Encouragement

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“In a very critical time of Israel, when all seemed hopeless, a young king emerges with a hunger for God and begins to clean house! In the process that lost treasure was reclaimed! Lying in the dust of years of abuse and neglect arose the hope of Israel! They discovered the BOOK! And from there things changed!” Sounds a little like the beginning of a Joel Rosenberg novel, but actually it is a paragraph from the last news letter. More accurately, it comes from 2 Cron. 34.

Israel had lived in a sort of spiritual twilight zone, mostly darkness with brief periods of dim light. Then came Josiah, an eight year old boy crowned to be king over an empire. He wasn’t the best choice it seems in our eyes but it was God’s choice! A tender heart impressionable, innocent and destined to turn a wicked nation around on its heels!

For fifty five years Judah had been led by Josiah’s father and grandfather. They both caused immense suffering and led God’s people into the bondages of idolatry and wickedness. The eternal word of God puts Josiah’s grandfathers reign like this, “Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel. The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people but they paid no attention.” 2Cron. 33:9-10 But behind the scenes, out of view of everyone God was preparing a boy to bring Judah back to her God. Something of cataclysmic proportions was about to occur from a most unlikely source.

The temple lay in ruins! Years of neglect had accumulated within her sacred walls. Toppled furniture, mud, cockroaches, birds’ nests, snakes and more than fifty years of filth revealed with stark reality the condition of Judah’s heart, then enters Josiah.

His interest didn’t match that of other children. The Bible says that “while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David…” And this bore fruit. By the time he was twelve he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places and the carved and metal images. Now it was time to restore the temple! Spring cleaning had come after decades of neglect.

The priest are cleaning out the filth, carpenters are repairing, the work advances when one day as the high priest Hilkiah examines the progress in the dim light he stumbles over something. At first it looks like a beam of wood or a piece of trash, but he stops and bends down. There at his feet is a scroll. Immediately his heart does somersaults. Could it be? He wonders. After so many years could this be the national treasure that has been lost? He runs outside for better light and as he unrolls the scroll he is overwhelmed with emotion! Suddenly all the dignity of the priestly office goes down the drain and he shouts “I HAVE FOUND THE BOOK!” “I HAVE FOUND THE BOOK!” He quickly finds Shaphan one of the Josiah’s advisers and tells him to swiftly take it to the king.

The rest is history. Josiah was overcome by the discovery. He called his people together to hear the word and the effects were dramatic. Revival broke out and the feast re instituted. Judah was once again on track with God!

We hear a lot these days about revival coming and the end times. As I read these prophesies I can’t help but consider that in tandem with this will come a great discovery of the eternal value of the this precious book we call the Bible. It will be rediscovered by His saints! How you ask? Haven’t we known the Bible for years? To know it and to live it are two different things. I think the discovery will be one of placing it once again as the source of truth and embracing it with daily actions of obedience.

We will be of those whose lives declare, I HAVE FOUND THE BOOK!

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