I want to look first at Josiah’s father, Ammon. Ammon was the son of Manasseh, and Manasseh, as you remember, was the most ungodly king that ever ruled in Judah.
And yet at the end of his life, as we saw on Sunday, he repented and called out to the Lord, and the Lord forgave him. And he went back and began to restore some of the things that he had destroyed. But a big portion of the problem was he destroyed the hearts of the people.
And the people of Judah had turned against God again, and they were worshipping the idol, they were worshipping the false gods, they were holding their ceremonies in the groves and the high places, and even though Manasseh repented, they did not. And we see that Ammon was his son. In verse 21 we read, Ammon was two and twenty years old, and he began to reign.
He reigned two years in Jerusalem. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, as did Manasseh his father. For Ammon sacrificed unto all the carved images which Manasseh his father had made and served him.
He humbled not himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself, but Ammon trespassed more and more. And his servants conspired against him and slew him in his own house, but the people of the land slew all them that had conspired against King Ammon. And the people of the land made Josiah his son, king in his stead.
I want you to see a little bit about Ammon. And that is, it’s amazing, oftentimes godly parents seem to do everything right in attempting to raise their children, and the children still can walk in rebellion against God. But it seems like ungodly parents, the children, it’s very easy for them to walk in ungodliness.
And part of it is because of the clavity of the heart and the desire to align oneself with the wickedness of sin. And we’re all sinners by nature and rebels against God. And you see that Ammon learned very well from his father when his father was walking in rebellion.
And he chose to do the same thing, except he did it worse. He doesn’t say that he went in and desecrated the temple to the degree that his father had done. But he worshipped the false god, and it says he did it more and more and more.
In other words, it intensified, his rebellion against God intensified as his life went on. And the amazing thing that you see is his life ended early. He only reigned two years.
His father had been one of the longest reigning kings in Israel’s history, and yet Ammon only ruled two years, and then he was killed by his own servants. And part of it was probably because of his disgusting behavior and his rebellious spirit. But he had a son, and his son Josiah.
And one of the amazing things is the depth of God’s grace. Some of the songs that we sang tonight were talking about more about Jesus would I know. Josiah did not grow up in a home where the Lord was taught.
Josiah had a great-grandfather by the name of Hezekiah, that had done more to clean out the land than any other king since David. And it’s amazing that the influence of men like Hezekiah and David touched the heart of this little boy. And there probably were other people that were close to him, like Jehoiada, that would explain to him the Lord.
But we see here in verse 1 of chapter 34, Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem one and thirty years. Can you imagine your eight-year-old being anointed the king of a country, and called to rule it? This is pretty amazing, especially given where most children are today in their education and understanding of the world. It did not take long for Josiah’s heart to be turned to God, and to look to that which was significant and really important.
It says, And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand nor to the left. He didn’t waver, he walked the course. This verse could be one of the verses that perhaps Paul was thinking of when he says, Keep your eyes on the mark, run the race, and finish the course.
Because Paul was talking about staying on course, staying true. Don’t waver, don’t go right or left. James talks about the fact that as a Christian, we’re never to be double-minded, because being double-minded gets us in trouble.
And what is double-mindedness? Double-mindedness is when you or I, say we’re following God, we do things that appear to be right, and perhaps are right, but we’re taken off course by the philosophies of the world, which we’re studying how we’re taken off course in Colossians on Sunday mornings, by the philosophies of the world, the doctrines of demons, and how that can undermine and destroy our faith, and that’s exactly what Satan wants to do. Last week I had read a little thing, and it was talking about how come so many pastors and leaders oftentimes find themselves struggling with sin. And it’s because Satan wants to attack those that are leaders, because if he gets them to waver, and the people that they are instructing and teaching will become confused and may waver as well.
This was evident in the life of Josiah’s grandfather Manasseh and his father Ammon, and yet Josiah walked straight. And we’re going to see over the next couple of studies, I think it’s going to take about three studies, the impact Josiah had on Israel, Judah, and Israel, because the remnant that was still left in Israel, he also dealt with them as well. And we see that they began to hear and listen and understand the word of God for the first time.
And the song, More About Jesus Would I Know, is exactly what they wanted to find out. More about God, more about the Lord, more about this Lord of hosts, which is Jesus. And in verse 3, For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after God, of David his father.
And in the twelfth year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places and the groves and carved out the images and the molten images. After eight years did he rule. Do you know how old he’d be then? He’d be sixteen.
Look at our world today, and a lot of times teenagers feel that they can make no difference in the world. I was listening to a man talk today, and he was talking that we used to make a difference between boys and men. And there’s always passages in a culture when a man becomes a man.
