Joshua 21 – 24
These last few chapters are Joshua’s “Swan Song” to the people of Israel. Imagine if you were at your end, what you would want everyone to know. Keep in mind, Joshua had a very close relationship with God and knew His heart. Chapter 22 verse 5 sums up what Joshua wants us all to know concerning our relationship with God:
“Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”
I know Jesus supposedly broke this covenant, but in reality freedom from it does not mean we ignore it. I think Joshua’s wording is key here when he says “observe” and not “obey”. I think the “freedom” Jesus offered us was more the legalistic binding the Pharisees’ had made and not our obligation to honor it.
See this subject is one that can be debated without resolve. The Law was there to show us we cannot live to God’s desires, but it’s not for us to now ignore. Sure there are some parts dealing with sacrifice that Jesus did end at the cross, but most of these commandments still should be honored. Again not legalistically, but for our “own good”!
Chapter 24 verse 14 and 15 ask the key question in all our lives:
14 “Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. 15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, 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.”
Then the gods were idols, parts of God and people who exalted themselves to god like existence, yet all fell short of the one true God. Today we don’t worship gods similar to those then, not our god’s have names like Porsche, Versace, Armani, and Louis Vuitton to name a few. Our gods are no longer there to explain the unknown, but to fill the desires of our hearts. Sure having a Porsche doesn’t mean you worship one, but they represent the allure of making money and stuff our god.
Jesus warned us you cannot serve God AND money, you need to choose. Now He did not say you cannot HAVE money, but just don’t make it your god. Today we don’t need a god of thunder or a god of the oceans, since we know how weather and lunar events cause tides or how water particles rising cause static electricity that result in large discharges. No we now live with the knowledge of science to explain the how’s of natural phenomena, but many times not the reason why. Today we get sucked into a world of stuff and things that Joshua saw thousands of years before! So listen and learn before it’s too late!