Joshua 24:1-33, Luke 21:1-28, Psalms 89:38-52, Proverbs 13:20-23
Today is the 22nd day of April. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is wonderful to be here with you today. I trust and pray that you had a wonderful Easter Sunday yesterday, and that the power of the resurrection has become real to you, that you understand that you are walking forward into your life, understanding the resurrection power is within you pulling you forward. And speaking of moving forward, as we get into this week, so we began with Easter today, we will conclude the book of Joshua, which means that tomorrow we’ll be moving into a new era in the Bible as we approach the book of Judges, which we’ll talk about, of course, when we get there. But today we will be concluding the book of Joshua. We will be reading from the English Standard Version this week. Joshua chapter 24.
Commentary:
Alright. So, previous to beginning the book of Joshua we’d been traveling with Moses and we saw the law given and the whole formation of the people in the wilderness. And then Joshua became the leader of Israel after Moses died and led them across the Jordan into the promised land and conquered the promised land and began to settle the promised land. And we’ve reached the end of that story today, which will lead us forward into the time of the judges. So, the people who for one reason or another, became the leaders after Joshua over many generations and we’ll learn about them as we go, and we’ll talk about them as we begin tomorrow. But Joshua kind of followed the model that Moses had given him. So, if we remember, the entire book of Deuteronomy is really Moses bringing all the people together so that he can say the final things that he needs to say, and he had plenty to say, a whole books worth. We see Joshua bringing all the people together to say his final things. And he has plenty to say too, but he is something very poignant to say and poignant enough that it’s being said to us and it comes at a really good time, the day after Easter. So, Joshua’s got all the people together saying look, “here’s where you came from, here’s how we got here, here’s who God is and your ancestry, your earliest ancestors, they came from the desert. They served other gods and then God called this one man, Abram who became Abraham into this land. So, you’ve got to choose. If you’re going to have a future at all you’ve got to choose. If it’s not a good idea. If it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, the God of Israel, then choose who you’re going to serve. If it’s the gods of your father’s in the old regions, then so be it, serve them. If it’s the gods of the Amorites, then serve them. As for me, as from my house, we will serve the Lord.” Basically, Joshua is saying, “you can chase whatever you want to chase, that’s your prerogative. If you chase other gods, then wherever that road leads, that’s where you will be. As for me, there is no other God.” The people, of course, affirmed all of that and then Joshua said something that’s pretty riveting and it’s not the first time we’ve heard this, “you are witnesses against your selves that you have chosen the Lord to serve him.” That should echo and that should resonate because it is no less true of us today. We are witnesses against ourselves that we have chosen to serve the Lord. In other words, our thoughts and our words and our deeds, our actions are a witness of whether what we are saying about the Lord is true to us. Our lives render the verdict. We are judging ourselves. When we put our heads down tonight, pull the covers up and prepare to go to sleep we will have spoken with our very lives what we really believe about God on any given day. Joshua’s words were, “as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” Everybody said they would do the same thing. The page will turn and we’ll begin the book of Judges and we’ll see that everybody didn’t do the same thing and we’ll have a pretty clear path from here, where all the roads lead. So, we have this moment, the day after Easter, the day they we’re getting ready to turn the page into a new part of the story in the Scriptures, one in which we’ll be able to see pretty clearly what not serving the Lord will lead to. And we can choose, and we will be witnesses against ourselves. And, so, may we all be able to say with all honesty and truth, “as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”
Prayer:
Father, we come into Your presence and we declare that. Of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve declared that, and it’s not the first time that we’ve fallen away from it. And we’ve also had the opportunity to bear some of the repercussions of our actions. And, so, here we are as we move into the next part of the Bible and as we move beyond Easter where we are reminded that we have been made new. And we declare, “we will serve the Lord” and we understand that we are witnesses against ourselves. Come Holy Spirit and show us what that means in every thought, in every word in every deed as we proceed forward into this day and into this week. Come Holy Spirit we ask in the name of the risen Christ. Amen.
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