Dennis Tuuri

Joshua 24

We’ll be reading verses 1-28. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Joshua 24:1-28. And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers, and they presented themselves before God. And Joshua said unto all the people, “Thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel, your fathers dwell from the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods.

And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac. And I gave unto Isaac, Jacob, and Esau. And I gave unto Esau mount Seir to possess it. But Jacob and his children went down into Egypt. I sent Moses also and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt, according to that which I did among them. And afterward I brought you out.

And I brought your fathers out of Egypt. And you came into the sea. And the Egyptians pursued after your fathers with chariots and horsemen under the Red Sea. And when they cried unto the Lord, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them, and covered them. And your eyes have seen what I have done in Egypt. And ye dwelt in the wilderness a long season. And I brought you into the land of the Amorites which dwelt on the other side Jordan and they fought with you and 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 the king of Moab arose and wared against Israel and sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you. But I would not hearken unto Balaam. Therefore he blessed you still. So I delivered you out of his hand. And ye went over Jordan and came unto Jericho. And the men of Jericho fought against you. The Amorites, the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

And I delivered them into your hand. And I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites, but not with thy sword, nor with thy bow. And I have given you a land for which ye did not labor, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them. Of the vineyards and olives, which ye planted not, do ye eat. Now therefore, fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in 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 seem 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, in 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. For the Lord our God, he it is that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed.

And the Lord drove out from before us all the people, even the Amorites, which dwelt in the land. Therefore will we also serve the Lord, for he is our God.” And Joshua said unto the people, “Ye cannot serve the Lord, for he is an holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions, nor your sins. If ye forsake the Lord, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do ye hurt and consume you after that he hath done you good.” And the people said unto Joshua, “Nay, but we will serve the Lord.” And Joshua said unto the people, “Ye are witnesses against yourselves, that ye have chosen you the Lord to serve him.” And they said, “We are witnesses.” Now therefore, put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the Lord God of Israel.

The people said unto Joshua, “The Lord our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey.” So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute, and an ordinance in Shechem. 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. 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 you deny your God.” So Joshua let the people depart, every man unto his inheritance.

We thank God for his word and ask that he would illuminate our understanding. I think the two things that I love most in this world—and these things have meant so much to me in the last few months—is this word and this assembly coming together to worship God. No matter what’s happened to me through the week, when I come here, my heart’s lifted up by the spirit of God to worship him. I hope the same is true of you. And I hope that you’re reading this Bible, this word. It’s meant so much to me, and I just love it. You read this stuff, you think through what it’s saying, and your heart has got to rejoice in what God brings to us. And I love the way that God’s providence brings these things on his time schedule. Just remarkable the way these things come together.

Well, let’s talk about Joshua 24. We’re not quite done with this chapter, with the book of Joshua. There’s one more. You’ll notice the last few verses of chapter 24, the conclusion of the book of Joshua dealing with the death of Joshua and Eleazar. I’m saving that for two weeks hence. Next week, we’ll have a marriage ceremony here, Lord willing, which fits in nicely with this whole idea of renewal of covenants and the importance of covenants in the life that God calls us to live.

And then the following Sunday, we’ll talk about the death of Joshua and Eleazar, obviously pointing to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ to effect the covenant that he is here renewed at Shechem. And then after that there’ll be a few weeks where other people will be preaching for a while, Lord willing, and then we’ll go into the book of Acts. And it fits so nicely together, you know. At the death of Joshua and Eleazar, the prophet and the priest typologically picturing the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and then the resurrection and ascension that’s described in the opening chapters of the book of Acts. So I just love what God is leading us into here.

Let’s talk about Joshua 24, though. And first let’s just kind of think through what’s going on here in this chapter. I have been unclear exactly how I wanted to put this together all week, and I still am not exactly sure how much of this we’ll get to, particularly toward the conclusion. Basically what we have here is the third sermon by Joshua recorded at the end of the book of Joshua.

Remember I’ve told you that the book really ends theologically at the conclusion of chapter 21. Chapters 22, 23, 24 are three sermons by Joshua—three summations, three summonings rather of the people of God in different forms. The first of two and a half tribes. You remember that. And then the last chapter, chapter 23, gathers together representatives of the people. And here all Israel gathers together at Shechem.

