An Outline For "He Did Right In The Eyes Of The Lord”

An Outline for “He Did Right in the Eyes of the Lord”

Introduction: Many years before Josiah’s time, Israel had asked for a human king so that they could be like the other nations. Samuel had protested this, warning Israel that one day they’d get exactly what they asked for (see 1 Samuel 8 and following for the full story).

Through the years, some kings had been very righteous and godly; others, clearly, were not and how they lived more and more became reflected in the lives of the people. Josiah was the last really good king of Judah and that was because he did right in the eyes of the LORD. This outline shows a few of the steps he took to do right in the LORD’s eyes.

Text: 2 Chronicles 34:1-7, KJV: 1 Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem one and thirty years. 2 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand, nor to the left. 3 For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images. 4 And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them. 5 And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. 6 And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about. 7 And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.

1 Josiah became a believer in the God of Israel

--Couldn’t have been easy, his grandfather, Manasseh, was one of the worst kings ever. Father, Amon, was put to death after a reign of only two years. Who taught Josiah about the LORD, God of Israel? Whoever they were, they deserve a mention for passing this knowledge to Josiah!

--Not mentioned openly here but there was still a strong pull towards idolatry. They had snagged Manasseh (before he repented) and Amon (who seems to have never repented) and would come to full flower in Jeremiah’s day (not long after this). See Jeremiah 44 for an incredible twist of the Israelites’ thinking about worship of the LORD compared to the “queen of heaven”!

--No single event recorded in Scripture, common for many Old Testament saints; they like Abraham believed God and God counted it to them as righteousness (compare Genesis 15:6).

--There may have been other factors, too, but committing one’s way to the LORD is always a good first step for anyone (see Psalm 37:5).

2 Josiah became the father of several children

--The birth of one’s child should always make parents reflect. They’ve been given an immortal, “never-dying” soul (a quote from an old friend years ago) and it’s up to them how to raise that child. Josiah may now have realized he was in the very line of the Messiah!

--That he was able to father children at a young age is no surprise. Boys mature into men in the early teenage years, so it’s not an issue to believe his oldest son, Eliakim, was born when Josiah was about 14. Josiah was 39 when he died, and Eliakim was 25; thus, a 14 year difference (see 2 Kings 23:31-36)

--His other sons were Jehoahaz, as noted above, and finally Mattaniah who was renamed Zedekiah. His oldest son was also called “Johanan” and his youngest, “Shallum (1 Chronicles 1:15)” but nothing is known about Shallum.

--Josiah may have sensed that none of his sons in the princely line would be believers in the LORD but at the least, he seems to have tried. The texts in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles give evidence of his own zeal for the LORD, even if his own sons rejected this.

3 Josiah began to lead Judah into a spiritual renewal

--Began with purging the idols that had somehow showed up in Judah. Manasseh had done much the same after his own repentance and campaign to get rid of the idols several years before (see 2 Chron. 33:14-17). How those evil things had been reconstructed is a mystery to me but—it still happened. This time Josiah took the lead to get rid of them, even hauling off a lot of that material to the Kidron valley (2 Kings 23:4-14)!