Farewell to Israel’s People (Part C)

God says, when you get into the land, then you say in your heart, my power and my might, might of my hand have gained me this wealth. God said to His people, when I give you these things you're going to think you did this. Once you do that, you're going to depart.

And we have to always be on guard for these things. Imagine if I as a pastor said, yeah, I built this church. Yeah, it was my preaching.

Yeah, it was my, imagine, imagine the evil. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Joshua.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today, Pastor Rick will conclude his message called Farewell to Israel's People in Joshua chapter 24. They're on Mount Carmel, cutting themselves, marching around all day, screaming and hooting and hollering. But they were wrong. No fire came from heaven. In fact, the prophet mocked them. Maybe your God is busy.

Maybe He's in the bathroom and He's just mocking them. And of course, the rules were, the God who answers by fire, He is God. These were the days of the prophets.

And it was a remarkable time indeed. Israel, as Joshua speaks to them, is saying, you have to make a decision to serve the Lord. And it has to be genuine, and it has to be based on truth. Not just genuine, not just true. You can say, well, this is true, but you don't really, you're not into it. Or you can be into it, but it's lies you're following.

No neutrality is offered when it comes to truth. And so, let's just look at a few verses in the scripture. I won't read the verses.

We don't have the time but I'll give you the coordinates. Here in Joshua 24, verse 14, sincerity and truth is coupled together. But in Psalm 89, verse 14, mercy and truth are coupled together, as with Proverbs 16, 6. Faithfulness and truth, Isaiah 25, 1. Grace and truth, John, chapter 1, 17. Spirit and truth, John 4, 23. Righteousness and truth, Ephesians 5, 9. Deeds and truth, 1 John 3, 18. Love and truth, 2 John 3. And so, truth is not a lonely character in the scripture. There's got to be more than truth. If you just have truth, you can be a brute, you can be a fool.

There are other things. For instance, you know, ever meet somebody that really thinks they know the Bible? Satan's not impressed by that, incidentally. Your flesh is not impressed by that.

The world is not impressed by that. So you know the Bible. Do you have grace and truth? Is it their righteousness and truth? The Spirit of God and truth. How about your deeds? How about your faithfulness? Are you sincere?

How about mercy? Or do you just use truth as a hammer, mercilessly on others, judging everybody else? You ever be around someone who's just a lifetime critic? Everybody else is wrong.

He was talking to the hypocrites and Pharisees and everybody else but me. That person needs to be put in their place. Maybe it's not your place to put them. Give me their number.

I'll call them up for you. It's always my place. Let's be careful. Sometimes we can feel so right that we feel like we have license to clobber. And sometimes it is necessary to, but it has to be in the spirit of love. He says, and put away the gods of your fathers served on the other side of the river and in Egypt. Here they are settled in the land and they're still cherishing idols. What is up with that? Did you not see the miracles in the name of Yahweh?

Why do you still do these things? Well, we look around today, we see much of Christian music and church events that take place and much of it is soaked in error. And if it's not soaked in error, it's soaked in shallowness. It's scary. And again, that would be a good opportunity if you're around someone who is misusing these things to be gentle, to be kind, but adhere to the truth no matter what. Jacob gave this warning to his family. They had problems with this.

Rachel, you know, and the idols. Samuel, he had to deal with this centuries later with the Jews. Ezekiel, after they had been taken captive, after all the prophecies of Jeremiah, how could that possibly be? Ezekiel 20 verse 7, then I said to them, each of you throw away the abominations which are before his eyes and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt.

I am Yahweh your God. Verse 15, and if it seems evil to you to serve Yahweh, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of 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. Well, he says, choose for yourselves this day. He's echoing Moses, of course, and much of this speech is sort of a Deuteronomy type review. Submit and commit to God, he's telling them. Now, I'm not going to spend too much on that power clause in this verse, but as for me and my house, that would merit an entire sermon. But I think we're so familiar with it, what could a preacher really add to that? We get the point.

