A message of Scripture to you.
We may see some things here this morning that we've never seen
prior to this. They were some new things to
me. Joshua 24, verse 14. We read here, Now therefore,
fear the Lord, and serve Him in sincerity and in truth. and
put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side
of the flood, and in Egypt, and serve ye the Lord. And if it
seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom
you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that
were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites
in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, We
will serve the Lord. This text speaks about choices. And spiritually dead sinners
like choices. Especially when it comes to God.
They like choices. Dead sinners imagine that we
have dignity before God. Imagine that God will not violate
our certain rights that we have. But the truth of the matter is
we lost all our dignity and we lost all our rights when we tried
to murder God in the garden, in Adam. The Scripture says there's none
good, no not one. The Scripture says God looked
down from heaven to see if there were any that did understand,
if there were any that did seek God. And He said they all together
become unprofitable. They're vain. And that's us. That's every one of us. We don't
preach a message that makes somebody better than others. This is the
case with all of us. This is the only message you're
going to hear that declares all men to be sinners. All men to be unable to do one
thing to save themselves. What is salvation? Doesn't salvation
require somebody else to do the saving? Isn't that what salvation
is? drowning in a river and somebody
comes to save you, they come and save you. And with God, He
does all the saving. That's the only way God's going
to get all the glory. And He said He will not give His glory
to another. Now this is who the true and
living God is. But now notice here in verse 15. The choice
is not between serving the Lord or serving a false God. That's
not the choice. Look here. The choice is between
which of the many false gods they would serve. Look there
in verse 15. He says, choose this day whom
you'll serve. And he said, whether the gods
which your father served that were on the other side of the
flood or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. All
of these gods were vain idols. They were proven to be worthless,
helpless, nothing. because Christ conquered His
people and brought them out from every one of them. I've titled
this message, No Choice. And here's what I want us to
get. Christ is the head of His house. The head of spiritual
Israel. And He's the servant of the Lord
God as the mediator. Serving God for His people to
bring all His people to God. And Christ will bring all of
his house, all the members of his house to serve the Lord God
through faith in Christ. He will accomplish this work
because he has all power in heaven and earth to do it. Now the first
thing I want you to see is while dead in sins, the sinner has
multitudes of choices. At least he thinks he does. All
idol gods are created in the minds of depraved sinners. When
you think of an idol god, you probably think of a carved out
image. That's what it ends up after it comes from up here.
It starts here in the imagination. We're idolaters by nature. We'll
serve and worship anything and everything but God. Anything
and everything but God. When Brother Cody was here, he
was telling me this down in Mexico. Some of you heard him tell this
story. Down in Mexico, This is showing you what links they'll
go to. They'll do anything you tell
them to do except for doing nothing and believing on Christ to save
them. Down in Mexico, they take a dead body and they sink it,
they immerse it in water and wash it. And if you want to help
put away the sins of that person, this is what they say, if you
want to put away the sins of that person, that's already dead,
already standing before God in judgment. But if you want to
help put away their sins and you yourself want to merit something
with God, you just dip you a big cup of that water and drink it. And just drink it. And folks
line up to drink it. That's showing you the depravity
of the heart. Men will do anything you tell them to do. They'll
give you their money to support the church. They'll walk on broken
glass and through fire and throw their babies to the fire. But
they won't bow to God and serve God. An idol is in the mind. And there
are more idols to choose from than there are sinners in this
world. God said that on one occasion. You don't have to turn, but let
me read this from Ezekiel 20. He said, I'm going to purge out
the rebels from among you. And He said, and them that transgress
against Me. That tells you God's going to
save His people. He said, I'm going to purge out
the rebels from among you and them that transgress against
Me. And I will bring them forth out of the country where they
sojourned, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel.
And you shall know that I am the Lord. As for you, O house
of Israel, listen to what he says now. Thus saith the Lord
God, Go ye, serve every one his idols. His idols. And hereafter also, if you will
not hearken unto me, he said, just go serve your idols. But
pollute you, my holy name, no more with your gifts and with
your idols. Don't come into my temple claiming to worship God
with your mind set on all your idols. That's what God says.
