Contrasting Leadership

2 Kings 23:4 ⁴ The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. 

So often people don’t know what right looks like. They don’t know what a healthy marriage looks like because they grew up around dysfunctional adult relationships. That is all they every saw, so they don’t know what a healthy relationship looks like, sounds like, acts like.

They don’t know how to carry out good discipline with children because all they ever saw was unhealthy, anger driven punishment. They don’t know what responsibility and perseverance mean because the adults in their home growing up kept blaming everyone else for their lost jobs and addictive behaviors. They didn’t have enough examples of right behavior modeled for them.

I love the way the Scriptures teach us such powerful lessons. So often accounts of events are placed side by side to show the right and the wrong way to respond. The best way to learn is often seeing the mistakes of others contrasted with someone doing it correctly. And the Scriptures are filled with examples of each.

Our text today tells the behavior of King Josiah in contrast to King Manasseh. The former king Manasseh had proliferated idol worship in Judah and Jerusalem. He had chosen to completely abandon the example he experienced under his father Hezekiah who faithfully followed the LORD. There were so many idols and false gods that is seems as though every corner of society was covered in them. (Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but the point is made.) He didn’t just tolerate them, he promoted their use.

Josiah, by contrast, went on a cleaning spree of idolatrous worship. He cleaned house. He burned the objects connected to the worship. He got rid of the priests who worked the idol angle. He tore down the working spaces for the Temple prostitutes and the workshops of trinket makers profiting from the idol trade. He went around his territory and did the same things, eliminating idol worship from the land.

And what made the difference for Josiah? He was confronted with the Word of God. In Josiah’s young heart, he was eight years old when he became king, he began physical repair of the Temple, the hotspot of God’s presence here on Earth. And during that time a copy of the Scriptures was found and passed along to the Josiah. He had it read to him and he responded in repentance.

But not only did he repent, he called on the whole nation to repent. He cleaned up the idol mess that the two previous kings had ignored. The idols were the reason for the judgment that was coming, and he wanted to make it right for himself and for the nation. He had genuine concern for what was going to happen because of the rebellious behavior of the nation over time.

But unlike Hezekiah who was thankful the judgment wouldn’t affect him, Josiah wanted to do everything in his power to be in right standing with the LORD.

Are we willing to do everything we can to be in right standing with the LORD? Can we follow in the footsteps of Josiah about whom it is written, “Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.” (2 Kings 23:25)

I hope so. I pray so.