And that’s what’s happening here. There was once an attempt by the Council on Biblical Inerrancy—or excuse me, the Committee on Biblical Exposition—to define what exposition is. Biblical exposition, what’s expository preaching? The definition they finally came up with was: “Communicating the meaning of a text or passage of scripture in terms of contemporary culture with the specific goal of helping people understand and obey the truth of God.”

And that’s what Joshua is doing here. This is the third sermon. Toward the end of his life, he’s no longer the warrior king. Now he takes to—well, he’s still the warrior king, but his warfare now is carried on through the preaching of God’s word. And he preaches God’s word here very powerfully to the people. And this is his third sermon, and it’s the longest sermon of these three that are recorded at the conclusion of the book of Joshua.

And I didn’t bring an outline today. Wasn’t sure how I was going to structure it, but let’s do it this way. I kind of wanted to give keywords or just words to help us remember the sections of this sermon of Joshua. And really, as I looked at the words I had drawn out here, the important divisions of the chapter fit very nicely the five-part covenant outline that’s been talked about so much, originally by Meredith Kline and then by the folks in Tyler, Texas—Ray Sutton, Gary North, James B. Jordan, etc.

It’s one model of covenant renewal. It’s not the only one, but it’s a useful one. And so the words I’m going to talk about here: first of all, transcendence. This sermon begins with the declaration that we’re assembled in the presence of God and God speaks forth the word. So it emphasizes God’s preeminence, his transcendence over men. He is God and we are not.

And then secondly, this sermon goes into a discussion of grace and sin, which really is—you can look at it in terms of these ancient treaty formulas—a historical prologue to the choice that’s going to be asked of them. He gives a history of redemption, so to speak, the history of the nation of Israel to this point in time. Verses 3 through 13 talk about God’s grace and man’s sinfulness, and talk about the history of the God who will call them to serve him in the choosing portion of this text. His history of having chosen them, blessed them, and now he wants them to choose him. That history deals with both doctrine—deals with the history of the people doctrinally.

We’ll talk about that. So first we have transcendence, then we have grace and sin together, and then we have choose—the third key word. Joshua, on the basis of the covenant history, calls them to choose God. He calls them to choose God rationally. It’s your reasonable service of worship. And he calls them to choose God in the words of Matthew Henry, resolutely. He doesn’t just leave them to easily come to a rational decision. He drives home the nail. He hits the nail on the head and drives it deep into the wood. He calls for a resolute commitment to God, not simply a rational one.

So the third section we’re going to talk about is choose. The fourth section is witness. They say, “We’ll choose. We’ll choose. We’ll choose God.” And he says, “Witness then.” And now we have the formal covenant renewal in place because now we have a legal witness to this choice of the people. The witness of course is to be used in terms of the sanctions, if you want to look at it that way. They’re choosing. They choose the law of God. And the sanctions of that law are witnessed to them by the witnesses—the people themselves in this stone. And of course, the law of God is there and this thing is recorded in the law of God. So witness is the fourth word.

And the fifth word is inheritance. They go off to their inheritance. A little tiny verse, important and significant. So the five things I’m talking about here are transcendence—God, let’s say God. Then the next section is grace and sin together. The third section, verses 14-21, is choose. Joshua tells people to choose. The fourth section is witness, verses 22-27. And then the last verse we’re dealing with, verse 28, is inheritance. God, grace, sin, choose, witness, inheritance. That’s the structure we’re going to use.

Okay, first of all, he tells them very explicitly in the opening verses that they are assembled before God. We have them assembled here in the name of God. Calvin said that in his commentary on this text: “There cannot be a doubt that Joshua in a regular and solemn manner invokes the name of Jehovah and as it were in his presence addresses the people so that each might consider for himself that God was presiding over all the things which were done, and that they were not there engaged in a private business but confirming a sacred and inviolable compact with God himself.”

At the center of this chapter of covenant renewal, at the very beginning of it and throughout the whole thing, it happens in the presence of God. And Joshua makes them know that presence by invoking the name of God. He assembles them in the presence of God, and he says, “Thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel.”

Secondly, this transcendence—this imminence rather, this demonstration of God—is put forth to them by apparently the transporting of the ark to Shechem. This happens in the presence of God. The text seems to indicate it’s the ark of God that’s there. And yet it’s recorded as being taking place at Shechem. You remember that Shiloh was where the tabernacle was then set up with the ark. But apparently, as it happened on other occasions, the inference seems to be that the ark was transported to Shechem for this particular purpose.

