Joshua 24.
IF the address of Joshua in the 23rd chapter is general in its bearing that of this chapter is detailed and pointed. The fathers of this people had been idol worshipers, living on the other side of the “flood” (the river Euphrates is meant). Their history under God’s powerful, protecting hand is given in the verses ending with 13. This was all the exercise of the unwearied grace of God toward His earthly people, and should have moved them to confess their utter failure. But instead, when asked by Joshua “Choose you this day whom ye will serve”—the gods of idolatry or the true God,—and Joshua giving his own testimony: “But as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” the people answered, “We also will serve the Lord for He is our God” (verse 18), and again, upon Joshua’s solemn reply, “Ye cannot serve the Lord; for He is an holy God: He is a jealous God.” their rejoinder is, “Nay but we will serve the Lord.” Then said Joshua, “Ye are witnesses against yourselves, that ye have chosen the Lord, to serve Him.” “Put away the strange gods that are among you, and incline your heart unto the Lord God of Israel.”
How like the scene at Mount Sinai this is, and yet how utterly without thought as to their own history from the Red Sea to the Jordan and since, was the confident promise of Israel to serve Him, Whom they as a nation had never really served, and against Whom they had rebelled in heart and in action not a few times, —and they had even now idols among them! Grace was what they needed, not law, but to law they cling, though it pronounced their ruin.
It should however he observed that the people spoke as they did in some knowledge of and dependence upon the power of God. They had not yet lost the realization of that power acting on their behalf, though their own unfaithfulness was proved by the presence among them of enemies who should have been totally removed, had there been true devotedness to God.
How similar to the Church of God ever since the days of the apostles! Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua. and all the days of the elders who outlived him, and had known all the works of the Lord that He had done for Israel (verse 31).
The book of Joshua has shown us the power of God to bring His people into possessions, into blessings (as identified with Christ in His death and resurrection), beyond forgiveness of sins typified in the passover in Egypt, Exodus 12), beyond redemption, deliverance from Satan’s power (typified in the crossing of the Red Sea, Exodus 14), and beyond the blessings and mercies of the wilderness which followed.
And what are these blessings which are not realized until the soul of the believer apprehends his death and resurrection with Christ? The present realization of the believer’s eternal portion; his inheritance in Christ in glory, —in brief, what the Epistle to the Ephesians sets forth (see chapters 1 and 2). Together with the blessings, is a warfare with Satan, not known before. May God grant to us who trust in His Word, to be more zealous to enter into what He has opened up to us.
ML 09/27/1925