CRITICAL NOTES.—
Joshua 24:19. Ye cannot serve Jehovah] Joshua here bids the people count the cost of the decision expressed in Joshua 24:16. They could not serve Jehovah in the indifferent spirit of idolatry; for He was altogether unlike the gods which were no gods, and which therefore could not punish faithlessness. Jehovah was both holy and jealous, and Joshua would have the people weigh carefully their words of fealty. The idol gods which were no gods might be served godlessly, but Jehovah God must be worshipped with the whole heart by all who professed to be His servants.
Joshua 24:21. Nay, but we will serve Jehovah] This second answer of the people shows that they understood Joshua’s words in the sense of the foregoing remarks. Though it was so difficult and so fearful a thing to follow Jehovah, yet Him only would they nerve, a determination which is once more expressed in the verse that follows.
Joshua 24:22. Put away the strange gods] Cf. on verse14. The reiteration here seems to favour the idea that some of the people had idols actually in their possession.
Joshua 24:25. Joshua made a covenant] Lit., “cut a covenant,” from Kârath, “to cut,” “to cut off.” “Kârath b’rîth, to make a covenant, so used from slaying and dividing the victims, as was customary in making a covenant (cf. Genesis 15:18; Jeremiah 34:8; Jeremiah 34:18).” [Gesen.]
Joshua 24:26. Under an oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. Heb., “under THE oak which was IN the sanctuary of Jehovah,” alluding, not to the tabernacle, but to the holy place of history which God had consecrated by appearing there to Abram (Genesis 12:6), and which Jacob had further made sacred by putting away the strange gods of his household (Genesis 35:4), including, most likely, the teraphim of Laban stolen by Rachel.
Joshua 24:27. It hath heard all the words] “Compare, for this bold figure, Habakkuk 2:11, and our Saviour’s own words, Luke 19:40.” [Crosby.]
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Joshua 24:19-28
GOD TRYING AND TAKING PLEDGES OF HIS PEOPLE’S LOVE
It should not be forgotten that in these further words of Joshua he is still to be regarded as the mouthpiece of Jehovah. While Joshua no longer speaks as in the person of the Lord, the meeting itself becomes more grave in every verse of the record; and so far from thinking of Jehovah, at this stage, as having in some measure withdrawn from the meeting, leaving it to be concluded by His servant, we are rather to think of God as so manifestly present in the increased solemnity of the words, that it is no longer necessary that His presence should be outwardly and formally asserted in the mere style of the address. While it might seem to us that Joshua is speaking, we are told, by the very form of the language, that it is Jehovah; when the increased solemnity of the meeting proclaims indisputably the continued voice of the Lord, it is no longer thought necessary to assure us formally that the words are far more than the mere words of Joshua. It is, verily, for the then present God of Israel that Joshua proceeds to say, “Ye cannot serve Jehovah.”
I. Here is a life-long service freely offered by men, and that service apparently discouraged by God. After noticing a superficial attempt to read, “Ye shall not cease to serve,” for “Ye cannot serve the Lord,” Dr. Clarke remarks: “If the common reading be preferred, the meaning of the place must be, ‘Ye cannot serve the Lord, for He is holy and jealous, unless ye put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the flood; for He is a jealous God, and will not give to nor divide His glory with any other.’ ” Undoubtedly the meaning includes this; with almost equal certainty it comprises far more than this. Joshua is not merely saying, You cannot serve Jehovah with other gods; he is also asserting, You cannot serve Jehovah at all in your own strength; or, You cannot serve Jehovah at all if you set about it in a thoughtless spirit. God Himself was uttering, through Joshua, for secret purposes of His own, these words of severe rebuff and painful discouragement. Here, then, were people wanting to come to God. The sincerity which they manifested by their subsequent life (cf. Joshua 24:31) was fully known to God when they made this earnest avowal of their choice. Yet here is the voice of the Lord saying, “Ye cannot serve me; my service is all too hard for your endeavours.” When a man comes to his fellow, feeling that his fellow can counsel and help him—trusting his wisdom, and pleading his direction—that is the kind of suppliant from whom a true man does not turn away. We had thought that this was the spirit of the Bible also. Does not God say, “I love them that love me, and they that seek me early shall find me”? Why, then, are these seekers repelled? Does not the Saviour cry in His earthly ministry, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”? Why, then, are these who come so earnestly turned away so severely? Does not Christ call to men out of heaven itself, saying, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him”? Why, then, are these who open their hearts to the Lord discouraged by words in which the Lord seems to turn utterly and hopelessly away? Why, when