Christ Our Helper

1 John 2 I am writing this to you, my children, so that you will not sin; but if anyone does sin, we have someone who pleads with the Father on our behalf--Jesus Christ, the righteous one. ²And Christ himself is the means by which our sins are forgiven, and not our sins only, but also the sins of everyone.
³If we obey God's commands, then we are sure that we know him. ⁴If we say that we know him, but do not obey his commands, we are liars and there is no truth in us. ⁵But if we obey his word, we are the ones whose love for God has really been made perfect. This is how we can be sure that we are in union with God: ⁶if we say that we remain in union with God, we should live just as Jesus Christ did.

The New Command

⁷My dear friends, this command I am writing you is not new; it is the old command, the one you have had from the very beginning. The old command is the message you have already heard. ⁸However, the command I now write you is new, because its truth is seen in Christ and also in you. For the darkness is passing away, and the real light is already shining.
⁹If we say that we are in the light, yet hate others, we are in the darkness to this very hour. ¹⁰If we love others, we live in the light, and so there is nothing in us that will cause someone else to sin. ¹¹But if we hate others, we are in the darkness; we walk in it and do not know where we are going, because the darkness has made us blind.
¹²I write to you, my children, because your sins are forgiven for the sake of Christ. ¹³I write to you, fathers, because you know him who has existed from the beginning. I write to you, young people, because you have defeated the Evil One.
¹⁴I write to you, my children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who has existed from the beginning. I write to you, young people, because you are strong; the word of God lives in you, and you have defeated the Evil One.
¹⁵Do not love the world or anything that belongs to the world. If you love the world, you do not love the Father. ¹⁶Everything that belongs to the world--what the sinful self desires, what people see and want, and everything in this world that people are so proud of--none of this comes from the Father; it all comes from the world. ¹⁷The world and everything in it that people desire is passing away; but those who do the will of God live forever.

The Enemy of Christ

¹⁸My children, the end is near! You were told that the Enemy of Christ would come; and now many enemies of Christ have already appeared, and so we know that the end is near. ¹⁹These people really did not belong to our fellowship, and that is why they left us; if they had belonged to our fellowship, they would have stayed with us. But they left so that it might be clear that none of them really belonged to us.
²⁰But you have had the Holy Spirit poured out on you by Christ, and so all of you know the truth. ²¹I write you, then, not because you do not know the truth; instead, it is because you do know it, and you also know that no lie ever comes from the truth.
²²Who, then, is the liar? It is those who say that Jesus is not the Messiah. Such people are the Enemy of Christ--they reject both the Father and the Son. ²³For those who reject the Son reject also the Father; those who accept the Son have the Father also.
²⁴Be sure, then, to keep in your hearts the message you heard from the beginning. If you keep that message, then you will always live in union with the Son and the Father. ²⁵And this is what Christ himself promised to give us--eternal life.
²⁶I am writing this to you about those who are trying to deceive you. ²⁷But as for you, Christ has poured out his Spirit on you. As long as his Spirit remains in you, you do not need anyone to teach you. For his Spirit teaches you about everything, and what he teaches is true, not false. Obey the Spirit's teaching, then, and remain in union with Christ.
²⁸Yes, my children, remain in union with him, so that when he appears we may be full of courage and need not hide in shame from him on the Day he comes. ²⁹You know that Christ is righteous; you should know, then, that everyone who does what is right is God's child.

Josiah Celebrates the Passover
(2 Kings 23.21-23)

