Let's go ahead and go to Joshua chapter 23.
If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Joshua chapter 23.
We're coming to the end of our study in the book of Joshua.
And it has been a long journey.
I think that we've learned quite a bit.
I know that I've been challenged in the testimony of Joshua.
I, I know that many of you got to go to Sight and Sound and see
Joshua as, as the play there and the musical.
And certainly some of the stories overlapped.
Even though I was a little disappointed they didn't go a little
bit further.
There was some more stuff that I wanted them to do.
But again, there's so much there.
I know they can't cover everything, but In Joshua chapter
23, we essentially see his last address to the people.
He's coming to the end of his life.
There's a realization that the time is not going to be long that
he spends here on this earth.
And so he's going to give his last words to the people.
It's his advice.
It reminds me a lot of the book of second Timothy, if you know
anything about the book of second Timothy.
It's Paul's final address to Timothy.
He's there at the end of his life.
He knows that his martyrdom is coming soon.
And so he gives some really important advice.
And that's what Joshua does here for the next two chapters.
He gives the people of Israel marching orders to follow to obey
the Lord.
And so we see that he gives a few different exhortations to the
people of Israel.
And really what it all boils down to is to have total obedience
to the word of God.
And if you remember where we came from in Joshua chapter one,
it was God speaking to Joshua, telling him that very same thing.
How can you be prosperous, spiritually prosperous, to continue
in the word of God, to meditate in it day and night, to
stay faithful to it, to don't turn to the left or to the right,
to focus on the Lord and his Word and to be strong and of good
courage.
And that's what Joshua is going to do here.
And I think that this is a beautiful picture of how God spoke
to Joshua and taught Joshua many lessons.
And he's now turning around and giving it to the people so that
they can give it to the next generation.
One of the themes that I want to drill down on this year, and what
we really should be drilling down all the time as Christians is,
is the area of discipleship.
What is discipleship?
Well, discipleship sometimes is Reduced down to just teaching
people facts.
And that's not the complete scope of discipleship.
Yes, there is a level of teaching people facts about the Bible,
but really discipleship is about passing on a way of life to
somebody else to basically teach people how to be a disciple
of the Lord Jesus mentioned in John chapter eight, that if you're
my disciple, you'll continue in my word.
He says, that's.
That's who a disciple is, someone who is committed to following
me.
And so what Joshua is doing here is he's teaching the people
the lesson that he was taught so that they can follow God in a
more deep and personal way.
So let's look at verse number one says.
And it came to pass a long time after that the Lord had given
rest unto Israel from all their enemies.
Round about that, Joshua waxed old and stricken in age.
And so the reality here is that God has given them a time of
rest.
He has given them a time of communion and fellowship where they
didn't have to be fighting.
And oftentimes in our life, we go through seasons.
And so there was a season for the Israelites that they were wandering
in the wilderness.
There was a time for the Israelites that they were fighting
on the battlefield for this land that God had promised them.
But now at this point in time, they're getting to rest in the promises
of God, the fulfillment of the promise of God.
And so oftentimes when we're resting in the fulfillment of the
promise of God, we're tempted to become apathetic.
We're tempted to take things for granted.
We're tempted to look at all the blessings that we have in our
life and go, well, yeah, of course.
That's why I have what I have, because I worked really hard.
And it would have been easy for Israel to say, yeah, you know
what?
We've worked really hard to get this land.
Now we can just relax.
And so, yes, there is a time of rest.
But in that rest comes a measure of patience, not passive
nature.
And so that's what Joshua was challenging them in.
Don't get passive in what you believe.
Be patient and be ready to work where God has you to work.
And so it says about Joshua, what happens to all of us if we're
able to be blessed with age, we're going to get old and stricken
in years.
And that's what happens with Joshua.
So he's going to pass along the truth of God.
Verse 2.
And Joshua called for all Israel and for their elders and for
their heads and for their judges and for their officers and
said unto them, I am old and stricken in age.
So at least Joshua admits it, okay?
He understands that, hey, I don't have much time.
I've gone through a lot.
I've seen a lot.
This is what I have learned.
And I think that this is a great example of what we should be
doing within the church.
If you go to the New Testament, you see in places like
2 Timothy and Titus chapter 2, where the Bible says for the mature
Christians to pass along the lessons that they have learned to
the next generation, to teach people how to live, to teach people
how to study, to teach people how to submit and to serve.
And that's what Joshua was doing here.
He says, I'm going to give you a lesson.
And in verse number three, we really see the lesson explained.
He says, and ye have seen all that the Lord your God have done
unto all, all these nations because of you.
So what is he doing?
He's reminding the people of what God has done.
It's a testimony time.
Joshua is giving the people a reminder of what God has done for
them in their life.
And so he says, for the Lord your God is he that hath fought for
you.
He reminds them that they did not earn this on their own.
He reminds them that it was the Lord who did the fighting for
them.
It is the Lord who gave them this land.