I think that the pastor better serves the flock when he opens up points that maybe the flock has not had a chance to consider. The grammatical tense in the Hebrew here is a continuous action. I'm going to continue to serve my God, and don't you continue to serve those false gods.

So he gives four choices in this section. The gods of their ancestors in Ur of the Chaldees, in Mesopotamia, as we mentioned earlier. The gods of their ancestors in Egypt, beyond the Nile. The gods of the wicked in Canaan, the land that they are now in. Or the only true god.

Which one? Of course, the god of Canaan would include the east side of Jordan. How much heartache is piled up into the life of this man Joshua, as I mentioned earlier. It was not easy for him, and yet he's leading the people, he's still standing, he still pledges allegiance to God, he's still preaching the word, he's still loving the people. The tone of Joshua is not angry in this speech, it is very encouraging and is firm. He challenges them, he says, I don't think you can do this. And I'm sure many of them say, yeah, I'm fighting words, we're going to do this, Joshua.

That's exactly what happens. He says, choose. God's people are volunteers. Is there anyone here that is born again that feels like you're forced to serve God, you really would not like to? No, because it's voluntary.

You respond to the invitation, you receive it. I don't care what the Calvinists say, no I really don't care. Anyway, Deuteronomy 30 is such a great book, it's a little long, two verses but as Deuteronomy is, each verse is like a book. But I call heaven and earth as witnessed today against you, that I have set before you life and death, Moses is speaking, blessings and cursing, therefore choose life that both you and your descendants may live, that you may love Yahweh your God, that you may obey his voice, that you may cling to him for he is your life in the length of your days and that you may dwell in the land of Yahweh, that Yahweh swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to give them. And so that here we have Joshua emphasizing the very things his teacher taught him. Verse 16, so the people answered and said, far be it from us that we should forsake Yahweh to serve other gods. Verse 17, for Yahweh our God is he who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage, who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in the way that we went and among all the people through whom we passed. Verse 18, Yahweh drove out from before all the people including the Amorites who dwell in the land, we also will serve Yahweh for he is our God. This is that same generation that met Joshua in the first chapter and said we're going to be with you Joshua, anybody that stands against you we're going to stand against them.

They replied, when Joshua says as for me and my house they say us too. They apply with allegiance and reason. It's not without truth. They don't just say we can feel it, we just feel your passion Joshua and we're just with you for that. No, it's that we saw this, this is truth, our faith is based on truth. So when Peter says, sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you for the reason the hope is in you and he says give it with meekness and fear or respect. Good to remember why God has done what he has done in your life. Joshua said to the people you cannot serve Yahweh for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.

Pause there a moment. When the New Testament church was born the Greek gods and the Roman gods were not holy. They were vile. This is what the New Testament offered. As the Jews understood or were supposed to and we are supposed to also.

What would make them fail? A flawed sense of self-sufficiency. I got it God, I don't really need any help now. Deuteronomy 8, 11-20 is the whole package but verse 17, extracting that, God says when you get into the land then you say in your heart my power and my might, the might of my hands have gained me this wealth. God said to his people when I give you these things you're going to think you did this and once you do that you're going to depart and we have to always be on guard for these things. Imagine if I as a pastor said yeah I built this church. Yeah it was my preaching.

Yeah it was my dis- imagine, imagine the evil. I would get nervous saying that. I should have used another guy as an example. So this moment of challenge that he throws before them is because Joshua was there when the people said that they would serve Yahweh and then the next thing they were doing was dancing around the golden calf. He knew talk could be cheap. Sometimes talk is not cheap but it can be and so he nudges them to honestly look into their hearts.

Yeah I don't think you could do this and here's that old man Joshua. Nobody's going to challenge him and it's a very beautiful scene that the Bible has captured for us of this day in Israel. He says God is jealous. This is not the jealousy of criminal possessiveness that someone your mind and nobody else can have you. That's not- that's a carnality, a carnal jealousy. This is the jealousy of protection.

