(Originally published 5/10/11)

At the end of the book of Joshua, Joshua was now 110 years old—too old to lead the army of Israel into battle against the remaining Canaanite strongholds; so God told him that it was now up to each of the 12 tribes to conquer their own portion of land that the Lord had given to them.  

 

 

And Joshua seeing this attitude of compromise and complacency beginning to settle over God’s people when there was still so much work left to be done—this was no time to rest the enemy had not been completely driven out as God had commanded! 

 

Joshua being a man of deep conviction and wholehearted obedience toward God knew that partial victory was not good enough—not for him and certainly not for God. And so he gathers the nation together in Chapters 23 and 24 to give them his farewell address.

In Chapter 23 he addresses the leaders of Israel one last time and the theme of the chapter is—“God has been faithful to you all these years—now you be sure to remain faithful to Him in the years to come.” Of course this was something that Joshua had exemplified in his own life as a leader over many years of ministry. There is something deeply moving and powerful to me about a man who has faithfully walked with God over all of the years of his life.

 

Someone whose faith never suffered shipwreck or whose ministry for God was never tarnished by scandal or weakened through compromise or corrupted by greed. A man who could come to the end of his life and say with all conviction, like Paul the apostle, “I have fought the good fight; I have kept the faith; I have finished the race”. Joshua was that kind of man—and there’s something powerful about a man like that. He’s someone you can focus on and say, “It’s not impossible to live for God—he did it and if he could do it then by God’s grace I can do it!

 

I don’t have to listen to the voices of those who are telling me that because things are so bad morally and spiritually, so decadent and so dark that it’s impossible to really live for God in this present age. I can look at the Daniel’s and the Paul’s and the Joshua’s and those like them who stood up against the evil attitudes of their day, who stood fast against the current of the world and against the pressure of the enemy and said, “I don’t care what it takes, I’m going to live for God.  I’m going to stay faithful because I love God more than I love my sin and myself!”

 

Joshua was that kind of a man; and when a man like that speaks I want to hear what he has to say. So in chapter 24 Joshua now brings these final exhortations in chapters 23-24 to their climax and conclusion by challenging the nation with these words—

 

“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.” 

 

I want you to notice that Joshua didn’t say “choose for yourselves this day 

 you will serve some god…”

 

It’s not a question of whether or not you will serve some god—the question is whether or not you will serve the one and only true and living God—the Lord God Almighty who made the heavens and the earth. 

 

 

Joshua didn’t say, “Choose this day if you will serve” he said, “Choose this day whom you will serve”.  He recognized that we all serve some God (or god). Of course the right choice is to serve the one and only true God with your life.  Joshua put it this way

 

—“Choose this day whom you will serve…as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”

 

Make no mistake about everyone serves some god, even the atheist. Your god is the passion that controls your life.

 

 

Many people are controlled by money. Money is their god. They live for it; it’s what motivates and drives their lives. It’s all they think about and it’s all they want. They work sixteen to eighteen hours a day devoting themselves to their god to gain more and more money.

 

In the Old Testament that man was called a worshiper of Mammon, the god of money.  Just because they don’t call it Mammon doesn’t mean they aren’t worshipping the god of money.

 

 

There are many people today who worship pleasure. Their whole life is devoted to the pursuit of pleasure.  

 

They spend their whole five day work week planning the weekend with some activity that will bring them a lot of pleasure.  

 

In the Old Testament if you worshiped pleasure they would say “Well he worships Molech, the god of pleasure”. Just because you don’t call it Molech doesn’t make it any less your god, pleasure is your god.

 

 

There are those who worship their intellects; their whole life is devoted to the expanding of their knowledge and the recognition that comes from having letters after their name.  

 

 

They believe that education is the savior of mankind. They believe that if we educate people they will stop being violent, selfish and lawbreakers.

 

If we can just educate them we can save them from these tendencies and the world will become a utopia of love and mutual respect and peace. 

 

 

If you educate a sinner you just make him or her a smarter sinner but it doesn’t affect their nature and that’s where the problem of sin resides—in man’s fallen nature.  

 

 

The ancient Egyptians, in whose land the children of Israel spent quite a few years in slavery, worshiped the god of learning or wisdom called Thoth. The Greeks worshiped Koios who was the Titan-god of intellect.  

 

 

 

 

There are many today who worship Zeus—Zeus was the god of power. And there are many people who absolutely worship the concept of power.

 

They are consumed with a desire for power. Whether it be power in the corporate world, the political world or the underworld—they are obsessed with a desire for power—it’s what they live for, it’s what they worship, it’s their god.

 

 

 

All week long they’re trying to find out who’s having a party this weekend—it’s always on their mind it is what consumes them.  

 

 

Most people read that and smile because it sounds like something that would be said to the superstitious, spiritually ignorant, and unenlightened  culture of the first century pagan world.  

 

Well let me tell you something—not only is idolatry alive and well in America but those ignorant superstitious 1

^st century pagans were far more honest and up front about their idolatry than many of the so called sophisticated, educated and enlightened people of today. They were honest about it. They admitted to being idol worshippers whereas people in America are idol worshippers and yet are so blind and self deceived to it so as to laugh at the notion that they in any way are idolaters. You see all idolatry starts in the heart with an idea, a desire, an ambition or some other drive which becomes then the master passion of your life.

 

This passion is what drives you, it’s what you live for, it is what you worship whether you know it or not and in that regard it is your god and you are an idolater—unless of course it is God Almighty. 

 

 

 

 

 

We read that and say, “Praise God, they made the right choice.”

 

That’s why Joshua said to them in verse 19:

 

“You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God…’ “

 

In other words Joshua is saying to them, “You can’t serve the Lord like this—half-hearted, trying to serve Him and the gods of this world too! You have to choose one or the other but you can’t serve two masters”. In verses 21-24 we read, “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!’

 

Unfortunately, we don’t have to look far to see that the nation didn’t follow through on their promise to serve and obey the Lord—all we have to do is turn the page to the book of Judges to see that. You see right after Joshua’s death the people turned their backs completely on God and began to worship and serve the gods of the Canaanites.

 

This began a long slow downward spiral in Israel’s history until God could take no more and He had the people carried away into captivity.

 

In the early 1980’s there was a Jewish archaeologist named Dr. Shiloh. He excavated the area in and around Jerusalem. He eventually dug down to the level where the Jewish people lived at the time of the Babylonian conquest. And as they excavated each of the houses they found dozens of little idols in each of the homes. The people of God had totally forsaken Him and had given themselves completely over to idolatry.

 

Paul said, “These things were written for our learning…” (Romans 15:4)

 

America was founded by God as a nation under God but is now a nation that has turned its back on God. 

 

This is the only choice you will ever make that will have eternal consequences attached to it, so consider it carefully and choose wisely!

 

May the Lord richly bless you as you walk with Him day by day.

 

Pastor Phil