they had been told to choose gods, and had chosen Jehovah with irrepressible ardour, are they thus rejected? Payson remarked: “The man who wants me is the man I want;” in these words, God seems to turn from men just according to the fervour in which they seek His face. As has been pointed out by Dr. Kor, this is no exceptional instance. The “father of the faithful” is the man who is told to offer up his son in sacrifice; and earnest Moses is confronted by the fire and thunder of Sinai, till he exceedingly fears and quakes. David enthusiastically serves his God, and is forthwith driven to ask, “Why do the wicked prosper?” Elijah is faithful when, to him, all seem so faithless that he exclaims, “I only am left;” and yet he is seen fleeing here and there before what appears to be an adverse Providence, till he cries in very despair, “O Lord, take away my life; I am not better than my fathers.” This trial of earnestness is no less frequent in the New Testament than in the Old. The Saviour talks to the ardent Syrophœnician woman about dogs to whom it is not meet to give the children’s bread. To the eager Magdalene, who seeks to embrace Him, He calmly replies, “Touch me not.” The young lawyer whom Jesus loved was told to sell all that he had, and give it to the poor; and the scribe who proclaimed his desire to follow Christ everywhere was checked by the assurance that he was seeking to follow one who had “not where to lay His head.” Similarly, when Saul cried, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” Jesus answered back, through Ananias, “I will shew him how great things he must suffer.” We look at all this, and there remains, among others, this one conclusion: Trial is no sign that God does not love us. Even the discouragements of men, which seem to come direct from heaven, are only another phase of Divine affection. Emerson says, “A lady with whom I was riding in the forest said to me that the woods always seemed to her to wait, as if the genii who inhabited them suspended their deeds until the wayfarer has passed onward, a thought which poetry has celebrated in the dance of the fairies, which breaks off on the approach of human feet.” When walking in the woods in earlier days, I have often felt the same. I have looked into the quiet shadow-arches made by masses of overhanging foliage, and have felt, in the intense stillness, as if everything were waiting till I had gone. The silence has seemed so unusual—a great suspense, rather than a normal condition. So when the silence of God seems emphasized in some great trial or discouragement, the believing man may have his fancies, which are more than fancies. He may say, “This is not the usual mind of God. He often breaks in upon this silence. Of that I am sure. I have heard His voice, and the tones are the tones of love. He is only waiting till I have passed. For the time, and for some reason, He knows it is best that I should not see Him, and that I should hear from Him no voice of encouragement whatever.” The silence is not the real mind of God. It is a Divine feint. It is as when Jesus “made as if He would go further,” and did not go. It is as when He said, “I go not up yet unto the feast,” but went very shortly after. God conceals His real movements, now in silence, now in actions which mislead, or now, as here, in words which seem full of rebuff, but which, no less for their seeming, He would have us read as an enticement.
II. Here are loving hearts discouraged by God, and yet clinging to God even more lovingly and persistently than before. “Nay; but we will serve the Lord.” Joshua was feigning to break them off from their choice, and they asserted their determination more ardently than ever. It is as though a mother should feign to shut the door against her little child, and he, refusing to read his mother’s heart thus, should become all the more earnest because the door seemed about to be closed, well knowing all the time that his little strength was no match for hers. God gives these contrary voices to provoke our zeal. He hides His heart, that we may the more anxiously search out His real feeling. He turns us back, that out of our alarm and resistance we may press forward indeed. He seems to shut the door against us, that in our zeal to re-open it we may quicken our own energies, and so attract the attention of those about us, that they may say, “That man is a Christian;” and thus, ere ever we are aware, God would have as find ourselves committed to His service before all men. The Saviour does but call the Gentile woman a dog, that she may both know and shew that she is a child, and that He may quicken her appetite for the children’s bread. Said Martin Luther’s wife to him on one occasion: “Doctor, how is it that while subject to the papacy we prayed so often and so earnestly, while now we pray with the utmost coldness, and very seldom?” Few of us can be good disciples of the Crucified when we ourselves have no cross. It is not so much of the Lord’s desire as of our own necessity that “through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom.” It is exactly when in the hearing of voices which cry, “Ye cannot serve God,” that we find our holiest firmness to reply, “Nay; but we will.”
