How do we respond to God’s faithfulness? In Joshua 24, we see how God proved faithful to Israel from generation to generation—but this chapter doesn’t just recount history; it calls for action. Join Dr. Marty Baker as he unpacks this passage and challenges us to respond personally to all that God has done.
The concept of remembering to the Semitic mind was never static, but always dynamic. It was never meant to recall something and then move on with your day. On the contrary, it called for personal action in light of what you remembered.
A case in point is what happened after Israel secured the Promised Land. Joshua, the divine replacement of Moses, led the nation to victory after seven years of battle and then resided over the new allotment of the tribal boundaries. At one hundred and ten years of age, this courageous, thoughtful, and God-fearing leader gave the nation his farewell address before his death (Josh. 23:1-16; 24:29).
When he concluded this powerful speech, which called the people to always walk closely with the Lord, he summoned all the leaders and people to join him in the town of Shechem for one final word of counsel (Josh. 24:1).
1 Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel and for their heads and their judges and their officers; and they presented themselves before God (Josh. 24).
The location couldn’t have been more significant. Located about twenty miles north of Jerusalem in a valley between Mount Ebal to the north and Mount Gerizim to the south, much had occurred here.
- At Shechem, Abraham received the ancient divine promise that the land of Canaan would be given to his descendants (Gen. 12:6-7). Since the patriarch entered Canaan around 2091 B.C., it took some 685 years for God’s promise to be realized finally. God doesn’t typically act quickly, but he is always on time.
- At Shechem, Jacob buried the idols in his household, as he headed, under divine direction, to Bethel where God had first appeared to him (Gen. 35:4).
- At Shechem, Israel gathered under the leadership and prompting of Joshua after the first phase of the conquest of Canaan. While here, Joshua carved the Law of Moses into stones to remind the people that God’s law never changes, and that blessing in the new land would come from adherence to God’s unchanging, life-giving laws (Josh. 8:30-35).
Shechem, therefore, had great historical significance to the nation, and it proved to be a perfect location for Joshua to challenge the people before God called him to his heavenly reward. So, with a quavering, but steady voice, the weathered and battle-scared valiant leader, Joshua, stood up to deliver what would prove to be his final speech to his people, Israel. What he did in this speech transcends time and is most applicable to us, especially as we contemplate celebrating and remembering fifty years of the Lord’s leadership in our version of Canaan.
First, General Joshua opened with fourteen verses devoted to . . .
The Review
What did he review? He reviewed how God was radically faithful to the nation from its inception and up to this point in space-time history.
Starting with the Clan Period, Joshua reminds his fellow citizens how their nation all began:
2 And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘From ancient times your fathers lived beyond the River, namely, Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods. 3 ‘Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River, and led him through all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his descendants and gave him Isaac (Josh. 24).
God, who initially promised that a Seed would be born to defeat and undo the work of Satan in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:15), stepped into human history and revealed himself somehow (dream? Vision? Theophany? Audible voice?) to Abraham, a polytheist living in Ur of the Chaldees located near the mighty Euphrates River. In his old age (he was seventy-five when he left Haran, Genesis 12:4), Abraham listened to God and walked away from everything he had once held dear to travel to a land God would show him. God made an unconditional covenant with him, one that would give him a land, a nation that would arise from his loins, a name that would be remembered above all names, and a unique opportunity to bless those who would support him or a curse to those who would oppose him (Gen. 12:1-3).
You will notice how God’s words to Joshua here showcase how He pulled this miraculous activity off: “I took,” “[I, implied] led him,” and “I, implied, multiplied his descendants,” “[I, implied] gave him Isaac. This divine emphasis will appear some seventeen times in this section to stress that from the very beginning of the nation’s formation to their presence at Shechem under Joshua, God had radically and miraculously worked to position them to advance His lofty causes and purposes to mankind. And the giving of Isaac was nothing short of miraculous. God promised him a chosen son in his old age, and he and Sarah eventually had Isaac when he was one hundred (Gen. 21:5) and she was 90 (Gen. 17:17), well past the age of having children. This, in and of itself, was an absolute miracle and empirical evidence of God’s miraculous power and provision as the faithful Lord who had initially called him. Talk about the radical faithfulness of God!