And so the presence of the ark of God, in which all these things are deposited, the covenant renewal is deposited, the presence of the ark of God is a visible demonstration to the people of the presence of God. So God is the one who’s convened them. He gives them the demonstration of that through the words used to invoke his presence, and then through the furniture of the tabernacle—the ark, God’s special resting place—is there in their midst.

And then third, this is demonstrated by assembling at Shechem. It’s interesting that it’s not at Shiloh. Why Shechem? Well, there’s several things we could remember about Shechem that would help us to realize what’s going on here. The first is that’s where God made covenant with Abram way long time—when God promised Abraham this land that he now was giving to him 400, 500 years later. That original covenant took place at Shechem. And so they returned to Shechem for the renewal of that covenant.

God’s meeting Abram at Shechem originally to make covenant with him was a demonstration of God’s presence. He walks through the animals that are cut in two—back in Genesis at Shechem—to demonstrate that it is his sovereign grace that has called on this to come to pass.

Shechem is also the place where Jacob comes back to the land. He has the idols that his wife has taken from Laban—the idols that are some of these idols that Joshua refers to. “Put away the idols of your fathers that they serve before.” When Jacob comes back into the land of Canaan, he buries at Shechem those idols. So that’s the same place where these idols have been deposited, where they’re stripped off from the people of God in the present, in the form of Jacob and his clan coming back to the promised land. So Shechem has that significance as well.

Shechem is also the place where Joshua had convened the people earlier in the book of Joshua. They’re between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim here where he reads in the words of the law of God and inscribes them, and they got the blessings and cursings—the two mountains there. That’s in the vicinity of Shechem as well. So Shechem is tremendously—it’s like going to Washington, D.C. or Valley Forge, arguably. It’s an important place, or maybe Plymouth Rock would be a better analogy. It’s an important place and it demonstrates to them the solemnity of what’s going on here.

Finally, Joshua—or rather, later in the chapter we read that Joseph’s bones are apparently also placed near the vicinity of Shechem, the bones of the patriarch himself, Joseph. So we have images here of Abraham, Jacob, Joshua and his people, Joseph’s bones, etc., all gathered together at Shechem, the place of God’s original calling of Abram to make covenant with him. So we have an extremely solemn assembly here, fraught with a sense of God’s presence, through these various historical acts demonstrated and preached to.

And there’s this oak tree there that this stuff happens in the context of. Matthew Henry calls it the oak of reformation. It may indeed be that very oak that Jacob buried the idols of Laban underneath. It may be the same oak by which they retake covenant here in the times of Joshua and the people there. Tremendous solemnity to this discussion, this sermon that Joshua gives, is taking place in the presence of God. The presence of God is demonstrated by history through the history of the people.

Secondly, so first we have God’s transcendence, his presence to the people. And now we have the preaching of Joshua begin. He begins to preach, and he preaches first of all a historical basis for what he is calling them to do in terms of covenant renewal. He preaches deliverance from Egypt. He reminds them first of all the coming of Abraham out of his idolatry. Then the people of God going down to Egypt eventually and deliverance from Egypt. He teaches of the conquest of the east of Jordan area, then the conquest of the Jordan area itself.

He goes through a historical set of occurrences here. And in these occurrences, what’s the predominant theme? The predominant theme is a God who is mighty and powerful to save and to provide for his people.

Over and over, I’ll read you a section of Joshua 24:3-13 with particular emphasis. I found this in James B. Jordan’s commentary. And we have the repeated use here of God saying, “I did this. I did this. I did this.” Listen.

“I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the river. I gave him Isaac and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I assigned the hill country of Seir to Esau. I sent Moses and Aaron. I afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there. And I brought you out. I brought your fathers out of Egypt. I brought you into the land of the Amorites. I gave them into your hands. I delivered them from before you. When Balak, son of Zippor, the king of Moab, prepared to fight against Israel, I delivered you out of his hand. The citizens of Jericho fought against you, but I gave them into your hand. I set the hornet ahead of you. You did not do it with your own sword and bow. I gave you a land on which you did not toil, and cities you did not build, and you live in them, and you eat from vineyards and olive plants that you did not plant.”

Joshua reminds them of God’s sovereign work in their life. His mighty power and intention to deliver his people reminds me of a voice quoted from this poem we handed out a month or so ago by Rudyard Kipling called “The Recessional,” written in 1897. Kipling wrote:

“God of our fathers known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle line,
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine,
Lord God our host be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget.”

