.
2 And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
Today, as we continue to study the effects of prayer throughout scripture, the title of my message is, [True or False?].
In 2013, my parents, siblings, and I took our final family vacation before we all started getting married. We went to Washington D.C. I contacted our Congressman’s office to get help setting up tours.
The first full day in D.C. we went to the Federal Bureau of Engraving and Printing. We saw how they printed money. Sounds exciting, right? Wrong.
It was about as exciting as watching the bulletins print. Literally, they turned on a computer, loaded the paper, and hint print.
The tour guide showed us a pallet of $100 bills. That was pretty exciting until she explained that they had not been registered with the Treasury Department so they are not worthy anything.
At some point, we discussed counterfeit money. I assumed to know a counterfeit from a real bill they would have to look over fake bills.
However, they explained, they can tell a real bill versus a fake bill by studying how a REAL bill looks. Once they know the true markings and make up of a bill they can spot a forgery quick.
They know is something is true or false based on knowing TRUTH.
Jesus explained how to discern between true and false in John 8. He outlined a similar principle as they had in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.
32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
When we spend time with God through prayer, reading our Bible, fasting, and living for Him every day, He reveals Himself to us.
But what happens when someone has not had an encounter with truth?
If truth comes with God, where does falsehood originate?
44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.
After speaking to His followers on knowing the truth, He addressed the Pharisees. They knew about God, but they didn’t really know Him.
He shows what happens when people live without knowing the truth. They are deceived by the lies of the enemy.
Satan’s lies are unique though. He convinces people that their sin is justifiable and okay. We have seen this acceleration of deception in our culture.
Slowly overtime, people stopped concealing their sin. All sense of right and wrong, morality and immorality ceased to exist. Now, people pridefully display their sin for everyone to see.
Why?
People truly believe that their lives, regardless of what they do, is appropriate and acceptable.
That is why we overhear foul language, inappropriate jokes, or unkind conversations when we go in public.
Many have been deceived that either God does not care, and some believe there isn’t a God at all.
This should not surprise us. Paul promised:
1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come:
We live in perilous times for so many have given into Satan’s crafty fraudulence. Furthermore, he knows his time is short. He knows where he will end up for eternity, and he wants to take everyone with him.
8 But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
Therefore, I come this morning with a word from God— True or False. We’re either living for God or we are not. There is no in between.
It is not TRUE and FALSE, the two cannot coexist. Either we’re living in obedience to the Way, the Truth, and the Life, or we are not.
Now more than ever, we need to:
know the truth
live the truth
pray the truth
impart the truth into future generations
We live in a time where truth is under attack. So let’s hold onto:
5 For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, And His truth endures to all generations.
Who wants their family to live in truth and to know the truth?
God will preserve His truth. To prove this, I want to look at the life of King Josiah. I have three points, [True Words], [True Witness], and [True Worship].
Let’s begin
1. True Words
1. True Words
8 Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord.” And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.
Josiah became king at the age of eight. He was the great-grandson of the righteous King Hezekiah. However, his grandfather, Manasseh, and father, Amon, were wicked.
In fact, they were so evil they led Judah down a path that eventually guided them into captivity. Evidently Manasseh and Amon began to believe the lies of Satan.
After Hezekiah rallied Judah to serve God, Manasseh was blatantly disobedient to God. He:
Rebuilt the hight places
Dabbled with witchcraft and the occult
Sacrifice his sons to pagan gods by burning them alive
Led to mass killings of people
so much that Jerusalem was filled with the bodies and blood of the innocent
But the worse was when he brought idols into the Temple of God
Eventually, after intense judgment, Manasseh realized he was wrong, but much of the damage was already done. He died after leading Judah for fifty-five years.
His son, Amon, was just as wicked. After two years on the throne, those within his own household conspired to kill him. Then at the mature age of eight, Josiah became king.
Somehow in a society consumed by what was false, there was a tug in Josiah’s heart that led him to truth.
About eighteen years into his reign, he began to remove the high places where people would worship pagan gods.
Then he led the nation in a restoration project. They focused on the Temple, that had fallen into disrepair after at least seventy years of misuse.