God’s next gift came from Isaac, the progenitor of the future nation and the coming Seed (Messiah). His name was Jacob.
4 ‘And to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau, and to Esau I gave Mount Seir, to possess it; but Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt. (Josh. 24)
Isaac fathered the twins Esau and Jacob when he was sixty (Gen. 25:26). Again, it was a miracle to some degree. Seventy years later, when Jacob was 130, he and his sons moved to Egypt around 1875 B.C. (Gen. 47:9). Who moves at that age? Physically, it would be hard to get out of a chair. But Jacob did more than that. He pulled up roots in a time of famine and headed to Egypt. Unbeknownst to him, his twelfth son, Joseph, who had been sent into slavery by his eleven jealous brothers, had risen to be second in command of Egypt under mighty Pharaoh.
While here for 430 years (Ex. 12:40; Gal. 3:17), Israel went from a favored status to being slaves. Yet, God did not abandon them in their hour of need, as Joshua recounts.
The Chains Period followed the Clan Period. While in a state of slavery, God stepped into human history again and raised two courageous men to deliver His chosen people from hard bondage:
5 ‘Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt by what I did in its midst; and afterward I brought you out (Josh. 24).
Once again, underscore all the times God says, “I” did this; “I sent,” “I plagued Egypt,” “I brought your fathers out.” With ten supernatural plagues, God not only freed the Israelites, but He also decimated the entire Egyptian false pantheon of so-called gods. For instance, in plague number one, where the Nile was instantly turned to blood (Ex. 7:14-25), God defeated Khnum, the guardian of the Nile, Hapi, the spirit of the Nile, and Osiris, whose bloodstream was the Nile. In plague number five, where God touched the cattle (Ex. 9:1-7), He destroyed Hathor, the mother goddess, the god, Apis, who existed in the form of a cow, as well as Ptah, the bull god, who was the symbol of fertility, and Mnevis, the sacred bull of Heliopolis. In plague number six, God sent boils to the Egyptians. This represented a direct attack on Imhotep, the god of medicine (Ex. 9:8-12). With the tenth and final plague (Ex. 11:1-12:36), God took the firstborn of Egypt, and this represented a divine judgment of the “deity” of Pharaoh as Osiris, the giver of life. The instantaneous nature of each plague served to underscore its divine origin and judgment on Egypt.
What occurred at the Red Sea was one of the most significant and most memorable events in Old Testament history. Again, the emphasis rests on God’s divine action as denoted in the presence of the first-person singular pronouns:
6 ‘And I brought your fathers out of Egypt, and you came to the sea; and Egypt pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. 7 ‘But when they cried out to the LORD, He put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them and covered them; and your own eyes saw what I did in Egypt. And you lived in the wilderness for a long time. (Josh. 24)
With some two million Israelite former slaves with their backs literally up against the massive and deep Red Sea and advancing well-armed Egyptian chariots under the leadership of an angry Pharaoh, God did the unthinkable. He moved his protective angel from being Israel’s guide to being its guardian by taking his massive pillar of a cloud and moving it from in front of Israel to behind them. Being positioned here, between Israel and the Egyptians, God sent a thick darkness so the Egyptian army could not proceed further (Ex. 14:19).
After this, God sent a wind that eventually divided the Red Sea into two and dried out the seabed so the people could walk East to safety. That same sea would, later, divinely fall back upon Egyptian charioteers as they sought to pursue and eliminate Israel. The timing, of course, was not by accident. God orchestrated the entire miraculous event to position His people to one day enter the land He had promised their forefathers, a land in which the Seed would be born (Mic. 5:1-2). Looking back at this, all of Israel had the empirical proof they needed to know that their God was the true God. Why would they want to abandon worship of Him after He had displayed His faithfulness to them so clearly and profoundly?
Once they entered the Sinai desert, this ushered in what we can call The Camping Period. For forty years, Israel wandered in this God-forsaken wilderness because everyone twenty years old and upward failed to take the land of promise when the spies returned from reconnoitering it (Num. 13-14). After forty years, God guided the Israelites toward the Promised Land by leading them toward the north-eastern side of the Jordan. While in this vicinity, they encountered hostile forces.
