In this message, Voddie Baucham examines the life of King Josiah and draws several principles out of his life to demonstrate how young people can be used by God to change the world.

Well, good evening. See you all weren't too offended earlier, came back. I want to share something with you this evening that I think is very important for the days in which we live. And it really has to do not just with what's going on in the church today, but what's going on in our culture at large. Oftentimes when I talk to different groups or share different messages, I will talk about my relationship with my wife.

I'm always talking about my wife and my children. I mean, that's who I am. That's the foundation and the bedrock of my life, of my existence. And so I'll often make the comment that my wife and I got married right after I turned 20 years old. And when I make that statement, unfortunately, especially with a lot of groups that do a lot of different lectures and things on college campuses and stuff like that, when I say that around college kids, There are audible gasps in the room when I say, you know, yeah, my wife and I got married right after I turned 20.

It was my sophomore year in college. And I mean, it just, you know, and they just looking around like, did you just say that, you know? And sometimes when I say that in churches, leadership kind of just kind of gets all uncomfortable. And the reason that they get all uncomfortable is because evidently there's some scripture that I haven't read before over in second hesitations that says that you can't get married until after you graduate from college. And I believe over in third hesitations it says you can't start having kids until you have a master's degree and a 401K.

And so, I mean, these are, there are these unwritten rules that we have in our culture. Marriage happens after college graduation. Children happen several years thereafter. Many, many, many years thereafter. And then you've got to be careful because there's another unwritten rule, and that is a boy for me and a girl for you, and praise the Lord we're finally through.

Okay? That's the unwritten rule in our culture. That's why we look at people who have a little boy and a little girl, and we call it altogether now, the perfect little family. Okay? So we got all these unwritten rules.

The average age at which people are getting married in our culture today is somewhere around 27 or 28. Fifty years ago, it was more like the 2021. Now it's 27, 28 years old, where people are getting married. Now, How do I put this tactfully? Okay, I won't.

What we are seeing is not people being more careful. It's not people being more discerning. What we are seeing is not people being wiser. What we are seeing is the extension of the irresponsibility of childhood in our culture. What we are seeing is individuals, especially young men, who will grow up and go off to college, and then they decide that when you finish college, it's not good enough for you to go and get your hands dirty learning to work your way up, you know, from the bottom up somewhere.

What you have to do is then go back home until you can find a job sufficient for you to go out and live in this, however, you know, whatever sort of means that you're supposed to be living in. And the idea that they would go out and struggle doing whatever it is that they have to do to work their way up is completely foreign to this generation of young people. And so there is this continual extension of childhood, this continual extension of irresponsibility, this delaying and delaying and delaying of the moment where we began to live like grown-ups. And so tonight I want to share with you some lessons that I've learned from the life of a young man by the name of Josiah. If you'll open your Bibles with me to 2 Chronicles 34, 2 Chronicles chapter 34, we will peer into the life of this boy king and learn some principles from the word of God, from the life of young Josiah.

People ask me all the time, you know, it's interesting. A couple of things they ask about, you know, me getting us getting married so young and wasn't that hard, wasn't it difficult? Yes, it was incredibly difficult. We got married, we were po. Not poor, we couldn't afford the O and the R, we were just po.

I mean, it was unbelievably difficult and we would not trade a day of it. Not a single solitary day. Got married my sophomore year in college our first child was born ten months later we were what you call efficient Take nine months to cook one of those jokers. We had one in ten, okay? And so, and again, everybody was all, oh my goodness, how do you, you're gonna pay me, you're gonna call us, you're gonna, da da da da da.

We did it. We just did what we had to do. We didn't know anything else. And then I run into young people who are like, well, you know, yes, I understand that, but what I would like to do is I would like to travel the world and I would like to see different things and discover myself and find myself and help you. I've been around the world.

Here's the difference between me and the 25 year old who's still indulging in his selfish dreams. When I went to Europe, the woman to whom I've pledged my everything went with me. I didn't go and do it and then marry her so I could tell her about it later. Amen, somebody. Again, this extension of childhood, this rejection of responsibility.

Look with me in young Josiah's life. Josiah was eight years old when he became king. Eight. Did you catch that? Can you say that with me?

Eight. I like that. And he reigned 31 years in Jerusalem. That would make him 39. Can we say that together?

39. And he did right in the sight of the Lord and walked in the ways of his father David and did not turn aside to the right or to the left. For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still a youth, can we say 16? He began to seek the God of his father David. And in the 12th year, can we say 20?