As they cleaned out the closets and fixed up the rooms, the High Priest made an astounding discovered the Book of the Law. He quickly sent his messenger to Josiah with an important note— WE HAVE FOUND THE WORD OF GOD!
10 Then Shaphan the scribe showed the king, saying, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read it before the king.
11 Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, that he tore his clothes.
By this point, Josiah was twenty-six years old. He was a descendent of King David and for the first time he discovered he had been living a lie.
His actions and motives were false. He did not live truth, just as his father and grandfather did not live out the truth. He lived in a culture that did what was right in their owns eyes.
There was not true or false. It was all about what brought personal fulfillment and pleasure.
When Josiah heard how far Judah came, he tore his clothes and went into mourning. Hearing the truth had a profound impact on him.
What Josiah did not know was God had his hand on him. The Lord planned to use him to lead Judah in a time of rediscovering truth.
Perhaps he wondered what was different about him. Why did the grandson and son of two wicked men seek the truth?
2. True Witness
2. True Witness
13 “Go, inquire of the Lord for me, for the people and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found; for great is the wrath of the Lord that is aroused against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us.”
14 So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. (She dwelt in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter.) And they spoke with her.
Let’s try to put ourselves in Josiah’s shoes for a moment. He had never fully heard or understood what God required of Him as king. He also did not realize what the Lord expected of the nation of Judah.
Suddenly he realized judgment would come and Judah deserved based on their continual trampling on truth.
Some scholars believe Josiah heard from the book of Deuteronomy. If that is true, he would listened as they read:
6 Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses; he shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness.
According to Josiah’s understanding of what he heard, Judah deserved death because of their willful disobedience, but he wanted another witness to confirm.
It was as though Josiah went to bed thinking he knew what was right and true and woke up in a new world. Everything he believed his entire life turned out to be false.
He needed to understand the truth, therefore, he called the high priest and other influential men in Jerusalem to go to the Temple. They were to find out what God had planned for the backslidden nation.
At this time, several well-known prophets ministered in Jerusalem, including Jeremiah, Zephaniah, perhaps Nahum and Habbakuk.
But God used an unknown woman, a prophetess to speak to the King. Her name was Huldah. She provided a witness to what God wanted Josiah to hear.
Before we look at what she prophesied, let’s see WHY he wanted a true prophet of God to speak.
There were plenty of false prophets who would have told Josiah what they thought he wanted to hear. I can imagine their words:
“O great king, you do not have to believe all that old fashioned and outdated words.”
But for too long, Josiah heard false prophet tell everyone they were find. He had an encounter with truth, how could he want anything false?
The prophetess had bad news: disaster will come upon the city and everything you read is true. Judah has abandoned God and worshipped other gots through their sacrifices, and enough is enough.
But God had a word for Josiah:
18 But as for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, in this manner you shall speak to him, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel: “Concerning the words which you have heard—
19 because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they would become a desolation and a curse, and you tore your clothes and wept before Me, I also have heard you,” says the Lord.
20 Surely, therefore, 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 calamity which I will bring on this place.” ’ ” So they brought back word to the king.
What hope for Josiah. But it also gives us insight as to why we should live for and stand for truth.
When we please God through obedience to His word, prayer, and commitment to His house, we will witness His blessings on our lives.
After living a life consumed with falsehood, Josiah had the true word, confirmed by a true witness.
Perhaps he wondered what was different about him. Why did the grandson and son of two wicked men seek the truth?
3. True Worship
3. True Worship
1 Now the king sent them to gather all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to him.
2 The king went up to the house of the Lord with all the men of Judah, and with him all the inhabitants of Jerusalem—the priests and the prophets and all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant which had been found in the house of the Lord.
3 Then the king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people took a stand for the covenant.
Once Josiah had a revelation of the truth, he longed for the people of his country to know the truth, but he had his work cut out for him.
For over seven decades, Judah was as wicked as any of the surrounding nations that did no know God. But that was all about to change.
He had the word of God read, for Scripture has power to change situations and people.
Those who heard the word likely heard it for the fist time. The only one’s to remember witnessing such national righteousness would have been those in their eighties.
