2 Chronicles 34:30

2 Chronicles 34:30 says, And the king went up into the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the Levites, and all the people, great and small: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant that was found in the house of the Lord.  Josiah and all the people from the most powerful to the least powerful, including priests and Levites went to the house of the Lord and read the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been found there.  It would seem that the priests and Levites would have been reading it as the religious leaders, but Matthew Henry says that Josiah may have read it to show that it affected him as well.  I do know that when we gather to worship God that we need to be reading and proclaiming the truth of the Bible and that it should affect us all, from the highest to the lowest.  Verse thirty-one adds, And the king stood in his place, 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 with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant which are written in this book.  Josiah stood as the king of Judah and made a covenant with God to always follow His teachings found in the Book of the Covenant with all His heart and soul.  This is what we should do when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord.  We should make that same covenant to follow God's teachings as recorded in the Bible, even though we are not saved by the old covenant of the Law but by the new covenant of grace.  They kept the law looking forward to the new covenant and we keep the law because we are still to be obedient to God's law, even though it does not save us, nor did it save them.  All people for all time are saved by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross for all the sins of all the people.   Verse thirty-two continues, And he caused all that were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand to it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers.  Josiah had all those present to at least say they would do the same, but He could not force them to do so.  We may get people to proclaim that they have put their faith in Jesus Christ, but we cannot force them to, nor can we guarantee that they have.  We can only present the gospel to them, and then it is up to them whether they truly accept God's gift of salvation or not, but it is not up to us to decide if they did or not.  That is God's decision alone.  Verse thirty-three concludes, And Josiah took away all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel, and made all that were present in Israel to serve, even to serve the Lord their God. And all his days they departed not from following the Lord, the God of their fathers.  It seems from this verse that the people of Judah were sincere in following God for as long as Josiah lived, but they may have just been going through the motions of serving God without really putting their faith in Him, because if they had, I believe it would have said that they all followed God's Law for the rest of their lives and not just during the reign of Josiah.  We may proclaim ourselves to be a Christian nation in America, but if our actions are not in accordance with God's Law, then we are making a false claim.  Still, all we can do as Christians is to make sure that we are obedient to the leadership of the Holy Spirit.