JOSHUA 24, 1-2. 14-18
Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God.
Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says:….
“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods! It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.”
“As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord,” Joshua boldly proclaimed. And immediately we hear the experts say, “You can’t say that! You can’t control what your family will do or believe!”
Well, maybe you could get away with that in Joshua’s time. Back them the father ruled the home with an iron fist like a cruel dictator. Whatever father said, that’s the way it’s going to be, and there will be no disagreement, no argument, no disobedience, without severe punishment!
But that’s not the way it is today. We’re too sophisticated, and educated to think that way. Every expert will tell you “You can’t speak for others. You can’t force your opinions on other people. That doesn’t work.” How many times have we heard someone say, “I will never go to church, no matter what! When I was a child, I had religion rammed down my throat by cruel parents. And it turned me off from religion, forever.” So, we too think, “Maybe they’re right. Maybe you shouldn’t try to “ram” religion down your children’s throats.” And maybe when we hear these words from Joshua, we get a little squeamish, and think, “You can’t say that, Joshua. You can’t force your family to follow God’s ways. It just doesn’t work.”
But if Joshua were in this pulpit this morning, he would say the same thing! And he’d look at each one of us, and encourage us to say the same. The question is, “What god will you follow?” How you answer that can make the difference of where you will spend eternity? Do you really want to say nothing to your family about that? No Joshua says, when it comes to the question, “Which god will you follow,” the only proper answer is Joshua’s answer. “AS FOR ME, AND MY HOUSEHOLD, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD.”
I
Joshua is old and close to death. He wants to give God’s people one final encouragement. So, he tells them, “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness.” Literally that verse says, “Serve him in all completeness, and in truth.” Serve the Lord, “completely, and truthfully.” Not part time! Not when it’s convenient! Not only when people are around! God demands complete trust in Him, and no one else.
But then Joshua says, “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.” If you don’t want to serve the Lord, “completely and faithfully,” then choose which god will you will serve “completely and truthfully.”
And Joshua gives them a couple of choices! The gods of the Egyptians! Now there were some spectacular gods. Ornate temples, covered with gold, and precious gems. Powerful! Mysterious! Or there were the gods of the Canaanites in whose land they were living. Those gods might be as ornate and spectacular as the gods of Egypt. But they were powerful none-the-less. They controlled the weather, and the crops, and whether you would survive that sickness or not! They had power to either bless you or curse you.
And each of these other gods demanded the same thing that the God of Israel demanded. To be served, “completely and in truth.” Listen carefully to what this god says. Obey him completely. Give this god whatever you have, even sacrificing your child in order to have a good crop! Give him everything you have!
Joshua asked his people, “Which god will you choose to serve?” And this morning, Joshua asks us the same question. “Choose this day whom you will serve!” Oh, the options before us today are not Baal, or Chemosh, or Iris, or Ra! It’s not a stone statue, or a golden image of a man with a bird’s head that we worship. No, we’re more sophisticated and educated than that. The gods of our day vying for our attention, are: Money, Success, Sports, Recreation, Drugs or Alcohol, or Any type of Sexual deviation that interests you. Now, striving for success or money or recreation isn’t necessarily idolatry. But when your god demands that you “serve him completely and faithfully,” it can be. When we are willing to sacrifice anything and everything we possess in order to worship them. When we are ready to give up our family, our friends, and our salvation just to have these, then yes, we have chosen a god that we will serve “completely and honestly,”
So, which god shall we choose to serve?
II
Well, each of those gods looks pretty good when you worship them. But what happens when you actually need them? The gods of the Egypt? Powerful. Ornate! Mysterious even today! But what happened when they were opposed by the God of Israel? What happened when Pharaoh, defied the God of Israel? Egypt fell in economic ruin. Egypt’s army of chariots lay dead on the bottom of the Red Sea! The most powerful nation of all, couldn’t stand up to a bunch of slaves. When the people reached out to their gods for help, the gods just stood there like the statues they were, and did absolutely nothing!
Or the gods of the Canaanites? Dark and Dangerous! Powerful. But what happened when the God of Israel started to take on those Canaanite gods? Jericho hides behind their sturdy city wall, and suddenly the wall falls down. The Canaanites form a huge army that will stop anyone. And they are routed by a bunch of farmers and shepherds. And when they cry out to their gods for help, their gods just stand there like a bunch of statues that they are, and do absolutely nothing for their people.
What about the gods we worship today? Do they fare any better? Your money god gives us so much money you could never spend it in five lifetimes. The God of power gives us success, and you have successful business all over the world. The god of chaos and sexual perversion gives you all the fun and excitement you could ever want. But when someone you love is sick, all the money in the world can’t change that! Now that you have all that you wanted, have you found joy, and comfort and peace? Or is there a huge hole in your life, and you realize something is missing. When you are miserable or hurting or facing death, and you reach out to these gods for comfort, all they do is sit there like the statue they are, and they offer you nothing.
But there’s one more difference between the Lord, and every other god that ever existed. Read the Word of God that God gave His people. It’s not all about laws and regulations and traditions they had better follow or else! It was also about sacrifice. Oh, some of those sacrifices were the sacrifices that people would make to worship and praise and give thanks to God. But most of those sacrifices were pictures not of a sacrifice God required His people to make, but a picture of the sacrifice God would make for them. When people sinned, when people wandered away, when people didn’t worship God “completely and truthfully,” God told them that through the sacrifice of an innocent lamb, He would forgive them. Every other religion says, “You disobey, you get punished until you make it up to God.” The God of Israel says, “You disobey, and because of a sacrifice I will make for you, you can be forgiven.”
And finally, God revealed who that innocent lamb would be. None other than God’s Son, Himself. God would sacrifice His own Son to take away your sins, create peace between you and God, give you a God who loved you, and took care of every aspect of your life, and a God who went your life was over would take you to Heaven. That’s the difference between our God, and every other god. Other gods demand sacrifices from you. Our God made a sacrifice for you. That’s why Joshua tells you, ‘Serve him with all completeness and in truth.”
And that’s why Joshua says, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” This is much too important for me and for my family, to just hope that my children will figure it out for themselves. Because they won’t figure it out for themselves. I didn’t figure it out for myself. Someone had to tell me, someone had to introduce me to Jesus. And that is what I want to do with everyone I love.” Of course there are a lot of other people out there, and a lot of other gods who are just waiting to introduce my children to their god. And behind each of those gods, is Satan who is pulling the strings, and saying, “Yes, don’t tell your children about Jesus. Let me tell them about what I have to offer.”
Notice Joshua said, “as for me and my household we will serve the Lord.” It’s not about getting my kids out of bed to make sure they go to church. It’s getting my children out of bed, so we can go to church! It’s not about telling my children what path they should travel, and then refuse to travel the same path. It’s about learning about Jesus alongside my children so we all know what God expects of husbands and wife, of parents and children. It’s not about my children seeing me do something wrong, and then I come up with a complicated explanation of how those rules really don’t apply to grownups. It’s about telling my children, “You know you’re right. I’ve done something wrong. And I need to ask Jesus to forgive me and I need to ask you to forgive me as well. It’s about introducing my children to my Savior, Jesus, and getting them to know Him as well. It’s reminding myself, and my family that our God is unlike any other god ever created by man. Every other god demands sacrifices from you, but ends up giving you nothing. Our God actually sacrifices Himself for us, and gives us eternal life. It’s about sharing with my children the only way to Heaven.
And because of that, when it comes to the question, “Which god will you choose,” our only answer should be Joshua’s answer, “AS FOR ME; AND MY FAMILY; WE WILL SERVE THE LORD.”
