Introduction - Josiah

Josiah – Child King
INTRODUCTION

“Then they brought little children to Him, that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked those who brought them. But when Jesus saw it, He was greatly displeased and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.’ And He took them up in His arms, laid His hands on them, and blessed them” (Mark 10:13-16, NKJV).

How does one receive the kingdom of God as a little child? Clearly such qualities as: trustfulness, humility, obedience, teachableness, spontaneity, forgetfulness of injury, and a total lack of prejudice come to mind. The Apostle Paul wrote: “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ...” (Gal. 3:24, KJV). The New King James Version translates this verse in this way: “Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ...”

The Greek word, tutor, denotes a slave whose duty was to take care of a child until adulthood. The tutor escorted the child to and from school and controlled behavior at home. Tutors were often strict disciplinarians, causing those under their care to long for the day when they would be free from their tutor’s custody. In other words, the law serves as a schoolmaster or tutor, escorting us to Christ.

Since Christ revealed that to enter heaven, we must “receive the kingdom of God as a little child”, and since Paul revealed through inspiration that “the law was our schoolmaster” or “tutor to bring us to Christ”, it is both wise and prudent to study one of the most revealing and exciting examples from our schoolmaster (our tutor) regarding the way to receive God – as a child king received Him; Josiah – Servant of God.

We encourage a reading of 2 Chronicles 34-35. Thousands of years have rolled away since king Josiah lived and reigned; but his history is filled with instruction that never loses its freshness or power. He ascended the throne of his fathers during a time of peculiar gloom and heaviness. The tide of corruption had risen to its highest point; and the sword of judgment, long held back because of God’s patience and long suffering, was about to fall in terrible severity on the city of David. The brilliant reign of Hezekiah had been followed by a long and dreary period of fifty-five years under the sway of his son Manasseh; and the rod of correction had proven effective in leading this great sinner to repentance and amendment, yet no sooner had the scepter fallen from his hand than it was seized by his godless and impenitent son Amon, who “did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, as did Manasseh his father: for Amon sacrificed unto all the carved images which Manasseh his father had made, and served them; and humbled not himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself: but Amon trespassed more and more. And his servants conspired against him, and slew him in his own house...And the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead” (2 Chr. 33:22-25).

So, Josiah, a child of eight, found himself on the throne of David, surrounded by the accumulated evils and errors of his father and grandfather – by forms of corruption that had been introduced by no less a personage than Solomon himself. We encourage a reading of 2 Kings 22-23. There you will find a marvelous picture of the condition of things at the opening of Josiah’s history. There were “idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places, in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; those also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.”

Amazing that Kings of Judah, successors of David, would ordain priests to burn incense to Baal. Bear in mind that each of these kings of Judah was responsible to “write him a copy of the book of the law,” that he was to keep by him, and in which he was to “read all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law, and those statutes to do them” (See Deut. 17:18-19). But they had sadly departed from “all the words of the law” – ordaining priests to burn incense to false gods.

That’s not all; there were “horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun,” “at the entering in of the house of the Lord,” and “chariots of the sun,” and “high places which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon.”

All this is most solemn, and worthy of serious consideration by every Christian – not to be passed over as a mere fragment of ancient history. It is not as though we are reading the historic records of Babylon, or Persia, or Greece, or Rome. We would not marvel at the kings of those nations burning incense to Baal, ordaining idolatrous priests, and worshipping the host of heaven. But when we see kings of Judah, the sons and successors of David, children of Abraham, men who had access to the book of the law of God; men who were responsible to make that book the subject of their profound and constant study – when we see such men falling under the power of dark and debasing superstition, it sounds a warning voice, the likes of which we cannot with impunity refuse to heed. We should bear in mind that all these things have been written for our learning; and though we are not in danger of being led to burn incense to Baal, or to worship the host of heaven, yet we may be assured we have need to attend to the admonitions and warnings that the Holy Spirit has furnished us in the history of God’s ancient people. “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples; and they are written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Cor.10:11). These words of the inspired apostle, though directly referring to the actions of Israel in the wilderness, may nevertheless apply to the entire history of that people – a history fraught from first to last with deep instruction.