III. Here is persistent love accepted by God, on the understanding that men offer their love to no other gods. “Now therefore put away the strange gods. Jehovah is a jealous God.”
1. The Lord is jealous for His own glory.
2. The Lord is jealous for the supremacy of truth.
3. The Lord is jealous for the good of the worshippers.
4. The Lord is jealous for beholders, whom the worshippers continually influence. When cherishing our idols of the heart, we shall do well to remember that all around us there are places where some of our fathers have put away gods that were false and strange. The oak of Jacob, at Shechem (Genesis 35:4), seemed in itself to admonish Jacob’s childen (Joshua 24:26).
IV. Here is accepted love recklessly witnessing against its own future inconstancy, and pledging itself to love and serve God for ever. “Ye are witnesses against yourselves.” “We are witnesses.” True love makes no provision for infidelity. It provides no way of retreat. It “burns the bridges” by which otherwise it might be tempted to go back.
1. Men who turn from God should remember that there are many voices witnessing against them, among which no voice speaks so loudly as their own.
2. When human voices seem to the back slider to hold their peace, the very stones nevertheless cry out against him (Joshua 24:27). Such witness would be borne by the stone now set up by Joshua 3. Those who really love God rather rejoice in such testimony than view it with fear. Love enters into solemn covenant; it delights to know that the covenant is recorded, and that the record is made in an enduring form. Even the witness of the imperishable stone is regarded with no disfavour.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Joshua 24:19.—“GOD DECLINING FIRST OFFERS OF SERVICE.”
“This procedure, on the part of God,” may arise from the following reasons:
I. “It sifts the true from the false seeker. The gospel comes into the world to be a touchstone of human nature—to be Ithuriel’s spear among men. There is enough in it to attract and convince every man who has a sense of spiritual need and a desire of spiritual deliverance, but it is presented in such a form as to try whether the soul really possesses this, and therefore we may have obstacles of various kinds at the very entrance. Bunyan’s Pliable and Christian at the Slough of Despond.…
II. “It leads the true seeker to examine himself more thoroughly. If a man is accepted, or thinks he is accepted, at once, he takes many things for granted which it would be well for him to enquire into. Very specially is this the case in regard to the nature of sin, and the light in which God regards it. Almost all the errors of our time, or of any time, have their root here, and it would be well for many to be sent back for reflection with the words of Joshua—‘He is an holy God, He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.’ Not that Joshua would lead them to doubt God’s mercy, but he would have them to see that it is a more difficult question than men in general fancy. The easy complacency with which some talk of pardon, and their assurance of it, springs more from dulness of conscience than strength of faith.…
III. “It binds a man to his profession by a stronger sense of consistency. There is a paper of obligations put into our hands to sign, and when we take the pen, we are bidden to read it over again and ponder it, that we may subscribe with clear consciousness of the contents. God will beguile no man into His service by false pretences. He stops us when we would rush into it thoughtlessly, tells us the nature of the work, what His own character gives Him a right to expect of us, and then, if we will still go forward, He can say, ‘Ye are witnesses against yourselves, that ye have chosen you the Lord to serve Him,’ and we are compelled to own, ‘We are witnesses.’ …
IV. “It educates us to a higher growth and greater capacity of happiness. When we see the wind shaking a young tree, and bending it to the very earth, it may seem to be retarding its rise, but it is furthering it. It is making it strike its roots deeper into the ground, that its stem may rise higher and stronger, till it can struggle with tempests, and spread its green leaves to a thousand summers.… In the intellectual world, a strong mind thrives on difficulties. There is no falser method of education than to make all smooth and easy, and remove every stone before the foot touches it.… ‘The kingdom of heaven,’ as Christ has declared, ‘suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force,’ that the man may prove himself the better soldier, and receive of God at last a brighter crown.”—[Dr. Ker.]
Joshua 24:19.—GOD’S HOLINESS, JEALOUSY, AND FORGIVENESS.
I. The relation of God’s holiness to His forgiveness. “For He is an holy God: He will not forgive.” He is too holy to forgive lightly. As surely as a man’s righteousness has its inalienable rights, so certainly a man’s sin has its just deserts, and the demerit of transgression cannot lightly be passed over without a corresponding depreciation in the value of rectitude and piety.
