Old Testament in a Year: 2 Kings 22-23, Jeremiah 1-6

journeying through the Old Testament this year, 2026, next year, 2027 through the entire New Testament. We're going to be looking at 2 Kings, chapter 22 and chapter 23. We're also going to be looking at the first few chapters of the book of Jeremiah this morning. I want you to do me a favor every single week, scattered all over the nation, in prisons, correctional facilities all over America. We have over 20,000 men and women who join us for worship. Refuge would you do me a big favor. Welcome all of those that are on the Pando app this morning. Hey man, we welcome you. So grateful you could join us today. So I have here on the platform this Bible that is so meaningful and so precious. I don't know the value of this Bible. It dates back to the 1800s and it is in incredible condition. You see some pictures there of the inside of this Bible that goes all the way back to the 1800s. It's in such great shape. The pages are not torn and tattered as color prints inside of the Bible. But what is so fascinating about this particular Bible is the story as to how it came into our possession. This Bible stays in my green room. But I believe the way that it came to us is indicative of what is happening in our culture today. So a number of years ago, a couple in our church who lived next door to another couple were approached by that couple and this other couple their neighbors were those who went into homes after an estate sale and they would clean out the home. And so this couple who were the neighbors of the people here at the refuge went into this home and they're cleaning out the remains, the things that were left there in the home after the estate sale and get this in the garbage can was this Bible. And they thank God they took it out of the garbage can. They went to their neighbors who they knew attended church and they said do you think your church would want this? And they brought it to me, the people who attend the refuge. And they said pastor, this is the story they told me in the story they said would you want this? I said are you kidding me? As David Harris would say are you kidding me? So this has been in our possession for the last several years and I had no idea until after the nine o'clock service when this couple came to me and they said where are the people, not the people who attended the refuge, we're the people who found that Bible and we've been now attending the refuge for the last several months. But I feel like we're living in a time where so many people have depreciated the value of the Word of God. They discarded the Word of God. Let me just forewarn you, I'm going to preach today whether you want me to preach or not. I endeavor to do that every Sunday regardless of what kind of mood you're in. I'm going to preach the Word today. There's so many people have discarded

the Word of God and that's the story of what's happening in 2 Kings chapter 22. Now as we're journeying through the Old Testament, we've discovered that the people of God, the Israelites, had a pattern and the pattern was this. They would serve God with fervency and fire and then they would turn their backs on God. They would adopt evil practices and idolatry and they would begin to participate in things that were culturally accepted as normal but were in direct violation to the book of the law or to the Word of God. Here's the problem. We see the same thing happening today. Like we see people turning their backs on the Word of God. Now listen, we know that sinners are going to act like sinners, right? Sinners sin. But the bigger problem is with They have a relationship with God, yet somewhere along the way, they begin to forsake the ways of God. They begin to view the Word of God as less valuable. They begin to view the Word of God as archaic, or out of date, or old-fashioned, or that the Word of God has no relevance to where they are in their life, or maybe no relevance to our culture today. And so they adopt evil practices and participate in things that contradict the truth of the Word of God. Right, we're seeing that happens so much, and what ends up happening is that people who should know better, people that are in a relationship with God, that then discard the Word of God, here's what happens, they blur the lines between, for those that don't know better, like sinners who sin. And you've got the people of God who are compromising the Word of God,

and it blurs the lines so that people who don't know God don't know the difference between living for God and living for ourselves. So the result of that, listen to me, the result of that is that we have pastors and churches that are ordaining homosexuals, that we have pastors who refuse to speak against abortion. We have pastors who will not call sin, sin. We have pastors and leaders who water down the hard truths of Scripture. We have churches that are producing not disciples, but they're producing these weak, spineless Christians who possess no boldness and constantly are bowing to cultural pressure. Are y'all with me? Let me tell you where it begins. It begins when we discard the value of the Word of God. It begins when you as a believer, when you as a follower of Christ discard the value of the Word of God and you allow compromise to creep into your life. So 2 Kings, chapter 22, we're gonna read several verses they're beginning in verse ones. Stand, if you will, to honor the Word of God this morning. The absolute greatest book on the planet, if you agree, say amen. Says, beginning in verse one, Josiah was eight years old when he became king and he reigned in Jerusalem 31 years.

