Back to the Source - 2 Kings 22:8-20

I’d like for us to reflect on the Reformation this evening. For the record, I know I’m a week late and a dollar short that Reformation Sunday is typically the last Sunday in October, but last week I was sick for a big chunk of the week, but thankfully my friend Brock preached for us.

So better late than never! But I’d really like for us to think about it tonight.

As many of you probably know, on October 31st 1517, one of the most famous events in all of history took place. Martin Luther, a young Roman Catholic monk at the time, nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church in Germany sparking what we refer to as the Protestant Reformation.

Naturally, many protestant churches celebrate the last Sunday in October as Reformation Day. Last Sunday was Reformation Sunday, but we’re pretending that it’s today this year. Next year I’ll try to get it right.

I think it’s fair to say that in many ways the Protestant Reformation mirrors the passage of Scripture I just read about the rediscovery of God's law under King Josiah. Josiah’s discovery of the Law and the Protestant Reformation share something in common: they both shared a deep value for the Word of God.

For much of the 16th century, the Roman Catholic church was conducting their services in Latin, which was a language no one spoke! So, nevertheless, the gospel was being obscured through the various rituals of the Roman Catholic Church.

But eventually folks began to ask the obvious question: “why do we do what we do?”

People wanted to understand the church’s rationale for things. They were growing impatient with theological cliff notes or with someone saying, “this is what we’ve always believed” as they condescendingly patted them on the head.

People wanted to know why. Folks didn’t want to be told the interpretation of a book; they wanted to interact with the text for themselves, because they wanted to verify what they were being told against the original source material.

And so they began to study original source material, particularly God’s Word. Which explains two things, first that one of the Five Solas of the Reformation was Sola Scriptura or “the Scriptures alone.” And secondly, the significance of the cry Ad Fontes which is latin for “back to the sources.”

The Protestant Reformation was a “back to the Bible” movement! It was a response to the drifting away from Scripture of the Roman Catholic Church.

And so, the development of the printing press and rising literacy rates created the perfect environment for people to study influential texts for themselves, and question the standard practices of the day!

I’m obviously talking about the Reformation, but doesn’t this sound like the passage we just read? The rediscovery of God’s Word and the genuine concern over standard practices?

Because God’s Word isn’t a book full of information. Rather, God’s Word demands a response. Often God’s Word convicts, calls us to submission, and demands implementation.

Doesn’t that sound a lot like 2 Timothy 3:16-17? “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

Scripture demands action and we see that in our passage.

God’s Word Convicts Us (vv. 8-10)

Our passage begins with Hilkiah, the high priest, discovering “the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord.”

Obviously, the “Book of the Law” is a reference to God’s Word. More specifically, it’s likely that he had discovered the book of Deuteronomy.

Josiah had instructed the temple to be repaired, and it seems as they were repairing it, they stumbled upon the Book of the Law.

Apparently, it had been tucked away in some corner of the temple.

But notice the urgency. Notice the seriousness with which both Hilkiah and Shaphan take this discovery. They know that they must share this discovery with King Josiah.

But you may be wondering, well… they found it! What’s the big deal? They discovered it, now everything should be good. It’s not their fault that it went missing.

But the problem is, they had been conducting business as usual without it. They had been living independently of God’s Word. And they know the weight and seriousness of this. It convicts them.

In order to really understand the significance of that moment, you have to understand the condition of things. David’s kingdom was divided between Judah and Israel. And the vast majority of the kings after David were very wicked. These men weren’t concerned with God’s Word. They did what was right in their own eyes. They worshiped foreign gods and carried out all sorts of abominable acts.

Which means, the Book of the Law or Scriptures was irrelevant in Judah for years, and years, and years.

The problem is the Jewish people, God’s chosen people, the people that should care about God’s Word were indifferent toward it. The very people that should care the most, didn’t care at all.

But just like so much of God’s Word, this passage doesn’t stand in isolation of human history.

During the medieval ages, literacy was low. So, people relied on those that could read or the church to tell them about God’s Word. But the problem is that the Roman Catholic Church strayed from God’s Word. They developed unbiblical concepts and systems like the temporary hell called purgatory and indulgences.

