Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“The king commanded all the people, saying, “Keep the Passover to Yahweh your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant.” Surely there was not kept such a Passover from the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah; but in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was kept to Yahweh in Jerusalem.”
(2 Kings 22:11-20)

“I will sing of loving kindness and justice.
    To you, Yahweh, I will sing praises.
I will be careful to live a blameless life.
    When will you come to me?
    I will walk within my house with a blameless heart.
I will set no vile thing before my eyes.
    I hate the deeds of faithless men.
    They will not cling to me.
A perverse heart will be far from me.
    I will have nothing to do with evil.
I will silence whoever secretly slanders his neighbor.
    I won’t tolerate one who is arrogant and conceited.
My eyes will be on the faithful of the land,
    that they may dwell with me.
He who walks in a perfect way,
    he will serve me.
He who practices deceit won’t dwell within my house.
    He who speaks falsehood won’t be established before my eyes.
Morning by morning, I will destroy all the wicked of the land,
    to cut off all the workers of iniquity from Yahweh’s city.”
(Psalm 101)

They hadn’t been keeping the Passover. One of the most important festivals given to the Israelites at Sinai in the Law. A very HUGE deal. And they hadn’t kept it for GENERATIONS. And they had NEVER kept one that was this all-inclusive since they had first been given a king over them. Not Saul, David, Solomon, or any of the others had kept one that called as many people to the festival. Josiah had destroyed all the idolatrous places. He’d kicked out the occult. He had led them in terrific reforms that eliminated the tools they used for idol worship. Josiah moved and changed and altered things until only the things of Yahweh remained. He enforced proper forms of worship and made sure that the tools were available for all the people to worship the Lord in the ways the Lord said were proper and good. This was a TREMENDOUS revival and renewal of true worship. We are called to worship the Lord in TRUTH as we always have been (John 4:24).

How do we enjoy protection? How do we live under Blessing? By being in accord with the Lord and His point of view. By submitting ourselves to humble obedience because He is Lord. He is God. He is faithful, and He is true. When we do what He has clearly said is the beneficial path of humanity, we find that it IS the beneficial path of humanity. Josiah found the Word, followed the Word, and the whole nation benefited from it. When the next king stopped aligning with the Word, he and the nation that followed him, suffered. God’s position was CONSISTENT. It is the people whose position changed. As a result, their situation changed from one of blessing to one of judgment (because of choosing rebellion despite MULTIPLE warnings).

Summary

God is patient. God is kind. He is merciful. He is gracious. He loves us unconditionally. But He is RIGHTEOUS. God judged the nation of Israel because they abandoned Him, rebelled against Him, and did what was wrong. He still loved them. He gave them MANY chances. But they did not listen, did not follow Him, and they got judged. Now the same is happening to Judah. Hundreds of years of warnings. Prophets speaking out to the people. Good kings leading the charge in humbling themselves and rejecting ALL trappings of idolatry and ungodly worship. People followed in ACTION but not in HEART. The same is before us today. God isn’t sending ANYONE to Hell. We are CHOOSING it by refusing to follow Him in our hearts. Salvation is choosing God in our hearts. But that is the start point. We need to continually lean into Him. We will be protected and secure in Jesus IF we repent and humble ourselves and obey His commands. When we find something in the Word, we are to submit to it. When we are given a correction by the Lord, we are to receive it. We are not perfect. That’s okay. But when we learn of an imperfection, we need to lean into Him and what HE says is right and good. That is the ONLY way to stay in the blessing zone. That is the ONLY way to stay connected to Him: obey Him. When we love Him, we’ll WANT to do this. We’ll be EAGER to do this. We won’t rest until we are hand in hand and side by side. Until we are loving Him and submitting with our WHOLE heart.