II. The relation of God’s jealousy to His forgiveness. “He is a jealous God: He will not forgive.” God is very jealous for His good name. He would ever keep it as “a strong tower,” into which the righteous know that they may run with safety. The name of a wicked ruler affords no security to his faithful subjects. Many kings have been a terror to good and a shelter to evil doers. For the sake of men, and of truth, God is too jealous of His name ever to let the wicked say: “We may sin as we like; we are certain to be forgiven.”
III. The influence of God’s forgiveness upon man’s religious service. “Ye cannot serve the Lord: He will not forgive.” The unforgiven have no heart to serve. “We are saved by hope.” “Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.” “The joy of the Lord is our strength” for the service of the Lord. Who can labour for God, knowing that God holds him under condemnation!
THE NECESSITY OF PRESERVING HOLINESS
“Without holiness there can be no such heaven as the New Testament reveals. There may be scenery of surpassing grandeur—mountains, woods, rivers, and skies most charming; but they do not make a heaven, else a heaven might be found in Wales or Cumberland. There may be a capital full of palaces and temples; but they do not make a heaven, else a heaven might have been found in Delhi. There may be buildings of marble and precious stones; but they do not make a heaven, else a heaven might have been found in Rome or Venice. There may be health, and ease, and luxury, and festivities; but they do not make a heaven, else one would have been met with in Belshazzar’s halls. There may be education, philosophy, poetry, literature, art; but that will not make a heaven, else the Greeks would have had one in Athens, in the grove and in the porch. Holiness is that without which no heaven could exist.”—[Dr. Stoughton.]
THE LORD IMPRESSING HIS HOLINESS UPON THE MINDS OF THE ISRAELITES.
“In the Temple, even every ‘little’ ornament of the mighty structure that crowned the cliffs of Zion was ‘holy’ to the Lord. Not the great courts and inner shrines and pillared halls merely, but all. Not a carven pomegranate, not a bell, silver or golden, but was ‘holy.’ The table and its lamps, with flowers of silver light, tent and staves, fluttering curtain and ascending incense, altar and sacrifice, breastplate and ephod, mitre and gem-clasped girdle, wreathen chains and jewelled hangings—over all was inscribed HOLY, while within, in the innermost shrine, where God manifested Himself above the mercy-seat, was THE HOLIEST. Thus the utter holiness of that God with whom they had to do was by every detail impressed upon the heart and conscience of ancient Israel.”—[Grosart.]
Joshua 24:20.—FORSAKING GOD.
I. To forsake the true God is ever to serve strange gods.
II. To forsake God is to be forsaken by God.
III. To be forsaken by God is to be presently hurt and consumed by God.
Joshua 24:21.—THE INTERPRETING AND DETERMINING POWER OF A LOVING HEART.
I. Pious love instinctively interpreting the trying words of God. Joshua had said, “Ye cannot serve Jehovah.” The people immediately answered back, “Nay; but we will serve Jehovah.” They never for a moment understood that such service was absolutely impossible. Loving God indeed, their hearts read, even through the contrary words, the love that was in the heart of God.
II. Pious love firmly determining to adhere to God. Whether they could serve or not, they would. The heart that loves the holy and merciful God cannot take “No” for an answer. Love says: “If I perish, I will pray, if I get no reward, I will nevertheless serve.” And such love ever triumphs, when it pleads resolutely with God. However readily the wicked may spurn a loving heart away, the kingdom of heaven always “suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” “Love never faileth,” when it contends with God. Thus, the people who say, “We will serve,” are ever taken then and there into covenant.
Joshua 24:22-25.—ENTERING INTO COVENANT WITH GOD.
I. No reservation must be made in the direction of sin. Men must be prepared even to witness against themselves. They must come to enter into covenant with God with a mind which contemplates no excuse for sin.
II. Sin itself must be first put away. “Put away the strange gods which are among you.” God will enter into no covenant with those who deliberately cherish sin.
III. God Himself must be unhesitatingly and persistently chosen.
1. He must be chosen in the heart. “Incline your heart unto the Lord God of Israel.”
2. He must be chosen openly. The declaration was made by the people before each other.
3. He must be chosen with no faltering purpose. “The Lord our God will we serve.” Though the service be fairly stated as severe and difficult, there must be no hesitation.
4. He must be chosen with a submissive spirit. “And His voice will we obey.”
IV. The covenant thus made with God must be made through a mediator. The covenant is made with the mediator on behalf of the people. The covenant is recorded by the mediator for the joy of all who are faithful, and for a witness against all transgressors, Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, also makes record of every man’s utterance who says, “The Lord God will I serve.” The names of those who have truly confessed Jesus are written “in the Lamb’s book of life.”