8 ‘Then I brought you into the land of the Amorites who lived beyond the Jordan, and they fought with you; and I gave them into your hand, and you took possession of their land when I destroyed them before you. (Josh. 24)
Numbers 21, verses 21-35, recounts what happened. Israel sent emissaries to King Sihon, asking for the right to pass through his land on the King’s Highway. They wouldn’t drink any water or eat any of their food. The stubborn, arrogant King refused and mustered his forces for battle. Israelite forces soundly defeated him and took control of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok River. The Arnon River was located midway on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea, while the Jabbok River was some thirty miles due north. Deut. 2, verses 32-37, stresses how God gave them victories over this region’s fortresses. They owed everything to God’s provision.
While in this region, they also encountered Balak, the Moabite leader.
9 ‘Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and fought against Israel, and he sent and summoned Balaam the son of Beor to curse you. 10 ‘But I was not willing to listen to Balaam. So he had to bless you, and I delivered you from his hand. (Josh. 24)
Realizing he couldn’t defeat Israel on the battlefield, he resorted to hiring the prophet Balaam to curse them. Four prophetic oracles later, all Balak had from Balaam were positive prophecies highlighting God’s present and future blessing on His chosen people, Israel.
- First Oracle – Numbers 23:7–10
- Theme: Israel is unique and divinely protected.
- Second Oracle – Numbers 23:18–24
- Theme: God is changeless and Israel is strong.
- Third Oracle – Numbers 24:3–9
- Theme: Israel will be prosperous and have global influence.
- Fourth Oracle – Numbers 24:15–24
- Theme: The Messiah is coming so is future conquest.
Once more, God’s activity in this tumultuous, troubling period demonstrated that He would protect and provide for His people so they could inherit the land He promised them, while also being positioned to one day usher in the King of Kings, the Messiah.
The final period Joshua shared that God gave him to speak about is the Conquest Period. The book of Joshua recounts this amazing time.
11 ‘And you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho; and the citizens of Jericho fought against you, and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Girgashite, the Hivite and the Jebusite. Thus I gave them into your hand. 12 ‘Then I sent the hornet before you and it drove out the two kings of the Amorites from before you, but not by your sword or your bow. 13 ‘And I gave you a land on which you had not labored, and cities which you had not built, and you have lived in them; you are eating of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.’ (Josh. 24)
In a timespan of seven years (Josh. 6:1-12:24; 14:7-10), Israel fought to assume control of the Promised Land from the occupants God wanted them to drive out because of their perpetual wickedness. Yet, in the final analysis, God said that He, and He alone, made His people victorious when the military odds were stacked against them.
Their first battle against the fortress of Jericho is a case study in divine activity. With protective walls towering some thirty feet high on a small mountain, Jericho was THE fortress protecting the world’s east and west trade. How would the Israelites defeat this hardened fortification? God’s method of attack was nothing like the world had ever seen before. Have a silent sacred procession, consisting of a frontal armed guard, followed by priests with seven trumpets, then the Ark of the Covenant, and finally a rear guard. For six days, they were told to march around the city once. On the seventh day, they were to march around the fortress seven times, and then the priests were to play horns. When the people heard the horns, they were challenged to let out one big shout. Oh, this sounds like an amazing military strategy for taking one of the most hardened fortresses of the day. But that is what God directed them to do, and when they did it, the city’s walls instantly crumbled, allowing them to defeat their enemy. None of this would have been possible had God not been faithful to go before them in a powerful, miraculous fashion.
And as God recounts to Israel through Joshua’s final speech, He did even more than this. He even went so far as to send hornets to drive the enemies out of their fortified positions. Would you want something like this coming after you? Count me out. However, this was not the first time God had employed insects to accomplish His loftier kingdom purposes. Locusts accosted the mighty Egyptians in the eighth plague (Ex. 10:4-15), and flies buzzed them en masse in the fourth plague (Ex. 8:20-32).
So, from the beginning of this section of Joshua’s speech to verse 13, God stressed His radical and historical faithfulness to His chosen people. When they were up against insurmountable, deadly odds, He showed up and delivered them. When they didn’t see a way humanly forward in a given predicament, He turned the obstacle into an opportunity. He typically did it in a miraculous fashion that they would never forget. When they were poor and lacked resources, He provided magnanimously for them.