His mother was yet a dia, the daughter of a dia from both's death. He did what was pleasing in the Lord's sight and he followed the example of his ancestor David. He did not turn away from doing what was right. In the 18th year of his reign, so now he's 26 years old, King Josiah, sent Shafen son of Azalea and grandson of Moshulam, the court secretary to the temple of the Lord. He told him, go to Heelkai, the high priest, having count the money that the gatekeepers have collected from the people of the Lord's temple. And trust this money to the man assigned to supervise the restoration, and that's what we're talking about today, the restoration of God, the restoration of the Lord's temple. Then they can use it to pay workers to repair the temple. They will need to hire carpenters, builders, masons, also have them by the timber and the finished don't need to repair the temple. Don't require the construction of supervisors to keep account of the money they receive for they are honest and trustworthy men. Verse eight, Heelkai, the high priest said to Shafen, the court secretary, I have found the book of the law in the Lord's temple. And then Heelkai gave the scroll to Shafen and he read it. Shafen went to the king, King Josiah, and he reported your officials have turned over the money collected at the temple of the Lord, to the workers and supervisors at the temple.

Shafen also told the king, Heelkai, the priest, has given me a scroll. So Shafen read it to the king. When the king heard what was written in the book of the law, he tore his clothes into spare. Verse 13, "Go to the temple, and speak to the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all of Judah. Enquire 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." Watch this last line. We have not been doing everything it says we must do. Let me read that again. We have not been doing everything that it says we must do. And if that is the mindset of believers, if that is the condition of the church, it is just a matter of time before the enemy has his way with us. I've got a word for you today, about the restoration of God. Can we make some declarations together before you're seated? Great. I need you to talk a little bit this morning. I know some of you are raised in a Catholic church where if you sneeze during Mass, everybody looked at you like you're weird. You can talk in this church. Let's make some declarations, here we go. Ready, go.

I will hide that I might not sin against God. This word is, and health to my bones. I will be a, and not a hero only. And I'm confident of this. Come on, say it again. Come on, we'll complete it in Jesus' name. Do you believe that same man? I mean, you can be seated. Let me tell you the context of what we just read, those 13 verses out of 2 Kings, chapter 22. The context is this, that the temple was in disrepair. The word of God had been neglected. Worship had been corrupted. There was idolatry that was a normal. It had just been accepted as normal among the people of God. We're not talking about normal among sinners. Yeah, sinners, sinners do sinful things. We're talking about the people of God. And they had wandered so far from the Lord that they needed to rediscover what God had already said. And then in the midst of this, in the midst of what I just described, Josiah discovers through Shaphon, the book of the law that was there in the temple. And when he hears the word of God, Josiah responds, watch with repentance and action. All that we would do the same, that when we hear the word of God, whether it be on a Sunday or on a Wednesday night, which by the way, we have incredible teaching

on Wednesday nights. That when we hear the word of God, maybe you're having your quiet time sitting in your home, maybe you're listening to a podcast on the way to work, maybe you've got the word of God playing on Spotify as you fall asleep, but may we be the kind of people who when we hear the word of God, that we respond with repentance and action. Now, if we go back five years prior to this discovery of the book of the law in the temple, if you go back five years, God raises up a man, a prophet by the name of Jeremiah. So Jeremiah and Josiah are living at the same time. They're in the same place in Jerusalem and God raises Jeremiah up as a mouthpiece, as a prophet to warn the people of Israel. And then five years later, they discover the book of the law. So there's all these things that are happening. God throwing lifelines to his people saying, come back, repent, come back to me. It was God's warning to Judah to turn back and to forsake evil. Listen to me, church. God is doing the same thing today. God has raised up people and pastors and prophets. saying, "Wake up! Repent! Come back to me!" We see in Jeremiah, and if you're in our reading plan, because we're doing everything

