Josiah’s Role in the End Time

Let me remind our readers of this vital point: Jeremiah wrote the book of Lamentations when Judah had reached the point of no return. The nation could no longer escape God’s wrath because of its many transgressions.

God has now given me more revelation of what this book is all about. It is primarily about God’s Laodicean Church and the nations of Israel having reached the point of no return! Of course, there are some individual exceptions. But God can no longer reach with words the collective Laodicean Church and the three nations of biblical Israel: America, Britain and the Jewish nation. So God describes their physical destruction like no book in the Bible.

God wants them to see themselves in their own bloody, horrifying prophecy! “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). No book in the Bible illustrates that point more than Lamentations!

There is a direct connection between the book of Lamentations and King Josiah of ancient Judah. The book was written as a response to Josiah’s death. “And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold, they are written in the lamentations” (2 Chronicles 35:25). Almost all the commentaries will tell you this does not apply to the book of Lamentations. I’m certain it does, because otherwise that would be very confusing. This is clearly talking about lamentations that are written down somewhere that people can see. Jewish tradition says Jeremiah wrote the book of Lamentations upon the death of Josiah. Josephus wrote, “… Jeremiah the prophet composed an elegy to lament him [Josiah], which is extant till this time …” (Antiquities, Book 10, Chapter 5). How could Josephus be referring to anything but the book of Lamentations?

There is a serious reason Jeremiah and the people of Judah were so intense in their mourning. God had given them some terrifying prophecies about what would happen to the nation after Josiah died. The people had not only lost a righteous king, but they also knew they were about to enter a chamber of nightmares. Lamentations was originally written as a conclusion to Judah’s history. But that was only a type of the conclusion to physical Israel’s history today. Lamentations is a prophecy that the Tribulation is about to descend upon the nations of Israel.

This book also contains another dimension. Only secondarily is it addressed to national Israel. First of all, it is addressed to God’s own Church, which turned away from Him in this end time. It is primarily aimed at spiritual Israel, the Laodicean Church of God.

One of the Bible’s Most Remarkable Prophecies

Josiah’s reign was prophesied in 1 Kings 13:1-3—not only some of his actions but even his name. So his was a very significant reign in ancient Judah.

The prophecy was delivered by an unnamed prophet. “And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the Lord unto Bethel: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. And he cried against the altar in the word of the Lord, and said, O altar, altar …” (1 Kings 13:1-2). This prophet cried against the altar. “[T]hus saith the Lord; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men’s bones shall be burnt upon thee” (verse 2).

This is a dire prophecy. This prophet told Jeroboam, This whole system of yours is going to be destroyed by a righteous king! And miraculously, 360 years later, Josiah came on the scene.

This is surely one of the most remarkable prophecies in all the Bible! What a religion we are part of!

Adam Clarke’s Commentary calls this prophecy “a fact which was attested by the two nations”—that is, both Israel and Judah. “The Jews in whose behalf this prophecy was delivered would guard it most sacredly; and it was the interest of the Israelites [led by Jeroboam], against whom it was leveled, to impugn its authenticity and expose its falsehood, had this been possible.” Of course, Jeroboam was not leading the 10 tribes of Israel to be righteous. Clarke says, “This prediction not only showed the knowledge of God, but His power.” It certainly did show God’s power—to prophesy and then 360 years later raise up a man by the name of Josiah to rip apart the pagan idolatry of the nation!

Adam Clarke continued with this rather poetic perspective: “He [God] gave, as it were, this warning to idolatry, that it might be on its guard, and defend itself against this Josiah whenever a person of that name should be found sitting on the throne of David; and no doubt it was on the alert, and took all prudent measures for its own defense; but all in vain, for Josiah, in the 18th year of his reign, literally accomplished this prophecy …” (emphasis mine). How powerful is God! He had put the forces of evil on notice: When a king named Josiah came on the scene, they had better look out!

