Building On God's Word

we're going to look to his word this morning and i'm going to be reading from second chronicles chapter 34 and if you do have a bible once we read the text just keep that open because we will be looking through that chapter this month our lessons will focus on the importance of god's word and we're going to do that through a brief look at some of israel's history obviously it's a month so it's four lessons but we will see the importance of building our lives on the foundation of the word of god amen we've got to have it got to have his word we can't just go on an experience alone i'm thankful for the experience of the holy ghost that god puts in our life i'm thankful for the experience that we've just felt worshipping god but really everything we do it is based on this word of god and so that is the foundation and we're going to look at the importance today of building on the word of god we will study a lesson on what happens when we disregard his word why it is necessary for pleasing god and then how the word will bring revival to those that put their emphasis on his word second chronicles 34 i want to read verses 14 through 19 as we open this bible class amen good to see everyone in the house of the lord thank you for your faithfulness thank thankful for guests thankful for those that are watching online man we want to hear what god has to say today verse 14 and when they had brought out the money that was brought into the house of the lord hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of the lord given by moses so they were cleaning out the temple they were trying to get it in order and while they're there it's like oh imagine that here's the word of the lord in the house of the lord hadn't seen it in a while it was somewhere in all the rubble of the place and hilkiah answered and said into shaping the scribe i have found the book of the law in the house of the lord. and so he delivered the book to shapen and schaffen carried the book to king who was josiah and brought the word back again saying all that was committed to thy servants they do it and they have gathered together the money that was found in the house the lord and they have delivered into the hands of the overseers to the house of the workmen so we're getting the job done that we were sent to do then shape and the scribe told the king saying hilkiah the priest has given me a book and chapin read it before the king and it came to pass when the king heard the words of the law that he rent his clothes evidently he had never heard the word of god he knew that he was supposed to be worshiping god he knew that that was what israel was all about but he had never heard the word of the lord israel's history as you can read in first and second kings you can read it in first and second chronicles was one of continual revival and backsliding revival and backsliding we know the nation of israel was founded as as a nation i guess if you will with king saul and then king david who was a man after god's own heart but his son solomon david's son led israel astray worshiped not only i we often talk about how he had 700 wives and 300 concubines but that is really pointed out because he went astray by worshiping all the gods of all these women that he had brought under the married them from all around all the other nations and as he brought them in he began worshiping their gods and and doing that and so god promised a man by the name of jeroboam he said when comes time he said i am going to divide this kingdom he said and i am going to give you 10 parts of the kingdom or the 10 northern tribes of israel and i am going to take only the remaining two two and a half tribes i'm going to leave those there only because of david but i'm going to leave them there in southern israel and they will become the nation of judah and so when solomon died his son rehoboam reigned in his father's stead and when that happened he decided well i am going to be very harsh on the people and there was a great revolt jeroboam led that and he said you know israel said what part do we have in david what do we care about david's throne what do we care about jerusalem there's more of us than what is down there and so the kingdom was split into the northern kingdom of israel and the southern kingdom of judah and although god gave jerome the northern tribes because of solomon's failure jeroboam also forsook the ways of the lord so rather than following and doing you know god said i'm going to take it from solomon because he's not living right jeroboam gets the kingdom and then immediately he turns and begins to do things that was wrong he was offering sacrifices to false gods and and while he was doing that first kings 13 tells us this in verse 2 that jeroboam was offering sacrifices upon an altar to an idol and as that happened a prophet came up to him and he cried against the altar in the word of the lord and he said o altar o altar thus saith the lord behold a child shall be born into the house of david josiah by name and upon the altar he shall offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee so there was a prophecy that went forth that someone was going to come that was going to destroy all these false altars and things that jeroboam had raised up and he was going to burn the priest bones on those very same altars for the next 334 years israel was re ruled almost exclusively by kings who worshipped idols there was very few if any good kings in the ten tribes of israel in judah it was more of a roller coaster if you will there were some that were good there were some that were bad some that served god some that chose not to and true to the prophecy given to jeroboam josiah was born and rose to the throne in jerusalem of judah josiah was a direct descendant of king david because god had promised there will always be a king a son or a descendant of david upon the throne of judah and so josiah was there and he began to rule when he was eight years old second chronicles 34. if you've still got your bible open there it says this in verse 1 josiah was eight years old when he began to reign and he reigned in jerusalem 31 years he arose to sit on the throne of a nation that had gotten away from its foundation it got away from the idea that hero israel lord our god is one lord and they