January 28, 2007
Josiah: When Reform Is Not Enough
2 Chronicles 34:16-19
The story of Josiah, King of Judah, is one of the most unusual in
the Old Testament in many ways. He was only eight years old when he took the
throne. He is one of the last kings to reign before the nation was overrun by
the Babylonians. Josiah’s father and grandfather were evil kings, but in the
eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign, he decided to repair and restore the Temple
of the Lord. The Temple was in a disastrous state, and it symbolized the
calamitous spiritual condition of the people. Let me just list some of the
things, recorded in 2 Kings 23, that Josiah had to do to in order to clean out
the Temple area and repair the Temple itself. He had to have the priests remove
all the articles and altars dedicated to pagan gods, including Baal and Asherah,
which means there was child sacrifice taking place there in the Temple area.
Josiah had to remove all the pagan priests that now served in the Temple.
Homosexual male prostitutes had actually set up their quarters in the Temple.
Other rooms in the Temple were occupied by women making religious objects for
the goddess Asherah. Josiah had to remove the chariots and images of horses
that past kings had dedicated to the sun. He had to rid Jerusalem of the
mediums and spiritists. He told the people to get rid of their personal
household gods. He tore down the high places all over the land of Judah and
Israel where people worshiped pagan gods and offered human sacrifices.
Is it any wonder that God was bringing the nation to an end?
Then another shocking thing happened as the priests were cleaning out the
Temple. A scroll was found. And not just any scroll — it was the Torah, the
book of the law, the Scriptures of the Jewish people. In following the
practices of the world and worshiping pagan gods, the people had first ignored
and then lost the Word of God. It was buried under a pile of debris somewhere
in the Temple. Hilkiah the priest gave the scroll to the king’s secretary. The
king had the scroll read to him, and when it was read, he tore his robes,
because he knew the people had broken every command in the book of the law, and
judgment was sure to follow. So Josiah extended his reforms from just removing
the pagan altars and repulsive religious practices from the Temple. He restored
the worship of the true God, and had the people return to the religious feasts
and rituals which were a part of their history. The Scripture tells us that
Passover was observed in Israel for the first time since the days of the
judges. None of the other kings of Israel or Judah had celebrated the
Passover. Great reforms were taking place.
But something seems to be missing in the story. The people are
told to turn back to the Lord, and begin once again to observe the holy days and
religious rituals of their faith, but they are never told to repent for all the
things they had done. He does not tell them to seek God with all their hearts,
only to follow the rituals and feasts from their past history. The priests read
the law to the people, but it does not have the effect of causing them to grieve
over their sin. There is no concern about how they have sinned against God.
There are no tears of repentance. They begin to observe the feast of Passover,
but it is mostly out of respect for Josiah, the king, who tells them to do it.
The Bible says, “The king stood by his pillar and renewed the covenant in
the presence of the Lord — to follow the Lord and keep his commands, regulations
and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, and to obey the
words of the covenant written in this book” (2 Chronicles 34:31). The Bible
says, “Then he had everyone in Jerusalem and Benjamin pledge
themselves to it” (2 Chronicles 34:32). It goes on to say, “So at that time the
entire service of the Lord was carried out for the celebration of the Passover
and the offering of burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord, as King Josiah
had ordered” (2 Chronicles 35:16). Josiah is faithful to do this, but it
doesn’t seem to translate into the hearts of the people. Josiah is a great king
and a great man of God. The Bible says, “Neither before nor after Josiah was
there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did” (2 Kings 23:25). That
means he sought the Lord and was more faithful to him than David or Solomon.
Josiah does many good things, but what is interesting is that we
never hear Josiah pray — at least there is no prayer by him in Scripture, or any
record of him praying. Neither is anything said about the people praying. He
asks them to follow the ancient religious rituals of Israel and to stop
following other gods, but there is nothing to suggest that this affected their
hearts in any way. Under Josiah’s leadership there is a great reform, but there
is no revival, because reform is never enough. This why the Lord did not change
his mind about bringing an end to the nation. The people’s hearts were
unchanged, and therefore God’s heart was unchanged. The Scripture says,
“Nevertheless, the Lord did not turn away from the heat of his fierce anger,
which burned against Judah. . . So the Lord said, ‘I will remove Judah also
from my presence as I removed Israel, and I will reject Jerusalem, the city I
chose, and this temple, about which I said, “There shall my Name be”’” (2 Kings
23:26-27). God saw the heart of Josiah and spared him from the coming judgment;
he put his hand of blessing on him, but God did not spare the people of the land
whose hearts were unchanged. The revival seemed to be a revival of one. The
reforms Josiah brought were widespread, but the revival was very limited in its
scope.