He began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, the carved images and the molten images. And they tore down the altars of the bales in his presence. And the incense altars that were high above them, he chopped down. Also the ashram, the carved images and the molten images, he broke in pieces and ground to powder and scattered it on the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. Then he burned the bones of the priest on their altars and purged Judah and Jerusalem.

Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Several truths that I want us to understand tonight from the life of Josiah. Several lessons from the life of young Josiah.

The first lesson is this, God often calls and uses the very young. Look at the text. Josiah was eight years old when he became king. Now, oftentimes, it just amazes me how we just let go of the sovereignty of God when we read something like this. I mean, it's all of a sudden we read this and we think, what must have happened in heaven is that the angels must have come to God and said, oh my, you.

The king is dead in Josiah. He just ate. What are you going to do? That's not what happened. I don't believe that at all.

Yeah, I always tell folks, I think this is how it happened. I believe God called the angels around. He said, hey, come here, watch this. Three, two, one, you're dead, you're the king. I believe Josiah became the king at eight years old because the sovereign God of the universe intended for Josiah to become the king when he was eight years old.

God was not surprised by it. And we shouldn't be surprised by it either. God has a pattern. He has a track record of calling and using people who were very young. Or do we not remember that Joseph, when he started his journey from the pit to the palace, was only about 16 years old?

Have we forgotten Those Hebrew boys, you know, with Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Now I know later in the fiery furnace, they were a little bit older, but they were but teenagers when they decided to refuse to eat at the king's table. Mary was called upon to bear the Christ child when she was probably no more than 14 years old. God often calls and uses the very young. He has a track record of doing so.

You know, when I read my Bible, here's what I don't find. I don't find, for example, in those passages in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 about our spiritual gifts, what it doesn't say is God gives gifts to those who have graduated from college for the edification of the body. It says he gives gifts to all believers for the edification of the body. That means everyone who names the name of Jesus Christ as Lord and Master and Savior has been given something that the body needs. That means every one of us who is part of the body of Christ, even before we graduate from college, has something to contribute to the body of Christ.

God often calls and uses the very young. We've seen this historically, have we not? We saw this in the life of a very young pastor who ascended to his position in a church in London when he was somewhere around 18 or 19 years old. Little lad by the name of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Perhaps you've heard of him?

Known as the Prince of Preachers. When Spurgeon preached in London, his sermons were written in New York newspapers every Monday. That's the impact that this young man had on the world. God often calls and uses the very young. Do we believe that?

I don't think we do. I think that's why we are so willing to send younger believers away from us as though they're not part of the body I think that's why we're so willing to just a lot of part of the community of faith and say, you don't have the same value as everybody else. So go over here with your peers because that's the only place that you can, number one, either make a contribution or number two, stay out of our hair. I don't find that in the scripture. God often calls and uses the very young.

Here's the second truth. Young people are not promised old age. Look at the next part of the passage. He reigned 31 years in Jerusalem. You know what would have been a travesty?

If Josiah had sat around and said, man, I can't wait till I'm 40. Kings when they're 40, that's when they come into their own. You just wait until I get older. When I get, Man, when I'm 40, I'm going to wreck this place when I'm 40. The only problem is when he was 39, three, two, one, you're dead.

You're the king. It was over. He was gone. He was off the scene. He didn't get to see 40.

God often calls and uses the very young and the young are not promised old age, which means the time to obey and serve God is now. The time to obey and serve God is not someday. The time to make a contribution to the body of Christ is not off in the future somewhere. The time to serve the Lord and make a contribution to the body of Christ is now. When there is a yearning in your soul, even if you are eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 years old.

Now, does that mean that a 12 year old can walk in the fullness of everything that God will eventually call them to? No, but they can do something. I love it when people come visit us at Grace Community Church. At the end of our service, I always just have them to come and stand by me and I just say, watch this. It's amazing because what happens is our young people are our peers.

They don't go off to a group somewhere. They belong to the church like everybody else does. So I grab our visitors and I say, just watch this for a minute. And all of a sudden, little kids, just little babies, barely learning how to walk, start trying to fold up chairs and take them to put up the chairs. And you got kids who can't even, they can barely hold the chair by themselves.

But if mom or dad tries to take the chair, the kid gets upset. Why? Because this is Grace Community Church and at Grace Community Church, when we're done with church, we put the chairs up, we put the tables down. If you're putting chairs up, I'm putting chairs up. All of us do that.

