Obedience of Josiah

“Then Saphan the scribe told the king saying: ‘Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.’ And Shaphan read it before the king.  Thus it happened, when the king heard the words of the Law, that he tore his clothes.” (2 Chronicles 34:18-19)

  Josiah was eight years old when he became king. His grandfather had been Hezekiah and had been a great king in Judah "And he did what was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all his father David had done." (2 Chron. 29:2) But Josiah’s father was Manasseh "But he did evil in the sight of the LORD, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel." (2 Chron. 33:2)

    Josiah had become king only one generation after the rule of a righteous king and now everything had changed because of the evil deeds of his own father. He and his people had no knowledge of what God had instructed the people of Israel through Moses when they had been led out of Egypt and entered the Promised Land they now occupied.  Now he was suddenly able to hear the Word of God as it had been written down and he knew that his nation was in sin and was not worshiping the God who was responsible for their very existence as a nation and as a called out people for God.

   He understood after hearing the Word of God that he and his people needed to change. So he commanded the high priest, Hilkiah: “Go, inquire of the LORD for me, and for those who are left in Israel and Judah, concerning the book that is found; for great is the wrath of the LORD that is poured out on us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the LORD, to do according to all that is written in the book.” (2 Chron. 34:21) And then Hilkiah went and sought out a prophetess named Huldah (yes there are women prophetess’s in the Bible!) and asked her to find out what God would say. She said that the Lord told her that there would be great calamity on the people because they had forsaken God and burned incense to false gods and that His wrath would not be quenched. 

  Then she related the following: “But as for the king of Judah….thus says the LORD God of Israel: ‘because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and against its inhabitants, and you humbled yourself before Me, and you tore your clothes and wept before Me, I also have heard you,’ says the LORD. (2 Chron. 34:26-27)

   God  promised to allow him to die before all of the dire prophecies concerning Judah and Israel would be accomplished. Then the king gathered the elders of Judah and Israel and they all went together to the house of the Lord. “And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant (First five books of the Bible) which had been found in the house of the LORD. Then the king stood in his place and made a covenant before the LORD, to follow the LORD, and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statues with all his heart and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book.” (2 Chron. 34:30b-31)

What about you? Are you a faithful reader of God’s Holy Word, the Bible? And more importantly are you obeying those things that the Holy Spirit reveals to you when you do read or hear it preached in God’s house? Are you struck in the heart when God’s word convicts you of sin? Unlike Josiah, we have never been without God’s Word unless we grew up in another faith that did not allow us to read it or in a part of the world where it was banned. But that should not be a problem now! We all have God’s word available in hundreds of languages and dozens of different translations in English.

  Take time today to read something from the New Testament, something from the Old Testament, and something from the Psalms and Proverbs. See if God doesn’t speak to your heart and draw you closer to Him! (Then repeat the process daily for the rest of you life!)

“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” (Psalm 119:105)

“Thy word I have hid in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” (Psalm 119:11)

 “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. (James 4:8a)

PRAY

1.    Lord help me to be faithful to read your Word everyday. Open the eyes of my heart to understand and to have a desire to obey whatever Your Word tells me.

2.    Thank You that there are so many ways I can gain access to Your words that have been written down for me and all who would be your disciples.

3.    We praise You for You  are always with us through good times and hard times and You always want what is best for us.

  

  

Holy Spirit Prayer

  “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weakness. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” (Romans 8:26-27)

   Perhaps you are suffering now or you are going through a tough period of trials in your job, your family relationships, or direction for your life. You do not really know how you should pray or what you should be praying for. Not to worry, if you are a born again believer the Holy Spirit lives within you and He will pray for you. My wife and I recently read a book entitled Suffering by Paul David Tripp. He does an awesome job of explaining what the Holy Spirit does for you when you don’t know how or just emotionally cannot bring yourself to pray. (He knows something of suffering. He was suddenly hit with a disease in the prime of his life that put him in excruciating pain for days and then required numerous surgeries over a period of six months and he still is unable to do physically the things he loves to do.) Here is what he has to say:

  “Pain is painful, and it is painful not only in a physical, relational, situational way but also spiritually and emotionally. There are times when we are so confused that we do not know what in the world we are supposed to pray for. There are times when we are so emotionally distraught that the words just won’t come. In my suffering there were times of unbearable pain when all I could do was pray, ‘Lord, help me! Lord, help me!’

    In your pain, God doesn’t require that you pray biblically literate, theologically rich prayers. He doesn’t reject your prayers because you don’t have the right words, spoken in the right way. In fact, when prayer is hard, he not only doesn’t reject you; he offers you help. And the help he offers is not a lesson in how to pray when it’s hard to pray. The help He gives is Himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit. When you don’t know what to cry, He carries your cries to the Father. The Spirit, who knows your heart and what you need, turns your groanings into words.

   You see, in your most confused and emotional moments, you are far from alone because God blesses you with His intervening grace. Verses 26-27 tell you that at the very moment you’re groaning, the Spirit is representing you and your needs to the Father. God knows what you are going through and is not unkind so as to reject messy, chaotic, emotional prayers offered in your moment of need. He carries them to the throne of God where they will be heard and answered. When no one hears and understands your cries, in those moments when it feels useless to cry, God listens, hears, and answers. He always greets your groanings without judgment. You don’t have to rehearse your prayers, you don’t have to wait until you’re more composed and able to think clearly, and you don’t have to worry that you’ll say the wrong thing. Your Lord listens with a tender and sympathetic heart, and he makes sense of groans that no one else could ever make sense of. He answers not because of what’s in you but because of the grace that’s in Him.” (Suffering by Paul David Tripp, pp137-138)

  Are you in pain today? Are you confused about a decision you have to make? Do you need God to deliver you from a giant or help you cross the Red Sea? Cry out to Him today and don’t worry about how you sound or look. He knows your pain. He hears your cry! 

Pray:

1.    God I cry out to you today to come and deliver me from the pain in my life! Help carry me through the next minute, hour, and day.

2.    Thank you God that You will never leave me nor forsake me. You are my “Strong tower,” "my shield," and my "shelter from the storm!"

3.    Help me never to forget that when all men forsake me, that I can always depend on You and You alone.