In his days Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up to the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates. And King Josiah went to meet him, and when Pharaoh Neco saw him he killed him at Megiddo (2 Kings 23:29).

This is an abbreviated account of what happened to King Josiah. The Chronicles has a more expanded account:

After all this, when Josiah had set the temple in order, Necho king of Egypt went up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah marched out to meet him in battle. But Necho sent messengers to him, saying, “What quarrel is there, king of Judah, between you and me? It is not you I am attacking at this time, but the house with which I am at war. God has told me to hurry; so stop opposing God, who is with me, or he will destroy you.” Josiah, however, would not turn away from him, but disguised himself to engage him in battle. He would not listen to what Necho had said at God’s command but went to fight him on the plain of Megiddo (2 Chronicles 35:20-22).

This account is disturbing to me because Josiah is such a hero to me in the Scriptures. He did everything well and may very well have been the greatest of the Davidic kings, but his reign was cut short by a short-sighted disobedience. He did not accept Necho's claim that he was warring at God's command. This is a reasonable assumption on the part of King Josiah, but he still should have inquired of the LORD. 

Josiah was not the only one that failed in this regard. Abraham did not inquire of the LORD regarding Hagar. Joshua did not inquire of the LORD regarding the Gibeonites. Ahaz did not inquire of the LORD regarding the threat from Syria and Israel. These failures to inquire of the LORD led to disasterous consequences. And so also with Josiah. 

Friends, what can we learn and apply to our lives today? We don't have that level of communication enjoyed by the patriarchs, prophets, and kings of old. Except for the confused and contradictory claims by charlatans, Christians rarely if ever hear the audible voice of God or experience His supernatural revelation.

But we have His inerrant Word! (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16-17) And even without immediate and audible replies, we are stlll commanded to pray and entrust ourselves to God (Philippian 4:6-7).

Now, it is but wishful thinking for those that claim, 'God told me this,' or 'God gave me this,' or 'God led me to this.' How do they know?! They don't! The prophets and apostles of Scripture knew because their revelations were always supernaturally verified. Yet, it is right to give credit to God for every good, because that is what God's Word teaches (cf. James 1:17). We don't have to specifically attribute to God every word, every event, or every circumstance that turned out positively in our view, for what if they turn badly later down the road? We would have been attributing to God what was untrue and be found to have sinned in our presumption. No, friends, unless we have some truly supernatural verification, let us exercise restraint in making such claims. It is sufficient that we simply and generally attribute every good to God. 

Friends, we do not need to insist that God work the same way that He did in the time of the prophets. To try to make it so will lead to all kinds of error and self-deception. But we do know what God has commanded us to do. He has commanded us to "pray without ceasing" (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:17). He has commanded us to diligently and correctly learn His Word (cf. 2 Timothy 2:15). And even if He does not engage us in daily dialogue and miraculous displays of power, we know that God is providentially working out everything in our lives for good (cf. Romans 8:28) and will complete the work of salvation that He began in us (cf. Philippians 1:6).

All that He has given us is more than enough for us! As God declared to Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you" (2 Corinthians 12:9).

2 kings 25: 26

After the death of gedaliah, all the jews that came, left to Egypt.

So after returning to Juda, Gedaliah is killed which lead the Israelites to leave for Egypt. Gedaliah was supported by the Babylonian empire.

Gedaliah was given a warning from the people that Ishmael, the son of King Baalis an Ammonite king, was sent to kill him. Ishmael killed almost everyone and made captives of the rest.

To escape Babylon’s response they fled to Egypt.

And even thought he had done all of this, Ishmael still asked the prophet Jeremiah to pray to God to ask what he should do – Jeremiah accepts.

The Lord tells Ishmael, that if he stays he will be blessed, and there will be not need for fear of Babylong – How odd! And that if he is determined to go to Egypt he will face fear and famine. Ishmael, having given an oath to do what Jeremiah says… does not listen.

There in Egypt Jeremiah prophesies that disaster will come because of the remnant’s idolatry.

Baruch, Jeremiah’s assistant, was promised that where he goes he will survive, meanwhile everyone else shall die. Presumably, he was given the letters of Jeremiah’s prophecy and the story of what happened to the Jews that were taken by Ishmael

The high places which were before Jerusalem, which were on the right of the mount of destruction which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the sons of Ammon, the king defiled (2 Kings 23:13).

