10/29/06 - Joint Reformation - 2 Chronicles 34

THE CHURCH SURVIVES THROUGH THE WORD
- Learning from the Word
- Listening to the Word
- Living in the Word

The Church was dying. Not just a congregation, but THE Church was dying. God’s people were falling away from the truth. They were turning to other gods, worshiping idols, and resorting to sorcery, divination, and witchcraft. They desecrated the temple, they worshiped the stars, and they even sacrificed their children by burning them to appease a god that did not exist. They had forgotten the Lord and everything he had done.
This low point in the Church’s history started to happen when Manasseh became king of Judah. For 55 years he reigned, leading the people to sin more than the nations that were there before them. And although Manasseh did repent of his sins at the end of his life, the damage was done. The people of Israel had been led astray. The Church was critically ill and the Word was nowhere to be found.
Next in line to the throne was his son, Amon. But the situation for the Church did not improve. For two more years the Word was not preached, God’s people were taken deeper into a life of sin, and the Church suffered because of it. There was really very little hope for the remnant left who actually followed the Lord because their countrymen had failed them and the Word of God had been lost.
But then the Lord gave the Church Josiah. At the age of eight he took the throne. But even at a young age, things started to improve. He got rid of some of the idols and Asherah poles in the land and took the altars of Baal down. But things were still not right for the Church because the written Word of God had been forgotten about. It was not read, it was not preached, because nobody knew where it was! Finally, when Josiah was 26 years old, he had the temple of the Lord repaired. And when some men were going through the temple they found the Book of the Law, the written Word of God that had been lost for at least 75 years! This is our text. Now let us learn from the Word in 2 Chronicles 34.
'While they were bringing out the money that had been taken into the temple of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found the Book of the Law of the Lord that had been given through Moses.  Hilkiah said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the temple of the Lord.” He gave it to Shaphan…And Shaphan read from it in the presence of [Josiah] the king. When the king heard the words of the Law, he tore his robes… “Great is the Lord’s anger that is poured out on us because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written in this book”… Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.  He went up to the temple of the Lord with the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, the priests and the Levites—all the people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the Lord. The king stood by his pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord—to follow the Lord and keep his commands, regulations and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, and to obey the words of the covenant written in this book. Then he had everyone in Jerusalem and Benjamin pledge themselves to it; the people of Jerusalem did this in accordance with the covenant of God, the God of their fathers. Josiah removed all the detestable idols from all the territory belonging to the Israelites, and he had all who were present in Israel serve the Lord their God. As long as he lived, they did not fail to follow the Lord, the God of their fathers.'
The Church survived. Even though it was filled with corruption and there were few people left who had not fallen away, the Church still survived. How? Through the Word. After decades and decades of spiritual malnourishment, the Lord saw to it that his Word was once again found, that his Word was once again read, that his Word was once again believed. And in the Word, the Church at the time of Josiah survived.
Can you imagine attending a congregation that had lost the Word of God for 75 years? A church in which the Word was not preached. A church in which the Word was not taught. A church in which you could not find a Bible. That’s really no church at all, is it? No wonder the Israelites were involved with so many blatant and blasphemous sins. They were not guided nor were they motivated by the Word. And I know we don’t have that problem here at St. Paul’s, and we don’t have that problem over at Living Word. In fact, that shouldn’t be a problem in any of our congregations. But I think that sometimes the Word still is lost. Because although we hear Word, do we always listen to it?
I know you go to church on a regular basis. That’s why you’re here today. I know many of you, hopefully all of you, read your Bibles every day. I know that you have been surrounded by the Word week in and week out for any number of years. And that’s great! It is essential for our faith to hear the Word. But do you listen to it? There is a difference between hearing and listening. If I’m watching a football game, my wife might tell me something. And I may hear her talking, but I might not necessarily listen to the words she is saying. Do you see the difference? So do you listen to the Word or do you just hear it?
