.
Tomorrow is Remembrance Day. I
trust that many of you will be marching in with us at the Comp High School at
10:30am. You are invited also to join us for the 8:30am service at the
Cenotaph. The Salvation Army will be leading both services as, of course, we
have been providing the chaplaincy for RCL Branch #56 for the previous 5 years.
.
Last year it was bitterly cold
outside on Remembrance Day. I remember it quite vividly. A number of us got
frostbite on our ears including myself, the mayor, and Maxine. I always looked
forward to seeing Maxine at Legion events. The poppy tea was yesterday but, as
far as Legion events go, it is the Mothers' Day tea that I'll always remember
because every year they had a door prize of some flowers. I think each year I
told Maxine that if my daughters won the flowers she would have to come to
church in the morning to present them with their prize and, as far as I
remember, we won every year; so we knew that Maxine would be in church at least
that one Sunday each year. Many of us miss Maxine as she received her
'Promotion to Glory' just a month or so after Remembrance Day last year. I am
sure she was met with, "well done my good and faithful servant."
.
Along these lines, in my preparing
for both today and tomorrow's ceremonies I ran across some interesting pieces
of information about a number of people who lived and died in Canada’s wars -
especially the 'Great War', the 'war to end all wars', the 'first world war'.
.
When World War One broke out Canada
was a very small and sparsely populated country of just over 7 million people.
Most people were farmers or involved in other primary industries. Many young
boys headed off the farms here to serve in the war. I also read stories of
bankers and teachers and minors and scientists and athletes and very young men
from across the country who put their jobs, their careers, their parents, their
girl friends, their new wives, their young children, and their whole lives on
hold until they returned home from the war - only many never did return home
from the war. They were never to be seen again by their wives, their children,
their brothers, their sisters, their mothers, their fathers.
.
66 976 Canadians died in World War
1. That was almost 1% (0.92%) of our country's population: meaning that in a
city then with a population of 17 000, like Swift Current is now, 170 people
would have been killed in the war. If you lived in Canada during the war, you
would know more than one person who did not return. I want to share one of the
many stories I happened read about people who left their homes here on the
Canadian prairies to die in the mud of Passchendaele:
Stanley
Richard Shore (Private, 27th Battalion, CEF) was born in Manitou, Manitoba, on
December 16th, 1896. He received his education in the Brandon schools and in
the King Edward School, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He was employed by the
National Trust Company, Saskatoon, for a short period, but in order to complete
his education he resigned and returned to school. In October 1915, at the age
of 18, he entered the service of the Bank of British North America in Saskatoon.
Previous to his enlisting for overseas service [in the war] he was attached to
the 105th Regiment. He enlisted in April, 1916, as a Private in the 183rd
Battalion, Canadian Infantry, and headed overseas. On the 183rd Battalion being
disbanded in England he proceeded to France with a reinforcement draft for the
27th Battalion, Canadian Infantry. He was killed during the attack on
Passchendaele Ridge on November 6th, 1917.[1]
.
He was only 20. He was a banker. He
was a prairie boy. He was killed in the mud on Passchendaele Ridge. He is just
one of the almost one percent of the population of Canada who never returned
from his European adventure.
.
Today on Remembrance Sunday, quite
by providence, certainly not through any intent or design on my part, we are
looking at a good man, who like Stanley Richard Shore, and like so many other
good men throughout history, was killed in battle when he was still young.
.
Today, in part, we are going to
eulogize King Josiah. Josiah was the last great King of Judah and Israel. He
was a good man, who was used by God to do many good things and he really was
the last significant ruler of Judah or Israel. Not long after Josiah was
killed, his country was wiped off the face of the earth forever. It would never
stand as an independent nation again.
.
So who is this King Josiah that we
have added to our branch of the lineage of Christ that we are growing above the
altar in the sanctuary here? Who is this King Josiah whom we are going to
commemorate what the Lord has done through him today?
.
Josiah had an interesting home life
growing up to say the least. When he was born, his grandfather was the King of
Judah. His grandfather, King Manasseh, was the longest reigning of all of the
kings of Judah. He was popular with many of the people and Manasseh was among
the most evil of all of the kings to ever rule Judah (but cf. 2 Chronicles
33:10-13).[2]
2 Kings 21:9 records that Manasseh even led the Israelites (Judeans) to do more
evil than even the people who lived in Canaan before God removed them because
they were evil. And now because of the evil in the kingdom of Judah during
Manasseh's reign, God decides to remove Israel from this land just like He
removed the nations before them (Genesis 15:7-15).
