Sundown at Noon

You leave your phone number or your business cards so sin knows where to find you. You make a date with sin.

Now, it may start out small. It might be just one date with an unbeliever on your campus. It might be just one lunch with a married man or woman, just one bad check, just one sip, one drag, one magazine, one surf on the internet in the wrong places. When we are spiritually bankrupt, we cannot go and point our finger in the face of God and say it happened so fast and you never warned me. Have you ever encountered someone who had great potential and perhaps even accomplished some great things but did not finish well?

Perhaps he started making unwise decisions or she walked away from the things she once valued. Today, Stephen Davey takes us back to the life of King Josiah. Josiah began well but ended poorly. Josiah's example is a warning to all of us because it can happen to any of us. Please keep listening and pay close attention to this message Stephen Davey called Sundown at Noon. TWA flight 800 exploded in mid-air and plummeted into the ocean a few miles off Long Island just minutes after takeoff. The news picked up a number of different stories.

Didn't pick up this one. One of the passengers on that plane was a 20-year-old believer named Matthew Alexander who was heading out for a short-term mission trip to France. Majoring in French at Wake Forest University, he was planning on using his language skills as he interned with a ministry that was designed to reach French young people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. The last phone call he made was to his 81-year-old grandmother, Helen Alexander, with whom he had developed a close relationship. In fact, had written her a number of letters throughout his college tenure and he always ended his letters with the same customary ending, grandma, pray for me. One author in my library has penned some interesting words as he talked about young people who are taken when they seem to have a life ahead of them of potential and ministry.

He called it this, he said, their home going is like the sun going down at noon. Poignant words. There are some benchmark truths that come to my mind as I consider these kinds of events.

Let me give them to you. One, God's plans ordained in the heavens are mysterious. One of the tough things about walking with God is understanding he doesn't always give you the answers to what he does. The second truth is that human life lived on earth passes so quickly and it doesn't matter how old you are or what stage you are in, it's all going so quickly. Third, the Christian in the center of God's plans ordained in the heavens can experience tragedy.

And then you go back to the first one. The ways of God, the plans of God are often mysterious. But you can't help but look at a situation like that and say, yes, indeed, the sun went down at noon. Our story has focused on the life of a godly young king named Josiah. He was a young man with great potential.

The sun will go down at noon in his life. Through the narratives, though, we've already discovered some wonderful things as he ascended the throne as an eight-year-old boy and was remarkably different from his ungodly father. And then as a 16-year-old, his story sort of helped us raise our sights, at least I hope they did, when it comes to the life of a young person who can indeed impact their world for Jesus Christ.

I think we've set our sights way too low. Then we watched when he turned the age where most people would be graduating from college if they had gone, and he begins to rebuild this temple. And in the process of rebuilding it, makes the stunning discovery of one of the Old Testament books, the Book of the Law, Deuteronomy. And we watched as for the first time in his life, he heard the reading of Holy Scripture. And it changed his life dramatically. In fact, that set about incredible reforms. He's going to now put the book of Deuteronomy into practice.

Imagine that, making the word walk. That's exactly what he does. In fact, Jeremiah records some of his reforms. I want you to pick up the story there with me at 2 Kings chapter 23.

There's some sunlight left in his life. Let's take a close look at it. Let's look at verse 4 as Jeremiah gives us the account. 2 Kings 23 verse 4. Then the king commanded Hilkiah, the high priest and the priests of the second order and the doorkeepers, to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the hosts of heaven.

That is, the Assyrian zodiac. And he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. And he did away with the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense. Now don't forget here, ladies and gentlemen, the kings who appointed the priests to burn incense were the father of Josiah and the grandfather of Josiah. Josiah was turning his back on decades of family practice and habit and ritual. And frankly, as I studied that, it hit me once again that in our age, when our past seems to be the great excuser of our present, here is a man who encourages us that our past does not automatically disable our present nor our future.

Look at him. And he brought out, verse 6, the Asherah from the house of the Lord outside Jerusalem to the Brook Kidron and burned it at the Brook Kidron and ground it to dust and threw its dust on the graves of the common people. Now we've studied, you may remember that Asherah was considered to be one of Baal's mistresses.

Her name Asherah means Mother Earth. And she has crept into the religious system until finally, as this verse spells out, there's an idol of her where? Inside the temple.

It's just moved right in. But he takes that idol and for the most part crushes it and then he scatters the dust, the ashes upon the common graves. Now I want you to know he doesn't do that to desecrate the graves of the common people.

