2 Kings 21:24 – And the people of the land slew all them that had conspired against king Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead.

Hello readers, in the next few blogs I’m hoping to go through Josiah’s life. He’s found in 2 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 34 (and some surrounding chapters and verses). Please read them first, read about Josiah for yourself. It’ll make the blog make more sense and it’s better for you you read the Bible yourself. Search it out for yourself. The books of Chronicles and Kings often go hand in hand and harmonize, often providing slightly different perspectives and information, which when combined, give us a better understanding of what was going on.

But the first thing we know is that he was the son of a guy called Amon. Amon was an evil king. He lead Judah into sin. That’s what Josiah was born into. Yet he’d grow up with a heart for God and for the things of God. Ungodly parents don’t have to define you, nor does past history. We live in a world that’s gone crazy about “racism”. But the real issues aren’t that, irrespective of the past, irrespective of many things, people all have the ability and freedom to make choices in their own lives. If you are black, you have the ability to make good choices for your life and change the course of your history. Josiah could’ve grown up blaming, he also could’ve grown up and just followed in the footsteps of his father, and his father’s father (a guy called Manasseh who also did a lot of evil). But instead this was a child who sought God right from the start.

Josiah was actually a child of promise. The Bible says we are children of promise. We live by faith in God’s promises. We believe God. We believe in God and thus we do because of that belief. Abraham trusted in God’s promises to him. And God came through. He tried it himself, and that produced an Ishmael, not an Isaac. God’s promises are obtained by faith, not by our own efforts. Just believe and trust him. Josiah had been promised in a prophecy made by a man of God in 1 Kings 13. The prophecy was that God would raise up a king called Josiah who would get rid of the graves and monuments to all the false priests and prophets in the land, and burn their bones. When Josiah came to power, he did just that. God’s word was fulfilled. God’s word is right past, present and future. Why would we go to any other source other than the book of life? Josiah was a product of God’s word. God’s word is the starting point for all of us, he is the Creator. Genesis 1:1… he is the origin of creation, of life, of souls. And it is God’s word that produces our new birth, when you’re born again, it’s because you believed the gospel of Jesus Christ… he died for your sins, and he lives for your eternal deliverance in life and all the blessings and promises are in him and through him.

The Bible says in Chronicles that in the eighth year of his reign he began to seek the God of David his father. He was eight years old when he began to reign, so eight years into his reign, that makes him 16 years old. That’s pretty young. You’re never too young to seek and obey God. In many cases, they’re the best years to seek God and hear God, while your heart is soft and tender and not hardened by the deceitfulness of sin and a well established route of life of pride and lust. We know Samuel heard God’s voice at a young age, and in fact Samuel was the only guy God spoke to, such was the state of Israel back then. He didn’t speak to seasoned, aged priests… no… he spoke to a child who was uncorrupted and undefiled, who had the capacity to hear and obey. If you grow up not in God, you will get harder and harder to God. The Bible says to remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth for a reason.

We are going to later see that Josiah found a book, God’s word… and it set him straight and he acted upon it. But before that, he was doing right in the eyes of God. He got rid of the high places, he purged the lands from all the false worship and pagan practices that had become so well established in the land. He did a lot of breaking down. You know, before something good can be built with the foundation of Christ… first there needs to be a throwing down of images, of idols, of gods, of practices, of sin, of disobedience, of rebellion. We may think our condition is better but churches, Christianity and the world is rampant with all sorts of stuff that needs to be exposed and rooted out and thrown down. Look what God told Jeremiah, who was a kid when he called him to service. Jeremiah 1:9,10 – Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant. See, God’s word will help us to root out things, to smash our pride, to expose our sin, to reveal our wicked heart, to show us God’s standard for righteousness, to lead us to repentance and to Jesus Christ, who will then build his house in our lives.

Josiah got rid of idols. We are in a world full of idols. So many people have an idol Jesus. They believe all sorts of things, they do all sorts of things, they say all sorts of things. What you believe and where you affirm from will absolutely impact how you live. What you believe affects what you do. When people say “politics and religion don’t mix”, well Josiah was a king, that’s political? And because he sought the God of David, he saw a whole lot of stuff that was going on, and he thought nup, not on my watch. You know, we, like Josiah, have a kingdom. We have our own life, and in our own heart and life, what needs to be purged out? The Bible says judgement must begin at the house of God. What happens when the Christians get right with God. This was God’s nation, look how bad a state they always seemed to be in!

Repentance and salvation and revival starts with ourselves. Paul told Timothy, and he implored him to consider and understand what he was saying. here it is… 2 Timothy 2:20,21 – But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work. See, Josiah may not have had the book yet, but he knew some things, as God has given so many witnesses of himself, we are all without excuse. Josiah knew some things weren’t right, and people know right and wrong, God gave them a conscience, he gave them knowledge of himself … but what will you do with it? Josiah knew things needed to be gotten rid of, and so do things in our own life before any personal revival happens.