For in mine holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of
Israel, saith the Lord God..." Now listen to this. "...there
shall all the house of Israel..." We're not talking about that
political nation. We're talking about God's elect. We're talking
about all His people, all his people. He said, there shall
all the house of Israel, all of them in the land serve me.
He said, all my house shall serve me. That's what the Lord God
said. And he said, and I will accept them there. Now notice
God didn't say, go ye serve everyone his idol. He said, go ye serve
everyone his idols. It's because in the vanity of
the carnal mind, each individual unregenerate sinner has created
multiple idols in his mind. Just listen to superstitious
men. They got rabbit's feet. They got all kinds of lucky charms. All these different things. Wouldn't
you hate to go through life depending on what men call luck? I'd much
rather go through life knowing a sovereign God is ruling and
reigning everything. ruling everything. If evil happens,
he said, it's bringing glory to my name. And the remainder
of it, I restrain, he said. That's great comfort to a believer.
That's not comfort to an idolater. He hates that message. He looks
around and says, well, how could such a God do such things to
us? Do you know where we're headed,
folks? We're headed for hell. If God don't do something for
us, we're going to go to hell justly, justly. You will stand
before the Holy God in a very short time, the blink of an eye.
If God doesn't save us, so whatever God does in this earth, it's
just and right, we've sinned against Him. What do you do against
people you don't like? You speak every kind of evil
and every kind of wickedness and every kind of, you run them
down out of both sides of our tongue. What do you think God's
going to do justly to them that transgress against Him? But while
dead in our sins, our choices aren't really choices. They're
not choices at all. They're vanity. They're just
vanity. Now that's the first thing. Let me show you the second
thing. It's the Lord God in Christ who alone sets the heart of His
people on Christ alone. It's God alone in Christ, working
by Christ that sets the heart of His people on Christ alone.
And He does it in true saving faith. And He does it saving
us from our idols. He takes us from our idols. When
Christ enters the heart, that heart that's been made new by
the Spirit of God, the Lord Jesus Christ removes all the sinner's
choices. He removes them all. He takes
them away. And he sets his heart on God.
He sets his heart on the true and living God. He sets his heart
on Christ. He believes God. Christ is the
head over the whole house of Israel. God made His Son the
head over His whole house. And this is the people that God
chose from before the foundation of the world and gave them to
His Son. Like it or not, read Ephesians 1 and that's exactly
what the Scripture says. Men's answer to that is, we'll
just throw the book away. We'll just throw God away. That'll
work till you meet Him. That'll work till you meet Him.
Christ is the head over the whole house of the spiritual Israel.
And Christ is the faithful servant of the Lord God. You see, we
had one head in Adam. And the scripture says, in Adam
all died. And there's another head who
is Christ the Lord. And He came forth and did all
the work to make His people righteous and put away the sin of His people.
And now, He's calling those people. He's serving the Lord. The work
of redemption is accomplished. It's finished. He cried, it is
finished. He's accomplished that work.
But they're dead sinners that He died for. So now He's coming
to each one and He's giving them life in their heart and He's
doing it through this means right here. He's doing it through the
preaching of the Gospel. And you can fight and scream
and kick against God. If you're His, He's going to
get you with this Word. He's going to bring it into your
heart and He will call you by His grace. He will do it. A preacher
can't do it. And preachers who say they can
and all this bunch of nothing they use to try to get folks
into a church and keep them in a church and brainwash them and
all this. Brethren, I'm telling you, a man can't do this. Only
God can do the work I'm talking about here. Now, Christ is serving
the Lord right now. Now, it's for this reason, it's
for this reason that I tell you that I'm convinced of this, that
the pre-incarnate Christ is declaring this very thing to us in verse
15. It's Christ here that's saying,
as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Now I know the
common interpretation of that scripture is this is Joshua speaking.
And it might be Joshua speaking. Joshua was the head of his tribe.
