Passing the Torch

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Will you turn in your Bibles with me to the book of Joshua, Joshua chapter 23. Joshua 23. If you're using your pew bibles, you'll be able to find that on page 215. Joshua 23. Hear now God's perfect and holy word.

Now it came to pass a long time after the Lord had given rest to Israel from all their enemies round about, that Joshua was old, advanced in age. And Joshua called for all Israel, for their elders, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers, and said to them, I am old, advanced in age.

And you have seen all that Yahweh your God has done to all these nations because of you. For Jehovah your God, He is He who has fought for you. See, I have divided to you by lot these nations that remain to be an inheritance for your tribes. From the Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off as far as the great sea westward. And Jehovah your God will expel them from before you and drive them out from of your sight. So you shall possess their land as Jehovah your God promised you.

Therefore be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses lest you turn aside from it to the right or to the left. And lest you go among these nations, these who remain among you, you shall not make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause anyone to swear by them. You shall not serve them nor bow down to them, but you shall hold fast to Jehovah your God, as you have done this day. For Jehovah has driven out from before you great and strong nations, but as for you, no one has been able to stand against you to this day.

One man of you shall chase a thousand, for Jehovah your God is he who fights for you as he promised you. Therefore, take careful heed to yourselves that you love Jehovah your God. Or else, if indeed you do go back and cling to the remnant of these nations, these that remain among you, and make marriages with them, and go into them, and they to you, know for certain that Jehovah your God will no longer drive out these nations from before you, but they shall be as snares and traps to you, and scourges on your side, and thorns in your eyes. until you perish from this good land which Jehovah your God has given you.

Behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth. And you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing has failed from all the good things which Jehovah your God says concerning you. All have come to pass for you. Not one word of them has failed.

Therefore, let it come to pass that as all the good things have come upon you, which Jehovah your God promised you, so Jehovah will bring you all harmful things until he has destroyed you from this good land, which Jehovah your God has given you. When you have transgressed the covenant of Jehovah your God, which He commanded you, and have gone and served other gods and bowed down to them, then the anger of Jehovah will burn against you, and you shall perish quickly from the land which He has given you.

Prayer for Illumination

Let's pray. Father, You are a covenant-keeping God. And we pray now that as we read your word, that Father, you would be teaching us. Father, we need your spirit. We need you to guide us and lead us, Lord. Watch over us this hour. Give me words to speak in Jesus's name. Amen. Our God is a covenant-keeping God. That's what you need to take home today, right? Our God is a covenant-keeping God. Our God is the one who remembers His promises, and He wants us to follow Him. Our God is a God who enters into covenant, enters into a relationship with us, and the condition we must follow is love. Love your God as He has loved you.

Sermon

And so as the old man Joshua assembles all the leaders of the people together, the first five verses he wants them to remember what Jehovah has done for them. This is the end of his life. We know this from the middle of the chapter when he says that he's going the way of all the earth. This might be as long as 25 years after they've crossed over the Jordan River. This is a quarter of a century later, up to that long. And now Joshua is old. He knows that he's at the doorstep of death. And so he assembles them together.

And in verse one, He wants to tell them that God has conquered the enemies. That God has given rest to Israel from all their enemies all around. This doesn't mean that every single Canaanite people is gone. Everywhere that they have gone to battle, they've won. Every time they go to push people out, they flee. God has done all the heavy lifting of the conquering has been done. The majority of the nations have been pushed out. Victory is all but sure if they will only continue on the path that they are going.

And so he calls them together in verse 2. Old man Joshua. Notice who he calls together. This is a passing of the torch. And Joshua called for all Israel, for their elders. In chapter 24, he's going to call for all the people. But in this chapter, in chapter 23, he's got the leaders in mind. He's got the elders. He's got the tribal leaders. He's got, you know, there's the head of Naphtali, and he's walking down the road to come most likely to Shiloh to hear from Joshua. There's the leader of Judah.

