Joshua 24: 1-2a, 14-18, “Me and my household will serve the Lord!”
Today’s scripture, Joshua 24:1-2a and 14-28, holds profound significance.
It is Joshua’s farewell speech, in which he painstakingly reaffirmed the
Israelites’ commitment to serving God, trying to ensure they remained
steadfast in their faith even after his passing.
Our text teaches us gospel lessons we should remember and apply to our
spiritual journey.
In his speech, Joshua reminded Israelites of their humble origin in terms of
their faith heritage. Verse 2, “Joshua said to all the people, “This is what
the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah
the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and
worshiped other gods.” Joshua recalled that their ancestor, Terah, the
father of Abraham and Nahor, who lived beyond the Euphrates River,
worshipped many gods. As a matter of fact, according to Jewish tradition,
Terah was not only an idol worshipper but also an idol maker, selling idols.
In this family business, Abraham was also involved in making idols. In other
words, Abraham was no different from those who lived around him in terms
of living in sins and worshipping many idols, not knowing Jehovah God.
Verse 3, but it was God who took Abraham from their sinful environment
and led him to follow Jehovah God, the God Almighty, the maker of heaven
and earth. Not by his own efforts, works, or wisdom, but by the grace of
God, by God alone, took Abraham out from and led him to the land of
Canaan, the promised land. Likewise, it was God who called us out of the
darkness and led us into the gospel light: God sent His Son, Jesus Christ,
to atone for our sins and redeem us. In other words, if we have faith in
Jesus Christ, it is not by our own efforts, works, or wisdom; It is by the
grace of God, a gift from God. I met a patient at the hospital quite some
time ago whose brother was a bishop of a mainline denomination. He told
me that he couldn’t have faith in Jesus. He tried but simply could not
believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior. Another female patient I met not too
long ago told me that her parents were Christians, and she grew up in the
Christian faith, but she regarded it as nonsense. She declined prayer
support or a chaplain’s visit. Do we have faith in Jesus Christ? We ought to
be thankful for our faith since it is a gift from God; we cannot have faith in
God on our own. It is a heavenly gift we can never take for granted. When
we seriously think about the weight of this gift and know the true meaning
of this gift, we cannot help but give thanks to God incessantly.
The second thing we should remember is that our faith should be individual
and confessional. In verse 15, through the mouth of Joshua, God urged
Israelites to choose between serving the gods of their ancestors beyond
the Euphrates River and of Amorites in whose land the Israelites lived or
serving Jehovah God, who had chosen them out of all people to be God’s
people. “…then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve,
whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, the gods of
the Amorites, in whose land you are living. As for me and my household,
we will serve the Lord.” Who were the Israelites? Weren’t they God’s
covenanted people? Wasn’t Jehovah God the Israelites’ God? Yet the Lord
God urged the assembly of Israelites to choose whom they will serve: many
gods in the world or the Lord. To which Joshua responded, “Me and my
household will serve the Lord.” From Joshua’s response, we can see that
God urged individuals to make their own choices. God wanted each
Israelite to have a living relationship with God. God did not want to be the
God of the past, the God of their ancestors who experienced mighty acts of
God in the olden days.
This God asks us today. Whom you will serve, the Lord God who wants to
save you or the many gods in the world? Do you know me personally? Am I
your God in your life, in your present moment? Or am I the God of your
parents that you heard about, that your parents or grandparents
experienced in their past? When I asked patients whether they believed in
God, some said their father was a pastor. Some said their brother/sister is a
pastor. Do you note that they did not answer my question? How about you?
Do you know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior? Our faith tradition,
parents’ strong faith, or Christian upbringing cannot save us. Our living
relationship with God and serving Him only can save us.
This leads to the third point. Our life is about making decisions between evil
or good, God or many gods and idols, which is harder and harder to do in
this time and age. As I was preparing for the sermon this week, I was
surprised at how similar the situation we are facing presently is to the
situation these Israelites were facing. Choosing the Lord over all other gods
at the time of Joshua was extremely difficult. The gods beyond the
Euphrates were the gods of the Sumerian and Babylonian, –the nature
gods. The gods of Amorites were Baal and Ashtoreth, whose significant
features were infant sacrifices and all sorts of sexual perversions in their
rituals, symbolizing fertility and abundant harvest. Serving the Lord meant
that the Israelites should reject all those gods that neighboring nations near
and far embraced. In the ancient agricultural world, denying nature gods
and gods of fertility and abundance meant denying their livelihoods. That is
why, by some, serving the Lord was considered “undesirable” in vs. 15.
“But if serving the Lord seems “undesirable” to you…” Here, “undesirable”
is translated in KJV and other versions of the Bible as “evil,” which is closer
to the original meaning. So, if we read it again in its original meaning, “But if
serving the Lord seems “evil” to you, then choose for yourself this day
whom you will serve.”
We are living in a world of polytheism, —many gods. Military chaplains
cannot pray in Jesus’ name. People say that praying in Jesus’ name is
offensive to those who have different religions. Christianity is looked upon
as narrow-minded, exclusive to other religions, if not the enemy to the
common good, love, peace, and harmony of the world. This gets worse
every day. In Canada, street evangelism is a crime. After the rapture, which
will happen soon and very soon, during the great tribulation, the true
Christians will be considered enemies to world peace, harmony, and love.
Those who refuse to get the mark of the beast, the representative of all-
inclusive religions, will be executed. Because the time is fast approaching,
God demands us to choose between the Lord God or the many gods in the
world, –the god of sexual perversions, the god of money, the god of career,
the god of pleasure, and any idols or gods that come before God. It is
either the Lord or the gods of the world, never both. God rejects those who
stand in between serving the Lord and the worldly gods. God demands
absolute devotion to the Lord, nothing less.
Choosing God is extremely difficult without “fear” of the Lord. Verse 14,
“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the
gods beyond the Euphrates and gods of Egypt…” What does it mean to
“fear” of the Lord? Fear that to offend him is to forfeit his goodness, to
violate his principles and laws is to endanger one’s salvation. Acknowledge
that God is the God of justice, keeping his words without changing anything
in his book, not even a stroke. God will judge the world according to his
book. In his first coming, God came to this world to love the world by dying
for it. However, on his second coming, he comes to judge the world with a
sharp sword in his mouth (Rev. 19:15). The sword symbolizes the word of
God. When we choose God, God helps us prevail with the help of the Holy
Spirit. When we fail but repent, God puts the blood of Jesus on us to wash
away our sins. But those who are not repentant cannot avoid God’s
judgment.
Lastly, when we serve the Lord, we should not play God. We are
responsible for teaching what is sin and what is not, but we are not to judge
because judgment belongs to God. How does it look when not judging but
loving, accepting, and embracing sinners? Let’s say there is a woman who
prostituted her body for necessities in life such as food, medical expenses,
or housing. In the eyes of Christians, prostitution is a sin, but who are we to
stone her who, out of her desperation, sold her body since she did not have
any other resources but her own body? Instead of judging, perhaps we
might have to examine our hands to see whether we have been stingy in
sharing with our needy neighbors. This world is so evil and dark, but so few
have chosen to serve the Lord, being the light and salt of the world. Do we
hear God speaking to us, ‘Whom you will serve, the Lord or the god of
money, the gods of the world?’