by Josiah was the last good king of Judah before God sent Judah into captivity. He became king at a very young age, and was moved in his heart to remove all of the idolatry from the country and to restore temple worship. He commanded the Levites to bring the Ark of the Covenant back to the temple.
With the heart he had for God, God spared the kingdom’s destruction until after Josiah died. In all of these things, Josiah had two faults:
1. He failed to realize that God uses both good and evil to accomplish his will. Had he read the earlier chronicles of Joshua’s battle in the land and the judges, he would have known that God left some enemies for Israel around to keep the Jewish people in check. He would also have known that, at times, people that were non-Jews were used of God to accomplish His tasks. Had he taken this into account, he should have
let the king of Egypt take on Assyria instead of going after him.
2. His son that followed had an evil heart, so Josiah did not invest in his children the save desire for God. Maybe his son’s apathy or idolatry was a result of the fact that God didn’t save his father from death by the Egyptian king. I don’t know that this side of glory we will ever know. The point is that we need to make sure to invest our children with the things of God.
At whom in your life are you looking and not getting an appropriate perspective? Some people that don’t approve of the President (or the last President for that matter) need to realize that the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, and though we may not agree with what he does, God has him there for a purpose.
For whom are you an example? Are you a good one?