But how can we account for those gross and terrible evils into which Solomon and his successors were drawn? What was their origin? – Neglecting the Word of God. This was the source of the mischief and sorrow. Let all Christians remember this; let the whole church of our Lord remember it: neglect of Holy Scripture is the source of all errors and corruptions blotting the pages of Israel’s history that brought down on them many heavy strokes of Jehovah’s governmental rod. “Concerning the works of men, by the word of Thy lips, I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer” (Ps. 17:4). “From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Tim. 3:15-17).

In the above two quotations we have the Word of God presented in its twofold virtue; it not only perfectly preserves us from evil, but perfectly furnishes us unto all good – keeping us from the paths of the destroyer, while guiding us in the ways of God.

The diligent, earnest, prayerful study of Holy Scripture is important – to cultivate a spirit of reverential submission, in all things, to the authority of the Word of God. Notice how continually and how earnestly this was impressed on the ancient people of God. How often were such Holy Words as the following sounded in their ears. “Now therefore harken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you. Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you...Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep, therefore, and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all the statutes, and say, Surely, this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon Him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day? Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life; but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons” (Deut. 4:1-9).

Carefully notice that “wisdom and understanding” consist simply in having the commandments of God treasured in the heart. In view of the nations around them, this was to be the basis of Israel’s moral greatness. It was not the learning derived from the schools of Egypt, or from the Chaldeans. No; it was knowledge of the Word of God – the spirit of implicit obedience in all things to the holy statutes and judgments of the Lord their God, in all things. This was Israel’s wisdom; their true and real greatness; their impregnable bulwark against every foe – their moral safeguard against every evil.

The same is true with respect to God’s people in this age. Obedience to the Word of God is our wisdom, our safeguard – the foundation of all true moral greatness. Our wisdom is to obey. The obedient soul is wise, safe, happy, and fruitful. As it was, so it is. If we study the history of David¹ and his successors, we find (without a single exception) that those who obeyed the commandments of God were safe, happy, prosperous, and influential. And so it will always be. Obedience will always yield its own precious and fragrant fruit – not that its fruits should be our motive for rendering obedience; we are called to be obedient, irrespective of everything.

It is obvious that in order to be obedient to the Word of God, we must be acquainted with it; in order to be acquainted with it, we must carefully study it. We should study the Bible with an earnest desire to understand its contents, with profound reverence for its authority, and with an honest purpose to obey its dictates, whatever the cost. If, in this way, we study Scripture in some small degree, we can expect to grow in knowledge and wisdom.

However, there is a fearful amount of ignorance of Scripture in the religious world, as well as in the church of our Lord.² We are deeply concerned about this; therefore, our main object in calling attention to the subject of Josiah – Child King is to hopefully awaken the desire for a closer acquaintance with God’s Holy Word, and a bowing down of our whole moral being – heart, conscience, and understanding – to that perfect standard.

We feel the commanding importance of this subject, and, therefore, must discharge our sacred duty to the truth of God. The powers of darkness are rampant. The enemy is appallingly successful in drawing hearts after various forms of error and evil, casting dust in the eyes of God’s people, blinding the minds of men. True, we don’t have Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and Milcom; but we do have ritualism, infidelity, spiritualism, etc. We do not cry against burning incense to Baal, and worshipping the host of heaven, but we have something far more ensnaring and dangerous. We have the ritualistic, with his sensuous and attractive rites and ceremonies; we have the rationalist, with his learned and plausible reasonings – we have the spiritualist, boasted about conversations with spirits of the departed – and multitudes of other delusions and insidious attacks on God’s truth. Perhaps one of the most clever, deceitful, and damaging attacks by Satan on God’s truth is changing the foundation of salvation³ from a precious work of Jesus Christ to a work of mortal man, by changing “the faith of Christ” to “faith in Christ”⁴