V. The covenant is preliminary to rest in the life which now is, and for that also which is to come. When the covenant was made, then, and not till then, the people departed “every man unto his own inheritance.” No man can truly enter into rest, excepting through Jesus. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Till a man is at peace with God, he can have little real joy in his own inheritance. He only is wise, who, before setting himself to enjoy his earthly estate, accepts the invitation of Jesus: “Come unto me … I will give you rest.”
Joshua 24:22; Joshua 24:27.—GOD’S WITNESSES AGAINST THE SINNER.
I. The witness which a man bears against his own sin. “Ye are witnesses against yourselves.” “We are witnesses.” How many insincere worshippers are daily witnessing against themselves. In their attendance in God’s house. In the songs of the sanctuary. In the religious instruction which they impart, or cause to be imparted, to their children, etc. Surely the Judge may say again presently, “Out of thine own mouth will I condemn thee, thou wicked servant!”
II. The witness borne against a sinful man by his fellows. Joshua was a witness of the people’s choice. Every man was a witness against every other. “We also are compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses.” They are not mere spectators of our course, but testifiers (μάρτυρες). Like the martyrs and others spoken of in Hebrews 11, they bear witness to the blessedness of faith and faithful service; they testify, in like manner, against all who “refuse Him that speaketh.”
III. The witness borne against a sinful man by the ordinary records of life. “Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us, for it hath heard,” etc. Among the Israelites, this was an ordinary method of providing testimony. Not only this stone, set up by Joshua at Shechem, would bear witness against Israel’s unfaithfulness; other monuments, similarly erected, would bear their testimony also. There were the altars of Abraham (Genesis 12:7; Genesis 13:4), and Isaac (Genesis 26:25). There was the stone of Bethel, set up by Jacob (Genesis 28:18-22). There were the memorials erected by these Israelites themselves (chap. Joshua 4:4-9, Joshua 8:30-32, Joshua 22:10). These and other monuments had been raised by themselves and their fathers, and represented so much faith and fervour in bygone days. In any relapse into idolatry, or even carelessness, these memorials would testify against all backsliders. It is ever thus in our days also: every man’s past service for God and truth is an almost vocal remonstrance against his future worldliness. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
Joshua 24:23.—JEHOVAH GOD, AND STRANGE GODS.
I. God and strange gods cannot be worshipped together.
II. Strange gods can be and are to be put away.
III. To worship no strange gods is not enough; he who would worship acceptably must incline his heart towards the true God.
Joshua 24:24.—THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL.
I. “God of His pleasure leaves us free to do wrong as well as right. Doubtless God could have created man without giving him liberty of will. He might have formed him merely capable of wishing to do what is right. There is nothing in the soul that shews this freedom to be a part of its nature. We can only believe that it is the will and pleasure of God to create us free from all necessity.
II. “Conscience urges and our hearts tell us that we have this free power of will. Our inner feelings continually tell us we are free agents. It is of no avail that we argue down our clearer convictions. Our convictions still tell us that we do wrong, that we are to blame when we do wrong, that we have the power of avoiding our faults. Nature within us utters this truth. All men understand this truth. From the cradle of the child to the study of the philosopher, this truth is everywhere uncontradicted. The race of man over all the earth believes itself free.
III. “Our daily life assures us that we have this power over our wills. The same consciousness that assures us we exist, with equal authority tells us that we are free. We may argue, and shuffle our words, we may deceive ourselves, but in actual life we still take this freedom for granted, and move our limbs in the belief that we move them at our own pleasure. Reason as we will, we are yet obliged to follow this persuasion that we are free. The belief that we have power over our wills, and the daily exercise of this power, are arguments so unanswerable that no man who is not in a dream can deny them. In all the common actions of life it is impossible for a man seriously to question his power to follow his right reason.
IV. Without freedom to do wrong there could be no virtue. Could we take away this free will from man, the whole of human life would be overthrown. If men are not free in what they do of good and evil, good is not good, and evil is not evil. If an un avoidable necessity oblige us to wish what we wish, human responsibility is gone; there is no more virtue or vice, praise or blame. There is no religion left upon earth.
