Josiah: Seeking God Early and With the Whole Heart

                             2 Chron. 34:1-3; 2 Kings 23:25

(Transcript of the second half of a message preached at Faith-Grace Vietnamese Baptist Church, Stone Mountain, GA, on February 23, 2014. The first half of the message was a personal testimony of salvation.)

Right now, I’d like to look back at the first passage we read in 2 Chron. 34:1-3.

This is late in the old testament, and by now 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel have already been taken captive to Babylon (modern day Iraq). The southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin (Judah hereafter) are still in the land, but they’ve fallen into worshipping false gods and the prophets have warned them of God’s coming judgment. Suddenly, there’s a ray of hope for Judah. Their worst king, Manasseh, dies after a long, wicked reign, and his son Amon takes over, and he’s not much better. Amon’s reign is short, though, and his eight year-old son, Josiah, becomes king. Pretty bleak picture, isn’t it?

But as someone said long ago, “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity,” and Josiah goes totally opposite his father and grandfather. Note vv. 2-3, “And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the ways of David his father…For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father:” David is mentioned twice in a row, and I think that Josiah may have heard about his forefather from someone and how God blessed him for his faithfulness. (The word of God was lying forsaken in the temple until sometime later in his reign; cf. 2 Chron. 34:8; 14 ff.) At some point, I believe, he made a conscious decision, “I’m going to seek this God who my forefather served; my father and grandfather served false gods, and their lives were a waste.”

So at the young age of 16, Josiah begins to seek after God. He doesn’t wait until he’s older. He says in his heart, I need to seek God now. I’m young and I need wisdom, and I believe that what God did for David, he can do for me, if I give him my heart, like David gave God his. I realize that this is an old testament story, but the apostle Paul, who gave us the gospel we preach today, said, “…the things which were written aforetime were written for our learning…” (Rom. 15:4).

I think the lesson here is clear. We need to seek God while we’re young. Many young people think, “I’ll seek God when I’m older. Right now I just want to have fun.” Well, there’s some real problems with that thinking.

1. First of all, you may never get older. Young people die all the time in car wrecks, from disease, war, starvation, and many other things. Our Lord, for example, only lived to be 33 years old. That’s not even half the average lifespan today. So, you may not get older. You need to make a decision about this while you’re young.

2. What many call fun could destroy you. Drugs, alcohol, wreckless driving, and HIV could all put you in the grave early. Even clean fun is wrong, if you put it before God. God told Israel, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” and anything that you put before God is, in a way, your god. The wisest man who ever lived, next to Jesus Christ, was who? Solomon. One of the last things he said was, “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth…” (Eccl. 12:1). Why? Life gets tougher as you get older, and the easiest season of life to seek God is while you’re young.

So Josiah doesn’t waste time. He seeks God while he’s young. But that’s not all. A person could seek God, but do it half-heartedly. He could seek God, but think that he could seek other things as well. But not Josiah. Let’s see what the Bible says about his heart.

2 Kings 23:25, “And 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 rose there any like him.”

He turned to the LORD and sought him with all his heart, and his obedience to God was more thorough than any king before him or after him, even David himself. If you read the rest of his story in 2 Chron. 34-35 and 2 Kings 22-23, you see that only four years after he begins to seek God, he begins to purge his land and the northern tribes’ land of false gods, and it’s a very thorough purge. The land is cleansed, the temple worship is restored, and the people make a national covenant to serve the Lord. What a revival! And it all started in the heart of one young person.

Everyone’s heart is important to God, and God has made our hearts in such a way that they will never be satisfied until they find rest in him. As a young person, I was very restless; I couldn’t find peace because I was trying to find it apart from God, which can’t be done. That’s why so many people turn to drugs and alcohol and sex, because they’re trying to fill that emptiness inside which only God can fill.

I am so glad that God sent someone to me to show me how empty I was and how much I needed a Saviour. The best two decisions I ever made, I made as a young man, like Josiah, by God’s grace:

(1) to seek the Lord; to want to know him, and embrace his Son as my Saviour and the one, the only one, who could bring me to God;

(2) after I became part of God’s family, to seek to know and serve the Lord with my whole heart; to not keep one foot in the world and sin, but to turn both my feet toward the Lord and let him be my life.

I can truly say that I found the fulfillment and peace in God that I could never find anywhere in the world: in religion, in literature, in success, in pleasure. None of those things can take the place of a personal relationship with God through Christ, which God offers to you today, if you don’t have one already, and if you do, deeper and deeper fulfillment the more you give your heart to him. I’ve never met anyone who regretted coming to Christ; only that they didn’t come to him sooner.