Joshua was quite elderly when he gathered
the heads of the families of Israel at Shechem.
He was ready to go the way of all things soon and wanted to address Israel
one last time.
By this point the wars of conquest
in Canaan had largely quieted down. Instead
of living as nomads, the people of Israel had begun to occupy their own cities
and homes. Instead of relying on God’s
provision of manna and meat, they began growing their own crops and tending
their own herds of sheep and cattle. They were successful as God had promised they
would be.
And yet, something was not
right. Instead of exclusively serving
the Most High God, who brought them out of Egypt and sustained them during
their time of exodus in the desert, they had begun to incorporate the worship
of other gods into their daily lives.
When rain was needed to grow crops, some were tempted to worship the Canaanite
deity Baal Hadad or his consort Asherah.
Afterall, it seemed to work for the peoples around them.
And yet, Joshua could not forget
the words that Moses had imparted when he himself gave his farewell address to
Israel many years before.
“Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our
God, the LORD is
one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” There was no room in this statement for
sharing. One can only serve one master,
and yet the Israelites were trying to please many, and in doing so were losing
hold of the God who had the power to rescue them.
Joshua remembered the solemn task
that fathers were commanded to faithfully pass on what they had seen with their
eyes, that God had saved them, claimed them, and made them his own.
“These words, which I am
commanding you today, shall be on your heart.
You shall teach them to your sons and talk of them when you sit in your
house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.”
Joshua remembered the solemn
warning that Moses had given them of their success, and the tendency to become
forgetful and complacent, to rely upon themselves rather than upon the God who
delivered them from captivity.
“Then it will come about when the
LORD your God brings you into the land which he swore to your fathers, Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob, to give you, great and splendid cities which you did not
build, and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn
cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not
plant, and you eat are satisfied, then watch yourself , that you do not forget
the LORD who brought you
from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”
Joshua marveled at the prophetic
wisdom of his predecessor. Israel had
been successful. Israel had grown fat
off the produce of the land. And now Israel
was beginning to turn its eyes away from God.
Now, all the elders and leaders
of Israel had assembled before him.
Joshua scanned his eyes over the multitude of men, young and old, before
him, and opened his mouth. He reminded
them how God had made a promise to their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He reminded them how God, through a mighty
deliverance, had rescued them and fulfilled the promise given to them. Pride swelled in the hearts of the men before
him.
Then Joshua went to the heart of
the matter as an arrow seeks the center of a target:
“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. 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.”
Chastened by the man they loved
and respected, Israel’s leaders pledged to put away the gods they had allowed
to sneak into their lives and made the choice, for themselves and their
families, to serve the LORD.
I can think of few more inspiring
scenes in all of scripture. Men, humbled
by the word of the LORD
proclaimed to them, and responding to it, and taking responsibility for their
households to faithfully serve God. The
most amazing line in this passage follows:
“Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua,
and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work
that the LORD did for
Israel.”
It is a lesson I learned in the
Army. People have a tendency to adopt
the personality of their leaders. Bold
leadership works.
The men of Israel followed the
example that Joshua set, choosing to set aside the practices of the cultures around
them to serve God. And because the heads
of the households made this purposeful decision, their families followed.
Men are the single most important
influence in the home. When a man sets
the tone in his home for good, it is a blessing to the whole family. When men either fail to set right standards
for their families, or abandon their family altogether, it is disastrous for
that household. Both secular and
parochial studies affirm this.
Today our families are beset with
far more distractions to the singular rule of God than the Israelites ever faced. There are more -ism’s to be watchful of than
ever before. Consumerism will try to teach
your kids that, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” Scientism will try to teach your family that the
world is limited to only the material forces of nature, a concept for which there
can be no objective morality or purpose.
Emotivism will teach your kids that there is objective reality or truth,
only feelings that change at the drop of a dime. The greatest idol of the modern era,
Autonomy, will teach your kids that the greatest good is to be subject to no
one, not God and not one another.
Like the false gods the
Israelites had begun to turn to, none of these idols have the power to save,
only to enslave. Only Christ, who died
on the cross for our sins, who put to death our sinful nature, and has called
us through the Holy Spirit to be conformed to his likeness can save. It is this God to whom Joshua appealed before
the Israelites. It is this same God who
we today need to appeal in the sight of our families.
I pray that God would give us the
boldness to stand before our families and say, “We are called to choose this
day whom we will serve. In this house,
we will serve the LORD. In this house, we pray as a family. In this house, we worship as a family. In this house, we study God’s word as a
family. In this house, we confess Christ
as LORD as a family.”
If we do so, let us stand confident
that the Holy Spirit who has called us will keep us in the true faith and sanctify
us, as a family.
