Year 1, Day 209: Joshua 24

Wow.  This is our last chapter in the Old Testament until the middle of September.  In many respects it is hard to believe that we’ve come so far.  Creation, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua.  Good times.  I hope you have enjoyed them.  Next stop?  Jesus (via the Gospel of Luke).

God’s Grace

Before we get to the “choose this day” passage, which is one of my favorite verses of the Bible, I need to comment on the first part of this chapter.  “I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant.” (Joshua 24:13)  I am struck by this passage.

It is so very true for all the people to whom Joshua is speaking.  They have literally just conquered the Promised Land with God’s help.  They didn’t plant any of the fruit trees that were currently growing there.  They surely didn’t clear the land upon which the cities were built.  Sure, they may have had to rebuild a city or two here and there, but even in that case the Canaanites had already brought the stone to the central area and built a town there once.  All they had to do was rebuild the stone and wood – not dig the stone out of the ground, cut it to shape, haul it to a central place, and build the town.  These Hebrew people literally had it easy because of God’s hand.

Am I any less guilty of suffering from the same circumstance?  I serve in a church I did not help construct.  I have faith among a group of people who I did not instruct.  I read a Bible I did not write.  I listen in on Biblical stories of faith and of a relationship with God at a depth to which I do not have access.  Shoot, I have access to salvation and eternal life which I did not and cannot ever purchase.

Am I – are we – at all different from these Hebrew people?  Can any of us claim that we do not reap the spiritual benefit of things of which we had no part in the work of “earning” it?  After all, only Christ can “earn it!”  To return to the theme of parallelism our spirituality within Joshua, we return to Joshua 24:13.  I live in a spirituality for which Christ labored, not me.  I dwell in a figurative city of faith upon which Christ laid the foundation, not me.  I partake in the spiritual fruit from spirituality that Christ planted, not me.  I enjoy the luxury of a spiritual anointing from oil that Christ harvests, not me.  What have any of us done to deserve the spirituality that we now enjoy?

And how do we respond to this gracious gift of spirituality?

Response to God’s Grace

That is the question that leads us to the most often quoted line from Joshua.  “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.” (Joshua 24:15)

Today, let’s look past the quote from Joshua.  Do you hear what Joshua says in the verses to come?  “No!” Joshua declares.  “You are not able to serve Him because He is righteous,” Joshua promises.  “This stone is a witness against us,” Joshua testifies.  “We are witnesses against ourselves,” Joshua says in an act of truth-telling.  Joshua knows the truth, and it pains me to hear him say those words because I know they are true even still today.

We gather once a week – often quite less, even! – to worship God.  We gather occasionally to read and study His Word.  We sometimes gather to pray, but most often we gather to hear other people pray in our presence.  We gather to provide money to serve, but many times we are not really interested in doing the actual service.  We gather to proclaim that we are community, yet we do not consider the other people in the church our brothers and sisters.  We are filled with the right words; but our actions are so often empty.  We say all the right catch-phrases but a quick tally of our spent time and our true thoughts reveals where our hearts truly lie.

Joshua knows the truth.  We are witnesses against ourselves.  I say “I love You, Lord” with my mouth, but my thoughts declare something different to my God.  My actions declare that I would rather spend time doing something other than being with my God.  I know the truth.  I even try to be loyal to the truth.  But the world around me drags me away from the truth.  Sometimes kicking and screaming … but sometimes willingly.

While the verse “Choose this day …” is often quoted, I wonder how often we quote the verses that follow.  Yes, we are to choose.  But we also must accept the reality that we are not capable of obeying as we should.  Creation is a testimony against us.

Joshua’s Death

Joshua died.  He was buried.  But he knew where the story would lead.  The people would fall away from God.  They would go into captivity once again because of their rebellion.  Joshua may not have known it would be to the Assyrians or to the Babylonians, but he knew that they would become captive to something other than God. 

We as human beings must serve a god, whether it is the true God of the Hebrew people or whether it is a god that we create in our lives.  Joshua does not give them the choice of serving nothing … he knows that they will either serve one god or another.  It is who we are as human beings.  We are still captives to this world even 2,000 years after Christ came and explained it all to us – after He even died for our sake!

Onto Christ

Thanks be to God that Christ did come, because I certainly need Him.  I have a feeling I’m not the only one, too.  Having seen the witness of God as He moved through creation to the Promised Land, let’s now turn to Jesus.  Everything we’ve studied has prepared us for a good look at Christ.  So tomorrow we will begin there.  I can’t wait!

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