If you read 2 Kings 23:15-20, you can see that this unnamed prophet ended up buried in a sepulcher in Bethel, and it served as a reminder to Israel and Judah of this prophecy about Josiah for generations. When Josiah fulfilled the prophecy 360 years later, the people still knew exactly what he had prophesied. This was absolute proof nobody could deny that Josiah was doing the work of the Almighty God!

This is still proof today! This is absolutely astonishing proof of the omnipotence of the great God! There was another similar prophecy about King Cyrus issued 177 years before he was born; this one was 360 years before. What a miraculous book this Bible is! But most people don’t think too much of the Bible.

Jeroboam’s Rebellion

The prophecy from that unnamed prophet had included this: “And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the Lord hath spoken; Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out” (1 Kings 13:3). This was a sign God gave that very day in order to prove it was a true prophecy.

Jeroboam was there in the temple, bullying people around, acting like the high priest, which he was not. He heard this unnamed prophet issue this prophecy against the altar, and he was so incensed that he stretched his hand out and ordered his men to lay hold of the prophet. At that instant, his hand dried up and would not move! (verse 4). Then the altar split in two, just as this prophet had said it would (verse 5).

At that moment, Jeroboam began to realize God was behind this man. “And the king answered and said unto the man of God, Intreat now the face of the Lord thy God”—he said your God to the prophet—“and pray for me, that my hand may be restored me again. And the man of God besought the Lord, and the king’s hand was restored him again, and became as it was before” (verse 6). What an amazing event!

You would think this would have been a life-altering experience for Jeroboam. But as with so many people, it didn’t change anything—he still refused to obey. Miracles from God just don’t have much effect on most people. They happen all the time, yet people remain adamant in their rebellion.

This prophecy about Josiah (and Lamentations, indirectly) is one of the most stupendous prophecies in the Old Testament.

It is also a frightening prophecy for this end time.

Josiah’s History

Josiah began to reign when he was 8 years old after his father had been assassinated (2 Chronicles 33:25; 34:1). He behaved righteously, zealously following God’s ways as he knew how (2 Chronicles 34:2).

In the 12th year of his reign, when he was 20 years old, he began to fulfill that prophecy from 360 years before. He set about ripping the idolatry right out of the nation. He broke down the pagan altars and idols and ground them to powder, which he sprinkled on the graves of the idolaters. Then he burned the bones of the priests on the altars, just as the unnamed prophet had said he would (2 Kings 23:3-5).

“Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he brake down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder, and burned the grove. And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words. Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God [that unnamed prophet], which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel” (verses 15-17). Even Josiah knew he had fulfilled that prophecy.

Josiah killed all the pagan priests and burned their bones on the altars! (verses 19-20). He was truly zealous for God!

During Josiah’s reign, Solomon’s temple still stood, but the people had allowed it to deteriorate; it was dilapidated and looked awful. Josiah, in the 18th year of his reign, when he was 26, began to repair the temple—a type of God’s Church today. “Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land, and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God” (2 Chronicles 34:8).

Mr. Armstrong also found God’s temple, the Church, in terrible disrepair. The Sardis era of God’s Church was dead when he came on the scene (Revelation 3:1).

“And when they came to Hilkiah the high priest, they delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites that kept the doors had gathered of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, and of all Judah and Benjamin; and they returned to Jerusalem. And they put it in the hand of the workmen that had the oversight of the house of the Lord, and they gave it to the workmen that wrought in the house of the Lord, to repair and amend the house: Even to the artificers and builders gave they it, to buy hewn stone, and timber for couplings, and to floor the houses which the kings of Judah had destroyed” (2 Chronicles 34:9-11). What a magnificent project Josiah oversaw.

Anciently the book of God’s law was discovered in the temple. When it was read before Josiah, the king saw that Israel was failing horribly to keep it. He rent his clothes, humbled himself and began to turn himself and some people in Israel to God (verses 14-21). He realized that they were under curses they didn’t even understand, and he warned all Israel. Though not everyone repented, the nation made a remarkable turnaround under his leadership.