God tells us over and over and over to remember that he saved us from sin, of his sovereign election and choice—not of our doing. We didn’t build the cities, he said. You didn’t plant the trees that you eat the fruit from. Your bow and sword did not deliver you. I did, he said.

And he uses the example of hornets. He tells us here a piece of historical data we didn’t know up until now. He sent hornets to drive out the enemies on the east of Jordan. Why does he do that? Why does he send hornets? He can deliver with the sword, can he? Well, sure he can. But the point is, he makes clear to the people in big huge letters that no one can miss—that they didn’t do it. He did. The Lord God of Israel delivered them with hornets. There’s absolutely no way that they can think they acquired the land by their own power or their own authority. God—and it is extremely profitable for us to remember this time and time again—God has demonstrated over and over again in history the remarkable power of himself. And that power is displayed in the defeating of the enemies of his people.

God’s power, God’s sovereignty, is demonstrated in the historical lesson that Joshua teaches them here. This power also is demonstrated in provision for the people. It’s very interesting if you look at verse 7. Verse 7 says: “They cried unto the Lord. He put darkness between you and the Egyptians and brought the sea upon them and covered them and your eyes have seen what I did in Egypt and ye dwelt in the wilderness a long season.”

Then he goes on to talk about the land of the Amorites. One and a half books of the Pentateuch are summarized here by Joshua in half a verse. “Ye dwelt in the wilderness a long season.” An interesting lot. Now there’s lots of things implied in that little half verse. Their sin of course being one of them. But I think beyond that we have to remember that he had preserved them in that wilderness a long season. Forty years did they wander. Their shoes didn’t wear out. Their clothes didn’t wear out. They had manna from him. His provision of them in times of trouble—trouble brought upon them by their own sin, of course, but nonetheless trouble.

God’s provision in times of trouble is demonstrated in verse 7. And then in verse 13, of course, his provision of them in times of blessing: “He gave them a land which they didn’t labor for, cities they didn’t build, vineyards and olives which you didn’t plant but you ate from.”

So God’s provision is pictured in this history as well. Power to save, his grace in saving God’s people, his sovereignty and his provision in all things are demonstrated in this historical lesson that Joshua points out.

So this history first of all emphasizes to us that God accomplished these things. Now by way of inference, if not by way of explicit statement, of course, the reminder of this—that God did these things—is a reminder that we did not. And as we look at these historical acts of God that he accomplished for the people in Joshua’s time and for Israel up to them, you’ll notice as you go through there, he’s talking about “your fathers and you.” And he interchanges the personal pronouns he uses to show a complete identity of the people that he’s speaking to with all those people stretching back to Abram himself, 500 years previous. There’s one people of God, and that’s what he’s talking about here.

So what does this mean to us? It means that if he did these things for the people in Joshua’s time, he did them for us. We have historical continuity with the faith of Abram. The New Testament tells us he’s the great, you know, forefather of our faith—to be justified by faith. And we have continuity with him. And so God is talking about us here as well. He’s reminding us of our deliverance way back then and our own particular lives as well. He brought us out of sin and bondage.

And if the big demonstration is God’s grace and power, the secondary lesson is our own sinfulness. He says, “I brought Abram out of the land where his fathers were. They worshiped idols.” Now the implication here is not that Abram was somehow sensitive to God before God delivered him. The implication was he was in a line of idolators and was probably himself engaged in idolatry.

You see, that’s the whole point of this: it’s not that Abram was some kind of good guy, but that God sovereignly elected, sovereignly brought Abram out of the idolatry of his fathers and his own idolatry as well. Abram didn’t decide to get up and leave the land. God pulled him out of that land. It’s God’s actions again that are stressed.

Not only then is the identity and character of the true God part of what they’re to remember, but they are also called to remember what they were—what men had been and would still be were it not for God’s sovereign grace. And he wants us to remember, as we look at covenant renewal every Lord’s day, he wants us to remember what we would be apart from his sovereign grace in calling us into salvation.

These verses talk, as Calvin said, about the gratuitous adoption by God of a people. They were no better than others. Abram was no better than his fathers or the other idolators. It was God’s sovereign choice that pulled him out. “Abram was rescued from the country. He was brought out. God—did he? He was brought out by God. He did not lead himself out.” Calvin said this: “He said that the opposite is expressly mentioned to show that God brought Abram out. Abram didn’t leave—expressly mentioned to show that he had no particular excellence in his own which would diminish the grace bestowed upon him, and that therefore his posterity behooved to acknowledge that when he was lost he was raised up from death unto life.”

