The Purifying Power of the Word

Josiah exemplifies for us a resolute desire to rid the land of Israel from all vestiges of evil practice. When the writer of 2 Kings unpacks for us the several stage process of his purification of Israel, we find out just how long-standing and involved the idolatry of Israel was.

2 Kings 23:4–5 (ESV) And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second order and the keepers of the threshold to bring out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. 5 And he deposed the priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and the moon and the constellations and all the host of the heavens.

Josiah's reforms begin with the priests - those who led the false worship of Judah. This is important to see because spiritual apostasy usually has a priestly leadership destroying the people's faith in God and turning them toward worthless things. Jesus warned us repeatedly against false teachers. He told us to know them by their fruit (Matthew 7:20).

The next part of Josiah's reforms dealt with the idolatrous artifacts:

2 Kings 23:6 (ESV) And he brought out the Asherah from the house of the LORD, outside Jerusalem, to the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron and beat it to dust and cast the dust of it upon the graves of the common people.

Asherah was the queen god of the Canaanites. A goddess of fertility represented by wooden poles in the ancient world. The Israelites had brought these poles into the house of the Lord! They adopted rather than destroy them which God had commanded in Exodus. 

Exodus 34:13 (ESV) You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim

What's even more incredible is the next part of Josiah's reforms:

2 Kings 23:7 (ESV) And he broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes who were in the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah.

Israel's worship had become so corrupt they adopted homosexual prostitution and placed them in the temple that was meant to bear the presence of the Lord. You can see now why the Lord had pronounced inalterable judgment on this nation. 

 

What's the point? We learn that sin sneaks in and then becomes totally pervasive to a people. Hundreds of years later, the nation had completely abandoned the Lord but it all began with a few misgivings about destroying all these altars of false religion. Their compromise with sin took over their entire way of life! Sin is never satisfying or satisfied.

2 Kings 23:19–20 (ESV) And Josiah removed all the shrines also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which kings of Israel had made, provoking the LORD to anger. He did to them according to all that he had done at Bethel. 20 And he sacrificed all the priests of the high places who were there, on the altars, and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

The second lesson we learn from this passage is the powerful effect of the Word of God. Look closely at the account. It is not the religious system that inspired Josiah's reforms. That system was corrupt. It was the Word of God that he had been given by the priests when he had decided to refurbish the temple. That is the power of God's Word on our hearts and lives. More Word, less sin. And the inverse is true, less Word, more sin. 

When we open our hearts to God's voice through His Word, we get cleansed and get serious with the sin that has to go.