Indulgences were the main thing that got Martin Luther’s blood boiling. Indulgences were essentially get out of purgatory free cards, except they weren’t free at all. In fact, they were quite expensive and if you were willing to buy an indulgence you could get a family member a lighter or shorter sentence in purgatory and once freed, it was thought they could go to heaven.

It might sound good, but it has no Biblical basis. But back to my point: the very people that should vigilantly protect and teach the Scriptures were the very people that had abandoned it.

But before we scoff, shake our heads, and dismiss everyone as ignorant, we must recognize that these same practices remain in our midst.

How many evangelical churches waffle on human sexuality, dabble in the prosperity gospel, or automatically capitulate to our culture?

And that is in spite of higher literacy rates and incredible Biblical access. I mean most of us don’t just have one Bible, we have many! We’re often indifferent towards God Word.

The difference is, God’s Word convicted Hilkiah, Shaphan, and Josiah!

God’s Word Calls Us to Submission (vv. 11-13)

We know this because after they reported it to King Josiah, what did he do?

In verse 11 Josiah tore his clothes. Tearing your clothes is a great symbolic act of distress.

But again, Josiah wasn’t distressed over his subpar SAT score. He wasn’t upset because he hated his job. Josiah was upset because upon reading the Book of the Law he realized that the people of Judah were out of accord with God’s Word! They hadn’t been following the instruction of the Lord!

It’s quite remarkable too that Josiah never stops to ask if it really means what it says. Because the Scriptures will require big changes. In fact, the Book of the law prophesied terrible things. It wasn’t a popular or pleasant message. If you don’t believe me, go read Deuteronomy 27 when you have some time.

It wasn’t like the message was politically incorrect and might hurt someone’s feelings. It prophesied curses upon God’s people if they failed to keep its words.

And rather than questioning it he recognizes that he needs to submit to it.

One of Satan’s greatest tricks isn’t necessarily convincing you or me that God's Word has error or is capable of leading you astray. He doesn’t need to convince you that the Bible is dumb and you need to burn it. It’s more subtle than that. Instead, he needs to keep you preoccupied, convince you that you’re too busy or tired than to be edified by reading God’s Word. He needs you to keep it on the shelf and forget about it.

Because after all, the things you ignore are things you don’t value.

The fact that they had misplaced the book of Deuteronomy (God’s Word) demonstrated they’re indifference towards it. Something only gets misplaced for years and years and years because you don’t care about it.

If you lose your keys or phone what do you do? You drop everything to find it!

The things that sit on your shelf collecting dust aren’t important to you.

And again, we have a clear parallel between what we’ve read and the Protestant Reformation! The Roman Catholic Church had begun prioritizing things over Scripture like the selling of indulgences.

Luther literally wrote about this in These 54 of his famous 95 Theses: “Injury is done to the Word of God when, in [a] sermon, an equal or larger amount of time is devoted to indulgences than to the Word.”

Luther’s complaint was that the Roman Catholic Church was more concerned about raising money through the selling of indulgences than preaching the Word of God!

After all, St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican was predominantly financed by the selling of indulgences!

The Word of God was shelved in order to make money. But again, couldn’t this or something like it be said of our modern evangelical climate? That often things outside of the Word of God take priority in the pulpit? Sometimes something else is being preached is it not?

And what is incredibly scary is that this is how people are led astray. This is how false gospels take root - when the Scriptures are forgotten and shelved.

Believers should obey God’s Word (vv. 13-20)

Instead of shelving the Word of God, we should seek to apply it to our lives. The Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon once told preachers, “Keep the word of God, and the word of God will keep you.”

It’s certainly true for preachers, but it’s true for all of us! We should seek to know and apply the Word of God in our lives.

And we see this from King Josiah. He seeks out Huldah in order to gather more information concerning what he should do.

Look at verse 13, “Go, inquire of the Lord for me, and 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 kindled against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us.”

Josiah knew that because the people of Judah had failed to obey God’s Word, something bad was going to happen. That’s actually part of the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 27 records curses that will fall upon God’s people for failing to obey his Word. So Josiah had every reason to suspect that something bad was going to happen.