The point of all that is grace—man’s sinfulness, God’s grace in calling us to salvation. Calvin says the following as well in these verses: “How insane and indomitable human infatuations and intuition is in this respect is proved by the fact that the holy patriarch, on whom the divine blessing had been specially bestowed, was unable to curb his posterity and prevent them from abandoning the true God and prostituting themselves to superstition.”

So over and over again in this history, God hammers home the point that we are like Abraham. We were idolators prior to his salvation of us. It’s interesting because the Jews don’t believe that. In one of the apocryphal books that the Jews use, Abram is described as becoming sensitive to the worship of idols at the age of 10 or 14 or something. And he then started destroying all his father’s idols and had to leave them because they got mad at him. And that’s when God kind of took up relationship with Abram because he was kind of a good guy. And of course, the Jews during the time of our Savior, the Pharisees over and over, they clung to natural privilege. Somehow they had something going for them.

And Christians, you know, we fall into this so easily. We think we’ve got something going for us compared to the rest of the world. Internally to ourselves, we have nothing like that. We are sinners. What does the New Testament tell us? It tells us the same thing. Paul says in Ephesians: “Wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of others. All of us were sinners, Paul says. We were all idolators and rebellious against God.”

John Newton, the slave trader who became a Christian, wrote a text apparently in large letters and hung it above his mantle piece so he’d always see it and be reminded of it. The text was Deuteronomy 15:15, which reads: “Thou shalt remember that thou was a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee.”

We were slaves in Egypt. Francis Schaeffer wrote in Joshua and the Four Biblical Histories: “Whether studying the Old Testament or the New, we are reminded that we are not where we are because of a long wise and godly heritage. We come from rebellion. Individually, we are children of wrath. After we are Christians, we must look at others who are still under God’s wrath and always say, ‘I am essentially what you are. If I am in a different place, it is not because I am intrinsically better than you, but simply because God has done something in my life. There is no place for pride. No place for pride.’”

Except in the human heart, which seems to be continually prideful before God. It is amazing to me. I have seen, and I’m not an old man. I consider myself a young man, but I have seen what my Savior saw. I have seen Pharisees proud of their own moralism look down their noses at people who come to the Lord Jesus Christ out of very strange backgrounds and who then are a product of reformation in their lives and come forward. In this very church, people have come forward from strange, weird backgrounds—rebellion against God—and we’ve got people sitting in this congregation who have come in the last few years out of that rebellion. That’s the people that Christ calls to himself.

The Pharisees hated the fact that Jesus Christ talked to those people that were somehow not as good as them—prostitutes who are coming out of prostitution, for instance. You know, it’s amazing what human pride will do. And what people become blind to the fact of this very history that Joshua says is at the heart of covenant renewal—is an acknowledgement, is a confession of our sins, a humbling and a debasing of ourselves to realize we’re nothing but idolators apart from the grace of God. He gets the glory for it, not us.

There’s one other thing that I might mention here before we go on. In terms of this history, we’re going to get out of the section of choosing. We talked about transcendence and God. We talked about grace versus sin. And we’re going to talk about choosing. Before we leave this historical lesson, one commentator in the book No Falling Words talked about the gradual pace of God. And this is important just to touch on briefly in the context of our contemporary history at RCC.

A commentator said: “We don’t live long in covenant history until we experience the gradual pace of God.” Still speaking of Abraham, Joshua continues: “Yahweh’s word—I multiply his seed and I gave him Isaac. Those two statements look ludicrous together. God multiplies Abram’s seed. He gives him Isaac. One times one is one. Some great multiplication going on, huh? And according to the mathematics of Genesis, it took 25 years just to get Isaac.”

Of course, the verse goes on immediately to say how he gave Isaac two children, right? He says, “So perhaps we should have allowed Josh to go on. I multiply the seed and I gave him Isaac and I gave Isaac Jacob and Esau. But that’s not much better.” This commentator says: “Yahweh multiplies Abraham’s seed by giving him two grandsons. Wow. According to the scriptural math, that was after another 20 years of childlessness for Isaac and Rebecca.”

See, God does not appear to be in a hurry. He is not driven by the calendar or intimidated by the clock. See, that’s so important for us to remember as we look at the history around us. God’s gradual pace is demonstrated throughout this text that Joshua preaches from. And it’s so important to us to be patient, waiting through the trials that James says matures us and perfects us, patiently waiting for God to demonstrate his faithfulness to his promises.