we can't to eliminate biblical illiteracy, preaching through the entire Bible, quarterly plans to keep you in the Word of God so that if you follow this in a two-year period, you're going to read the Bible cover to cover, which surprisingly most believers have never done. We're trying to make it as easy as possible. And if you're following in the reading plan this week, you've been reading in the book of Jeremiah, and we see there in the first couple of chapters of Jeremiah, two things. Two things that they did. Two things that the people of Judah did that now over 3,000 years later are eerily similar. The book of Jeremiah predominantly was written before Babylonian captivity took place. It's God crying out to them. Come back, come back, but here's two things that we've seen in number one. We see a call ignored where Jeremiah is crying out to them, and they're just ignoring the warnings of God. Look at Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 1, "Y'all still with me? I'm going to preach." I told you I was going to preach. These are the words of Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, one of the priests from the town of Ennathoth in the land of Benjamin, the Lord gave first gave messages to Jeremiah during the 13th year of the reign of Josiah, son of Ammon, king of Judah. The Lord's messages continued throughout the reign of King Joachim, Josiah's son, until the 11th year of the reign of King Zedekiah, another of Josiah's son. In August of that 11th year, the people of Jerusalem were taken away as captains. So let me recap for you. In the 13th year of Josiah's reign, remember he was eight years old when he became king. Now he's 21 years old. His 13th year, God raises up a prophet by the name of Jeremiah who's crying out to the people of Judah, come back, come home, repent, get things right, turn back to the Lord. Now from that moment, the 13th year of Josiah's reign, until Babylonian captivity took place, which we know, was 586 B.C. The final captivity, when they were all taken to Babylon, that was a period watch of 40

years, 40 years that Jeremiah is crying out to the people. 40 years of them ignoring the warning, like God did not want them to go into captivity. Do you understand that today? God was desperately trying to keep the people from becoming prisoners, just like God is crying out to the church today. A God in His mercy is giving us a chance after a chance, after a chance to repent, to turn back, to adhere to the teachings of the Word of God. 40 years, Jeremiah is crying out to the people, God warning them. Imagine if a smoke detector goes off in your house in the middle of the night. Some of you have probably had that happen before. You can choose one of two things. You can get mad at the smoke detector. You can put the pillow over your head, you can roll over and go back to sleep, and ignore the smoke detector and the beeping sound, or you can get up out of bed at 3.30 in the morning and go find out, is there a fire in my house? Listen to me, the smoke detector is not your enemy. The alarm is trying to save your life. Jeremiah was not the enemy. He was crying out, there was a mouthpiece for God, because God was desperately trying to save them, but yet they just put the pillow over their heads and rolled over from 40 years and said, "That's not what we want!" My fear is that that's exactly what the American church is doing today. What's this verse 9 and 10? "Then the Lord reached out and touched my mouth and said, 'Look, I put words in your mouth today. I'll point you to stand up against nations and kingdoms.' Some you must uproot and tear down and destroy and overthrow others. You must build up and plant." They just ignored it, ignored the warnings. Second thing they did, which is eerily similar to what we see happening in American, in the American church today, is not only ignoring the confidence, a choice to rebel. They made a choice. They didn't just put the pillow over their heads and say, 'I just want to block out that sound now.' They also chose to do what they wanted to do.

Look at Jeremiah chapter 2 verse 11, "As any nation ever traded its gods for new ones, even though they're not gods at all. Yet my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols. The heavens are shocked at such a thing and shrink back and horror on dismay," says the Lord. "For my people have done two evil things," God says. "They have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all." Listen, I would venture to say that the American church has traded the one true God for worthless idols. Like we've discarded the one true God as the source of everything that we need, and we have tried to find fulfillment and satisfaction in other things, worthless idols, worthless idols. For example, we've traded our loyalty and affection for God for entertainment. Do you realize the average American spends $300 a month on entertainment, which is more than the majority of people give to their church in a month, on entertainment? We've exchanged relationship with God for the worthless idol of materialism. Listen, our speaker last week, Pastor Johnson Booley from Victory Church in Atlanta, said, "If you want to know what somebody's priorities are, look at their calendar, look at their checkbook." Let me tell you what happens here in America every single year. Americans spend an estimated $1.2 trillion per year on non-essential items that they don't actually need. Let's boil that down to an individual. It's $18,000 a year on non-essential items, $1,500 a month on discretionary purchases, impulse buys, and lifestyle luxuries. We've traded relationship with God for the worthless idol of substance addiction and abuse. 28% of those that are age 12 or older in America are addicted to alcohol. 28% of those in America are 12 or older are addicted to some type of drug in America over a quarter of the people in America that are over the age of 12 are addicted to some alcohol or some drug. Why? Because we're trying to find satisfaction in things that will never satisfy. And that was the indictment of God against the people. They've done two evil things. Number one, they've abandoned me and he refers to himself as the fountain of living water. And now they're trying all these other things, hoping that they'll be satisfied but never being satisfied. Listen, Jesus says to an immoral woman who shows up in the middle of the day at a well in John chapter 4. And we know the reason she came in the middle of the day was because she wanted to avoid the humiliation and the scrutiny of all the other ladies who would come out to the well in the morning because she had quite the reputation of being immoral. In fact, she was living with a guy at the time, so she would wait until all of