Looking back over their history left the people listening to ol’ Joshua with one question: What does God now want from us? Or, how should we respond to God’s radical faithfulness to us?
We, too, must ponder these questions as we stand at our own spiritual Shechem to remember God’s provision to us over fifty amazing years.
- When we needed a building based on our size, He provided one.
- When we needed land because we were growing, He provided the means to secure all the necessary acreage.
- When we remodeled the old worship center to make it more modern and needed an alternate site for worship, God opened the door at Lake Braddock High School. Meeting in the theater was a real treat.
- When He blessed us with hundreds of children to minister to on a given Sunday, He sent us the two hundred workers to pull it off.
- When we preached the gospel to the children, they came in droves to embrace His life-giving gospel. We now have a place that God provided to baptize the vast numbers who’ve come to trust Him as Savior.
- When we needed shuttle vans to move some of our parking off campus so we had more room for visitors on Sundays, God provided the financial means and the drivers to make it happen.
- When we needed quality and gifted people to run our extensive worship program, God parted the waters for us.
- When we needed the right leaders in the correct positions to guide our growing body, God brought us the right people at the right time.
- When we needed men to step up and lead our great men’s ministry, the right gifted men have always shown up.
- When we needed an Executive Pastor, Pastor Michael, with whom I attended Dallas Theological Seminary in the early 1980s, just happened to be retiring from the Army as a Colonel over chaplains.
- When we had extra space in our new building, and I floated to the then-President Bailey the idea that DTS could move its East Coast campus here, God helped us clear numerous hurdles, so there are now over 200 students working on seminary degrees here.
I could go on, but you get the picture. As God was radically faithful to Israel, He has been loyal to us, and we all know it because we have seen His hand move on many occasions. Israel’s questions now become ours: “What does God now want from us?” Or, “How should we respond to God’s radical faithfulness to us?” Joshua gave answers to these questions in the ensuing verses:
The Response (Josh. 24:14-18)
The conversational interchange between Joshua and the people consists of five identifiable movements. We will consider the first movement because they all contain the same basic theme.
Conversation movement number one contains three imperatives or commands.
14 Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. (Josh. 24)
The opening adverbial phrase, “and now” (ve’attah) in Hebrew is highly emphatic because the word order is altered for effect:
וְעַתָּ֞ה יְר֧אוּ אֶת־יְהוָ֛ה וְעִבְד֥וּ אֹת֖וֹ בְּתָמִ֣ים וּבֶֽאֱמֶ֑ת וְהָסִ֣ירוּ אֶת־אֱלֹהִ֗ים אֲשֶׁר֩ עָבְד֙וּ
אֲבוֹתֵיכֶ֜ם בְּעֵ֤בֶר הַנָּהָר֙ וּבְמִצְרַ֔יִם וְעִבְד֖וּ אֶת־יְהוָֽה׃
It is followed by three commands that tell us what we are supposed to do after we contemplate the historical and radical faithfulness of God toward us.
One, we are to fear God. This means we are to have a deep respect and reverence for His holiness, coupled with a healthy respect for what a powerful God of this nature can do for those who follow Him or those who oppose Him. As you can see from those who cheered and jeered at the barbaric murder of Charlie Kirk this week, a young Christian man who merely debated on college campuses, seeking to guide people toward truth, logical thinking, and morality, fear of the Almighty is in short supply. I pray for those who don’t fear Him, for He will only be patient with them for so long.
Two, we are called to serve Him in sincerity and truth. This logically follows fearing God. If I have a deep reverence for God’s holy character and presence in my life and world, this will, by definition, change how I live. I no longer live for myself, my dreams, and my desires, but I live for Him. I go where He wants me to go. I react to opposition as He would. I care for the less fortunate. I use my spiritual gifts in the local body so it does not suffer a lack. I care for the needy. I serve as a leader when the need arises in the body. I speak up for Him. I train others to follow ardently after Him. I give happily of the monies He has entrusted to me for a short time to advance His kingdom causes. And I do all this in sincerity and truth, meaning I am not a hypocrite or a flake. What I say is what I will do. If you need a servant, here I am.
