Clean It Out

2 Kings 23:3

“The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord—to follow the Lord and keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.”

Most of us don’t know Ignaz Semmelweis. He is a very important person who pioneered the washing of the hands with not only just soap and water, but chlorine back in the mid 1800’s. Before Semmelweis, many mothers birthing new babies died after child birth. He studied this and found out that women who gave birth at home with midwives had a higher survival rate than the women who gave birth in hospitals. What was the difference? He found out through some trial and error that the doctors in hospitals also did autopsies. While they washed their hands after performing these autopsies, small amounts the sickness that befell the cadavers made it over to the birthing mothers in the hospitals. The midwives had no connection to the cadavers making a more clean environment. Doctor Semmelweis began a study using these same doctors washing with chlorine along with regular washing after autopsies. The death rate fell and you would think he was a hero. In a bizarre twist of irony, Semmelweis was pinned against the doctors in hospitals having been accused of causing many unwanted deaths just by the way they cleaned up against his chlorine theory. Well, he lost his job, developed a mental condition, and succumb to death via a sepsis infection. The point is that today, we all know that cleaning up is vitally important in many areas.

Josiah had an infestation issue. Having inherited the kingdom of Judah after nearly 70 years of total godless behavior the temple of God, Jerusalem was in disarray to say the least. The book of the law of Moses was found inside the mess and it was read to Josiah. After the reading, he vowed to clean up the mess. First, he called together all of the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. He went up to the temple and read, in their hearing, all the words of the Book of the Covenant which had been found in the temple. Josiah stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord and the people pledged themselves to the covenant.

Let the cleaning begin! He ordered Hilkiah the high priest to get rid of all of the articles made for Baal, Asherah and all the starry host. He got rid of the priests who aliened themselves with Baal and the starry host. He burned the Asherah pole that was in temple. He tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the temple. He desecrated the temple built for Molek so no more child sacrifice could take place. He also removed the horses that were dedicated to the sun at the entrance of the temple. He tore down the alters erected on the roof near the upper room of Ahaz and the alter his grandfather, Manasseh had built. Next, he went east and south of Jerusalem destroying the high places king Solomon had built for the vile goddess, Ashtoreth of the Sidonians. He smashed the sacred stones and cut down all of the Asherah poles. Lastly, the Bible says that he even went as far as Samaria and burned the shrines that aroused the Lord’s anger. Finally he slaughtered all of the priests of those high places.

After all of the “cleaning” Josiah ordered all of the people to celebrate Passover. Verse 25 tells us, “Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.”

Some of us need a deep cleaning. You have been doing your life for many years just rocking along with no problems until you met your Semmelweis. The person or scripture that calls you out on your uncleanness. This new information cuts deep into your way of doing life. 2 Timothy 2:22 tells us, “Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” If you look closely, you have not given the Lord “all” of your heart. You still linger on with some hidden sin that no one needs to hear about because you say that it is not affecting anyone.

Romans 6:23 tells us “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” You cannot keep habitually sinning and gain righteousness. Just like all the kings of Judah and Israel, except for Josiah and a few others, they all kept some of the evil things around to pacify the people. Every day, we should clean our spiritual house of anything against the Lord. 1 Timothy 6:11 tells us, “But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.” Josiah knew that it all had to go in order to be right with God.

The question today for you is, have you gotten rid of all of it? Are you still holding on to that sin, that depression, that habit, the poor friendships, the ungodly speech? It all has to be cast away and you must do what David said in Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” The abundant life is waiting on you.

Prayer: Jesus, help us to clean out all of the things that are not of you in our lives. Open our eyes to what you see and give us the strength to do a deep cleaning. In Jesus name, amen.