Joshua 24:14:24
Now,
therefore, fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and truth: and put away
the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in
Egypt, and serve ye the LORD. And if it seems evil unto you to serve the
Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your
fathers served that were on the other side of the flood or the gods of the
Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the
Lord. And the people answered and said,
God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods;
It seems
that there is always a time in history where people have wandered away from the
LORD and are given a choice who they will serve. Today I am offering you a choice just as
Joshua gave to Israel.
20 If ye
forsake the Lord, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you hurt,
and consume you, after that he hath done you good. 21 And the people said unto
Joshua, Nay; but we will serve the Lord. 22 And Joshua said unto the people; Ye
are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the Lord, to serve
him. They said We are witnesses. 23 Now
therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you and incline
your heart unto the Lord God of Israel.
24 And the people said unto Joshua, The Lord our God will we serve, and
his voice will we obey.
25 So Joshua
made a covenant with the people that day and set them a statute and an
ordinance in Shechem. 26 And Joshua
wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and
set it up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. 27 And Joshua said unto all the people,
Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words
of the Lord which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you,
lest ye deny your God.
"Choose you this day whom ye will serve. . . [Joshua 24:14-18]; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" [Joshua 24:15], In the thirteenth chapter of his book, it says:
Now Joshua was old and stricken in years. (He was ninety years old.) And the Lord said unto him: Thou art old and stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed. Joshua 13:1]
As much as
Joshua had done in the first ninety years of his life, his most significant
ministry lay ahead. He died when he was
one hundred ten years old [Joshua 24:29], and in those last twenty years, he
did his most outstanding and finest work.
So it begins in the middle of the book, "Joshua was old and
stricken in years" [Joshua 13:1].
Now when I turn to chapter 23, after all of the partition of the land,
it starts in verse 1:
And it came
to pass a long time after Joshua's work in dividing up the inheritance in
Canaan that the Lord had given rest unto the land from all their enemies
roundabout. And Joshua waxed old and
stricken in age. [Joshua 23:1]
He was one
hundred ten years old. And under his
direction, the people were given rest in the land, conquered their enemies, had
divided up their inheritance, and now we're at peace before the Lord [Joshua
22:44]. In chapter 23, he calls
together, in verse 2, the elders, their heads, their judges, and their
officers, and said unto them, "I am old and stricken in age" [Joshua
23:2]. Verse 6:
verse 11—Take
good heed therefore unto yourselves, that you love the Lord your God. [Joshua
23:11]
That was what the old soldier said to the
leaders of Israel. Now in the last
chapter, chapter 24, he gathers all of the people together: "And Joshua
gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem" [Joshua 24:1].
Now isn't
that an unusual and marvelous, practical thing for him to do? After he had spoken to the leaders, the
heads, the judges, and all of those in places of responsibility, pleading with
them to be true to the faith and the Lord in chapter 23 [Joshua 23:1-16]. In
the last chapter, he makes his farewell address, gathering all of Israel
together at Shechem [Joshua 24:1-27].
And that was a meaningful thing in itself.
There's no
one of us, but that can remember places where great decisions and commitments
were made. Some things come into my
mind when I think of my journey with the LORD. The first church my family
attended was a storefront church in Knightstown. It was there that I first learned about the
LORD. John T. Hatfield Camp, where I
heard some of the most outstanding holiness preachers of our time. Central Yearly Meeting Camp, where I accepted
the call and dedicated my life to the work of the LORD. Well, Shechem was a place like that [Joshua
24:1].
When God
called Abram out of Ur of Chaldees when he entered the Promised Land, this is
the place where he first stopped—in Shechem [Genesis 12:6]—this is the place
where God said to him: "I will bless thee, and in thy seed shall all the
nations of the earth be blessed" [Genesis 12:1-3, 22:18]. This is the place where Abraham built his
first altar, in Shechem [Genesis 12:6-7].
Jacob—Israel—came
back from Padan-Aram, he came to Shechem [Genesis 33:18]. And there, from Hamor, he bought a parcel of
ground and paid Hamor one hundred silver pieces for it. And there did Israel—Jacob—build an altar to
the Lord [Genesis 33:19-20].
In Shechem,
Joseph referred to when he said: "When you take my bones back to the land
of Canaan, bury them in Shechem" [Genesis 50:24-25]. That is the inheritance that Jacob gave to
Joseph [Joshua 24:32]. And Joshua: the
book closes with their burying the bones of Joseph at Shechem [Joshua 24:32].
In the
Deuteronomic law, Moses said Mt. Gerizim here is to be the mount of blessing
and read God's promises on Mt. Gerizim [Deuteronomy 27:12]. And on Mt. Ebal, read the curses of God if we
disobey the Lord [Deuteronomy 27:13].
And Gerizim on one side and Ebal on the other side are on either side of
Shechem.
It was there
in Shechem that Jacob, Israel, dug a well.