He said, in America, we don’t have men. In the church, we don’t have a lot of men. And Josiah, who came to be a man when he was sixteen, he stood up for truth.
He was willing to do that which was right. This gentleman that was speaking today talked about the fact that in America, we have developed this culture, which is referred to as teenagers, where you can end up spending about four or five years of your life as a young boy, but you never really become a man. You don’t learn to take responsibility.
Josiah learned to take responsibility, and taking responsibility begins when one is taught the truth. But what happens when you don’t have people, boys, becoming men? I’m sure you’ve heard of many young men in their twenties, thirties, and beyond that are still boys. They haven’t taken responsibility for their lives.
They don’t begin to take seriously the things that God has called them to do, the gifts that God has given them, the sharing of the gospel. They don’t even think of God because they’re so centered on pleasure and amusement that they don’t really take seriously what it really means to be a man. So being a man isn’t about your age.
If you look at Manasseh, he was an older man when he died. He was fairly young when he came to rule. Remember, I think he was twelve.
And he ruled and he died in his late sixties. But the thing is, he really didn’t become a man until the end of his life when he saw the significance and the importance of what is real and began to humble himself and call before the Lord. The interesting thing that this guy told me or mentioned on his little brief today that he was talking about is that women try to take over the position of men because men aren’t men.
And he said, God created us different. He created the man to be the spiritual head of the home. He created the man to be the one who would give instruction and direction to his children.
He created the man to be the protector and provider of his family. But if a man never becomes a man and remains a boy his whole life, he doesn’t do those things. He sees no importance of doing them because he becomes so self-centered and self-consumed.
Josiah, at the age of sixteen, became a man. And what he did is he began to seek God more and more. He began to understand what was real and the truth.
Unlike his father and his grandfather. And much like his great-grandfather, Hezekiah. And so we see here that it says that he began to go out and undo the things that were left from his grandfather and that his father had become involved in and began to increase.
That is, the building of idols and worship centers for the false gods and the various places that they would worship. He began to do that at a very young age, at twenty years of age. And it says here, and they break down the altars of Balaam.
Can you imagine? Manasseh had built altars to Balaam and Amnon, his son, had left them and not only left them, but encouraged the people to increase in their worship of Balaam. Because it says he did it more and more. That’s the first thing that he began to do, that Josiah did, is to begin to break down these false centers of worship.
And it’s interesting, the altars of Balaam, that was the very god, one of the gods that the northern kingdom of Israel was judged for worshipping. And that Elijah came against. And that Elijah killed all of their priests because of their wickedness.
And the result of their worship of that resulted in a total lack of honoring life as they killed their children. And a total, just a really disgusting culture that developed in Israel and that’s why God judged them. And then Manasseh brought that worship back and his son, Amnon, increased that worship.
But one of the first things that Josiah does is tear down those altars. Not only does he tear down the altars, he says, that were on high above them, he says, in the presence of, and the images that were on high above them, and he cut down, I’m sorry, in his presence and the images that were high above them, he cut down and the groves and carved images and the molten images, he break them in pieces and made dust of them and strode it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them. He wasn’t fooling around.
It wasn’t just that he took the altars and threw them in the valley of Hinnom. He ground them to dust. He destroyed them completely.
And then to show how disgusting it was, he took the remnants of what he had done, the dust and the sawdust and whatever, and scattered it all over the graves of those that had been the worshippers of these gods. And to show them to people, these gods can’t do anything to these people. And they’re not gods at all.
And I do not fear them because I worship the Lord. Then he goes on in verse 5. And he broke the bones of the priests upon their altars and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. The next thing he does is the priests.
And to do this was to show that this was really a form of judgment upon these priests. And he burned the bones, not in a bonfire out in the middle of the prairie. No, he burned the bones upon their own altars.
Where are their gods? Because they are no gods. And he was showing the people there’s nothing to fear in these demonic gods, but we worship the Lord. And one of the things that we have to be aware of as Christians today is we have to understand that Satan has his tactics and he comes against us.
But the thing is, we do not have to fear because we worship the true and the living God. We can come against all the false gods of this world and tell them, the people, what they really are. They’re false gods.
And we can show the results of what happens when you worship them. Our culture today is a reflection of the transfer of the people of America from worshiping the true and the living God to worshiping the false gods that Satan has presented to us. And they come in many forms.
And we talked a little bit about them on Sunday morning services. But the thing is, we need to understand that we as Christians are the ones who need to speak out against them. Because if we don’t, who will? No one will.
Because the world will be drawn in to worship them and do what they say. And the despicable things that we see in our own culture are things that are happening. We see many, many children that are being literally kidnapped and no one knows where they’re at.
