[Note: you can listen to an audio version here]
It is a new year. We have the opportunity to start new. We have a whole year before us. Where should we focus our energies? Today, we go back 2,600 years to a king in the land of Judah, and we will learn what is most important. King Josiah gives us guidance on the most important resolutions we can make.
The Reign of King Josiah
Josiah was born into the royal household of the Jewish nation. The Jewish nation was the unique recipient of God’s revelation. They received the light from God so that they could be a light to the world.
That light had shown brightest under Israel’s two great kings: David & Solomon. Solomon’s reign involved some real problems, and Rehoboam, his heir, refused to do anything about them. As a result, the kingdom split in two. The northern kingdom was called Israel. The southern kingdom was called Judah. The book of Chronicles tells the story of the southern kingdom, Judah.
All of the kings of the northern kingdom did evil in the sight of the Lord. The kings of Judah were a mixed bag. Josiah’s grandfather, Manasseh, was one of the worst. His father, Amon, was close behind. Amon followed the path of his father. They did not follow the Lord, and he turned to other gods. They did abominable things. The people got so fed up that they assassinated him. That was the legacy into which Josiah was born and in which he was raised.
Because Amon was so young when he died, Josiah became king at 8 years old. Josiah did not follow the path of his father. He took a different route. “In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David (2 Chron. 34:3).” Even though he was young, he devoted himself to the Lord. Still, the land was full of idols. You can imagine that this vexed his spirit. Eventually, he felt strong enough to make his move. “In his twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of high places, Asherah poles and idols” (2 Chron. 34:3b).
Because of the reign of his grandfather and father, the temple, the place where God had said He would dwell and meet with the people, had deteriorated. And so, Josiah put his heart and soul behind repairing the temple. “In the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign, to purify the land and the temple, he sent Shaphan son of Azaliah and Maaseiah the ruler of the city, with Joah son of Joahaz, the recorder, to repair the temple of the Lord his God” (2 Chron. 34:8). They began the work in earnest.
As they were repairing the temple, they found something very important.
While they were bringing out the money that had been taken into the temple of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found the Book of the Law of the Lord that had been given through Moses. Hilkiah said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the temple of the Lord.” He gave it to Shaphan (2 Chron. 34:14–15).
“I have found the Book.” God had not only given the temple, He had given His very words to open up the keys to the universe and the way to eternal blessedness. In Judah, where it should have been valued as their greatest treasure, it had been lost.
They brought the book to the king and read it to him. When he heard it, he tore his clothes because he realized that they had departed from the Lord in so many ways and that the Lord had promised disaster if they took His name upon them and yet lived like the pagan nations around them. Josiah, however, humbled himself before the Lord.
The Lord responded by sending him a prophet. He said: “This is what the Lord says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people” (2 Chron. 34:24). However, God was going to relent:
Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before God when you heard what he spoke against this place and its people, and because you humbled yourself before me and tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the Lord (2 Chron. 34:27).
The Lord is merciful and gracious and full of kindness and compassion. He opposes sin, but for those who seek Him, He will be found. As David told Solomon, “If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever” (1 Chron. 28:9).
At this point, the king knew that they needed a fresh start. They needed to renew their resolutions to follow the Lord.
The king stood by his pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord—to follow the Lord and keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, and to obey the words of the covenant written in this book. Then he had everyone in Jerusalem and Benjamin pledge themselves to it; the people of Jerusalem did this in accordance with the covenant of God, the God of their ancestors (2 Chron. 34:31–32).
We need God’s grace to fulfill our commitments to the Lord, but it’s important that we make them. Josiah realized this, and He took the lead. He led the people of Israel to do the same.
Then, he led the biggest celebration of the Passover in Judah’s history. “The Passover had not been observed like this in Israel since the days of the prophet Samuel; and none of the kings of Israel had ever celebrated such a Passover as did Josiah, with the priests, the Levites and all Judah and Israel who were there with the people of Jerusalem” (2 Chron. 35:18). This feast was established by God to celebrate the victory of God over the Egyptians that brought the people of Israel out of Egypt. However, they always remembered that they were liable to death just like the Egyptians. The blood of the lamb had saved them from the angel of death. This was re-rooting their story in the good news. Josiah made sure everyone could celebrate: “Josiah provided for all the lay people who were there a total of thirty thousand lambs and goats for the Passover offerings, and also three thousand cattle—all from the king’s own possessions” (2 Chron. 35:7). Everyone could rejoice in what God had done.
Thirteen years later, Josiah’s life ended tragically. Somewhat ironically, Pharaoh came up to fight along the Euphrates. Josiah stood against him. He even disguised himself to make sure he wasn’t targeted in the battle. It didn’t save him. He was killed. The people wept over such a good king. “Jeremiah composed laments for Josiah, and to this day all the male and female singers commemorate Josiah in the laments. These became a tradition in Israel and are written in the Laments (2 Chron. 35:25).