What does it take for real revival to happen? What would it take
for there to be a spiritual awakening in Mount Vernon, and across the USA?
There are several things we could talk about, but the most important of these is
that, first of all, a spiritual awakening comes when there is: A Call to
Prayer. I wonder what would have happened if Josiah had called the people
to prayer. It was not enough for Josiah to experience a personal spiritual
renewal, even though he was king; it had to spread to the people of the land.
What if he had called for fasting, prayer and seeking God, rather than
reinstating the rituals and festivals of Israel’s history? Josiah cleaned out
the Temple of pagan gods and immoral practices, but there was nothing to fill
the spiritual void when they were taken away.
Jesus talked about this kind of reform where someone turns over a
new leaf, but there is no real repentance or change of heart. He said, “When an
evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and
does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it
arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it
goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go
in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the
first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation” (Matthew 12:43-45).
So I wonder how long it was before the people were right back at
serving the pagan deities they had grown to love? How long was it before the
carved images, cast idols and Asherah poles were once again in the Temple area?
Not long. As soon as Josiah was gone, they were right back at it. How long was
it before the Temple had one altar to a pagan god, then two, then more than
there had been before? Not long. How long before they were committing gross
immorality in the very Temple whose God called for moral purity? Not long. Not
long, because it takes more than sweeping your life clean of evil and immoral
things — it takes praying for a new heart that will love God more than it loves
sin. The unoccupied house must be filled with the Holy Spirit. There is a vast
difference between obedience that is perfunctory and an obedience of the heart.
There is a difference between an obedience that is coerced and an obedience that
springs from a heart that loves God and wants to do his will. It takes seeking
God as fervently and passionately as you sought the gods of this world. It
takes more than just putting some religious ritual in your life, it takes
praying that God will give you a new love for him. You have to pray that you
will love righteousness more than you loved the immorality in which you were
involved. You have to pray for more than a new lifestyle; you have to pray for
a new way of thinking, new attitudes, new motivations — a new heart. Pray, and
keep praying until you break through. Pray until a real change comes. God is
on your side. “For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to
his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13).
This is how revival comes. We could have a president like
Josiah, and a congress who would work with him to pass all the right laws, so
that there would be great moral reform. It would be wonderful, and I would be
glad to see it. I pray for that kind of reform, because our country would be a
better place. But let’s not confuse that with revival. Let’s not fool
ourselves into thinking it would change the heart of the people of our country,
or that it would change God’s mind about our country. It would not do so any
more than Josiah’s reforms changed the hearts of the people of Israel, or God’s
attitude toward them. The best of reforms are short lived without changes in
the hearts and minds of people. And that is where the church comes in. That’s
where you come in. It’s through our lives and witness that people are drawn to
the truth. It is through seeing the change in us that people will believe it is
possible for them to change — and long to experience a change of their own. So
may I issue a call to prayer for us to be those people, and for God to work in
the hearts of others?
Secondly, a spiritual awakening comes when there is: A
reemergence of God’s Word. The Word of God must again become important in
people’s lives. Things started happening when God’s Word was discovered and
read. Maybe your Bible isn’t buried under a pile of rubble in the house, but it
might as well be if you never read it. The people of Israel had been so busy
serving other gods that they not only lost the Scripture, they had forgotten
about it altogether. No one even missed it. No one ever asked where the scroll
was. There was nothing wrong with the reforms of Josiah, they just didn’t go
far enough. He ordered the people to follow the laws of God, but they missed
the heart of God. He reintroduced them to ritual, but neglected relationship.