When was the last time you read your Bible? Whether it was this morning or last night or 2 months ago, what did the Lord say? Do you remember what you read? Were you listening to the Word or were you just hearing it? If you went to church this morning, what was the second Scripture reading about? Do you remember? Were you listening to the Word or were you just hearing it - going through the motions? When was the last time a passage in the Bible pierced your conscience and you became embarrassingly aware of a sin? Or when was the last time a Bible passage hit you in such a way that you changed a specific aspect of your life so that you could better glorify the Lord? Do you see what I mean? Do you listen to the Word or do you just hear it? Because if we fail to listen to the Word, the Word is just as good as lost and we might as well be living in the time of Amon and Manasseh. Because if we don’t listen to the Word it has the exact same effect than when it is actually lost.
I would have to admit, and I hope that all of us here would admit, that we haven’t always listened to the Word like we should. We don’t always pay attention, we don’t always try to remember, we don’t always take it to heart. Listen to these words: “Great is the Lord’s anger that is poured out on us.” These words are from our text - words of King Josiah. The Lord was angry with them because they did not listen to his Word. Take these words to heart, because the Lord’s anger is poured out on us when we don’t listen to him, when we lose his Word even though it’s right here in front of us. God takes that seriously. He says in Jeremiah: “Hear, O earth: I am bringing disaster on this people… because they have not listened to my words.” It is a dangerous thing not to listen to the Lord. And we are all guilty of it. Let us tear our robes with Josiah, confess our sins, and leave our plea in the hands of our merciful God. Only then, when we see from the Word that we are sinners can we see from the Word that we are forgiven.
There was a man who lived 500 years ago and felt that same sting of the law. He was crushed from the guilt that weighed him down because he was not righteous, and he knew he had to be. He said, “Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience… I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners… At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, ‘A righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: The righteous shall live by faith.’… Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me. Thereupon I ran through the Scriptures from memory… And I extolled my sweetest word with a love as great as the hatred with which I had before hated the word “righteousness of God.” Thus that place in Paul was for me truly the gate to paradise.”
Martin Luther, ravaged by a trouble conscience, finally found forgiveness in Paul’s letter to the Romans. He found forgiveness in the Word. And that’s exactly where we find ours. Listen closely to this Psalm of comfort: “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”
You have survived your darkest moments through the Word. Martin Luther survived his darkest moments through the Word. The Church has survived its darkest moments through the Word. Not only at the time of Josiah, but at the time of Luther, too. Christianity was not looking good at all during Luther’s time. The gospel was being pushed aside. Salvation was being sold for money. And Christ was taking a back seat to Mary and the saints. But when the Lord allowed Luther to actually listen to the Word, that opened the door for the Reformation. And as he preached, more people listened. And as more people listened, more people preached. Through the Holy Spirit working in the heart of one troubled sinner, the Church ended up surviving through the Word.
And the Church has survived up until today. And we know that learning from and listening to the Word is vital, but so is living in the Word. If you remember from our text Josiah didn’t just listen to the Word, he put it into action. He got rid of all the idols in Israel. He read all of the words of the Book of Covenant to the people. And he renewed the covenant with God and had all the people do the same. Josiah was living in the Word. And Martin Luther wasn’t just satisfied to keep this rediscovered gospel to himself, he spread the Word of God like few people ever have done since his time. Luther was living in the Word. And so it comes to us. We have learned from the Word. We listen to the Word. Now let’s live in it.
That means every thing you do is motivated by the Word. Everything you say is motivated by the Word. Everything you plan is motivated by the Word. You should always be thinking: what does the Word say about this type of situation? What does the Word say about how I should act towards this person? What does the Word say about what I should do to spread the gospel to all nations? The Word should run your life. Just like it ran the life of Josiah and just like it ran the life of Martin Luther.
And yes, today we celebrate the Reformation. But keep in mind, we don’t celebrate Martin Luther. We don’t celebrate human accomplishments. We celebrate the Word. And what the Lord has done through that Word. Because through the Word the Lord he brought Luther to faith, through the Word he brought Josiah to faith, and through the Word he has brought us to faith. Through the Word he has sustained the Church. And he always will. For just as Peter said, “‘The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.’ And this was the word that was preached to you.” And still is. And always will be. My brothers and sisters, cling to that Word, hang on to that Word, and turn back to that Word when you fall. I pray that the Lord sustains you through his Word just as he has sustained the Church, both now, and into eternity.
Amen.

“May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers. May he never leave us nor forsake us.” - 1 Kings 8:57