"_After all this_, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Necho king of Egypt came up to fight against Charchemish by Euphrates; and Josiah went out against him. But he sent amba.s.sadors to him, saying, What have I to do with thee, thou king of Judah? I come not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have war; for G.o.d commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling with G.o.d, who is with me, that He destroy thee not. Nevertheless, Josiah would not turn his face from him, but _disguised himself_, that he might fight with him, and harkened not to the words of Necho _from the mouth of G.o.d_, and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo. And the archers shot at king Josiah; and the king said to his servants, Have me away, for I am sore wounded. His servants therefore took him out of that chariot and put him in the second chariot that he had; and they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died, and was buried in one of the sepulchres of his fathers. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah" (2 Chron.

x.x.xv. 20-24).

All this is very sad and humbling. We do not wish to dwell upon it further than is absolutely needful for the purpose of instruction and admonition. The Holy Spirit does not expatiate, but He has recorded it for our learning. It is ever His way to give us men as they were,--to write the history of their "deeds, _first and last_"--good and bad--one as well as another. He tells us of Josiah's piety at the "first," and of his wilfulness at the "last." He shows us that so long as Josiah walked in the light of divine revelation, his path was illuminated by the bright beams of the divine countenance; but the moment he attempted to act for himself--to walk by the light of his own eyes--to travel off the straight and narrow way of simple obedience, that moment dark and heavy clouds gathered around him, and the course that had opened in sunshine ended in gloom. Josiah went against Necho without any command from G.o.d--yea, he went in direct opposition to words spoken "from the mouth of G.o.d." He meddled with strife that belonged not to him, and he reaped the consequences.

"He disguised himself." Why do this, if he was conscious of acting for G.o.d? Why wear a mask, if treading the divinely appointed pathway?

Alas! alas! Josiah failed in this, and in his failure he teaches us a salutary lesson. May we profit by it. May we learn more than ever to seek a divine warrant for all we do, and to do nothing without it. We can count on G.o.d to the fullest extent if we are walking in His way, but we have no security whatever if we attempt to travel off the divinely appointed line. Josiah had no command to fight at Megiddo, and hence he could not count on divine protection. "He disguised himself," but that did not shield him from the enemy's arrow. "The archers shot him"--they gave him his death wound, and he fell, amid the tears and lamentations of a people to whom he had endeared himself by a life of genuine piety and earnest devotedness.

May we have grace to imitate him in his piety and devotedness, and to guard against his wilfulness. It is a serious thing for a child of G.o.d to persist in doing his own will. Josiah went to Megiddo when he ought to have tarried at Jerusalem, and the archers shot him, and he died: Jonah went to Tarshish when he ought to have gone to Nineveh, and he was flung into the deep: Paul persisted in going to Jerusalem though the Spirit told him not, and he fell into the hands of the Romans.

Now, all these were true, earnest, devoted servants of G.o.d; but they failed in these things; and though G.o.d overruled their failure for blessing, yet they had to reap the fruit of their failure, for "_our_ G.o.d is a consuming fire" (Heb. xii. 29).