And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and walked in the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right or to the left. Sermons
I. HIS EARLY ACCESSION. "Josiah ['Whom Jehovah heals'] was eight years old when he began to reign" (ver. 1). Manasseh, Uzziah, and Joash had been twelve, sixteen, and seven respectively when they ascended the throne. Generally speaking, it is perilous to have greatness thrust upon one at too early an age; sometimes premature responsibility calls forth capacities that might otherwise have continued latent. Edward VI., who assumed the crown of England in his tenth year, Charles IX., who was of the same age when he was raised to the throne of France, and Kang Hi (A.D. 1661), who became Emperor of China in his seventh year, were examples of the truth here stated. II. HIS FERVENT RELIGION. Josiah's piety was: 1. Ancestral. If his father Amen was not a good man, but the opposite - an insensate idolater and a hardened trangressor (2 Chronicles 33:22, 23) - his mother Jedidah, "Beloved," the daughter of Adaiah of Boscath (2 Kings 22:1), may have been a good woman, who, like Eunice of later times (2 Timothy 1:5), nurtured her son in the fear of Jehovah. Besides, as that son was six years of age before Manasseh died, he may have received from his aged grandfather such instructions as disposed him to the choice of the true religion of Jehovah. In any case, in him was reproduced the piety of the best sovereigns that had preceded him - in particular of Hezekiah, Jotham, Jehoshaphat, and David. 2. Early. "In the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father" (ver. 3). Youthful piety, of which Scripture furnishes numerous examples - Samuel (1 Samuel 2:26), Abijah (1 Kings 14:13), Obadiah (1 Kings 18:12), John (Luke 1:80), Jesus (Luke 2:52), Timothy (2 Timothy 1:5) - while beautiful in all, is specially attractive in princes. King Edward VI., besides being a good linguist, "had a particular regard for the Holy Scriptures" (Bishop Burnet). That religion which begins in youth is most likely to be permanent, and certain to be most useful. Christ commends religion to the young (Matthew 6:33). 3. Sincere. (1) Earnest and active, not merely nominal and formal: "He began to seek after the God of David his father," which meant that he inquired after and practised the rites and commandments of the true religion. (2) Humble and obedient, not proud and self-willed: "He did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father" (ver. 2), in so far, i.e., as he walked in the ways of Jehovah. (3) Persevering and thorough, not intermittent and incomplete: "He turned not aside to the right hand or to the left" (ver. 2). III. HIS ZEALOUS REFORMATION. I. The period of it. Beginning in his twelfth year of reign, i.e. the twentieth of his life, and terminating in his eighteenth year of reign, or the twenty-sixth of his life, it occupied six years in all (vers. 3, 8). 2. The scene of it. (1) Jerusalem, the metropolis of the kingdom. Reformations, like charity, should begin at home. Many would reform others who have no heart to reform themselves (Song of Solomon 1:6). (2) Judah, of which Jerusalem was the capital. Though "beginning at Jerusalem," Josiah's reformation should not end there. A good king will give his first thoughts to the improvement of himself; his second, to the improvement of his capital, where his court sits and whence his laws proceed; his third, to the improvement of his land and people; his fourth, to the improvement of cities, empires, nations beyond, as far as lies within his power. (3) The cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, in their ruins round about. A good. king will extend his influence as widely as possible, and in particular strive to be helpful to those peoples in his vicinity that are less enlightened or more necessitous than himself. 3. The manner of it. With "The violence - probably hinted at in the phrase, with their axes" (ver. 6, margin). "The reformation executed by the king was earnestly intended; it was thorough, it was comprehensive; but it was above everything violent" (Ewald, 'History of Israel,' 4:237). This appears more distinctly from 2 Kings (2 Kings 23:4-20). But the extirpation of religious, no more than of political abuses, can be carried out without a degree of harshness. Privileged iniquity in Church or in state is always difficult to dislodge. 4. The extent of it. Judah, Jerusalem, and the Israelitish cities already mentioned were purged from high places, Asherim, images and altars (vers. 3-7). Particularly (1) the altars of the Baalim were broken down in the young king's presence, the sun-images above them being hewn down at his command (ver. 4); (2) the Asherim or "pillars and trees of Asherah" (Keil), with the graven and molten images connected with the impure worship of Astarte, were broken in pieces, and their dust (after burning) strewn upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them (ver. 4) - the Book of Kings speaking of the removal of the Asherah from the house of the Lord, and the destruction of the houses of the infamous women who wove tents for the idol (2 Kings 23:6, 7); and (3) the bones of the priests who had sacrificed at the heathen shrines having first been exhumed from their graves, were burnt upon the altars at which the priests had ministered before these were destroyed. LESSONS. 1. The beauty of early piety. 2. The excellence of Christian zeal. 3. The difficulty of executing reformations. - W.