Applications
I want you to consider Josiah’s life and reign from the standpoint of God’s redemption and from the standpoint of our renewal.
Application to Our Redemption
As we read through these passages, we need to see them as teaching us about God and His redemptive work. God told the Israelites that after they turned away from Him, “The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live” (Dt. 30:6). This passage represents a fulfillment of this promise and His gracious work.
This is also a fulfillment of the prayer of David. When the people gave willingly for the support of the temple, David prayed, “Lord, the God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Israel, keep these desires and thoughts in the hearts of your people forever, and keep their hearts loyal to you” (1 Chron. 29:18). God heard that prayer and answered it again and again by putting it in the hearts of the people to give willingly to the work of worship.
We should also see these kings as pointers to Christ. David had intended to build a house for God’s name, but God had told him that his son Solomon would build the temple:
. . . you will have a son who will be a man of peace and rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies on every side. His name will be Solomon, and I will grant Israel peace and quiet during his reign. He is the one who will build a house for my Name. He will be my son, and I will be his father. And I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever (2 Chron. 22:9–10).
Solomon did build the temple, but this passage clearly refers to someone greater. It refers to the one who will reign over the house of David forever, the one whom the angel announced to Mary. They are a pointer to Christ.
The evil kings show us our need for a better king. The good kings show us something of the goodness of the reign of Christ but in their weakness and death make us long for that coming king.
Consider here what we see about Christ from King Josiah. From a young age, Christ seeks to know His Father. Christ confronts and opposes the idolatry of the land. Christ rebuilds the worship of the Lord and establishes a house for His name in the church. Christ loves the will of the Father, and His heart is tender to His Word. Christ provides the Passover for the people, not through providing thousands of lambs but through the sacrifice of Himself, the true Passover lamb. Christ loves His people and does all that He does not merely for Himself but for the sake of others. Christ dies and is lamented by His people, but He does not stay dead. He rises again to reign over the kingdom forever. A King like Josiah but far better!
Application to our Renewal
The kings, however, point not only to Christ. They point to us. There is no question that one purpose of the writing of this history of King Josiah was to encourage the people to be like him. The prophets wanted the people to seek renewal, revival, and reformation just like Josiah did.
As we think about renewal, there are some important considerations about his context. Families set patterns for us that are deeply rooted in our minds and heart. However, we do not have to let these things determine us. We can create new patterns. We should not look at our old life or the pattern of our families and think we are stuck. There is redemption from bad patterns. We should not wait on our families or our country to fix their problems. We need to seek the Lord. Now is the time.
Josiah also began when he was young. We should not wait for the future to seek renewal. Josiah began while he was still young. Now is the time.
Josiah also did what was hard, even though it was hard. We can always put off difficult things. We easily walk around them and look at them. But now is the time to do the hard thing that the Lord is calling us to do.
Josiah also knew that the future would not be easy. He did not let that keep him form seeking the best for this time. He still sought to build something, even though he did not know how it would turn out. Now is the time.
And what did he commit himself to do that we should do?
First, he committed himself to gospel-centered worship. He said that the worship of God in the temple and in his own life was a priority. This is what we are made for. We are made to function well in God, and nothing is right until we are centered in Him. We should resolve to live each day out of a deep sense of the loving providence of the Father, the perfect sacrifice of the Son to pay for all our sins, and the ever present power of the Holy Spirit. This is living out of our baptism and renewing it regularly through the Lord’s Supper. We should make this a priority. There is nothing we have to do that is more central to who we are than this.
Second, he committed himself to help the community. He did not just think about himself. He thought about those around him. At the age of 20, he made an extraordinary effort to clear the land of idols! So, we can pray with people. We can encourage people. We can tell them about Jesus. We can show His love. What can we do for others? Who are the people in our lives? That’s the question Josiah paid attention to. He wasn’t content to simply think about his own spiritual life.
Third, he committed himself to obeying the Lord. To obey the Lord, we need to know what He wants us to do. To do that, we need to know the Lord. Do you need to clean out your room and say, “I have found a book”? Is your Bible buried under a mass of other things? A commitment to obey the Lord begins with knowing His Word, reading it and meditating on it. I call on you to take it up with the intent of doing what it says. That’s what Josiah did, and his example led the whole land back to the Lord.
I read an article that says that many millennials believe that 2020 was basically a wasted year. We don’t need to have any more wasted years, if we will commit to renewal by God’s grace in this coming year that will lead us to worship Him and obey Him and impress this upon the communities of which we are a part. Amen.