And Joshua, all the tribes are there gathered together. And
they're hearing this message, Joshua's priest. But I'm telling
you this, Joshua's name is Jesus. He's a picture of Christ one
way or the other. But Christ is the only one that can say
this effectually and mean it. Because Christ is the only one
who has the power to call all of his house to faith in him
and bring them to God. And he shall do so. He shall
do so. As for Christ and his house,
they all shall serve the Lord. All shall. Now, Joshua's preaching
the gospel. This is how Christ's going to
do it. He's going to do it through the gospel. Joshua's preaching
the gospel. That's what he's doing. And he's speaking the
words of Christ. He's speaking the words of Christ,
Christ representing Jehovah, God. He's the Son of God, but
he's representing the Lord God. And he's speaking here as the
head of his house, as the servant of the Lord. Go back up to verse
1. And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and
called for the elders of Israel. and for their heads, and for
their judges, and for their officers, and they presented themselves
before God. This was a worship service similar
to what we're doing right here today. Joshua called them. There's a picture of Christ.
Christ Jesus, the only one who's the head of His body. He's who
assembles His people. He's who gathers His people.
You may have came here today with no intention of worshiping
God, or you may have come here with the intention of worshiping
God, but I can tell you this, if you're here today, He gathered
you here. He gathered you here. I'm not
talking about this little helpless Jesus that wants to if you'll
let him. I'm talking about the one who's God. That's who I'm
talking about. He gathered. He said where two or three are
gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them. How'd they
get gathered? He gathered them. He gathered
them. And then we see the message of Christ's preacher is the words
of our Lord God. This is the Lord God speaking
through Christ, by Christ Jesus. Look in verse 2. Joshua said
unto all the people, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel. See,
Joshua is just an earthen vessel. That's all I am. I don't have
a word to tell you. I don't have a word to speak
to anybody. But I do have a word to you from God. From God, thus
saith the Lord. And that's what he's speaking
here. These are the words of Christ representing the Lord
God to his people through the gospel. That's who's speaking
here. I said to you Thursday night, Christ is the only one
who ever prayed to God the Father and God heard him without a mediator.
And after the message, somebody asked me a good question. They
said, do you mean all of the believers in the Old Testament
It was Christ who was speaking to all of them, and it was Christ
who represented all of them to the Father? Yes, that's exactly
right. Because the Scripture tells us
there's one God and one mediator between God and men, the man,
Christ Jesus. He said, I'm the way, the truth,
and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. No man
hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. And in
our text, that's exactly what Christ is doing through the Gospel,
through His messenger Joshua. He's declaring God. That's what
He's doing. Now, let's consider our message.
He does it through the Gospel. Now let's look at what the message
is. Our message is the one message Christ sends us to preach. It's
the Word of Christ to His people, representing the Lord God. And
Christ's message is this. He has accomplished the will
of God the Father. He has delivered all of His people
from our idols, purging our sins on Calvary's tree, and He's now
delivering us from our idols in the heart through the Gospel,
making this word effectual in our heart. Look back up at verse
2. Concerning Abraham, Concerning Abraham, verse 2, Joshua said
unto all the people, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Your
fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time. He's
talking about the other side of the Euphrates or the Jordan
River. And he said, Terah, that was
Abraham's father, the father of Abraham and the father of
Nacor. And they served other gods. Abraham served those other
gods with them. He was an idolater following
the gods of his fathers. But God called out Abraham. He
didn't call out his fathers. He called out Abraham. God's
grace is particular. It's saving. It's irresistible.
It's effectual grace. He called Abraham out. He called
him out. And none but the true and living
God can deliver his child. He's the only one that can deliver
us from our idols. That's what we're seeing here.
He saved Abraham from his idols. Now, verse 3. This is what he
said. I took your father Abraham from
the other side of the flood. And I led him throughout all
the land of Canaan, and I multiplied his seed, and I gave him Isaac.
Well, preacher, you sure that that's Christ? You sure Christ
did that to Abraham? Do you remember when Abraham
and Isaac, here's Abraham and I, we cover both of them right
here. You remember when they went up to the mount, and the Lord
was showing him, teaching him a picture of what God was doing
in providing his son to lay down his life for us. He told him
to go up there and kill your son. That's what he told him
to do. And Abraham knew, he believed God. And he told Isaac, my son,
God will provide himself a lamb. God will provide, not just in
that mount there, but one day he's going to provide his son.