Generally speaking, it is probably fair to say that few of us are daily alert to the real character and extent of these formidable influences. No doubt at this moment there are millions of souls throughout the length and breadth of the religious community building their hopes for eternity on the sandy foundation of ordinances, rites, creeds, dogmas, works, and ceremonies. There is a noticeable return to the traditions of the fathers, as they are called; an intense longing after those things that gratify the senses – music, showmanship, architecture, vestments, lights – all the appliances of a gorgeous and sensuous religion. Sound doctrine, worship, and discipline are considered insufficient to meet society’s religious cravings – it’s too severely simple to satisfy hearts longing for something tangible to lean on for support and comfort for those desiring to feed the senses.

As a result, there is a strong tendency toward ritualism in organized religious systems today. If the soul has not laid hold of the truth, if there is no living link with Christ, if the supreme authority of Holy Scripture is not firmly set in the heart, there is no safeguard against the powerful and fascinating influences of ceremonial religiousness. The most potent efforts of intellectualism, eloquence, and logic, are insufficient to hold that class of mind. They must have the forms and religious systems and offices; to such our society flocks; around such they gather; on such they build.

It is painfully interesting to observe the efforts put forth by organized religious systems to act on the masses and to keep people together. It is evident to the observant eye and the serious study of God’s Holy Word, that those who put forth such efforts must be sadly deficient believing the power of the Word of God and the cross of Christ that swayed the heart of the Apostle Paul. They are obviously not aware of the solemn fact that Satan’s grand object is to keep souls in ignorance of God’s revelation, hiding them the cross and person of Christ. To this end, Satan uses ritualism, rationalism, and spiritualism today, just as he used Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and Milcom in the days of Josiah. “There is nothing new under the sun.” The devil has always hated the truth of God, and he will leave no stone unturned to keep it from reaching and touching our hearts. Therefore, he offers rites and ceremonies to one, the powers of reason to another; and when we begin to tire of both, and begin to wish for something more satisfying, he offers conversation and communion with spirits of the departed. But, his bottom-line is leading souls away from the Holy Scriptures; from the blessed Savior those Scriptures reveal.

It is solemn and affecting to contemplate the lethargy and indifference of religious systems professing to have the truth. All Christians should feel deeply for children, growing up in the atmosphere presently surrounding us, an atmosphere growing darker and darker. We long to see more earnestness on the part of Christians in seeking to store the minds of children with the precious and soul-saving knowledge of the Word of God. The child Josiah, as well as the child Timothy, should incite us to greater diligence in the instruction of the young. We cannot afford to fold our arms, and say, “When God’s time comes, our children will be converted; and till then, our efforts are useless.” This is a fatal mistake. “God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11). He blesses our prayerful efforts in the instruction of children. Who can estimate the blessing of being led in the right way early in life – of having character formed amid holy influences, and the mind stored with what is true, pure, and lovely? On the other hand, who will undertake to estimate the evil consequences of allowing children to grow up in ignorance of Divine things? Who can portray the evils of a polluted imagination – of a mind stored with vanity, folly, and falsehood – of a heart familiarized from infancy with scenes of moral degradation? We do not hesitate to say that when we allow the enemy to preoccupy the minds of children at the very period when they are most susceptible, we incur very heavy and awful responsibility.

True, we need the power of the Holy Spirit – the young, as any other, “must be born again.” We all understand this. But does this fact touch our responsibility in reference to children? Is it meant to cripple our energies or hinder our earnest efforts? Assuredly not. We are called on by every argument, Divine and human, to shield little ones from evil influence; to train them in that which is holy and good. And not only should we do so with respect to children, but also to those around us, who are like sheep having no shepherd, and who may be saying, “No man careth for my soul.”