He's coming up to Shiloh. there's the leaders from Manasseh and Gad and Reuben and they're coming to hear from Joshua there you have the judges all throughout the different tribes who hear the various cases that are going to come before and they all come at the end of Joshua's life and are going to hear from their sage elderly leader and in verse 3 as he calls them he reminds them that they are eyewitnesses You have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations.

Now we need to stop there, because you might have been a little put off or scratching your head, because what I was reading wasn't exactly what's in the English Bible right in front of you. In verse 3, notice what it says. You have seen all that the Lord your God has done. Notice how Lord is spelt. if you're teaching your children grammar you normally have to tell them you know you don't write everything in all caps maybe if you go into the military you need to write everything in all caps or maybe if you're using you know social media and you want to it's not yelling lord you know no this is this is the tetragrammaton the four letter name for god yod hey vav hey y h w h yehovah or yahweh this is the covenant name for god And at first when I was translating this passage, you know, okay, it says at one time, 13 times this phrase is used in these 16 verses. Yehovah your God, Yehovah your God, Yehovah your God, Yehovah your God, Yehovah your God, Yehovah your God, Yehovah your God. It is Yehovah your God who has done all these things. It is your covenant entering God who is your God.

You are his people and he's driven out all the people. Now just to make sure we understand, this is Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, this covenant name. People argue whether this is Jehovah or Jehovah. Greek people, or German people don't have the Y, they have a J, so instead of Y it's a J. I can show you guys that stuff later. But whether it's Yahweh or Jehovah, this is the name that God revealed Himself to Moses.

This is the name that Jewish people, even today, won't say that name. If you go to a rabbinical school and you write out the Tetragrammaton, well, one, you're never allowed to write out the Tetragrammaton because what might happen? You might erase it. So, if you're going to have a whiteboard, they have a little plaque that they put the name there if you're writing out a Hebrew verse, because you never want to erase the name of God but in the midst of that Jewish people were so afraid to use this name that they just said let's just instead of saying the name we'll either say the name Hashem or we'll say Adonai Lord and so they put the name in the background out of a maybe a good heart of trying to keep the third commandment but in all reality an irreligious heart this is how God reveals himself They're Yahweh's people. They're not Baal's people. They're not Asherah's people. They're not Chemosh's people. They're not Molech's people. They're none of the Canaanites or the Sidonians people. No, they are Yahweh's people.

They are marked in their identity by the one true living God who made heaven and earth and everything that is in it. And so He calls them together here and He's going to press this again and again and again. For Yahweh your God is He who fought for you. He had been fighting for them before they entered the land. In the book of Deuteronomy He said He was going before them and He was striking fear in the hearts of the Canaanite people so that when they came they would flee from them.

And they had seen it with their own eyes. They had been there. When they marched around Jericho, no one threw a stone, no one had a battering ram, no one set fire to the city. All they did was march and blow the Lord's trumpets, and the walls came down.

The Lord fought for his people. They had been there when they fought against Ai, and God had told Joshua, here's the ambush you're to set, here's the strategy you're to follow, so that way the city of Ai will fall to you. They were there and they saw it happen when they were fighting in the valley, and God sent hailstones down in chapter 10, and killed more people with hail than people who died by the sword. And then if that wasn't enough, in chapter 10 verse 12, Joshua even prayed that the Lord would cause the sun to stand still, and the sun stopped in the middle of the day, so the Israelites could continue in battle. They had seen these with their own eyes. They had seen the battles. They had been there. They knew that God was fighting for them.

And so in verse 4, he says, remember what God has done. He's given you these battles. He's given you an inheritance. And I have, verse 4, I have divided to you by lot these nations that remain. From the Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off as far as the great sea westward. And then in verse 5, and Yahweh your God will expel them from before you and drive them out of your sight, so you shall possess their land as Yahweh your God has promised you." God had started this. An old man Joshua is standing there, he's about to say, I'm going the way of all the earth, I'm about to die.

