Ignorance in the world may be bliss, in the spiritual world it is deadly. It invites trouble and above all it invites God’s wrath and judgment. The story of Josiah and the judgment of Judah illustrates how God’s judgment, once it has been pronounced through his prophets, will not be deterred.

Josiah was one of the finest kings the Jewish nation ever had. He was godly, obedient, and humble. The Bible testifies that Josiah “did right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the ways of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or the left.”

As a king, and as a man beloved of God, Josiah stands alongside David. He was a man after God’s own heart. But by the time the eight year-old Josiah came to the throne, God had already determined that judgment was going to soon fall on Judah. Even before Judah’s birth God had signaled the end of the nation through his prophets and the Lord had no intention of turning back judgment’s wrath, not even for one of the godliest kings Israel had known during its three hundred year monarchy.

Generations of evil had pressed God’s patience to exhaustion. Judah was overflowing with every kind of sin and perversion. Idolatry was the toast of Judaism; adultery, fornication violence, deceit, and bribery infested every part of its culture and society. Judgment had already fallen on the other half of the Jewish nation, Israel, when Assyria overran the ten tribes living in Judah’s sister state and dispersed them into surrounding nations as slaves. And Judah’s sins were even worse than those of her sister Israel!

For her abominable ways she was about to be destroyed. Yet standing under this “sword of Damocles” stood Josiah with his heart set on doing the will of God. Eighteen years into Josiah’s reign, when the king was twenty-six years old, a great thing happened to both him and the nation. In that year Josiah, impassioned in behalf of the Lord, began a restoration of the temple. He made the arrangements, began to raise the money and hire the workman and then suddenly, in the midst of the labor, the High Priest made an unbelievable discovery in the holy place. There, under the dust and among the cobwebs, Hilkiah found the book of the law, the Holy Scriptures, lost and long forgotten by the uncaring priests and religious leaders of ignorant Judah. The teachings in the book of the law had been ignored for so long that Josiah, though a full adult at the age of twenty-six, was completely unfamiliar with the contents and will of God’s law. The leader of God’s chosen people was ignorant as sin and as a nation the Jews were no better off than their king. All that remained of God’s will was a few measly traditional symbols that had been rendered meaningless by lsrael’s idolatrous ways.

Josiah was horrified when he heard what was written in the book of the law and what it expected of God’s people. Josiah could see his nation’s crimes. He could not help but see how ignorant, how blasphemous, how corrupt and idolatrous his people had become. In an open show of repentance he rent his clothes and wept before the Lord to show his sorrow. His tears were not only tears of sorrow however, for this young, godly man sensed that judgment was due.

The following day Josiah’s worst suspicions were confirmed when God sent a woman prophetess to tell Josiah what must be:

“Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the words of the book which the king of Judah hath read: because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands; therefore my wrath shall be kindled against this place, and shall not be quenched.

But to the king of Judah… because thine heart was tender and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord, when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and has rent thy clothes, and wept before me; I also have heard thee, saith the Lord. Behold therefore I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace; and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place.” 2 Kings 22 

Because of his repentant heart Josiah was spared the terror and grief of the coming horrors. For Judah, it was all over, but the crying. Judgment was on its way.

This young man could have chosen to ignore the revival of truth that came with the rediscovery of God’s word and carried on business as usual; that would have been the expedient thing to do. Instead, however, Josiah took the message to heart and immediately instituted a methodical and thorough cleansing of the nation. Anything that contradicted the book of the law was squelched. The law was read to all the people and, before the entire nation, Josiah made a covenant with God to keep everything that was written in the book. He purged the country of idolatry, he had the false prophets and witches slain and he cut off Judah’s connections with paganism. That year Josiah sponsored the feast of passover and its was kept like it had never been celebrated before, or after.

Josiah continued to follow God all the days of his life and for that God spared him from having to see judgment. At the age of 39 Josiah was “gathered to his fathers”, his kingdom in tact, his household still thriving, his honor still great. But it was time for judgment and not even God’s love for Josiah could stay its hand any longer. Three months after Josiah’s death the judgment of Judah began when King Jehoahaz, Josiah’s son, was killed by the armies of Pharaoh. After that Babylon and Egypt fought for control of Judah and eventually, the king that ascended to the throne, Jehoiakim, had his eyes plucked out and was taken bound like a slave, along with his people, into Babylon. For seventy years the Jews languished in Babylon.