them came to the well, then she would go out later thinking nobody will be there. But on this This particular day, there was somebody there on assignment from God. again." Listen to me, all of our fountains are in the Lord. God is everything that we need. He can satisfy every craving and longing of our souls. He can quench our thirst, but for whatever reason, we've decided that there must be something better. And Jeremiah says to the people, "You've dug these systems." It's not a word that we use a lot in our vocabulary, but a sister was just kind of this hand-carved area in a rock or in the ground that would hold the rainwater or that would collect water from some other source, and Jeremiah says, "Here's the problem. Your sisters have all kinds of cracks in them, and they never hold water. Like the water just leaks out. And what Jeremiah was saying was all these are the things that you're trying, the idolatry and the sexual immorality of the Israelites, and all these things, you think it's going to satisfy you, and it doesn't. You find yourself constantly thirsty until you drink of the living water of Jesus in the middle of ignoring the call of God in the warning of God, and they're making the choice to exchange God for worthless idols. Five years after Jeremiah began to be used by God to crowd to his people, Josiah stumbles over the word of God that's in a trash can." Actually what really this one was, the word of God was in the temple, and they find the word of God there. Now listen to me, the word of God never disappeared. They had just stopped obeying the word of God. Just like today, the word of God is here. It's around. There's an attack on the word of God. We see that all the time, but the word of God is here.

The problem is, so many people have stopped obeying the word of God, but look at Josiah's response. Verse 11, we read earlier when the king heard what was written in the book of the law, towards closing despair, gave these orders, go to the temple, speak to the Lord for me and for the people and for all of Judah, and grab out the words written in the scroll that has been found for the Lord's great anger. It's burning against us because our ancestors have not obeyed the words in the scroll we've not been doing, everything that it says that we must do. Now in that moment, the reason Josiah responded with repentance, the reason Josiah responded with action is because the word of God confronted him in his present condition. And that's exactly what the word of God does for us. Listen to me, the word of God confronts us. And one of the reasons a lot of people have discarded the word, one of the reasons a lot of people have thrown it into the trash can, so to speak, is because they've been confronted by the truth of the word of God and they do not want to change their ways. Listen, if you look in a mirror and your lipstick is all out of whack, are you looking in a mirror and you've got chocolate smeared on your cheek and you didn't know it was there, the mirror did not create that. The mirror just simply revealed what was already there. Let me tell you, that's exactly what the word of God does. The reason it's so important that you're in the word of God consistently on a daily basis is because every time you read the word of God, it's a mirror for our souls and we look into the full-length mirror of the word of God and it reveals things about us. It reveals rebellion, it reveals compromise, it reveals apathy, it reveals pride, it reveals where we've become spiritually cold, it reveals areas where we need to repent. Probably all of us at some point have had a warning light go off on our dashboard, right, in our car, in our truck. A warning light goes off and what some people do is they just take a piece of paper or a piece of tape and they stick it over the warning light. I don't want to see that, because people are afraid if I take it into the shop, I'm afraid

of what it's going to cost me. Think about that and listen, there are warning lights from the Lord going off and some people decide that the solution is I'm going to stick a piece of tape over it and let me tell you, You have to take it into the shop. And when we read the Word of God, it's like warning lights going off on our dashboard. It's like the smoke detector going off, and we have to decide, will we rationalize what we're doing? Will we blame somebody else? Will we just become defensive? Will we just ignore that warning light and stick a piece of tape over it? Joe Sia didn't do that. He didn't cover up the warning light. He took action. I'll never forget, years ago I was with some guys. We went to a hornet's game and we're pulling into the parking deck. And as we're pulling in right at the entrance to the parking deck, in front of us was this mini church bus. Not a big giant mini church bus. And in the parking deck, there are these big round metal bars that hang down that show you how high the parking deck is once you get in there. And if the top of your vehicle hits that metal bar hanging down, you know I don't fit in the parking deck. I gotta go somewhere else.