It is the Lord who gave them this rest and this blessing.
And oftentimes we have to be reminded of that in our own life.
It is easy for us to look at what we have as a Christian, specifically
a Christian in America, and see all the blessings and often think
that it's something that we have done.
But what Joshua reminds the people here is exactly what we need
to be reminded of.
And that is the fact that everything that we have comes from
God.
All the blessings, all the opportunities, all the successes,
all the things that we can chalk up to good things in our life
come from God.
And it is God who has done the fighting for us.
And so Joshua begins his teaching here by giving glory to
God.
And that's really what we should all do.
Give God the glory for everything that we have.
It would have been easy for Joshua to focus on the things that
he had done as a leader.
He could have said, guys, look at what I have taught you.
Look at how many victories I have on my.
On my record.
But he says, no, look at what God has done.
And anytime someone who is a leader points to themselves, they're
pointing to the wrong person.
A good leader is a good Follower.
A good leader is someone who follows the Lord and points people
to the Lord.
And that's exactly what Joshua does here.
He's way more interested in giving the glory to God.
And that's exactly what he does here in this introduction.
He says, remember what God has done for you.
Don't get complacent.
Go back to the memorial stones by the Jordan river and tell your
children what happened.
Tell your children that God opened up the Jordan River.
Tell your children that God made the sun stand still at AI.
Tell your children all these things that are unexplainable because
this is beyond our comprehension, but tell them it was
God.
And that's what he's telling them here.
So then he goes on to verse four, and he's going to give really
the.
The challenge that remains.
Because a lot of times we think that, well, God's done all
this.
We can sit back and relax.
But verses 4 and 5 tell us that Joshua challenges them to say,
you know what?
There's still things that remain.
You still need to work.
You still need to be vigilant.
Verse 4.
He says, Behold, I have divided unto you by lot these nations
that remain, and to be an inheritance for your tribes from
Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off, even unto the
great sea westward.
And the Lord your God, he shall expel them before you and drive
them from out of your sight.
And ye shall possess their land as the Lord your God hath promised
you.
So he says, this God's not done with you yet.
One of the things that I think we should be passing on to the next
generation is the simple fact that God's not done with them yet.
Though God has worked in the generations that have come before
us, though God has worked in our generation, we do need to remind
the next generation that there is still work to be done until the
Lord returns.
There is still work to be done.
And we need to tell them that there's hope and that God is still
going to be working.
So under Joshua's leadership, yeah, Israel had a lot of victories,
but there's still work to be done.
There's still land that is going to be given.
And so God gives us all spiritual inheritance.
We know that, uh, if you want to study a great book of the Bible
about the riches that we have in the Lord, spiritual riches, look
at the book of Ephesians.
Dive deep into the book of Ephesians.
Cause the Ephesians tells us all the spiritual riches that we
have in him.
But at the same time, that doesn't mean that we're done.
It means that God is continuously pouring out upon us
the riches and giving us opportunities to exercise in those
spiritual riches through faith.
And so that's what Joshua was telling them.
He says, look at all these great things that God has done.
But sometimes the temptation is to look back at all the things
that God has done and forget about the things that he's going
to do and get comfortable and, like we said before, apathetic, and
get into a spiritual rut.
You know, I look back at stories that my grandparents had
and my parents had and other people in our church talking about
these great works of the Lord in the past and revivals, and I am
a studier of history.
So I look back at the Great Awakening, some of the things that
happened in the United States and in England, and see, you know,
thousands of people coming to the Lord and you think, wow, that
was amazing back then.
And oftentimes we don't think that God can do those types of things
today.
But the same God that was working in the revivals of our past,
the same God that's been faithful to people over the years
through persecution and through brokenness and through trials
and tribulations, is the same God that's working in our world today.
And oftentimes we forget about that.
We think that God's done with his work.
I'm going to tell you, I went to Africa thinking, wow, I'm going
to show all these people what it means to have faith.
You know, I'm going to come in as the American professional and
tell them how to disciple.
And certainly there were things that we could shed light on
for them in their life.
Obviously, they're hungry to learn organization and certain matters
of the church.
But I also was challenged to see people that had true, genuine
faith.
And I was challenged to the point of saying, you know, what would
I say the same things that they're saying if I was in their
situation?
And so I want us to think about that here this evening.
I want us to think about, do we still believe that God is a God
that works miracles?
Do we still believe that God is a God who can change hearts?
Or do we think that, you know what, everything now can be explained
through just data and facts on a sheet of paper?
Well, yes.
Okay.
This is the way you grow a church.
You grow a church by putting this much marketing out there and
having this many advertisements and doing this type
of.
Of ad campaign.
A lot of times that's what people reduce church down to these
days.
They reduce church down to Basically a business.
And they say, hey, if you just do xyz, everything's going to be
okay.
But if we remove the power and the working of the Holy Spirit within
our church, we're missing the point, because we can grow numbers.
