April 14, 2005

Reading through the Bible in one Year: Joshua 21:1-22:9; Luke 8:40-56

Weekly Memory Verse: Joshua 24:15

Good Afternoon Brothers and Sisters,

We are finishing the book of Joshua today.  I am leaning toward one of the Major Prophets tomorrow, thinking on Ezekiel.  Let me know if you have another favorite you would like to see studied.

Joshua 24 (NASB95)
¹ Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel and for their heads and their judges and their officers; and they presented themselves before God. ² Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘From ancient times your fathers lived beyond the River, namely, Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods. ³ ‘Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River, and led him through all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his descendants and gave him Isaac. ⁴ ‘To Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau, and to Esau I gave Mount Seir to possess it; but Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt. ⁵ ‘Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt by what I did in its midst; and afterward I brought you out. ⁶ ‘I brought your fathers out of Egypt, and you came to the sea; and Egypt pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. ⁷ ‘But when they cried out to the Lord, He put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them and covered them; and your own eyes saw what I did in Egypt. And you lived in the wilderness for a long time. ⁸ ‘Then I brought you into the land of the Amorites who lived beyond the Jordan, and they fought with you; and I gave them into your hand, and you took possession of their land when I destroyed them before you. ⁹ ‘Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and fought against Israel, and he sent and summoned Balaam the son of Beor to curse you. ¹⁰ ‘But I was not willing to listen to Balaam. So he had to bless you, and I delivered you from his hand. ¹¹ ‘You crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho; and the citizens of Jericho fought against you, and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Girgashite, the Hivite and the Jebusite. Thus I gave them into your hand. ¹² ‘Then I sent the hornet before you and it drove out the two kings of the Amorites from before you, but not by your sword or your bow. ¹³ ‘I gave you a land on which you had not labored, and cities which you had not built, and you have lived in them; you are eating of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.’ ¹⁴ “Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. ¹⁵ “If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” ¹⁶ The people answered and said, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; ¹⁷ 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, and who did these great signs in our sight and preserved us through all the way in which we went and among all the peoples through whose midst we passed. ¹⁸ “The Lord drove out from before us all the peoples, even the Amorites who lived in the land. We also will serve the Lord, for He is our God.” ¹⁹ Then Joshua said to the people, “You will not be able to serve the Lord, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgression or your sins. ²⁰ “If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after He has done good to you.” ²¹ The people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the Lord.” ²² Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen for yourselves the Lord, to serve Him.” And they said, “We are witnesses.” ²³ “Now therefore, put away the foreign gods which are in your midst, and incline your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.” ²⁴ The people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and we will obey His voice.” ²⁵ So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. ²⁶ And 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. ²⁷ Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be for a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord which He spoke to us; thus it shall be for a witness against you, so that you do not deny your God.” ²⁸ Then Joshua dismissed the people, each to his inheritance. ²⁹ It came about after these things that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being one hundred and ten years old. ³⁰ And they buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timnath-serah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north of Mount Gaash. ³¹ Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua, and had known all the deeds of the Lord which He had done for Israel. ³² Now they buried the bones of Joseph, which the sons of Israel brought up from Egypt, at Shechem, in the piece of ground which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for one hundred pieces of money; and they became the inheritance of Joseph’s sons. ³³ And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him at Gibeah of Phinehas his son, which was given him in the hill country of Ephraim.^[1]

Joshua speaks a message from God in the beginning of this chapter.  It is a rather inspiring message, but also a message that carries judgment with it.  Joshua clearly indicates that he does not believe the people, and does not believe that they will walk with the Lord.

After the history lesson, and the way that God revealed what He had done for them, along with using the hornets to drive the people of the land out before them, Joshua lands the bombshell in verse 19, "You will not be able to serve the Lord, for He is a holy God.  He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgression or your sins."  Rather than repenting and acknowledging the rebuke that Joshua is giving to them, they proudly stand on the conviction that they will certainly follow the Lord, at all costs.  What Joshua reveals in verse 23 is that they already are entertaining other gods, and they are already flirting with the gods of the people. Verse 15 is enlightening because Joshua called the people on the carpet for worshipping the other gods. He challenged them to turn away from the false gods to worship the Lord.

One other time that this happened in the Bible was when Peter declared that he certainly would not turn against the Lord.  Yet later, Peter did exactly the same thing.  The difference was that Peter repented of his sin, returned to the Lord and served Him until his death.  Another person that entertained the wiles of the devil was Judas.  He followed what he thought was the right way, when he found that he had turned his Messiah over for death, it was too much for him and he committed suicide.  

The point of this is rather simple, many of us are entertaining other gods in our homes and we are forcing them to co-exist with our God.  As we spend our time and focus our energies upon these false gods, they take up more and more of our time, eventually they even crowd God out of our lives.  Our false gods are not nearly as obvious as they were in Joshua's day, ours have wheels on them, some of them have high speed processors in them, some of them are closely guarded by encrypted passwords, and even others are associated with the stock market, and with the wages that we bring home.  Our false gods are just as imposing, and more dangerous than the false gods of Joshua's time because we don't recognize them for what they are.  

I have a close friend who has the false god of sports.  I know this because it takes over every area of his life.  Recently we had a discussion; he brought up one of those "hypothetical" situations where children are expected to play sports on Sundays.  I told him that parents need to put their foot down and decide which are more important, sports or worshipping the Lord.  If parents will step forward and take a stand against sports during the church hours, I believe we can change this trend.  To say that he became furious is an understatement, his god was challenged.  These gods are sneaky, they appear to be good, but are powerful enough to draw the believers away from fellowship, and away from other believers where they are strengthened.

It is interesting to me that God considered Balaam to be a viable threat to the well being of Israel, and He did not allow Balaam to harm Israel.  Bondage is a very strong enemy; Balaam was tapped into the source of evil, and eventually brought the temptation to Israel, causing many of them to fall and to die.  At this point in time I would like to plug the Promise Keepers conference coming in July.  The focus of this year's conference is to teach us how to break down the walls of spiritual bondage.  I believe that we will also be given tools to learn how to recognize these bondages as well.  I would encourage each of you to attend the conference, and if nothing else, download the trailer at www.promisekeepers.org and watch it.  It is loaded with scripture and will give you a few quick tools to stand strong for the Lord.

We stand at the same crossroads that Israel stood at.  Many of us have false gods in our homes, and we need to change our perspectives by putting God first in our lives.  If we cannot destroy the false gods, then at least move them from their status of god-hood to the status of things.  Who are we going to serve?  Are we going to serve God, or are we going to serve all the other things in our lives?

I am sure that 99 percent of us will echo the words of Israel, "No, but we will serve the Lord". Without realizing that this means that we must allow God to have first place in every aspect of our lives.  We make haughty statements like this without realizing that without God's strength we could never serve Him.  Then we sabotage our own efforts by drawing from the strength of the world, drawing our knowledge from TV and media sources, rather than from a devoted study of God's word.

Verse 31 reveals that Israel continued to serve the Lord as long as the elders were alive to keep them in line.  History tells us that the false gods soon defeated Israel and sent them into a series of captivities, famines and troubles that are still continuing today. 

I am going to close here, I took the approach of viewing the over-all idea behind the chapter today.  I have taken that approach through this entire book, the unfortunate thing about this is that sometimes the nuggets are missed.  If you see something that I missed, be sure to write in.

Father, as we consider Your word today, open our eyes so that we can see and recognize the things in our lives that have taken Your place in our lives.  Then give each one of us the boldness and the strength to allow You to tear down these strongholds in our lives.  Send in the hornet and drive out the enemies.

In Him,

Joe Turner.