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Josiah as an 8 year old boy admired and adored David. King David was not his true father. The evil king Amon was his father and worse king Mannaseh was his Grandfather. As an impresssionable little boy, Josiah had no positive spiritual role models in his immediate family. But Josiah began to hear the stories about his grandfather 15 times removed, King David! The stories of how David had a relationship with God 400 years before began to consume this little boy king and he began to wonder if God would bless him with such a relationship.

At age 16, the scriptures say that Josiah “began to seek after the God of David his father.” Josiah never mentioned his real father and grandfather, but made David his spiritual father and began to seek after God like Him! He desired to know God as his hero, King David had, and not in some lesser way. Josiah read about how that David danced before the Lord and something got ahold of him and he desired to experience it for himself. Josiah read how that David had been able to slay his giants and somehow it gave Josiah strength to slay the giants of evil parents in his own life. Josiah read how that God responded when David worshipped and prayed and fasted and Josiah began to seek after the God of David his father. David had lived 400 years earlier, but Josiah made up his mind that he would not settle for any relationship with God less than what David had!

You and I live in a time where religion has been given a bad name. We live in a time where priests are child abusers and yet protected by churches. We live in a time where there are many men who claim to be “in church” and yet really they desire money, wealth, and fame. We live in a time where the prevailing attitude is God really doesn’t punish sin anymore. We live in a time where eternity is not the prevailing message and hell is not a popular subject. Some have even suggested that it is not a real place but just a creation of religion. There are many people in the world claiming to have the answer and to know the true God. There are many philosophies that claim to know the questions before they are asked.

But in this age where our fathers have forsaken the truth, I admire and adore the Early Apostolic church. I may be young but I have a desire to know God in the way that Peter and John and Paul did. I feel like Josiah reading over the stories of King David and making up his mind that he was not going to settle for anything less when I read the stories found in Acts! I’ve made up in my mind that I’m not going to settle for anything less than the relationship with God that they had! I’m making them my role models for life! I’m not going to settle for any experience less than receiving the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues. I’m not going to settle for any baptism less than in Jesus’ name. I’m not going to go for any other lifestyle than a holy, separated lifestyle as a living sacrifice. I’ve made up my mind that the religions of recent years will not be my role models. I care less about church traditions and more about Apostolic teaching! My Bible tells me that God is no respector of persons. If I live and believe as Peter and Paul did, then I will discover the same relationship and power and experience that they had! Don’t tell me the way that the church has done it for the past hundred years, but let me go back 1800 years and find out exactly how the Apostolic church that Jesus Christ established did it! If anybody had it right, they had it right!

I don’t care how you were raised or what you were taught to believe. We need some spiritual Josiahs that will make Peter and Paul and John and Philip their spiritual fathers! We need some people who will throw away recent traditions for the original traditions as established by Jesus Christ in His church. If an 8 year old boy could change a whole nation by simply desiring a relationship like King David, then what would happen if the church of today would begin to have services like Peter! To pray like the 120! If we would begin to be faithful like Mary Magdalene. Step out in faith like Phillip. Witness like Paul! We will shake our city and our family and more importantly we will discover the God that they served!

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When Josiah sought the Lord, some interesting things began to happen.

1. He began to destroy and remove idolatry. At the age of 16, Josiah began to find out that King David hated idolatry. King David wouldn’t let anything or anybody, not even himself glory in the presence of God. When King David was bringing the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem he removed his kingly robes and then danced with all his might before God. Why did he remove his kingly robes? Because David realized that even as the King of Israel, he was not worthy of any praise when in the presence of God Almighty!

King Josiah read that, and as he began to seek the Lord, he began to realize that some idols needed to be cast down in his life! An idol doesn’t have to be a stone statue in a corner somewhere. An idol is anything that you exalt or worship more than God. You can tell if someone is really seeking after God to know Him in a more powerful way because they will begin to tear down idols in their life. You will know if someone is not really seeking to know God better, because they will justify the idols in their life.

Worship is much more than just the lifting up of hands and hearts. But when you obey the Word of God in a situation, then that activity has become worship. When you conduct business with fairness and Godliness, then your business becomes a form of worship. When your appearance lines up to the guidelines of the Word of God, then your appearance becomes an emblem of worship. Worship is nothing more than a physical display of response to God’s Spirit. When you talk and speak not as a gossip or with filthy words and thoughts, your speech becomes a form of worship. We are to be “living sacrifices.” That is everything about our life is to glorify God.

