Lately I’ve been reading in 2 Kings, which is a history of the kings of Judah and Isreal. Amid a lot of evil kings and a few good kings we come to Josiah. His grandfather, Manasseh, was the most evil king that Judah ever had. Manasseh did a lot of horrible things to worship other gods, including sacrificing his own son. Josiah’s father Amon wasn’t much better. And then along comes Josiah. He started to reign when he was eight years old. Then when he was twenty six the Book of the Law was found. As it was read to him Josiah realized that Judah and Isreal had done everything they could possibly do to make God angry so he started cleaning house. "Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him." (2 Kings 23:25)
You can read for yourself what all he did but what was really interesting to me is that it says that Josiah destroyed the high places that Solomon had built. Hundreds of years had passed since Solomon had reigned and built high places for his pagan wives to worship other gods. There had been several good kings in those years but the Bible often says something like "so and so did what was right in God’s eyes but did not destroy the high places." These high places were stronghold’s that had been in Judah from almost the beginning of the rule of kings right up to within years of the end of the era of the kings before they were exiled.
This is a convicting passage. Josiah was violent and complete in his treatment of sin. It wasn’t enough just to clear out the temple, or just the really obvious sins. He went all the way. I’m not that harsh with sin. Just recently a specific area of sin and hypocrisy that has been a part of my life for about three years was laid bare and revealed for what it was. After ignoring and defending it for so long, I finally started to deal with it. It starts subtly and if not dealt with it grows to be a monster.
Josiah also wasn’t willing to just get rid of what everyone else had gotten rid of in the past. A friend of mind had been doing a 60 day online purity program for a while now. When she first started I was a little surprised. Isn’t that just for people who are addicted to pornography, or into adultery or sleeping around? What she was dealing with was just thoughts so why be so extreme? Because she wants to be violent and complete about getting rid of sin in her life, even sins that would be easy to justify and explain away.
One last thing. After Josiah did his cleansing campaign throughout the country he gathered all of the people to celebrate the passover. So many things could be taken from this but what I want to take from it is this: When we radically deal with sin we are able to enjoy the presence of God in a new and deeper way. This side of eternity we will not deal with sin completely of course but as long as we allow it to fester and grow unneccessarily our worship and relationship is hindered. God is looking for "broken and contrite" hearts that are ready to weed out sin.
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