Well, okay. So we have then historical lessons. God talked about faithful, powerful to save men, sinful, bad, wicked, apart from God’s electing grace. And God does this slowly over a period of time. And then we get to the center of the covenant renewal, of course, where Joshua compels the people to make a choice.

Choose is the third part of my outline. Then, and this takes place in a series of statements back and forth between Joshua and the people. Joshua makes demands of the people after his historical sermon preached. In verses 14 and 15, he demands that they obey him. Israel makes a decision in verses 16 through 18. Joshua tells them in verses 14 and 15, “Choose to serve God.” The people say, “We’re not going to serve others. We’re going to serve God.” But that’s not good enough for Joshua. He then warns them in verses 19 and 20. He says, “You can’t do this.” And they say, “Oh yes, but we’ll serve God.” Joshua then asks them in verse 22 one more time to give assent to this. And they acknowledge and respond positively. And then Joshua demands that they enter into the testimony of witness in verse 23. And Israel reaffirms its conviction for the fourth time in this text.

A four-fold dialogue going back and forth here. Joshua saying, “Choose.” “Yeah, yeah, we’ll choose.” “Choose.” “Okay, we’ll do it. We’ll do it.” “Choose.” “Okay, we’ll do it. We’ll do it.” He doesn’t, you know—he’s a terrible evangelist, I guess. You’re supposed to get that first “Oh yes, I’ll invite Jesus into my heart.” You’re supposed to stop right there, have them pray the prayer real quick before they change their mind. Not Joshua. No, no. He drives home to them the importance of their choice.

As Matthew Henry said, he tells them first of all to make a reasonable choice. This is the God that delivered you. This is the God that pulled you out of all these troubles and gave you this nice land. It’s reasonable. But Joshua goes on to drive it home by insisting on not simply a rational or reasonable commitment, but rather a resolute commitment. In the words of Matthew Henry, he wants the choice to be understood. And he wants them to go through a little bit of reasoning here that drives them to really drive home the point that they will indeed serve God.

Now, the way this happens is the first thing he tells them is: Now he’s delivered you from all these gods, and you can serve God or you can choose which gods you shall serve. But as for me, in my household, he says, “We’re going to serve Yahweh.”

Now, it’s interesting here. You think about this. We had a visitor here several months ago who recognized this truth. A lot of Christians don’t pick up on this that Joshua doesn’t say, “Choose and stay whom you will serve—God or these idols.” And we sort of does. But what he’s really saying is if you’re not going to serve God, then choose which of these other gods you’re going to serve. The gods of the Amorites, the gods of the Mesopotamians. Who is it that you want to serve?

You know, it’s like Bob Dylan again: “You got to serve somebody. Who you going to serve?” It’s got to be God or Satan. But Satan appears in various forms. What are you going to serve? Tradition, he says, or you going to serve accommodation? It’s interesting—the two sets of gods that he gives them to choose between. Again, quoting from a commentator, he says they must choose either the ancestral Mesopotamian gods or the contemporary Amorite gods.

“The conservatives who are fond of tradition, of what had stood the test of time, who yearn for the faith of our fathers might vote for Mesopotamia—the old, long traditional god. The liberals with their yen for relevance, for being in step with the times, might prefer to identify as an act of goodwill with the current social new and enter into dialogue and worship with the Amorites.”

You know, and it’s kind of like our Savior. What were the two groups that opposed him primarily? The Pharisees, the traditionalists, and the Sadducees, who were kind of like buying into some of that Greek stuff—no resurrection. They were kind of, you know, new and accommodating to various elements of their social milieu.

And we have the same thing today. You know, we have these long-standing gods of tradition. You know, Israel almost never in their history did they give up the service of Yahweh. Did you know that? We seem to have this picture that Israel, you know, got so disgusted with God most of the time they wouldn’t even go to the temple. That isn’t true. They kept up all that worship. It’s just that they added in a lot of other stuff to it. They added other gods into their pantheon. God was one of them. Sometimes it got real bad and they’d stop worshiping Yahweh altogether. But usually it was syncretism. Usually it was an attempt to worship God first, but also to ignore the first commandment—to have other gods alongside of him.

