Good weekend to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
I wonder what the relationship is between Government and Religion in your city, your State or Province, your Nation? In America where I live, this is often a topic of discussion, sometimes a heated discussion with strong emotion. Did you know God designed the nation of Israel to function with a wonderful balance and blend of Religion & Government?
In our continuing journey with King Josiah in Jerusalem, about 2600 years ago, let’s take a close look because something dramatic was happening under Josiah’s leadership as we see in 2 Kings 23. You may recall God had designed a THEOCRACY for His chosen people which means God was to be the Supreme Leader of His people Israel. God raised up Moses to be His first Prophet leader which meant Moses was to communicate to the people all the instructions and will of their Supreme Leader God! God then selected Aaron to be the first Priest working alongside Moses leading the people in their worship of God. Perhaps you remember that’s the story of the Bible books Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
But when Samuel the prophet grew old, the people demanded a change in the governance of the people of Israel. They insisted on a human king. In fact, they said “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.” (1 Samuel 8:19,20) Everything changed that day and Saul was selected to be the first human “king” of Israel.
From that day on Israel was to be led by three men... the King was responsible for law and order, border security, the economy, international relations, etc. The Prophet was responsible to be God’s voice to the King and the people instructing them in God’s ways and giving them God’s guidance. And the Priests were responsible to lead the people in their worship of Holy God and living God honoring lives.
There was NO separation of religion and government, or church & state intended by God for Israel. They were all united, since Israel was to be first and foremost a people of God honoring living and the people through whom God would accomplish His purposes on our planet.
With that understanding now let’s rejoin King Josiah in the dramatic situation he faced. You’ll recall Josiah followed several decades of wicked leadership of his father King Amon and grandfather King Manasseh. Yesterday we watched as the Moses Book of the Law was discovered in the Temple while a major cleaning and renovation project was underway. (2 Kings 22:8)
Young Josiah had never seen these scrolls and when the priests began to read them to King Josiah he was overwhelmed and deeply convicted. He gave orders to the high priest Hilkiah to go and find a prophet of God who could explain what God’s words meant for Josiah and his generation. Josiah said: “Go inquire of the LORD for me and for the people about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the LORD’s anger that burns against us because those who have gone before us have not observed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written here concerning us.” (2 Kings 22:13)
As we saw yesterday the king’s official went to Huldah the prophet and she gave them a very stern warning about the judgment of God which was soon to fall upon Jerusalem and the people of Judah because of generations of wickedness. (2 Kings 22:15-26) Yesterday we saw that Josiah responded to Huldah’s stern warning with repentance and an aggressive citywide and nationwide clean-up effort! 2 Kings 23 gives us a remarkably detailed description of the demolition work Josiah oversaw in Jerusalem as decades of wicked leadership had erected hundreds of wicked artifacts and places of idol worship, yes even in Jerusalem. With some of this demolition work Josiah was undoing and even erasing from the Jerusalem landscape some very wicked work of past Kings in Israel.
2 Kings 23:12 describes it this way: “Josiah pulled down the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the roof [of the Temple] near the upper room of King Ahaz, and the altars King Manasseh had built in the two courts of the Temple of the LORD…”
Did you hear that my friends? Wicked Jewish kings had defiled the sacred Temple of God by building idols and altars for worship of those idols actually INSIDE the great Temple courts area and even on the roof of God’s Temple!
But there was more Josiah needed to clean up… “King Josiah also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption – the ones King Solomon had built for Ashtoreth the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the people of Ammon. Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles …” (2 Kings 23:12-14)
Now pause for just a second here my friends. Do you see what is happening under the guidance of young king Josiah? While I celebrate his courageous actions to clean out such wickedness, the fact that all these places of wicked worship were still standing as Josiah came to the throne in Jerusalem tells me the wickedness had simply become an accepted part of the Jerusalem landscape for a very long time, in fact many generations!
It was not enough for Josiah to clean house from the moral and spiritual failings of his father and grandfather, but he was even reaching all the way back to King Ahaz and even to King Solomon’s era and that was 300 years of tine! Now apply that to your city, your country, even your family. Have you and others simply grown accustomed to long established wickedness that has been part of the landscape where you live for a long, long time?
Has it become a widely accepted part of your culture, your society? What would it take to ‘clean house’ as Josiah did, where you live? Maybe it’s not statues or idols, maybe it is corruption or deeply rooted immorality, which is woven into the fabric of your society, including the schools, social media, entertainment, even the business culture of your society?
We need to pause right here this weekend to take a fresh, honest look at our world, especially the world close to home where you and I each live. Regardless of the relationship between Religion and Governance in your country, what about the morality, ethics and spirituality shaping the future of your society?
What is God saying to you through 2 Kings 22 & 23 and what God said to king Josiah and led Josiah to do to change his world?
Here’s a worship song to help us consider these things, and I’ll meet you right back here Monday to see what God did next!
Today’s Scripture: 2 Kings 23:12-14.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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