Good Monday morning to you my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends,
Perhaps you’ve watched as a new leader has worked hard to undo the failings of the past and bring in a new era? We see it often in athletics as a new coach is brought in to lead a losing team to a new future by building a winning culture. We’ve seen it in business as a new leader changes the org chart and replaces key positions and sometimes changes the brand logo and even the mission statement. We see it in government when a new leader is elected and passionately implements new policies both domestic and international.
These days we’ve been looking closely at how King Josiah did it in Jerusalem about 2600 years ago when as a young boy he replaced his wicked father and grandfather on the throne of the southern kingdom Judah.
After discovering the Book of the Law of Moses in the Temple during a restoration project, King Josiah was given warning by the prophet Huldah that God’s judgment upon Jerusalem and Judah was forthcoming, because of unrepentant wickedness of his ancestors. (2 Kings 22:15-20) Deeply convicted in his soul, Josiah set about to cleanse Jerusalem of the wicked idols and altars built by his father and grandfather, as we saw this weekend in 2 Kings 23:12-14.
As remarkable as this radical clean-up of Jerusalem was, Josiah was not finished or satisfied. Evidently Josiah had studied the history of Israel quite well and he knew there was a wicked root going all the way back to when the United Kingdom of Israel split into two kingdoms. 2 Kings 23:15 tells us “Even the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin – even that altar and high place King Josiah demolished… Then Josiah looked around, and when he saw the tombs that were there on the hillside, he had the bones removed from those tombs and burned on the altar to defile it, in accordance with the word of the LORD proclaimed by the man of God who foretold these things!” (2 Kings 23:15,16)
About 300 years before Josiah’s time, at the death of King Solomon, Jeroboam became king of the northern kingdom Israel and the first significant thing he had done was to build two golden calves and declare those calves to be the gods of Israel. He then built a ‘high place’ of worship with a large altar for each one, first in Bethel and then in the far northern city of Dan. (1 Kings 12:25-30) Bethel, you recall, was the place Jacob had two great encounters with God. (Gen. 28:10-22 & Gen.35:1-10) Thus this act of Jeroboam to place an altar & idol there in Bethel was a great blaspheme of the God of Israel.
(current archeological site of Jeroboam’s Altar at Dan, Israel)
As we saw when we studied those events of 1 Kings 12 & 13 several months ago, in response to this vile thing Jeroboam had done, God sent a ‘man of God’ to Bethel for the purpose of chastising Jeroboam and the other leaders who had joined him in this wicked rejection of God. The remarkable record of this incident reads: “By the word of the LORD a man of God came from Judah to Bethel, as Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make an offering. By the word of the LORD the man of God cried out: ‘Altar, Altar! This is what the LORD God says: A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you, o altar, he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.” (1 Kings 13:1-2)
Now, 300 years later, a young king named Josiah, born into the royal family line of David, was doing exactly what God had promised through that ‘man of God’! Don’t miss the significance of this my friends. God is eternal and Omniscient. God knows everything past, present and future and God can predict, to the smallest detail, what HE sees in the future, as He did here.
Josiah’s record next reports something amazing: “King Josiah asked, ‘what is that tombstone I see?’ The people of the city said, ‘It marks the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah [many generations ago] and pronounced against the altar of Bethel the very things you have done to it here today...” (2 Kings 23:17)
I love it when God accomplishes what He has promised to do! Could it be God is doing something in your generation and mine, in your city and mine, THROUGH YOU and me, that God had set in motion many years ago, maybe even many generations ago? As we approach the new year of 2025, could it be God has been preparing our world for spectacular things HE is planning to do this next year and if so, will you and I be part of this new work of God? If so, HOW? And what might hold us back from joining with God in what He wants to do?
The record of 2 Kings 23 tells us Josiah and the people continued this radical cleansing of Jerusalem and the entire region of Judah until all the high places and altars of idolatry were destroyed! Then Josiah returned back to Jerusalem. What a remarkable cleansing of the land had been accomplished. And with the land cleansed and the wicked priests killed, what do you suppose Josiah was prepared to do next for God’s glory? It’s historic and remarkable, and we’ll look at it tomorrow.
For today let’s pause and ponder what this remarkable young man Josiah accomplished in breaking the chain of wicked leadership which went back in Jerusalem for many decades, even centuries. Let’s reflect on how Josiah rooted out that wickedness and called the people to join with him in cleansing the Temple, the city of Jerusalem and the entire region, so a new, God honoring future could be pursued.
Does it call us to look closely at our families, our cities, our churches, our nation and ask God what HE wants to do now, in preparation for something God has in His plan for our future? I invite you to worship with this song as we reflect on the questions I’ve offered and the account of Josiah’s radical, cleansing leadership…
Today’s Scripture: 2 Kings 23:15-17.
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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