And that’s what he’s addressing him here. He says: “But if you’re going to serve God, him and him alone.” He’s not like these other gods. He’s not part of a pantheon. You serve Mesopotamia or you serve Amorite gods. You serve your old traditionalists or you serve the new, current, relevant social gods.

Interesting too, by the way, how frequently in history those traditionalists and the other guys tend to start working together. You know, it’s interesting—how, for instance, here in Oregon in Ecumenical Ministries, a completely apostate group, you have these old traditional denominations now become contemporary and social as well in terms of the gods—the Amorites. You have the Mesopotamians and Amorites kind of blending together in their thinking in the Ecumenical Ministries here in Oregon.

Well, any now he tells them to choose then who they’re going to serve. And for added emphasis, he adds example to exhortation. He says, “You have got to choose. But as for me, just so you’ll know, you can choose whoever you want. He says: “But as for me, in my household, the choice has already been made long ago. I’m doing it. I’m serving the Lord God of Israel.”

He says him and his family will steadfastly adhere to the God of Israel. The words of Matthew Henry: “Those that resolve to serve God must keep in mind a being singular in it. They must not be drawn off with the crowd to forsake his servants. Those that are bound for heaven must be willing to swim against the stream when needed.” And Joshua was willing to do. In other words, he wasn’t waiting sitting around saying, “Well, you guys choose and we’ll then think about our choice, too.” No. All of you can choose to leave God, he said. And I’m standing right here doing the same thing I did before.

Of course, he’d done this before, hadn’t he? Remember Joshua and Caleb? The whole nation had said, “We’re not going to serve God. Those guys are big in that land there, those giants and everything. Forget it.” And Joshua and Caleb said, “We want to go in. We’ll take them.” So Joshua was used to this.

Francis Schaeffer wrote of Joshua, because this was the very character of Joshua. He chose and he chose and he chose to come right on choosing. He understood the dynamics of choice—once-for-all choice, an existential choice as well. Thus, his word to the people was not an affirmation puffed up on the spur of the moment. It was deeply embedded in Joshua’s comprehension of what he required of a person made in the image of God—one called upon not to obey God like a machine or an animal, but to obey God by choice. That’s what Joshua was all about.

By the way, just—I’ll read one other commentator in terms of this covenant renewal and Joshua talking about him and his household. Hillers in his book called Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea said that Joshua’s decision reveals that entrance into this covenant with Yahweh was a matter for each individual family to decide. “God’s covenant was of course not here with the head of the Israelite state. Nor was it possible, as far as we can tell, for one tribal leader to commit a whole tribe. The sacred pact was concluded with individual families. And it remains the responsibility of each father to acquaint his children with its provisions.”

Christian fathers should chew on this. It’s what the commentator says. So families—Joshua’s household—that’s what we hear at Reformation Covenant Church. Normally when people become members it’s by way of family membership. They come members, their house, their whole household was ushered into the faith—not always, but normatively. And it’s based upon texts such as this.

So Joshua gives them his own example as he moves them to make a correct choice. Now the people then of course respond real positively, and as I said, most guys would say, “Hey, just stop right there before they start changing their mind. They seem to want to do this thing. Joshua, don’t muck it up now.” But Joshua was not like that.

Getting my text out here. He—let’s see, verses 16, 17, 18. People say, “Yeah, that’s right. It does make sense to us to obey God because after all he did drive out the enemies from before us, and he did do this stuff, so it must be reasonable—we should serve God.” And then Joshua says something that one commentator has called “one of the most incredible statements in the Old Testament.”

Get the scene here. He’s trying to bring the covenant renewal. He says, “Choose whom you’re going to serve this day,” and “I’m going to serve God,” and they say, “Yeah, we’re going to serve God too.” And Joshua then says in verse 19: “Ye cannot serve the Lord your God. 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 strange gods, he will turn and do you hurt and consume you after that he hath done you good.”

Then he waits for that other decision from the people. See, he moves them now from rational to a resolute commitment. He brings home, Matthew Henry said, he sets before them the difficulties of religion in verse 19 of this chapter. He doesn’t let him make an easy choice. He wants him to think it through real well.

As I said, it’s probably one of the most shocking statements in the Old Testament. And you think, why does he tell them that? What is going on here? You know, some dispensationalists have said this is where the people really screwed up. You know, this is where they should have said, “Oh, you’re right. We can’t serve God. No, we don’t want to serve him. Don’t make us to enter into covenant.” I’ve heard dispensationalist commentators say that’s crazy. God has Josh—Joshua sitting before them their need to choose. This guy’s already made the choice. Did Joshua screw up? No. So that’s a ridiculous line of reasoning.