Three, we are challenged to put away false gods that detract from our worship of the true God. Ancient Israel struggled with holding onto false gods from the time they left Egypt until the time of Joshua, and Joshua knew it, and that’s why he added this command here. You cannot serve two gods simultaneously, as Jesus taught (Luke 16:9-13). And what is a false god today? Anything or anyone that usurps the role and position of God in your daily life. It could be hedonism, or the love of pleasure; or materialism, the love of things; or an addictive drug or drink you cannot live without; or a love of power and rank over others; or a vacuous, godless ideology that runs counter to the truth of the Word of God, and so on. Do you have any false gods in your life that need tossing into the trash bin? Israel did, and chances are good we do too.
To these commands, Joshua added this powerful thought:
15 And if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. (Josh. 24)
Joshua’s entire life was one of choosing to follow hard after God. His whole life illustrated that he, above all people, set the pace for putting God first. When the people worshipped the Golden Calf, he chose not to join the majority, even though the peer pressure must have been tremendous. When ten spies said in total unbelief that there is no way that Israel can take the Promised Land, Joshua said, along with Caleb, Yes, we can! When many Israelite men went after Moabite women before the nation crossed the Jordan River, Joshua chose not to join them in their sexual deviation. When God told him to have the nation cross the Jordan River at flood tide, he chose to believe God could pull this off in a miraculous fashion. When God told him how to take down the mighty fortress of Jericho, he didn’t argue but embraced God’s battle plan. Joshua’s entire life was an illustration of choosing the things of God over the things of man, and that’s what made him into a great, godly man in God’s sight.
As we look back at our past, I readily see we have had countless brave souls, men and women alike, coupled with many teens and children, who have not been afraid to say what Joshua did, “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” Now, as we look to the future or the next fifty years, what greater thing can be said of us than this? What greater thing can a high schooler say, or a father, a mother, a grandmother, a doctor, a nurse, a pilot, or a General than, “As for me and my house, we shall serve the LORD?” As we look back at the sadness of this week, in the loss of Charlie Kirk, a bold witness for Jesus Christ, he reminds me of a man who lived out Joshua’s challenge here. There was no doubt that his house served the living God. We need more saints who are just as bold and determined to live a life of total dedication to the Lord Jesus Christ.
The godless will say, “Don’t pray,” but we pray because God is first in our house.
The godless will say, “Don’t pray because it has no power,” but we pray because we serve the God of miraculous power.
The godless will say, “Don’t speak truth,” but we will speak truth because we serve the living God of all truth.
The godless will say, “Don’t call sin, sin,” but will lovingly identify sin because, without this word, the lost cannot repent and become saved.
The godless will say, “Believe as we believe, even though it defies morality and logic,” but we will believe only in Christ and His Word because we know it is right and prudent.
The godless will say, “Don’t fear God because there is no God to fear,” but we know differently because of the evidence that the living God has given us to verify our faith.
The godless will say, “Don’t bother being a servant. Live to be served,” but we live differently because we know from our Lord’s model that humble servanthood is what God calls us to do toward others (Mark 10:45).
The godless will say, “Keep a few idols that you enjoy in your life,” but we know they must all go if we are going to have an intimate, life-changing relationship with the Savior.
From the beginning to the end of his life, ol’ Joshua showed His people how to live for God. He made the right choice. Now it is our turn. Now it is your turn. What greater thing can a church do that considers God’s historical hand upon it than to say, “As for us, we will serve the LORD no matter what”?
How did Israel respond to Joshua? Read on and see:
16 And the people answered and said, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods; 17 for the LORD our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and who did these great signs in our sight and preserved us through all the way in which we went and among all the peoples through whose midst we passed. 18 “And the LORD drove out from before us all the peoples, even the Amorites who lived in the land. We also will serve the LORD, for He is our God.” (Josh. 24)
They looked at God’s radical faithfulness to them and said, “As for us, we, too, shall serve the LORD. From their response, we can easily identify the main motif of the passage:
Main Idea: God’s radical faithfulness to us should move us to radical faithfulness to Him.
So, what say you?
If you are not a follower of Christ, will you say right now, “Lord, I choose to follow you today. Yes, as for me and my house, we will follow you”?
If you are a believer, will you take Joshua up on his challenge? Will you step up to the plate, where many BCCers have stood over the years, and say, “Yes, LORD, as for me and my house, you can count on us to serve you”?
