Moving On – Joshua 24

Who will be our next leader? In the coming days and weeks, our nation will say farewell to the man who has been leading us, and a new leader will arise. Who will it be, and how will they lead us?

So much has happened in the last few years. Our nation looks and feels nothing like it did just a few short years ago. In fact, the pace of the last few years has been so fast that every 6 months feels like we’re living in a different place.

Surprisingly, there are some people we thought were the enemy that have become agents of good. And, there have been several people who we thought were good, who have subsequently sided with the enemy. Some days it is difficult to tell who is playing for which side.

And yet, in the midst of all the turbulence of these years, I think we can all see moments when God moved mightily when he spared the nation when his hand strengthened and upheld his people. I’ve seen a number of people who had previously been spiritually sleepy, wake up and put their trust in the Lord.

Nonetheless, there remains much for the people of God to do in the days ahead. The coming years will not be years of ease and rest. And in a few short days, our nation will say goodbye to its leader and prepare for an uncertain future.

Such would have been the thoughts, fears, and hopes of an Israelite who understood that Joshua, their leader, was dying. Feel familiar?

As we come to Joshua 24, the final chapter of Joshua, we find ourselves in a similar position as the children of Israel. In 21 days, we too will begin saying goodbye to the leader of our own nation. And just like the people of Israel, we too may look at that transition of leadership with a range of emotions. We may find ourselves growing anxious as that transition approaches, wondering what the future holds.

You may remember that the book of Joshua began with a funeral:

1 After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, 2 “Moses my servant is dead. (Josh. 1:1)

And now, at the end of the book we are invited to another funeral: Joshua’s. Before his leadership ends, Joshua summons the nation to assemble before him at Shechem. He has last and lasting words to leave with them. And if you and I will listen to Joshua’s words to Israel at the close of his leadership, you and will learn how to face a similar transition in our own age. As Joshua is departing he gives us two lessons:

1. Trust the Author of History

2. Choose the Right Fear

When God rescued his people from Egypt, he brought them to Mount Sinai, and there, God established a covenant, a guaranteed commitment, with Israel through Moses. And we call it, surprise surprise, the Mosaic Covenant. And what you have in Joshua 24 is Joshua, before his death, leading the entire nation in a covenant renewal ceremony. Why is that significant? Because Joshua is saying to them: your future as a nation is not bound up in a human person. Your future as a nation is bound up with the covenant-making and covenant-keeping God.

The Mosaic Covenant essentially has three parts. Part one is the LAWS of the covenant, essentially, the 10 Commandments. These are the laws that Israel is to keep. Part two is the PROMISES of the covenant, those promises are an expansion of what God promises Abraham: you will live in the Promised Land of Canaan and have rest. Part three is the THREATS of the covenant. Through disobedience, Israel would bring a curse upon itself, be driven from the land, and be re-enslaved.

Now, the covenant did more than those three. It established a system of government for the people, instituted the Levitical priesthood, gave rules for future kings, and rules for prophecy and teaching. But this is the essence of what Joshua is renewing:

Covenant Laws – 10 Commandments

Covenant Promises – The Land and Rest

Covenant Threats – Disobedience will bring a Curse

The purpose of the renewal ceremony is to exhort the nation to faithful obedience after he has died. He begins this ceremony by reminding Israel that God has been the author of their history as a nation. Look in verse 2:

For the first 13 verses, Joshua recounts God’s divine hand in the nation’s history.

• God called Abraham out of the nations to himself.

• God is the one who gave Isaac when Sarah was barren.

• God is the one who chose Jacob though he was younger than Esau.

• God is the one who sent Moses and Aaron as deliverers.

• God was the source of the plagues of Egypt, and God is the one who truly delivered the people.

• God is the one who drowned the Egyptian army and made the people walk on dry ground. He sustained the people in the wilderness, defeated their enemies in Canaan, and is the one who will outlast Joshua.

You see, our tendency as human beings is to the run to extremes; to think that either human leaders matter more than anything, or not at all. Instead, Joshua says that while human leadership matters, it’s not ultimate: God is.

The same God that called Abraham is the same God who would lead Israel into a future without Joshua. And the same God who did that is the same God who would later send Jesus Christ the Messiah, who sent the Apostle Paul to preach to the Gentiles, who sent the Pilgrims to establish Plymouth Colony in 1620, and who woke you up this morning. He has declared his eternal purposes: to redeem all things in Christ.

So, we need to be sober-minded today. The moments that God gives us are significant. The choices we make are significant. The direction of our nation matters. But none of that is ultimate.