The previous leaders had not been discussing the condition of God’s temple. Nor had they been promoting God’s law. They had not been discussing David’s attitude toward the temple and God’s law. We must learn enough about God and His Work to know what must be said and accomplished. Then we will usually know what is not being said and done that should be.

Why is Josiah’s history so important? God taught the nation of Israel to look to the temple for spiritual guidance. The people were commanded to look to the temple. This is where God’s law was supposed to be taught and kept as an example for all Israel. Whenever the temple worship was polluted or omitted, the nation became cursed by God and was usually sent into captivity.

The temple today is God’s true Church.

Most of Josiah’s history is in the books of Chronicles and Kings. There is a big difference in these books. The book of Kings emphasizes the kings. But in the book of Chronicles the emphasis is on Jerusalem, where the temple was—not Mount Gerazim, as some people said. Chronicles emphasizes the Davidic dynasty and the priesthood, also in Jerusalem. This is where the whole nation was to focus.

2 Chronicles is the last book of the Old Testament. You can see that order in Jewish Bibles. The Christian world has the order of the Old Testament books all messed up. That one error is enough to keep them confused about the Old and New Testaments.

So the last book of the Old Testament leaves us a strong warning: Keep your spiritual focus on Jerusalem and the temple, or you will be led astray.

That temple today is where God’s true Church is. Learn to look to where God’s headquarters is today, or your church or nation will have a catastrophic end. That is an absolute!

Josiah’s Death

Jeremiah had also come on the scene near the end of Josiah’s reign with some terrifying prophecies from God. Josiah provided great leadership. Still, the Prophetess Huldah told Josiah and Judah that these frightening prophecies would still be inflicted upon Judah because most of the people failed to repent. Huldah spoke on behalf of God: “Because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands; therefore my wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and shall not be quenched” (2 Chronicles 34:25). This was a very sobering prophecy.

But notice: Because Josiah had humbled himself and had shown such zeal, God decided to delay the fulfillment of the prophecies until after Josiah died (verses 27-28).

This prophecy caused Judah to feel somewhat secure; Josiah was still a young man at the time. It proved to be a false security.

When Egypt decided to march to Assyria to make war with the Assyrians, Pharaohnechoh wanted to go through Judah to save time. He didn’t want to fight Josiah. He told Josiah he just wanted to pass through, and he didn’t want any trouble.

But Josiah was upset. He led his army out to fight the pharaoh. This proved to be a foolish mistake. “In his days Pharaoh-nechoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates: and king Josiah went against him; and he slew him [Josiah] at Megiddo, when he had seen him. And his servants carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own sepulchre. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father’s stead” (2 Kings 23:29-30). Josiah was killed.

This news struck terror in the people of Judah, because they knew of the prophecy that peace would continue only as long as Josiah lived! After Josiah’s death, they knew that Judah was going down. Again let me remind you they had reached the point of no return for the nation.

Now God has revealed to me the full meaning of the book of Lamentations. It is a book about the point of no return. This is God’s way of saying that the Laodiceans and the nations of Israel have also reached the point of no return today! (But, let me repeat, there will be individual exceptions.)

That adds a much greater urgency to our work.

Josiah’s death marked a very sad day for the people of Judah. They were entering into the time of Lamentations. The destruction of their nation was near. This filled the people with fear and anger.

But then something interesting happened—something with strong parallels to our time today.

The Years After Josiah’s Death

Josiah’s reign spanned from 640 to 609 b.c. Some say 608 b.c. The destruction of Jerusalem began in 585 b.c. If Josiah died in 609, that means there was a 24-year gap between his death and Judah’s fall. Although 24 years passed after Josiah’s death before Nebuchadnezzar invaded, I don’t think they were 24 years of peace and prosperity. God was cursing Judah horribly even then.