But God isn't going to stop fighting for you when I die. because God's promises don't die. When you continue to push out the people, God will continue to fight for you. So leaders of the people need to remember Remember who God is as a covenant-entering God. Remember who God is as a covenant-keeping God. Remember who God is as the one who fights for them. The integrity of the nation depends on these leaders of the people remembering who their God is and what their God has done.

Because if they turn away, if the people turn, God will never turn. But if the people turn, disaster is ahead. And so as he calls the people together, he's telling them to remember what God has done. In our lives, likewise, we ought to remember what God has done in the past. This is no book of fables. There's archaeological proof of these things happening. Remember what God has done historically in your life and in the annals of history. Remember what the promises are that God gave to his people. We as God's people must remember who he is and what he has done and what he has promised to do for us. He starts there. Verses 1 through 5 is this call to remember. But we still got to do something. We still got to do something. Every covenant is conditional. And here the condition is love.

Verses 6 through 11 is this commandment that we are to love God. We must love Our God, it isn't enough that we just remember the things that God has done in the past, but now we need to act faithfully towards our God who has been faithful to us. Look with me at verse 6.

Therefore be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, lest you turn aside from it to the right or to the left. Be very courageous. This echoes what God had even told Joshua himself in chapter 1. Be strong and of good courage. Why? Why would it take such courage to keep God's law?

Doesn't that seem simple? Don't murder. Okay, I'm not going to murder. Here's a hard one. Don't commit adultery. Okay, that's fine. I won't commit adultery. But it does take a lot of courage. It takes a lot of courage to follow God's commands, to keep His covenant.

There's social pressure on people to join in with slandering. There's social pressure, you know, about how easy it is to try to make easy money and cheat and steal. It would be easy for the Jewish people to join in with crude jokes and making fun of God's name. It would be easy to just go along with the crowd, with the social pressures, to just enjoy doing work on the Sabbath rather than... resting in their God.

Everybody else gets to go out and have fun. Everybody else gets to go gather sticks. Everybody else gets to have big parties and get an extra day of efficient work in, and I have to do what? Go to temple? The societal pressure on them is real. It'd be easy for mocking your parents when all your friends are making fun of their moms and dads. Man, you know those high places where the fertility cults are? That's where all the cool people are going. That's where it looks like there's a lot of fun. There's a lot of sexual things going on there.

You feel your heart tug to go there, and God's saying, no, hold on. No. It's going to take courage for you to keep my covenant. But maybe you're one of those people, you're like, I'm above peer pressure. Maybe you're like, I don't think this would take too much courage. Well, think about the economic courage you would have to have to remember God's covenant.

Would you really only work six days a week? When you're in a hand-to-mouth society? When it's sustenance farming? Are you really going to take one whole day off? What happens when you wake up Sabbath morning and there's clouds in the horizon and it looks like hail is coming? and the barley is ripe, and you know that if you don't get out there and harvest, your family might starve. What will the people of God do?

Would they really not charge their countrymen interest, stay away from usury, absorb an interest on loans, When they hired someone to be a servant, would they really treat them like a slave and never actually give them their freedom after their six years of labor? When they bought their neighbor's property, they paid good money for their property? When the year of Jubilee came, would they actually give the land back? When they did loan out money, and the year of Jubilee came, and the debt was still owed, Would they cancel it?

Would they keep God's covenant? It's going to take a lot of courage. Remember, their wife is counting on that income coming from the land. Their children are depending on the help from the hired servants. Would they keep courage in the face of political pressure?

As they sit there, a confederacy? 12 tribes spread across a land without a central government? Yeah, they have Shiloh, but that's the religious center, but there's no political center in Israel. Because Yahweh is their king. Would they look at the nations around them and go, we don't need a king. The Lord fights for us.

Or would they want to be just like all the other nations around them? Would they actually keep His commandments? Would they look at the nations around them and see how they have all the horses and chariots? And when their armies line up on the frontiers and their spears and shields are shining in the sun, will they actually remember God's commandments that they weren't allowed to multiply these things? When they knew that their houses could be raided, would they actually have faith that God was going to protect them?