This is mine and I'm going to protect it and that's what is meant by our God being a jealous God. It sort of serves Satan notice that God is the defender of his people and it serves anyone who is insincere in their faith a warning. Verse 20, if you forsake Yahweh and serve foreign gods then he will turn and do you harm and consume you after he has done you good.

Well he's spooking them for sure. The obligation on the believer is to believe. There is no obligation of God to bless the apostate.

That's what's being said. If you go and follow other gods, God's not going to follow you except in judgment. Verse 21, and the people said to Joshua, no, but we will serve Yahweh. Verse 22, so Joshua said to the people, you are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen Yahweh for yourselves to serve him and they said we are witnesses. Now therefore he said, put away the foreign gods which are among you and incline your heart to Yahweh God of Israel. So you see why he's driving us home.

He knows there's still people that are playing games and that's why he's saying it like this. He's telling the elders especially, clean it up. Verse 24, and the people said to Joshua, Yahweh our God will, we will serve. In his voice we will obey. And so this repetition is necessary. And three times the people affirm their desire to serve the Lord and Joshua accepts their word. He doesn't say, yeah, okay, fine, that's what you say. He accepts it.

All right, we got this. Verse 25, so Joshua made a covenant, there it is, with the people that day and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. Verse 26, and Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God and he took a large stone and set it up under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. Finally, if they're in Shechem, the tent, the golden altar and the bronze, brazen altar, that's in Shiloh. They likely took the Ark of the Covenant to Shechem with them for this event. There's a possibility because the writers do fragment points as they write in the Old Testament especially, but it appears the sanctuary here is referring to the Ark of the Covenant. In verse 27, and Joshua said to all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness to us, for it has heard all the words of Yahweh, which He spoke to us. It shall therefore be a witness to you, lest you deny your God. This is the ninth of ten memorials mentioned in the book of Joshua. So throughout the book of Joshua, these memorials are all over the land, all over the place.

Don't forget, don't forget, don't forget, this is all over the place. We put them on our refrigerator, on our desk, on our pens, our t-shirts, and we forget. How many of you have done the wrong thing with a Christian t-shirt on?

That's why I don't wear them. So I remember being back at somebody once that had a Christian bumper sticker, and I was so upset with them, but I felt there's nothing I could do. I felt that their father is my father, and I really didn't feel like getting in trouble. And there was another Christian next to me, and he was just grinning, he agreed, I mean he was just, you can't do anything, can you? We were just stuck in misery because of a Christian brother. This Christian brotherhood we have is very special. Another time, I'm driving on a road, and it was an interstate in New York, and it was a sharp bend, and it was early morning, I'm on my way to church, and there's this car broken down, and it's in the lane where the bend is, and so I pulled over and put my flashes on back, and I said I can give you a push out the way, and he had a collar on as a preacher, and the car was loaded with people.

I don't know how he got that many people, I thought they were going to the circus. So anyway, I pushed him out of the way, and he was so grateful, because he knew he was just in a dead man's alley, and his family was, and they didn't even get out the car, there was no way to stand. And I pushed the car out of the way, and he tried to give me money, and I quoted a scripture verse to him, I said I've never seen the righteous forsaken, and he started crying, weeping, he was an older man too, he was older, much older. And it was such a blessing to be able to do that. Now I knew by how he was dressed that doctrinally or philosophically we did not share the same opinions, but I could feel that we had the same God. I mean it was that strong a moment.

That was over 30 years ago, and it was like it happened yesterday. Verse 27, Joshua said to all the peoples, Behold this stone shall be a witness to us, for it has heard all the words of Yahweh, which He spoke to us, it shall therefore be a witness to you, lest you deny our God. It was very powerful, the stone. When you see the stone, you know it was present when you said this, and let's review the monuments in the book of Joshua. In chapter 4, the stones in the midst of the Jordan, in chapter 4 also, the stones on the western bank of the Jordan, in chapter 7, the stones in the valley of Achor, in chapter 8, a heap of stones at Ai. Well they didn't have, you know, Bill's monument-making company, so they just piled stones up.

