[b]REVIVAL IN THE LAND[i]by T.V. Thomas
II Kings 23:25 is the most glowing grave epitaph: before him there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul and all his might … nor did any like him arise after him. The king was King Josiah.
It was the 7th century BC it has been many, many years since God significantly moved among his chosen people. Some of the Jews in Judah were beginning to wonder whether they were part of God's chosen people. Judah was a southern kingdom of the divided nation Israel and Jerusalem was its capital. The nation was on a spiritual downer. The temple was literally covered in dust. Corporate worship of the living God had all but died. The Book of The Law, God's Word was literally lost. The religious leaders were corrupt and they contributed confusion onto the scene altogether. There was ample evidence of widespread moral decay and destruction. However the King determined the spiritual condition of the land. Pastor Sipley said the spirituality of leadership shapes the state of the nation, and the church, and the community around.
The Sovereign God did something beautiful when it is totally dark so that He gets all the glory. The turn around began with the birth of a baby and the year was 654BC. That is when Josiah was born.
These are the steps Josiah took for revival to become a reality in the land of Judah.
Step one – he reasserted spiritual leadership be right than to be popular.
Step two - rediscovering the Book of the Law.
Step three – he renewed the covenant with God
Step four – he removed idol worship and restored true worship
Are we committed to reasserting spiritual leadership? Right in our home and believe it will have an influence. We need to claim the future for God. We need to claim our children and grandchildren for God. Are they passionate about God? Pray for your children to seek after God. Pray them back. Are we going to pray that they will seek after God? Are we going to speak to our pastors and leadership to rediscover the Book of the Law. If the Word is not heard, God has not spoken. Some of us need to renew our covenant with God personally. Some of us actually need to remove some idols. All of us need to say we want to restore true worship. Sunday morning should be the collective bowel that we take to worship and be prepared throughout the week. At potlucks you bring your best – we bring our best worship in on Sunday morning and we prepare all week to be a wonderful fragrance rise up and we declare He is Lord. We need to come with that expectation not wait for the worship team to defrost us. We need to come excited and defrosted. We will be a wonderful fragrance, a wonderful aroma and God will respond when there's true worship that has been prepared throughout the week and when we walk into the sanctuary.