Then the king sent, and all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem were gathered to him. And the king went up to the house of the LORD, and with him all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the priests and the prophets, all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of the LORD. And the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people joined in the covenant. | 2 Kings 23:1–3
Are you happy when you are naughty? Oh, no! Being naughty never makes children really happy. Disobeying God’s law never makes grown-ups happy either. To be happy, we must obey God’s law. We must love God and know that He loves us.
God made us for Himself, you know. And we cannot be happy unless we make Him happy. We are happy only when we are what He wants us to be.
Are you happy when Mom is angry with you? No! But you are happy when Mom is pleased with you. And so we are happy when God is pleased with us. That is why we should obey His law. And there is another reason. If we do not obey, he will push us. He must punish us, because that is right.
Long ago, there was a little boy named Josiah. The Bible tells us that he was a prince. Amon, his father , was king of God’s people, the Israelites. Amon was a wicked king. He did not obey God. Other kings before him had been wicked too. They did not love God and worship Him in His Temple. Instead, they worshiped idols. And they taught all the people to worship idols.
One day wicked King Amon was killed. Then Josiah had to take his father’s place. He had to be king. Josiah was only a little boy, eight years old. But when they made him king, he said, “I will not be a wicked king. I love the Lord. I will serve Him.” So Josiah told the people to put away their idols. He wanted all of them to serve God.
One day, Josiah sent some of his men to the Temple of God. “Repair the Temple, and clean it,” he said, “so that we can serve the Lord in His own house again!” The men went to work. They found heaps of garbage in the Temple. They found broken doors, and holes in the walls…..
One day a man went running to the palace, to King Josiah. “Look what I found!” he said to the king. “An old book! It was in the garbage in the Temple!”
“Read it to me,” said King Josiah.
The man opened the book and began to read. King Josiah listened. What he heard was wonderful’ but it was awful too. The book was God’s law. It had been lost. It was wonderful to hear it again after it had been lost. But it said awful things about what would happen if God’s people worshiped idols!
King Josiah jumped up. “Oh, we have sinned against God very much!” he said. “We have disobeyed His law! We are going to be punished! God call all my people, and read the book to them!”
All the people came, and they listened to God’s law. They heard how God had said He would surely punish them if they worshiped idols. Then they were sorry. They told God they would serve Him just as He wanted them to. The law told them how to please God, so that they would not need to be punished. The law helped them to be good.
Something to Talk about:
- How is God’s law good for us?
Memory verse:
Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path. | Psalm 119:105