Sermon: Scripture Rediscovered!
November 24th, 2019 Rev. Betsy Perkins
First Baptist Church, Delavan WI
Scripture passage: 2 Kings 22:1-10, 23:1-3
The Temple Restoration
3-7 One day in the eighteenth year of his kingship, King Josiah sent the royal secretary Shaphan, to The Temple of the Lord with instructions: “Go to Hilkiah the high priest and have him count the money that has been brought to The Temple of the Lord that the doormen have collected from the people. Have them turn it over to the foremen who are managing the work on The Temple of the Lord so they can pay the workers who are repairing the Lord’s Temple, all the carpenters, construction workers, and masons. Also, authorize them to buy the lumber and dressed stone for The Temple repairs. You don’t need to get a receipt for the money you give them—they’re all honest men.”
One of the things that King Josiah does during his reign is to order that the Temple be repaired and restored. This is the Temple that King Solomon built, so by the time Josiah is King, the temple is 330 years old. In addition to its age, one of the kings shortly before Josiah, fell away from God so completely that he had idols and altars for idol worship set up right inside the Temple. He even went so far as to sacrifice his own son in fire on one of those altars as he practiced black magic, fortunetelling, and conducted séances. The sacred space had been desecrated, used for unholy purposes, and the inner part of the Temple, the Holy of Holy’s, had been allowed to fall apart.
This church building was constructed in 1880; that makes it nearly 140 years old. We have things in this building showing their age (and it hasn’t been misused!) so you can imagine when Solomon’s Temple was twice as old, there must have been a lot of things falling apart. In recent years here, a lot has been done to repair and restore this building, along with efforts to sort things out, declutter, clean, get rid of old things. 25 years ago new furnaces were installed; 12 years ago new carpet was put down in the sanctuary; 6 years ago the stained glass windows were releaded and restored. Since I arrived 3 ½ years ago, we’ve made repairs to the roof, upgraded the electrical system and the sound system, the steeple cross is relit. We rebuilt the south entry way to make it safer last summer, and now we are working on the north and kitchen entries. Another big restoration project was having the bellows releathered 2 years ago. That was a major project which involved pulling out 98 bricks wrapped in brown paper that serve as the weight on the bellows, and wiping away 120 years of dust. When Larry and John opened up the bellows there was a surprising discovery of a small art signature, about the size of a postcard stuck inside the bellows, placed there in 1899 by the organ builder.
The Scriptures Rediscovered
Darlene: Pastor Betsy! Pastor Betsy! Look what I discovered when I was cleaning out the church basement! Look! It’s an old Bible – dated 1854! 165 years old! It’s a bit tattered, but still readable…
Wow! That reminds me of King Josiah… I wonder if his story is in here… of course it is!
8 The high priest Hilkiah reported to Shaphan the royal secretary, “I’ve just found the Book of God’s Law, instructing us in God’s ways. I found it in The Temple!” He gave it to Shaphan and Shaphan read it. 9 Then Shaphan came back to the king and gave him an account of what had gone on: “Your servants have paid out the money collected for The Temple; they have given it to the foremen to pay The Temple workers.” 10 Then Shaphan the royal secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest gave me a scroll.” Shaphan proceeded to read it to the king. 11-13 When the king heard what was written in the scroll, God’s Word, he ripped his robes in dismay. And then he called for Hilkiah the priest, and the king’s personal aides. He ordered them all: “Go and pray to God for me and for this people—for all Judah! Find out what it means and what we must do in response to what is written in this book that has just been found! God’s anger must be burning furiously against us—our ancestors haven’t obeyed a thing written in this book, followed none of the instructions directed to us.”
Biblical scholars believe the scroll that was found was the book of Deuteronomy, or at least portion of that book. Deuteronomy is one great, long sermon by Moses that starts with his reminding God’s people of the Ten Commandments and the command to love the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their strength, along with specific rules and regulations. If you remember, Moses tells them to read these every morning and every evening, to teach them to their children, to talk about them as they walk along, to write them on their doorframes, even to wear them like jewelry on their heads and arms.
Clearly, that had not been happening! Josiah is shocked by what he hears when Shaphan reads the scroll to him. This is a king who has been seeking God since he was a kid but who has never read the words of scripture. For us, it’s hard to imagine that there would be only one copy of the scripture, or that the one copy might get lost! Some historians believe that perhaps the one copy was hidden away by a faithful priest when the temple was being misused, but then that priest died or forgot where he’s hidden it. It wasn’t till the restoration work began that it was discovered in a pillar or under the floor.