There’s hundreds of thousands of children in America that have either been brought in illegally across our borders in the last four years or have been stolen and kidnapped in our own country. And no one knows where they’re at. And that’s a sign of a lack of appreciating the sanctity of life and the sanctity of the family and the importance of raising the next generation.
Instead, our culture today has many people in it who want to destroy the next generation. And they want nothing to do with preserving life. They would rather give money to Planned Parenthood and they want to promote abortions even after a child is born because they are a death cult.
They are no different than the false gods that had come into Israel that Josiah is tearing down their temples. And when you have senators standing and saying how important it is that we give women the right to kill their baby after it’s born, you’ve got a real, real spiritually and moral problem in our nation. And we need to act as Josiah and come against it and be unafraid to come against it.
He wasn’t afraid. And he did these things. And it says here, And so did he in all the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim.
Now where were Manasseh and Ephraim? They were the sons of Joseph. And those two parts of land were what was in Samaria in the northern kingdom of Israel. Josiah did not stop just in Jerusalem and Judah where he was at.
But he went to Manasseh and Ephraim as well. They were the member during the time of Hezekiah. He had called for Manasseh and Ephraim to come down and worship and partake in the Passover service in Jerusalem.
And it ended up where some of those people who were left in the land after the Assyrians had taken out a lot of the people, they left some there, they did come down and worship. Josiah goes up there and begins to do the same thing he did in Jerusalem and Judah in Ephraim and Manasseh. And the significance of that is it’s in the land of those two, it’s in Bethel, that the false center of worship had been set up way back by Jeroboam I where a golden calf had been set up to worship.
It’s in that portion of Israel that the false worship had been established of other gods. And he went up there and got rid of them all. The interesting thing is Jehu was commanded by God to do that, and Jehu was told he’d be blessed if he did.
He did part of it, but he didn’t do the whole thing. He didn’t follow through. One thing you see with Josiah, just like his great-grandfather Hezekiah, they went in and they poured everything down.
Josiah even to a greater extent than his great-grandfather. And it says here, And so did he in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon. Where is Simeon? Simeon was part of Judah.
He went into Simeon and poured down the false places of worship there in the idol. And in Naphtali with their maddocks round about. And in Naphtali would be way up in the more northern part towards the Sea of Galilee would be Naphtali’s place.
So he went to much of the whole nation of Israel that the descendants of Jacob had been promised and given. He went to much of the whole nation cleaning out the idols, cleaning out the centers of worship, cleaning out the false gods. And then it says, And when he had broken down the altars and groves and had beaten the graven images into powder and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.
Now in the 18th year of his reign, so now he would be 26 years old. When he had purged the land and the house, he sent Japheth, the son of Azaliah and Maseiah, the governor of the city, and Joah, the son of Joahad, the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord with God. So the first thing he does is just like Hezekiah.
He tears down everything and then he goes about to repair the house of God. And he wants the people to have a place where they can come and worship the Lord as the Lord had commanded them to do. You see here in verse 9. And when they came to Hilkiah, the high priest, they delivered the money that was sought into the house of God, which the Levites had kept, the doors had gathered of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim and of all the remnant of Israel and of all Judah and Benjamin, and they returned to Jerusalem.
And so we see that the Levites went out and collected the money. What was the money for? To repair the house of the Lord. And they collected it from everybody.
Because they were showing the people you need to identify with the true God, not these false gods. I tore down all the riddles because we went through the whole land and did it. And now he’s going through the whole land and saying your allegiance needs to be God and it needs to be expressed by your gifts to the Lord, which I command you to give for the support and repairs of his house and maintenance of his house.
And so he did this. And the people gave. Ephraim and Manasseh, remember way back during the time of Hezekiah when they were first approached, they mocked the servants of Hezekiah who had gone out to call them to come and worship at the Passover.
These now don’t mock this time. They give. And they give willingly towards the repairs of the house of God.
Verse 10. And they put it in the hand of the workmen that had the oversight of the house of the Lord. And they gave it to the workmen that brought the house of the Lord to repair and amend the house.
Even to the artifactors and the builders gave it to build hewn stone and timber for coupling and to floor the houses which the kings of Judah had destroyed. Now I want you to understand. It wasn’t the armies of Assyria.
It wasn’t the armies of Syria. It wasn’t the Amalekites. It was the kings of Judah that had destroyed the house of the Lord.
It was Manasseh. It was Amnon. It was others that had come before them that had destroyed the house of the Lord.