.
King Manasseh died when Josiah was
about six years old and then Josiah’s dad, Amon, became the king of Judah. Amon
- 2 Kings 21:21-22 - did evil just as his father had done and King Amon
abandoned the LORD, the God of his ancestors (cf. Chronicles 33:21-25). His
servants then, only 2 years into his reign, murdered this evil king. This evil
King Amon however was also very popular with the people of Israel/Judah, so
they killed those who plotted against him and they placed the young Josiah on the throne.
.
Josiah was only eight years old
when he became the last significant king of Judah (ca. 640 BCE). Then in the 18th
year of his reign, when he was 26 years old, he sent a servant to the Temple,
to the House of the LORD, to collect some money, to pay for repairs to the
building. It was then that the High Priest told Shaphan, Josiah's servant, that
he had found the Book of the Law in the House of the LORD.[3]
This is interesting because in all of the years of the evil reigns of his
father and grandfather - 57 years - plus all of the years of Josiah's reign to
date - 75 years altogether - somehow they had lost the Scriptures. Probably for
at least a half of a century, I would guess; they didn’t even really know about
the Book of the Law anymore let alone the Scriptures contained within them.
Israel and Judah had become so evil that they seem to have forgotten the Lord
altogether.[4]
.
When they find this book, they read
it and they then franticly try to figure out what to do with the Word of God.
They read it and they realize just how evil their nation has become; they read
it and they fear for their lives; they read it and they fear God. The King,
22:18, is penitent; he humbles himself before the LORD; He tears his clothes
and he weeps before the LORD. He seeks out any remaining prophets of the LORD
to ask what he can do for the LORD.
.
As part of Josiah’s coming to faith
here, as part of and as a result of his repentance, he is better than any of
the kings before or after him (2 Kings 22:25). He reads the Scriptures to the
elders of his people. He makes a covenant with the LORD to follow the LORD -
23:3 – “keeping His commandments, His decrees and His statutes with all his
heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written
in this book. All the people joined in the covenant.”
.
Josiah turns his whole life and his
whole country over to the Lord: he destroys the altars to and images of the
false gods in his country; he deposes the idolatrous priests; he destroys the
houses of the male shrine prostitutes; he removes the [war] horses that he, his
father and his grandfather, the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun [god]
at the entrance to the House of the LORD. He then burns the [war] chariots -
his era’s equivalent of the tank. He burns the chariots of the sun with fire.
He pulls down the evil temples and he defiles the evil high places. These are
totally unparalleled reforms in all the history of Israel and Judah. He
destroys the state sanctioned worship of false gods and he re-institutes the
state sanctioned celebration of the Passover feast to commemorate the LORD’s
saving the first-born sons and delivering the children of Israel out of Egypt.
He puts away all the mediums, wizards, teraphim, idols, and all the
abominations in Judah and Jerusalem.[5]
2 Kings 22:25 records, “Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like
him who turned to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul
and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.” Josiah is
quite a king. This is an unparalleled repentance and a great testimony to God,
to the LORD.
.
But, all that being said, Verse 25
is followed by Verses 26 and 27: “Nevertheless, the Lord did not turn away from
the heat of his fierce anger, which burned against Judah because of all that
Manasseh had done to arouse his anger. So the Lord said, ‘I will remove Judah
also from my presence as I removed Israel, and I will reject Jerusalem, the
city I chose, and this temple, about which I said, ‘My Name shall be there.’”
Then, Verses 29 and 30a, “While Josiah was king, Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt
went up to the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched
out to meet him in battle, but Neco faced him and killed him at Megiddo.
Josiah’s servants brought his body in a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried
him in his own tomb” (cf. 2 Chronicles 35:20-27).[6]
Josiah's life here is over. Josiah’s reign in Judah is over. Two chapters
later, the two books of the Kings are over. And two chapters later the two
countries of Israel and Judah’s time is over. It is finished.[7]
.
Josiah was a great king. Josiah
loved God. Josiah served God like no one else in the histories of the countries
of Israel and Judah. Josiah started his reign as an eight year-old boy and he
finished it as a devout servant of our God. Josiah, like so many of our
Canadian soldiers of the 19th, 20th, and 21st
Centuries (as before), left his family behind, left his people behind, left his
work behind, left those who loved him behind. And Josiah left his reforms
behind to march into a battle from which he and his reforms would never return.
He marched out into a battle from which his country would never recover.