were worshiping many other gods and many other religions judah's succession of rulers that included righteous as we said some some righteous that live for god like king hezekiah and others and also many unrighteous but josiah's grandfather was a man by the name of manessa and he was certainly one of the worst he had many wicked deeds that he did in worship of idol worship child sacrifice extreme violence blasphemy says this in second chronicles 33 first beginning verse 2 but manasseh did that which was evil in the sight of the lord like unto the abominations of the heathen who the lord had cast out before the children of israel so he brought all that false worship back in he built again the high places or that's the places of worship up in the areas which hezekiah his father had broken down he reared up altars for balaam he made groves that's where they worshiped ashtaroth and he worshipped all the host of heaven and he served them and he built altars now listen to this in the house of the lord when the lord had said in jerusalem shall my name be forever and he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the lord he walked into the temple that solomon had built and he put altars all around it for every god that he could think of and he caused his children to pass through the fire that means he offered them his sacrifices in the valley of the son of hinnom he also observed times and he used enchantments he used witchcraft he dealt with familiar spirits and with wizards and he wrought much evil in the sight of the lord to provoke him to anger in fact the bible says and he set up a carved image the idol which he had made in the house of god so that was josiah's family legacy that was his grandfather his his father a man by the name of amnon followed manasseh and he only reigned two years and they actually disposed of him and killed him and put josiah to reign because he continued down that same evil path but the bible tells us that josiah did that which was right in the sight of the lord now think about it he's eight years old he'd seen what all he knew was what his father and his grandfather had done he maybe not even remembered much about his grandfather because his dad reigned for two years so that means he would have been very young and probably didn't know a whole lot about what his grandfather did who knew him until he was four or five years six years old but at the early age of 16 he began to reform the nation now i don't know what encouraged him his heart was right toward god he knew that probably some history of israel and he understood that they were supposed to worship one god but not only did he purge the nation of jude or judah but his reforms were carried even into the ten tribes of israel second chronicles 34 verse three tells us this in the eighth year of his reign so he began reigning at eight he's now eight years in he was 16 while he was yet young he began to seek after the god of david his father so he began to pray and he began to seek and then in the 12th year so now he's a little bit older he's about 20. he began to purge judah and jerusalem from the high places so let's tear down those altars to asteroth let's remove the groves let's remove the carved images let's remove the molten images the idols that were there and they break down the altars of balaam in his presence and the images that were high above them he cut them down the groves and the carved images the molten images he broke them into pieces he made dust of them and he took the dust and he threw it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed to them he burnt the bones of the priest upon their altar that's a direct fulfillment of that prophecy that was made some 350 years earlier and he cleansed judah in jerusalem so he cleaned it all up and he did also the cities of manasseh and ephraim and simeon even in the naphthali and those round about so he took care of all of judea and then it says this and when he had broken down the altars and the groves and had beaten the graven images into powder and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of israel so he evidently went into the normal king into the northern kingdom some because he cut them all down and then he returned and went back to jerusalem in ju in judah as part of that he noticed that the temple had fallen into great disrepair he probably had taken all the idols out of it too and burnt those and and he realized that you know this is a wickedness that we need to get back to our foundations and so he ordered the religious and the civil authorities begin to repair the house of the lord he put together a fund let's get some money together let's see what we can do to repair the house of the lord and so hilkiah began to work the high priest and begin to work and to produce the funds and look at the taxes that were collected that were supposed to go to the temple and he went into the treasury to get those funds see how much money they had so we could rebuild this temple but while he was there he locates what the bible calls the book of the law ii chronicles 14 said and when they brought out the money that was brought into the house of the lord hilah the high priest found a book of the law of the lord given by moses now the bible doesn't say what all he found it doesn't say how much of the law was found i don't know if he found the entire first five books of the bible that moses wrote not really sure everything i'm not sure that they read that entire genesis exodus leviticus numbers and deuteronomy to josiah not really sure but at least you can probably tell from the story that they found the book of deuteronomy and that the fact that a document so significant this had been lost just testifies to the spiritual things of the hearts of their people i mean deuteronomy was really a summary that moses wrote he talked about them being children of israel being pulled out of egypt he talked about the fact that they were to worship only one god he gave them the promises that god had made and he reiterated the covenant to them and it was it was kind of like here's what you need to know and so that book went through and said here's what god has done for us here's what he expects of us here's how we need to live here's what happens if we don't live right and so it was all spelled out in the