Again, we can hardly imagine this because we live in a time with the highest literacy rates in all history. We take for granted both the availability of the Bible and that it’s available in our own language, in multiple versions, no less – some simplify the language down to an elementary reading level. Yet it was only 570 years ago when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and began to generate multiple copies of what is known as the Gutenberg Bible, a Latin version. Then, just 400 years ago, King James of England commissioned a translation of the Bible into English. We now have the King James Version and the New King James Version, the NIV, CEB, NRSV, NLT, and many more. They come in study versions, and Life Application versions, Children’s editions, Teen and Seeker editions, with black covers or pink covers – it’s amazing!! So many Bibles that our problem, at least in the western world, is no longer that we don’t have a Bible to read, but that we have so many we hardly value them anymore. Old bibles are packed away in attics and basements; bibles gather dust on book shelves and bedside tables. Just here in this one church we have 3 bibles up here in front, some old bibles on display and other put away in plastic bins, bibles on shelves in the parlor and in the Sunday school rooms, and Bibles tucked under each and every pew – more bibles in this room than we have people! Most are hardly touched so they gather dust and mildew.
What Does It Mean?
I would like to suggest that our main problem with scriptures however, is surprisingly similar King Josiah’s problem. The first thing he asked after hearing the Word read to him was: “What does this mean and what are we to do about it?” We may be inundated with copies of scripture, yet many don’t read it because they don’t feel able to understand what it means. Others, even if they can understand it, write it off because they don’t know what to do about this ancient document, thinking that it doesn’t speak to their lives today in relevant ways.
King Josiah does not dismiss it as incomprehensible or irrelevant, instead he sends his staff off to find the answers: 14-17 Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went straight to Huldah the prophetess. She was the wife of Shallum, whose father was in charge of the palace wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter. The five men consulted with her.
Does that surprise you? The king’s men go find Huldah, who they knew to be a prophet. A woman who was known to be a spokesperson for God! Huldah told them that God was indeed angry by the disobedience of God’s people, and that there would be consequences as a result of their disobedience, but that because King Josiah took the Word seriously, since he responded with humility and conviction and weeping before God, that God would delay those consequences till a time when the people and their leaders had once again fallen into disobedience. The men took her message back to the king.
Recommitment to the Word
2 Kings 23:1-3: The king acted immediately, assembling all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. Then he proceeded to The Temple of the Lord, bringing everyone along—priests and prophets and all the people from the least to the greatest. Then the king read aloud the entire Book of the Covenant that was found in the Lord’s Temple. The king stood by the pillar in the place of authority and solemnly renewed their committed to the covenant before God: to follow God faithfully; to follow his instructions, heart and soul, on what to believe and do; to put into practice the entire covenant, all that was written in the scroll. And the people stood in affirmation; their commitment was unanimous.
As we are gather in this sacred space, I invite you to take out the Bible from the under the pew in front of you and hold it in your hands as I remind you, from the words of scripture, of what it means to us and what we are to do with it.
Psalm 119, the longest of all the psalms, is a song of praise for God’s law, God’s commands, God’s word. The psalmist writes, “Your word, Lord, is eternal; it stands as firm as the heavens; your truth never goes out of fashion (vs.88). Oh how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. Your commands are always with me and make me wiser than my enemies. I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your counsel. I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your instructions (vs.97-100). Your word is a lamp to my feet, a light on my path (vs.105).”
Peter speaks of our new birth into faith coming from God’s Living Word, and describes it as spiritual milk. “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that you grow into a full experience of your salvation. Cry out for this nourishment, now that you have tasted the Lord’s goodness (1Pet.2:2).”
Paul writes to Timothy, a young disciple, about faith and leadership, saying, “From infancy you have been taught the Holy Scriptures, and they have given you wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus. All scripture is God-breathed, inspired by God, and is useful to teach us what is true, and make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip His people to do every good work. (2Tim.3:15-17)
The letter to Hebrew believers tells us this: “The Word of God is alive and active and powerful. It is sharper than a two-edged sword, sharper than a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting between soul and spirit, cutting through doubts and defenses, laying us open to listen and obey.” (Heb.4:12)
Disregarding God’s Word, God’s ways is life-draining, inviting crisis and disaster; you will wander in darkness unable to find your way. On the other hand, reading the words of God is life-giving. It’s a light illuminating who you were created to be and how you were created to live. It points the way. One of the disciples, who had the privilege of listening to Jesus in person, said to him: there is no one else to whom we can go, for you have the words that give life! (Jn.6:68) And we did not lose those words of life when Jesus died, for after his death and resurrection we know of two disciples who were walking along a road toward Emmaus, and a man joined them and explained to them everything in scripture that referred to the Christ. Later, when they realized it was Jesus, they asked each other, “Didn’t we feel on fire as he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us?” (Lk.24:32)
Jesus’ words, God’s Word, the scriptures in your hands right now, are no less powerful today than they were back then. And when we come to the Bible, asking our questions of “What does it mean?” or “What am I to do about this?” we have the Holy Spirit whose role is to teach us and guide us into all the truth (Jn.16:13). Hallelujah! Amen.
Closing Song: “Thy Word”
Martin Luther said that “The Bible… is the manger in which Christ lies.” I would like to invite you in the coming Advent season to look into that manger and encounter Jesus through the reading of the Gospel of Luke. There is an insert in your bulletin today that can be an Advent calendar.
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