"Joshua said to the people, 'You are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God; He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve other gods, He will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after He has been good to you.'" (Joshua 24:19-20) What is he saying here? That it's an impossible task? That the Lord is setting them up for failure? No, I believe that first of all he is talking about what we discussed yesterday: People cannot serve the Lord in their own strength. Yesterday we talked about the pitfalls of trusting solely in ourselves to stand firm in the faith and to resist sin. In our own strength, what Joshua says is true; we are not able to serve the Lord. We can't live a perfect life. In our human weakness and in this fallen world, we won't be able to keep every law and commandment. But our faith in the Lord's redeeming grace makes up for our lack of perfection. We place our trust in the One who is perfect and we come to Him in repentance for our sins and receive mercy at His throne. Secondly, I believe Joshua is saying that the people cannot serve the Lord unless they do it singlemindedly. They must not attempt to serve both the Lord and the flesh. They must not serve both God and the things of this world. They must not worship both God and idols. As Jesus phrased it, "No one can serve two masters." (Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:13) We know this is the type of situation Joshua has in mind---an attempt to serve two masters---since he makes reference to serving other gods in our text above.
Having heard that they must consider the cost before vowing their commitment to the Lord, the congregation deems the Lord's terms acceptable and they restate their intention to serve Him and Him alone. "But the people said to Joshua, 'No! We will serve the Lord.'" (Joshua 24:21) Joshua wants to make certain they understand the vows they are making, for once the vows are made the people will be held accountable if they break them. "Then Joshua said, 'You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.' 'Yes, we are witnesses,' they replied." (Joshua 24:22) He's asking something like, "Do you take the Lord to be your one and only God, forsaking all others and clinging only unto Him?" And they reply, "We do."
To prove their sincerity they must begin "forsaking all others" immediately. "'Now then,' said Joshua, 'throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.' And the people said to Joshua, 'We will serve the Lord our God and obey Him.'" (Joshua 24:23-24) There were pagan idols in the households and in the villages and towns of some of the citizens of Israel. Whether these were objects brought out of Egypt by their forefathers, or whether these were objects they allowed the foreigners among them to retain (we were told a "mixed multitude" came out of Egypt with the Israelites), or whether these were heathen objects of the land of Canaan that the people did not destroy as they had been commanded, there appears to have been reluctance to dispense with them. There seems to have been an attitude of reverential superstition toward them. Joshua commands, "If you intend to serve the Lord, you must serve Him alone, and that means ridding your homes and your land of every trace of heathen idolatry. You cannot say you are wholly faithful to the Lord if there is an idol in your possession. You cannot say that the Lord is the only God if you have a superstitious fear of destroying images of false gods."
"On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he reaffirmed for them decrees and laws. And Joshua recorded these things in the Book of the Law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak near the holy place of the Lord. 'See!' he said to all the people. 'This stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all the words the Lord has said to us. It will be a witness against you if you are untrue to your God.' Then Joshua dismissed the people, each to their own inheritance." (Joshua 24:25-28) Joshua officiates over this ceremony and records the reconfirming of the people's vows in the Book of the Law of God. This copy of the law is almost certainly the one kept in the ark of the covenant, for in verse 26 we find mention of "the holy place of the Lord", which likely means that although the tabernacle was headquartered at Shiloh at this time, it (or at least the ark) was transported to Shechem for the renewing of the covenant. Some scholars suggest that the reason for holding the ceremony at Shechem was not only because this is where the Lord swore a solemn oath to Abraham to give the land to his descendants, but also because it was closer to Joshua's homestead and that he has grown too elderly and too feeble to make the journey to Shiloh. I think there's a lot of merit to this theory since the next thing to happen in the book of Joshua is Joshua's death.
The stone which Joshua placed under the oak tree may have had the words of the people's vows carved into it. It would stand there as a memorial to the words they spoke on this day. Should the people ever transgress the covenant they made with the Lord, this stone will provide testimony (serve as evidence in the Lord's court) against them that they have broken the vows written upon it. Later in the Old Testament, when some of the people have forsaken the Lord in favor of idolatry, the Lord will use the word "adultery" when speaking of the breaking of their vows. We've seen how the vows of the covenant resemble the vows of a marriage ceremony, and indeed the people are binding themselves to the Lord in a similar manner; therefore, He will refer to Himself as the faithful husband (and the wronged party) in the marriage and will refer to the idolaters as adulterous wives. It is a very serious thing to transgress this solemn covenant. It is the highest form of unfaithfulness. The closest thing on earth that can be compared to it is the solemn covenant between a husband and a wife. The most hurtful kind of betrayal people can usually think of is the betrayal of a spouse. That's why the Lord will use the marriage covenant as a symbol of His covenant with Israel. He will be faithful to His vows but His wife will not. He will be righteously indignant, as any wronged husband would be. He will have the right to put His wife away (divorce her) and never have anything to do with her again. But the Lord loves her too much for that! As we move through the Old Testament we'll find His wife (some of His covenant people) being unfaithful to Him but we'll also find Him being too loving and too merciful to let her go. Though He is the wronged party, He will fight for the one He loves. He will do everything He can to win her back.
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