And he's the lamb. And that's God providing himself
the lamb. That's God in human flesh putting
away the sin of his people. And just before he killed Isaac,
you know what happened? The scripture says, the angel
of the Lord, The angel of the Lord, the angel of God, Jehovah,
called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time. He talked to
him before. And by myself, he said, by myself
have I sworn, saith the capital L-O-R-D. That's what the angel
of the Lord told him. By myself have I sworn. That's
God the Father and God the Son. By myself have I sworn, he said. Because you've done this thing
and has not withheld your son, thy only son, in blessing I'll
bless thee and I'll multiply thy seed. This is Christ speaking.
And then look. He delivered Abraham. Now who
delivered Jacob? Verse 4. And I gave unto Isaac
Jacob and Esau. And I gave unto Esau Mount Seir
to possess it, but Jacob and his children went down into Egypt.
God saved Jacob and he passed by Esau. He said, Jacob have
I loved, Esau have I hated. That's just what it means. I
love Jacob. I don't know how he could hate
Esau. I do. Esau was a God-hater. And so
was Jacob. I don't know how he could love
Jacob except for his free grace. They were both alike. There was
no difference in them. And he loved one of them. Because
God can do with his... Do you do with your own what
you will? I'm a man. I have rights. Can't I come into
your house and say, I want to do this such a thing with that
possession of yours? You'd say, that's mine. You have
no authority to do anything with what's mine. Well, Romans 9 says,
Who are you to reply against God? Shall the thing formed say
to him that formed it, Why have you made me thus? Can God not
do with His own whatsoever He will? Sure He can. We need to
be brought down off our high horse of thinking we're so important. We're not that important. We're
not that important. And God's going to bring us down
if we're going to worship Him. God saved Jacob, but not Esau.
You know who the ladder was that Jacob saw where the Lord God
stood at the top of that ladder and spoke to Jacob through the
ladder? That ladder was Christ. You know who the man was that
came, the angel of the Lord that came and wrestled Jacob and pinned
him down so that Jacob was forced to cry out for mercy to God?
That was the Lord Jesus. pre-incarnate, the Christ, that's
who it was. He delivered him from his idols.
What about Moses? Look at verse 5. I sent Moses
also and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt according to that which
I did among them, and afterward I brought you out. It was Christ
who appeared to Moses in the burning bush. You remember the
Scripture says, God at sundry times and in different ways spoken
to us in time past, but now He's spoken to us by His Son. Well,
His Son came in person and spoke to us, but all the while that
He was speaking in all those different ways, in a burning
bush, in the ladder, that was Christ speaking. It was still
Christ speaking. He appeared to them in the bush.
Look at this in Exodus 3. I've got to hurry, but in Exodus
3, verse 2, It says there, I want you to see this. The angel of the Lord, the angel
of God, that's Christ, appeared unto Moses in a flame of fire
out of the midst of a bush. And then look at verse 4. And
when the Lord, God, saw that he turned aside to see, God called
unto him through what? Out of the midst of the bush.
If God talks to us, He's not going to speak audibly to us.
He's speaking to us right now through the gospel. The general
call is going out. But if He speaks to us affectionately
in our heart, it's going to be through Christ Jesus the Lord.
He's the mediator between God and men. That's what you see
there in Exodus. Alright, back in Joshua 24. What
about their father's deliverance out of Egypt? Now this says it
clearly right here. Look here at verse 6, Joshua
24, 6. I brought your fathers out of Egypt, and you came unto
the sea, and the Egyptians pursued after your fathers with chariots
and horsemen unto the Red Sea. And when they cried unto the
Lord, capital L-O-R-D, Jehovah, when they cried unto God, Christ
referring to the Lord God, His Father. He put darkness between
you and the Egyptians and brought the sea upon them and covered
them in your eyes. And He says, and your eyes have
seen what I, Christ referring to Himself, what I have done
in Egypt, and you dwelt in the wilderness a long season. Do
you see that there? He said, you called to God and He put
darkness between you. And He said, and you've also
seen what I did in Egypt. This is God the Father and God
the Son accomplishing the deliverance of His people. Taking them from
all their idols. Removing all their choices from
them. That's what He's doing here. And who was it in all,
He says there, you dwelt in the wilderness a long season. Who
led them in the cloud, in the fire, in the smitten rock, that
long season that they went through the wilderness? The Apostle Paul
said they did all drink the same spiritual drink and they drank
of that spiritual rock that followed them. And that rock was Christ.