That's their contribution to the body. We don't have like a youth contribution and an adult contribution. Like the little kids, we got these little boys. Just, big old trash can. Some of the little boys aren't even big enough to see over the top of the trash can.

But when we're eating our fellowship meal, they're pushing the trash can and they're just grabbing stuff off the table and putting it in the trash can. They can't see the top of the trash can. If you want your stuff, you better pick it up and get it out of the way because they're grabbing everything in sight. They're serving God now. They're doing something now.

They are members of the body now. They are making an investment now, right now, at this moment. God often calls and uses the very young, and young people are not promised old age. In seminary, one of the things in seminary that just bugged me to no end was Mr. Going into the Ministry Guy.

Mr. Going into the Ministry Guy bugged me to no end. Because Mr. Going into the Ministry Guy had it in his head that somehow if he went to the right college and he got the right degree from the right college, and then he went to the right seminary, then he could take this little piece of paper with his degree from the right college and his degree from the right seminary and then go to the right church. And by the way, he wanted to go to big church, all right, with his degree from the Wright College and the degree from the Wright Seminary and give them his paperwork and get his position and get his job.

However, Mr. I'm going to the ministry wasn't doing anything while he was studying. He was not sharpening the skills that he was already using to serve in the body. He thought that one day he would get his degree and the body would owe him a job because of a piece of paper. We developed that mindset.

We created that mindset. We did that. A young man emailed me a while back, a young man from one of our fine Christian universities and I had lectured there and he sent me an email and in his email he asked me this question. He said, I am about to graduate and about to go off to seminary. My wife and I will get married upon graduation because I guess he read Second Hesitations too.

And we've been talking about the whole child thing because I'm thinking that After I get my Master of Divinity, I would like to go off and earn my PhD. I was wondering, when you did your graduate work and postgraduate work, I was wondering what you did and how you balanced the whole family thing, the whole child thing, because we're trying to decide what we're going to do and how far in the future we need to push, you know, our childbearing. So I emailed him back. And I said, nothing you will ever study from this point on until you die will ever matter as much to your ministry as being a husband and father. My advice is start having kids early and often and if you can go to graduate school, fit it in.

I never heard from that brother again. I have a sneaking suspicion he probably emailed somebody else for a second opinion. We act as though we have forever. And because we believe we have forever, we don't live with a sense of urgency. Because we think we can do it tomorrow, we don't live with a sense of passion.

Because we think we have someday, We believe that we can somehow waste our time, waste the energy and the passion of our youth so that after we've lived our lives and after we've satisfied ourselves, after we have lived for our own dreams, hopes and aspirations, perhaps then we can serve God, perhaps then we can start a family, after we've done everything we want. How selfish, How myopic, how short-sighted can we be in the community of faith in this culture? God often calls and uses the very young. And young people are not promised old age. There are no guarantees.

None whatsoever. We have today. We have right now. And it's all we have promised to us. There's a third truth we learned from Josiah.

Look at verse two. And he did right in the sight of the Lord and walked in the ways of his father David and did not turn aside to the right or to the left. For in the eighth year of his reign, he's 16 years old now, while he was still a youth, he began to seek the God of his father David. In order to understand the significance of this, you've got to understand this. Here's the principle.

The principle is young people can live for God. He's 16 years old and he determines, I am going to live for God. At 16 years old, I'm going to live for God. He does not have the attitude that my grandmother used to refer to as you know the teenage years of time to be spent over off on fool's hill that was not his attitude at sixteen years old he made a determination and his determination was I'm going to live for god Oftentimes when I talk about this with people, you know, people say, well, yes, I understand that, but it says he did that like his father David. And I just haven't had great examples.

If you know your Bible, then you know that if this was the king whose father was David, this would be Solomon. All of the kings after that are referred to based upon whether they lived like David or they did not. David was his great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather. You want to know what his immediate predecessors and examples were like? Look with me if you will.

Chapter 33, beginning at verse 21. Ammon was 22 years old when he became king and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. He did evil in the sight of the Lord as Manasseh his father had done and Ammon sacrificed to all the carved images which his father Manasseh had made and he served them. Moreover, he did not humble himself before the Lord as his father Manasseh had done, but Ammon multiplied guilt. That was his immediate predecessor.

That was his example. He did not have godly examples. I, you know, Besides this point right here, and I tried to tell you guys earlier today that I have some issues. There's a guy who lives in me, name is Bad Vody, and the people at Gray State, they know Bad Vody. I try not to let him out other than like once a week, late at night when nobody's around.

