Monday, July 29, 2024

Josiah Reigns in Judah

  

2 Chronicles 34:1-7

 

September 23, 2023

 

Josiah Reigns in Judah

 

Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem.  And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.  For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David his father, and in the twelfth year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, and the carved and the metal images.  And they chopped down the altars of the Baals in his presence, and he cut down the incense altars that stood above them. And he broke in pieces the Asherim and the carved and the metal images, and he made dust of them and scattered it over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.  He also burned the bones of the priests on their altars and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.  And in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, and as far as Naphtali, in their ruins all around,  he broke down the altars and beat the Asherim and the images into powder and cut down all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

 

What a lesson for each of us to grasp.  Josiah, dad was wicked but his son chose at a very early age, to model a man who was very different than his dad.  Yes, he modeled the life of a great King, a man God called a man after His own heart.  I have been so blessed to have men like David in my life, my dad was such a man, and after him, God has sent me many men to guide me in the ways of God.  A few have been my pastors, but most have been businessmen who had a heart to invest in men.  They have been older and younger, men of valor.

 

How different would our world look if men who knew God, would invest in young men who the world has given up on?

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice

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