Sometimes they whitewashed them to make them stand out. But anyway, Joshua chapter 8, the altar at Mount Ebal was a memorial that was not for sacrificing. Joshua 8 also again on Mount Ebal, stones of the law. Then at Makkida, at the cave, in chapter 10, again, a monument for God's victories. There is the altar that the trans-Jordan saints, Gad, Manasseh, half of Ephraim, had built that almost caused a civil war, but it was a monument nonetheless. And then here in Joshua 24, the stone of witness for the people agreeing to serve the Lord. And there's one more, and that will be the bones of Joseph. When they buried those bones, that's a monument to the history of the Jew.

I mean, it's just an incredible part of the story. So they served their purpose, of course, if they're not abused, the lessons that we can extract from yesterday's events, that's what a monument is supposed to be. You know, other historians have a lot to say about people not learning the lessons of history, and collectively that is true. But as individuals go, we can learn from history and not allow ourselves to repeat it.

Character flaw will override that if you're not careful. Verse 28, so Joshua let the people depart, each to his own inheritance, to plow their fields. Verse 29, now it came to pass after these things that Joshua, the son of Nun, servant of Yahweh died being 110 years old.

Verse 30, and they buried him within the border of his inheritance in Timnath-Sira, which is in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaius. Well, Joshua is dead, but there's no mention of a successor. When Moses was going to die, or go to heaven, you could say, God made sure he appointed Joshua to carry the people in. But there's no leader to follow Joshua, and there's no leader to follow Jesus.

Remember the name Joshua in the Greek? It is Jesus. But I look at this and I say, yeah, but when there is no head, there are headaches. When there's no leader, there's always a problem.

Something without a head is dead or a monster. And you say, well, how do you account for that? Well, the tribal, it was tribal rule. The tribes had their leaders.

That's who he invited. God did. And so God is saying, I'm going to let the tribes do what they're supposed to do, have their leaders govern them, which did work for this generation. And after that, it fell apart and God had to raise up deliverers, judges. Verse 31, Israel served Yahweh all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had known all the works of Yahweh, which he had done for Israel. So here's a case of those who saw miracles and it held them true to the Lord.

Judges chapter 2, we won't read it, verses 10 through 12, we'll be getting it soon, tell us the same thing. Verse 32, the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had brought up out of Egypt, they buried at Shechem in the plot of ground, which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem for 100 pieces of silver, and which had become an inheritance of the children of Joseph. And so here, the bones of Joseph are finally put to rest and it becomes a monument, probably the most powerful monument at this time in the land.

Nothing really to add to that. Well, when you think about them carrying those dead bones with them, that emblem of death and deliverance, the cross of Christ, we carry that emblem around. It is the emblem of death.

Jehovah Witness will argue, well what, it's like carrying a wheelchair around with, I mean not a wheelchair, an electric chair around with you. It's an emblem, and our response is, you've got it right. It is an emblem of death. My death.

That should have been me, that should have been you. It's substitutionary. But the tomb is empty. Joseph's bones are in the grave. The Lord Jesus' bones are not.

Incorruptible. Because of who he is, he rose again. Our Deliverer's grave is empty. And so there is great significance in this moment for the Jews, and there's a greater significance in the cross of Christ.

Verse 33, and Eleazar the son of Aaron died, and they buried him in a hill belonging to Phinehas, his son, which was given to him in the mountains of Ephraim. And so the leaders, Joshua and the high priest, they're gone. And I think of their deaths and we'll close with 2 Timothy, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, kept the faith. Finally there's laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge will give to me on that day, not to me only, but to all those who have loved his appearing.

That would be us. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Joshua. Cross Reference is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you're interested in more information about this ministry, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com.

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