REFINE – The Necessary Purge

The Fifth of Seven

He had no choice. To remain faithful to Yahweh, King Josiah was compelled to make the agonizing, unpopular decision to set the people of God right. He knew a fundamental truth: knowing the right thing must lead to doing the right thing—even when it is painful.

And make no mistake: purging is always painful.

With the covenant renewed and priorities refocused on God's Word, the next step in our journey of renewal is inevitable and intense: to Refine. This is the necessary purge of anything that competes with our exclusive devotion to God.

What Josiah did next was shocking in its scope and violence. He unleashed a sweeping, methodical purge of every trace of idolatry from the land. This was not a symbolic gesture; it was spiritual surgery without anesthetic.

The Depravity of the Day

Reading 2 Kings 23 reveals the sheer scale of this operation. Josiah did not just preach against idols; he dismantled the infrastructure of hell. He dragged the sacred objects of Baal and Asherah out of the Lord’s temple and burned them to ashes in the Kidron Valley.

But he went further. Verse 7 tells us he tore down the living quarters of the shrine prostitutes who were operating inside the very courts of the Temple. Think of the horror of that image: for years, as faithful families walked into God’s house to pray, they had to navigate past rooms dedicated to ritualized sex and the weaving of occult tapestries. The holy place had become a brothel.

Josiah then marched to the Valley of Ben Hinnom—to the place called Topheth. This was the site of the ultimate nightmare, where parents, deafened by the beating of drums, passed their children through the fire to the bull-headed god Molech. Josiah did not just break this altar; he defiled it. He spread human bones and refuse over it, rendering it ritually unusable forever. He ensured that no child would ever scream in that valley again.

He traveled north to Bethel to desecrate the rival altar King Jeroboam had established centuries prior. He smashed. He burned. He tore down. He defiled.

To grasp the necessity of this purge, we must understand that this was not a "benign, multicultural spirituality." It was a demonic cancer rotting the nation from the inside out. Josiah’s violence was the inevitable expression of his love. He cut out the tumor to save the patient.

The Modern High Places 

A powerful modern parallel to this "tearing down of idols" is the process of addiction recovery. An alcoholic cannot simply decide to "drink a little less." True, lasting recovery requires a radical purge. It means pouring every bottle down the drain. It means deleting the phone numbers of old drinking buddies. It means avoiding the bars and parties that trigger the craving.

It feels like a death because it is a death. It is the death of the "Old Man." But this death is the necessary, refining fire that purges the dross so that the true gold of a redeemed life can emerge.

The Bible uses this same active, violent language regarding our sin. Colossians 3:5 commands us to "put to death" the deeds of the body. Jesus says if your right eye causes you to sin, "gouge it out" (Matthew 5:29). This is not a gentle negotiation. It is a declaration of war. As the Puritan John Owen famously wrote, "Be killing sin, or it will be killing you."

Identifying Your Idols 

So, what are the "high places" and "Asherah poles" in your heart? What rival loves compete for the worship only God deserves?

• The Idol of Comfort: Avoiding difficult conversations or obedience to maintain a false peace.

• The Idol of Approval: Living in terror of what others think, weaving tapestries of people-pleasing to cover our insecurity.

• The Idol of Control: Reacting with anger or anxiety whenever life doesn't go according to your plan.

• The Idol of Power: Trusting in political ideologies or career status more than the providence of God.

To refine means to name those idols and, with the power of the Holy Spirit, tear them down. It means deleting the app that fuels your lust or envy. It means canceling the subscription that drains your stewardship. It means ending the toxic relationship. It is active, decisive, and necessary.

Refining the Church 

And as a church, we must be willing to refine our practices. We must ask the tough questions and answer them truthfully:

• Do we cater to consumerism, treating the church as a vendor of religious goods?

• Have we allowed political ideologies to become functional idols that shape our fellowship more than the Gospel?

• Does our community resemble a country club more than the dangerous, sacrificial church of the book of Acts?

Refining means having the courage to prune ministries that look busy but don’t bear fruit. It means establishing clear, biblical guardrails for integrity, holiness, and purpose. It means we stop doing good things so we can devote ourselves to the best things.

Let us be like Josiah. Let us not tolerate the high places in our hearts or our houses. Let us invite the Refiner's fire, knowing that He burns away the dross not to destroy us, but to reveal the image of Christ within us.

As a practical help, I have created The REFINE Worksheet with biblical and insightful questions for you to first ask for yourself (the inner temple), and then, a second section for the church corporate (the outer temple). 

You can find it here. 

REFINE Worksheet