Sunday 2nd March
Read Psalm 98
If you don’t have a bible at home you can find the readings on a website such as www.biblegateway.com or an app such as YouVersion
In a recent sermon before Christmas my Son-in-Law asked the question whether people sing anymore. He didn’t mean choral singing; he recounted on the Island of Skye where he was brought up his grandfather’s generation would sing while out in the fields, on the boats or at home (these were the days before radio and TV of course). This Psalm is all about singing; it starts, “Sing to the Lord a new song” (v1) and goes on to say, “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music” (v4). I used to hear my father singing, “He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today, He walks with me and talks with me along the narrow way” and not just in Church; I wonder if we need to keep the songs of praise live in our hearts day by day today as well as in Church.
READINGS FOR THE WEEK AHEAD
As you read the Bible Stop; Read; Ponder; and Pray.
Monday 2 Kings 23:1-7
Josiah started on a major work of reformation in his Kingdom beginning with a public reading of the book of the law or the Book of the Covenant as it is referred to in v2. Read the Book of Deuteronomy if you want to find out what Josiah and the people were hearing. It was about the Covenant God had made with the people of Israel, dating back to Abraham and the Fathers but particularly being re-administered at the time of Moses on Mount Sinai. On its reading the people would know how far they had gone from the Lord their God who delivered them from Egypt and gave them his promised land.
Scotland used to be called “The People of the Book”. On his death bed Walter Scott asked Lockart to read to him. Lockart enquired about what book to read to which Scott replied, “there is but one book; bring the Bible”. How many have a Bible nowadays let alone know what is in it? Renewal in our nation will start in prayer and in the reading of that book.
After reading the book of the law he knew what needed to be done and the following verses list all the things that he saw needed done in the nation.
Tuesday 2 Kings 23:8-20
When we read these verses with all the removals and destructions of various things and places that had been woven into the religious life of the people of Judah over the years in complete contrast to what the Book of the Covenant had laid down we realise how far the people had fallen away from God.
Josiah’s expunging of the past was quite vigorous. When someone has a disease of the body it is necessary sometimes to be quite rigorous in completing the task of healing so that no trace of the disease is left to infect and possibly grow again; we sometimes forget this when looking to the past religious history of our own country where some of the reforms seemed quite brutal. Those divines of the past were often very aware of the superstitious remnants that could linger in the hearts of the common people and so were determined to remove every element that would be a starting place for a future return The fact that we no longer believe in many gods but are believers in only one God is one of the results of the fierceness of the reformers of the past.
The tomb with bones that was spared from being defiled was the tomb of the prophet who right at the start of the split kingdom under Jeroboam prophesied that what was happening now under Josiah would come about. (1 Kings 13).
Wednesday 2 Kings 23:21-30
With all the cleansing carried out by Josiah a celebration of the Passover was held in such strict accordance with the Covenant Book of the Law that the writer says it was unique since the time of the Judges during the wilderness wanderings. It wasn’t that the Passover hadn’t been held throughout the period of the Kings but that nothing like this original order was celebrated. The rigour of Josiah’s reforms were such that the writer tells us that there was no King either before or after who turned to the Lord with all his heart like Josiah.
However, though that was the case, the anger of the Lord was still there because of all that Manasseh had done during his long 55 year reign. God said he would remove Judah from his presence and reject Jerusalem and the temple.
In 608 BC Pharoah Necho of Egypt headed up to assist the Assyrians who were under pressure from the Babylonians but Josiah headed over to engage him on his way up at Megiddo. It was not a wise move and he lost and was killed with his body being returned to Jerusalem where he was buried and his son Jehoahaz was anointed King.
Thursday 2 Kings 23:31-37
Jehoahaz reverted to the disobedience of some of his forebears and did not follow in the footsteps of his righteous father, Josiah. It is remarkable that Josiah was so out-and-out a reformer but his son was not with him. Sometimes people can be so prodigiously ‘good’ but they forget they have children to bring along with them; it may be it was the case here
Jehoahaz did not reign for long however but was taken prisoner by Pharoah Necho who also imposed a levy of a hundred talents of silver and gold on Judah. From here you may find it difficult to follow the kings because some of them had their names changed and some were very similar. Jehoahaz is sometimes called Shallum (Jeremiah 22:11) which may have been his original name with Jehoahaz being taken as a royal name. Pharoah Necho then made Eliakim (incidentally an older brother of Jehoahaz by a couple of years) king and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Jehoahaz was taken to Egypt and died there leaving his brother Eliakim (now Jehoiakim) to pay the money exacted by taxing the people. He reigned 11 years and “did evil in the eyes of the Lord just as his predecessors did” (v37).
Whatever was happening to the royal family, like the people of the nation, it was beginning to disintegrate. There is no doubt that Josiah was a good and righteous King but the rot in the nation had been deep seated from many years before and God had decided what he was going to do with this people which we shall see in due course.
Friday 2 Kings 24:1-9
We can understand the position this little nation sandwiched between Egypt in the South and Assyria/Babylon in the North. Jehoiakim had been set up by Pharoah Necho but in this chapter we see Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, invading the land and making him his vassal king. After this we find raiders of many of their surrounding neighbours including Aramean, Moabite and Ammonite causing terrible destruction to the nation. The writer says these things, prophesied by the prophets, happened according to the Lords command as punishment for all the sins of Manasseh. The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime’.
Jehoiakim had a miserable 11 years of a reign before he died and was succeeded by his son, Jehoiachin (remember, I said it would be tricky getting a hold of the kings and their names in this twilight zone of the nation). Verse 7 tells us that the Pharoah of Egypt did not march out of his country at this time due to the rise of the King of Babylon in the North who had taken over a great deal of his territory. Judah had become a ping-pong ball between the two great powers and Jehoiachin only lasted three months.
Sir Edward Grey in a prescient statement in August 1914 said, “The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime’. His saying would have been applicable to the Jewish remnant in the embattled kingdom of Judah at this time. Do we feel today that we are overshadowed by super powers over which we have no influence? Then is the time to seek the Lord’s word for us and find him in humility and prayer.
Saturday 2 Kings 24:10-20
Babylon once again asserted its control over Judah as Nebuchadnezzar advanced on Jerusalem laying siege to it and making Jehoiachin, his family and officials all surrender to him. More than this he took all the treasure of the temple and royal palace and all the occupants of Jerusalem into exile such that only the poorest were left. Jehoiachin and his family were taken captive to Babylon and he made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, king in his place, changing his name to Zedekiah (I told you it would be confusing). Mattaniah/Zedekiah was a son of Josiah thus an uncle of Jehoiachin. We will hear something more of Jehoiachin at the very end of the book but that would be many years to come.
Zedekiah, like Jehoiakim, reigned 11 years whilst Jehoiachin only lasted three months before being deported to Babylon with the aristocracy. The end of the chapter tells us the reason for all this foreign interference and the decline of Judah, it was “because of the Lord’s anger that all this happened to Jerusalem and Judah, and in the end he thrust them from his presence” (v20).
That sentence is as profound and important as the covenants made to Abraham and Moses at the start of the nation’s life. What on earth is to happen about the future? Some intervention from heaven itself is required.
