Chapter Twenty - Joshua 23-24

As For Me and My House

        We come now to the last chapters of the book of Joshua. The journey started with the nation of Israel on the east side of the Jordan River looking into the land God had promised them many years before. How did they get there? After being enslaved in Egypt for a couple hundred years, God heard their prayers and sent Moses to lead them out of slavery and into the Promised Land.

        The journey from Egypt to Canaan was a hard journey, but along the way God miraculously delivered them from their enemies at the Red Sea and led them through the wilderness with a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day. He fed them manna from heaven and gave them water from a rock. He was faithful to bring them safely to the east side of the territory they had been given, and then told them it was theirs for the taking.

        But they didn’t believe God. They saw the giants in the land and the armies that needed to be defeated and decided that they wanted no part of it… so they wandered for 40 more years in the wilderness. The older generation who did not believe died in the wilderness. A new generation grew up believing that what God had given them was theirs for the taking. That’s where we started… this new generation now poised to take the land God had promised to them.

        We’ve learned that the Promised Land God has promised us is the Spirit-filled life. A life of joy, peace, and rest! We’ve learned that the story of how Israel conquered the Promised Land as told in the book of Joshua is a wonderful picture of how we can enter and take possession of our Promised Land. The conquering of the land started for the nation of Israel with a step of faith into a raging river, and we have learned that our journey must also start with a step of faith into the unknown, yet perfect will of God.

        We saw that through obedience, God gave the children of Israel great victories over their enemies. We learned that it is through obedience that He will give us victory over our enemies. We saw that there is a purpose for our battles, learned how we can be successful, and then uncovered practical principles on how God guides.

        This has been a wonderful journey that has hopefully ended for you in peace and rest, as well as an understanding of where you fit in the body of Christ. Joshua, here in chapters twenty-three and twenty-four, speaks some encouraging and challenging words to the nation about how they need to remember what the Lord has done and never turn away from Him.

        I’d like to do the same.

Brokenness and Humility

        We live in a society that puts a high priority on self esteem. For many it no longer matters that you have an accurate self image; it is now more important for you to have a good self image. I believe that this type of thinking is destroying the very society that it claims to want to improve.

        God honors the broken person who comes to Him knowing that they cannot—or will not—do life without Him. He exalts the humble who find their worth in Him as opposed to seeking to find it somewhere within themselves. It is the person who seeks after God’s plan instead of his or her own plan who will find rest within the Promised Land of a Spirit-filled life. What we cannot do and must not do is find our value and confidence in ourselves because it is then that we will begin to seek after false gods like money, sex, notoriety, pleasure… These gods all lead to death and will never lead to life.

        We must find our value and confidence in Him if we want to remain in His rest. How do we do that? We remember His faithfulness to us during our journey. We must never fall into the thinking that we somehow have accomplished on our own the life of peace and rest that He has given us. We must choose to serve God and never veer from His path. We must, by faith, understand that His will for our lives is better than our own will for our lives. And we must cleave to His will and never, never, never seek our own. He’s given you the power to do that… so choose to do it!

        I know most of you probably don’t read the Scriptures that are posted at the end of some of these chapters, but please read the two chapters below and apply these words to your life—as if Joshua is speaking to you personally… because he is.

Joshua 23

Now it came to pass, a long time after the LORD had given rest to Israel from all their enemies round about, that Joshua was old, advanced in age. And Joshua called for all Israel, for their elders, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers, and said to them: “I am old, advanced in age. You have seen all that the LORD your God has done to all these nations because of you, for the LORD your God is He who has fought for you. See, I have divided to you by lot these nations that remain, to be an inheritance for your tribes, from the Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off, as far as the Great Sea westward. And the LORD your God will expel them from before you and drive them out of your sight. So you shall possess their land, as the LORD your God promised you.

        “Therefore be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, lest you turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left, and lest you go among these nations, these who remain among you. You shall not make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause anyone to swear by them; you shall not serve them nor bow down to them, but you shall hold fast to the LORD your God, as you have done to this day. For the LORD has driven out from before you great and strong nations; but as for you, no one has been able to stand against you to this day. One man of you shall chase a thousand, for the LORD your God is He who fights for you, as He promised you.