But the Bible says that true growth comes from the inside and
it works its way out.
And so Joshua says, don't forget about the God who worked before.
And he is going to continue to work.
And so he is now going to give some very clear directions on how
the people of Israel can follow God and how they can continue
to see spiritual prosperity that was promised all the way back
in Joshua chapter one.
And he says, if you want to continue to see this prosperity,
follow these things.
And so we see in verse six, the first exhortation.
He says, be ye therefore, very courageous to keep and to do all
that is written in the book of the law of Moses.
So we'll stop there.
He says in verse six, something that God told him in Joshua
chapter one, if you remember what Joshua chapter one says.
Joshua, chapter one, verse nine.
He says, be strong and courageous.
He reminded Joshua to be courageous.
Now he gives Joshua a reason to have that courage.
You know, there's people out there that have a false sense of
assurance.
There's people that have courage that shouldn't have courage,
okay?
Because they're trusting in their own strength.
And we know that our own strength fails.
But what God told Joshua back in Joshua chapter one was this.
Be courageous.
Why?
Because the Lord thy God is with you whithersoever thou goest.
The reminder for Joshua is that the power that you can have
and the courage that you have doesn't come from yourself.
It comes from the simple fact that God is with us, that he is the
one guiding us, that he is the one sustaining us, that he is the
one providing everything that we need.
And so Joshua tells them the very same thing.
You can be strong, you can be courageous because of what God has
given you in your life.
And so he says to stay faithful.
And so he says, you need to be courageous.
Why do you need to be courageous?
Well, he tells us why.
Verse 6, he says, Be therefore courageous to what?
To keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of
Moses.
So he says, have courage to be obedient.
A lot of times we think about courage as, I need to rebel against
the government.
I need to.
I need to be the one who is a revolutionary in my courage.
I need to stand up against persecution.
And certainly that does take courage.
I know, for people that are facing persecution.
They wouldn't be able to do it without courage.
But right here he says it takes courage to be obedient.
Oftentimes we don't tie courage to obedience.
We think, well, obedience is submission.
Well, it takes courage in the Lord to submit to him and to believe
in what he is going to do and trust in that.
And so he says to be courageous, to keep the law, to follow
God's word.
He says, you must obey.
I mentioned it this morning.
You know, there's the three laws of following God.
Obey, obey, obey.
We ask our kids to obey us.
And if your kids are like my kids, oftentimes when we tell them
to obey, we get the classic question, why?
Why do we have to do that?
And oftentimes we tell them the why behind it.
But sometimes God doesn't tell us the why behind our obedience.
We have to just trust that God has what's best for us.
Sometimes the next step of obedience is, is.
Is a small step.
I, I want God to give me 5, 10, 20, 30 years ahead of me and
say, give me all the reasons why you're doing what you're doing.
But sometimes God just gives us all one step of obedience.
Today you might say, what is that going to mean for me tomorrow?
I don't know.
But I know we're called to do the right thing today.
And so he says, obey, trust.
And, and so we tend to focus on the aspects of obedience and,
and the we we like to obey when it makes sense for us, when
it doesn't stretch us.
Like if I tell.
If, like, like if I told my children, hey, guys, you need to
go eat your candy, your dessert tonight.
All of them, they're going to obey that because it makes a lot
of sense for them to eat their candy, to eat their dessert, because
they like that.
What's harder is when God calls us to do something beyond our
comprehension and our comfort zone.
But that's really the challenge, right?
And so he says, obey.
And then he says the reason why they need to obey, that ye turn
not aside there from to the left or the right hand or to the
left.
This is so similar to what God told Joshua back in Joshua chapter
one says, don't deviate from the truth.
We talked about it this morning.
We must celebrate, remember, and stand in fight for the truth
of God.
And so what Joshua tells them is this.
The way that you're going to find success is not about organizing
yourself to have a great army or to be the most powerful nation
in all the world.
He says, the way that you're going to find success is by obeying
God and not turning to the left or to the right and being distracted
with all the things around us.
Sometimes it's easy to take the first step of obedience.
But then all the storms of life come, and we want to turn our
eyes away from what God has called us to do, to look at the distractions
around us.
Think about Peter when he was walking on water, right when he had
his eyes on the Lord, everything was okay.
But it's when the storms came, came, and he began to think that
that wave is pretty big, that might knock me down.
And he starts looking at that.
That's when he began to sink.
And that's the exact time in our life that we begin to drift,
is when we take our eyes off of what God has told us in the truth
of His Word.
And we begin to look at the things of this world and make that
look attractive to our lives.
And so he says, don't turn from the left or to the right.
So the first exhortation is simply this complete obedience to
the Lord, complete submission to him to follow His Word, to stay
true to His Word.
And one of the blessings that I love about Scripture is that it
doesn't just tell us what's right, but it tells us where we're
wrong.
It tells us how we can fix that.
It tells us how to be instructed in righteousness and to
walk in truth.