And in the life of our Lord, in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of
John, Jesus is seated on that well in Shechem [John 4:5-6]. And that Samaritan woman comes to draw water
[John 4:7], and He speaks to her the most essential sermon on spiritual worship
ever uttered in the Bible or ever fell from the lips of man [John 4:9-26]. God wants us to worship Him in spirit and
truth [John 4:24]. And He won that
Samaritan woman to the faith and the Lord in Shechem [John 4:28-29, 39-42].
This is the place, sacred, where he gathered
all of Israel's tribes there and making his last farewell address, a hundred
ten years of age! [Joshua 24:1-28]. I
think of him like some old pilgrim who has been through the years and the
journey of this life, and as he looks back over the past years, he beckons to
the young people and the youth of his generation to press on, carry on, go on!
That's Joshua, the old soldier of God.
So having
spoken in chapter 23 to the heads of the state, to the judges, to the leaders
[Joshua 23:1-16], in chapter 24, he speaks to all of the people [Joshua
24:1-28]. And the first part of that
chapter is a review of God's grace among them, and He had a role in every
section and parcel and piece of that story.
Joshua was born
in Goshen, in the land of Egypt. And he
was there when Moses came out of the Midian desert and announced that God would
deliver His people out of bondage. He
had heard their cry, and God had sent him—chosen him—to bring deliverance to
His people in slavery in Egypt [Exodus 3:9-10, 4:29-31]. Joshua was one of the slaves who worked in
the brick kilns in Goshen's land [Exodus 5:7-8].
And he was
there by the side of Moses when they came to the Red Sea and saw the parting of
the waters, and the deliverance of the people out of the hands of Pharaoh
[Exodus 14:21-31]. And when they fought
with Amalek, Joshua was the soldier and minister of Moses, winning that great
battle for the Lord [Exodus 17:8-13]. He
also was broken-hearted at Kadesh-Barnea—when they turned aside from what God
had promised to do for them—and they turned back in the wilderness to die in
the waste of that Sinaitic Desert [Numbers 13:31-14:4, 27-35].
God chose Joshua to lead the people over
Jordan into the Promised Land when Moses was buried [Deuteronomy 34:5],
somewhere in the land of Moab [Numbers 27:18-23; Joshua1:1-2]. And it was Joshua and his sword that won one
victory after another until the land was conquered. And now at peace, at rest, having divided to
each tribe its lot [Joshua 14:1-2]—he delivers this final and farewell message
to his people [Joshua 24:1-28]. And in
that message, he drives for a decision on their part, "Choose you this day
whom you will serve:" And he presses it. The people said, "God forbid
that we would forsake the Lord, to serve other gods. The Lord, He is our God!" [Joshua
24:16-18]. Now wouldn't you think that's
enough? Not for Joshua. He presses it. Joshua then said to the people, "You
cannot serve the Lord and other gods; He is a holy God; He is a jealous
God. If you forsake the Lord and serve
other gods, He will consume you." And the people said unto Joshua the
second time: "Nay, Joshua, but we will serve the Lord!" [Joshua
24:19-21].
Wouldn't you
think that was enough? He presses that
decision. Joshua said unto the people,
"Ye are witnesses against yourself that ye have chosen the Lord." And
they said: "We are witnesses!"
Wouldn't you think that's enough?
He presses that appeal, and He says: "Put away now the strange gods
and incline your heart unto the Lord, God of Israel." And the people said
unto Joshua again, "The Lord our God we will serve and His voice we will
obey!" [Joshua 24:22-25].
And as though
that were not enough, Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law, and took
a great stone and sat it there under an oak in Shechem, by the Lord's sanctuary
[Joshua 24:26]. And Joshua said:
Behold, this
stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words that you have
said; it shall therefore be a witness unto you forever, that you have committed
yourself to serve the Lord.[Joshua 24:27]
Now, what do
you think about that? Do you think it's
out of character and out of the will of God for the preacher to stand in the
pulpit and press the appeal for Christ? "Come to the Lord. Give your heart to God; open your soul
heavenward, and God-ward, and Christ-ward." My brother, if I do what they
did in the Bible, that's what I'll do here—press the appeal for God,
"Come, come, come, there's no other way to bring life, and joy, and
liberty, and freedom, and blessing from God except in His blessed name. Come!"
That's the first thing Joshua did; he pressed that appeal to the people
[Joshua 24:14].
Do you
notice the second thing that he does? He
uses his dedication for an example: "Choose you this day whom you will
serve: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." [Joshua
24:15]. Isn't that a great affirmation? Doesn't it do your heart good to see a
man who believes something and answers it, seals it with his very life? No irresolution, no more debate, no more
discussion, "I am determined. I am
resolved. I have decided, as for me and
my house, we will serve the Lord!"
People often
look around, and they see the social pressures that mold them and make
them. They see which way the current
flows, and then they float with the current.
Or they study the breeze, and they set the sail to conform to the
breeze. Not Joshua! He knew what it was to be in the
minority! When he came back with Caleb
and the ten other spies, there were just two of them, Joshua and Caleb, who
said, "God can help us possess the land" [Numbers 13:30, 14:6-9]. And the other ten said, "Nay, there are
giants over there. And were in their
sight as grasshoppers, and we are like grasshoppers in our own sight"
[Numbers 13:33].