Josiah’s son did evil in the eyes of the LORD. Josiah’s son only reigned 3
months. The very few remaining kings of Judah/Israel were then nothing more
than vassals of Egypt and Babylon, until the LORD finally removed them from His
land.[8]
.
This is a sad story on this
Remembrance Sunday. God used Josiah to accomplish so much good in reforming
Israel and Judah. Josiah then marched off to a battle from which neither he nor
his reforms ever returned. So many good Christians marched out to battles from
Canada in the 20th Century and now the country to which some never
returned is no longer devoted to God the way it was when they laid down their
lives for God, for King and for country.
.
So what can we learn today from
Josiah - the late great king of a long gone kingdom who marched out to war and
never returned? So what can we learn from Josiah - the late great king of a
long gone kingdom who marched out to a war from which his country never
returned? I think what we can learn is this: Josiah experienced God’s blessing
in the midst of the death throws of his nation and so can we experience God’s
blessing in the midst of whatever we are experiencing.[9]
And even more: Israel and Judah were evil for a long time before God wiped them
off the face of the earth. Before the LORD scattered them away from God’s land
forever, God used Josiah to bring God’s people back to the LORD. If God had not
instituted Josiah’s reforms, no one today may have ever heard of the LORD at
all. Remember that Israel/Judah had forgotten the LORD. But the LORD didn’t
forget them; He reminds them who He is just when they need Him the most. Just
before the people are deported to many parts of the world, they return to God
and so God is with them in their deportations and God is with them in their
suffering and God is with them in their captivity and God is with them in their
slavery. Throughout all of their hardships for centuries to come God is right
there with them. And through this they begin to look forward to Jesus. They
begin to look hopefully, longingly and expectantly to the coming of Jesus, who
is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings; He is the wonderful counsellor,
mighty God, everlasting father and prince of peace whose government will never
stop ruling and being peaceful (Isaiah 9:6).
.
And this is the same for us. Just
as we have been looking at Ruth and Naomi the previous few weeks in Bible
study, so it is with the people after Josiah and so it is with us today. No
matter what evil, no matter what hardships, no matter what trials, no matter
what tribulations we suffer, Christ is right there with us. He is our comfort and our strength. And one
day, one day He is coming back and then every knee will bow and every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and then there will be no more tears and
there will be no more suffering forever more in His Kingdom to come.
.
Many of us here have already
promised God that we will serve Him forever but if there are any here today who
have not yet bowed to Jesus as King and made Him Lord of our life, I invite us
to do this today for God promises that no matter what is happening in our lives
today and no matter what will happen in our lives tomorrow, God will never
leave us nor forsake us. Jesus loves us.
..
---
[1] Norm
Christie, For King and Empire: The Canadians at Passchendaele October to
November 1917 (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: CEF Books, 1999), 36.
[2]Cf. Donald J. Wiseman, 1 and 2 Kings: An
Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1993
(Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 9), S. 311 for an interesting discussion of
this in light of 2 Chronicles 33.
[3] Cf. Nadav
Na'aman, 'The discovered book and the legitimation of Josiah's reform,' JBL,
no. 1 (2011): 47-62 for a good discussion around content and dating of ‘the
Book of the Law’.
[4] Cf. Bruce C.
Birch, Walter Brueggemann, Terence E. Fretheim, Daniel L. Peterson, A
Theological Introduction to the Old Testament (Nashville, TN: Abingdon
Press, 2005) 322-323
[5] Cf. Jonathan
Ben-Dov,' Writing as Oracle and as law: new contexts for the book-find of King
Josiah.,' JBL 127, no. 2 (2008): 223-239 esp. p. 238 for an historical
discussion of his reforms.
[6] Cf. 2
Chronicles 35:20-27 for a more detailed account of Josiah’s death in battle.
[7] Choon-Leon
Seow, The First and Second Book of Kings, in NIB 9, ed. Leander E. Keck,
et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1999): 287 points out that salvation is
not meted out on a basis of works.
[8] Patrick J.
Wilson, 'Between Text and Sermon: 2 Kings 22:1-23:3,' Interpretation 54,
no. 4 (2000): 415, “Beyond rewards and punishments God calls us to a particular
way of life. Josiah understands this even as he stands by the pillar to read
the book of the covenant, which consigns his kingdom as condemned property. But
for those who hear, it is an invitation to life with God.”
[9] Patrick J.
Wilson, 'Between Text and Sermon: 2 Kings 22:1-23:3,' Interpretation 54,
no. 4 (2000): 415
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