He does that to desecrate the Asherah by putting it into contact with the point of death. Verse 7, he continues these reforms. He also broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes which were in the house of the Lord.

Now just let that kind of sink in. Where were they living? In the temple. Homosexuality as part of religious ceremony.

And they're boarding inside the temple. How in the world could you move in the Old Testament to that which was considered then and even today, as Romans 1 spells out, an abomination to the Lord, that sin which is to be run from as any and every other sin? How can that then become ultimately a part of religious ceremony and practice?

Well, look around you. That which was once in our own nation a sin is now an acceptable part by our society and now we have moved into the stage where it is being ordained. He also, verse 10, look there, defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the sons of Hinnom that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire of Molekna. This is the place of child sacrifice. While some doubted the existence of a literal place of child sacrifice, archaeologists have in our generation discovered in the valley of Topheth little infant jars of skeletons that had evidently been burned. Children who were sacrificed in order for their mother or their father primarily to know the future. Children that were put to death so that they could appease their gods and know something supposedly of their future hope. See, how in the world could anybody sacrifice a child to know the future?

Well, I know many people today in our society are sacrificing the emotional and character development of their children so they can climb up one more rung on the ladder. Question I had to ask is who built this altar, this place of child sacrifice? Josiah's father? Ammon? He was a wicked idolater. No. Josiah's grandfather? Manasseh? He served for 50 years the false gods.

No. The builder of this original altar was Solomon, who as he was in the process of throwing his life away built this place for his unbelieving wives. He's not finished. Josiah is going to do some more reforming.

He's making friends all around. Look at verse 11. And he did away with the horses which the kings of Judah had given to the sun at the entrance of the house of the Lord. Now, we mentioned the Assyrian zodiac. The movements of the stars were followed, the sun and the moon. In fact, the sun was the chief astral deity in this idolatrous practice of Baalism. And they happened to believe that the sun's movement was nothing more or less than the chief sun god driving his fiery chariot across the sky. And they worshiped him. And what they did was they constructed horses larger than life and chariots that would have been a stunning display of power. And this text tells us they were located outside of all places the entrance of the temple. Last part of verse 11 refers to the chariots. They were no doubt stunning and beautiful. I can't describe them to you as I have spent time studying them.

They're probably indescribable. I don't have any doubt in my mind that this was perhaps fashioned from gold, these magnificent horses, and these chariots that were symbols of their worship to the sun god as he drove his blazing chariot across the sky. Josiah just melts it all down as he destroys an image that had captivated the attention of the Israelite people. Look down at verse 17.

Here's a prophetic fulfillment. Josiah has now gone to Bethel to destroy this ancient altar. When he arrives, he says, what is this monument that I see? And the men of the city told him, it is the grave of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things which you have done against the altar of Bethel. And he said, well, let him alone.

Let no one disturb his bones. Now I want you to take your Bibles and turn back to 1 Kings chapter 13. 1 Kings 13, 1. Now behold, there came a man of God from Judah to Bethel by the word of the Lord, while Jeroboam was standing by the altar to burn incense. Jeroboam was an idolatrous king.

Here's the same altar. And this man of God cried against the altar by the word of the Lord and said, oh, altar, altar, thus says the Lord, behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you. That is, this will be the form of execution.

And human bones shall be burned on you. In other words, Josiah's coming. Three hundred years would go by before Josiah came. Josiah came. The word of God did not fail.

What God says will happen will ultimately happen. Now I just had this strange thought. Imagine Josiah's father, ungodly, unbelieving Ammon, and he's picking out a name for his son. I wonder what a good name for my boy would be. Well, you know, they go to the grocery store and they get that book, you know, three thousand names, and they go through all of them. When they get to the J's, he sees Josiah, and he likes it.

It's got a ring. It goes with whatever the last name was they had. He says, I like that name Josiah. We'll name him Josiah.

Maybe he'll grow up to be like me who will dishonor the God of Israel. And even in the selection of his name. Three hundred years earlier, God said the name will be Josiah.

Not one word of God will fall. You've probably heard the story often of Voltaire, the skeptic who thought his reason and enlightenment would get rid of Christianity. And so with his pen and his paper, he set out to destroy what he said the disciples had created. He even vowed that Christianity would not survive one hundred years after his death. Well, he died in 1778.

