Sat.’s Devo - Josiah’s Reforms

Read: 2 Chronicles 33:14-34:33; Romans 16:10-27; Psalm 26:1-12; Proverbs 20:19 When Manasseh repented he rebuilt the outer wall of the city and fortified the towns of Judah. He removed all the foreign gods and the idol out of the Lord’s Temple. He tore down all the altars he had built around the Temple and restored the Lord’s altar. He encouraged the people to give up their pagan gods and worship the Lord, but the people still worshipped their gods at the shrines. When he died, he was buried in his palace and his son Amon became the next king. *** Amon was only 22 years old and he did evil like his father had done most of his life. Amon was assassinated by his own officials. The people killed his assassins. They made Amon’s son Josiah the next king. *** Josiah was only 8 when he became king and he reigned 31 years doing good his entire life. He sought the Lord and when he was 20 he began to destroy all the pagan shrines and graven images. He smashed all the Asherah poles and scattered the ashes over the bones of the graves of the pagan priests. He did this in the towns of Manasseh, Ephraim, Simeon and even to Naphtali. Then he returned to Jerusalem. *** When he was 24 he purified the land and the Temple. While they were repairing the Temple with the money they received from the people, they found a copy of the law and brought it to the king and read it to him. He tore his clothes and sent his officials to the Temple to speak to the Lord about what it said because he knew they had greatly offended the Lord by not keeping the words in the book. *** The prophet Hulda sent word back to Josiah telling him that God was indeed angry with Israel and would bring disaster on Jerusalem for abandoning him for false gods, but because Josiah had repented and was following him with all he knew to do, he would not bring the disaster until he had died. *** Josiah continued to clean up his land and remove all the detestable things from his land. He required everyone to worship the Lord. They made a covenant before the Lord to follow and worship only him. *** In Romans, Paul continued to give the names of those he wanted to acknowledge for their hard work for the Lord. He appealed to the people to not be divided by false teaching from those who only wanted to benefit themselves. He told them to stay pure and obedient to the Lord and soon the God of peace would crush Satan under their feet. *** Lord, thank you for the rewards of following you are victory and life. We choose your life and your righteousness.