Joshua, not
with the crowd—he and God, "I am determined!"—he made up his mind,
and he cast his life and lot in the promises of the Lord. That's Joshua. Dear me! What a wonderful man! No in-between with that soldier of God. No Laodicean attitude; not hot, not cold,
just in-between [Revelation 3:15-16]. I
don't think a man can be in-between. He's dead, or he's alive. He's saved, or
he's lost. He's justified, or he's condemned. We're with God, or we're against
Him. Jesus said that "He that
scattereth not with Me, scattereth abroad" [Matthew 12:30]. We're either
one or the other, that's what Joshua said.
This great old soldier of the Lord, he's for God, "As for me and my
house, we will serve the Lord" [Joshua 24:15]. Do you notice the zeal and the commitment
with which he says it? He puts on
enthusiasm like a cloak! He gathers
around him fidelity and commitment like a garment!
He was that
way in the days of battle. The day was
not long enough to win the battle for God, so it was Joshua who said,
"Sun, stand thou upon Gibeon; and Moon tarry thou in Aijalon" [Joshua
10:12]. He needed more light; he needed
more hours; he needed more days to win the battle for God, and the Lord blessed
him. Isn't that the most fantastic thing that you ever read in the Bible? God stopped that sun over Gibeon, and God
stopped that moon over Aijalon and gave a victory to this great old soldier of
Christ [Joshua 10:13-15]. Reckon God
would do that for us? If we had the
faith and commitment, He would. He is
the same God today as He was then [James 1:17].
Do you
notice again, he openly, unashamedly called for an avowal of their commitment
to God? [Joshua 24:15]. Now that is
universal and without exception in the Bible; openly and publicly, we're to
take our stand for our Lord; He calls us for that. Do you remember Matthew 10:32-33?
Whosoever
shall deny Me before men, him will I deny before My Father in heaven. But whosoever shall confess Me before men,
him will I confess before My Father which is in heaven.
That's what
God says. Do you remember Paul writing
in Romans 10:9-10?
If thou
shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in thine heart that God raised
Him from the dead, that He lives, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart, we believe unto a
God-kind of justification and righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is
made unto salvation.
"Here I
stand; so help me, God, I can do none other": that is the thing God asks
of all of us, openly and publicly, to avow our faith in the Lord. Do you notice as I speak of this that that
call to public commitment and decision has been the call of God through all of the
ages and centuries.
God has
endowed us with the power of choice. It's never been any different. In the days of Abel, he chose to confront the
wickedness of Cain, and he paid for it with his life [Genesis 4:2-8]. In Noah's days, he disassociated himself from
the evil that flooded the whole world [Genesis 7:1].
In Abraham's
days, God called him to leave his idolatrous father and the civilization where
he grew up and went out as a stranger in a land he should afterward receive for
an inheritance [Genesis 12:1, Joshua 24:2-3].
A decision! The most significant
decision I think any man ever made in the ages past was Moses's decision when
he chose instead to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the
pleasures of sin for a season [Hebrews 11:24-26]. Can you imagine a man who would turn aside
from the throne of the greatest empire of his day to suffer with the people of
God? That's the decision that Moses made.
Can you
think of the decision of Samuel? He
hesitated before it when God said to him to anoint another king to take Saul's
place. "For I have rejected him," said God [1 Samuel 16:1]. And Samuel anointed a ruddy-faced little boy,
a teenager named David, to be king over the people of God [1 Samuel 16:11-13].
Can you
imagine the decision of Daniel, who purposed in his heart that he would not eat
of the king's delicacies but kept himself for the Lord? These things that the king had offered unto
idols; Daniel refused to touch them [Daniel 1:5, 8].
Can you
imagine the decision Paul pressed upon King Agrippa [Acts 26:19-27], who
replied, "You know, Almost you persuade me to be a Christian" [Acts
26:28]? We all meet that inevitable time
of all critical answers through every age and every generation: what shall I
choose to do and whom shall I choose to serve?
I
close. It is a personal decision; each
one of us faces it in this life. Do you
remember in the last chapter of 2 Samuel?
Gad—the prophet Gad—comes to David and says to him, "Because of the
sin of counting Israel, not depending upon God, but upon numbers, God gives you
a choice of three terrible things…" [2 Samuel 24:10-12]. And then you remember the sentence that Gad
said to him? "You tell me the answer that I can return unto Him, the Lord
God, who sent me" [2 Samuel 24:13].
Every one of
us faces that in our life. What is the
decision that I shall return to God, unto Him who sent me? And I can answer. And how I answer determines how I am in this
life; how I am in death; how I am at the great judgment bar of Almighty God [1
Peter 4:5]; and how I am throughout eternity [John 3:16, 10:27-30]. "As for me and my house, we will serve
the Lord!" [Joshua 24:15].
This is a
matter of eternity; it's a matter of life; it's a matter of heaven; it's a
matter of judgment; it's a matter of God!
And He has given me that power of choice. I have it. Isn't it great hear an old soldier
say, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!" [to Joshua
24:15].
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