New Hope Rises – 2 Kings 22

What happens when a nation loses the Word of God?  What happens when you drift away from the Word?  It can lead to deadly peril in so many ways.

A nation and an individual cannot be transformed without the truth of God found in His Word and obedience to it.

When Manasseh was king it was literally rivers of blood “from one end to another” (2 Kings 21:16).  Death reigned.  And after Manasseh was his son Amon and nothing much changed.  Thankfully his rule was cut short and in his place 8 year old Josiah became King.  A good king.

While ordering repairs to the temple and cleaning things up, Hilkiah, the high priest found the book of the law of God.  It had once been the central part of all of Israel, but now it was neglected in a dusty corner of the temple, it’s words long forgotten.

When Hilkiah realized what he found he found he gave it to the court secretary who brought it to King Josiah.  When Josiah heard the words, he tore his clothes and wept.  How far had Israel drifted away from the LORD!

He immediately sent a team of people to go inquire of the LORD.  In doing so they went to a woman, Huldah, a prophetess of the LORD.  In all the wickedness and all the evil, she was one who loved and obeyed the LORD, heard from Him and gave instruction and guidance to others.

The message she received from the LORD was that because Israel had drifted so far away from obeying the book of the Law, great disaster was going to come on the land.  But because Josiah had wept and humbled himself before the LORD, the disaster would not come during Josiah’s lifetime.

Israel was/is a unique nation before God unlike any other nation on earth.  They have a covenant with God that is special.  They entered into that covenant willingly to serve and obey the LORD whole heartedly and he would bless them for that.

But the Gentile nations.  What about them?  What about us?

While we don’t walk in the same kind of covenant as does Israel, we see that many of the same things apply to us.  The nations that live in righteousness receive the fruit of righteousness.  The nations that live with evil will harvest what they have sown.  God blesses Gentile nations and he also brings judgment against them as well.

But how are we to know the will of God without God’s Word?

A number of years ago I did a survey of over 600 believers and many leaders and found that many had never read the Word.  It was rather disturbing.

When I look around now I see even top Christian leaders in the world living in disobedience to Scripture.  I see lawsuits being brought against other believers, endorsement of sin, and much more.  I remember one lady I know telling me she went to a national denominational convention where they were discussing moral issues, but they not once mentioned what the Bible said.  They made decisions on what they thought best.

I’ve also known others that have gone done immoral paths and when they do, they attack the Bible as the problem.  “Full of errors,” “only partly correct,” “progressive.”  But that is not the case.  Truth does not change.  And the Bible has found itself secure from thousands of years of attack.  It’s more that like the Fall of Man (Gen 3), we want to be the ones to decide what is good and evil according to us.

The reality is that even God’s people are not regularly in His Word.  And because of that we will reap what we sow because we do not know.

When Josiah realized that the people and the nation He led were not knowing and obeying the Word, he repented deeply and sincerely.  He then led the nation back to the place of obedience.

It’s time for nations and for individuals to get back to the Word.  Knowing it and obeying it.  May the only dust we know be under our feet and not in our hands dusting off the Word of Life.

(To see how the Bible has utterly transformed many nations of the world today, read The Book that Transforms Nations by Loren Cunningham).