NO LEADER BEFORE OR AFTER WHO WAS LIKE HIM!

I often read the OT texts about various kings (particularly Judean) and hear them compared to King David. I read comments like this, he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the ways of his father David…(or vice-versa). When I read those words my heart is gripped with the notion that I should go out and do likewise. I want to serve the Lord like David. I want to be a man after God’s own heart, like David. In my personal prayers, I ask God that I might be such a man, but without David’s sin. And I often add to my prayer that if God would spare me some of the terrible sufferings of David, I would be blessed. But I am willing to accept the choices of God in my life (his grace will be sufficient for whatever those choices are).

However, I noticed in my devotions this week, a slightly different level of measuring spiritual and leadership achievement among Judean kings. One Judean king stood out above all others including David. He read the Law of Moses and set out to obey without exception all that it commanded. …the king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul… But there is more to the story. He did what he covenanted with God he would do (unlike many of my promises to God which I did not carry through).

He brought out of the Temple all articles that were for Baal, Asherah, and the host of heaven. The articles were burned and the ashes carried to Bethel. He removed the idolatrous priests from Judah. He brought the wooden image out of the Temple, burned it at the Kidron, and ground it to ashes. He tore down the ritual booths of perverted persons that were in the House of the Lord. From Geba to Beersheba, he defiled the high places where priests had burned incense. He defiled Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom where babies were sacrificed in fire to Molech. He removed the horses that had been dedicated to the sun and burned the chariots. He broke down the altars that his grandfather had placed in the two courts of the Temple. He defiled the high places on the Mt. of Olives which Solomon had built to Ashtoreth and Milcom. Then he moved north into the former kingdom of Israel and accomplished a similar purging of Bethel and the cities of Samaria.

But his legacy goes on. Not only did he correct past sins in a ruthless manner, but he instituted proper observance of commanded holy days. The Word of God states that Passover had not been properly observed since the days of the Judges. Not in the time of Saul (not surprising), or David (very surprising), or Solomon, or any of their succeeding kings. This king ordered that Passover be observed according to the Law of Moses.

Is it any wonder that the Word of God says of this king: Now before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses; nor after him did any arise like him. Wow! Not even David, the man after God’s own heart, obeyed the Word of God like this king. His name was Josiah – II Kings 23. Even so, Father, may it be in my life.

                                                         Howard L. Wilburn