book of deuteronomy what we do know is the word when any time the word is minimized any time it is disregarded any time we ignore this word of god spirituality is going to suffer you cannot rightly serve god without being a serv stud a student of this word of god we've got to have it church we can see what happened in israel's day when we see what they did when they disregarded his word we'll probably talk more about the disregard for god's word next week in our lesson but we can see what happens when we don't hold to the truths of god's word we can't take the attitude well you can get to heaven any way you want we're all serving the same god just you just figured out no he spelled it out for us he gave us specific instructions he gave us teachings he said here's the covenant here's the agreements here's what i expect amen and here's what i will do if you will live for me and here's what will happen if you choose to ignore my commands and my words and so one can only imagine the emotions in hilkiah here he is the high priest it's interesting to find that even in in the midst of the up and down and all the things that were going on in israel and sometimes serving idols and sometimes serving god they still had a high priest probably not one that always followed the ways of god he found the book so evidently he hadn't even didn't even know where it was he was a high priest high priest of what well i take care of the temple do i really know because he did not even know where the book of god was and so shapen immediately took the scroll to josiah and then he began to read to the king you know having the word of god in your possession is a precious thing i'm thankful that yes this is still a number one best seller they don't put it on the list because it always wins but they still sell more bibles than anything else on the new york times bestseller list it would still be there they're still selling the word of god and people buy this word of god but my question is do they ever do more than just buy it do we get it in our heart do we read it do we study it do we see what it has do we live by it and so it is so important not just to have the word of god not to have it on an end table not to have it somewhere on our bookshelves there in our homes but it's when we have the word of god in our hearts through reading and and obedience and meditating upon that word and so chapin articulated the contents of this book of the law and to the king and set in motion a profound series of events as he said we don't know exactly it does not tell us what was read to josiah but it's very likely it was some passages like this deuteronomy chapter 4 and verse 25 said when thou shalt beget children and children's children and you have remained long in the land and shall corrupt yourselves and make graven images in the likeness of anything and shall do evil in the sight of the lord to provoke him to anger that's exactly what israel had done and josiah could understand that he said if you do that i call heaven and earth to witness against you this day that you shall soon utterly perish from off the land where until you go over jordan to possess it you shall not prolong your days upon it but you shall be utterly destroyed now you can imagine josiah hearing these words you know people took it lightly they ignored the things of god and now suddenly he yes he has destroyed the idols but he hears this word of the lord that says if you do that i'm going to remove you he said and the lord shall scatter you among the nations and you shall be left few in number among the heathen whether the lord shall lead you and there you shall serve gods and the work of men's hands a wooden stone which neither see they don't hear they don't eat they don't smell that's what i'm going to do if you don't follow my way and keep my covenant but if from the place that i send you you shall seek the lord thy god thou shalt find him if you will seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul jose understood this is exactly what judah had done this is exactly what israel had done they had served other gods and since he knew that god could not lie and the judgment of god was sure to come upon him and all he could really do was place his hope in that last verse but if you seek the lord you shall find him if you seek him with all your heart and all your soul and so upon hearing this josiah's heart was smitten within him and it came to pass when he heard the words that that he rent his clothes that sign a dismay and a sign of repentance and he was grieved by the contrast between what he had heard how he should have been living and what he observed all around him and it produced a conviction in his heart and we don't often like to talk about conviction but conviction is a great gift that god gives to us in one sense the word simply means convincing when we are convinced of the truths of god's word and then we see the gap between what the word of god says and the reality of where we are living then if we are really sincere in our hearts we will be smitten by that something in our hearts will say i've got to make that right i've got to change i've got to do something in my life the submitted child of god even will be driven to make changes in our lives when the word of god and the preaching goes forth in it it begins to hit home with us we need the conviction we need something teaching should bring conviction preaching should bring conviction not that there is now no there is a difference between conviction and condemnation we're not here to preach and to teach condemnation that's not what it's about but we are here to teach and to preach conviction you see sometimes conviction comes as we preach against sin and there are times we do that we get up and say the word of god says thou shalt not and you should not be doing this and you should not be doing that and it brings conviction if we find ourselves doing those things doesn't it a condemnation would say you know what you're going to hell i'm not going to preach that i'll preach against sin and you've got an opportunity to not go to hell that's what i want to say but sometimes it will come when we realize our wrongdoings and we hear that the bible says this this will anger god and this will upset him and this goes against his word and we say i