Go with me, if you would, back
to Joshua 24. Joshua 24, I want to give you
an example, a little trivial illustration to set up a point,
okay? Do you remember, and if you are
a certain age, I know you do, But do you remember a TV commercial
back in the early 80s that was about a cereal that was supposed
to be healthy, and the catch line in it was, give it to Mikey,
he'll try anything. You remember that? Every time
somebody ended up with leftovers at the end of the meal, what
do we do with it? We give it to Mikey. He'll eat anything. Did you know that that is not
what that TV commercial says? Did you know that? Everybody,
I'm telling you, everybody says, give it to Mikey, he'll eat anything. That is not what the TV commercial
says. You can get on the internet and
see whether these things be so. This is what it says. Those two
brothers are pushing the bowl back and forth and one of them
finally says, let's get Mikey. I wrote it down. He won't eat
it. He hates everything. That's what
it says. So they push the bowl over to
Mikey and he starts going to town on it and they have this
shocked look on their face. He likes it. So they try to get
the bowl back. All right? People misquote things. People misquote things all the
time. And it spreads like wildfire. People miss the context of things
all the time. They miss what is really being
said all the time. This right here is a scripture
where masses of people, masses of people have done that very
thing. The second line in verse 15 says, choose you this day
whom ye will serve. Masses of people have misquoted
that and taken it out of context saying right now, Today, we're
drawing a line right here in the sand. You choose whether
or not you are going to serve God or something else. Right now, you take your stand
right now. Are you going to serve God or
not? That is not what that verse is
saying. That's not what that verse is
saying. Look at verse 19. We'll get to that verse, but
look at verse 19, Joshua 24, 19. And Joshua said unto the
people, you cannot serve the Lord for he is holy. He's a holy God. He is a jealous
God. He will not forgive your transgressions
nor your sins. He said, the problem is your
sin. That's the reason you can't.
Now, there is something to know about serving the Lord. Do God's people serve the Lord?
Do they serve the Lord? There's something to know about
it, and I pray the Lord will make it clear. That's my prayer
to Him tonight, is that He will make this clear. Look back with
me at Joshua 22. You remember that two and a half
of the twelve tribes, they wanted the land on the east side of
Jordan, and Moses said, you can have it, but you have to go fight
with your brethren until they possess their land, and after
they do, you can go home. Well, they did that, and this
is Joshua sending them back home. So Joshua 22 verse 1, Then Joshua
called the Reubenites and the Gadites, and half the tribe of
Manasseh, and said unto them, You have kept all that Moses
the servant of the Lord commanded you, and have obeyed my voice
and all that I commanded you. You've not left your brethren
these many days unto this day, but have kept the charge of the
commandment of the Lord your God. And now the Lord your God
hath given rest unto your brethren as he promised them. Therefore
now return ye and get you unto your tents and unto the land
of your possession which Moses the servant of the Lord gave
you on the other side Jordan, but take diligent heed to do
the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord
charged you." Now this is what he told them, you take diligent
heed to do what Moses charged you to do and this is what it
is. He went on to say, to love the Lord your God and walk in
all his ways and keep His commandments, and cleave unto Him, and serve
Him with all your heart and with all your soul." So Joshua blessed
them and sent them away, and they went unto their tents. That
was not only the commandment to them, that's the commandment
to the entire world. The entire world. Love the Lord
your God, walk in all His ways, keep His commandments, cleave
unto Him, And serve Him. Serve Him with all your heart
and all your soul. Now, we're going to get right
to the point. There is only one man that has
ever done that. Jesus Christ. Because this is a huge issue
with the world. This is a huge issue. I mean,
this is the basis of religion, false religion. There is only
one man who has ever done that. They didn't do it. That's what
Joshua charged them to do, but they didn't do it. No man before
them did it. No man after them has done it.
Only one man. And to insinuate, for anyone
to insinuate that we can accomplish before God the same thing that
He accomplished is stealing His glory from Him. That's what it's
doing. There is one man that God the
Father said, that is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. One man. So we do not steal His
glory from Him. Joshua gave them, he gave the
children of Israel this final exhortation before he died in
chapter 23. If you look with me at chapter
23 verse 1, it came to pass a long time after that the Lord had
given rest unto Israel from all their enemies round about that
Joshua waxed old and stricken in age, and Joshua called for
all Israel, and for their elders, and for their heads, and their
judges, and their officers, and said unto them, I am old and
stricken in age." Joshua 23 verse 3. And you have seen all that
the Lord your God hath done unto all these nations because of
you, For the LORD your God is He that hath fought for you."