2 Chronicles 35 King Josiah celebrated the Passover at Jerusalem in honor of the LORD; on the fourteenth day of the first month they killed the animals for the festival. ²He assigned to the priests the duties they were to perform in the Temple and encouraged them to do them well. ³He also gave these instructions to the Levites, the teachers of Israel, who were dedicated to the LORD: "Put the sacred Covenant Box in the Temple that King Solomon, the son of David, built. You are no longer to carry it from place to place, but you are to serve the LORD your God and his people Israel. ⁴Take your places in the Temple by clans, according to the responsibilities assigned to you by King David and his son King Solomon, ⁵and arrange yourselves so that some of you will be available to help each family of the people of Israel. ⁶You are to kill the Passover lambs and goats. Now make yourselves ritually clean and prepare the sacrifices in order that your fellow Israelites may follow the instructions which the LORD gave through Moses."
⁷For the use of the people at the Passover, King Josiah contributed from his own herds and flocks 30,000 sheep, lambs, and young goats, and 3,000 bulls. ⁸His officials also made contributions for the people, the priests, and the Levites to use. And the officials in charge of the Temple--Hilkiah, the High Priest, Zechariah, and Jehiel--gave the priests 2,600 lambs and young goats and 300 bulls for sacrifices during the festival. ⁹The leaders of the Levites--Conaniah, Shemaiah and his brother Nethanel, Hashabiah, Jeiel, and Jozabad--contributed 5,000 lambs and young goats and 500 bulls for the Levites to offer as sacrifices.
¹⁰When everything was arranged for the Passover, the priests and the Levites took their posts, as commanded by the king. ¹¹After the lambs and goats had been killed, the Levites skinned them, and the priests sprinkled the blood on the altar. ¹²Then they divided among the people, by family groups, the animals for burnt offerings, so that they could offer them according to the instructions in the Law of Moses. ¹³The Levites roasted the Passover sacrifices over the fire, according to the regulations, and boiled the sacred offerings in pots, kettles, and pans, and quickly distributed the meat to the people. ¹⁴After this was done, the Levites provided meat for themselves and for the priests descended from Aaron, for the priests were kept busy until night, burning the animals that were burned whole and the fat of the sacrifices. ¹⁵The following musicians of the Levite clan of Asaph were in the places assigned to them by King David's instructions: Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, the king's prophet. The guards at the Temple gates did not need to leave their posts, because the other Levites prepared the Passover for them. ¹⁶So, as King Josiah had commanded, everything was done that day for the worship of the LORD, the keeping of the Passover Festival, and the offering of burnt offerings on the altar. ¹⁷For seven days all the people of Israel who were present celebrated the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. ¹⁸Since the days of the prophet Samuel, the Passover had never been celebrated like this. None of the former kings had ever celebrated a Passover like this one celebrated by King Josiah, the priests, the Levites, and the people of Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem ¹⁹in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign.

The End of Josiah's Reign
(2 Kings 23.28-30)

²⁰After King Josiah had done all this for the Temple, King Neco of Egypt led an army to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates River. Josiah tried to stop him, ²¹but Neco sent Josiah this message: "This war I am fighting does not concern you, King of Judah. I have not come to fight you, but to fight my enemies, and God has told me to hurry. God is on my side, so don't oppose me, or he will destroy you." ²²But Josiah was determined to fight. He refused to listen to what God was saying through King Neco, so he disguised himself and went into battle on the plain of Megiddo.
²³During the battle King Josiah was struck by Egyptian arrows. He ordered his servants, "Take me away; I'm badly hurt!" ²⁴They lifted him out of his chariot, placed him in a second chariot which he had there, and took him to Jerusalem. There he died and was buried in the royal tombs. All the people of Judah and Jerusalem mourned his death.
²⁵The prophet Jeremiah composed a lament for King Josiah. It has become a custom in Israel for the singers, both men and women, to use this song when they mourn for him. The song is found in the collection of laments.
²⁶Everything that Josiah did--his devotion to the LORD, his obedience to the Law, ²⁷and his history from beginning to end--is all recorded in The History of the Kings of Israel and Judah.

Lament over the Defeat of the King

Psalm 89 ³⁸But you are angry with your chosen king;
you have deserted and rejected him.
³⁹You have broken your covenant with your servant
and thrown his crown in the dirt.
⁴⁰You have torn down the walls of his city
and left his forts in ruins.
⁴¹All who pass by steal his belongings;
all his neighbors laugh at him.
⁴²You have given the victory to his enemies;
you have made them all happy.
⁴³You have made his weapons useless
and let him be defeated in battle.
⁴⁴You have taken away his royal scepter
and knocked his throne to the ground.
⁴⁵You have made him old before his time
and covered him with disgrace.

A Prayer for Deliverance

⁴⁶LORD, will you hide yourself forever?
How long will your anger burn like fire?
⁴⁷Remember how short my life is;
remember that you created all of us mortal!
⁴⁸Who can live and never die?
How can we humans keep ourselves from the grave?

⁴⁹Lord, where are the former proofs of your love?
Where are the promises you made to David?
⁵⁰Don't forget how I, your servant, am insulted,
how I endure all the curses of the heathen.
⁵¹Your enemies insult your chosen king, O LORD!
They insult him wherever he goes.

⁵²Praise the LORD forever!

Amen! Amen!