That's second Timothy, chapter three, verse 16.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God.
And it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
and for instruction and righteousness that a man of God may
be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
So when we look at situations in our life, are we going to trust
what the world says?
Are we going to trust what our feelings say?
Are we going to trust what circumstances tell us?
Are we going to trust what the word of God tells us?
You know, like I said, it's easy to obey God when it makes sense,
when people don't question us.
But what happens when someone questions our decision for the Lord?
You ever had someone just completely question you and maybe
even call you out and criticize you for doing something
that the Lord has called you to do.
Sometimes a little bit more difficult when people are naysayers
to the truth of what God has called us to do.
But Joshua says, don't allow that to happen.
But he doesn't stop there, because he knows that, you know what
we are called for obedience.
But sometimes there's things that are going to fight against our
obedience.
There's going to be things that.
That pull us aside.
Yes, there's distractions.
But then he starts in verse number seven, and he says that there
is another danger to obedience.
He says that ye come not among these nations, these that remain
among you neither make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause
to mention the name of or, nor cause to swear by them.
Neither serve them, nor bow yourselves unto them, but cleave
unto the Lord your God, as ye have done unto this day.
So what is he saying here?
He says this.
Don't compromise with the enemy.
Don't.
Don't give in to their ways.
He says, don't make any league with them.
Don't.
Don't join them.
Don't make mention of the name of their gods.
Don't swear by them.
Don't serve them.
Don't submit yourselves to the ways of the world.
And so Joshua tells Israel not to even make mention.
Don't even get close to the false gods of the Canaanites.
Don't even try to learn a little about them.
Don't.
Don't try to even get near the line.
Because, you know, that's sometimes how we are as Christians,
unfortunately, is we want to know how close to the line that we
can get without crossing it.
You know, I never have someone tell me, how far away should we get
from sin?
I usually have people asking, well, how much can we do without
sinning?
And that's a problematic question in and of itself because
oftentimes, if we're right near the line, if we.
If we say, well, we're not going to join in with the enemy,
but I want to be as close to the enemy as I can.
I want to be just like the world, but just not there completely.
The problem with that is that when we're walking so close to the
line, one little stumble, one little trip can allow us to fall
so far that we never would expect ourselves to do things.
And so that's exactly what Joshua was warning against.
He says, don't get close to compromising.
Don't, don't, don't, don't.
Don't satisfy the lust of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes and
the pride of life, and buy into the ways of the world.
And most of us, most of us don't look at the false gods of this
world and say, you know, I'm tempted to worship, you know, Allah,
or I'm tempted to worship Buddha or whatever false gods are
out there.
That's often not the struggle for most of us.
But sometimes the struggle for most of us is just worshiping the
gods of this world, the materialism or humanism.
Ourselves, worshiping ourselves.
Our society tells us to exalt ourselves.
It's the original life.
From the very beginning.
You can be like God.
You can be your own God.
Now, sometimes we don't say it like that in our culture today, but
what the Bible says here is that we very clearly must only worship
one God.
And he says that's what happens in verse 8.
Cleave unto the Lord your God as you have done unto this day.
So it's.
So it's very interesting here because he doesn't just say, stay
away from the false gods, but he says, stay away from the false
gods and cleave to the one true God.
So it's kind of like in anything in our life.
It's a principle of putting on and putting off the.
The book of Ephesians talks about this.
Oftentimes you'll hear people say, stop doing all the bad things,
okay?
Stop lying, stop stealing.
Stop doing all the sins that God tells us to avoid.
And that is true.
We should stop the bad things.
But in the book of Ephesians, it doesn't just say, stop stealing.
It says, stop stealing and then earn money and give to those
that are in need.
And so biblically speaking, it's not just about removing ourselves
from the bad, but it's about filling ourselves with the good.
It's putting off the old man and putting on the new.
And that's what Joshua is telling them here.
Basically the same principle.
Don't just avoid the gods of this world, but also cleave to the
one God who has given you everything.
And that's what I would encourage many Christians to do.
Don't just avoid the bad things in this world, even though
we should avoid the things that pull us away from the Lord,
but ultimately cling to God.
As James chapter 4, verse 8 says, draw nigh to God, and he will
draw nigh to you.
What Joshua was teaching is the importance of.
Of a personal relationship with God, a personal love relationship
with God.
And so I love what verse eight says.
He says, cleave unto the Lord your God as you have done unto this
day.
Meaning they've been doing a good job with this, so keep staying
in that path.
So for a Christian today, what does that look like?
It means this.
Don't allow the things of this world to pull us away from that relationship
that we have with God.
Because if we want to be successful, if we want to Walk in
obedience.
It's going to take that we love God and we love his way, and
that we want to please him, that we want to honor Him.
And so that's exactly what Joshua was reminding them of.
And so Joshua tells them, number one, obey.
Number two, don't compromise.
And number three, pursue God.
Pursue him with everything that you have.