V. “God is with us, helping us to use this power aright. When God made man free, He did not thereby leave him to himself. He gave him reason to be a light to him. He is Himself with him, to inspire him with goodness, to reprove him for his smallest faults, to lead him on by promises, to hold him back by threats, to melt him by His love. He forgives us, He avenges us, He waits for us. He bears with our neglect, and invites us even to the last. Our life is full of His grace.
“It were terrible to believe that, without any power of his own to do right, man is required by his Maker to attain a virtue quite beyond his reach. No, indeed! man suffers no evil but what he makes for himself. He is able to procure for himself the greatest blessings.
VI. “In this freedom of will God has given us a part of His own nature. By making man free, God has given him a strong feature of likeness to Himself. Man’s empire over his own will has in it something divine. Master of his own inner movements, he turns to whatever seems to him good. God gave to man a noble power when He made him capable of deserving praise and approbation. What is higher or grander than to deserve? It is the power of rising to a rank and order above our present state. By deserving, man improves and exalts himself, goes forward step by step, and wins his reward. What richer crown of ornament could God put upon His work?”—[Fenelon.]
Joshua 24:25.—THE COVENANT AT SHECHEM.
“Seven things are to be considered in this renewal of the covenant:—
I. “The dignity of the mediator. Take a view of his names, Hosea and Jehoshua. God will save: He will save. The first is like a promise; the second, the fulfilment of that promise. God will save some time or other: this is the very person by whom He will accomplish His promise. Take a view of Joshua’s life: his faith, courage, constancy, heroism, and success. A remarkable type of Christ. (See Hebrews 4:8.)
II. “The freedom of those who contracted. ‘Take away the gods which your fathers served beyond the flood, and in Egypt,’ etc. (Joshua 24:14). Consider the liberty of choice which every man has, and which God, in matters of religion, calls into action.
III. “The necessity of the choice. To be without religion is to be without happiness here, and without any title to the kingdom of God. To have a false religion is the broad road to perdition; and to have the true religion, and live agreeably to it, is the high road to heaven. Life is precarious, death is at the door; the Judge calls; much is to be done, and perhaps there is but little time to do it in. Choose: choose speedily and determinately.
IV. “The extent of the conditions. ‘Fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth and righteousness.’ Consider His being, His power, holiness, justice, etc. Religion itself consists of two parts.
1. Truth, (a) In opposition to the idolatry of the surrounding nations. (b) In reference to that revelation which God gave of Himself. (c) In reference to that peace and comfort which false religions may promise, but cannot give, and which the true religion communicates to all who properly embrace it.
2. Uprightness or integrity, in opposition to those abominable vices by which themselves and the neighbouring nations had been defiled. (a) The major part of men have one religion for youth, and another for old age. He who serves God with integrity serves Him with all his heart in every part of life. (b) Most men have a religion of times, places, and circumstances. Integrity takes in every time, every place, and every circumstance; God’s law ever being kept before the eyes, and His love in the heart, dictating purity and perfection to every thought, word, and work. (c) Many content themselves with abstaining from vice, and think themselves sure of the kingdom of God because they do not sin as others. But he who serves God in integrity, not only abstains from the act and appearance of evil, but steadily performs every moral good.
V. “The peril of the engagement. This covenant had in it the nature of an oath; for so much the phrase ‘before the Lord’ implies.… Joshua allows there is a great danger in making this covenant. ‘Ye cannot serve the Lord,’ etc. But this only supposes that nothing could be done right but by His Spirit, and in His strength. The energy of the Holy Spirit is equal to every requisition of God’s holy law, as far as it regards the moral conduct of a believer in Christ.
VI. “The solemnity of the acceptance. Not withstanding Joshua faithfully laid down the dreadful evils which those might expect who should abandon the Lord, yet the people entered solemnly into the covenant. ‘God forbid that we should forsake the Lord.’ ‘We will serve the Lord.’ They seemed to think that not to covenant in this case was to reject.
VII. “The nearness of the consequence. There were false gods among them, and these must be immediately put away (Joshua 24:23). The moment the convenant is made, that same moment the conditions of it come into force. He who makes this covenant with God should immediately break off from every evil design, companion, word, and work.”—[Dr. A. Clarke, from M. Saurin.]
“THE REPEATED PROFESSION OF THE PEOPLE THAT THEY WILL SERVE THE LORD.