The king who succeeded Josiah was his son Jehoahaz (also called Shallum; see 2 Kings 23:30-31; 1 Chronicles 3:15; 2 Chronicles 36:1-2). His reign was a curse: “And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done” (2 Kings 23:32). Jeremiah prophesied exactly what would happen to him: He would be taken captive and die in captivity (Jeremiah 22:10-12). Within just a few months, that is exactly what happened. The pharaoh whose army had killed Josiah saw Judah as a vassal nation of Egypt. He invaded and took Jehoahaz captive back to Egypt, where Jehoahaz died (2 Kings 23:33-34).

In Jehoahaz’s place, the pharaoh demanded that Josiah’s older son Eliakim, who regarded pharaoh as his master, be made king, and he changed his name to Jehoiakim (verse 34). Just the fact that the king of Egypt made him king tells you something. Under pharaoh’s command, Jehoiakim taxed the people grievously and sent the money to Egypt (verse 35), while keeping a generous cut for himself at the people’s expense (see Jeremiah 22:13-17). He too was a very wicked king who led the people of Judah back into idolatry and other evils (2 Kings 23:36-37; 2 Chronicles 36:5). He rebelliously ignored the warnings of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 36), and ended up dying according to one of Jeremiah’s prophecies (Jeremiah 22:18-19)—at the hands of the Babylonians.

Jehoiakim was succeeded by his son Jehoiachin, who was also an evil king (2 Kings 24:6-9; 2 Chronicles 36:8-9). By this time, the Babylonians had taken over as the masters of Judah. Jehoiachin was only on the throne for a short time when Nebuchadnezzar removed him and placed his uncle, whom he renamed Zedekiah, on the throne (2 Chronicles 36:10).

Under these terrible leaders, the more time that passed after Josiah died, the worse conditions in Judah grew! The curses had begun! Even though the captivity didn’t come for some time, the people still suffered horrible curses!

Zedekiah

Lamentations 4 describes the decay within the Church leadership after Mr. Armstrong died. “How the gold has grown dim, how the pure gold is changed! The holy stones lie scattered at the head of every street. The precious sons of Zion, worth their weight in fine gold, how they are reckoned as earthen pots, the work of a potter’s hands!” (Lamentations 4:1-2, Revised Standard Version). This is talking about the ministers, who have turned into cheap pottery.

Examples like Josiah and Mr. Armstrong are pure gold. How powerful and wonderful to have men of that stature to look to and learn how to become pure gold spiritually! Look at the revelation God gave through Mr. Armstrong! All that wonderful truth is pure gold.

But Satan turned the people of God away from that! They rebelled against that golden example.

“Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven: they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness. The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen” (verses 19-20).

What does that mean? Who is “the anointed of the Eternal”? That is an extremely positive description of some king. Most commentators will say it refers to Zedekiah, but that couldn’t be true.

In fact, Soncino Commentary says about this verse, “This apparently favorable judgment, contrasted with the unfavorable judgments on Zedekiah in Jeremiah and Kings, has given much trouble to commentators.” I would think so!

Zedekiah was a terribly evil king. Nebuchadnezzar actually had him installed as Judah’s king after taking King Jehoiachin captive, because it was thought he would be subservient to Babylon. Jeremiah warned him to continue paying tribute to the Babylonians, but Zedekiah ignored that godly counsel. “And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord his God, and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the Lord. And he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the Lord God of Israel. Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem” (2 Chronicles 36:12-14). Those mistakes set the nation of Judah up for being besieged by Babylon!

This man certainly wasn’t “the breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Eternal” in Lamentations 4:20.

This verse is actually referring to King Josiah.

Before we prove that, notice in 2 Chronicles 36 this inspiring verse: “And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place” (verse 15). God sends His message because He has compassion! That’s why He sends this message today! He has compassion on the people of Israel and the people in His Church.

Sadly, the response we get today is all too often the same as the response the ancient prophets received: “But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy” (verse 16).

The Anointed of the Lord

There is a great deal of meaning packed into Lamentations 4:20.

It describes “the breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Eternal,” mentioning the breath of that anointed one. Josiah, when he lived, really was God’s anointed and did the Work of God. When his breathing stopped, trouble intensified.

