For earnest zeal in the work of God, and for steady perseverance therein, it would be difficult to find a man who could excel Josiah, king of Judah. From such a one we can all learn valuable lessons; also remembering the words of the Apostle in 2 Thessalonians 3:13, “Brethren, be not weary in well-doing.” The work of Josiah was very different from that which has been entrusted to us today. We have not been charged by the Lord Jesus to go through the earth with axes and hammers and destroy every abominable thing that meets our eyes; our service is to proclaim the sweet story of God’s grace to a world of perishing sinners. We shall find, as we pursue our studies that Josiah did not limit himself to his own small kingdom, but went far beyond Judah’s boundaries in his zeal for God. What have we to say concerning the regions beyond the land of our birth? Beloved Christian reader, think of the many lands where Christ is scarcely named, where the need is desperate, where souls are passing into eternal darkness every hour. Why go over and over again ground which has been well traversed? Why not cultivate the pioneer spirit that was seen in the Apostle Paul? Why not sit down quietly before God, and ask Him what “the world” means in the familiar John 3:16? France, for example, is very near the shores of Britain. Popish superstition and atheism fill that fair land, but to what extent are the favored Christians of Britain exercised about the need of the French people?
The zeal of Josiah recalls to our mind another zealous king, Jehu, the son of Nimshi; but the contrast between the two men is very great. Each was a divine Commissioner for the work of destroying Baal-worship, and other horrible things which disgraced the land of Israel; but the motives of the two men differed considerably. With Josiah the Word of God was the governing factor. The reading of it in his ears laid bare before him the evil of many things by which he was surrounded, and it was as a man obedient to the Word that he set to work. But in Jehu we behold considerable fleshly activity, for personal ambition had a large place in his mind even when he was doing that which was right in the eyes of God. When he met his friend Jehonadab the son of Rechab, he said, “Come with me, and see my zeal for Jehovah” (2 Kings 10:16). True souls do not parade their good deeds thus. Men’s approval and admiration matters little to them (1 Cor. 4:3); it is enough that the Lord sees their zeal in His service. Note the Lord’s words in Matthew 6:1-4. Jehu’s heart was never right with God. But worship had been re-introduced amongst the people after Elijah’s departure. Jehu, by divine command, destroyed it utterly, but he “took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart: for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin” (2 Kings 10:31). He maintained and worshipped the golden calves! Such glaring inconsistency is a warning to us. It is possible to denounce sternly certain evils in ourselves and others, and yet tolerate other things equally serious in the eyes of God. How treacherous is flesh! “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16). Let us seek to be whole-heartedly obedient to the will of God in all our ways, after the pattern of Him who said, “I do always those things that please Him” (John 8:29).
The reader is aware that the Holy Spirit has given us two accounts of Josiah’s reign. As we compare them with each other, certain differences are observable. In the “Chronicles” prominence is given to the notable Passover which Josiah held in Jerusalem, while in “Kings” it is mentioned quite briefly; but his energetic purging of the land from its idolatries from Dan to Beersheba is dealt with at great length in “Kings,” and is barely noticed in “Chronicles.”
To 2 Kings 23 then we turn for our present purpose. We have noticed already that Josiah purged the temple before he repaired it (2 Chron. 34:8), yet we read in 2 Kings 23:4, “The king commanded Hilkiah the High Priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of Jehovah all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the lost of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel.” This appalling list of abominations still in the house where Jehovah had set His name suggests that the first purging was not very thorough; but the second purging cleared every vile thing out. But why was the second purging more thorough than the first? Because the Book of the law had come to light between the two movements, and the hideousness of things which had long been tolerated was now perceived, at least by the king. He now had divine understanding to keep the law, and he sought to observe it with his whole heart (Psa. 119:34). Josiah could have said with David “Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage forever for they are the rejoicing of my heart. I have inclined mine heart to perform Thy statutes alway, even unto the end” (Psa. 119:111-112). Energetic action must needs follow when the heart is thus going out towards God and His Word. “I made haste, and delayed not to keep Thy commandments” (Psa. 119:60). It may be that some believers today continue in unscriptural associations because the Word of God has not been set before them concerning these things. Evil is none the less evil because, through inattention to the teaching of scripture, its true character is not perceived; but when once the Word is brought to bear, God expects prompt action from His saints. Leviticus 5 lays down this principle clearly.
The task which Josiah undertook in faith was colossal, and he gave himself no rest until he had destroyed every vestige of idolatry out of the whole land of Israel, although he was only ruler over Judah and Benjamin. Jerusalem—Jehovah’s chosen center—was first cleared. It is specially noted that “he brought out the grove from the house of Jehovah without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burnt it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people” (2 Kings 23:6). “The grove” appears to have been an image of Astarte. Imagine such a horror being set up in the house of Jehovah, concerning which He once said that His eyes and His heart would be there perpetually (2 Chron. 7:16)! Adjoining the temple were the house of the Sodomites! Horror upon horror; how low Israel had fallen that such bestiality should be found in the most sacred spot on earth! The history of Christendom has been quite as fearful. One writer has said that its annals are “the annals of Hell.” Idolatry, blasphemy, immorality, and cruel persecution of the godly all practiced by men who, with high-sounding ecclesiastical titles, claimed to be the successors of the Apostles, and the only authoritative ministers of the Word of God and the sacraments!