He delivered them all through the wilderness. And then of their
own deliverance. He's sitting here now talking
to these heads of the tribes and their judges and of their
own deliverance. First from Amalek, verse 8. I brought you into the
land of the Amorites, which dwelt on the other side of Jordan.
And they fought with you. And I gave them into your hand,
that you might possess their land. And I destroyed them before
you. That was a people. That was human
beings just like me and you. Amalek and an army of men. And
God said, I destroyed them for you, my people." You see, God
saves His people. He said, I've given nations for
my people. He saves His people from among this world. Christ
is Jehovah Nisi. He's the Lord our banner that
destroyed Amalek. You can read about that in Exodus
17. What about their deliverance
from that idolater Balaam? Who brought them out from him?
Look at verse 9. Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab,
arose and he warred against Israel and he sent and he called Balaam
the son of Beor to curse you. But I would not hearken unto
Balaam. Therefore he blessed you still, so I delivered you
out of his hand. Christ is the angel of the Lord
who appeared to Balaam and made him bless the Lord. That's who
appeared to him. In Numbers 22 it says this, The
Lord opened the eyes of Balaam and he saw the angel of the Lord.
That's who he saw. And when he sent him forth, he
said, You go forth and you only speak what I tell you you can
speak. That's what the angel of the Lord told him. That's
Christ. Christ said, You can only speak what I tell you to
speak. So Christ delivered him out of his hand. What about Joshua? What about Joshua? When they
got to Jericho and all of the enemies that were in the land
of Canaan, who delivered them from that? Christ did. Look at verse
11. You went over Jordan and came under Jericho, and the men
of Jericho fought against you, and I delivered them into your
hand. And I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out from
before you, even the two kings of the Amorites. The Amorites
just thought it was a bad season for hornets. They had no idea. Well, God sent it. He said here,
"...and I drove them out before you, even the two kings of the
Amorites, but not with your sword, and not with your bow. And I
have given you a land for which you did not labor, and cities
which you built not, and you dwell in them, of the vineyards
and olive yards which you planted not, do you eat?" Christ perfected
His people forever by His one offering. That's what Hebrews
10 tells us. Not by our works. by His work, by what He did on
the cross. The difference between grace
and works is this, the message of works is Christ did, He put
away the sin of everybody, He's done all that He can do, and
now if you want to make that blood effectual, you believe
on Him. Not offensive whatsoever. It's all in my hand. I can let
God do what He will or I can prevent Him from doing it. That's
not offensive. But Paul said, men that preach that message
take the offense out of the cross. They count the blood of Christ
a common thing. They tread underfoot the Son
of God saying He died for everybody. Christ took the particular sins
of a particular people and He stood before God guilty and God
poured out wrath upon Him and the place of His people so that
all the sins of all those people that He represented is now put
away. And God's a just judge. We wouldn't
have a judge who would declare you not guilty and then turn
around and bring you back before the judge and say, I changed
my mind, you're guilty. Well, God declared us not guilty
when Christ laid down His life on the cross. And God will not
allow one of those for whom Christ died to perish in our sins because
God's just. And He will not pour out wrath
upon a sinner a second time. He's already poured it out on
Christ for His people. That's our God. That's the difference
between grace. That takes the whole work out of your hands
and puts it in God's hands. That's the rub. That's the one
thing. People can give their smokescreens
about all the reasons they don't like the gospel and don't like
God. That's the enmity of the carnal heart. That's it. Carl
Meyer's enmity against God is not subject to the law of God,
to the gospel of God, and can't be. He can't bring himself. My
will is free, a man said. Bow to God then. Huh? Bow to
God then. You can't do it. You can't do
it. Your will is not free. It's as
free as a frog in a snake's belly. That's how free your will is.