I. “The profession in reference to its import.
II. “The profession in reference to the responsibilities which the people thus took upon them.
“It is easily said, I will serve the Lord and obey His voice; but actually to keep the promise when the world allures to its altars is another thing.
“Israel’s resolution to serve the Lord was wholly voluntary. So should it be also with us. There should be no compulsion.”—[Fay.]
Joshua 24:26-27.—“THE RELIGIOUS USE OF MEMORIALS.
“This action of Joshua seems a strange importance to be conferred on a piece of insensible matter, on a mere block of stone, unnoticed, perhaps, for a thousand years. ‘It hath heard,’ is an excessively strong figure; but it is quite in the Eastern style to give things the attributes of persons.
1. “How little it can be foreseen or conjectured to what use numberless things in the creation, apparently insignificant, are destined by Divine appointment to be applied. They may be entirely unnoticed while waiting that use, with no marks upon them to distinguish them from the most ordinary things of the same kind. The trees for Noah’s ark. The rod of Moses. The stones which were to be the tables of the Law, and which were to be written upon by the Almighty. The rams’ horns used at the siege of Jericho. The materials destined to the most awful use of all—THE CROSS. There is, as to most of us, now existing, somewhere, the very wood which will form our coffins. Some of us may have passed near the very trees, or the wood no longer in the state of trees. The material bears no mark what it is for; but God has on it His secret mark of its destination. If it were visible, what a reading we should have of inscriptions I—tomb inscriptions, seen beforehand!
2. “The sovereign Lord has some appointed use for everything in creation. The uses of an infinite number of things we shall never know; but He can have made nothing but for an use—to that it will come. What a view has He on all things as bearing His destination! What a stupendous prospective vision, if we may express it so, before His mind!
3. “Wise and good men can find for many things many uses, for instruction and piety, which do not occur to other men. If such a man, towards the close of life, could make out an account of the things that have served him to such a purpose, how many things, seeming not in themselves qualified to instruct him, would he have to recount as having been the occasions of his receiving instruction or salutary impressions!…
4. “The great leaders of Israel, Moses and Joshua, were solicitous to employ every expedient to secure an eternal remembrance of God in the people’s minds.… It was not enough that human and even angelie monitors should be speaking. They perceived how constantly the popular mind was withdrawing and escaping from under the impressive sense of an invisible Being; how easily the delusions of the surrounding idolatry stole on their senses and their imagination, to beguile their hearts and their very reason away; how imperfectly the grand scene of nature, of the creation, preserved, in any active force, the thought of the Creator; how apt to grow feeble and faint was their memory of even the miraculous events which themselves had beheld. Accordingly they marked places and times with monuments, built altars, raised heaps of stones, etc.
“Now can all this be turned to no good account for us? Have we less of this unhappy tendency to forget things which ought to stand conspicuous in our memory, relative to our concerns with God? What kind of memory have we, for example, of the mercies of God?
“We then, as much as the Israelites, need all manner of aids to revive the memory of them. Valuable advantage may be taken of particular circumstances, aiding us to recall them. ‘This stone shall be a witness to us.’ Everything that can be made a witness and remembrancer to us is worth being made so. We should not despise its assistance. The place where we were delivered from an accident should be a witness to us. The apartment where an oppressive sickness had brought its victim just to the gate of death; the place in which a person was saved from falling into some great sin; the house, book, letter, in or through which some important lesson of instruction was given at an opportune and critical moment: these, and similar things, should be memorials and witnesses to men.…
“A man should take like methods to remember his sins. A man may happen to meet, now sinking in age, a person who once remonstrated against his sinful ways; or he may pass by the grave of one who was once an associate in evil. Let him stand by it and reflect. Or, not to suppose heinous sins, there may be presented to a man various things which will remind him of a careless, irreligious season of his life; a Bible that he cared not to read; articles used for mere vain amusement and waste of time. Now, such monumental witnesses should suggest to a man to think of guilt, repentance, and pardon. He might fix his eyes on those objects while on his bended knees.
“There are men in whose memories are reposited times and places when and where they trembled under ‘the terrors of the Lord.’ …
“It is wise to seize upon all means of turning the past into lessons of solemn admonition; it is, as it were, bringing it back to be present, that we may have it over again. With the instructing, sanctifying influence of the Divine Spirit, we may thus pass again, in thought, over the scenes of our life, and reap certain benefit now, even in those where we reaped none then.”—[From John Foster’s Lectures.]