See, it's easy for us to look and go, come on, just have courage to keep his covenant. You know those social pressures, don't you? The political pressures. It'd be easier just to get along. Just go along with all the transgender stuff that's going on in society right now. It'd be a lot easier for you. You'd have a lot less problems if you would just put away some of your quirky convictions And you would just fall in line with American culture. It'd be a lot easier for you.

It takes courage. And so he tells them, therefore be very courageous to keep and do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, because why lest you turn aside from it to the right or to the left. And this is how it's primarily going to happen in verses 7 and 8.

And lest you go among these nations who remain among you, and you shall make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause anyone to swear by them, you shall not serve them nor bow down to them, but you shall hold fast to the Yahweh your God, as you have done to this day." If you break God's covenant, and you go and serve other gods, you failed. They're not allowed to intermix with the remaining Canaanites. He's not concerned here with the Rahabs, the Ruths, and the Uriahs.

He's not talking about those who would come out and say, we know that Yahweh is God, and He will be our God, and you will be our people, and wholesale conforming, converting, and coming to faith in the One True Living God. It's talking about the Philistines who worship Dagon. and you leave them there, guess what's going to happen? You're going to be enticed to follow. If you leave the Canaanites who are amongst you, their Asherah poles are going to be a temptation to you. You're going to want to bow down to them.

Now, some people will say this, and I remember I was confronted one time about this, they said, oh, you shouldn't even say the name of those pagan gods, right? Because scripture here says you shouldn't even remember their names. I'm not sure that that's actually the standard we want to go by, because if we do that, then the scripture itself violates that standard, because it mentions the names of the abominable god of Molech. But the question is, are you invoking their name in prayer? Are you calling upon people to make oaths in the name of a foreign God? Are you causing people to swear by them and to bow to them?

Again, we might think, oh, this doesn't really have much application for us. It might not in our American culture, but when I talk to our brothers and sisters in India, when I'm on the phone with the Indian pastors, they get spat on. They get slapped. People turn their faces at them because they tell Hindus, turn away from your idols and worship the one true God who made heaven and earth. When we pray for our brothers and sisters around the globe, we might not feel this, but the people in Burma do. The people in South Sudan know it. And we must not take up the name of their God, but turn wholesale to the Lord exclusively. I need a cling to God.

Look with me again at verses 7 and 8. Lest you go among the nations These who remain among you, you shall not mention the name of their gods, nor cause anyone to swear by them. You shall not serve them, nor bow down to them. But you shall hold fast to Yahweh your God." This is the fifth time this phrase has appeared. Yehovah your God, or Yahweh your God. This is the fifth time that it's saying, now you need to cling to Him. Bare knuckle everything in your might. Hold firm to Him. Hug tight to Him. Don't let Him go.

Imagine you're a little child walking along the street in New York City, and you're holding your father's hand. The street is crowded, the crowd is pressing in. And as you're walking down the street, you know that if you get pulled away from your father, if the crowd pushes you away, and you lose sight of your father, if you let go of his hand, he's going to be gone forever.

He's saying, you need to be like that kid who's clinging on to God forever. Holding as tight as you can, no matter how hard the crowd is pressing, and no matter how much you're going against the culture and it's pushing you away, you need to cling on to God. Hold on to Him, old man, Joshua is saying. Your loyalty must be to Him. You must hold on to your life. You must fight for fidelity. The world is trying to tug you away.

Jesus says the cares and the deceitfulness of wealth would try to choke out that love of God. The leaders of the people are going to try to be seduced by the attractiveness of all the governing systems around them, and God is saying, be faithful to Me. The elders of the people need to look to God. They need to have not fickle hearts, the hearts that cling to him, and Joshua commenced them.

What does he say in verse eight? But you shall hold fast to Jehovah your God, as you have done to this day. That must have rung sweet in their ears. As you have done so to this day. They had. God had been faithful and they had clung to their God. So Joshua reminds them in verse 10, that the leaders are the people of God's promises. Look at me at verse 10, or verse nine, sorry. For the Lord has driven out from before you great and strong nations, but as for you, no one has been able to stand against you this day. One man, of you shall chase a thousand. Why? For Jehovah your God is he who fights for you as he promised you.