And when they brought out the money that was brought into the house of the Lord Sunday School Times. I. SPIRITUAL DESOLATION.1. The negligent priesthood (ver. 5). 2. The dilapidated temple (ver. 7). 3. The perverted utensils (ver. 7). II. ABUNDANT OFFERINGS. 1. Opportunity to give (ver. 8). 2. Called to give (ver. 9). 3. Giving cheerfully (ver. 10). III. EFFECTIVE WORK. 1. Skilled workmen (ver. 12). 2. Diligent service (ver. 13). 3. Renewed devotion (ver. 14). (Sunday School Times.) 2. The discovery of "the book of the law" gave Josiah a new basis for faith. He must have felt when he read it, that he was supernaturally strengthened in his great task of reformation. There are few of us who do not desire to have our various undertakings approved by those in whose sagacity and moral discernment we trust. Josiah undertook his work with a new heart, for he felt that the Lord was with him. 3. We have here suggested the broad distinction between our certainty of what seems to be true and our certainty of what is vouched for as true by the Word of God. 4. This discovery of the law enlarged Josiah's conception of duty. The knowledge that came to him and to the nation, through this book, was what a flash of light is to a ship on a dangerous coast; the light reveals the rocks upon which she nearly struck; it also reveals the safe channel and the course to the harbour. The Bible performs this double office for all to whom it comes. It reveals sin; and it discloses the path to a better life. God's prohibitions are not restrictions upon life, but protections to it. God's calls to men are calls to blessedness. 5. This narrative illustrates the way truth enters a human life and recreates it. 6. Two reflections. (1) (2) (G. E. Horr.) 1. Knowledge of the truth was lost. 2. True religion passed away. 3. The services of the temple ceased. 4. The sanctuary was polluted. 5. False religion "came in like a flood." "The land was full of idols." 6. "Crimes of violence and deeds of oppression abounded everywhere." When man ceases to fear God he begins to hate his fellow-man. 7. " Immorality was rampant." Morality does not live without religion. 8. Misery and final destruction followed. II. THE RESULTS OF FINDING THE LAW. 1. False religion was put away. 2. The people repented and turned to God. 3. The truth was learned. 4. The temple was beautified and opened for services. 5. A measure of mercy was found. 6. The truth was handed down to other ages.Miscellaneous lessons: 1. Temple and services are vain without the truth. 2. Those who seek to serve God discover his will 3. When men desire to do wrong they hate the Word of God. 4. The Bible will survive all efforts of man to destroy it. 5. Where leaders set an example of piety the people follow. 6. Sin, vice, misery, and destruction come where the truth is not possessed. 7. If the times are bad we should hold up the law of God. 8. The Bible is a lost book to those who 9. Every child should own, read, and love the Bible. 10. One can be loyal to God amid the most opposing surroundings. 11. One's course in childhood generally determines what the youth and manhood will be. 12. The world greatly needs the services of children and men and women of righteousness. (J. E. Jacklin.) I. THE DISCOVERY OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW. We see here —1. A striking instance of the indestructibleness of God's Word. It has a charmed life. 2. That honest efforts after reformation are usually rewarded by clearer knowledge of God's will. If Hilkiah had not been busy in setting wrong things right, he would not have found the book in its dark hiding-place. We are told that the coincidence of the discovery at the nick of time is suspicious. So it is, if you do not believe in Providence. If you do, the coincidence is but one instance of his sending gifts of the right sort at the right moment. 3. That the true basis of all religious reform is the Word of God. The nearest parallel is Luther's finding the dusty Latin Bible among the neglected convent books. Faded flowers will lift up their heads when plunged into water. The old Bible, discovered and applied anew, must underlie all real renovation of dead or moribund Christianity. II. THE EFFECT OF THE REDISCOVERED LAW. If a man will give God's Word a fair hearing, and be honest with himself, it will bring him to his knees. No man rightly uses God's law who is not convinced by it of his sin, and impelled to that self-abased sorrow of which the rent royal robes were the passionate expression. The first function of the law is to arouse the knowledge of sin, as Paul profoundly teaches. Without that penitential knowledge religion is superficial, and reformation merely external. III. THE DOUBLE-EYED MESSAGE OF THE PROPHETESS. Josiah does not seem to have told his messengers where to go; but they knew, and went to a very unlikely person, the wife of an obscure man, only known as his father's son. Where was Jeremiah of Anathoth? Perhaps not in the city at the time. This embassy to Huldah is in full accord with the high position which women held in that state, of which the framework was shaped by God Himself. In Christ Jesus "there is neither male nor female," and Judaism approximated much more closely to that ideal than other lands did. Huldah's message has two parts. 1. The confirmation of the threatenings of the law. 2. The assurance to Josiah of the acceptance of his repentance and gracious promise of escape from the coming storm.These two are precisely equivalent to the double aspect of the gospel, which completes the law, endorsing its sentence and pointing the way of escape. (A. Maclaren, D.D.) \ 1. It is lost to nations. Sometimes kings and governments forbid its circulation. 2. In communities where it freely circulates in the vernacular of the people — by misconstruction, false teaching and disregard. 