I find it remarkable that the high places that Solomon built for idolatry were not removed by the good kings that followed him, especially Hezekiah. It appears that even the efforts by the best of the kings at moral and spiritual reform and cleansing were incomplete.

Furthermore, the altar that was at Bethel and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, had made, even that altar and the high place he broke down... Josiah also removed all the houses of the high places which were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made provoking the Lord; and he did to them just as he had done in Bethel. All the priests of the high places who were there he slaughtered on the altars and burned human bones on them; then he returned to Jerusalem. (2 Kings 23:15.19-20).

Josiah's zeal for the LORD is remarkable in that it extended even to the realms beyond his immediate kingdom. He broke down the altar at Bethel, as well as the high places in the cities of Samaria. These were both part of the fallen kingdom of Israel, now owned by Assyria. 

Surely such a Passover had not been celebrated from the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and of the kings of Judah. But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was observed to the Lord in Jerusalem (2 Kings 23:22-23).

Again, this is another remarkable word about Josiah's reforms and efforts at obeying the Law. His faithful celebration of the Passover had no parallel during any of the reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah. In this regard Josiah may have even exceeded the obedience of King David, who served at the tail end of the period of the judges, with Samuel being the last judge.

Before him there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him (2 Kings 23:25 but compare 2 Kings 18:5).

This is a remarkable epithet of Josiah; consequently, something similar was said of Hezekiah:

Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him (2 Kings 18:5).

Is there a discrepancy here? Each citation suggests that the king mentioned was the best, such that none before or after were better. There is no discrepancy. The texts make clear that Josiah was the greatest in his obedience to the Lord and following God's Law while Hezekiah was the greatest in his trust in the Lord.

Therefore, from both kings we can learn the two things required in faithfully following the LORD, namely, to trust and to obey. 

Finally, in spite of these great kings, God's judgment against Judah was beyond the reach even of repentance. Even the righteousness of Josiah did not prevent judgment. It only delayed it:

The Lord sent against him (i.e. King Jehoiakim of Judah) bands of Chaldeans, bands of Arameans, bands of Moabites, and bands of Ammonites. So He sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of theLord which He had spoken through His servants the prophets. Surely at the command of the Lord it came upon Judah, to remove them from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, andalso for the innocent blood which he shed, for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; and the Lord would not forgive (2 Kings 24:2-4).

The last phrase is telling and aweful: "And the Lord would not forgive." This should give anyone pause who thinks that God is only loving and always forgiving. They forget that God is also holy and will judge sin in due course. He is not always willing to forgive, nor does He give everyone the same opportunity. It is true that the whole world of people is sinful and worthy only of condemnation, but we are saved by God's sovereign grace, by which He also chose us in Christ at the foundation of the world for eternal salvation. 

If you know and have experienced this grace of God, then join me in giving the Lord our God all the glory. Speak no more of how you received this salvation as an exercise of your free will. Stop boasting as if salvation was a cooperative effort, where the only thing separating you from the unsaved was the exercise of your own free will. If you were saved by free will, then you were not saved by grace. And if you were saved by grace, then you were certainly saved against your fallen, sinful, and depraved will. 

Zedekiah was a hard and stubborn man, refusing to turn to the LORD, the God of Israel. Likewise, all the leaders of the priests and the people became more and more unfaithful. They followed all the pagan practices of the surrounding nations, desecrating the Temple of the LORD that had been consecrated in Jerusalem. The LORD, the God of their ancestors, repeatedly sent his prophets to warn them, for he had compassion on his people and his Temple. But the people mocked these messengers of God and despised their words. They scoffed at the prophets until the LORD’s anger could no longer be restrained and nothing could be done. (2 Chronicles 36:13-16 NLT)

As wicked as God's people have become in these chapters (2 Chronicles 36 parallels 2 Kings 23-25), I want to remind you of times past. At the end of Judges, the people were in this same sorry state:

In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes. (Judges 21:25 NLT)

Remember the state of things in Genesis 6:

The LORD observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the LORD was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart. (Genesis 6:5, 6 NLT)

But even after the terrible flood in Genesis 6, the people again rebelled against the LORD in Genesis 11, so that the LORD had to interevene and confuse their language so that they would no longer collude in their rebellion against Him.

