For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David.
Seeking after God
I. Why we should seek after God.
1. We are by nature without God.
2. To be without God is certain misery.
3. In God alone we can obtain peace and rest.
II. How we are to seek after God.
1. With respect to God Himself. Josiah sought--not the God of nature; not the God of Providence; but “the God of David his father.” And why? David was a type of Christ; the covenant made with David a type of the covenant of grace, and “the sure mercies of David,” symbols of the better blessings of the New Covenant.
2. With respect to ourselves. By repentance, faith, and obedience.
III. When we are to seek after god. (Robert Stevenson.)
Early piety and its advantages
I. Enlightened piety consists in seeking God.
1. Earnestly.
2. Promptly.
3. Perseveringly.
II. Seeking God early will conduce to honour.
1. It keeps alive religious susceptibilities.
2. It saves from snares.
3. It brings eminent usefulness in life.
4. It prepares for happy death. (J. Wolfendale.)
Youth the best time to serve God
Let us think of some reasons why we should seek God in childhood.
1. The first reason is because youth is the best time.
2. Another reason is because youth is the most important time. “Satisfy us early with Thy goodness, that we may be glad and rejoice all our days.” What seems a slight mistake at the beginning may make a terrible difference at the end.
3. Another reason for seeking God in early life is because it is noblest to do right now, not to wait until we have spentmost of our life doing wrong. (Christian Age.)
Well started
I. That any soul should begin early to seek the Lord, is an event that would be thought unimportant by some, but it is chronicled in heaven.
II. Every man must search carefully his own heart, and determine whether the definite desire after God is there or not. The desire is equivalent to spiritual sight. To help to build up righteousness is serving God.
III. Some will say: “but i have no such opportunities as josiah.” Have you sought them? Is not influence on relatives, friends, comrades, fellow-workers an opportunity? Can you never seize suitable occasions for uttering a Christian sentence or scowling on a social sin?
IV. A further objection is “but i have so many difficulties in my way, that i can do nothing useful.” Think of those Josiah must have met with.
V. Others say: “but i never had any special call to serve God.” What if parents, or brothers, or sisters, or friend never mentioned it? Have you never heard it in your heart, and cannot you hear it now? The very passage of time calls you to serve God.
VI. Those who begin life with Christ as Saviour, Guide, Helper, Eternal Friend, and who are honestly trying to serve Him, may be sure that He will rejoice over them, and remember them, even though them names may not be emblazoned on any great world-roll of honour.
VII. Some are conscious that they are not making a good beginning of life. They are drifting onwards and towards dangerous rapids and a deathly abyss. Christ comes to save and to give a fresh start. This is an opportunity which is worth seizing. (F. Hastings.)
Early piety
I. What Josiah turned from.
1. From what is familiarly called “the way of the world.”
2. From the carnal appetites of youth, which craved to be pampered by their gratification.
3. From all vanities of the imagination.
4. From the exercise of power, before weighing its responsibilities.
5. From false friends and evil counsellors.
6. From the delusions of the gaudy appendages of a worldly Court.
II. What Josiah turned to. He fixed his heart and the faith of his soul upon God, as his--
1. Friend.
2. Father.
3. Guide.
III. He was faithful and pious from his earliest days. (A Gatty, M.A.)
Early piety
I. Nothing is more amiable in itself, or more pleasing to God, than early piety.
II. Youth is a season in which you have the greatest advantages for cultivating the principles of piety, and the greatest need of religion, as a defence from temptation and dangers.
III. By early piety you will prepare tranquility and joy for old age, whilst by an opposite conduct you will fill it with remorse and fears.
IV. Regard to the feelings of all pious persons in the Church universal, a respect to the happiness of your parents, should induce you early to devote yourselves to God.
V. On your conduct in youth, your salvation or perdition almost infallibly depend. (H. Kollock, D. D.)
Early piety
I. We shall briefly notice the striking example of youthful piety here presented to our view.
1. He was a decidedly religious character.
2. His genuine religion commenced at an early period.
3. An exemplary life and conversation abundantly proved the sincerity and ardour of his piety.
4. Josiah’s early piety is adduced as the pledge if not the basis of his future eminence in religion.
5. Josiah and his country reaped great advantages from his early devotedness to God.
II. We shall produce arguments urging upon all our young people the exemplification of similar decided piety.
1. A due regard to your personal welfare.
2. The plea of relative usefulness--
(1) In the family.
(2) The social circle.
(3) The Church.
3. Many whom you dearly love feel deeply interested in your spiritual welfare.
(1) Parents.
(2) Ministers.
4. The compassionate Saviour not only claims but kindly encourages youthful piety. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)
Early piety exemplified in Josiah
I. Josiah imitated david.
1. God was David’s teacher.
2. God was David’s comfort.
3. God was David’s delight.
4. God was David’s defence.
II. The manner how he sought after god. He sought God--
1. From a deep conviction that his conduct and the conduct of Israel generally was highly offensive to God, and that they were exposed to imminent peril.
2. In deep self-abasement of soul.
3. By destroying the idols out of the land.
4. By restoring God’s true worship and frequenting it.
5. With all his heart (2Ki_23:25).
III. The period of life when he did it. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)
Josiah
Josiah was--
I. An early seeker. Our Queen wears a velvet cap under her crown lest it should hurt her head: this eight-year-old king had more need of such a covering. The crown is a heavy burden for young soldiers. Yet there have been younger kings than Josiah. An old Norse king was called Olaf Lapking because he was king while on his mother’s lap. Royal boyhood is often poisoned boyhood. The people of Israel around little Josiah were doing worse than the heathen. The sins and sorrows of that time are described in the Lamentations of Jeremiah, whose heart they had broken, Yet Josiah at the age of eight did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and at sixteen began to seek the God of his father David with more earnestness than ever. God calls us to seek Him earlier. In our Latin exercises there was a story about a simpleton sitting one evening at the river’s brink. A traveller coming up wished his company in crossing. “No,” he replied, “I am waiting till the river flows past.” The tiny stream of difficulties between you and Christ won’t flow past, but will flow on, and broaden and deepen, till it grows like an angry torrent, swollen with winter floods, that threatens to sweep down the old man who would ford it.
II. Josiah was also a hearty hater of evil. He did not hate in others the sins he practised himself, He was not like the Czar of Russia who used to say, “I reform my country, and am not able to reform myself.” Dr. Arnold used to say, “Commend me to boys who love God and hate evil.” Love without hate makes a mere milksop, and Christ’s disciples are to be the salt, and not the sugar of society. We need boys who will hate all evil as young Hannibal hated Rome. The young Christian ought to be the sworn foe of the kingdom of darkness.
III. Josiah was a real hero. A hero is one who, in doing duty, scorns great dangers. He had the spirit of Chrysostom, who replied to the threats of the Empress Eudoxia, “I fear nothing but sin.” Josiah’s love for the Bible would open his soul to all the best influences from the heroic lives of Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Samuel and Gideon. Thus was developed in him what Dr. Chalmers calls “the expulsive power of a new affection.”
IV. Josiah was missed and mourned when he died. There is a night in Spain called “the sad night”: and so in the history of Judah, the death of Josiah was “the sad day.” The Rabbis say that “the memory of him was like costly incense, and sweet as honey in the mouths of all.” (James Wells, M.A.)
