Lesson 8 for November 21, 2015

Since King Hezekiah died, Judah began to plunge into destruction. 1.Manasseh spread the most abominable sins including the ritual killing of his own children. 2.Manasseh repented, but the people had already known “the depths of Satan.” (Rev. 2:24) 3.Amon repealed the reforms of Manasseh with his acts. He brought the apostasy back.

“Yet those evil times were not without witnesses for God and the right. The trying experiences through which Judah had safely passed during Hezekiah’s reign had developed, in the hearts of many, a sturdiness of character that now served as a bulwark against the prevailing iniquity. Their testimony in behalf of truth and righteousness aroused the anger of Manasseh and his associates in authority, who endeavored to establish themselves in evil-doing by silencing every voice of disapproval… Faithfully the prophets continued their warnings and their exhortations; fearlessly they spoke to Manasseh and to his people; but the messages were scorned; backsliding Judah would not heed… Among those whose life experience had been shaped beyond recall by the fatal apostasy of Manasseh, was his own son… The wicked king was not permitted to reign long. In the midst of his daring impiety, only two years from the time he ascended the throne, he was slain in the palace by his own servants.” E.G.W. (Prophets and Kings, cp. 32, pg )

“But the people of the land executed all those who had conspired against King Amon. Then the people of the land made his son Josiah king in his place.” (2 Chronicles 33:25) Amon sowed violence and harvested violence. Those who killed him also harvested violence. The people’s reaction to the murder of the king was not any kind of “people’s democracy”, but a terrible lynching. They crowned a 8-year-old boy as a “puppet monarch” so they could perpetuate evil. Many wondered why God didn’t stop all that evil. The prophet Habakkuk was the audible voice of that group. God had already touched Josiah’s young heart.

“For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the wooden images, the carved images, and the molded images.” (2 Chronicles 34:3) Josiah sought God when he was 16. He began a movement of revival and reformation in Judah when he was 20. Six years after that, he focused his efforts on restoring the temple— the heart of Judah’s devotion to God. The reform had had an effect. For example, the people who repaired the temple became very honest: “there need be no accounting made with them of the money delivered into their hand, because they deal faithfully.” (2 Kings 22:7)

“Then Shaphan the scribe showed the king, saying, ‘Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.’ And Shaphan read it before the king. Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, that he tore his clothes.” (2 Kings 22:10-11) A true reform is more than superficial changes like smashing idols, renovating the temple or other external changes. More deep and lasting changes must come, and the Bible must always be the foundation. When Josiah found “the book of the law” (the Pentateuch or part of it) at the temple, he was profoundly touched. He understood the final consequences of their sins. He sent some people to visit the prophetess Huldah and ask God how to avoid the destruction of Judah (2 Kings 22:13-20).

“Then 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, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people took a stand for the covenant.” (2 Kings 23:3) God said that Judah was going to be inevitably destroyed, so was there any point on going on with revival and reformation? That’s was Josiah asked. Huldah’s answer is still valid today; humanity is condemned, but each one of us can accept salvation in an individual way. Therefore, Josiah decided to help as many people in his kingdom as possible to accept salvation.

Which were the reforms that Josiah carried out (2 Kings 23:4-24)? “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.” (2 Kings 23:25) He took the idolatrous articles out of the temple. He removed the idolatrous priests from the high places. He took the Asherah image out of the temple. He tore down the ritual booths in the temple. He defiled the high places and broke down the altars at the city gates. He defiled Tophet, so no one could sacrifice his own son to Molech. He removed the carts and horses made to worship the Sun. He broke down the pagan altars in the temple. He broke down the statues and images of Asherah. He destroyed the golden calf at Bethel. He killed the pagan priests. He celebrated the Passover.

“To be a reader of the Book of the law, containing a ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ Josiah regarded as the highest position that he could occupy.... The highest work of princes in Israel,—of physicians, of teachers in our schools, as well as of ministers and those who are in positions of trust in the Lord’s institutions,—is to fulfill the responsibility resting upon them to fasten the Scriptures in the minds of the people as a nail in a sure place, to use their God-given talent of influence to impress the truth that ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.’ For the leaders in Israel to extend a knowledge of the Scriptures in all their borders is to promote spiritual health; for God’s Word is a leaf from the tree of life.” SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 2. Ellen G. White notes on 2 Kings 23:2