If all of this is so, then when our actions in an area do not glorify God, then it is still a form of worship, but to some other god. When we obey something other than God then we worship it! That is idolatry! We have made those things an idol.

All of the idols that I find in scripture had some of the same characteristics.

1. They were something that was made into gods by the hands of men.

2. They demanded sacrifice of time and attendance.

3. They encouraged activity that fulfilled the lust of the flesh and justified it as acceptable.

4. They always ended up consuming the children.

What we need is a good old fashioned revival of tearing down idols. Entertainment of any kind, when it robs you of your relationship with God, becomes an idol. When you know all of a basketball’s stars latest stats and figures and yet can’t even show somebody how to be saved in the scriptures, then you have made that sport an idol. When we have time to watch our favorite show or read our novel for a couple of hours, but we hardly have time to slip in a five minute prayer or even read a chapter of the Bible, then we have made an idol! When making money is more important to us than attending church, or visiting with family is more important than coming together with God’s people, our family and jobs have become idols! If you are seeking after God you want to tear down idols not justify them!

The scripture says that the spirit of sacrifice hit the early Apostolic church and they began to sell houses and land and give the money to the church on their own free will. When it came down to keeping their job or missing being apart of church evangelism, they chose church and were willing to change their jobs. And yet today we give more in tips to the wait staff of our favorite eating places than we do in the offering! And if the preacher preaches on tithing?! Why did the early Apostolic church give sacrificial offering BEYOND their tithing and offering? They were casting down the idol of money! If this is making you nervous today, then you need to seriously look at the idol in your life! Everywhere I find an idol grove in scripture, I find a bunch of people that would become really upset if their idol was torn down. Whatever subject that you really cringe at when the preacher begans to teach on it, is usually your idol!

A signature role of idol worship was that it usually involved sacrificing their children. When you exalt anything above God’s house and God’s Word and God’s Spirit, whether it be money, or family, or sports, or whatever, you will sacrifice your children to those things and the very thing that you made into an idol will be the very thing that keeps your kids from coming to God!

But Josiah began to tear down the idols. And as he began to tear down the idols in his life, then God began to move in a mighty way just as He had when David had tore down the idol worship. Oh, nothing short of an outpouring of the Holy Ghost like Peter saw will satisfy me! Nothing, not a house, not a car, not a job, not my family, not a hobby, not entertainment means more to me than seeing it come to pass! If I have to give it all up, then I will do whatever it takes to experience God like Peter did! But we are going to have to be faithful like Peter! We are going to have to endure like Paul! Are you driven by the stories of your Apostolic fathers? Enough that you are willing to sacrifice? Enough that you are willing to be faithful even when it goes against normal everyday habits? Are you hungry enough for God and does your relationship with Him mean so much to you that you are willing to tear down the idols in your life?!?

To remove an idol, you do not leave up to anyone else. Josiah personally oversaw the destruction of the idols. You also have to completely destroy all trace of the idol and it’s worship! You cannot leave even a little piece of it! We must become zealous to destroy idols in our lives!

2. Josiah began to repair the Temple. At the age of 26, he ordered that the people would return to giving to the house of God. He organized the work and began to organize the giving so that everyone of Israel had a stake in the rebuilding of the house of God. David had desired so much to build a house for God to dwell within. As Josiah’s knowledge and relationship with God grew, he also developed a love for the house of God. Josiah went and found the priests and ministers and rededicated them and gave them their rightful place in his life. He renewed church attendance as being important and led by example!

If someone is growing in relationship with God a definite sign will be their interest in the house of God. Show me someone who is willing to serve and to sacrifice their time and effort for the work and house of God and I will tell you that they are somebody that God can use. Inversely, you can always tell when someone begins to fall away from God because their interest in serving and working at the house of God diminishes.

But there is a much more important parallel in scripture here than just cleaning the church. The temple of God was in disarray from spiritual neglect of the ministry and years of idolatry. There needed to be serious repairs wrought upon the temple and those repairs could only come by careful study of the plan of God, hard work, and sacrifice!

Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost. And yet their are areas of our life where we think differently and act differently than the Word of God! Our lives come to God wrecked by a lifestyle of idolatry and sensuous pleasure. We need a repairing of the temple of God. We have so many ideologies and philosophies in us that are not like God that need fixing. The repairs can only come by careful study of the plan of God, hard word, and sacrifice! You need all the preaching and teaching of truth that you can get. We need to read our Bibles and study out what thus saith the Lord God. We need to sacrifice and work hard to repair the areas of our life that are not in accordance with God’s Word! We must repair the temple.