And we're behind this little mini church bus and a guy has gotten out of the passenger side and walks around to the front. And he takes that metal bar and he holds it up so that the bus can go under because the bus was hitting it. But he holds it up like just ignore all, well, we'll be okay. And I thought this is, oh man, I just should stick around. This is gonna be quite the show. And when we came out of the hornet's game, you can guess that mini church bus was wedged against the ceiling. They were stuck there because they ignored the warning. Josiah didn't say, well, I'm just gonna discard the word of God 'cause I don't see that it has any relevance to my life. I don't see that it has any value to my life which is what a lot of people are doing nowadays. I don't think it's relevant to me. I don't think it fits my lifestyle. So I'll just ignore it. I'll just push the bar up and keep going in life anyway until you get stuck and that's not what Josiah did. Josiah was like, man, I'm gonna repent. I'm gonna take action and here's the action that he took in chapter 23 of 2 Kings. First of all, he cleansed the temple of the articles that were used for false worship.

Secondly, he got rid of all the false priests. We've watched over the last few years how God has been cleansing the church of pastors, prophets, leaders, who are not true shepherds. God's been cleansing the church of false priests. Verse seven says he got rid of the temple prostitutes. This is all the action that Josiah has taken. He repents personally and then he's like, we gotta do something. So he like rids the temple of the temple prostitutes. Listen to me, church, we've gotta rid our lives of sexual immorality. We've gotta refuse to tolerate sexual sin and sexual immorality in the church. And for way too long, we've just looked the other way. Verse 10, the Bible says he destroys, we're in chapter 23, so I can't Kings, verse 10. The Bible says he destroys the altar of Tofeth. The altar of Tofeth was the place outside of Jerusalem that overlooked the valley of Benhenon. I've seen the valley of Benhenon when I've been to Israel. The valley of Benhenon outside of Jerusalem was the trash dump. Everybody would throw the trash there and then they would set it a fire. It's where we get the parallel to Gehenna. One of the names for hell where it says the fires never go out because in the valley

of Benhenon, the fires never went out because people are constantly throwing trash there. Here's what the people of Judah were doing. They were taking their infants and they were throwing them into the fire of Benhenon as an offering to the God of Molech. And let me tell you, that's where the-- And then Josiah tore down and destroyed all of the high places, all of the false altars, and the false temples he took action. And I want you to listen and we're going to close. Listen to the words of Jeremiah chapter 6 verse 16 and 17. This is what the Lord says. Stop at the crossroads and look around. Ask for the old godly way and walk in it. Travel its path and you will find a rest for your souls. But you reply, "No, that's not the road we want." I posted watchmen over you who said, "Listen for the sound of the alarm." But you replied, "No, we won't pay attention." Church, listen. I believe we as a church. I believe the capital see churches at the crossroads. I believe God is crying out to the church. Wake up, repent. Before it's too late, before you go into captivity, I believe God's saying to individuals, wake up, repent. You're standing at a crossroads. God says, "If you take this path, it's going to lead to life." God's never going to force his way on us. And many, many in the church are saying, "That's not the way I want to go." Because I don't think it's relevant to me. I want to do what I want to do. That's not the path that I want to take. And many are taking a path that leads to death and destruction. God is sounding the alarm. The people of Judah said, "No, we want to ignore the alarm." Let me tell you, I am your Josiah today. I am declaring the Word of God to you today so that you have an opportunity to respond with repentance and with action. I am your Jeremiah. I'm the one sounding the alarm, not just to you, but to myself. Saying, "Wake up, repent. Look in the full-length mirror of the Word of God and see if there are things that are not right." You have to decide. I can't force you. And I promise you this, I'm a pastor who has vowed I will never resort to manipulation. Here's what I will do. I'll preach the full counsel of the Word of God to you.

And then, you decide. You decide. You stand at a crossroads. I'll either choose the ways of the Lord. I'll choose to go all by.