In the Spirit’s record of Josiah’s activities special mention is made of the accumulation of abominations which his predecessors of David’s royal line had set up in and near Jerusalem. “He took away the horses that the Kings of Judah had given to the sun; at the entering in of the house of Jehovah.... and the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the Kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of Jehovah, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron” (2 Kings 23:11-12). But still worse! We wonder not at the enormities of such men as Ahaz and Manasseh, but one of the greatest of Israel’s royal transgressors was Solomon, the man who built the temple of Jehovah, and whose prayer at the dedication thereof seemed to anticipate every evil and danger that might arise! His wide range of monstrosities are set before us. “The high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the King of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites; and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the King defile” yet all this was left untouched by such pious Kings as Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Hezekiah! Neglect of the Word of God is the only possible explanation of this. Our own experience of Christians around us proves that pious persons are not necessarily painstaking students of Holy Scripture.
Before Israel entered the land, Jehovah enacted that when the time came for the people to have a king, “it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites; and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear Jehovah his God, to keep all the Words of the law and these statutes, to do them: that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel” (Deut. 17:18-20). If each successive ruler in Israel had obeyed this injunction, and had prepared his own copy of the law, and had read therein all the days of his life, the formidable array of devilries with which Josiah had to deal would never have existed. Nor would the original of God’s holy law have become buried under rubbish, so that the finding of it was a real discovery.
Neglect of the Word of God is an evil more serious, and more disastrous in its results, than is generally realized. Things are tolerated in ourselves, and also adopted without question from our fathers, which would be judged and abandoned if we were more familiar with the Scriptures, and if the Scriptures had supreme authority over our souls. The growing habit of reading a short “Union” portion, with a few comments from persons not too well instructed in the mind of God must not be confounded with Bible study. The latter involves careful examination of every book in the Bible (not mere portions selected for us by others), seeking enlightenment from the Holy Spirit as to the scope of each book, and also as to the relation of each book to every other, for the Holy Scriptures are an organic whole. Thus we are led into the counsels of grace and glory, earthly and heavenly, which our all-wise God has placed in the sacred volume for our instruction and delight.
In his great work for God, Josiah dealt with what some might regard as a small evil compared with the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth. We refer to the high places for religious purposes which seemed to abound in Jehovah’s land. It was apparently the custom of the Canaanitish nations to establish places of worship for their false gods on various heights which they selected according to their own Satan-controlled desires. Deuteronomy 12 should be carefully examined by the readers of these pages. Jehovah told His people of the ways of the heathen and forbad them to imitate them. The Word must alone govern them in all matters relative to divine worship, as indeed in everything else. Jehovah would choose His own center, and thither His people must come with their burnt-offerings and sacrifices. The Israelites were to destroy all the high places of the heathen, and thus express their abhorrence of their wicked ways. But flesh is no better in those who are near to God than in those who are far from Him. The time soon came, alas, when Israel chose high places for themselves. Some of these were idolatrous worship, and some for the worship of Jehovah. But all the high places, whatever might be the motives of use who established them, were offensive in His sight, for they were the expression of creative self-will, of hearts not subject to His commandments. Some of Judah’s choicest kings tolerated high places, not those which were dedicated to idols, we may be sure, but those at which Jehovah was professedly worshipped. This weakness is specially recorded of Jothan (2 Kings 15:35), Asa (2 Chron. 15:17), and Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. 20:33). Asa’s doings were strange indeed in their inconsistency. He deposed the queen-mother from her exalted station because of her idolatrous practices, and he utterly destroyed her works, yet the high places of the people were allowed to remain (2 Chron. 15:16-17). When shall we learn that God expects obedience in all things from the souls that He has redeemed?
The energetic Josiah cleared away all the high places, and he brought away from them all priests who had burned incense upon them, but in view of their disobedience to the Word of Jehovah they were not allowed to exercise priestly functions in Jerusalem. “The priests of the high places came not up to the altar of Jehovah in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren” (2 Kings 23:8-9). Even unfaithful men must not be left to starve! Shall we not learn from all this that God expects His Word to be obeyed by His people? Is every reader of these pages able to quote “chapter and verse” concerning his religious exercises? Or is it possible that some choose for themselves where and how they will worship and serve their God? Josiah has left us a fine example. When the long neglected law of Jehovah was brought before him, he was determined to carry out all that was written therein. Never was the written Word more respected than by Josiah, and never was Jehovah’s land and sanctuary more thoroughly purified of everything that was contrary to His will. How pleasant to God!
“Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning” (Rom. 15:4).