God has done every bit of this for you. That's what He's telling
them. Every bit of it. These are, you
know, we love David's last words, don't we? These are David's last,
these are Joshua's last words. He said in verse 6, Be ye therefore
very courageous to keep and to do all that's written in the
book of the law of Moses, that ye turn not aside therefrom to
the right hand or to the left. He said keep God's commandments.
Don't turn from them. That's the exhortation. That's
the commandment that goes out. Verse 8, But cleave unto the
Lord your God, as you have done unto this day. You keep His commandments
and you cleave to Him. Verse 11, Take good heed therefore
unto yourselves, that you love the Lord your God. Love the Lord
your God. This is commanded of everybody. Verse 14, And behold, this day
I am going the way of all the earth. I'm going the way that
every man and woman must go. It's appointed unto man once
to die. And he said, I'm going back to the dust. This is it.
These are my last words. Behold, this day I'm going the
way of all the earth, and you know in all your hearts and in
all your souls that not one thing hath failed of all the good things
which the Lord your God spake concerning you All are come to
pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof." He said,
you know that. Not one thing has failed. Nothing. But he warned them in
verse 15. Therefore it shall come to pass. that as all good things are come
upon you which the Lord your God promised you, so shall the
Lord bring upon you all evil things until he have destroyed
you from off this good land which the Lord your God hath given
you, when you have transgressed the covenant of the Lord your
God which he commanded you, and have gone and served other gods,
and bowed yourselves to them, Then shall the anger of the Lord
be kindled against you, and you shall perish quickly from off
the good land which he hath given unto you." He did not say if you serve other gods. He said
when. He said in verse 15, it shall
come to pass. The reason is because this heart
is deceitful above all things and it is desperately wicked.
Desperately wicked. And when it comes to this issue
of serving and choosing God, here's where we must begin. If
somebody wants to talk about drawing the line on serving God
and choosing God, we have to start right here. all this heart
is capable of is serving this flesh and choosing sin. That's it. That's it. That's all I'm capable of. The commandment from God is. It's in here. It is. Serve the
Lord. That's the commandment. But we
must first acknowledge that I can't. Not in this flesh. The Apostle
Paul said in Romans 7, I want to, but I can't. Not in the flesh. Not in the flesh. Now chapter
24. This is the last chapter in Joshua.
Chapter 24, verse 1, Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem
and called for the elders of Israel and for their heads, for
their judges, and for their officers. And they presented themselves
before God. And Joshua said to all the people,
Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other
side of the flood in old time. Even Terah, the father of Abraham,
and the father of Nacor, and they served other gods. This
is what he said. They were serving other gods
when I came to them. They were idol worshippers. I
did not come to them because they were serving me. I didn't
call Abraham my friend because he was serving me. I didn't save
him because he was serving me. This whole thing started with
idolatry. They were all serving other gods. Isn't that the case with this
congregation? All of us. Now watch how many
times God Almighty says, I. Verse 3, And I took your father
Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout
all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac.
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. I sent Moses also and Aaron,
and I plagued Egypt. according to that which I did
among them, and afterward I brought you out. And 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, He put darkness between
you and the Egyptians and brought the sea upon them and covered
them and your eyes have seen what I have done in Egypt and
you dwelt in the wilderness a long season. He's just recounting
to them. He's reminding them. I have done all these things. I the Lord do all these things.
Verse 8, I brought you into the land of the Amorites which dwelt
on the other side Jordan and they fought with you and I gave
them into your hands that you might possess their land and
I destroyed them from before you. Then Balak the son of Zippor,
king of Moab, arose and warred against Israel, and sent and
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. And you went over Jordan
and came unto Jericho, and the men of Jericho fought against
you, the Amorites, the Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites,
Hivites, Jebusites, and I delivered them into your hands. And I sent
the hornet before you, which draved them out from before you,
even the two kings of the Amorites, but not with thy sword, nor with
thy bow." You didn't do it. Your army didn't go there with
a sword and a bow and do this. I did this. Verse 13, and I have
given you a land for which you did not labor. And I think about
the fact that he is gone, didn't he tell his apostles, I go to
prepare a place for you, I'm going to make a place ready for
you. He said in verse 13, I've given you a land 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. Everything has been given
to you, provided for you, laid out for you. I, the Lord, have
done all these things. Now that's the second thing we
need to understand in this thing of serving the Lord. He does
all things. I can't do anything and He must
do it all. Do God's people serve the Lord?
