Loving God With ALL You've Got

At the ripe old age of 18...yes, 18, not 81, King Josiah initiated a restoration project. His father and grandfather had allowed the temple of God to fall into ruins and idolatry to run rampant throughout the land. Josiah commissioned men to restore the temple, sparing no expense.

During the restoration, a copy of the Law of Moses was found, brought to the king and read to him. His reaction was not one of joy but of shock and horror. He knew immediately that God’s people had strayed from the Law and were deserving of God’s wrath.

Through a prophetess God sent word to Josiah that because of his humility and his proper reaction to the reading of the Law, His divine wrath would be withheld during the king’s lifetime.

The king then gathered all the leaders of the people, along with the people of the nation of Judah, and had the Law read to them.

The king...made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to carry out the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people entered into the covenant.

—2 Kings 23:3 (NASB95)

Then King Josiah began a tremendous restoration project, not only restoration of the temple, but also restoration of the relationship between the nation of Judah and God. The king…

• Brought all the vessels and idols devoted to foreign gods and goddesses out of God’s temple and burned them. He ground all that was left into dust.
• Broke down all the high places and altars devoted to foreign gods as well as the housing directly associated with the idolatry.
• Destroyed Topheth, in the valley of Hin-nom, the place where children had been sacrificed to the god Molech.
• Gathered the priests who had served the foreign gods, presumably Levites, and did not allow them to serve at the altar of God, yet allowed them to live among their brothers and eat the food according to the Law.
• Slaughtered the high priests of the foreign gods and removed mediums and spiritists.

Then King Josiah restored the Passover, and it was a celebration unlike any before it, going all the way back to the days of the judges.

Before him there was no king like him who 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; nor did any like him arise after him. (v. 25)

With passion and unwavering commitment King Josiah turned toward God. He loved God with all his heart. At age 18 he stepped forward and, with unflinching determination, carried out a great restoration. He loved God with the very essence of his being; he loved God with all his soul. His restoration was marked by careful planning, with intentional and deliberate actions. His purpose was rooted in what he read in God’s word. He loved God with all his mind.

In restoring God’s temple, there was to be no accounting, that is, no tracking of expenditures. When destroying idolatry, Josiah went so far as to demolish, burn and grind into dust the things associated with idols. Nothing was left to restore idolatry. He loved God with all his might.

Young King Josiah is a picture of the greatest command, to love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength!

Mark Stinnett

April 18, 2021