2 Kings 22:2 “And he did that which was right in the sight of the
Lord, and walked in all the ways of David his father, and turned not aside to
the right hand or to the left.”
It was during the 18th year of the reign of
King Josiah, when he was approximately 26 years of age, that the book of the
law was found in the house of the Lord by the workers who were renewing parts
of the temple compound.
2 Kings 22:13 “And
it came to pass, when the king heard the words of the book of the law, that he
rent his clothes. The king commanded the priest to, “Go, inquire of the Lord
for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this
book that is found: for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against
us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do
according unto all that which is written concerning us.”
2 Kings 22:16 “Hilkiah
the priest went and communed with Huldah the prophetess and the Lord spoke
thus: Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants
thereof, even all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read:
because they have forsaken Me, and have burned incense unto other gods, that
they might provoke Me to anger with all the works of their hands; therefore My
wrath shall be kindled against this place, and shall not be quenched.”
We, too, have burned incense to other gods. We have
loved and worshipped the god of materialism, wealth, material things, money,
and the things or pleasures that money can buy. We have sacrificed our sons and
daughters on the altars of worship to these idols and, or to others. We have
drunk from the fountain of man’s wisdom, from the tree of knowledge, and have
filled our hearts and minds with man’s theories and affirmations that there is
no God.
In our culture today, we believe that the universe
created itself out of nothing. We believe that life formed spontaneously, on
its own, without the need of a creator.
As a results of these ideas, we conclude, that there is no true purpose in
life. We need only live for ourselves and follow our dreams, come what may.
Tomorrow we may die, and when we do, it’s all over. Kaput. That’s it. When we
are dead, we are dead. There’s nothing more.
2 Kings 22:19-20 “However,
because King Josiah’s heart was tender, and he humbled himself before the Lord,
when he heard the word of the Lord from the book of the law, and how they
should become a desolation and a curse; and the king rent his clothes and wept,
therefore, the Lord promised to gather him unto his fathers in peace and he would
not see all the evils the Lord would bring upon the nation.”
Josiah had the right response to God’s word. He allowed
it to prick his conscience. He allowed God’s word to change the way he thought
and acted. In Isaiah we read, “But to this man will I look, says the Lord, even
to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at My word,” Isaiah
64:2b. We should tremble at God’s word. “It is a fearful thing to fall into
the hands of the living God,” Hebrews 10:31. Solomon concluded in his
writings, “Fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of
man,” Ecclesiastes 12:13.
Josiah, as a good leader, did not just keep these things
to himself. He gathered all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem, and the people
together.
2 Kings 23:2 “And
the king went up into the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah and all
the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and
all the people, both small and great: and he read in their ears all the words
of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of God.”
Josiah made all the people listen to God’s word. “For
the word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and
marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart,” Hebrews
4:12.
2 Kings 23:3 “And the king stood by a
pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk
after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his
statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant
that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.”
Josiah made a covenant with
the Lord that he would follow His word and all the people agreed to the
covenant. He would need their approval to successfully make the revolution he
was planning.
2 Kings 23:4 “And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests
of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the
temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove,
and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the
fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel.”
On hearing God’s word, Josiah implemented his idol-smashing campaign. He began to cast down all the false idols and items of worship in the land.
2 Kings 23:5 “And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had
ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the
places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the
sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.”
Josiah removed from office those
who were following false gods and leading the people astray.
2 Kings 23:6 “And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without
Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and
stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the
children of the people.”
Josiah made what he did a
public spectacle that all might see and learn and turn from their wicked ways.
2 Kings 23:7 “And he broke down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the
house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove.”
Just like today, during the
time of Manasseh, the sodomite community had gained great influence within the
Jewish society, in so much so, that their houses were, “by the house of the
Lord.” Josiah broke down their houses. He removed their influence in Jerusalem
upon the religious and societal issues. The same sodomites may have been
leaders in the pagan religious practices that had been incorporated into the Jewish
culture.
2 Kings 23:8 “And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and
defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to
Beersheba, and brake down the high places of the gates that were in the
entering in of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a
man's left hand at the gate of the city.”
2 Kings 23:9 “Nevertheless the priests of the high places came not up to the altar
of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among
their brethren.”
2 Kings 23:10 “And he defiled Topheth,
which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his
son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.”