The man with gray eyebrows and thinning hair still believes. Man, I love that. I love the older saints. I love getting to talk to Gloria in Virginia and Ralph when he was still alive. I love talking to some of you who are far older than I am and you're still clinging to the Lord. Joshua is still clinging to God. He says, he promised it to Moses. He said that when we came into the land, one man would chase away a thousand and it's still going to be so when I die. Why? Because God didn't change. It was God who promised it. And so if you keep the faith, if you cling to him, you're going to continue to advance and he will continue to drive out the people because the battle is the Lord's.

So cling to him and let him fight the battle. So in verse 11, he summarizes this. Therefore, right, the conclusion of this, therefore, Take careful heed of yourselves that you love the Lord your God. The seventh time that phrase has been used, the Lord your God. Love Him. Where the conclusion of the matter is no different than Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 5. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

Joshua is telling them to cling to God, to continue to love God, to hold on to God. And this isn't easy. If you have been married for more than a day, you know this is not easy. Love is not, a biblical love is not just a fleeting feeling of attraction or some type of emotion, but it is a dogged commitment to another person. Through thick or thin. Sickness or health? Richer or poorer? Better or worse?

And he's saying you need to love the Lord your God with all your strength. In the good times and in the bad. Try to build your marriage on feeling and attraction and you're going to fail. Right? Careful attention to your marriage is a dogged determination to love despite the temptations that may come along the way. So he tells them to be determined to love God. Right? There's all sorts of things to make them be tempted to leave Jehovah. I mean, you have to think, you can't even see this God. Right? The pillar of fire isn't there anymore. The manna has stopped.

They have the temple, but that's all the way in Shiloh. Some of these people live way up in Neftal in Zabulon. Some of them live on the other side of the Jordan River. You know, some of those Canaanites have trees. Asherah poles. There's fun stuff that happens there. The Canaanites, you know, some of them have Baal. He's the god of thunder. Every time that you see the clouds come in, okay, we know that our god reigns. You know, the pagans are sitting there and they're thinking, you know, we got all these fertility cults, the Philistines, they got Dagon, they got like this half-fish, half-man, this merman-ish type dude who is the god of mercantile and of the sea, and so he'll bring them wealth, and so every time a ship comes in there, they go, hey look, look, God gave us money. What do the Israelites have? They have an ark. They have a law. They have a testimony.

And they have the God who holds the storehouses of thunder. They worship the God who created the heavens and the earth. They serve the God who knits people together in their mother's womb. They serve the God who brings the harvest. They serve the God who's not some little local tribal deity who handles just one little part of life, but they serve the God of the universe.

So their hearts are going to be tempted to get pulled away by the things that are visual and the things that you would see in this life. And old man Joshua is telling the leaders of the people as he's passing the torch, don't be seduced by them. Love Yehovah, your God. We likewise must love the Lord with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We must love God and be unspotted from the world. We must remember what He has spoken and cling to His promises.

And there's a reality, this is the part, you know, if we just ended this, maybe some of you are like, well, we're out of time, Brian, you should probably just cut it off here, this is a pretty good time to stop. But this isn't where Joshua's sermon stops. We're gonna try to get through this quickly, but look with me at verses 12 through 16, as he tells them to remember one more thing, the warnings that come from Jehovah your God. is a conditional clause in verse 12.

Or else, if indeed you go back, after defeating all these people, if indeed you go back and you turn, and instead of doing what verse eight said, clinging to God, now what is this verse saying? You cling to the remnant of the people of these nations that remain among you and make marriages with them and go into them and them with you, know for certain that Yahweh your God will no longer drive out these nations from before you. But they shall be snares and traps to you and scourges on your sides, thorns in your flesh until you perish from this good land which the Lord your God has given you. You don't get to have God as your spouse and a second person on the side.