want to please god so conviction strikes our soul sometimes conviction will come as we preach god's holiness in god's righteousness and we don't even talk about sin but sometimes something as we begin to talk about him being pure and holy and we begin to worship him something in our heart says you know what i'm not there i haven't obtained to that and conviction will bring us to repentance as we realize how short we fall in our walk with god and it will bring sinners to convict to repentance and it will cause saints to examine their lives we must have conviction and that is what happened as josiah hears this word of god and he rinses clothes because he's convicted i'm not what i need to be i've done some things i've making some steps but this is not what god wants he realized and here's what he realized that judah had about abandoned the foundation that had been set for the nation of israel shortly after the exodus from egypt we know that they came to mount sinai and god laid out for moses and the people the precepts and the regulations he required this was the law of moses was to be the foundation upon israel and particularly the hero israel our god is one lord they had to know that don't worship the gods around you and he told them in in deuteronomy 5 he said ye shall observe to do therefore as the lord your god hath commanded you don't turn aside to the right hand or to the left walk in all the ways the lord which god hath commanded you that ye may prolong your late days in the land which you possess so they had very strict instruction don't turn aside from this word stay in it walk in it don't turn to the right don't turn to the left stay on the path and walk in the ways of the lord and then he also told him this he said but it shall come to pass and this is in deuteronomy 28 if thou will not hearken unto the voice of the lord to observe to do all his commandments in his statues which i command you all these curses are going to come upon you and overtake you if in fact the book of the law was this from part or all of deuteronomy then he would have heard those passages along with other and it was apparent what became apparent to josiah israel had abandoned that foundation when we be depart from the foundations of a godly life we need a voice to direct us back on course that's what the word of god does i want preaching to get where i live i don't want it to just be this feels good and just go on you had another blossom sunday morning and we need those times and they're good too but it's got to hit home doesn't it it's got a hit right here here's where we need to be here's what god wants from apostolic pentecostal church here's what god wants from your life we need the word of god to speak to us whether it comes from the lips of the pastor whether it comes from a friend studying the word of god maybe it's just the holy spirit as you read the word of god and suddenly you say whoa there i am i need to work on this however it comes the vehicle through which god's word is not as vital as our response to it must respond to the word of god and any christian who desires to please the lord and to serve him faithfully will manifest that desire through a response james said it this way receive with meekness the engrafted word listen to it receive it which because it is able to save your souls there are people that don't want to hear the word of god i don't like that part of it i only believe this part of it or i only want to understand that part the rest of it you know i don't really care we have to allow god's word to touch our hearts you know it's been said that sometimes we just bring a pitchfork to church and the word of god goes forth and we take that pitchfork and we shove it over here and we take it and throw it over there that's not for me that's for him oh yeah he's preaching to her over there today it's hitting him today it you know get rid of that let the word preached sink deep in your heart listen to every mess here's how we need to approach it god you're going to speak to me today this is the word for my heart and you see where it lines up with you don't worry about how it's impacting anyone else oh lord you know oh he's preaching to them today lord reach out and touch them see where it affects you see how it will touch you let it sink in your heart and the conviction that smote him josiah's heart by reading and the promise that god's judgment for their disobedience was right there compelled him he said you know what we need to talk to god about this we need to find out what's going on i need to see where we're at you know in god's program we realize we have failed and so he got some men together and he said go inquire of the lord and so they went to jerusalem and there was a prophetess there by the name of halda and they went to her and said king josiah wants to know he's realized from reading hearing the word of god that we've failed and and the bible is promised and god has promised to us that he's going to destroy us and lead us away and and scatter us among the nations and and what are we supposed to do and the prophet has said thus saith the lord behold i will bring evil upon this place now what we would have liked have heard with the lord to say you know what josiah is doing everything right i'll just forget about all that but he didn't say that he said i'm going to bring evil upon this place and that inhabitants thereof even all the curses that are written in the book which they have read before the king of judah now do tell josiah i won't do it in his reign as long as he's living righteous but it is going to happen sometimes we look at god and we think well he's just a god of love and he is but i can also tell you his mercy endures forever he is gracious and he's slow to anger but never lose sight of the truth that god is protective of his word he's not going to violate it just because we think well god you ought to love and so there shouldn't be a hell that anyone has to go to god you're a god of love so if i live wrong and i do what i want to do you're going to love me anyway like the guy i worked with several years ago that said you know i can live any way want and god loves me so much when i get to heaven he's just gonna say come on in where'd you read that if it's in here show me because he'll keep his word and if that's