Tuesday, February 12, 2008
2 Kings 23:3 Then the king stood by a pillar 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, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people took a stand for the covenant.
TAKING A STAND FOR THE LORD
As we live in these last times, there is a time of judgment that has been set for this world because of its wickedness. In fact, it may seem to us like we are coming very near to that time already. With this knowledge, we might be tempted to become complacent in our efforts to take stands for God and His Word, thinking that because this world is only going to be getting more and more evil, there's not much we can do anyway. However, this is not a very Josiah-like attitude.
Josiah is the king referred to in our reading for today. When Josiah discovered that the land of Judah had departed from the Word of God and the commandments of God found therein, by faith, he was moved to take a stand for the Lord. Upon taking his stand, the people followed their king and also took a stand for the things of God.
Interestingly, by the time Josiah took a stand for God and His Word, God had already revealed that Judah was still eventually going to be destroyed because of the totality of its wickedness and unbelief throughout the years. Imagine if Josiah took that information and just decided to give up. Would this have been a pleasing thing to the Lord? Of course not, and even though the Lord would indeed destroy Judah in time, he relented for a time and blessed the work of Josiah, and the people received the great blessings of His Word for that time, which, no doubt, led to the salvation of many souls.
We are also "Josiahs." The end is coming, but it is not time to stop working. It is not even time to shift it down a couple of gears. It is time to work hard for the salvation of souls and for the promotion of God's will. It is time to take a stand for the Lord by looking to His Word and to uncover what it says more and more everyday.
