2 Chronicles 34:3 – For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images.

Hello readers, continuing in Josiah’s life today. 2 Chronicles 34 and 2 Kings 22. Josiah was a good king. He was good because he sought God and obeyed God. He set God and his word at the highest. When the king is good, everything else gets set in order. When the king was bad, the nation went into apostasy. Who is king in your life? Is Jesus king? Is he preeminent? Is he first? Is the Bible king? Or are you king? Is Jesus Christ the Lord of your personal life, or does the flesh, the devil, the world or even religion have the wheel? There is a real difference between religion and trusting God’s word and walking by faith in who Jesus is and what he says out of a changed heart toward him. Often our lives are in wreck and ruin, plagued by sin, we have no salt and no light… because there’s no Josiah there… but rather someone like Ahab is running our life. Proverbs 29:2- When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.

Josiah made a lot of judgements. You’d probably hate him if he was around today. Proverbs 29:4 – The king by judgment establisheth the land: but he that receiveth gifts overthroweth it. If you doubt the need for judgment, read his story, he went through the land and got a lot of things out of it. Get rid of this, get rid of that, that needs to go. He DID something. He didn’t have religion, he was living in the sight of God. Religion won’t keep you from sin, but a personal relationship with God will. And that’s the difference, when you live a life “in the sight of God”. He had a heart for God and to obey him. And that included making a heap of judgements about what needed to happen in the land. When he read the book, he knew what to do. The Bible is a book of judgement. We make good judgments for our life when our judgments are based upon God’s word. When the king read the book, he was enlightened, he was able to judge righteously and truly. Psalm 19:9 – The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. You may hate it, but it takes judgment to fix up something that’s broken.

We live in a world that is very don’t judge, don’t judge! Jesus said judge not! Christians also live like that. They hate judgement. That’s because of this… Proverbs 28:5 – Evil men understand not judgment: but they that seek the LORD understand all things. They hate judgment because they are evil. Sorry! But not sorry… the reason why people scoff at judgment, why they despise it, is because they are not right with God. Who wants God’s judgements and good judgments when you are in the wrong? The Bible has a lot to say about judging. Indeed, Paul’s prayer for the Philippian church included this… Philippians 1:9 – And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment. We should be able to make judgements. Proverbs 21:15 – It is joy to the just to do judgment: but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity. If you are in God’s word and are God minded, you should be able to make good judgments for your life, because they are God’s judgments for your life.

Before revival comes judgment. The Bible says that judgment must first begin at the house of God. Revival of a nation, or personal revival comes when God’s word comes, when judgment is made upon one own’s life rather than blaming and excusing and justifying. There are a lot of things that are bad for us, and they need to go. We need to realize we are sinners, that’s why we need a Saviour. Someone to forgive us from those sins and deliver us from those sins daily and forever.

We have look how Josiah’s life is a model of repentance. Without repentance of sin, there is no salvation. And repentance produces change. What you see here in Josiah’s life is change. Change on a national scale. Before the outward is fixed the inward must first be. Firstly he sought the God of David, then that translated to changes in his life and realm. A salvation without repentance isn’t one. Repentance is realizing you are a sinner before, it’s seeing how sorry you are, and then it’s coming to Jesus Christ for salvation from them. A changed life is a consequence of someone who’s come to that place.

The king got rid of the high places. We have a lot of high places in our lives. God is called the most High… yet so often other things are higher in our life than the Lord. Things that are put above God in our lives, in our thinking, in our doing…. they gotta go. What high places do you have? Are they sins that you love that come before obeying God? The Bible speaks of spiritual wickedness in high places. People that are in authority, or things be it institutions or whatever that put on high. Something like modern science has become a high place for the devil. People put the lie of evolution above God’s word, all because of people with “degrees” and “phds” which elevate them above you and God’s word. There are many high places in this world that belong to the devil. The media, government, famous people all high places. But God is called the most High God. Because he is the HIGHEST. High places are things that come between you and God, that prevent you from hearing and obeying God. They need to go. When something is on high above you, it’s got authority over you. In war, you have a huge advantage when you have the high ground. The high ground has been taken by Satan and that’s why many people are taken captive by him, and blinded by him. We need to take back high places and we need our highest place to be the Lord Jesus Christ and his infallible incorruptible word. That is the final authority, his word has the final say.

The king got rid of the groves. Groves are a bunch of trees. We often have done a lot of planting in our lives that is not godly. But John the Baptist spoke of the ax being laid to the root of the tree. Things need to be felled in our lives, even if long time established, that do not honour God. Groves are often quite dark places, because the sun is kept out by all the trees close together. Where is the Sun of righteousness not welcome in your life? We all have dark places in our hearts, sins, lusts, pride that God has no access to. We live in defeat in certain areas of our life. But that’s where God wants to break through. So many people are entangled in certain places or areas in their lives. Certain areas entangled, entrenched and built up in sin. Places that are well established. How many Christians are so set in their own ways and beliefs they’ll change God’s word before God’s word changes them. You see that things have got to go. Repentance is God ploughing up the ground of your heart, and that involves felling trees that are well established in that soil that would prevent the seed of his word falling into good ground and springing up.

