Bible Stories for the Young
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How old are you? Did you know that King Josiah was only eight years old when he became king? Most kings are grown-ups, but he was only a boy!
Even though King Josiah was only a boy, he did what was Right in God’s eyes. Most other kings at that time were selfish and mean and bowed down to fake idols. Most kings only did what THEY wanted and didn’t care about what GOD wanted!
Because Josiah was king, he could have easily made selfish choices too. He could have only thought about what HE wanted, like lots of toys, lots of stuff, or lots of fun. Instead, he thought about what God wanted.
Because he was king, he could have just acted like he was “big stuff” and boss everyone around. Instead, Josiah surrounded himself with good leaders and people who could help him make good choices.
Josiah asked, “God, who are YOU? What do YOU like? What do YOU want?” He thought about this all the time. (This is called being conscious of God.)
As Josiah made these choices to think about God and to try to do what was Right in God’s eyes, he started to learn some things. Josiah learned that God wanted all the fake idols to be smashed. If you want to obey God, one of the first things He asks is that we smash, smash, smash those idols.
So, King Josiah smashed, smashed, smashed all the fake idol statues in the whole land. He smashed them here, there, and everywhere! (Remember what we said an idol really is: anything we let be more important than God. These days that’s more like your iPad or toys or anything you let yourself looove more than God. Don’t let anything ever become more important than God, or it will need to be smashed, smashed, smashed.)
“What else does God want?” thought Josiah. “I know! God’s House is broken down and needs to be fixed, fixed, fixed. I can help make it nice again.” King Josiah called his royal secretary. “Go to God’s House. A treasure chest is there. Get the coins out of the treasure chest to pay good workers so God’s House can get fixed, fixed, fixed up nice again.”
The secretary got to work right away. He went to God’s House to find the treasure chest. While he was there, one of the leaders had made a discovery! Something was hiding under the rubble of the broken down House! Can you guess what it was?
The secretary ran back to Josiah. “King Josiah! King Josiah! Look what we found buried under the rubble of God’s House! It’s an old book!”
King Josiah told the secretary, “An old book? Read it to me. It must have been lost for a long time. We must find out what it says.”
The secretary began to read the old book. The old book was all about God. It was all about the things that God wanted. It was the book God had given to Moses with His rules in it!
This was just what Josiah had been wanting to know!
As Josiah heard all the words in the old book, he started to cry. All of God’s special words had been lost for so long. So many people in the land had been disobeying the words in the book.
How do you think God’s book got so LOST? This book was part of the super important law that God had given to Moses — the beginning of the Bible! In a very short amount of time, only a couple generations, God’s Law had become so disregarded, so unimportant to them, that the king of God’s own nation didn’t even know it existed. That’s crazy! But, it’s the same today. That’s what happens when we don’t hold tightly to Truth and act on it. God’s heart gets covered up by people’s bad, broken-down, garbage-like choices. Let’s not be like those people who lost God’s Words because they didn’t care enough to DO something about it. Okay? Read the Bible, and ACT on it! It will change our lives, and we need our lives changed, don’t we? I know I do.
Josiah cried out to God, “God, I’m so sorry that people don’t think about You very much anymore! I’m so sorry that people only think about what they want and not about what You want. God, what should we do?”
God told Josiah, “You are special because you have kept your heart soft. You humbled yourself and cared deeply when you heard My words. I will have to punish the people who disobeyed Me, but I will protect you.”
Josiah promised God that he would obey all of God’s laws that were written in the old book. He turned to God with ALL his heart, ALL his soul, and ALL his might. He called all the people together and read to them the words from the old book so they could know what God wanted. They promised that they would obey God too.
One of the things God had written about in the book was a special party called Passover. After they read about it, King Josiah and all the people had the huge party, Passover, giving sacrifices to God and singing, “We want to make You happy, God! You’re the best!”