3. It is lost to individuals by the way they treat it. How many a man suffers the Bible to lie in his home unused, dust-covered, like the sacred roll in the Temple, until it be almost forgotten! How many cast it away because it reproves them as it reproved the wicked kings of Judah! II. DEGENERACY INEVITABLE WITHOUT IT. The Word of God is the great source and conservator of moral life and health. It is sunlight to the moral world. It is the invigorating element in the moral atmosphere. No more surely do plants grow pale without sunlight, or animal life grow feeble without oxygen, than all that makes a worthy life in man, individual or collective, wanes and fails when deprived of the Word of God. How true was this of Judah! When the Word of God was lost, the nation sunk rapidly into wickedness and consequent weakness. False religion ran riot. The smoke of incense to heathen gods filled the land. The consciences of the people were debauched. And whenever the Word of God has been lost by prohibition or neglect, the downward tendency of national life has been marked. Other elements of strength may have withstood it, and, for a time, upheld with seeming success the fabric of state. But, the best elements being wanting, degeneracy and feebleness sooner or later inevitably appear. But illustrations of the matter under consideration are more open to observation in regard to communities. Whenever the Word of God is not set on high, and honoured as the arbiter in morals, the teacher in religion, and the guide in life, there wickedness and vice will prevail. But individual life furnishes the best illustration. Without the word of God abiding in the mind and regnant in the life, deterioration in all things good certainly supervenes. Take out of a man's life the distinctive truths of the Divine revelation, and he is utterly exposed. Every avenue of his being is open to temptation. He will surely run down, sink to a lower plane, and ordinarily to a plane lower and lower the longer he lives. How many parents weep over sons and daughters tarnished, degraded, lost, because they would not heed the voice of God! III. ITS EFFECT WHEN FOUND. 1. In the case of Josiah, it was astonishment. That such a book should have existed, stating so clearly the Divine will, so full of denunciations against the sins of the land, filled him with amazement. This is natural and legitimate. Only let men to whom the Bible has been lost wake to the solemn reality that its statements are everlasting truth, and that they will hold with unrelaxing energy in life, in death, and in eternity, and amazement must overwhelm them. "Is it possible that these things are true and I have not realised them?" 2. Another effect was to set him to earnest study. God was speaking. It was necessary for him to know what was said that he might order his conduct accordingly. Investigation of the Bible follows naturally a realisation of its nature. 3. Another result was to awaken anxiety. Study of the "book of the law" revealed his true condition. And so it is always. The Bible does not create the facts of our existence, but it does reveal them. In it we see our necessities and our danger. The past is marked with sin, the present full of corruption; the future forbidding, through fear of coming doom. 4. Again, the Bible found leads to repentance and reformation. How thorough was it in the case of Josiah! How deeply he deplored the sins of the land, how strenuously put them away! So it is always. It shows men what they are, and what they have done. It reveals the intensity of their sinfulness and the multitude of their sins. New thoughts, new desires, new affections, new purposes dwell within; new conduct, new habits mark the external life. And the same thing occurs in a wider field. Communities are waked to newness of life by finding the Bible. All this is true of tribes and nations. Many are the nations which have been revolutionised by it in the past, and it is doing the same to-day. Freedom of conscience attends the Bible, and civil liberty follows close behind. The Bible is the charter of the world's hope and the mainspring of its reformation. How sad is the thought that to so many of our race there is no Bible! (Monday Club Sermons.) 2. How one good thing leads to another. First "walking in the way of the Lord"; then interest in the house of the Lord; then the book found. 3. The connection between pecuniary integrity and the Divine blessing. When they brought the money they found the book. 4. How many old things are new to us when we are in trouble and distress of mind. 5. The age of sixteen is a time of his life which no man ever forgets. 6. Devotedness to God at sixteen is so great a step in the life of a youth that it cannot be alone; you must make another onward into the sphere of spirit and of life. 7. God always finds some work to do for those who are His. 8. There is no deeper distress possible to us than that which pierces us in the discovery of our enmity to God. (B. Kent, M.A.) I. We should lose THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUE GOD. Mankind needs a book to keep alive in the earth the knowledge of a spiritual and personal God. II. We should lose sooner or later OUR INSTITUTIONS OF BENEVOLENCE. III. We should lose OUR INSTITUTIONS FOR POPULAR EDUCATION. Popular education is of Bible origin. Other than Christian religions build themselves on the ignorance of the masses. IV. We should lose sooner or later OUR INSTITUTIONS OF CIVIL LIBERTY. History shows that the great charter of freedom in the world is the Word of God. The great free nations of the earth are the great Christian nations. (A. Phelps.) 8253 faithfulness, examples Josiah and the Newly Found Law The History Books Josiah, a Pattern for the Ignorant. Covenanting Performed in Former Ages with Approbation from Above. Chronicles |
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