Josiah actively participates
in the stopping of Judah’s infanticide practice, and made it illegal. He shut
done the “abortion clinics” of the day, saving the lives of hundreds or
thousands of Jewish babies. In a similar manner, Trump’s influence on the
Supreme Court during his first Presidency led to the change of interpretation
of the law. The Court struck down Rode vs Wade and returned the question of
abortion to the individual states, eliminating the Federal government’s mandate,
and saving thousands of American babies lives in the process.
2 Kings 23:11 “And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to
the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the
chamber of Nathanmelech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned
the chariots of the sun with fire.”
Josiah got rid of every
semblance of falsehood and false worship that the Lord had commanded to
children of Israel to not observe.
2 Kings 23:12 “And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz,
which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in
the two courts of the house of the Lord, did the king beat down, and
brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.
2 Kings 23:13 “And the high places that
were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption,
which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the
Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the
abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile.”
The seeds of evil had been
planted some 350 years earlier, way back when King Solomon, in his later years,
yielded to his foreign wives and built the temples to their gods.
1 Kings 11:1-2 “But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the
daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and
Hittites: Of the nations concerning which the Lord said
unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they
come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods:
Solomon clave unto these in love.
Solomon’s
father David had had at least 8 wives and many concubines. In 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, and in 1 Chronicles
the Bible records the names of eight women who had married King David. Although
David had many wives, he generally is recorded as being a man after God’s own
heart. However, God had warned His people not to take multiple wives when they
increased in riches back in the time of Moses some 400 years earlier.
Deuteronomy
17:14-15 “When you are come unto the land which the Lord your God gives you, and shall possess it, and shall dwell therein, and shall say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are
about me; you shall in any wise set him king over you, whom the Lord your God shall choose: one from
among your
brethren shall you set king over you: you may not set a stranger over you, which is not your brother.
God told them first, when
they would enter the Promised Land and get settle there, when they chose a
king, he must be of their brethren, not a foreigner.
Deuteronomy 17:16-17 “But he shall not multiply horses to himself,
nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply
horses: forasmuch as the Lord has said unto you, you shall henceforth return no more
that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn
not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.”
God told them specifically that
the king over them should not multiply to himself wives. David did not obey the
Lord’s commandment. Although, it seems he manage to keep the Lord in first
place, his multiple marriages and sexual exploits caused much suffering in his
family, with constant conflict between the sons of his different wives.
We remember that it was David’s
lust for Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, that caused David to fall
from grace in God’s eyes. He committed adultery and afterwards had Uriah
purposely killed in battle. Nevertheless, through David’s confession and
repentance we have some beautiful penitent psalms which have been a comfort and
help to many a lowly sinner seeking the grace of God in light of some grave
moral failure, iniquity or sin.
Back in the Garden of Eden,
God had reproved Adam after the fall, because he had hearkened unto the voice
of his wife, and had eaten of the tree, of which the Lord God commanded him,
saying, You shall not eat of it, Genesis 3:17a. The man was to be the
head of the wife and lead her in devotion to the Lord. Instead, Adam hearkened
more to his wife than to the commandment of God, leaving a bad example, but a
good warning to future generations.
Adam sinned and brought death
into the world. David multiplied wives contrary to God’s commandments. Solomon,
David’s son, allowed his wives to pull him away from God and into building
temples to the false gods or demonic forces of the nations whom God had told
them to drive out.
1 Kings 11:3-4 “And he had seven hundred wives,
princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when
Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his
heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart
of David his father.
1 Kings 11:5-6 “For Solomon went after Ashtoreth
the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. And Solomon did evil in the
sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord, as did
David his father.
1 Kings 11:7-8 “Then did Solomon build an high
place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before
Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And likewise did he for all his
strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods.”
1 Kings 11:9-10 “And the Lord was
angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God
of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice, and had commanded him concerning
this thing, that he should not go after other gods: but he kept not that which the Lord commanded.
Solomon’s sin led the nation
further and further from God. It led to the nation being divided in two with
the ten northern nations breaking off. The southern kingdom, Judah, has a few
good kings. As a result, Judah and Jerusalem maintain their freedom as a nation
longer. Finally, after the death of Josiah, the last good king of Judah,
Jerusalem and Judah get ready to face God’s judgments.
Part 3 tomorrow.
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