It’s like hitting a wall. One moment you’re going 60 miles per hour, the next you’re at a dead stop. It’s the thrill of victory . . . followed by the stark agony of defeat. It’s scoring the winning goal in overtime of the seventh game of the Stanley Cup final only to find, as you start to hoist the cup, that your team’s been disqualified . . . that the goal doesn’t count . . . that you really haven’t done anything. It’s Josiah and Jehoahaz . . .

King Josiah is an oasis in a seemingly never ending desert. As you work through the kings of Israel and Judah, for the most part it’s crummy king after crummy king. I don’t know how many times I’ve underlined with my black (ie. for sin) colored pencil, “and he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD” over the last several mornings. So when Josiah comes along this morning, it’s kind of a pick me up.

Takes the throne at eight years old . . . and of him the Spirit of God records that “he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and walked in all the ways of David his father” (2Kings 22:1-2) . . . in fact . . .

Before him there was no king like him, who 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, nor did any like him arise after him.   (2Kings 23:25).

When Josiah is 26 years old, an old copy of “the Book of the Law” is discovered in the treasury of the house of the LORD. Josiah reads it and the “living and active word, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12) sets this king on fire . . . time to clean house . . . and clean house he does.

For the next 13 years he is relentless as he destroys all that he can that is associated with the worship of other God’s. It’s revival time in Judah! And it’s not just about what he gets rid of . . . but it’s about what he brings back. For the first time since the judges the king commands all the people to “Keep the Passover to the LORD your God, as it is written in the Book of the Covenant” (23:21) . . . ( . . . the Book of the Covenant . . . love that term! . . . hasn’t been used since Moses used it in Exodus . . . another devotional for another day).

At the age of 39 Josiah is killed by Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt. But it’s been 31 years of positive God honoring rule. It’s been 13 years of seeing idols and high places and false worship structure dismantled. Thirteen years of annually observing the Passover in Jerusalem. And then . . . dead stop . . . agony of defeat . . . team’s disqualified.

What gets me is that Josiah’s son . . . born when Josiah was 16 . . . having a balcony seat to the revival and reforms beginning when he was 10 years old . . . reigns like nothing ever happened. Josiah’s son, Jehoahaz, takes the throne at age 23 . . . reigns only 3 months . . . and I need to pull out my black colored pencil again because “he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD” (23:32). And then after him, another son of Josiah is put on the throne . . . he’s 25 years old (fathered when Josiah was 14? . . . I guess . . .) . . . and more black underlining for he also “did what was evil in the sight of the LORD” (23:37). Brother! What happened? Better question yet, “What didn’t happen?”

And what hits me this morning is that all the obedience in the world doesn’t make a difference apart from a new heart attuned to the things of heaven and set on things above. All the revival . . . all the tearing down of junk . . . all the re-establishing of good and God-honoring religious practice doesn’t make a bit of difference apart from reconstituted spiritual DNA. This is why “ye must be born again” (John 3:7 KJV).

While obedience is born of new life in Christ . . . obedience can never create new life. It is a work of the Spirit of God founded on the finished work of the cross of Christ based on the atoning blood shed for the forgiveness of sins. It is a determination of grace by Almighty God to take hearts of stone and make them hearts of flesh (Ezek. 36:26) . . . to enact a work of conforming lost sheep who have been found into the image of His blessed Son.

That’s when revival takes. That’s when you go from 0 to 60 mph and then keep on going . . . when the thrill of victory becomes the ecstasy of eternal triumph . . . when, instead of hoisting some tin cup, we instead cast crowns of reward before the throne of the One who has made all things new.

To God be the glory . . .