If you can imagine that. These were the people that God had called to represent Him and to be His people, yet they had so turned against Him that they destroyed His house. And remember, during the time of Manasseh, he had done horribly wicked things.
Even setting up centers of worship to idols and setting up idols within the temple. And so now they come in and they’re repairing it. They’re repairing all the damage that had been done and restoring the temple again so that it can be honored to worship the Lord.
And the men did the work faithfully. And the overseers of them were Jeha and Obadiah of the Levites, of the sons of Moriah and Zechariah and Meshulam, of the sons of the Poethites, who set it forward. And other of the Levites, all that could still of instruments of music.
But they were over the bearers of burden and were overseers of all that wrought of the work and the manner of service. And of the Levites, there were scribes and officers and porters. And so you see, Josiah set up and he put it in charge of those that got it and instructed to be the ones that would take care of the house.
He instructed the Levites to go in and they were to take care of the repairs and they would take care of the repairs in the various areas that they were responsible for. And so he put a structure in place where they were over, others were over the builders, the Levites, the porters, and then the builders. And so it was an organization so it could get done very quickly and get done correctly because the Levites should understand in their responsibility what the house of the Lord should look like, what the function of the house of the Lord should be, and they should do it so the Lord could be honored once again in the land of Judah.
I think it’s amazing that Josiah went throughout the whole land. Hezekiah did not. Hezekiah went through Judah, Jerusalem, and some of the surrounding areas, but Josiah went throughout the whole land and got rid of the idols, the temples, of those Israelites that were still left in the land.
And so you see that Josiah, at a young age, became a man. And he was a man
Amon was two and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned two years in Jerusalem.
22 But he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, as did Manasseh his father: for Amon sacrificed unto all the carved images which Manasseh his father had made, and served them;
23 And humbled not himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself; but Amon trespassed more and more.
24 And his servants conspired against him, and slew him in his own house.
25 But the people of the land slew all them that had conspired against king Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead.
Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem one and thirty years.
2 And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand, nor to the left.
3 For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images.
4 And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them.
5 And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.
6 And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about.
7 And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.
8 Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land, and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God.
9 And when they came to Hilkiah the high priest, they delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites that kept the doors had gathered of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, and of all Judah and Benjamin; and they returned to Jerusalem.
10 And they put it in the hand of the workmen that had the oversight of the house of the Lord, and they gave it to the workmen that wrought in the house of the Lord, to repair and amend the house:
11 Even to the artificers and builders gave they it, to buy hewn stone, and timber for couplings, and to floor the houses which the kings of Judah had destroyed.
12 And the men did the work faithfully: and the overseers of them were Jahath and Obadiah, the Levites, of the sons of Merari; and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the sons of the Kohathites, to set it forward; and other of the Levites, all that could skill of instruments of musick.
13 Also they were over the bearers of burdens, and were overseers of all that wrought the work in any manner of service: and of the Levites there were scribes, and officers, and porters.
14 And when they brought out the money that was brought into the house of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of the Lord given by Moses.
15 And Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan.
16 And Shaphan carried the book to the king, and brought the king word back again, saying, All that was committed to thy servants, they do it.
17 And they have gathered together the money that was found in the house of the Lord, and have delivered it into the hand of the overseers, and to the hand of the workmen.
18 Then Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath given me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king.
19 And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes.
20 And the king commanded Hilkiah, and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Abdon the son of Micah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah a servant of the king’s, saying,
21 Go, enquire of the Lord for me, and for them that are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that is found: for great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured out upon us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord, to do after all that is written in this book.
22 And Hilkiah, and they that the king had appointed, went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvath, the son of Hasrah, keeper of the wardrobe; (now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college:) and they spake to her to that effect.
23 And she answered them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Tell ye the man that sent you to me,
24 Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the curses that are written in the book which they have read before the king of Judah:
25 Because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands; therefore my wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and shall not be quenched.
26 And as for the king of Judah, who sent you to enquire of the Lord, so shall ye say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel concerning the words which thou hast heard;
27 Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou heardest his words against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, and humbledst thyself before me, and didst rend thy clothes, and weep before me; I have even heard thee also, saith the Lord.
28 Behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace, neither shall thine eyes see all the evil that I will bring upon this place, and upon the inhabitants of the same. So they brought the king word again.
29 Then the king sent and gathered together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.
30 And the king went up into the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the Levites, and all the people, great and small: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant that was found in the house of the Lord.
31 And the king stood in his place, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant which are written in this book.
32 And he caused all that were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand to it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers.
33 And Josiah took away all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel, and made all that were present in Israel to serve, even to serve the Lord their God. And all his days they departed not from following the Lord, the God of their fathers.