That anointed of God was teaching the message of God! No message is more important than that! If we receive a message from the anointed of God, we have everything!

The word anointed appears 40 times in the Old Testament. The Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible calls it “one of the most important words in the Hebrew Bible.” It usually refers to the anointing of kings and priests. That is what God is doing today: anointing His people as kings and priests to rule with Christ!

Do you deeply realize that the people of God have been anointed by the God who created everything? God anointed the Laodiceans before they became Laodicean. The Laodicean ministers were anointed of God! They were called by the Father to become members of the Family of God!

We are anointed to do a job—to proclaim this message to the world and build character in the process. If we don’t do God’s Work today, we’re not being true to that anointing.

This verse says that the Lord’s anointed “was taken in their pits.” What does that mean? Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon says the word pits means destruction. Destruction! As with Josiah, somebody came along after Mr. Armstrong died and destroyed what the anointed of the Eternal taught. The Bible calls him the son of perdition, or destruction.

Soncino Commentary says, “The biblical book of Lamentations contains no explicit reference to Josiah, but Jewish tradition applies Lamentations 4, verses 1 and 20 to the fallen king.” I believe that is absolutely right. It doesn’t apply to Zedekiah—it applies to a righteous king whose work was destroyed. Soncino continued, “Targum and Rashi interpret this as a reference to King Josiah. … ‘And Jeremiah lamented over Josiah’”—that is quoting 2 Chronicles 35:25. “Perhaps he [Rashi] bases this on the end of the verse, where Jeremiah’s lamentations over Josiah are mentioned as being written in the book of Lamentations.” That is right. Most every other commentary has this wrong!

Notice that Lamentations 4:20 says, “Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.” What does that mean? Well, when the events came to pass that Jeremiah had warned would happen after Josiah’s death, they lived under the shadow of Josiah. They realized those prophecies were true, and what a shadow that was!

When the Laodiceans go into the Tribulation, there will be a heavy shadow hovering over them! You can be sure they will say, Oh, if only we had listened to God’s Elijah! Throughout the Tribulation, that shadow will hang over their heads. What an example Mr. Armstrong was! Don’t you think that when God’s people are in that holocaust and 60-megaton H-bombs are exploding, the shadow of Mr. Armstrong will loom over them?

That is the only hope they have of making it into the Kingdom of God. Half of them will finally wake up, and his words will come alive to them once again.

Spiritual Israel First

God begins His destruction of Israel with spiritual Israel, His own rebellious Church. “And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men [elders, or ministers] which were before the house” (Ezekiel 9:5-6).

There is a reason that God, as He begins to correct all Israel, corrects His own people first. Like Judah anciently, God’s end-time Laodicean Church is guilty of a great sin. Judah was the only tribe of Israel left to direct the world to the true God. God’s true Church has that responsibility today. The Laodiceans have failed God. That is why God raised up the Philadelphia Church: We are doing what all of the Laodiceans should be doing.

The Prophet Jeremiah wrote, “The Lord said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot” (Jeremiah 3:6). You can read in Jeremiah chapters 2-6 how the people of Judah continued to sin even as Josiah tried to turn them to God. Then, when Josiah died, there was an “almost immediate reversion to idolatry” (New Bible Dictionary).

“And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer” (Lamentations 1:6). Zion is God’s Church today. “From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate and faint all the day” (verse 13). This is the day of God’s fierce anger against physical and spiritual israel. And it is directed to all Israel—but first it falls on God’s own Laodicean Church.

When Lamentations was proclaimed in Judah, the nation had reached the point of no return. God has now given us a full understanding of Lamentations today. Now we must deliver this final, major warning to God’s own Laodicean Church and to the nations of Israel. Both spiritual Israel, God’s Church, and the nations of Israel have reached the point of no return. Collectively, it is too late to repent. The only hope for the people of Israel is our message.

Continue Reading: Chapter 3: Why God Must Punish the Laodiceans