And in 1828, fifty years after his death, the Geneva Bible Society moved into his home and used his printing press to print Bibles which were sent around the world. Would you take your Bibles now and turn to 2nd Chronicles chapter 35. Look at verse 17. Thus the sons of Israel who were present celebrated the Passover at that time and the feast of unleavened bread seven days. Now notice these great words. And there had not been celebrated a Passover like it in Israel since the days of Samuel the prophet, nor had any of the kings of Israel celebrated such a Passover as Josiah did with the priests, the Levites, all Judah and Israel who were present and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. It's like the, it's like Ezra who's writing this says, wow, you've never seen anything like this before. Why, going all the way back to the days of Samuel, they hadn't seen this.

Why? Because Josiah had come into contact with the unshakable word and said, maybe we're supposed to live like that. And he reinstituted the Passover. Now let me give you a couple of thoughts and then we'll conclude his story.

Here's the first lesson I think we can learn up to this point. What God has written in the past teaches us how to live in the present. And God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Don't ever forget that the book of Deuteronomy brought about these great changes. How many books do we have?

A few more. Second, what God has prescribed in the past teaches us how to worship in the present. Look at verse 19. In the 18th year of Josiah's reign, this Passover was celebrated. Now for Josiah, this was God's prescribed method of worship. No superstition, no hocus pocus, but a worship of God's grace as they looked back to the days when they were slaves in Egypt. For us today, we celebrate a different kind of Passover.

But in many ways, it is the fulfillment of that anotype. We celebrate the blood of the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world. And those in this auditorium who have applied the blood of that Lamb to their hearts will be passed over when we stand before God and give an account. Well, I wish this were the end of Josiah's biography. It would make a grand conclusion. However, as the word often does, it does not hide from us the failures of God's followers and fearers.

Sometimes it exposes them. And for that reason, the word both encourages us in how to live, and it warns us in how not to live. Look at 2 Chronicles chapter 35 verse 20.

After all this, when Josiah had sent the temple in order, Nico, king of Egypt, came up to make war at Carchemish on the Euphrates. Now, you could write in the margin of your Bible if you care to 13 years. You see, 13 years has elapsed between verse 19 and verse 20. The tape just got put on fast forward, and before we knew it, we were 13 years later.

Maybe you feel like that in your own life. Where did those last 13 years go? Well, Egypt is going to war—now you need to follow this carefully—it's going to war against the rising power of the Middle East that we know as Babylon. Now look at verse 20, the latter war. And Josiah went out to engage Egypt as it marches to fight against Babylon. But Nico sent messengers to him saying, that's the Pharaoh of Egypt, what have we to do with each other, O king of Judah?

I'm not coming against you today, but against the house with which I am at war. And God has ordered me to hurry. Stop for your own sake from interfering with God who is with me that he may not destroy you.

Imagine that warning. Coming from a pagan unbelieving Pharaoh, who thought he was the descendant of the sun god, by the way. Nico, however, uses the name of God twice. It's the word Elohim. Now that's strange coming from the lips of a man who would not know the name of God.

Look at the verses. Nico says, Elohim has ordered me to hurry. The Hebrew verb means God is pressuring me. God is as it were pushing me. God is urging me to hurry.

What a strange scene here. A pagan using the name Elohim, telling Josiah that he is on a divine mission to march against Babylon. You, had you been Josiah, wouldn't have bought it. But it should have sent Josiah scurrying to the prophet Jeremiah or Zephaniah with the question, hey, this king is saying Elohim ordered him to go fight.

Am I to go up against him or not? See, that's what kings did then. And prophets would go to God, get the word, come back and say, yes, go up against him or no, don't go up against him. No word anywhere that Josiah did anything other than continue his pursuit to fight against him.

He refused to listen. Now, unfortunately, we're never told what motivated Josiah to fight against Nico. Perhaps Josiah wanted larger control over the territory that was now freeing up as Assyria is falling into second class status in the world power scene. See, Josiah had been subjugated to Assyria. Now he's feeling looseness in those chains and perhaps now's a good time to fight against Egypt and extend my borders.

Sounds reasonable? Unless God doesn't want it. So you need to know that in the plan of God, ladies and gentlemen, and follow this carefully, Egypt is going to lose its battle against Babylon and that will end once and for all their bid for world power. God is going to rise up Babylon to become the dominating force in the Middle East. He will then use Babylon as a tool in his hand to bring Judah into captivity.

And one of those young captives that goes to Babylon is a young man named Daniel who will pick up the story from here. God knew what he was doing. Acts 17 says he determines the boundaries and the years of nations.

He knows how long this nation will last. He knew Egypt would fall. He wanted that in his divine plan. He wanted them to march against Babylon.

Babylon would defeat them. He wanted Babylon to rise up and Judah be swept into captivity. And here's Josiah in the middle on his own without asking God for any advice.

