Can We Start Over? Series

I know that I’ve been talking about a lot of discouraging things lately … there’s a lot to be discouraged about. I’ve got my list and you’ve probably got yours. But today, I want to remind us that it is never too late. There is always … hope!

You see … as crazy as things are right now … as out of control as things seem to be … we … meaning human beings … have been here many, many times before. Not only have we been here before but there is a pattern.

Let’s take the ancient kingdom of Judah, for example. Josiah was only eight years old when he became the king of Judah. His grandfather, Manasseh, is described as one of the wickedest kings in the Bible, up there with the likes of King Ahab, who “did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him” (1st Kings 16:30). The Bible says that Manasseh lead the nation of Judah astray, “so that they” … the people of Judah … “did more evil than the nation [that] the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites” (2nd Kings 21:9).

Manasseh himself was only 12 years old when he was made King of Judah … a position that he held for 55 years. During his reign, Judah’s military power became weak and the nation of Judah had sunk into a quagmire of idolatry, occultism, human sacrifice, lawlessness, violence, and moral confusion. As he was coming towards the end of his life and his reign, Manasseh turned to the Lord … but his spiritual conversion came too late and didn’t have much of an impact on the nation.

His son, Amon, became king and followed in his father’s evil footsteps. Amon was assassinated in the second year of his reign, however, by his own servants … which is how Josiah became the king of Judah at the tender age of eight. Unlike his father and grandfather, who “forsook the Lord, the God of [their] ancestors, and did not walk in obedience to Him” (2nd Kings 21:22), Josiah decided to go down a much different path. The Bible says that Josiah “did what was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the ways of his [ancestor] David; not turning aside to the right or the left” (2nd Chronicles 34:2).

The Bible goes on to say that in the eighth year of his reign, when Josiah was 16 years old, “he began to seek the God of his [ancestor] David; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the wooden images, the carved images, and the molded images” that the people had worshipped during the reign of his father and grandfather. As one author pointed out: “It is amazing what God can do with a teenager totally committed to Him! It is better to have a young leader who loves the Lord than an experienced one whose years have not been invested in righteousness” (Jeremiah, D. What in the Word? Nashville, TN: W. Publishing Group; 2016; p. 122).

When Josiah was 26 years old, he began restoring the Temple, which had fallen into disrepair. During the restoration project, the workers found a long-lost treasure … the Book of Law that the Lord had given in Moses. Speechless, the priest, Hilkiah, rushed to the king to show him what they had found. Josiah began reading the Book of Law and realized that the sins of his father and grandfather were far worse than he realized and that the people and the nation of Judah were in far greater spiritual danger than he realized. The Bible says that Josiah tore his clothes in grief and wept (2nd Chronicles 34:27).

Josiah then called the people together, “all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem … and read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant which was found in the house of the LORD. Then the king stood in his place and made a covenant before the LORD, to follow the LORD, and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all his heart and all his soul” (2nd Chronicles 34:30-31).

Care to guess what happened next?

REVIVAL!

The ensuing revival completely changed the nation of Judah. “Moral trends were turned upside down, spiritual zeal was turned right-side up, and impending judgment was turned aside for a generation” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 124). “All his days,” says the Bible, “[the people of Judah] did not depart part from following the LORD God of their fathers” (2nd Chronicles 34:33).

While Josiah led the revival from the throne, the prophet Jeremiah took it to the streets … preaching revival in the marketplaces, the town squares, and Temple courtyards. He was joined by Zephaniah and Nehum. The fire of revival spread to the youth. The lives of young men like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were shaped by the national reformation that had set their country on fire for the LORD.