He's pursuing us.
We know that.
We know that when we're not faithful, still God is faithful.
And we know that by way of context here in Joshua, chapter 23,
that they're still working under the old covenant, the law of
Moses.
Now, I'm so thankful today that we're working under a new covenant.
And we're going to see here that God warns them of the problems
that come along with sin.
And though there is problem with sin, for a Christian, there
is no more condemnation.
But we're going to see how that plays out here in Joshua, chapter
23.
So look at verse nine with me.
We're going to see that there is a challenge for them to abide
in the Lord, to live in the Lord, which is reminiscent of John,
chapter 15.
Remember what Jesus says.
He says, I am the vine, you are the branches.
Abide in me, Live in me.
So verse nine, he says, for the Lord have driven out from before
you great nations and strong.
But as for you, no man hath been able to stand before you unto
this day.
There's a reminder here again that it is the Lord that has given
them this opportunity to have this blessing.
And so Israel, when they abide in the Lord, when they walk with
the Lord, they're able to see God do great things through them.
And as they continue to abide in the Lord, they're going to continue
to see that God is fighting for them.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to fight my battles on
my own.
I want to fight my battles with the one who is undefeated, the
one who makes us more than conquerors.
Here's the reality.
A lot of people say, well, you know what?
I don't believe in God because I'm going through difficulties in
my life.
I don't believe in God because there's evil in this world.
But I'm going to tell you that no matter if you believe in God or
not, we're all going to face problems.
It's just a matter of are we going to face problems with one who
is going to get us through it, or are we going to face these problems
on our own?
I wish I could tell you that if you Loved God enough that you're
not going to have any struggles, any trials, any pain,
any suffering.
But that is not promised to us anywhere in Scripture.
Actually, the other side of the coin is promised to us that we
will face persecution, we will face infirmities, we will have tribulations
and trials in our life.
But the beauty is, is that the comfort comes from God.
Think about someone who has to go through all the problems of this
world and not have someone who is working for them behind the scenes
and, and, and giving grace and giving peace and giving comfort.
Folks, those are the people that have the greatest pain.
As Christians, yes, we have pain, but at the end of the day,
we have God on our side and he's giving us a greater promise
that there's something more to this world.
You know, the reason why there's so many hopeless people in
this world is because most people are living for the here and
now.
This is it.
And if you look at what we have right here and now, as good
as it can be, there's people that are billionaires that are still
hopeless.
Why?
Because the reality is, is that it's never enough.
Money can never satisfy.
Good food can never satisfy.
A big house can never satisfy.
A nice vehicle can never satisfy.
And I'm not saying good food is bad, I'm not saying a big house
is bad.
But what I'm saying is, is that if that's all we're living for,
if that's our satisfaction, we're going to eventually realize
that that runs out.
And that's what brings hopelessness in this world.
But for Christians, it doesn't matter what we have, because we have
a greater hope that's eternal.
And so what Joshua is telling them is this.
Stay to the Lord, because all of us are going to go through problems
in our life.
Regardless of whether or not you believe in God or not, there's
going to be pain and suffering.
An atheist goes through pain and suffering.
The truth is, is that as a human being, we all are in the state
of being marred by this sin world.
It's because of sin that there's sickness.
It's because of sin that there's death.
It's not God causing these things to happen.
It's God allowing these things to happen.
Because the choice of evil, that happened long ago.
But what we have to understand as Christians is that equating a
perfect life to God's love is a misnomer.
What we have to do is say this.
Yes, there's pain and suffering in this world, but God
is going to bring his guidance and his protection.
And ultimately, whether we lose our life or not, we ultimately
have a life with him.
And that's what he's explaining here.
Verse 10.
One man of you shall chase a thousand for the Lord your God.
He it is that fighteth for you and he hath promised you.
He just tells them, go back and remember that it is the one that
God.
He is the one that's fighting for you.
He's the one that's coming before you.
He's the one that's promising you.
You know, I can make a bunch of promises to you.
I could say, you know, I'm going to give you this.
I'm going to do this for you.
I'm going to be here for this many years.
But the truth is, I can make a ton of promises.
But because of my limited ability and because of my human condition,
I can't keep all of my promises, whether I want to keep
them or not.
There's been times where I've let my kids down and my wife down
because I'm a human and I don't have a perfect nature.
But at the same time, we know that God is the one who makes a promise.
And when he makes a promise, he keeps his promise.
And so I would encourage you, one of the greatest studies that
you can do is to go through the Scriptures and see particularly
the promises of God to believers and understand that those
promises, if you're a believer, are given to you.
And therefore you can rest in those and you can stay secure in
those.
And so he warns them now in verse 11 and 12 about the dangers
of turning their back against the Lord.
He says, take good heed therefore unto yourselves there that
ye loved the Lord your God.
Again.
He reminds them that it's so important for them to have that love
relationship with God.
We saw from the book of Deuteronomy all the way through the
Old Testament into the New Testament.
