Revivals of the Bible

Ernest Baker

JOSIAH began to reign over Judah when he was eight years of age. At 16 he began to seek the Lord; and at 20 he was sufficiently confirmed in his decision to be able to inaugurate an active campaign against idolatry. During the two preceding reigns, which lasted for nearly 60 years, the country had been given over to image-worship, and God’s house had been closed and neglected. As this state of things continued during the early part of Josiah’s reign, until the regency ended, it made altogether about 70 years of idolatry, a period long enough for the alien systems of faith to obtain a strong hold upon the people. Groves and high places and images were everywhere. For six years Josiah pursued his iconoclastic policy. At the same time an active propaganda on behalf of the temple was carried on, and large sums of money were collected. When he was 26 the work of repairing the temple was taken in hand. It was in this year, the eighteenth of his reign, that reformation issued in revival. With the exception of a very short interval at the end of Manasseh’s reign, the temple had been closed for 75 years. The last religious awakening had taken place more than a century ago.

In connection with the cleansing of the temple, the most remarkable incident was the discovery of the book of the law. This was found by Hilkiah the priest, who gave it to Shaphan the scribe, who in his turn read it to the king. Its contents were news to Josiah, upon whom the reading had a marvellous effect. When he heard what God would do to His people if they forsook Him and followed other gods, his concern was great. He rent his clothes and wept. He directed the high priest and others to make inquiries concerning the fulfilment of the threats contained in the law. These went to Huldah the prophetess, who replied that the prophecies would certainly be fulfilled, but not in Josiah’s time, as his heart was tender, and he had humbled himself at the reading of the Word. Then the king summoned the people to the temple, where he stood and read the law to them. If the book discovered was, as some suppose, only the Book of Deuteronomy, the reading to the king and by the king would have taken from three to four hours each; but if it were the whole book of the law, some ten to twelve hours would have been occupied. In any case the time was longer than modern audiences are prepared to grant for such a purpose. At the conclusion of the reading Josiah publicly made a covenant with the Lord to obey all the words of the book, and urged the people to a like promise, to which they agreed. Then followed a further work of destruction. We have noticed before that though a man may have made a magnificent stand for the right, yet when he reads the Word of God he finds a good deal remaining to be accomplished. And this Josiah and his people found now. After the remaining abominations of the heathen had been removed, the Passover was celebrated. This quite eclipsed the observance in Hezekiah’s time. The chronicler of that event had to go back to Solomon’s reign to find its equal; but the historian of Josiah’s Passover had to go back further still—to the time of Samuel—before he could find a feast as great.

Before dealing with the special lessons of this event, I desire to refer to one or two impressions left upon one’s mind as the result of the continuous reading of these Old Testament stories of revival. This makes the thirteenth religious awakening amongst the Israelites. First of all was the revival in Egypt, which issued in the Exodus. Then followed a period of decline, necessitating forty years’ wandering in the wilderness. Though no special revival meetings are noted, we know that faith was awakened at the end of this period to warrant the entry of the people into the promised land. During the rule of the Judges, five seasons of backsliding and return are chronicled. Then comes the awakening under Samuel, followed by a relapse under Saul. Faith was in the ascendant during the greater part of David’s and Solomon’s time, but decline set in towards the end of the latter’s reign. When the kingdom divided into Israel and Judah, the apostasy of the former was checked for a time by the revival under the influence of Elijah; and the slower decline of Judah was broken by revivals in the reigns of Asa, Hezekiah, and Josiah.

The first impression conveyed by this record is the continued tendency of man to relapse. The Fall of Man is not confined to the third chapter of Genesis. It is a continuous event. The world had a new start after the Flood; the children of a righteous man being the progenitors of the new race. The righteousness of Noah was not transmitted by any hereditary law to his descendants; and the warnings of the Flood seem to have been speedily forgotten. God then called Abraham and set him and his seed apart; made Himself known to the patriarch and his descendants; isolated them by rigorous laws from the rest of mankind; gave a unique revelation to them; manifested Himself in miraculous deliverances and by special visible signs, such as the pillars of cloud and of fire; taught the people by means of sacrifice and tabernacle service; gave them prophets who delivered unto them His Word; and enforced His laws by giving continuous blessing to obedience and unfailing want to disobedience. But even, this nation fell again and again. The whole world was fallen; and the specially-favoured people showed the same general downward tendency. In the Christian era the same inclination is in evidence. Christ has come; the Holy Spirit has been given; the Church has been formed; the Bible completed; and yet men continue to relapse. The Fall is seen in the Church itself. “Back to Christ” is a cry which implies that the Church has not given its witness in a clear and unmistakable manner. The truths and commands of Jesus are corrupted or obscured by His own people. The Church has continually lapsed into pagan practices, or into indifference to the needs of men, or into unbelief about God’s Word. Man’s natural movement is not upwards. He corrupts the best things. Left to himself, all the goodness which has been granted to him speedily disappears. The advances which have been made have not been due to inherent aspirations and to unaided efforts, but to direct acts of God. God has repeatedly stepped in and arrested the Fall, and Himself provided the incentives and power for an upward move.