Even after the Babylonian exile, by which God judged Judah in 2 Kings 25, and in the midst of rebuilding Jerusalem (covered in Ezra and Nehemiah), the people are again found desecrating the Sabbath, intermarrying with the Canaanites, and violating the Law (read Nehemiah 13).

In every major era of Israel's history, in the course of time, the people of God became more and more wicked until God refused to tolerate it any longer. Then He would judge them. 

One of the reasons we are given this history is to show the breadth and depth of human depravity. And since what is given for us is the best of the world at the time, since they were God's chosen people, we must conclude that the rest of the world was either no better or much worse. And even among the best of God's servants, there were serious flaws. Abraham was a liar, Moses a murderer, and David an adulterer and murderer, even though these are the most significant people in the lineage of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Friends, let us acknowledge that we are no better and, in light of the greater revelation given to us, probably much worse. Adam may have arguably been the best of our race since he had no sin nature to start with. Of anyone, he had the most free will. And what did he do? He used his free will to violate God's one command, for which God said was death, that is, eternal separation from God. But God extended to him grace.

Adam neither chose God, nor did he confess His sin. No, God chose Adam, and then likely the lineage of Seth after him to bear His Name. But Cain and his lineage were likely all condemned. When the two lines intermarried and corrupted the entire world, the whole world of people were condemned except for Noah and his family. If we are to apply the language of salvation, and if we take Henry Morris' estimate in the Genesis Record of seven billion people on earth at the time (about the population of the world today), then only eight out of seven billion people were saved. Does that give you pause? What are the chances that you would have been one of the 0.000001% that got saved at the fateful time? Do you still have such confidence in the exercise of your free will?

I am only confident of one thing, that I am a sinner. Now, I believe that God has chosen me for salvation, but more and more I am distressed because as much as I write and speak on eternal things, my mind is still so set on worldly things. Even though the Scripture clearly teaches that this life is like a passing vapor, I don't live like it is. Isn't this why Paul writes, "Those who are married should live as if they were not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them" (1 Corinthians 7:29-31)? 

Marriage counseling? Career planning? Financial management? Insurance policies? Fitness and health programs? I have emphasized all of these things, thinking of them even to this day, but aren't these all distractions to the Christian's primary and all-consuming calling? When we read the following Scripture,

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. (Matthew 6:33 NLT)

why do we treat this as a metaphor for more human planning rather than seeing this as a literal promise of God's providence? If then this is what God has promised, why do most Christians and Christian leaders alike live as if this were not true? Am I out of line here? I appeal to those of you seasoned believers and pastors to show me how I'm wrong in my thinking and set me right. If I'm correct, then the people of God need to do some serious repenting. 

I would like to talk about two prophecies that were fulfilled in today's reading. First one was about the altar that the first king of the northern kingdom Israel built so that his subjects wouldn't go down to Jerusalem to worship God. God sent his prophet and said to Jeroboam in 1 Kings 13:1-3,

 By the word of the LORD a man of God came from Judah to Bethel, as Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make an offering. ² By the word of the LORD he cried out against the altar: “Altar, altar! This is what the LORD says: ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.’” ³ That same day the man of God gave a sign: “This is the sign the LORD has declared: The altar will be split apart and the ashes on it will be poured out.”

 It was amazing to read that the prophet mentioned even his name of the person who will destroy the altar. It's too accurate to be called "Darn good lucky guess." I clearly see God's sovereign hands on our history. The second one is about what Isaiah said to king Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20,

 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD: ¹⁷ The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD. ¹⁸ And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”

 This prophecy was fulfilled when Babylonians came, burnt down the temple and took all the articles to Babylon. Brothers and sisters! Do you remember what our Lord Jesus said in Matt 5:18? It says,

 "I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."

 Most of the Bible prophecies have been fulfilled and now it's the most exciting one that will come to pass: The second coming of Messiah! This is the hope that we need to hold on to so as to be strengthened in our faith. This is the reason that we must stay awake because we don't know when the Lord comes back and it will happen definitely.