What does God want from us?
He says very clearly to love God with all of our heart, soul,
mind and strength and to love our neighbor as ourself.
But it starts with loving God.
We have a lot of Christians today that say they love God.
I think.
I think almost every Christian that I've ever talked to, I've said,
hey, do you love Jesus?
And of course they say, we love.
We love Jesus.
Of course we love Jesus.
But what does it mean to love God?
Really, truly, what does it mean to love God?
Have you ever thought about that for just a few minutes?
I say I love God, but if someone's to follow me around in
my life, would it look like I love God?
Let's say, for example, I've used this example before.
If I say I love my wife, I love her so much, but you've never
seen me talk to her.
You've never seen me spend time with her.
We.
We don't even ever communicate.
You would begin to start to think, well, I wonder if Pastor Josh
really loves his wife.
Right?
That's a simple analogy.
And so us as Christians, if we say we love God, but we don't talk
to him, we don't listen to His Word.
By the way, this is God's love letter to us.
God wants us to be in his word.
God wants us to know him in every way.
And if we say we love God, but yet we aren't interested in what
he has told us to do.
Folks, I'm going to press a little bit and challenge us here
this evening.
Maybe we don't love God the way that we say we love God.
And so what Joshua challenges them on is this.
Take heed unto yourselves.
He says, look into your own life.
That what?
That you love the Lord your God.
So continuously loving God takes diligence.
Just because I love God yesterday doesn't mean I love God
today.
You all know that principle.
Just because I say I love someone today doesn't mean that that
love's there tomorrow.
Because love is a choice.
We know that.
We know that love isn't always a feeling.
Love is a choice.
And we have to decide to love God.
And so there's many things within us and outside of us that
draw ourselves either to the Lord or away from God.
And so we're called to love God.
It's not a feeling or an emotion as much as it is a decision
that we have to make in our life.
Now, does the decision to love God give us wonderful emotions?
Of course.
I remember the day I got married.
It was a very emotional day.
And I wish I could tell you that every day I wake up is the same
emotion as the day I was married.
But that's not the case.
Okay?
And I think all of us that have been married for more than about
a week would understand that not every day is that day.
That's the honeymoon.
But at the same time, it's a choice that we all have to make.
And whether or not we feel the emotion or not, there is that desire
to serve God.
And God will reward that love because he loves us.
He's proven his love for us.
And that could be a whole other Study.
But if you want to know how much God loves you, just read Romans,
chapter 5, verse 8.
God commended his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us.
He proved his love for us.
So what we do as Christians now is that we must make a conscious
decision to say, lord, I love you.
And Lord, give me the strength to love you more and more each and
every day.
So he says, love the Lord your God, verse 12.
Else, if ye do in any wise, go back and cleave unto the remnant
of these nations, even these that remain among you, and and shall
make marriages with them and go in unto them.
And they to you know for a certainty that the Lord your God
will no more drive out any of these nations from before you, but
that they shall be snares and traps unto you and scourges in your
sides and thorns in your eyes until you perish from off this good
land which the Lord your God hath given you.
So he says, yes, God is faithful, but he's also faithful
in judgment.
Says, if you don't separate yourselves from these ungodly influences
around you and you compromise and you give in to those things around
you, those influences, those evil people around you will become
basically torture to you.
You're going to get what you deserve by going that way.
And so it's essentially the principle of sowing and reaping.
If you want God to give you blessing, obviously love him and
stay faithful to him.
If you want to find the pain and struggles of this world, go the
way of the world.
And he warns them against spiritual compromise here.
He warns them about.
About turning away from the truth.
And so these ungodly influences around them, they weren't
going to tell them that that was the outcome, right?
The evil never comes to us, or I shouldn't say never, but oftentimes
evil does not come to us by saying that it's going to be terrible
ending, right?
Because none of us would turn away from God.
But what happens is a Satan is a deceiver.
And it comes packaged in a way that seems attractive and ultimately,
though, can bring pain and suffering.
And so he's going to give a final warning here, starting in verse
14 to the end of the chapter.
He's going to say, yes, God is faithful to you as a nation, but
he's also faithful in another way.
He's faithful to always deal with sin.
He says, and behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth.
Basically, he's saying this.
He's saying, I don't have much more time here.
And ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one
thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God
spake concerning you.
All are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof.
So he says, I'm going away.
Don't wrap up your love for God by me.
Because oftentimes it's tempting to put our eyes on a person
and see that as God's faithfulness.
But what basically Joshua is saying is, don't keep your eyes on
me.
Keep your eyes on the Lord.
And every good leader, every good Christian leader will say that
very same thing.
Don't look at me.
Don't worship me.
Don't equate my spirituality to your spirituality.
Now, Paul does say, imitate me as I imitate Christ.
So.
So that's a different thing.
Meaning this is how you follow God.
But Paul doesn't just say, imitate me and end it there.