That’s why he inquired of the prophetess Huldah. He wanted to hear exactly what the Lord was going to do. And Josiah's suspicions were right. She told him a lot of bad things were going to happen because they failed to obey God’s Word.

In fact, the Lord says in verse 16, “...Behold, I will bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants, all the words of the book that the king of Judah has read.”

But then the Lord gives Josiah a glimmer of hope in verse 19-20:

“...because your heart was penitent, and you humbled yourself before the Lord, when you heard how I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and you have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, declares the Lord. Therefore, 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.’”

So because Josiah’s heart was penitent, he was spared from experiencing the impending disaster. He was convicted over their sin of ignorance. Their sin of omission. But notice the gracious longsuffering of the Lord. He was going to spare Josiah.

But just because you repent doesn’t mean sin gets ignored, because the Lord tells them there will be a time when justice will be served.

It really goes without saying, but bad things tend to happen when you ignore God’s Word.

Because if you ignore God’s Word, you’re not doing what’s best for you.

There’s joy, happiness, and contentment that come through conforming your life to Christ.

But there’s a real issue when someone that professes faith in Christ lives a life of blatant hypocrisy. It’s bad when someone professes faith in Christ but refuses to live in accordance with his expressed will.

It really calls into question their standing before God.

But isn’t that essentially what’s going on in this passage? God had covenanted with the people of Israel only to have them turn their backs on him and to follow after other gods.

And that’s why Josiah’s response is so profound. He was repentant. He was sorrowful. He was broken over their sin of omission. He had humbled himself before the Lord.

But he didn’t stop there. He wanted to apply God’s Word and he did so by implementing reforms. He didn’t want to simply stop sinning, he wanted to start doing that which pleased the Lord!

There was an application of Scripture.

There’s a famous quote from Martin Luther where he said,

"Take me, for example. I opposed indulgences and all papists [Catholics], but never by force. I simply taught, preached, wrote God's Word: otherwise I did nothing. And then, while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my Philip of Amsdorf the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did such damage to it. I did nothing: the Word did it all."

Here’s the big takeaway: kingdoms fall when the Word of God is ignored. It happened to Israel. The Roman Catholic Church was brought to its knees because of the Protestant Reformation’s commitment to Sola Scriptura (The Scriptures Alone)!

But hear this: a church is only as strong as its commitment to the Scriptures. And the same is true for each of us: the vitality of our faith is tied to our personal commitment to the Scriptures.

Never have I ever met a Christian who’s walk with Christ I respected and wanted to learn from that was not personally committed to the Scriptures.

There are so many professing believers that affirm a commitment to God’s Word but never apply it. What I mean is, Christians are often willing to tell you that the Bible is important, but never really goes beyond that. They’re just words.

We all know there is an enormous chasm between saying you believe the Bible to be true and genuinely living like the Bible is true.

Because to ignore Scripture is to ignore the living God. That was Judah’s problem! It wasn’t that they had ignored Scripture, they had ignored God! To ignore Scripture is to ignore His voice. Don’t get me wrong: Scripture doesn’t limit the Lord. God can certainly operate outside of it - I certainly believe that.

But that would be extraordinary, not his ordinary means.

The Lord ordinarily communicates to us through the Scriptures or special revelation. Everything we know about Christ, salvation, and what God requires of you and me is found in the Scriptures.

Christians are fundamentally people of the book and we go to the Scriptures in order to regularly hear from the Lord.

Too often the Scriptures are mere guardrails that we put up. It’s nothing more than a test either for a church or an individual. And if that’s our mentality or approach to God’s Word then the Scriptures are a modern shibboleth. The Bible is nothing more than a mechanism to maintain our holy huddle.

But that is the wrong way of thinking about God’s Word!

The Christian Church must understand that our power comes in and through the Word of God! Scripture isn’t the church’s weakness, it’s our strength! It’s God-breathed! The Scriptures are our offensive firepower!

Remember what the Apostle Paul says?

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…”

As we’ve reflected on God’s Word and the Reformation, here’s what I want you and me to remember: Scripture isn’t something that we assent to and then set on the shelf. That’s what we read about in our passage.

The gospel of Jesus Christ as has been revealed to us through God’s Word is what fuels the Christian.