The times of conquering are over! The Promised Land is settled.  Everyone has a place to live.  God has granted and time of peace and rest to the Israelites.  God’s leader, Joshua has been a great leader who stood firm in obedience to God.  Joshua sought the Lord’s guidance, declaring opening that it is God is the One he and his household love and serve.  Joshua chose to love God back with all his heart, mind, and soul.  Now, as Joshua ages, he bids farewell to the people he has served with words of encouragement as well as warnings to never turn their focus from the One and Only God.  Most great leaders devoted to God, who give their lives to God, love God wholeheartedly, and obey all that God says, speak last words such as these:

“You have seen all that God has done.”  Godly leaders give all glory to God.

“God always does what He promises.”  Godly leaders know their part of God’s mission—even when it is hard and beyond their own abilities to accomplishment.  They know that where God guides; He provides all that is needed.

“It was the Lord your God who fought for you.”  Godly leaders know from where their strength and wisdom comes from and give all glory to God!

“Choose this day whom you will serve.  As for me and my house, we choose God.”  (Joshua 24) Godly leaders reflect who they believe in their behaviors.  Demonstrating God’s mission is powerful for those making their choice.

“Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, all your mind, and all your heart.” God’s command from the beginning.  Godly leaders know that God wants us to love him back as much as He loves us.  “We love Him because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

“Remember, don’t look back, hold fast to the Lord, your God.”  It is God who loves most and wants His best for us.  Remember that and don’t look back!

Joshua 23

Joshua’s Farewell to the Leaders

After a long time had passed and the Lord had given Israel rest from all their enemies around them, Joshua, by then a very old man, ² summoned all Israel—their elders, leaders, judges, and officials—and said to them: “I am very old. ³ You yourselves have seen everything the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake; it was the Lord your God who fought for you. ⁴ Remember how I have allotted as an inheritance for your tribes all the land of the nations that remain—the nations I conquered—between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea in the west. ⁵ The Lord your God himself will push them out for your sake. He will drive them out before you, and you will take possession of their land, as the Lord your God promised you.

⁶ “Be very strong; be careful to obey all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, without turning aside to the right or to the left. ⁷ Do not associate with these nations that remain among you; do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them. ⁸ But you are to hold fast to the Lord your God, as you have until now.

⁹ “The Lord has driven out before you great and powerful nations; to this day no one has been able to withstand you. ¹⁰ One of you routs a thousand, because the Lord your God fights for you, just as he promised. ¹¹ So be very careful to love the Lord your God.

¹² “But if you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, ¹³ then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁴ “Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed. ¹⁵ But just as all the good things the Lord your God has promised you have come to you, so he will bring on you all the evil things he has threatened, until the Lord your God has destroyed you from this good land he has given you. ¹⁶ If you violate the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land he has given you.”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Know God.  Know the Enemy.

God knows we our weaknesses as well as our strengths.  He knows exactly what we need when we need it because God knows all the schemes of Satan, His Enemy.  God knew how much Satan wanted to be Him. God knew his character traits were pride, greed, envy, comparisons in power and importance, using whatever and whomever to get what he wanted for himself.  Satan’s hate for God escalated when God threw Satan out of heaven.  Satan would forever be known as the “fallen angel”; the one kicked out of heaven to earth. Satan dedicated himself to be the prince of this world on earth with the mission to distract, deceive, deconstruct, dismantle and ultimate destroy all allegiance and faith of God’s created humans. If you think banning this angel from heaven was harsh to our modern, highly sensitive, easily offended lifestyles, then you aren’t understanding the full picture.  Satan is everything God is not.  Satan was and is a the “chief among liars.”  (See John 8:44; 2 Corinthians 4:4) Interestingly, Satan and his demons fear God! Like roaches, they hide in the dark when the Light comes to expose them.   

Now knowing this, let’s fully understand the reason God ask Moses then Joshua to conquer and subdue all who were residing in the Promised Land before taking possession and settling there. It seems to us; Canaan was Satan’s playground of evil practices.  Humans were obsessed with all things evil as a result.  God and evil cannot occupy the same space.  One had to go. God chose Evil to depart from the land.

As we read the book of Joshua, it is hard to embrace killing everyone in the conquered cities with destruction. “No survivors was the recurrent refrain.  We look back from our time in history and think, how horrible. But if we were able to put ourselves back in the thirteenth century B.C., we might see it differently, for that Canaanite culture was a snake pit of child sacrifice and sacred prostitution, practices ruthlessly devoted to using the most innocent and vulnerable members of the community (babies and virgins) to manipulate God or gods for gain.”—Eugene Peterson, The Message Bible Commentary

“People who want God as an escape from reality, from the often hard conditions of this life, don’t find this much to their liking.  But to the man or woman wanting more reality, not less—this continuation of the salvation story—Joshua’s fierce and devout determination to win land for his people and his extraordinary attention to get all the tribes and their families name by name assigned to their own place, is good news indeed.  Joshua lays a firm foundation for a life that is grounded.”—Peterson, Msg Bible

PAUSE:  Who or what foundation are we building our lives upon?  God or the gods of our world?  God’s Word or the lies of the enemy?

Before Joshua died, he reminded the people of all that God had done for them and all the ways God had blessed them. Then he pleaded with them not to serve other gods, or they would be destroyed.  Joshua reminded the people of their inheritance and God’s protection. His well-known words still challenge us today: “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15).

The great accomplishment of the Hebrew people came down to this: “Then Joshua dismissed the people, each to their own inheritance” (Jos 24:28). 

We who believe and follow Jesus as Savior and Lord also have a great inheritance! 

“For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” Romans 8:14-17, NIV

“Abba,” a special word of precious endearment to our Father for life who is God.  Wow.

Through Joshua, God’s people received their inheritance of the land He promised.

Through Jesus, we have received salvation from our sins with the inheritance of eternal life!

It time for us to pause, reflect, and remember all that God has done for us and given so graciously to us.  I challenge you to make a list and revisit it often with grateful praise and thanksgiving.  I’m sure the list will grow each time you remember to read it!  Now, let us thank God for the inheritance he has granted us through Christ who set us free!

Lord,

Thank you for all you have done, are doing and will do as you mold and shape me to be all you created me to be. Thank you for saving my soul and making me whole. Thank you for daily cleansing my heart of all that is not you, renewing my mind with the power to transform my behaviors while refreshing and filling my soul with your fresh tender mercies. Thank you for daily restoring the joy (and peace) of your salvation work within me.  Thank you for caring and loving us they way you do. I’m standing on your firm foundation—the promises of love, mercy, grace and the hope of eternal life! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

In Jesus Name, Amen