2nd Kings Chapter 22.
Once again we see that once the king saw that the hand of God was against the people because of their sin, the king became broken and humbled and surrendered to the Lord. As a result, God said he would delay the disaster toward Judah till after the death of the king.
1. Does sin bother us? Or are we so immuned to it because we are surrounded by it everyday that we begin to believe it is okay? Our world has convinced many Christians that sex before marriage is okay. Living together before marriage is okay. Not getting married is okay. Homosexuality, drugs, alcohol, foul mouth… All these are okay!
2. It's easy to get caught up in a sin and then convince ourselves it's not really sin, that way we don't have to repent or turn from it or stop doing it.
There are many behaviors that are compromised in our world today.
Where are we compromising? What sin have we convinced ourselves into believing that it's okay so that we don't have to stop doing it.
3. Are we striving for the Holiness of Christ?
Let us respond to sin like King Josiah did:
1. With a broken heart!
2. With a humble repetitive heart!
3. With a surrendered heart that hungers for the Holiness of Christ!
Let us be Holy as God is Holy!
Leviticus 19:1-2
Titus 2:11-14
Josiah – knowing Huldah’s prophecy of coming judgment – didn’t just say let’s forget the revival needed. No, he forged ahead with the revival that Judah needed; he continued to do what is right in the sight of the Lord.
One of my favorite pastors once said that during a revival, there are 3 kinds of believers … those who are like a rowboat that has to be pushed to move in any direction, others are like sailboats that keep changing direction depending on the wind, and those that are like steamboats that make up their minds to go in the same direction regardless of the wind or difficulty. Josiah was a steamboat.
Lord, let me be a steamboat like Josiah and let a revival begin with me.
There are a lot of things going on in the last couple of chapters that have me wondering. There are 4 generations of kings that made very different decisions from one another in how they were going to reign. You have Hezekiah who did what was right in God’s sight, and then his son Manasseh takes over and decides to go back to the way things were before Hezekiah became king. He was young when he became king, and I wonder why he didn’t continue with the way his father was doing things. Did Hezekiah not teach him, was it outside influences, the example of kings around him? Was it because he was young that he was easily influenced the way he was? Then his son becomes king and continues on with the false gods and idols. Following him, Josiah becomes king. Another very young king, but despite his father (and grandfather) he decides to follow after God and do what was right in His sight. So what influenced him to choose a different path? Not only that, but then they find the book of the law and he realizes how far off track they’ve gotten. All the way back to egypt and the passover and then the exodus and the giving of the ten commandments, fathers (parents) were supposed to be passing these words and traditions down to their children and their childrens’ children. But they’ve gotten so far away from it that they don’t even know what it says anymore. And I wonder, do I know what the Bible says? Do I know what I should or shouldn’t be doing? And am I passing these things on to my children? Ultimately, we are each responsible for our own choices and decisions, but am I doing my best to make sure that my children know what the Bible teaches. I worry about what kind of influences they will encounter when they leave the school here and later on, our home. Will they know the right choices to make? Will they stand strong in the truth? Am I doing all I can now to make sure they have the best foundation possible to go out into the world? I am ever aware that my time with them is growing short and I pray that I am doing it right.
When King Josiah discovered the truth, he wanted to do the right thing. God honored him because of his response. May we abide in God’s Word and seek to always do what is pleasing to the Lord as we read about Josiah doing in this chapter. We don’t read about Josiah making excuses or trying to blame his father or grandfather. Instead he takes responsibility for the there and then that he was in. While we can learn from the past, we can’t change it. We can choose to make the right decisions in the present to make an impact as God shapes the future.
I was thinking today about John 8:31-32.
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed Him, “If you abide in my Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”