He got the part about the law of God, but missed the love of God. God’s
invitation is never to merely follow rules, it is always an invitation to enter
into a relationship with him. But we never know that unless we get into his
Word. We don’t know how to enter into that relationship unless we open his
Book. We will never really know who God is, who we are, and what he wants from
us, unless we read the Scroll. Getting out the Word of God and reading it is
very important, because you can’t believe just anything you want and still be a
Christian. The Christian faith is defined by a specific set of beliefs, and you
need to read the Word to know what they are.
The problem with many people is that they think they know what it
is all about without reading the Bible. They really believe they can figure
things out and live the Christian life on their own. Especially in this culture
where we depend on our feelings more than our brain. We don’t want to take the
time and trouble to dig for God’s truth.
The New Yorker had a cartoon where a young boy in math
class is standing at the chalk board with other students. The teacher has
written the problem on the board for each student: 7 x 5 = __ . All the other
students have the answer right: 35. But this boy has written 7 x 5 = 75. The
teacher has obviously told him it’s wrong, and he says to her, “It may be wrong,
but it’s how I feel.” That is a perfect metaphor of our culture. Responding to
the cartoon’s message, Stephen Carter, a professor of law at Yale University
says, “Faith is dead, reason is dying, but ‘how I feel’ is going strong.” We
are not interested in the Word of God because we are not interested in the
truth. We are not interested in God’s will, because we are wrapped up in our
will and doing what we want to do. We want to go by our feelings which are much
more to our liking. The Word of God must reemerge in our lives.
The third point is that a spiritual awakening comes when there
is: A sense of conviction and repentance. This is nothing less than a
realization of the truth about ourselves. Conviction means that we are
convinced that what God says about us is true. When you hear what you know to
be the truth, you have to respond to the truth. When the Holy Spirit came at
Pentecost, Peter began preaching to the crowds. He boldly warned them of the
consequences of their sin of rejecting Christ and having him crucified. The
Bible says, “When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to
Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’” (Acts 2:37).
Peter’s response was, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of
Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of
the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). And when they repented and turned from their sin,
the Holy Spirit came upon them.
When this happened there was a deep inner change, and their lives
became different. I become concerned sometimes about the pop Christianity of
this culture which is so flippant and shallow. There is a lot of lip service
without much to back it up. We complain about the Ten Commandments not being
displayed in our courts, and we can’t even name all ten — and keep fewer of them
than we can name. We whine about there being no prayer or Bible reading in our
schools, and then we don’t pray or read the Bible in our homes. We complain
about gay marriages causing a decline in family values, when the divorce rate
among Bible-believing Christians is the same as rest of the culture. When it
comes to sexual ethics among Christians, I wonder if the culture has not already
won that war. And our financial ethics are not much better. You cannot live
just anyway you want and still be a Christian. The Bible says, “No one who
lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him
or known him” (1 John 3:6). If this is true in your life, then I call on you to
repent. We need to live differently. But Christianity is more than just a
reformation of morals. It is not about just trying harder to be good. It must
be a turning from our sin and asking for a touch from God that makes us new
people.
God’s desire is for an intimate relationship with us that makes
us new people. He said, “This is the covenant I will make with the house of
Israel after that time, I will put my law in their minds and write it on their
hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33).
There you have it all: transformation, a new heart and a new relationship.
Adrian Dieleman tells the story of one man’s transformation:
“Oscar Cervantes is a dramatic example of the Spirit’s power to transform
lives. As a child, Oscar began to get into trouble. Then as he got older, he
was jailed 17 times for brutal crimes. Prison psychiatrists said he was beyond
help. But they were wrong! During a brief interval of freedom, Oscar met an
elderly man who told him about Jesus. He placed his trust in the Lord and was
changed into a kind, caring man. Shortly afterward he started a prison
ministry. Chaplain H. C. Warwick describes it this way: ‘The third Saturday
night of each month is “Oscar Night” at Soledad. Inmates come to hear Oscar and
they sing gospel songs with fervor; they sit intently for over 2 hours; they
come freely to the chapel altar. . . . What professionals had failed to do for
Oscar in years of counseling, Christ’s Spirit did in a moment of conversion.’”
Mere reform is not enough, there must be a transformation of who
we are. When we open ourselves to that kind of deep renovation, God meets us
and makes us new.
Rodney J. Buchanan
January 28, 2007
Mulberry St. UMC
Mount Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
Mulberry
Street United Methodist Church