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This month we are studying the good King Josiah. Josiah came to the throne in the Southern Kingdom of Judah at the age of just 8 years. This would mean that he was King in name, but the real responsibilities for running the country would have rested with the High Priest and other officials. Yet despite his youthfulness and despite the pagan rituals his ancestors had dabbled in, we read that He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and walked in the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left. This is the Bible's way of saying he was a good King, perhaps in some ways the very best King since the Great King David, his ancestor.

 

What caused him to be such a good King? We will discover that he destroyed pagan idols: He refurbished the temple which was in ruins: He brought a number of people in the fallen Kingdom of Israel back to worship God under his Kingship (something that had not occurred since Solomon's time): He re introduced the reading of the word of God publically: He repented publically and finally he pledged himself and the people to following God's commands again. However, behind all this is the statement of verse 3 of 2 Chronicles 34, which tells us: In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David.

 

At the age of 16, he sought to know God. He sought to understand how his ancestor King David had related to God and had in so doing brought Godly wisdom into his Kingdom. The heart of King Josiah was the same.

 

For us it is the same today. God blesses those who truly seek to know him. Perhaps most remarkably, when young people, when teenagers seek the Lord it sets their lives on a path of nut just service, but great service, becuase God wants to use those who have opened their hearts in a might way to him.

 

God bless you as consider this. And please remember to join us on Sunday mornings to hear more about this great King,

 

Pastor Guy

 
 

 

Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years. 2 He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and walked in the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.

 

3 In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David. In his twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of high places, Asherah poles, carved idols and cast images. 4 Under his direction the altars of the Baals were torn down; he cut to pieces the incense altars that were above them, and smashed the Asherah poles, the idols and the images. These he broke to pieces and scattered over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. 5 He burned the bones of the priests on their altars, and so he purged Judah and Jerusalem. 6 In the towns of Manasseh, Ephraim and Simeon, as far as Naphtali, and in the ruins around them, 7 he tore down the altars and the Asherah poles and crushed the idols to powder and cut to pieces all the incense altars throughout Israel. Then he went back to Jerusalem.

 

2 Chronicles 34:1-7