Sometimes we expect God to do stuff, yet we don’t do anything. But before the book, there was some real groundwork going on in Josiah’s life. You know, before you believe on Jesus Christ, God must first bring you to repentance. He must plough up the soil of the heart. 2 Chronicles 34:5,6 – And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about. Josiah had the mattocks out, mattocks are used to plough, to rip up ground. There’s lots of stuff in our personal lives and in our land, well entrenched sin, evil and wickedness, it needs to be ripped up. Light needs to be shone in, salt needs to be rubbed in. They used mattocks to rip up weeds. And you know what, that takes work. We need to get to work in our lives, some things may not be easy to deal with, but we gotta deal with them.

It was after Josiah purged the land that he then decided to fix the temple. He knew things needed to go out first. I’m not talking about works salvation, we all have sin. But you can’t expect to live in complete rebellion to God and expect God to bless that. You can’t expect to have no mind or heart for God and his word and expect God to honor you. Josiah’s going to be a very great Biblical picture of revival, and revival really came when he got to repairing the house of God. You see, it’s all find to clean the land, the purge it out… BUT if you don’t come to Jesus Christ it won’t be worthwhile. Jesus talked about how when a devil was cast out of a man, the devil would come back and if he found the house swept and garnished, yet empty, he would take other devils and repossess the man. See, repentance is realizing you’re a sinner, but Jesus is the solution to your sins. It’s no good just seeing you’re wicked and turning over a new leaf, yet not getting saved, yet not believing in Jesus Christ for the means of salvation. Jesus said, ye must be born again.

See if Josiah just purged the land, and did nothing else, the sin would’ve come creeping back in. That’s why religion and Christianity and all this religious game playing doesn’t fix anyone or anything.  Turning over new leaves and trying to do better and believing in yourself more and trying harder… it’s useless. Jesus said ye must be born again. So when purged, Jesus comes to dwell in our hearts by faith. God makes a suitable dwelling place for us in us. We become the temple of God when we are saved. God dwells in us! That’s amazing. He dwelt in a physical building in the tabernacle, but God doesn’t want to dwell there, he want’s to dwell in us and with us. The tabernacle of God is with men. Godly repentance is repenting of sin AND turning to Jesus Christ for salvation from sin. They are both simultaneous. Worldly repentance is sorry for doing bad, I’m sorry I got caught and that’s that. They never trusted in Jesus Christ for salvation, they never got saved, they were never born again. New birth happens when you believe the gospel. So the book is going to come next in Josiah’s life. When you hear the word of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ, believing that for yourself will change your life. You won’t be the same.

Josiah had a heart to fix the house of God. If you are God’s house, do you need to do some repairs? Has the house been broken down by sin? Have you neglected reading your Bible, praying… is your life in tatters like Israel was? Instead of holiness and fruit, sin is abounding in your life? It was when he got to fixing the house that a book was found, the book of the law. We live in a world that hates God’s word, even Christianity it’s completely abandoned the book. Abandoning the book is abandoning the faith, it’s why things get to such a bad state. Satan has always attacked the book, he wants to disconnect believers from the book. God’s word is God talking to man, and the Holy Spirit honors the book and ministers it to our hearts. But if you have no time for it, if you’ve found something better, go for it. But look at the state of the land, Josiah was only reigning because his father was so wicked that they killed him. He got assassinated, murdered… by his own servants! No respect, no rule of law, everyone doing their own thing, rampant sexual immorality… the land was a mess. All because they abandoned the book and the house of God. You won’t get to know God, you won’t be acceptable to God, you won’t worship God without the book. Notice all the worship going on… it was all idolatry and to false gods… it wasn’t to the God of David.

Josiah didn’t settle on false gods, he wanted the God of David. Is that the God we want? Elisha wanted the Lord God of Elijah. Is that the God we want? It’s still the same God, the God from the beginning of time. He’s still the same. Hebrews says, Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever. Do we want truth? Or do we rather a lie? Do we want that faith once delivered unto the saints? Do we want the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob? Do we want their God? Or would you rather someone else’s God? A god that winks at your sin, a god who you carve, a god under you… a god that suits your sinful life. Josiah wanted truth, he wanted to do right, he had a heart for that. We are going to continue in Josiah’s life, I have been doing a fair amount of blogs on Job this year and we’ll get back to them eventually, but this is a guy we can really learn from. Later on we see Josiah “spied” the sepulchers of the false prophets… and he torched them. He wasn’t about to let them honor a bunch of liars who had led the nation in sin one second longer. But he “spied” them. When you get in God’s word you’ll start seeing things. God’s word will give you vision. It is our vision. Where there is no vision, the people perish. People were perishing and God used one man, a kid, a child, to lead a nation in revival, who would stand with the book of the Lord and read it out to his people. Who would see and know what to do. God’s Spirit was all over this man, and we need to learn from king Josiah today.

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