We find here that Joshua offers a repulse to men who wish to avow themselves on the side of God. There is every ground for believing that he was under Divine direction, and as there was no evidence that the people were insincere in their promise, there must be some reason for the manner in which they are met.
I. This procedure on the part of God is not unusual. A number of instances might easily be found in the Bible of obstacles thrown in the way of men who offer themselves to the service of God. There are many terrible threatenings, many dreadful judgments against sin and sinners, which have in them all the language of the text. Many profess Christianity with far more irreverence than others keep aloof from it. There are thoughtful and self-distrustful natures which have long and deep shrinking because their eye has seen the purity of God and the poverty of self. Within certain limits the feeling is true and most becoming. It is God repeating in a humble heart the words of Joshua, "Ye cannot serve the Lord, for He is an holy God."
II. Having sought to show that this procedure on the part of God is not so unusual, we may now attempt to find some reasons for it. (1) It sifts the true from the false seeker. We refer here not to arriving at the profession of Christianity, but at the principle of it in the heart. The Gospel comes into the world to be a touchstone of human nature, to be Ithuriel's spear among men. No one will be able to complain of any real wrong from these obstacles. The false seeker is not injured, because he never sincerely sought at all. The true seeker is not injured, for never was such a one disappointed. When the flickering phosphorescence glimmers out, the spark, although as faint as in the smoking flax, lives on and rises to a flame. (2) It leads the true seeker to examine himself more thoroughly. It is very good for a man, when he is in danger of too hasty acquiescence, that he should be compelled to examine himself both about his view of God's character in the pardon of sin, and what this requires of him in the way of self-surrender to God. (3) It binds a man to his profession by a stronger sense of consistency. God will beguile none of us into His service by false pretences. He tells us the nature of the work, what His own character gives Him a right to expect of us; then, if we still go forward, He can say, "Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen the Lord, to serve Him." (4) It educates us to a higher growth and greater capacity for happiness. If we are to rise to anything great in the spiritual life, it must be, not by soft, indulgent nurture, but by endurance of hardship and pressing on against repulse. The delay which Christians have in gaining a sense of acceptance with God arises often from making the sense of acceptance the main object of pursuit. But there is something higher: to serve God whether we have the sense of acceptance or no to have this as the one great purpose of life and end of our being, "Nay, but we will serve the Lord."
J. Ker, Sermons,p. 56.
References: Joshua 24:19. Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes,p. 48; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. x., p. 274.Joshua 24:24. G. Woolnough, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvi., p. 307. Joshua 24:25. W. Morley Punshon, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xix., p. 56; Old Testament Outlines,p. 59. Joshua 24:26; Joshua 24:27. J. Foster, Lectures,vol. ii., p. 396; H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. v., p. 63; J. Van Oosterzee, Year of Salvation,vol. ii., p. 408; Parker, vol. v., p. 289. Joshua 24:19-29. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 399. Joshua 24:29; Joshua 24:30. J. R. Macduff, Sunsets on the Hebrew Mountains,p. 36. Joshua 24:32. J. Kennedy, Sunday Magazine,1876, p. 810; Expositor;3rd series, vol. ii., p. 299.