Wednesday Bible Study: The Walk of Joshua Finale

 Today we finish our walk with Joshua, and one thing he said in his final speech caught my eye:

Jos 24:19  But Joshua said to the people, "You are not able to serve the LORD, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins.
Jos 24:20  If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you, after having done you good."

That had to hit like thunder to those who cared: YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO SERVE THE LORD. But before I look at that, let me set up the situation.

So far, God has shown the people He is God in so many ways.  They've seen the POWER of God in many ways: the fall of Jericho, the giant hailstones that decimated the first coalition against them, the very sun and moon holding in place until the enemy was all dead. They've seen the virtue in listening to God in the prevention of war with the tribes across the Jordan, and the folly of not seeking Him in the lie of the Gibeonites. They've seen the price of disobedience in the affair at Ai. He's had them set up monuments to what He has done to remind them along the way.  You would think they would have the message by now.  But my reading this morning reminded me of that OTHER  yeshua...  

 

Joh 2:23  Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.
Joh 2:24  But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people
Joh 2:25  and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. 

 

And Joshua had been there when their fathers rebelled after having seen even greater.  So, as his life neared its end, he reminded them of all these things, then made his famous proclamation...

Jos 24:14  "Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.
Jos 24:15  And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond 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." 

 

 
And here I think we see the difference: You can save a person- because saving grace comes from a one-on-one with Christ.  But despite all our prayers Thursday on the National Day of Prayer, you can't save a NATION- only people in it.

Did Joshua have that grace? One thing I pulled out from my experience in the NDOP was this verse from Ezekiel:

Eze 14:13  "Son of man, when a land sins against me by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it and break its supply of bread and send famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast,
Eze 14:14  even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness, declares the Lord GOD.

Which I always connect to Jeremiah 15...

Jer 15:1  Then the LORD said to me, "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward this people. Send them out of my sight, and let them go!

Beyond the obvious, what connects the five guys- Moses and Samuel in particular- to Joshua? All of them were personally talked to BY God. Joshua had had his personal contact early in his leadership:

Jos 5:13  When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, "Are you for us, or for our adversaries?"
Jos 5:14  And he said, "No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come." And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, "What does my lord say to his servant?"
Jos 5:15  And the commander of the LORD's army said to Joshua, "Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so. 

 

But a change was happening within Israel, as well.  Israel had been like a baby, gestating in the womb of Egypt, suckled by the leadership of Moses, with God always present before them. Under Joshua, they were like teens, learning to do things for themselves under Joshua.  But when Joshua dies, the the child leaves the nest to go out on his own.  And the 'graduation speech' they get from Joshua is this covenant he sets up with Israel .

Jos 24:21  And the people said to Joshua, "No, but we will serve the LORD."
Jos 24:22  Then Joshua said to the people, "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD, to serve him." And they said, "We are witnesses."
Jos 24:23  He said, "Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your heart to the LORD, the God of Israel."
Jos 24:24  And the people said to Joshua, "The LORD our God we will serve, and his voice we will obey."
Jos 24:25  So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and put in place statutes and rules for them at Shechem.
Jos 24:26  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 terebinth that was by the sanctuary of the LORD.
Jos 24:27  And Joshua said to all the people, "Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of the LORD that he spoke to us. Therefore it shall be a witness against you, lest you deal falsely with your God."

A covenant, and yet another monument to remind them.  And after Joshua died, for a while, it worked...

Jdg 1:1  After the death of Joshua, the people of Israel inquired of the LORD, "Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?"
Jdg 1:2  The LORD said, "Judah shall go up; behold, I have given the land into his hand."
Jdg 1:3  And Judah said to Simeon his brother, "Come up with me into the territory allotted to me, that we may fight against the Canaanites. And I likewise will go with you into the territory allotted to you." So Simeon went with him.
Jdg 1:4  Then Judah went up and the LORD gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand, and they defeated 10,000 of them at Bezek.

But while Judah and Simeon started out good because they consulted the Lord, they were followed by the failures of Benjamin (1:21), Manasseh (1:27), Ephraim (1:29), Zebulun, Asher, and Napthali (1:30-33), you get the point.  Which brings us back to our opening.  Joshua KNEW the people, just as Jesus knew all men.  And in his heart, he knew how it would end. And in the end, they were all just like the executed Achan. In my studying of Jeremiah with KC, I noted a certain verse...

Jer 10:9  Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz. They are the work of the craftsman and of the hands of the goldsmith; their clothing is violet and purple; they are all the work of skilled men.

I had to look up "Uphaz", and the fact is, nobody really knows what the 'place' Uphaz is.  One commentator speculated that it wasn't a place at all, but a mistranslation of the concept 'a gold of golds', as the only other place it is found is when Daniel describes his vision of pre-incarnate Jesus. Point? It's something very shiny.  Achan died over something shiny...

Jos 7:20  And Achan answered Joshua, "Truly I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and this is what I did:
Jos 7:21  when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and took them. And see, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath."

Eve saw something shiny...

Gen 3:6  So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 

For that matter, even Satan saw something shiny...

Isa 14:12  "How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!
Isa 14:13  You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north;
Isa 14:14  I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.'

Joshua knew about all the shiny things in their future, all the times their hearts would shout, "SQUIRREL!" and run away from God to gods they could SEE. Anytime you witness to an atheist, you hear the excuse, "If I could SEE..."  Joshua was probably thinking of another thing Jesus would say one day...

Joh 20:29  Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

So Joshua did the last thing He could, he got them to agree to a covenant with God.  But a covenant is only as good as those who agree to it, and that was not up to the nation, but to each individual.  The choice, as for us, was up to them.