He says, imitate me as I follow the Lord.
So any good Christian leader should say this, look, yes, I am
leading, but your spirituality is not based in my faithfulness.
Because if I fail or if I die or if I turn away, you can still
be faithful to God.
Why?
Because God is the one who is the being faithful to you.
And that's a challenge for all of you.
I. I know that maybe there's not a temptation to keep your eyes
on.
On me or anyone else, but maybe for some of you, there, There
is a temptation to kind of attach ourselves to one person, whether
it's a YouTube personality or a former pastor or whatever it might
be.
I would encourage you.
Yes, look for godly examples.
Godly examples are a great thing.
I. I know that the pastor there in, in Rwanda, I, I told him
this.
I said, I don't have a lot of heroes in the faith.
And now he is added to my list of heroes in the faith because of
some of the things that he was able to do for the Lord.
But at the same time, my eyes are not on that person in areas of
worship.
My eyes are on the Lord for what he has done for that person's
life.
So look for examples of people that are good leaders and, and good
teachers and, and good servants.
But what I would say here, the same thing as what Joshua is saying,
is keep your eyes on the Lord because he's the only one that's
never failed you.
Man will fail you, okay?
Because we're human.
Humans will fail you, but God will never fail.
So then he says in verse, 15.
Therefore, it shall come to pass that as all good things are
come upon you which the Lord your God promised you, so shall the
Lord bring upon you all evil things until he hath destroyed you
from off this good land which the Lord your God hath given you.
You would say those are some strong words.
Basically, what Joshua is telling them is, if you're faithful
to the law, God will bless you.
If you're not faithful to the law, God will bring you judgment.
Now we would say, what does that mean?
That means when I stumble in my life, God's going to forget about
me.
No, because the beauty that we live under is that we're not under
the Mosaic Law anymore.
We're not under the Mosaic Covenant.
The Mosaic covenant was a conditional covenant with the people
of Israel.
Follow the law, there will be blessings.
Don't follow the law, you will be judged.
And though they're same principles that are there, when it
comes to principles of sewing and reaping, we're thankful that
God doesn't cut us off and judge us every time we break the
law.
Because, by the way, none of us could keep the law.
I don't think any of us could keep 613 commandments every single
day of our lives.
Okay?
The reality is, is that none of us could keep the law.
So the principle is the heart of the matter.
The good thing is that even if we do fail, we have a faithful God.
And the Bible says in the New Testament in Galatians, chapter three,
that we have been redeemed from the curse of the law.
So as we live our lives now, we're able to live in that love relationship
and know that when we do stumble, yes, God is still going
to bring sometimes consequences to us.
But ultimately there's therefore now no condemnation to
them that are in Christ Jesus.
And so the idea for us now is that we can walk in freedom.
We're no longer bound by the law, in fear that if we mess up,
God's going to bring us judgment.
Yes, God tells us to obey him, and there's blessings in obeying
Him.
Folks, I'm going to tell you that the best blessings that I found
in my life has been found in the obedience of the Lord.
I, I, I can never point to a time in my life where I say, man,
it just really paid off to rebel against God.
Every time I have rebelled, it has been a time of pain and suffering.
But at the same time, I'm so thankful that the Bible says though
he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, because the Lord
upholds him with his hand.
I'm so glad that God holds onto us when we're stumbling in our
life.
And so I would encourage you, don't walk in fear of.
Well, you know, if I mess up today, God's going to wipe me out.
Well, no, he's not.
He's got grace, and his grace is sufficient.
But at the same time, our heart should be that.
Why would I want to turn?
And so that's what's distinctly different about us and
the people that are here.
In the book of Joshua is now we're under a new covenant.
We're under the law, not of.
Of Moses, but we are now under grace.
And that's not a license to sin.
Paul addresses that in Romans 6.
Because Paul knows our human condition.
And he knows that if we know that we're not under the law, then
we can say, well, I can just keep sinning and God can keep forgiving.
Well, no, Paul says, God forbid.
How can we walk in sin if we know what we've been saved from?
And so it's a balance of understanding God's grace and understanding
God's holiness and understand how we work in that dynamic.
And so he concludes and closes.
In verse 16, he says, when you have transgressed.
Excuse me, when we have transgressed the covenant of the
Lord your God, which he commanded you, and have gone and
served other gods and bowed yourselves to them, then shall the
anger of the Lord be kindled against you.
Now, I do know that God is angry at those who practice idolatry.
I don't believe that's changed from the Old Testament to the New.
But when we come to a place in our life where we begin to turn ourselves
to idolatry, I do believe that God is not pleased with us.
And so as Christians, what we have to do is we have to wake up
to what is idolatry around us.
You know, just because we don't have a statue of a God, a calf
or whatever, up in our house and we're worshiping that, that doesn't
mean that we're exempt from idolatry.
There's things in our life that we can idolize and put before
the Lord.
Let me very basically tell you this.
Anything you put before God is.
Could be an activity.
