June 30 Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Boscath. And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left. 2 Kings 22:1-2 A whitewater river guide once told me that the secret of whitewater canoeing is to stay in the “tongue,” or the center, of the river because there are currents to the right and left that ultimately lead to a cracked canoe. That’s what Josiah did. He didn’t go to the right or the left. So often we, as Christians, can go off to the right. We can become very legalistic, thinking we alone are “right.” The Pharisees veered off to the right. Or, we drift to the left and become so liberal in our theology that we stand for nothing. The Sadducees did this. That is why the Lord calls us, like Josiah, to remain in the center. At this point, Judah will enter a period of peace and prosperity resulting from revival and reformation during the reign of Josiah. There were four great reformers, four great kings who ushered in revival in the country of Judah: Asa, Hezekiah, Jehoshaphat, and Josiah. But the reforms under Josiah went further and deeper than the reforms of any of the other reformers. Revival is what every one of us longs for in some way. If your own heart is dry, you need a personal revival. If your children aren’t walking with the Lord in the way you know they should, your family needs revival. If your workplace is an atmosphere of ungodliness and carnality, your colleagues need revival. Our God is the God of continual revival. And He wants to revive. One eight year-old boy was totally in love with the Lord. And in him, the Lord had a base from which He could work. As you study history and read of revivals, you will find without exception that they begin with one individual excited about the Lord. All it takes is one. “What difference can I make in my neighborhood or at my workplace?” we ask. “There are so many people, how could I affect that situation?” It only takes one . . . In the late 1800s, there was a great evangelist named Gypsy Smith. He traveled the world, preaching on every continent. Wherever he preached, revival broke out. One day, a delegation of people came to him and said, “Reverend Smith, we desperately want to see revival in our area. It’s so dry and dead. What can we do?” Gypsy reportedly said, “Go home. Lock yourselves in your bedrooms. Take a piece of chalk. Draw a circle on the floor. Kneel in the circle and pray fervently that God would start a revival in that circle.” Revival doesn’t begin by praying for your husband or wife, or praying for your boss. It begins when you get on your face before the Lord and say, “Let it begin with me.”
Posted on: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 10:14:59 +0000
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