He can jump around all he wants to, but he can't get out of that
snake's belly. God's got to kill the snake and
deliver you out. And that serpent that had us,
Ephesians 2 said, is the prince of the power of the air that
reigns over the children of disobedience. We could not free ourselves from
it. Only God can. Only God can. Let me move along
here. Let me move along. So from verses
2 through 13 in this gospel that Joshua is preaching, it's Christ. It's the mediator between God
and men that's speaking. It's Him speaking the whole way
through. And it's not until verse 19 that we're told that Joshua
begins to speak. Only until we get to verse 19.
And therefore, verse 14 and 15 appears that it's still Christ
that's speaking. It's still Christ that's speaking.
Now, what's the point of that? Well, here's the next thing I
want you to see. We see what Christ does in our
hearts to deliver us from our idolatrous so-called choices. This is what He does when the
gospel is being preached. As the gospel of Christ's accomplished
works are going forth, Christ is the prophet who speaks personally
into the heart of his child, effectually commanding his child
in the heart. And this is what he speaks. Not
audibly, he speaks through this gospel that I'll preach to you
now. Just this word right here, I'm about to read you Christ
speaking right here. Verse 14. Now therefore, fear
the Lord. He showed you all your idols
of vanity. He showed you all your idols
of nothing. He said, now therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in
sincerity and in truth. The word is, in spirit and in
truth. Christ is the only one that can
make us do that. He says, and put away the gods
which your father served on the other side of the flood and in
Egypt, and serve ye the Lord. When does a sinner have the fear
of the Lord in his heart? When does he stop speaking out
against God and acting like he's a giant before God? When Christ
commands it in his heart. And he says, fear the Lord. He'll
start fearing, he'll tremble then. He'll see who he is in
the light of who God is. When will we serve him in spirit
and truth? When Christ commands it in our heart. When will we
repent and put away the idols of our vain imagination? When
Christ speaks it in our heart. That's when we do it. Joshua
might have spoken these words, but I'm telling you this, only
Christ can speak them effectually into the heart and make a man
do this. And as that gospel goes forth, Christ makes us put away
all our so-called choices by effectually teaching us that
all our choices are vanity. Now look at this. He says this
to us, verse 15. If it seem evil unto you to serve
the Lord. Does it seem evil unto you to
serve the Lord? Do you think this is an evil thing we're doing
here? If so, if so, this is what Christ speaks when He speaks
effectually in the heart of His people. Some just hear the general
call. They just hear this like everybody hears it. But some
hear it in the heart. Listen to this now. Verse 15.
If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose this day whom
you will serve then. And He's saying to us, your choices
are nothing. Here's your choices. serve the
gods which your father served that were on the other side of
the flood? Christ just declared to us they were nothing. He just
said, I conquered every one of them. I deliver my people from
every one of them. Or will you choose the gods of
the Amorites in the land in which you dwell? When does Christ conquer
the idols in our hearts and turn us from all the idols amongst
the people in whom we dwell? It's when He begins to speak
affectionately in our heart. That's when we begin to really
hear Christ speak in the scriptures and in his gospel. And so it's
by his gospel that he effectually turns us and he brings us to
faith in Christ. What's the outcome when that
happens? Here's the outcome. Look at verse 16. And the people
answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the Lord
to serve other gods. And then they gave God the glory
for delivering them. And then look at verse 18 at
the end. And they said, Therefore will we also serve the Lord,
for He is our God. And then Joshua speaks for the
first time. And I'm running short on time.
Here's what he tells them. He tells them, Now you can't
serve the Lord, because He's holy and He's righteous. He said,
You can't serve the Lord. Well, he said he's going to call
me to serve the Lord. But he's saying to you, listen
to me, you can't serve the Lord. You need a mediator to serve
the Lord for you. One who is righteous, one who
is holy, one who can accomplish the law for his people and put
away the sins of his people and cure his people and make his
people whole and present his people to God. Well, what work
is it whereby I serve the Lord then? This is the work of God,
Christ said in John 6, that you believe on Him whom He has sent.