Footnotes:
¹ For more information on King David, see Life and Times of David in Religion Library section of Contents.
² For more information on the church of our Lord, see God’s Church in Contents.
³ For more information on salvation, see God’s Salvation in Contents.
⁴ When we understand Romans 3:21-26 we understand the Gospel, all of Romans and the Bible. The 1885 English Revised Version changed “the faith of Christ” to “faith in Christ” in Romans 3:22; Galatians 2:16, 2:20, 3:22; Ephesians 3:12; and Philippians 3:9. In his Commentaries on the Old and New Testament, Coffman concludes that the King James Version is a correct translation of all these verses, a fact confirmed by the total agreement of the Emphatic Diaglott in each case. James Macknight, Adam Clarke, as well as other older commentators, also agree with the King James Version translation of these verses – “the faith of Christ”, like the “faith of Abraham” in Romans 4:16. On this subject, a full-time minister wrote: “God provides righteousness to those who believe. If through the faith of Jesus – everybody would be saved.” A Bible professor wrote: “Both ideas...are biblical...” An elder of the church wrote: “The believer’s faith causes him to respond to that perfect justification which is and was brought by Christ in His obedience to God’s will of offering His son as the perfect atonement for all mankind (sins).” We concur with the elder, older commentators, and Coffman, whose commentary on this verse is a scathing rebuke of many modern-day professors and preachers, pointing out that we should stay with the King James Version in this verse, because changing it represents the same tampering with the Word of God that resulted in the monstrosity of changing “the righteousness of God” to “a righteousness” (Rom. 3:21 & Rom. 1:17). Coffman writes: “the true Scriptural justification by faith has absolutely no reference to the faith of stinking sinners, but to the faith of the Son of God. The only end served by this change was to bolster the faith only theory of justification.” He further writes: “the true grounds of justification cannot ever be in a million years the faith of fallible, sinful people, would appear to be axiomatic. How could it be? The very notion that God could impute justification to an evil man, merely upon the basis of anything that such a foul soul might either believe or do, is a delusion. Justification in any true sense requires that the justified be accounted as righteous and undeserving of any penalty whatever; and no man’s faith is sufficient grounds for such an imputation. On the other hand, the faith of Jesus Christ is a legitimate ground of justification, because Christ’s faith was perfect.” In the absolute sense, only Christ is faithful – “Faithful is he that calleth you” (1 Thess. 5:24). Only He is called “the faithful and true witness” (Rev. 3:14). The faith of Christ was also obedient; a perfect and complete obedience, lacking nothing. Therefore, we conclude that the sinless, holy, obedient faith of the Son of God is the only ground of justification of a human being – Christ only is righteously justified in God’s sight. How then are we saved? We are saved “in Christ,” having been incorporated into Him – justified as a part of Him. Our study prompts agreement with Coffman’s conclusion that faith is not the ground of our justification; it is not the righteousness which makes us righteous before God. The “faith of the Son of God” is the only basis for our justification, and that faith is definitely included in the “righteousness of God” mentioned in this verse. Even the righteousness of God through faith of Jesus Christ shows the principal constituent of God’s righteousness. In conclusion, God’s righteousness is the righteousness of Jesus Christ – His absolute, intrinsic, unalloyed righteousness – implicit in His perfect faith (mentioned here) and His perfect obedience (implied). The contrary notion that God’s righteousness is some imputation accomplished by the sinner’s faith is unfounded. Any righteousness that could commend itself to the Father and become the ground of anything truly worthwhile would, by definition, have to be a true and genuine righteousness. That righteousness was provided by the sinless life of the Christ, summarized in this verse as “through faith of Jesus Christ,” the idea being much clearer in the King James Version, “The righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ.” We concur with Coffman on this subject, including his final conclusion, “...the word believe in this verse refers to sinners” faith (believer’s faith) which is no part of God’s righteousness at all, but, like baptism, is but a mere condition of salvation – being neither more nor less important than baptism.”