what the word says then then i guess we can follow that but i don't see it read it through you won't see it either because it's not in there he said there is a certain judgment that is coming and so we must follow the word of god nothing it says will fail so e when he declares that sin will be dealt with we know it is going to be dealt with god cannot god will not lie his character is the guarantee behind every word he has spoken the writer of hebrews wrote it this way he said therefore we ought to give an earnest heed to the things we have heard lest at any time we should let them slip pay attention to the things you've heard pay attention to this word of god don't let them slip and then he said this if the word spoken by angels so he's talking old testament times it was steadfast and every transgression and every disobedience received a recompense of reward so when the angels spoke it it happened when there was disobedience when there were transgressions they had to pay recompense to pay for that sin or that judgment then he asked this question how shall we escape church that's who he's writing to if we know neglect this great salvation which was spoken not by angels which was first spoken of by the lord and then it was confirmed to us by them that heard him through the apostles if we walk away from the words of jesus christ and we walk away from the doctrine he taught in the doctrine of the apostles how much more how are you going to escape if you neglect that and so he says stay on the foundation stay on and in the word of god don't forsake the law of god because there it will be that judgment god's people had forsaken his word they'd worship other gods the primary violation of god's word that was god was about to judge was judah's repeated and perpetual worship of false gods and throughout her history as we mentioned earlier they had turned from loyalty to jehovah and then bowed down to every idol of the people around them and then back to jehovah and back and forth became so perverse as we mentioned that they even burn their children in worship to some idol or false god when josiah heard the words of the prophetess of the lord here here's what he did he was compelled to action second chronicles 34 29 says the king sent and he gathered together all the elders of jerusalem and judah and he got them all there and the king went up into the house of the lord and all the men of judah and the inhabitants of jerusalem the priests the levites and all the people great and small and he read to them the words of the book of the covenant that was found in the house of the lord he confronted them with the very truths that had confronted him and and then in all the sight of of all the people he made a covenant with the lord he said lord i am going to obey your commandments and i'm going to serve god with my whole heart so the king stood in his place he made a covenant before the lord to walk after the lord to keep his commandments his testimonies his statutes with all his heart and with all his soul and to perform the words of the covenant which were written in the book he said i can't do anything about my grandfather i can't do anything about the way my dad served god but i am going to follow the word of god i know sometimes you talk to people and they say well what about my grandma she she lived for god and you know i know she wasn't one of these pentecostals and she didn't believe this and she didn't do it but i believe you know she's in heaven you can't worry about that god will judge what are you going to do with the word of god that's what it comes down to how am i going to live am i going to keep his commandments and his testimony in the stand with all my heart and with all my soul am i going to live this book with everything i've got to perform the words of the covenant to carry it on that are written in this book that needs to be the response of every heart that is convicted by or touched by or convinced by god's word and then josiah was not content to merely make it his own personal commitment it would have been one thing to say you know what i'm going to live for god i don't care what anyone else does i'm going to serve god and without question that's where it had to begin but he said i'm not going to let it stop there the nation is facing impending judgment i'm the king there's destruction because of your sins that are coming so need the need was great for them all to repent and so he used his position to mandate that they would obey god's precepts the bible says in verse 32 ii chronicles 34 32 and he caused all that were present in jerusalem and benjamin to stand to it or to stand up to this commandment to stand to say yes i am going to follow it and the inhabitants of jerusalem did according to the covenant of god the god of their fathers and josiah took away all the abominations out of the country that pertained to the children of israel he made all that were present to serve even to serve the lord their god and all his days they departed not from following the lord the god of their fathers now it's evident you can't force people to obey god's word right but here's what happens seeing others that choose to obey god when they see us living for god to a new commitment a deepening consecration it will have an effect sometimes for good sometimes for evil but it will affect those around us there will be those that say you know what i see something in you and i want it too i see the god working in your life i see you drawing closer to him what's going on there will be some that will see it and say you know what i don't want anything to do with you you're weird you're whatever and they will walk away but it will have an effect let god's word if you're going to touch others if we're going to do that get the word of god in your heart and live it with everything that you have no doubt many of us stand where josiah did on that day in fact we probably all do in one way degree or another when we are routinely confronted with the reality that there is a gap between what god's word says and where i'm living what god's word says i ought to be doing and what i am doing when god's word says here's how you need to be holy and and i'm down here you need to be doing these things and i'm doing these things spiritual growth here's what it means here's