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Country Life SDA Church

Eric Walsh

Revival: True & False

Our scripture reading is taken from the book of Psalms, 85th division.

Psalm 85, verse 6 and 7 says, Will thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee.

Show us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us thy salvation.

Our message this Sabbath is entitled, Revival, True and False.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your Word.

We thank you, Lord, for your goodness and for your grace.

We thank you, Lord, for being better to us than we are to ourselves.

And now, Lord, we ask that you just pour out your holy spirit upon this place the lord he would lead us into truth lord we need not hear from me we need a word from the throne room of grace this is our prayer in jesus's precious and holy name amen So we're going to be coming from the book of 1st King, sorry, 2nd Kings, the 22nd chapter.

The Bible says, and it came to pass in the 18th year of King Josiah, that the king sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshulam, the scribe to the house of the Lord, saying, Go up to Hilkiah the high priest, that he may sum the silver which is brought into the house of the Lord, which the keepers of the door have gathered of the people." And so the story starts off with Josiah in his 18th year.

How old was Josiah when he started as king?

When you read prophets and kings, the spirit of prophecy says that when he was just 8 years old, he was already determined to serve God.

And it wasn't because he had a good example.

His father was a reprobate that was killed by his own servants, and he was 1 of the wickedest kings Judah ever had.

His grandfather was the notorious Manasseh.

By the time Josiah steps on the scene, the kingdom has been completely saturated with paganism, idolatry, and perversion.

The last time there was a good king was arguably 100 years earlier with Hezekiah, his great-grandfather.

Josiah had no good example, yet Josiah determined in his heart he would serve God.

Now let me say this about even our kids here at Country Life.

We have some young people that are going to be Josiahs.

We have young people that I believe have been particularly called by God.

And we've got to continue to encourage them in the way of a Josiah.

Verse 5, it says, And let them deliver it into the hand of the doers of the work, that have the oversight of the house of the Lord and let them give it to the doers of the work, which is in the house of the Lord, to repair the breaches of the house unto carpenters and builders and masons, and to buy timber and hewn stone to repair the house.

So he says, listen, go and find the silver that we've been collecting as people come into the temple because the temple needs to be refurbished.

Go and get that silver and I want you to pay the craftsman in order to fix the church, the temple, So it looks like it's supposed to look.

Verse 7 says, how be it, look at how honest the folk were under Josiah.

It says, how be it there was no reckoning made with them of the money that was delivered into their hand, because they dealt faithfully.

Before revival ever happened, Josiah had a heart for it.

Before revival ever happened, they wanted the house of God to be in order.

Before revival ever happened, the people of God were willing to give to the cause of God, and before revival ever happened, you didn't have to worry where the money went.

Verse 8, And Elkiah the high priest said unto Shaphin the scribe, Look at this, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.

And Elkiah gave the book to Shaphin, and he read it.

So as they're in the temple beginning to do the work, they find some stuff stashed away.

And in this stash of things, they find a book, probably then a scroll, and they pull it out.

And they realize that it is a book that had been lost.

We are told by the inspired pen that in fact under the rule of Manasseh, he had gotten so terrible that Manasseh was hiding and putting away things that pertain to God.

And this is probably a good portion of the book of Deuteronomy.

And when Hilkiah gave it to Shaphan, he read it.

It is not enough to find the word of God.

Verse 9, Shaffin the scribe came to the king and brought the king word again and said, thy servants have gathered the money that was found in the house and have delivered it into the hand of them that do the work that have the oversight of the house of the Lord.

And Shaphan the scribe showed the king saying, Halkiah the priest have delivered me a book.

And Shaphan read the book before the king.

And then the word of God shows up and Shaphan doesn't keep the Word of God to himself.

He brings it to Josiah and he reads the book to Josiah.

You see, it's not enough to have the scroll.

I, you know, when I talk to people, I encourage them, especially families, especially with little children.

It does us no good if the Bibles in our houses are just collecting dust.

We should have family worship in our house, and every house should have almost like a curriculum as to how you're going to go through the Bible with your children.

You should know that by the time your child is 13 or 14 years old, you have done enough biblical instruction in your house that your child can defend what they believe.

It's not enough to have the spirit of prophecy if it's never read, if it's never followed, if it's never taught.

Verse 11, and it came to pass when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, The Bible says Josiah rent his clothes.

When the full weight of what the book said, all of the promises and curses in the book of Deuteronomy, if the people of God were obedient or disobedient, When Josiah thought about the condition of Judah, the kingdom of Judah, the condition of the temple, the fact that there were altars to false gods, gardens lifted up in high places, that the people were still steeped in paganism, and he read what God said in Deuteronomy, he could not.

And let me tell you, in their custom, for a king to rip his clothes was a great statement of humility.

Josiah, when he heard the word of God, ripped his clothes in anguish.

The king commanded Hilkiah the priest and Ahicham the son of Shaphin and Atbar the son of Micaiah and Shaphin the scribe and Asahiah a servant of the king, saying, Go ye in choir of the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found.

For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is written concerning us." He said, listen, go and inquire.

2 Kings chapter 23, actually let me go back a second.

1 of the things that's interesting is she says, it's too, basically, it's too late for the consequences of the years of sin to be averted.

The spirit of prophecy actually says that God allowed them to still go through what they went through with Babylon, because if not, they would have just reverted back to their old ways again.

The prophetess told him, listen, because you did this and you repented, you won't see any of that.

And the king went up into the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great.

And he read, the king read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the Lord.

And the king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statues with all their heart and all their soul to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book.

And all the people stood to the covenant.

It wasn't enough for Josiah to read the book.

It wasn't enough for him to rip his clothes.

Ultimately, Josiah as leader had to stand before the people of God, read the book, and say, no, we are going to follow what the book says, and the people stood with him.

Revival without obedience is not revival.

And hence we see a picture in the Bible of revival.

It actually stays the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem for a long while because of this revival.

The question I have for you today is, is America having a revival?

And I've been reading through all these different articles.

This is ministry watch and you see the article it says you've probably heard some of it some site sales statistics to make the point They note that bible sales are up some bay some say by more than 40 percent christian apps downloads are up 80 percent Christian music streams are up 50 and They say this is evidence that we are in revival in America.

It started actually about a year ago at Asbury.

This is a college which is actually a revivalist college.

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Revival: True & False

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