Joshua tells us to trust the author of history. What do I mean when I call God the author of history? What exactly is he authoring? 1689 3:1 –

From all eternity God decreed everything that occurs, without reference to anything outside Himself. He did this by the perfectly wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably. Yet God did this in such a way that He is neither the author of sin nor has fellowship with any in their sin. This decree does not violate the will of the creature or take away the free working or contingency of second causes. On the contrary, these are established by God’s decree. In this decree, God’s wisdom is displayed in directing all things, and His power and faithfulness are demonstrated in accomplishing His decree. (1689, 3:1)

What does this mean? It means that God is the one who ordained that Pharoah would pursue the children of Israel to the Red Sea, and he ordained that Pharoah would choose to do it freely. It means that God ordained that Pilate would condemn Jesus Christ and that he would do it of his own volition.

And it means that whatever happens in the next 20 years in America will be according to the eternal decree of God, without violating the freedom of creatures, and in all of it God has already written the story in such a way that his wisdom, his power, and his faithfulness will be displayed.

The glory of living in God’s story is not that there isn’t evil, but that Jesus Christ has overcome evil at the cross, and we are in him, watching his salvation worked out into our life and our world.

So, our response, as we remember that God is writing his story today is not to resent evil; it’s to fight evil. You and I are not called to have a bad attitude about evil.  We aren’t to murmur about evil. We aren’t to complain and bite and worry about evil. Worrying about evil isn’t fighting evil.

You can live out those two commands faithfully, only if you are in Christ and if you remember that God is the one with history’s pen in his hand.

After reminding Israel that God is the author of their story, he then presents them with a challenge; a choice: Joshua 24:14

Joshua has been a courageous leader for over 50 years in Israel. He was only one of two spies who had the courage to take the land when all the others cowered in fear. He has led the people across the Jordan, and under his leadership, they’ve taken possession. But now he is about to die and he knows, better than anyone, how important it is that the Lord’s people cultivate a holy fear and reverence for God.

Here is the choice that is set before you: who or what will you serve? Who or what will you fear? Joshua reminds Israel, and us, that it is not a question of whether we will fear. It’s what. It’s not whether we’ll serve, it’s who.

In other words, something is going to control your life. Bob Dylan was right: you gotta serve somebody.

What does it mean to fear God? I love the Puritan John Flavel’s words here. Flavel says that we all experience a natural fear: we are troubled by our own finitude. Fire can burn us. Water can drown us. Dictators can persecute us. And it’s natural for us as finite creatures to have a certain amount of fear of those things. Jesus Christ himself, feared physical torment and death in the garden of Gethsemane.

But that natural fear can be corrupted and become sinful fear. We may fear the dictator’s power to hurt us more than we trust God’s power to protect us. When a natural fear displaces God, it becomes sinful.

But Flavel says that its possible for each of us to develop a holy fear of God. If natural fear is the pure and simple fear that comes from knowing our finitude, and sinful fear is the disordering and corruption of natural fears, then the holy fear of God is when our natural fear is sanctified—it’s changed and baptized into a spiritual grace.

What does he mean? Friends, fear of the Lord is when you sense your own human finitude in comparison with God’s timeless, spaceless, ever-present, all-powerful, omnibenevolent nature.

Fear of God is when God is big in your life, and man is small. God is big, and the election is small. God is big, and your troubles are, by comparison, infinitely smaller.

Again, this is connected to what we said before. The glory of living in God’s world is not that you aren’t finite. It’s not that the people of God aren’t, at times, surrounded, but that above and beneath and surrounding it all is the eternal, almighty Maker of heaven and earth.

So, we know that we are in troublous times. The next month will be even more trouble because we live in a nation that has forgotten the Lord.

And maybe you are afraid of what evil men and women will do in the days ahead. Psalm 2 says that the nations indeed rage against the Lord and against his anointed. An election season could be called a “raging season.” Yet, if God is our God, then we have Almighty God on our side. Our fears and anxieties come in the name of man, or disease, or real estate… but our help comes in the name of the Lord. Psalm 118:6 ought to be memorized and in your mind daily: “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?”

Friend, are you afraid of what God will do in the days ahead? If you belong to Christ, he will not do anything against your eternal good. He will not, no he cannot forget you, because Christ was forsaken in your place at the cross. If the Father gave up his Son to claim you, the only way he could forget you would be for him to despise what his Son has done, and he will not dishonor his Son’s work.

Or perhaps you fear what you will do in the days ahead. You know your own weakness, your own temptations, your own struggle with sin. Friend, if you are fearful of your own weakness, remember our assurance of pardon from 2 weeks ago: Romans 8:38–39 (ESV): For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Friend, if you truly belong to Christ, not even your sin can separate you from him. If you were 1,000 times worse than you are, your sin would still be no match for his mercy.

So, commit yourself to God. Put all that you are and all that you have into his hands.

Wake up, every morning, and trust that God is the author of the day. Put your life and all you have into his hands. Fear him.