God plays for keeps. It's all or nothing. He's a jealous God. He will not share His glory with any other. It's either you serve the Lord, or be careful, because if you go around those people who are remaining, and you try to yoke yourself to them, tie yourself to them, it's going to be a snare. going to hurt you and the Lord's going to stop driving out the people.

It's no different today. I might think again, oh this is this is easy, right? Just go conquer them already. But their ladies are beautiful. But political alliances are a lot easier than continuing to fight for war. And here he's saying, no, no, no. If you go back and you cling to these people that I've told you I'm giving you their land, you're giving up the promises and you're committing adultery against the Lord. And what's going to happen? Two things. One, he's going to stop fighting for you. The conquest will be done. They will constantly, this is the second part, they will constantly be snares for you. If you don't think that's the case, That this didn't prove out historically?

You ever heard of what's going on in Israel right now between the Palestinians and the Israelites? The Jewish nation of Israel today? And the people, Hezbollah, who says that they have no right to the land? There are rockets being shot at each other today as a constant reminder that the Israelites did not follow this command.

Constant snare in their side. The imagery is harsh, isn't it? A barb in their eye? Have you ever, I've never gotten a barb in my eye, I've gotten like dirt in my eye from working underneath a truck or something. Could you imagine a thorn sticking in your eye, stuck underneath your eyelid and just scratching your eye all the time?

Saying if you go and marry their women, this is what it's gonna be like. If you enter into these political alliances with them, it's going to constantly pain you. It might seem nice right now, but it's going to hurt. As a way of application, let me just encourage you that this is still true today for Christians. And I encourage you young people, be very careful about the spouse you decide to take. About the girl or boy that you decide to get mixed up with. I've heard this language before from Young women who have talked about marrying an unbelieving spouse, they really loved this guy and they thought that they were doing good.

And then every time they want to go to church, they play the card, oh, you love your church more than you love your family. Not to mention if you try to tithe or give your time for service. Because then you're pitting your finances and especially your time and energy. Why don't you love us as much as you love the church?

Is what I will hear from some of these families. I'd love to spare your world of pain. A world of heartache. This is why God specifically says in 2 Corinthians not to yoke ourselves to unbelievers. Because there's pain. There's heartache. There's a trap, a snare, a scourge, a thorn in the eye. This is what Solomon found out. This is what Ahab realized marrying Jezebel. And so verse 14, it continues. Behold, look, notice this, this day I'm going the way of all the earth. He's saying, I'm going to die, guys. I'm going to end up in the graveyard, right outside. So listen up, I've got something to tell you.

You all know in your hearts and in your souls that not one thing has failed of all the good things which Yahweh your God spoke concerning all of you. All has come to pass for you. Not one word has failed. Old man Joshua is telling them they've seen it all. They know it in their hearts. They know it in their souls. They know it in the fabric of their being. that God has been faithful. They were little kids.

These judges, these elders, these chiefs were only knee high when they watched their dad paint the Passover blood across the doors. They were there as the mount shook with thunder and lightning as God gave the law. As he told Moses' covenant, they were there. This young generation, not old enough to fight, was there when they heard the spies come back and say, we can't do this. There's giants in the land and they heard old man Joshua. He was an old man then to them. When he said, it's a good land, God will give it to us.

And now old man Joshua is looking at these men The elders, the judges, the chiefs who he knew as they were running around and chasing each other. He's telling them, you were there when we crossed the Jordan River. You know it in your souls when Jericho fell that God was faithful. You saw it when we defeated the ten kings who came into a confederacy against us. You were there when I divided the land.

Everything God has promised has become true. Nothing has failed. You know it. And I know it to be the truth. You are witnesses to these truths. You know it experientially and you know it internally. You've seen what he's done to the Canaanites. And so now remember, remember what will happen if you turn your back on all of it. Verses 15 and 16.

