"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord.”
— D.A. Carson
“He smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones.”
— 2 Kings 23:14
PROTECTING A PREDATOR
I remember hearing about this guy when I was in high school. His name was Timothy Treadwell.
Timothy believed he could tame the wild.
For years, he lived among grizzly bears in Alaska, convinced that with enough trust and affection, they would treat him as one of their own. He spoke to them, named them, even slept near them. He saw himself not as an outsider but as their protector, believing he could rewrite their instincts.
One day, reality caught up with him. A bear turned on him and his companion, doing what apex predators do, killing and consuming both. The very thing he thought he could manage, befriend, and control ended his life.
It should be no surprise. You cannot tame a predator.
If we are honest, many of us are trying to do the same thing.
Maybe not with wild animals, but with sin. Be sensitive to not tune out here. That word has a way of turning off the mind. When you read the word sin, don’t think of the trigger word you’ve grown calloused to because it so flippantly gets thrown around, think of it as anything that creates a divide or separation between you and your relationship with God. A violation of purpose.
You see, we often convince ourselves that we can keep sin contained, that we can manage it, that we can keep it hidden enough to avoid it’s clear consequences.
We don’t destroy it; we domesticate it. We rationalize. We adjust. We compartmentalize.
But sin is not a pet. It’s a predator. And eventually, it will devour us.
THE RADICAL PURGE OF JOSIAH
If you’ve been reading along with the weekly newsletters you’ve probably caught on by now that Josiah is one of the most influential bible characters in my own life. When we look at his story we see that he was not interested in taming the sins of Israel. He was not interested in religious appearances or half-measures.
When he became king of Judah, he inherited a nation drowning in idolatry. Pagan worship had infiltrated every corner of life. Altars to false gods stood in the very temple of the Lord.
The people had normalized compromise.
But then Josiah encountered the book of the Law. Essentially... he found the bible those before him had lost.
What he read wrecked him.
He tore his robes in grief, realizing just how far him and his people had strayed. And unlike the kings before him, he did not respond with vague reforms or surface-level adjustments.
He went to war.
2 Kings 23 is one of the most aggressive, violent reformations recorded in scripture. Listen to the language used to describe Josiah’s actions:
“He brought out the Asherah pole from the temple and burned it.” (v. 6)
“He tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes.” (v. 7)
“He desecrated Topheth so no one could use it to sacrifice their children.” (v. 10)
“He removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun.” (v. 11)
“He pulled down and smashed the altars.” (v. 12)
“He beat the altars to dust.” (v. 15)
Josiah didn’t negotiate with sin. He obliterated it.
He crushed idols, burned altars, destroyed every trace of what led his people away from God. He went after not just the obvious places of idolatry, but every hidden stronghold, every potential stumbling block, ensuring that there was no path back to destruction.
THE ILLUSION OF HALF-MEASURES
Contrast this with how we often deal with sin today. Instead of tearing it out by the root, we trim it back. Instead of crushing it to dust, we keep it within reach. We tell ourselves we’re “struggling” with sin when in reality, we are tolerating it.
We say we want freedom from lust but keep our devices unguarded, giving ourselves unrestricted access to temptation.
We say we want to stop gossiping but keep the same circle of friends that thrive on tearing others down.
We say we want to stop drinking but keep a bottle in the house “just in case.”
We don’t destroy sin…we manage it. We domesticate it. But Jesus never told us to manage sin, He told us to deal seriously with it.
“If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.” [Matthew 5:30]
This is not a call to physical mutilation, but to radical action. Sin is not to be played with.
It is to be eliminated. Jesus is telling us that dealing with sin will be costly, but whatever we have to lose, it’s worth it.
THE CHOICE BEFORE US
Every one of us has high places.
Areas of compromise that we tolerate instead of tearing down.
Areas where we have made peace with what is meant to be destroyed.
Josiah gives us a model of what it looks like to deal with sin seriously.
He did not take half-measures.
He did not settle for managing a public appearance.
He reduced it to dust.
Will we?
A FINAL CHARGE
God is not trying to rip you off. He is trying to set you free.
The question is, do you believe Him?
Do you believe He is better than the idols you have refused to part with?
That His presence is more fulfilling than the sins you have clung to?
That His way leads to life and not restriction?
Test His promises. Tear down what is keeping you from Him. Reduce it to dust. And you will find that in losing your idols, you gain something far greater.
Him.
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