Josiah, The Boy King Chapter 3 Part 1

Josiah, the Boy King  Chapter 3, Part 1

            Josiah looked up at his mother with a big tear running down each cheek.  “They killed him, didn’t they Mommy.  They killed the prophet Isaiah.”

            Jedidah nodded sadly.  “Isaiah and many others also.  When my father and his friends came to King Manasseh to try to stop the murder of Isaiah he told his guards to take them all captive.  I had only been at the palace for a few weeks—it was just after our wedding.  I saw them drag my father and his friends out of the throne room and down the steps and I never saw them again. 

            This time it was little Josiah who hugged his mother as she sobbed, “Oh, how I wish Manasseh had never listened to that wicked Bar-Abel.”

            “But Mommy,” Josiah tried to comfort her.  “You told me that things are different now.  The fires in Molech have gone out.  Grandpa Manasseh has learned his lesson.  That’s what you told me.  Isn’t that what the man with the ram’s horn said, that Manasseh was going to serve the Lord?”

            “Yes, son.  That was a very hard lesson for King Manasseh to learn.  It was only about two months after Isaiah died that the soldiers came from Babylon.”

            “The same soldiers we saw when Grandpa came back?”

            “Yes, the very same soldiers.  The captains of the hosts of the king of Assyria.  The king and Bar-Abel had been bragging for years about how strong our army was.  It had been strong when we followed the Lord because He made us strong.  But now the army was made up of cowards who killed old men who couldn’t defend themselves.  When they saw the Babylonians with their javelins and daggers and horses and chariots our army didn’t fight at all.  They just turned and ran away.”

            “Our soldiers ran?”

            Jedidah nodded.  “They were depending on false idols for strength, Josiah.  Only Jehovah God is able to give men courage and strength.”

            “But the king fought, didn’t he?  Grandpa Manasseh fought those enemies.  That’s what kings are for.”

            “That’s what kings are for.  But when Manasseh saw his soldiers all running away he fled as well.  He took a passageway that leads down along the wall behind the palace and ends up in the valley of Kidron.”

            “Oh, I know where that path is, Mommy.  But it ends up in a briar patch just outside the wall.  When Benjamin and I played down there we got all full of thorns.”

            “That’s what happened to Manasseh too.  They caught him in the middle of the thorns.  Then they took a long chain and attached it to both of his feet and both of his hands so he couldn’t get away.  They made him walk that way the entire road to Babylon.

            “And then he got right with the Lord, didn’t he, Mommy.”

            “Well, not right away.  He stayed in Babylon for several years.  At first he was very bitter, very mad at God.  Instead of admitting that he was the one who had done wrong by worshipping idols and killing Isaiah, he blamed God for causing all of his trouble.  Just like Bar-Abel had blamed Isaiah, God’s prophet, so the king blamed God Himself.  Then he began to think…

            “If God is powerful enough to give me all this trouble, then he must be a lot more powerful than the gods I’ve been worshipping.  They haven’t been able to keep my out of the trouble God is bringing into my life.  In fact, they haven’t done anything at all.  Instead, I have to do everything for them.  I have to feed them, and clean them when they get dirty and even build them something to sit on so they can stand upright.”

            Then the king started to think of some way to make Jehovah-God happy again.  He still didn’t want to admit that he had been wrong.  He never had to tell Baal that he was wrong, he just had to give him some gifts.  But now he couldn’t think of anything he could give to God when he was chained up night and day.  He didn’t have any of his gold treasures left.  He didn’t have any of the beautiful robes he had always worn.  He didn’t have anything at all.  So he decided to make God some promises.

            “If you’ll get me out of here..I’ll never sacrifice another child to Molech.”

            “If you’ll get me out of here….I’ll make a solid gold altar to place in your temple.”

            “If you’ll get me out of here…I’ll set up a scholarship fund in memory of Isaiah and pay all the bills so young boys can go to the school of the prophets.”

            But nothing worked.  It just didn’t seem like God was even interested in his promises.  So the years went by and Manasseh decided he’d probably never ever get back to Jerusalem.  But all along he knew what he needed to do.  Isaiah had been his teacher when he was just a little boy, like you.  He could remember his teacher saying, “Come now, and let us reason together saith the Lord.  Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool.”

            “I know that, Mommy.  You taught me how to say that one.”

            “It’s very important, my son.  It was that saying from Isaiah which reminded the king how to get right with God.  He started to pray.  First he prayed that God would let him go back to the land.  But the more he thought about the verse, his prayers began to change.  He started praying that God would make his sins as white as snow.  And in order to pray that way, he had to finally admit that what he had done was sin.  God answered that prayer.  He gave King Manasseh a new heart, a clean heart, just like Isaiah had promised he would.”