Well, let's start here. I can't do anything. And He must
do it all. He must. Verse 14 now. Now therefore fear the Lord and
serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods
which your father 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, and by nature it will. All right? the natural way of man, it will
seem evil to serve the Lord." He said, this is my command,
but if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you
this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father
served that were on the other side of a flood, or the gods
of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. They were all false
gods, every single one of them. Pick one. That's what he's saying. If evil is all you can do, and
wickedness and sin is all you're capable of, and the commandment
has gone out, serve the Lord, but it's impossible for you,
then you just pick something to serve. You just choose you
this day whom you will serve. You can either serve the false
gods that all your fathers were serving over there, or you can
serve all the false gods in the land you live in right now. Doesn't
matter. Just pick one. All of the other roads, but this
one road leads to destruction. And that's what he's saying.
Pick one. When men and women convince themselves
that they have the ability to choose to serve the Lord, they
have picked a little g-god. It's called themselves. They
have put salvation in their own hands. And that's what he's saying,
you just pick a God. And men and women do, and their
favorite one is right here. Right here. This is what our Lord said concerning
choosing Him. I know we know these, but let's
just turn to them real quick. I don't have many places to turn.
Go to Matthew 11. This is what our Lord said concerning choosing
Him. Matthew 11 verse 28, he said,
Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. That went out to the world. It still goes out to the world.
You come to Christ. You come to Christ. Come to Christ. He'll give you rest. He said,
Come to me. Where am I going to go? What
am I going to choose? Right here. Come to me. All right, now that commandment
goes out to everybody, but over in John 6, and I'll just quote
it to you, you know it. John 6, verse 44, he said, No
man can come to me, except the Father which has sent me. Draw
him, and I will raise him up at the last day. Here's the first
two things he said right there. You can't, I must. Isn't that
what he said? You can't. I must. No man. The call goes out. Come to me.
The call goes out. Serve the Lord. Love your God. Walk in all His ways. Keep His
commandments. And our Lord said, Come to me.
And then He said, You can't. You can't come to me. Joshua
said, Serve the Lord. And then He said, You can't serve
the Lord. You can't. Here's the goodness
of the gospel, and this is what I hope every believer in this
room tonight, I hope this will bless your heart as much as it
has blessed mine. I'm so thankful for this. Our
Lord said there in John 6, he said, you can't come to me, but
he also said, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. The Father is going to draw him.
And I am going to raise every single one of them up. The exact
same thing is said in our text. Go back over to Joshua 24. Now,
I have so enjoyed this book. When we started this book and
almost every time we've been in it, We have repeated the fact
that Joshua represents somebody. We always get that back in our
mind. Everything Joshua does represents what somebody has
done. And everything that Joshua says
represents something that somebody else has done. And that somebody
is Jesus Christ. Joshua represents the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now Joshua 24 verse 19, And Joshua
said unto the people. Alright, now let's just say,
Jesus Christ. Joshua means Savior. Joshua said
unto the people, You cannot serve the Lord. For He is an holy God. He is a jealous God. He will
not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. Now look at the
end of verse 15. He said, But as for Me and My
house, We will serve the Lord. You know what that means? You
can't do it. You can't do it. But Jesus Christ
said, as for me, now you can't do it. You can't serve God. You
can't love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your
soul. You can't walk in his statutes. You can't keep his commandments.
