The godliest national leader of all time failed
Ask some Christian conservatives, and they’ll tell you that a major step toward making America a Christian nation again is to elect godly leaders.
Or, at least those who are moral and friendly to Christians.
Or, at least those who are friendly to Christians.
Do that, they say, and we’re closer to saving America.
We don’t have to lower the bar to find examples of such leaders in the Bible. Some of the kings of the Old Testament were godly — for the most part. The best of them all may have been Josiah, king of Judah.
Josiah’s success
Second Kings 23:25 says this of Josiah:
Now before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses; nor after him did any arise like him.
Josiah was the most morally and spiritually pure of the kings of Israel and Judah. He didn’t have the sins and blemishes of David, Solomon, Jehoshaphat, or Hezekiah. The worst that can be said of Josiah himself is that his unwise decision led to his death in battle against Necho, king of Egypt (2 Chronicles 35:20-24).
Josiah led a national repentance and revival in Judah after the book of the law was found in the temple. He dedicated himself and his people to following the Lord. He tore down places of worship to other gods. He restored the observance of Passover.
One of Judah’s greatest eras, as described in 2 Chronicles 34, came about because of Josiah:
29 Then the king sent and gathered all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. 30 The king went up to the house of the Lord, with all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem — the priests and the Levites, and all the people, great and small. And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant which had been found in the house of the Lord. 31 Then the king stood in his place and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow 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 the covenant that were written in this book. 32 And he made all who were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin take a stand. So the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers. 33 Thus Josiah removed all the abominations from all the country that belonged to the children of Israel, and made all who were present in Israel diligently serve the Lord their God. All his days they did not depart from following the Lord God of their fathers.
That’s the dream for America, right? A leader in true relationship with God who stands for his nation, rids it of abominations, publicly reads Scripture, and gets his people to worship and serve the Lord. That’s a Christian nation, right?
Ponder, then, the magnitude of the irony that Judah’s godliest king …
Was also its last godly king.
And that just 25 years later, Judah no longer existed. Its people were conquered and exiled. They would never have a king again, much less a good one.
Josiah’s failure
How can that be? Judah under Josiah was arguably the godliest kingdom in the history of the world. It was far above and beyond what most American Christians imagine for the United States. But it ended, not much later, in catastrophic failure.
Related: The godliest nation of all time failed
The above passage has a couple of clues as to why. Verses 32 and 33 say Josiah made the people do what they did to serve the Lord. Some versions say caused. Whether it was the power of his influence or his authority, the people’s relationship with God was through Josiah. And so, as verse 33 says, they followed the Lord not during all their days, but during all his days. Once he died, it all fell apart, because the people didn’t have their own union with the Lord. Not even Josiah’s own children remained faithful.
Josiah’s story is proof that a human leader acting as a spiritual head for a nation is a weakness, not a strength. It doesn’t work. Whatever good is brought about is a freshly painted façade, a house of sand. It will inevitably collapse.
His reign was the culmination of the failure of God’s chosen nation, which was its destiny all along. That’s the overarching story of the Old Testament. None of the good kings could keep Israel and Judah from apostasy and ruin.
This is because no mere man is worthy of the throne. No mere man can bring about revival. Only Jesus Christ, of whom the Old Testament’s good kings were mere types and shadows. The whole point of the Old Testament and its cursed monarchy is not to teach us how to govern a nation, but to show us that only Christ is our Savior. He has sent us out not to Christianize countries, but to build His church and herald the coming kingdom of God, which is not like the world’s kingdoms. It’s not to establish a continuing city here, but to proclaim the heavenly one to come (Hebrews 13:14).
Related: No kings. That’s not politics, that’s the Bible
Even if it were possible to make America somehow become a “Christian nation” — a concept that has no Biblical precedent or definition — it won’t come from the top. It won’t be through the federal headship of a king or president. It would happen only by the spiritual regeneration of individuals, which comes about only through the grassroots preaching of the gospel — as it did in the New Testament, when the church got no help from the government.
Some who believe in the idea of a Christian nation like to say “Christ is King.” Their motivations aside, that statement is correct. So stop trying to crown anyone else before Him.
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