I think I'll point in the middle here. And you know what he did? He got in the way of God's plans. He got in the way of God by not listening to the warning of God. Verse 22, However Josiah would not turn away from him, but disguised himself in order to make war with him, nor did he listen to the words of Nico from the mouth of God, but came to make war on the plan of Megiddo. And the archers shot King Josiah, and the king said to his servants, Take me away, for I am badly wounded. So his servants took him out of the chariot and carried him in a second chariot, which he had, probably a lighter, faster chariot, and brought him to Jerusalem, where he died and was buried in the tombs of his father's, and all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.

Great potential. And you'd have to say the sun went down at noon. He was 39 years old when this happened. Now, by and large, the message and testimony of his life is positive and godly. In fact, I can imagine Jeremiah preaching the funeral with tears. Look at verse 25. Then Jeremiah chanted a lament for Josiah. And all the male and female singers speak about Josiah in their lamentation to this day. In Ezra's day, they're still talking about Josiah. And they made them an ordinance in Israel, that is, they made a national holiday out of his death, as we do with others like Abraham Lincoln. We remember him.

They would remember him on that special day. Behold, they are also written in the lamentations. Now the rest of the acts of Josiah and his deeds of devotion, as written in the law of the Lord and his acts, first to last, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah. From these last days of this 39-year-old man, I think we can pull some warnings from the text.

Let me give you three of them. Warning number one, spiritual deterioration that leads to disobedience does not occur without ample warning. To put it another way, spiritual collapse never happens overnight and it never happens without God being able to say, I told you so. You never disobey God without 66 books of warning. In fact, I don't think there's any such thing as falling into sin as we often talk about it. I think you walk into sin with your eyes wide open. I think you and I plan to sin. You leave your phone number or your business cards so sin knows where to find you. You make a date with sin. You call out so that sin knows you're available. Now it may start out small. It might be just one date with an unbeliever on your campus.

It might be just one lunch with a married man or woman. Just one bad check. Just one sip, one drag, one magazine, one surf on the internet in the wrong places. When we are spiritually bankrupt, we cannot go and point our finger in the face of God and say, it happened so fast and you never warned me. You never gave me a chance.

Oh no. The warning to Josiah was strange. It came from the lips of an unbeliever, but it should have sent him scurrying to the believing prophets and he refused because he decided he wanted to do what he wanted to do. The second thing I believe we can learn from his spiritual demise is this, making wise decisions in youth does not guarantee making wise decisions in old age. Let me read you something that I keep close at hand. The writings of a man by the name of C. H. McIntosh, who wrote before any of us were around on his notes from the book of Genesis, he writes these words, many a vessel has sailed out of harbor in gallant style with all its canvas spread amid cheering and shouting and with many a promise of first rate passage. But alas, storms, waves, rocks, and quicksands have changed the aspect of things and the vessel that commenced with hope has ended in disaster. It's another way of saying for all of us here, there is never a point in our lives where we can coast spiritually upon our past. It's wonderful that you've made wise decisions as youth.

If you can look back to that point, it's wonderful that you committed or rededicated your life to Christ as a teenager or a college student. Our testimony is to be up to date, not something from the past, although it will certainly include things from the past. It's a way of saying we race to the finish line. We finish well. We are racing. We are running.

We are pushing, pursuing. We desire not only to start well but to end well. The final lesson is this, the best time to walk with God is not yesterday, not someday, the time to walk with God is today. My boyhood home had that plaque that I see all over, that familiar phrase, only one life will soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last. I don't know what your past has been like, but I know the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses sinful pasts.

I don't know what your future holds, but I do know on the authority of God's word, the best time to walk with God is now. David Livingston, a man who would be a famous missionary pioneering the continent of Africa, would write in his journal in 1871 the words, Oh my Father, help me to finish my work to thine honor. 16 months later, this veteran missionary with a great ministry finished. He crossed the tape. How do you join the likes of a David Livingston, a Matthew Alexander, an apostle Paul? How do you avoid the trap at the end of the race that probably is more deceptive than at the beginning? I'm sure there are a lot of answers out there but the only one that I could think of from his story here is to simply walk with God today.

Period. What a great reminder that the best time to walk with God is now. The lesson you just heard is called Sundown at Noon and it comes from Stephen Davies vintage wisdom series called We Three Kings. This was the final lesson in that series and if you missed one of them as we went along or if you want to go back and listen to them again, we've posted this series to our website. You'll find us online at wisdomonline.org. On our next broadcast Stephen begins a series from Romans 12 called The Grace Factor. Tune in for that here on Wisdom for the Heart. Thank you.