You can't do it. But as for me and my house, Every
soul God put in me, we are going to serve the Lord. We're going
to. We're going to. Outside of the
Lord Jesus Christ, there is no possible way a sinner can serve
God. No possible way. In the Lord
Jesus Christ, we're just as obedient as He is. just as perfect. His perfect will, His perfect
walk, every bit of it is applied to us. There's an old poem that
says, far so very far from God I could not farer be, but in
the person of His Son I am as near as He. Outside of Christ
I could not get any farer from God. But in the Lord Jesus Christ,
I could not get any nearer to God. He is God. I'm in God. Verse 16, I'll look at these
last few verses quickly. Verse 16, the people answered
and said, God forbid that we should forsake the Lord to serve
other gods. That's what the response of his
people is. God forbid that we should forsake
the Lord to serve other gods. For the Lord our God, He it is
that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from
the house of bondage, in which did those great signs in our
sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and
among all the people through whom we passed. And the Lord
drave out from before us all the people, even the Amorites,
which dwell in the land. Therefore we will also serve
the Lord, for He is our God." We acknowledge Him to be so,
we acknowledge our own condition, and we acknowledge what He's
done for us. Verse 19, And Joshua said unto the people, You cannot
serve the Lord, for He is an holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions
nor your sins. And He didn't. He didn't. He punished every single one
of our transgressions and our sins in the person of His Son. Every single one of them. We
do not want to approach God outside of Christ. We just do not. When it comes to this thing of
serving Lord, well, you're going to serve the Lord, brother, not
outside of Christ. I'm not coming any way at all
outside of Jesus Christ. Verse 20, if you forsake the
Lord and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you
hurt and consume you after that he hath done you good. And the
people said unto Joshua, no, but we will serve the Lord. We
are kept by the power of God. We are, he will not let us leave,
but he has caused us to not want to leave. We don't want to leave.
We do not want to. He said, My people shall be willing
in the day of My power. Verse 22, And Joshua said unto
the people, You are witnesses against yourselves, that you
have chosen you, the Lord, to serve Him. And they said, We
are witnesses. We are all witnesses against
ourselves, aren't we? And we're for the Lord. We're
against ourselves and for the Lord. We all say, Not unto us,
O Lord. Not unto us, unto thy name give
glory. Now, will a man choose God? Will a man choose God? The answer is absolutely. After God chooses him. Absolutely. John 15 verse 16, he said, You
have not chosen me, But I have chosen you and ordained you that
you should bring forth fruit. What is the fruit? A heart that
cries, I choose you. That's the fruit. You didn't
choose me. I chose you to put fruit in there. And that fruit
cries, I choose you. Will a man love God? A man who
is naturally at enmity against God. Will a man love God? Absolutely. after God loves him. We love him because he first
loved us. Verse 23, Now therefore put away,
saith he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your
heart unto the Lord God of Israel. And the people said unto Joshua,
The Lord our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey. And Joshua made a covenant with
the people that day. Thank God for the covenant. and
set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. And Joshua wrote
these words in the book of the law of God and took a great stone
and set it up there under an oak that was by the sanctuary
of the Lord. And Joshua said unto the people,
Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us For it hath heard all
the words of the Lord which he spake unto us. It shall be therefore
a witness unto you lest you deny your God. That reminds me of
when Samuel set a stone and he named it Ebenezer. You remember
that? Ebenezer. He said we're calling
this stone Ebenezer. That means hither by thy help
I'm come. Joshua said right here, here
we're going to raise an Ebenezer. Here I raise mine Ebenezer, hither
by thy help. That's the witness that we have.
I'm here because you put me here. They all are in Canaan. And they
said we're here because God put us here. Verse 29, it came to
pass after these things that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant
of the Lord, died, being an hundred and ten years old. And they buried
him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-sera, which is in
Mount Ephraim on the north side of the hill Gaash. And Israel
served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of
the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the words
of the Lord that he had done for Israel. And the bones of
Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt,
buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground, which Jacob bought
for the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces
of silver, and it became the inheritance of the children of
Joseph. And Eleazar the son of Aaron died, and they buried him
in a hill that pertained to Phinehas his son, which was given him
in Mount Ephraim. They took Joseph's bones back
in Genesis 50, First book of the Bible, all the books of Moses,
and now here we're in Joshua. And at the end, Genesis 50, Joseph
said, don't leave my bones in Egypt. You take them with you,
and when God has given you deliverance, when God finally puts you in
the promised land, you bury my bones right there. And that's
what they did. And now it's finished. It's all
finished. All the commandments, everything
that was required is finished. Everything is fulfilled and satisfied
and Joshua gave all the people rest. And that's it. That is the end for us. After
all the conquering, after all the fighting, after all the consuming,
the end is perfect peace and rest. I mean rest. Our Joshua has given us, I love
how it says every man in Solomon's day had his own vine and fig
tree. Joshua has given us rest. Joshua
has provided us with an inheritance. It'll never be taken away. And
I skipped verse 28 on purpose. It says, So Joshua let the people
depart, every man unto his inheritance. And that's what Christ did for
us. He earned it all. He gave it all. And he said,
You're free to go. Free to go. And all of us say
we don't want to go anywhere. Are we free to stay right here?
Yes, you are. Then that's where we stay. Right
here. Perfect peace and rest. Let's
all stand together.