A
long time ago, a man named Joshua gave the world a gift. He presented a
double-edged choice to a group of people that was then written down, passed on
from one generation to another, and sounds in our present day as loudly as
first spoken. This choice is of the blessing-or-cursing variety, an issue of
life-and-death. Worth considering, wouldn’t you say?
The
choice humanity was and is offered comes down to whom we serve. It is not a
choice of whether we serve or do not serve, but to clarify which thing, person,
or value we serve. We all follow some set of beliefs, some idea about life,
some hopes and dreams of what we think will make us happy. The question is, are
we serving what is best? Joshua helps us with that question.
The
first part of Joshua’s choice was, “Now therefore fear the Lord and
serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put
away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve
the Lord.”[1] Joshua
was urging the people to choose to fear and serve the LORD, meaning the God revealed
in the Bible. He exhorted them to “put
away” the gods that their fathers had served.
By
the time Joshua clarified this choice, the people he was speaking to had
already walked through some very significant history. This was summarized as “beyond the River” and “in Egypt.” They were now in the land
that God had promised Abraham a number of centuries earlier. Their present century
had given them Moses, deliverance out of Egypt, wandering in the wilderness,
crossing the Jordan River, and gaining the land of promise. That was a lot to
happen in a hundred years.
Part
of the choice between God and gods was to remember the nature of both. The gods
of Egypt kept Israel slaves in Egypt. The gods beyond the River kept Israel
beyond the river, outside the Promised Land. There was one God who promised
this land to Abraham, delivered Israel as a young family through Joseph’s
miraculous rise to leadership in Egypt, delivered Israel out of the subsequent
Egyptian slavery, sustained the whole nation for forty years in the wilderness
while the generation of rebels finished their lives, brought them across the
Jordan River into the land of Promise, and then gave them the land
victory-by-victory.
Choosing
God over gods was an easy decision if the choice was based only on reason.
Logic would give God the victory hands down, so to speak. Serving God instead
of gods was the most reasonable thing the people could do. It all made sense. It
has always made sense.
However,
Israel already had a history of serving gods, as does our world a few millennia
later. Everyone needs to know that choosing God means one thing, while choosing
gods means something else. So, while choosing the God revealed in the Bible is
the most reasonable thing to do, Joshua presents the people’s obligation should
they reject God as their preferred choice. He said, “And if it is evil in your eyes
to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River,
or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.”[2]
It is a fascinating part of Scripture
that God gives us every reason to choose him, and yet lets us bear the
consequences of rejecting him. He speaks to a people who see themselves as the
ones who choose, who would look at their Creator and think it was “evil” in their eyes to serve him, who
would look at gods and think that something manmade and false would bring
satisfaction, and he graciously gives them clarity.
If people are going to believe it is
an evil thing to serve Yahweh, the God of the Bible, our Creator, then people
ought to have the integrity (oxymoronish as that sounds) to choose the gods
that they will serve. There are so many options available, so everybody make a
choice. If you want to be known as those who reject the God who created you,
the God who delivered you, the God who provides a Savior from sin, take a stand
for whichever god you believe is preferable.
In Israel’s case, they could choose
between the gods their fathers served on the other side of the River, or the
gods of the idolatrous nations on this side of the River. If they rejected the
God who delivered them out of Egypt, did they want the gods that kept them in
the wilderness? If they rejected the God who delivered them into the Promised
Land, did they want to follow the gods of the people defeated by the God who
had so wonderfully blessed them?
Today we have equally ridiculous
choices. If we reject the God who created us, would we rather serve the gods of
evolution and naturalism, words of nothingness designed only to keep us from
the glory of our Creator? If we reject the God who provides redemption from
sin, would we rather serve the gods of sin that bind people to death? If we
reject the Rock, the stone of stumbling, the foundation of the Church, would we
rather rely on the mountains and rocks to cover us when Jesus Christ returns in
the glory he has revealed to man since the beginning of time?
While there is much more I wish I
could say to convince us all to “choose
life”,[3]
I will leave us with Joshua’s timeless gift of testimony where he declared the
choice he had lived by, and would live by forever. He declared, “But as for me and my house, we will serve
the Lord.”[4]
Amen. Same goes for me.
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~
in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright ©
2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
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