Notice how it was at the word of the king that stuff got done. People have gone away from the king’s word. They’ve gone away from the King James Bible. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 8:4 – Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou? A king’s word carries authority, it’s why we should base what we say and do on God’s word, because that’s where the authority and ability comes from. His word had power to get this stuff done. We need to trust God’s word, because when we trust and do based on faith in what God has said, God will honour that and enable us in life to be saved and to live it.

There were images which Josiah got rid of. What are images? Well when you take a photo you capture an image. Pornography is images. Lust is fuelled by images, what you see. We live in a world that is full of images that cause us to sin. How many images that c cause us to lust in our heart. Images that affect our thinking. It was when David saw Bathsheba… that’s where it all went wrong. When Samson saw a woman, it was the gateway to him doing a whole lot of wrong. What we see often gets us in a lot of trouble. 2 Peter 2:14 – Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children… see, we need our eyes changed. And it’s all because of what’s going on inside our heart, because what we see really just brings out whats in our heart. We need eyes full of adultery changed to eyes that behold the Lord high and lifted up as Isaiah saw in Isaiah chapter 6. God needs to change our eyesight.

But images are also a picture of idolatry. There were carved images and molten images. Images are formed by image-inations… imaginations. Man’s imagination loves to create things for man to worship. Hey we love that over the image of Christ portrayed by God’s word right? Judah was FULL of images, full of idolatry. What’s stopping so many people from getting saved and living it, from amounting to anything, is that they are serving images… not the God of the Bible. Images were false gods, and they are created by us and we ourselves worship them. Speaking to people today, and so many people have their own image of God, their own Jesus, their own truth. And they follow that. Hey, and they’re really dedicated to them as well! They melt down the image of God, and they make their own. People don’t have Jesus Christ, who is the image of God, but instead have something… anything… else.  Oh and if you change the word of God, you are also changing the image, just as Romans 1 says. The image of Jesus Christ, the true God, is formed in our minds and hearts by his pure word. Molten images, molten means melting, people have melted down a lot of truth in today’s society. We melted down Biblical marriage and now we’ve got legalizing sodomite marriage. Carved images, that’s us making a God that suits us, not the God who is real who is unchanging. We need to get back to the Bible. That’s what Josiah did… when we wanted to fix the house of God, the priest gave him a book… based your life and the reparations therein upon the book.

Josiah found a priest who gave him God’s word. A good preacher, a faithful man of God is someone who passes the book along. Here you go Josiah, you’ll need this. You want to obey and honor God Josiah? Here’s the book. You can’t do anything without the Bible. Faith is what pleases God. How can you have faith without the word of God upon which to base your faith? The answer is you can’t. The man of God at the house of God said here Josiah, read this. And Josiah read it.

Josiah wanted them go give the money that people had given to the house of God to the workers. And they came to account for the money… and it was all there. There are so many people who are thieves, who are in Christianity for filthy lucre, for a reward… for money. You should share the gospel because you want to obey God and tell others how to be saved… without ever desiring or needing something back be it money or validation. Remember that man of God who Elisha sent to anoint king Jehu in 2 Kings 9? He completed his errand and ran. He didn’t wait for a reward, for affirmation. Just tell people the truth, what God’s word says, and then get out the way. It’s God’s word plus nothing. No money went missing with the workers. You know, faithfulness is a very highly prized trait. If we are stewards of God’s word, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful. You cannot serve God and mammon. So many people have such a love of money, and it’s so destructive. God had chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith. If money is more important to you than God’s word, that will be a very poor witness, and if you want to be in the work of God… you must realize it’s not about money. Love of money is the root of all evil, and if they had taken some and been dishonest with the money for repairing the temple, well they would’ve been stealing from God. That’s pretty serious. But many people use God’s work to make money, but don’t think they’ll get by forever with it.

It’s amazing what a difference having some godly men around you can have. The king had some men under him who could be counted on. The king was given the book by the priest through the scribe Shaphan. There was no alterations or keeping the word back from the king. They wanted him to have the book. How many people in the ministry don’t give others the word of God. You know… if you don’t have the word of God you’ve got nothing to give someone else. Give someone the book, let them hear from God and get right with God for themselves. We will continue in Josiah’s life next time, but this is an amazing part of the Bible. It is the story of when revival came to Judah out of seemingly nowhere. Bad kings had led the nation into wickedness and then a boy is made king, who becomes a young man who seeks God. And big change came, Josiah would later keep the Passover like no other king had ever done. Such commitment to God. And it all started at his personal heart level. That’s what needs to be fixed first, all this came about because the king sought God, he sought the truth. If change doesn’t start within at the individual level, well no change will happen. New leaves wither up, but if there is a new creature living inside you… then that’ll set everything else in order. So many people go to the right or the left, as Josiah didn’t do, but he went straight on. Because in Matthew 7:14 – Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

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