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The reform of King Josiah is one of the high points of the history of Judah, and Josiah one of the great heroes of the faith. But we should also consider what this story reveals about the condition of Judah. As we consider the virtues of Josiah, don't lose sight of what made his reform necessary – the idolatry of Judah.
The catalogue of idolatry in our sermon text is numbing. Vessels for the worship of Baal, Asherah and the host of heaven have to be removed from the temple; the people of Judah have been burning incense to Baal, to the sun and moon and constellations; there are male cult prostitutes in the temple, and Judah had designated a place to offer their sons and daughters to Molech; there are horses devoted to the sun at the gate of the temple, and altars in the two courts of the temple.
This is horrifying. How could Judah ever have gotten to this condition? It's not as if they were never told. Prophet after prophet warned Israel and Judah that they had strayed far from the Lord's ways, and called them to repentance. Yet, they had become hardened and blinded to their sin, their idolatries had become second nature, and they persisted until there was an idolatrous shrine almost literally under every green tree and on every high hill.
Our idols – money, sex, pleasure, self – are more sophisticated, but they are for that reason all the more deceptive, all the easier to institutionalize, all the more difficult to destroy. Josiah carried out his reform with a bulldozer and a sledgehammer; but destroying the root of idolatry requires more powerful, spiritual weapons that only God can provide. Yet, we have the same calling as Josiah, to root the idols from our hearts and from the land.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, June 25, 2006 at 08:05 AM
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