It had not been since the days of Hezekiah that Judah had a king who actually honored God. And those in their eighties would have been children when that happened.
Now, Josiah, with renewed commitment to truth, went on a campaign to purge false worship. He:
removed idols of Baal and Asherah from the Temple, burning them outside of Jerusalem
removed the priests who indulged in idolatry, prostitution, and perversion
removed statues and poles dedicated to false gods
defiled the altar to Molech, where people in Judah took their children to sacrifice to the false god.
In fact, in 2 Kings 23, I read the names of six false gods. The nation that was to worship the ONE true God, fell into idolatry, but Josiah put an end to that.
The truth so radically changed him that he removed every possible prath of false worship. Why? He had heard the truth.
Remember, he listened as they read from the book of Deuteronomy.
6 ‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
7 ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.
8 ‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;
9 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
10 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
He wanted God’s blessings and understood the jealous nature of the Lord. Therefore, he chose to worship and honor God the right way.
Perhaps he looked back and wondered what was different about him. Why did the grandson and son of two wicked men seek the truth?
Close:
I love Josiah’s life. True or False? Josiah learned he could not have both. But I continued to wonder, what was special about Josiah?
On paper, he should have followed Manasseh and Amon’s path. He should have led Judah further into falsehoods.
I assume Josiah had the same questions. If so, he finally had an answer to his surprising quest for truth:
16 As Josiah turned, he saw the tombs that were there on the mountain. And he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar, and defiled it according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.
17 Then he said, “What gravestone is this that I see?” So the men of the city told him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things which you have done against the altar of Bethel.”
18 And he said, “Let him alone; let no one move his bones.” So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.
Josiah was so bent on declaring and living truth that he even dug up the bones of the priests who allowed Judah to backslide. He took their bones and burned them.
But he looked and noticed a monument and asked the people in the town what it was about. The people of town told him— this is from the prophet who came from Judah and predicted what you have just done.
Just then, Josiah heard the whole story. Three hundred years before his birth, God revealed how He would use Josiah. The third king after David was wicked.
His name was Jeroboam. God sent a prophet with a word for the evil king.
1 And behold, a man of God went from Judah to Bethel by the word of the Lord, and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense.
2 Then he cried out against the altar by the word of the Lord, and said, “O altar, altar! Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, a child, Josiah by name, shall be born to the house of David; and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and men’s bones shall be burned on you.’ ”
How amazing. God had a plan for Josiah. It took 300 years for it to come to pass, but God never lies. His words are ALWAYS true. Therefore, the false religions of the day could not withstand what God promised.
God had a plan for Josiah’s life. He helped Judah return to the Lord, but his life also helps us.
I remain thoroughly convinced that God wants us to trust the truth. To depend o Him and His word. Notice what was said about Josiah:
33 Thus Josiah removed all the abominations from all the country that belonged to the children of Israel, and made all who were present in Israel diligently serve the Lord their God. All his days they did not depart from following the Lord God of their fathers.
He did not depart from following God.
I have been struck by Josiah’s life. He lived in an era consumed with ALL things false, but God used Him to usher in the truth.
How much more do we need to:
know the truth
live the truth
pray the truth
impart the truth into future generations
How do we do this?
We got to know Jesus. When we know the TRUTH, and Jesus is TRUTH, He will set us free.
It doesn’t matter our background. If God used Josiah, He can and will use us.
28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
God knows ALL about us for He created us, formed us, and prepared us for our assignment in life.
Now I can promise, after preaching a message on truth, the enemy will come and begin to tell us lies that are clearly false.
He will whisper:
that is true, but not for you
you’ve made too many mistakes
if you try, you will get it wrong
God doesn’t hear your prayers
He will try to convince us that we are
less than
defeated
unqualified
insignificant
And how do we overcome his lies?
Not by dwelling on what is false. We should not rehearse and focus on his fiction.
No, instead, we stand on truth.
37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We have the truth.
We have the true word
true witnesses
and we can give God true worship
True or False, we cannot have both. Which one will we choose?
Let’s move forward living in and declaring the truth of GOD!
