My parents moved when I was about twenty-one years old. While helping them clean out the attic and other storage areas, my mom asked my dad, “Should we keep any of these boxes?” My dad responded, “Whatever is in there has been in there for the past 15 years. We haven’t needed it in the past 15 years, so I doubt we need it now. Trash it!” My dad was trying to make the process of moving forward as easy as possible and didn’t want any unnecessary weight or boxes getting in his way. Josiah felt the same way. He was ready to move forward with God’s plan and he wasn’t willing to allow all the baggage from the past to hold him or his people back. So, he cleaned house. He found idols, places of false worship, brothels, and destroyed them – with a vengeance.

One of the things Josiah does is destroy some golden horses located near the temple. Now, this one, in particular, caught me as interesting because I can see why it still stood. Of course, some elements were easy to point to and say, “Hey! Get that out of here!” Yet, the golden horses seemed somewhat harmless. I can hear people saying, “Yeah, they were dedicated to the sun, but they are nice! Let’s just leave them.” I think it’s this attitude of apathy and appeasement that lead the Israelites through their numerous loops of sin-suffer-repent-flourish-repeat. They allowed little things to be accepted which snowballed into bigger things.

We also can find ourselves in this dangerous cycle. “I know I cut them off, but they were going too slow!” This one action may not seem like that big of a deal, but it’s not the action that is troubling – it’s the heart behind it. The justification of sin is what leads to sin pouring into our life. When you crack the door open for sin, it comes rushing in like a torrent. Josiah knew that he needed to slam the door in sin’s face in order to rid his people of debauchery. He knew that even though the golden horses in and of themselves didn’t seem like a big deal, he knew their presence represented an attitude of apathy that would ultimately lead his people down another dark road of sin and suffering – A road not worth traveling.