There must be an elevation of the ministry in our lives where Apostolic authority has control of our spiritual being. We must allow men of God to minister and correct and guide us. Jesus placed ministry to the forefront of the Apostolic church and gave it more authority than any priest had ever had:

We must rebuild and repair this temple!

3. Josiah discovered the forgotten truths of the Word of God! In repairing the temple, they found the Word of God that had been neglected for years and years. They brought it to King Josiah and read it before him and he wept and rent his clothes when he actually heard what the Word of God said and realized that their traditions had been so far from what God had commanded!

2 Chr 34:15-19 And Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD. And Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan. 16 And Shaphan carried the book to the king, and brought the king word back again, saying, All that was committed to thy servants, they do it. 17 And they have gathered together the money that was found in the house of the LORD, and have delivered it into the hand of the overseers, and to the hand of the workmen. 18 Then Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath given me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. 19 And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes.

One of the things that Josiah realized when he actually read the Word of God was that they were not celebrating the Passover correctly.

He renewed the Passover to exactly the way that God wanted it to be done! Israel had been celebrating a form of the Passover but it was not exactly in obedience to God’s Word. They had been celebrating according to tradition and not going back and seeing exactly what God had said in the beginning! They had made it okay to have leaven. They had made it much more convenient to celebrate rather than follow the rigorous guidelines in God’s Word.

In the same way, there are people that are celebrating the Passover according to tradition! The Passover was the time of the killing of a Lamb and the proper application of it’s blood. Jesus became the Passover Lamb when He died, was buried, and was resurrected. When you actually read the scripture for yourselves, you will find that the only way that anyone was ever saved was to Repent, be baptized in Jesus’ name, and to receive the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues as the Spirit of God gave the utterance! When you do that, you are Dying with the great Passover Lamb, being buried with Him in baptism and properly applying His blood, and receiving Him into your life. When you obey Act 2:38, you are simply celebrating the Passover.

But the world has found a more convenient way to celebrate Passover. It’s easier to pray for them by leading them in a sinner’s prayer. It’s easier to fill their churches by celebrating the Passover with leaven, or, in other words, leaving the sin alone and not preaching that you need to clean your lives and house out! They have made an easier Passover tradition and they lean heavily on that tradition.

But when I actually read the Word of God, I begin to weep when I realize how far man’s tradition is from God’s Word! The only way anybody is ever baptized is in the name of Jesus! But there is an easier formula that is not so dogmatic and that doesn’t make Jesus everything that men are using! It’s time for some Spiritual Josiah’s to realize that it doesn’t matter what mother and father believed. It doesn’t matter what man’s tradition says. I’m going to read the Word of God for myself and I will celebrate the Passover according to the strict guidelines of the Word of God!

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Josiah also found himself in the prophecy of the Word of God. A prophet had prophesied that a man named Josiah would arise and stamp out idolatry by burning the remains of the priests who had worshipped idols.

Josiah became obsessed with this prophecy and stamped out idolatry out with a zealousness. The prophecy was there, but there could have been another Josiah that God raised up to fulfill the prophecy! In fact, there was another Josiah later on mentioned in scripture! But King Josiah wasn’t about to let somebody fulfill his God-given calling! He embraced the calling of God and became passionate about fulfilling it!

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{adlib the parable of the sower and how that the care of life “choked” so that the plant did not bear fruit. Explain exactly where we are as a church}

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I can only find two role models for a church: The Early Apostolic Church and the Church in the Wilderness of Unbelievers. Both were saved by the Passover, but the church in the wilderness wasn’t willing to fight for truth and weren’t willing to endure some hardships in order to get into the promised land. The Early Apostolic Church endured severe hardships, pressed through the cares of life and shook their world with an Apostolic anointing. I want them to be my spiritual Fathers!

There is nothing new to discover doctrinally. There is only Apostolic doctrine to “rediscover.” I do not want to trace my roots spiritually back to some organization full of tradition for tradtion’s sake. I want to discover the power and the glory and the sacrifice of the Early Church! I will settle for no less than the same relationship with God that Peter and John and Paul had! I’m like a young Josiah looking back to David! I want to restore the relationship with God to what it once was! The God of my Fathers!