If it were not for his repentant heart and his willingness to confess his ignorance, a similar fate would have most certainly been in store for Josiah. Instead, Josiah had this epitaph given him by God himself:

“Like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him.
   Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah…
   And the Lord said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and will cast off this city Jerusalem which I have chosen, and the house of which I have said, My name shall be there.”

Can this story be applied to today’s Church? Spiritually speaking there is very little difference between the Jew’s experience and that of the Church. Man’s heart is the same whether Jew or Gentile. Josiah lived at a time when judgment was about to fall; so do we. Josiah’s only escape was a repentant and fervent heart toward God; so it is with us. Josiah lived in an hour when God’s mercy was needed in a personal way to deliver one from the wrath to come; so too, we need God’s mercy and deliverance if we are to escape the coming judgment. There are many signs and warnings that give the Church cause to believe we are living in the final hours before Jesus’s return, and like Josiah’s generation, we could easily be the last generation of believers able to heed God’s word. The fullness of the Gospel of Christ has been “dusted off” by the Holy Ghost and a revival of knowledge concerning the great truths of Christ have permeated the Church like never before.

The wonderful truths of the New Testament have exposed the idolatry and perversion of the Church just as the resurfacing of the book of the law had exposed it in Josiah’s day. A love affair with the world has stolen the Church’s vision and knowledge, making her people and leaders ignorant as sin, just as it had in Israel. But it may be that God is staying his judgment for a moment thanks to the rain of the Holy Ghost which is producing a reign of repentance. Like Josiah, we too should be horrified when we see the awful ignorance concerning God’s word among his people. When we see it we should rent our hearts open, as Josiah rent open his clothes, in a show of repentance before God.

WE MUST KNOW THE TIMES

The end is drawing near, learn the lesson of Josiah and give your heart to God and escape the coming judgement.

There may have been a time when ignorance of the Scriptural truths concerning salvation, the Holy Ghost, the Jews, the fruits of the Spirit, fellowship, and judgment, was winked at by God. Who knows? None of us lived in those dark days of apostasy when false doctrine so ruled the Church that it may have been impossible for a man to climb out of the deep abyss of ignorance in just one lifetime. But that was then, and this is now, and one thing is certain; if we are to prosper spiritually we should know the times in which we live. It doesn’t take much spiritual discernment to understand that we live in a continual paradox, a time of both revival and impending judgment.

In our time, the Church (including all its denominations), has been visited by the Holy Ghost. In great power the Spirit of God has brought a “rebirth” of knowledge and faith. He has taken the apostate Christian world by storm and offered men and women of every denomination and walk of life a full and deep relationship with God. These are exciting days but perilous day, just as the apostle Paul declared they would be. Christ is ministering in a personal way, just as he did at his first coming, while God is preparing to judge the earth. We are living in the midst of the latter day rain prophesied by the prophet Joel. The great outpouring of the Spirit over the last two and a half decades and the revival of the nation of Israel in 1948 after two thousand years of lying dormant are the two greatest signs of the last days. The Church will do good to take heed. God is preparing for the big harvest, but do not be deceived, he is also preparing to plow the earth.

To shine with the saints in these last hours we must be willing to “unlearn” our apostate traditions and our preconceived notions about God and stop sinning the sins of the ignorant Church. We must thirst after God’s will. We must let the Holy Ghost tutor us in truth. Only then can we discover what God really means by love. What godly fruits really are. How we should view the Jews. And what the true essence and evidence of faith is. In each case we find that the notions the world presents and  “God’s ways are not man’s ways”. When we become born- again we also need to be schooled again.

If we profess Christ, and yet do not come to him as a child, but rather remain puffed up with religious pride, we will remain in darkness. If we live by some kind of bogus faith of the intellect and worship things falsely labeled as Jesus Christ then, in spite of our pious appearance or church membership, we remain captives of sin. In this way religion was a stumbling-block for Israel and it has been for the Church. We tend to be blind to our own ignorance. Light has come to the Church through this revival of truth for the last days, but not if we continue to worship in the old way, worshiping traditions and systems inherited.