Daily Devotions
January 11th, 2017 by Pastor Solley2 Chron 34:4-8 And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them.
5 And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.
6 And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about.
7 And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.
8 Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land, and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God.
KJV
It was only after Josiah got rid of the idols in his presence that he turned to the nation, turned to the people that he ruled and purged the land. This is such an important point that I feel I need to touch on it again. We then to judge others by their action, ourselves by our intentions. In other words what I condemn in others I often allow in my self and excuse it by saying I am going to get rid of this or that, or I am going to change. Why do we feel as if we have the right to judge others and not come under the judgment of God ourselves? Many people say that to judge is wrong, that is not the case. But to judge someone by a standard I will not keep is to make myself a hypocrite. Josiah got rid of the idols in his life first, that is what made him an effective servant of the Lord. What was his standard, what turned him away from those idols? Read on in the chapter and we will look at that tomorrow.