But every once in a while, Bad Vody will raise his head and I'm not responsible for the stuff that he says and does. I'm not even sure that brother's saved, all right? But When people start talking this stuff about, you know, what they didn't have and their parents and the church that they came from and this bad vote he just wants to get them. I understand something. Here's why I would rather you not try to sell that stuff to me.

I grew up in the projects in South Central Los Angeles. I was raised by a single teenage mother who got pregnant with me when she was 17 years old. I did not grow up going to church. I did not grow up around Christians or Christianity. My mother was a practicing Buddhist.

The first time I ever heard the gospel of Jesus Christ was my freshman year in college. I did not have a godly example. Last two generations, both my family and Bridget's family, last two generations on both sides of our families, 25 marriages, 22 divorces. Among the three that stayed together, we are one of them. Another one only stayed married because he died prematurely.

They raised five children, every last one of whom went to the penitentiary. Every one of them. The only other remaining family raised one child. That child was the result of my uncle's adulterous affair. That is my legacy.

If anybody's got an excuse as to how difficult it could be to live for God, you're looking at him. But I refuse to live like that. As a young man when I came to Christ I refused to live like that. I have seen the consequences of godlessness. I refused to live like that.

And the neighborhood that I grew up in, drug infested, gang infested South Central LA, the average life expectancy for a black man growing up in my neighborhood was 24 years old. I was not about to waste time. I was not about to waste a day, a moment in my life. I don't have that luxury. The first funeral I ever attended was the funeral of my 16-year-old cousin with whom I grew up, who had been gunned down in a drug deal gone bad in Oakland, California.

I was 17 years old, standing over his cold dead body. The only reason I hadn't gone down that path was because by the grace of God, my mother determined that she couldn't give me everything that I needed. So when I got old enough to find just a little bit of trouble, She shipped me out. And I went to Beaufort, South Carolina, where I lived for a year and a half with my uncle who's a retired drill instructor in the Marine Corps. And I got out of trouble.

Young people can live for God. I expect my 15 year old daughter to live like a Christian. I expect my 12 year old son to live like a Christian. I got married when I was 20 years old because number one, I hadn't read in second hesitations that I was supposed to graduate first. But what I had read was that when a man finds a wife, he finds a good thing.

And last time I checked, you find a good thing, you don't wait around and give it a chance to get away. Amen, somebody. All I know is I was praying and begging God. I had a list of things that I, God, I want this and this and this and this and this. Matter of fact, God, Proverbs 31, you can read that stuff right there.

I want all that. And there's some stuff that's not even in the book that I would really just love to have on top of all that. Then if you don't mind, if you really love me God, I would like, and I'm begging God for this stuff. January 21st, 1989, I met her. Messed my whole world up.

I walked up to Bridget January 21st, 1989, asked her to dance. She said, no, six months later, she was my wife. Because I desired to live in godliness and I did not wish to have a godless relationship with that woman. Young people can live for God. I told you I'm involved in cultural apologetics.

People ask me all the time, you know, about the whole apologetics thing and think, oh, yeah, that's great and you do that and you learn that and because you did this and you did that and you studied this and you studied that. I didn't learn to do apologetics in graduate school or even in postgraduate school. You know why I first learned apologetics? As a student athlete at Rice University, I was 18 years old and two teammates of mine were discipling me, Brett Napton and Max Moss. They were 19 and 20 respectively.

They would take a religion course at this pagan institution and I would sign up for the religion courses that they were taking. And these professors with PhDs would stand there and just decimate the Christian faith. People got scared of raising their hands in front of these guys. I watched a 19 year old and a 20 year old defend their faith before adversarial PhDs at a pagan institution and that's where I learned apologetics. The rest of my education was just honing the skills that a 19-year-old and a 20-year-old taught me.

Young people can live for God. It can happen. It breaks my heart when I tell people, you know, I tell people about my children, I tell them we have a 15 year old daughter and they go into all these convulsions, oh, you got 15 year old, oh, 15, Oh boy, they got, and I'm like, what? What is wrong with you? It's supposed to just be terrible.

It's supposed to just be horrible. It's supposed to be all this, you know, no, I don't live there. Because she knows that I know that young people can live for God. Young people who were born again have the same power resident in them that raised Christ from the dead. Don't you dare try to tell me that we have to expect disrespect in the teenage years.