        “Therefore take careful heed to yourselves, that you love the LORD your God. Or else, if indeed you do go back, and cling to the remnant of these nations—these that remain among you—and make marriages with them, and go in to them and they to you, know for certain that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations from before you. But they shall be snares and traps to you, and scourges on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land which the LORD your God has given you.

        “Behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth. And you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing has failed of all the good things which the LORD your God spoke concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one word of them has failed. Therefore it shall come to pass, that as all the good things have come upon you which the LORD your God promised you, so the LORD will bring upon you all harmful things, until He has destroyed you from this good land which the LORD your God has given you. When you have transgressed the covenant of the LORD your God, which He commanded you, and have gone and served other gods, and bowed down to them, then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and you shall perish quickly from the good land which He has given you.”

Joshua 24

Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and called for the elders of Israel, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers; and they presented themselves before God. And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel: ‘Your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the River in old times; and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from the other side of the River, led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his descendants and gave him Isaac. To Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. To Esau I gave the mountains of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. Also I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt, according to what I did among them. Afterward I brought you out.

        ‘Then I brought your fathers out of Egypt, and you came to the sea; and the Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. So they cried out to the LORD; and He put darkness between you and the Egyptians, brought the sea upon them, and covered them. And your eyes saw what I did in Egypt. Then you dwelt in the wilderness a long time. And I brought you into the land of the Amorites, who dwelt on the other side of the Jordan, and they fought with you. But I gave them into your hand, that you might possess their land, and I destroyed them from before you. Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose to make war against Israel, and sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you. But I would not listen to Balaam; therefore he continued to bless you. So I delivered you out of his hand. Then you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho. And the men of Jericho fought against you—also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. But I delivered them into your hand. I sent the hornet before you which drove them out from before you, also the two kings of the Amorites, but not with your sword or with your bow. I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and cities which you did not build, and you dwell in them; you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.’

        “Now therefore, fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the LORD! And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

        So the people answered and said: “Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods; for the LORD our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, who did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way that we went and among all the people through whom we passed. And the LORD drove out from before us all the people, including the Amorites who dwelt in the land. We also will serve the LORD, for He is our God.”

        But Joshua said to the people, “You cannot serve the LORD, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you, after He has done you good.”

        And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the LORD!”

        So Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD for yourselves, to serve Him.”

        And they said, “We are witnesses!”

        “Now therefore,” he said, “put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the LORD God of Israel.”

        And the people said to Joshua, “The LORD our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey!”

        So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.

        Then Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. And he took a large stone, and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the LORD. And Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be a witness to us, for it has heard all the words of the LORD which He spoke to us. It shall therefore be a witness to you, lest you deny your God.” So Joshua let the people depart, each to his own inheritance.

   Now it came to pass after these things that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being one hundred and ten years old. And they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath Serah, which is in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash.

        Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had known all the works of the LORD which He had done for Israel.

        The bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had brought up out of Egypt, they buried at Shechem, in the plot of ground which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for one hundred pieces of silver, and which had become an inheritance of the children of Joseph.
        And Eleazar the son of Aaron died. They buried him in a hill belonging to Phinehas his son, which was given to him in the mountains of Ephraim.

        Wow! Here are verses 14 and 15 again:

“Now therefore, fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the LORD! And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

        Let me re-translate that passage to the Jaymo’s Contemporary Non-Standard Broken English Version (the 2009 uninspired edition):

Now therefore, fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the selfishness and pride which dominated your life for so long before you entered the Spirit-filled life. Serve the LORD! And if it seems weird to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether it be yourself and your selfish desires, or the gods of this world like greed, fame, success or even your ’69 mint-condition Corvette with flames painted on the side.* But as for me and my house, we’re gonna serve the LORD.

        You have taken that step of faith into the Promised Land. God has given you victory over your enemies. You have received your spiritual gift. Now serve the Lord!

*For those of you with ’69 Corvettes… I’m sorry, but if it’s your idol, get rid of it!