what spiritual growth is it means that distance between god's word and his commands and where we're at should be getting smaller and smaller and smaller not this way because god's word doesn't change right here's the commands here's the word of god i need to becoming more and more like what he wants that's spiritual growth that's what we want in our lives the christian life is one the bible tells us very plainly that we are being conformed into what the image of jesus christ and it's pretty apparent and i think all of us can say that none of us has reached as paul said unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of christ none of us are there yet you know if you are you can go walk on water when you leave here we're not there in fact we will never be there and we'll never reach that point until the day we see jesus face to face because the bible says now are we the sons of god so we're on that journey he's adopted us as his children but it does not yet appear what we shall be in other words you don't see it look around it it doesn't appear we see some people that are closer than others we don't see jesus at least not everything jesus is does not yet appear you can't see it but here's what we know when he appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is paul told the church in corinthians in corinth he said but we all with an open face we behold in a glass the glory of the lord he said we we look we look and we know here's what the lord is and he said here's what we are doing we are being changed into that same image from glory to glory it's glorious when god fills you with the holy ghost but you're not like jesus yet you've got to be following the word of god and doing what the word of god has to say and as we get closer and closer to him we'll change from this glory to a greater glory to a great until we reach that point when we see him and we become like him keep building on the foundation of god's word how we respond to be conf by to being confronted by scripture is paramount to our long-term spiritual survival and growth when there's a lack of obedience in our lives we must mirror josiah's willingness to repent and to change sometimes it means just renewing old commitments we made that we forgot about sometimes it means a fresh start and getting back to god but here's what it ultimately means repair that foundation rebuild our lives on god's word and on god's word alone jesus gave the parable of two men that build houses doesn't say that there was anything different they were probably the same size same house identical you know it's like going through a subdivision they all look the same one was built on a rock the other was built on sand both of them faced the rains and the wind and the storm the things that happened in the lives but only one of them survived which one was it it was the one that was built on the correct foundation the wise man who built on the rock what does the bible say he is the man who hears the word of god and does it lives out this word that's what it means to be built on a rock the other guy heard the word but he chose to go his own way and do what he wanted to do that is building on sand we will all have to make and we all need to make conscious decision about where we are going to build our lives i want to build it right here don't you i believe that or you wouldn't be here you wouldn't you wouldn't come to a bible class to hear the word of god taught if you didn't want it to touch your life the choice of foundation and here's the thing it's not a matter of random choice well i just happen to land on the rock no it's a willful choice you have to determine in your heart purpose in your heart i'm going to choose to live by the principles and the direction of god's word and yes i know we have to choose that every day right we've got to choose it again we have to choose it in many different situations sometimes you know we say we're going to do it and then things happen in our lives and we got to make a decision am i going to follow this word of god and when we do no storm can unseat you no pressure can mute you no temptation can produce a downfall because you are built on the commandments of god we should ask ourselves the question this morning what is underneath my life what am i building on if our submission to god is intact we can look down and say i'm on a firm foundation because i'm trying to do what god's word had to say if we've chosen to ignore the verses of scripture to argue with the pastor to disagree with the preaching we're going to look down and we're going to see we're standing on sand and here's the thing either foundation's okay in good times isn't it there's nothing going on in your life you feel pretty confident you can build a house on the sand right by the beach it's all good until the tide comes in or the hurricane blows or or or i want to build on the lorac king josiah as we look at his life here's what happens here here's the instructions here's what we glean number one he was confronted by the word of god you've got to get in the word you got to listen to the word you got to let the word touch your life that's the first step but then you have to submit to the word of god you have to let it convict you and say well then i want to live the way that word says and when we do that we do that by repenting which means to change your mind okay i've been going this way now i'm going to go his way let the word touch us and then not just start down that path but change don't continue to live in the way you're living if it does not line up with the word of god otherwise and it's a sad truth that josiah realized the god who is faithful to reward those that follow him is also the god that is going to be faithful to judge close with one more verse bible says this some men's sins go before them to judgment and some men's they follow after what's the difference you bring him now before god and you change your ways he takes care of those sins they go before and he'll cover them with his blood if you don't do that they're going to follow you all the way to judgment and you don't want that to happen send them up now give them to god now aren't you thankful for god's word the promises of his word amen let's stand i mean why don't you just give a thanksgiving for the truth of his word so