Boy, if you could just get this. Over here, you got 600 and something
laws. 613, I believe it is, as in the
Mosaic Law. And over here, you got faith
in Christ. Now, if you want to come to God
this way, what God requires is You do absolutely everything
perfectly with not a sinful thought. And then once you've done that,
you've sinned prior to that point that you decided you'd do that,
you've got to put away your sin. That requires death, eternal
death, the death that never dies. That's what Christ fulfilled
that law and put away the sin of His people on Calvary's tree.
Here's the other. Believe on Him. and he'll carry
you to God. Whole. The work done. A fool. God says the fool says in his
heart, no God. No. No God. And that's a fool. You're darn right, that's a fool.
That is a fool. He earned that name. But look
what Joshua told him. When he told him that, look at
verse 24. And the people said unto Joshua, The Lord our God
we will serve, and His voice will we obey. not just the word
of God's commandment, but His voice, the essential word, Christ,
the Son of God. They said, then we'll serve Him
by believing on Christ. Christ said, my sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they follow me. They said, we'll believe
on Him. And here's what happens, for
time's sake, you can read verses 25 through 28 later, but Joshua
did in type what God does for us. God makes with His believing
child an everlasting covenant ordered in all things in sure.
It's not a two-way covenant. That was the covenant of works.
If you do this, God said, I'll do this. No, the covenant of
grace is, it's all done. It's ordered and it's sure because
it's all written in Christ's blood. He wrote this down in
a tablet and you know where he put it? He put it in the ark.
That ark pictured Christ. And it's written down. This covenant
is written and it's sealed and it's in Christ. And then he did
something else. He wrote this on a stone. This
covenant is written in the wounds of Christ, our Lord, who is the
chief cornerstone. It can't be altered. It can't
be changed whatsoever. God satisfied. It's done. So
having brought us to faith, this is the last thing Joshua did.
It says, He let them go unto their inheritance. And that's
what Christ does for His child. When He brings us to faith in
Christ, He sets us free. He sets us at liberty to worship
Him in spirit and in truth unto our eternal inheritance. We saw
it last week, that inheritance we saw. Now, brethren, Christ
is the head of His house. Ephesians 4 says, From whom the
whole body is fitly joined together, and effectually, by his effectual
working in the measure of every part, it increases to the edifying
of itself in love. Christ said, He can say this
with absolute certainty, As for me and my house, we will serve
the Lord. Joshua could say that, but he
couldn't bring it to pass. You and I could say that, but
we can't. Ours get up older and they're gone. They're going to
worship who they want to worship. But Christ can say this of all
His children, as for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord.
We shall. And I tell you this too, we who
believe, we don't have a choice. And here's the good news, we
don't want a choice. It's the world that wants the choices.
It's the world that says, oh, don't take my choices from me.
Take your choices then and go to hell with them, because that's
where you're headed. The believer don't want a choice. God's made
us willing in the day of His power. And we're satisfied because
we believe Christ now and we know that everything He's declared,
that's who He is. You remember when all the multitude
turned and walked away from Christ? Christ didn't chase them. He
didn't run around from house to house saying, oh, just come
back. I want you to come back now. I'm going to try to be a
better pastor to you. No. He turned around to His disciples. He said, you want to go too?
Will you go away also? And you know what they said?
To whom shall we go? We got no choice. You have the
words of eternal life and we believe and we're sure you are
that Christ, the Son of the living God. No choice. Amen. Let's stand together and we'll
be dismissed and take about a 5-10 minute break. Heavenly Father, God of all vain gods, we thank
you that you've put the work of redemption in the hand of
your Son, Christ Jesus. Lord, make your people hear this
message. Separate us from the vain choices
and make us content that God is true and every man is alive.
that Christ has accomplished the work and it's done. Make
us to cast all our care on your hand. Forgive us of our sin,
Lord. We ask it now in Christ Jesus.
Amen.