It could be a person, it could be a desire.
Whatever it is, it's idolatry.
And so we know that God's wrath is kindled against those that
are privacy and idolatry.
And he says, the anger of the Lord shall be kindled against you
and ye shall perish quickly from off the good land which he hath
given you.
And so, ultimately, what we see here is that there's a reminder
here that God will judge those that are in rebellion.
And I still do believe that is the case.
But the good news is that in Jesus, we no longer have to experience
the condemnation.
We can now walk in the confidence to know that we're covered
by his blood and by his sacrifice.
And so, yes, is there pain and suffering in rebellion?
Sure.
And any Christian should not embrace that type of lifestyle.
But what I will say is this, within the context of the New Covenant,
there is room for people to turn back to Christ.
There's still hope.
And we need to pray for those people.
We need to plead with the Lord to get a hold of people's hearts
that are drifting away and compromising in the lies of this
world.
And if we're honest with ourselves, all of us, to some degree,
have drifted in areas of compromise in our life.
I mean, I really don't like the fact to admit my failures, but
I'm going to tell you, there's been times in my life where I've
drifted because I've said, you know what?
Everyone's doing it.
Culture says it's okay.
So what's, what's the problem, really?
How is it going to hurt anybody?
You've heard people say that maybe it's not hurting anybody that
I'm doing this.
The truth is, is that it's marring the God.
It's.
It's harming ourselves.
And ultimately, it's that very sin that I am getting buddy buddy
with.
Getting close with that nailed my Savior to the cross.
And when I see sin that way, there is more of an inclination to
reject that sin and be turned away from that sin.
That should be disgusting for us.
And so what we see here at the end of Joshua, chapter 23 is just
a reminder of the blessings and the confirmation and the comfort
of walking in obedience to the Lord.
Anytime we preach about the topic of grace, there is always two
sides of the camp.
There's the side of the camp that says we can't preach grace because
that's just a license to sin.
Well, that person is not seeing it properly.
And there's other people that say, preach grace all the time so
we can go out and party on the weekends and enjoy ourselves.
And that's what grace is.
No, that's a misunderstanding of grace.
There's two sides of the path that we can fall off of.
What the.
What the path should be the path that God has given us is that
we have grace from the Lord, that when we do mess up, that we
can be brokenhearted and have forgiveness and be welcomed back
as the prodigal son.
But at the same time, we should never desire to live that
life.
And so Joshua is teaching them the principle of obedience.
And I think all of us should live and work under the principle
of obedience in our own life.
One of the songs that my parents always used to sing me and
sing to me and make me sing with them was Obedience.
You know, the song where you spell it out, Obedience.
O, B, E, D, I, E, N, C, E. And I'm like, why are my parents always
talking about obedience?
I don't.
But.
But again, it was understanding obedience to my parents,
which equated obedience to my Father, my heavenly Father.
And so as.
As a.
An adult now, I don't have to obey my parents, okay?
I'm supposed to honor them.
But at this point in time, the way that my parents taught me to
obey them, and by the way, I was not the most obedient child in
my.
In.
In the world, okay?
But the lessons that I learned in obeying my parents transferred
over to obeying my heavenly father.
So there's going to be times in my life that God has called me
to do things, and I don't understand why.
There.
There's people that God has brought into my life that I don't
understand why, and I don't see the end.
But the same reason why my dad says, just trust me because I'm your
father, and obey is the same reason why.
Sometimes we just have to trust the Lord.
Sometimes he gives us the why.
And those are good times.
And we relish those moments where God gives us every reason why
we have what we have in front of us.
But sometimes God just says, do it and don't ask questions.
And those are the times in our life that take faith.
And so we're going to come back, not next week, because next
week we're going to be talking about our missions trip, but we're
going to conclude in Joshua, chapter 24.
And he's going to get to that very, very famous passage where he
says, choose you this day who you're going to serve.
As for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord.
And I hope that we can conclude this study with all of us
having that as way of testimony in our life that, hey,
you know what?
We can't control what's going on in the world out there.
We can't control evil.
We can't control the government.
But what we can do is we can make a decision as a family, as a
house, as an individual to serve the Lord and not turn from
the left or to the right.
And we're going to talk about that.
And we're going to talk about ways in which we can do that.
And we can talk about ways that when we do stumble, how we can
get back on track.
Like we talked about this morning, God is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness
if we confess our sins.
And so what God is asking us to do is to simply obey him and to
simply follow him and trust that he is the One who is all good
and all knowing and all loving and all powerful.
And so we'll come back and study that next time.
But I do appreciate your attention.
We're coming to the end of the book of Joshua, one of my favorite
books of the Bible.
I know I have a lot of favorite books of the Bible, but
one of my favorites.
And after we're done with Joshua, we're gonna break off into
another study, which we'll be announcing here in the next few weeks.
And I hope that you'll find it profitable for you, as all scripture
is profitable and does not return void.