Therefore, it shall come to pass that all the good things have come upon you which Yahweh your God promised you. God's done a bunch of good stuff for them. He's given them the good land. But just like He gave them the good land, the second half of verse 15. So the Lord, so Yahweh Himself will bring upon you harmful things until He has destroyed you from this good land, which Jehovah your God has given you. When you have transgressed the covenant of Jehovah your God, which He commanded you, and have gone and served other gods and bowed down to them, then the anger of Jehovah will burn against you and you shall perish quickly from the good land which He has given you." It says God's been good to you. God has loved you like a father giving good gifts. But if you turn your back on Him, If you turn away from Him, don't doubt for an instant that He's a just God. He will destroy you. The Israelites presumed on this hundreds of years. Talking about for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Read through the book of 1st and 2nd Kings. Read through the book of Judges. Read through the prophets.

And the Israelites gave themselves over to this idea that, well, maybe God is really just that gracious and generous. And we can continue to worship in the temple, but we can also have the high places on the side. God wouldn't be mocked. Eventually, the exile came. Eventually, the Assyrians destroyed the northern kingdom, exiled all the ten tribes. Down in the south, not much longer, Babylon besieged Jerusalem, starved them to the point of the brink of disaster, conquered the city, tore down the temple, took all the temple articles off to Babylon, captured their nobles and their best of people, and drug them to the Euphrates River. God always keeps His promises.

Now some of you might be like, whoa, Brian, why didn't you just stop at verse 12, man? You can imagine the judges, the elders, the officials, the tribe leaders being like, Dude, Joshua, this is not a very nice sermon. We liked the first part. We remember what you said. We liked when you told us to love God. But enough with all this, you know, hellfire and brimstone stuff, man. I mean, come on! Don't you know that God is gracious and loving and enduring and mercy and abounding in kindness? Tell us that stuff!

But it wouldn't be true, would it? It wouldn't be true. Because to only think of God's graciousness without thinking of his justice, to ignore who he is in part is to ignore who he is entirely. It makes a God of idolatry, not a God who has revealed himself.

And there's this nagging thing in this, right? As we read through this We might think, you know, I wrestled with this as I was writing this sermon, talking to someone yesterday about this. The first part of writing the sermon, I was like, this is going to be a real Rob Roth sermon.

Love the Lord, follow the Lord, remember what he's done, keep his covenant. You can do it. You can do it. You can do it. But then we remember, I can't do it. If we sit with a moment of sober reflection, about how our day went yesterday, how we've treated our children in the past, how we've been enticed by the things of this world. We realize the bar is up here and we have fallen so far short. What hope do we have? The only hope I have to give you is Jesus Christ.

This is why the prophets end and the final prophet comes. Because God sent his covenant keeper. God established a new covenant. God sent Jesus Christ in the flesh And we can't say rah rah is us. We're able to keep the covenant. The rallying cry of the church today is our King has come.

Jesus kept every stipulation of the covenant. Jesus is the one who kept this perfectly. Jesus is the one who brings us the heavenly Jerusalem. Jesus is the one who secured for us the new heavens and the new earth. Jesus is the one who did for us what Israel could never do for themselves.

And so by faith, by faith, we are the inheritors of this same covenant of grace. That Yehovah is your God. And he has done something far better than the Israelites of Joshua's day could ever have imagined. He's given us our King. He's given us our covenant security.

And so out of love for now, or out of love for Him now, we follow in the path of Christ. I'm not trying to be a lullaby to go to sleep. Thinking, oh, okay, I got Jesus, I can just, I can be an idolater, I can do whatever I want. No, that shows that you haven't loved Christ. If you love Jesus, you'll follow in His ways. But for those of us who have faith in Him, the curses were poured out upon Him on the cross. And He took the pain that we deserve and gave us the kingdom that we didn't earn.

Closing Prayer

So cling to Christ. Hold the Jehovah in the flesh. Never lose sight of the King of Kings. Let's pray. Father, this has been a long sermon. We pray that your Holy Spirit might tie us to yourself. Lord, we're prone to wonder. Please, Father, let us have faith and love in the one who is always at your right hand. Thank you for our rock. Thank you for our salvation. In Jesus' name.

Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.