Why does Joshua do this? What does Joshua do? He tells them two things about God that’s going to make their decision tough. He said God is holy. And of course he’s just pointed out to him—you’re idolators. God is holy, and God is jealous. God will bring wrath upon people that don’t serve him correctly. He is as faithful to curse as he is to bless. As he pointed out for us in Joshua 23, his sure word impacts lives. And if your life is in rebellion to God, it impacts you in a very devastating way.

Now, Matthew Henry gives several reasons why Joshua might have done this. He says: “It’s probable that this was then commonly objected against the Jewish religion, as it has all along been the artifice of Satan ever since he tempted our first parents, thus to misrepresent God and his laws as harsh and severe. And Joshua, by his tone and manner of speaking, might make them perceive he intended it as an objection and would put it to them now if they would keep their ground against the force of such objection.”

So maybe he’s just raising an issue here to say some people are going to say this about God. Another explanation Matthew Henry says is maybe Joshua designed by putting them to their choice thus to try to see if there were any among them who, upon so fair an occasion given, would show a coolness and indifference toward the service of God—whether they would desire time to consider and consult their friends before they gave an answer. And if any such should appear, he might set a mark upon them and warn people to avoid them. Maybe so. You’d certainly want to know at that point in time if your neighbor is saying yes or if your neighbor is saying, “Well, maybe we should go think about this thing a while.”

So Joshua gives him several opportunities for guys to back out, and if they’re going to back out, he wants people to note the fact that they’re backing out. But I think Calvin had it best. And I’m going to read some extended quotes here from John Calvin. But I think Calvin has an excellent commentary on this. And I’m going to—he first I’m going to read you verse from his commentary on verse 15, then I’ll move to verse 19. But it’s all pretty much the same subject.

Calvin says: “It seems here as if Joshua, paying little regard to what becomes an honest and right-hearted leader, [if] the people had forsaken God and gone after idols, it was his duty to inflict punishment on their impious and abominable revolt. But now by giving them the option to serve God or not, just as they choose, he loosens the reigns. He gives them license to rush audaciously into sin. What follows is still more absurd—when he tells them that they cannot serve the Lord—as if he were actually desirous of set purpose to impel them to shake off the yoke of the covenant.

“But there’s no doubt,” says Calvin, “that his tongue was guided by the inspiration of the spirit in stirring up and disclosing their feelings. For when the Lord brings men under his authority, they are usually willing enough to profess zeal for piety, though they instantly fall away from it. Thus, they build without a foundation. This happens because they neither distrust their own weakness so much as they ought, nor consider how difficult it is to bind themselves holy to the Lord.”

I’ll repeat that. He’s talking about why they—people frequently say, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll do it,” and they quickly fall away from it. Why this happens? “Because they neither distrust their own weakness so much as they ought, nor consider how difficult it is to bind themselves holy to the Lord. There is need, therefore, of serious examination, lest we be carried aloft by some giddy movement and so fail of success in our very first attempts.

“With this design, Joshua by way of probation emancipates the Jews, making them as it were their own masters and free to choose what God they are willing to serve, not with the view of withdrawing them from the true religion, as they were already too much inclined to do, but to prevent them from making inconsiderate promises which they would shortly after violate. For the real object of Joshua was, as we shall see, to renew and confirm the covenant which had already been made with God.

“Not without cause, therefore, does he give them freedom of choice, that they may not afterwards pretend to have been under compulsion when they bound themselves by their word and by their consent.”

See, he’s saying the whole reason God Joshua is asking him to choose—they’ve already chosen. They’re in covenant. See, but Joshua acts as if they’re not in covenant, and he’s going to renew the covenant. So he kind of takes off the covenant and says, “You still want to choose serve God?” You know, it’s kind of like Jesus. You remember in John 6, Jesus made it hard for his disciples, too. He started talking about you got to eat my blood, drink my blood and eat my body. And then after that text it says a lot of people started walking away from him. A lot of his disciples left, and Jesus turns to the 12 and says, “Are you going to go too?” Peter says, “Well, where are we going to go? You have words of eternal life.”

See, Jesus does the same thing as Joshua does here. He calls for renewed commitment on the part of his disciples after teaching them how hard it’s going to be. So this is the same pattern.

Joshua verse 19, then, this text. Calvin is the following.