Young people can live for God. Part of the reason that we do what we do in our churches is because we have such low expectations. And I tell people all the time, you know I talk to guys who are youth pastors and talk to them about this stuff and one of the things I tell them is don't go back to your church and try to change it to a family integrated church. First of all, you're a youth pastor, you're not the pastor. If they cared anything about you, they wouldn't have given you that job, okay?

Secondly, we've created a spiritual welfare state. Just like if you go into a community and you put welfare into a community and you come back and you say, okay, now we're gonna pull back the welfare. They will fight you. Same thing has happened spiritually in the church. We've gone to parents and we've said, take that weight off your shoulders.

We will disciple your children. You go back and try to give them their children back now. They will fight you. I tell these youth pastors, listen, you try to turn your church into a family integrated church The parents will kill you when the pastor will fire your dead body Those people don't like their kids and they don't want to disciple their kids and you've given them an excuse not to have to do it. And so now when their children are fools, according to Proverbs, instead of being a disgrace to their mother and father, they're the norm and they're your problem.

So we don't expect young people to live for God. It's not what I find in the text. God often calls and uses the young. Young people are not promised old age and young people can live for God. They can.

I've seen it. Fourth principle is this. Young people can impact the old. Look at what happens here. And in the 12th year, he's 20 years old now, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem, the high places, the ashram, the carved images and the molten images.

They tore down the altars of the bales in his presence. And the incense altars that were high above them he chopped down they Tore down the altars of the bales in his presence. Who are they they are the nation of Israel 16 years old. He says I am going to live for God By the time he's 20 years old he has a track record that is so impeccable that as a 20 year old he stands up before the nation and says follow me and the nation who had been worshiping idols says no more to the idols and follows a 20 year old and tears down the idols that their parents and grandparents had worshiped before. A 20 year old.

Young people can influence the old. We've seen it throughout history. Perhaps the greatest movement of God in any nation in the history of the world, especially in recent history, is the first great awakening in the United States of America. The foundation upon which the Republic was built. The First Great Awakening shook this nation before we made the determination that we were going to fight for our independence.

The foundation of that was the First Great Awakening. The principle theologian and preacher in the First Great Awakening was Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan Edwards says, and I quote, the Great Awakening was in large part a youth movement. Young people got sick of mediocrity. Young people got tired of playing games.

Young people got tired of going through the motions. Young people got serious about their faith. And all of a sudden, because young people became fed up with mediocrity, the church experienced revival in this land and the nation was born. And the Welch revivals, 1904, 1905, the small country of Wales, a young pastor decides that he is going to have services where he will allow testimonies. They have been praying for revival.

He comes to this meeting and all of a sudden he opens the floor for testimonies and nobody will testify. Suddenly up stands a 14 year old girl by the name of Florie Evans who grabs the back of a pew in front of her and with her voice quivering she says, if no one else has a word to say, I must confess that I love the Lord Jesus with all my soul. And this 14 year old brand new convert began to weep and testify. Revival broke out in that church. That revival that broke out in that church touched a young preacher by the name of Evan Roberts, who became the principal preacher of the Welch Revivals that saw a hundred thousand Welch men come to faith in Christ in a six-month period between 1904 and 1905.

Young people can influence the old. Not just for good, but for evil as well. Don't we see that? We have 40 year old women walking around with exposed midriff and belly rings. Don't you tell me young people can't influence the old.

There's a final piece. Young people can change the world. They can change the world. You don't believe me? If you talk about going to the store to buy a CD, people look at you funny nowadays.

Why? Because it's almost unheard of to go to the store to buy a CD. You go online, you buy it there, you download it. Why? Because of a college freshman who started a little company called Napster.

He changed the world. In many instances, young people have been used to change the whole world. I want to believe with all my soul that I'm raising one, at least one. I want every one of them to change the world. I don't need one, just one.

And so I tell every one of them, God often calls and uses the young. I tell every one of them, you are not promised old age I tell every one of them you can live for God I tell every one of them you can influence the old and I want every one of them to hear me when I say you can change the world because I believe that I beg God give me one who will change the world. Give me one Josiah. You can have your doctor, you can have your lawyer, you can have whatever it is that you're dreaming of for your children. You can have your rich fat cat who lives on the lake somewhere.

I want a Josiah. I want a child who will change the world. My goal for my life is to strive with every fiber of my being, to serve the Lord Jesus Christ for the balance of my days. And when I reach out for the last chance, with my last breath, reaching for the goal and the prize of the high calling and I can go no more and I fall. My prayer is that my children will climb on my shoulders and go where I cannot and that God will use them to change the world.

Applause Thank you.