The second thought arises out of the first, and that is the infinite patience and mercy of God. He will not let man fall for ever. Though he seems bent on decline, God steps in and arrests him. Faith in, obedience to, and knowledge of God are kept alive by influences started by God Himself for the purpose of calling men from their sins to righteousness. Were it not for repeated revivals, faith would die out, and character would go to ruin. This is our hope whenever faith is low. History shows that God will not give men up. He does not leave us to our own will and suffer us unhindered to go to our own destruction. Faith will never become extinct. God will visit and revive us before such a catastrophe occurs. If I saw no sign of awakening around us, if things were visibly to go from bad to worse, I should still believe in the prospect of revival. Coming now to the story of Josiah, I desire to call attention to

I. HIS CONVERSION.

He was 16 when he began to seek the Lord. What led him to do this we do not know. His father died when he was eight, but his father was a wicked man. His grandfather had been penitent in his old age; but as Josiah was only five-and-a-half when Manasseh died he could not have been much influenced by him. There were no religious services for him to attend. The Bible of the day was lost. Those who taught him only knew its contents second-hand. They had not seen the book themselves. In their younger days they may have been taught by someone who once had seen and learnt its contents. Its teachings were a tradition and a memory, yet sufficient was known to awaken in Josiah a desire to seek the Lord. God is found of those that seek Him; and in the course of time Josiah found the Word, which was a great help to a more perfect knowledge of God. The discovery of the law must be regarded as a Divine act by which God responded to Josiah’s search. But during the years of seeking the young king must have made many mistakes. He must have held many heretical and harmful notions. His conception of God could not possibly be very clear. When he did find the Word, though then he had been serving the Lord for many years, he was surprised to find what a number of things were wrong. He was humbled by the discovery of the evils still requiring to be rectified. Things which had not appeared to him as bad were now seen to be intolerable. But all the mistakes of thought, and all the wrong actions during the years of comparative ignorance, did not prevent him from finding the One he sought.

We are not in Josiah’s position to-day. We have a much fuller Book to guide us. But the Book itself may be obscured by interpretations and teachings which have been given to us from our earliest years. We read the Bible through the spectacles of our first teachers, and through the standards and creeds of our churches. There are truths that we need which those who taught us may not have seen, and in fact may have denied. If the teaching we have had has taken no cognisance of the need and possibility of the new birth; if it has said nothing about the duty and character of repentance; if it has not pointed us to the death of Christ as a death for our sins; if it has not taught us the possibility of rejoicing in the full assurance of a present salvation, we shall not at first see these truths even though they are so plainly written in a Book which is in the hands of us all. But however obscured the true teaching may be on account of our training, the light will come to the man who seeks.

But though Josiah had ignorance as a hindrance, there was one great obstacle which he had not to overcome. He was not confirmed in sin. There is nothing so hardening to the heart, and so blinding to the eyes, and so searing to the conscience as sin. “Those that seek Me early shall find Me.” Men who seek late in life, if they truly seek, will find, but it will not be such easy work for them as it is for the young. Young people put off the search, not for ever, but for a time, thinking it can be taken up whenever they please. The will to take up the search is lost by postponement, and the vision of God is made difficult by abandonment to sin. The pure in heart shall see God. The impure do not. “Their eyes they have closed, lest they should turn, and I should heal them.” The greatest difficulty in the way of finding God is not the one made by the church, or by the times, but by our own sins. Even that can be overcome; but God is more easily, more surely, found by being sought for when we are young.

II. JOSIAH WAS RESPONSIVE TO THE WORD.

How plain it seems to have been to him. A whole book was read to him at a sitting; and this same book, entire, was read by him at one service. There seems to have been no comment. It was understood as read. There was no school of thought which said: “This Book can only be understood by the clergy.” No fear was expressed because the people would accept its contents in their literal sense. Neither was the intellectual atmosphere clouded by theories of allegorical or spiritualising interpretations. The Book told its own story at once. If we would read it as these people did, the impression upon our minds would be very different from what it is now. Our interest would be captured, and our obedience would be secured. Then

III. JOSIAH HAD A TENDER HEART.

He could not read of the judgments which must befall the people, if they continued in apostasy, without being moved. He was immediately concerned for Judah and for Israel. He commenced to pray and inquire for himself, and for them. He saw the things that were wrong, and was anxious to remove them. He accepted the corrections of the Word. He did not rebel against them. And out of this tender heart, created by an early search for God, a prolonged reading of the Word, and a ready response to its teaching, the revival was born. This Word that had done him good must be read to others. It must be obeyed. He must make a covenant, and his covenant to obey the law must be an example to his people.

Have we tender hearts? Are we concerned about the indifference and sinfulness of the people?’ Can we read and know that the way of transgressors. is hard, and remain unmoved? Are we content to attend church, and get a few crumbs of comfort for ourselves? Is it nothing to us that the great mass of our fellows are disobedient to God and in great danger? If revival is to come, a tender heart that will be concerned for others must be ours. And if we have not a tender heart we must seek for one. We must be prepared to yield our hearts for considerable periods at a time to the influence of the Word. We must pray for those who are ignorant of God’s will. We must be anxious to spread the knowledge of the truth. We must make a covenant to obey the Word; and we must be prepared to urge others to a like implicit obedience. If we will do these things God will use us as He did Josiah, to produce a religious awakening.