Steady On

Our Heavenly Father as we have sung so it is our prayer not yet I, but through Christ in me. That is my prayer as I preach that I might decrease and Christ would increase, give me humility of mind and heart and yet confidence and boldness in Your Word and give to all of these hearers that they might hear with the ears of faith and so be not only hearers, but doers of your most Holy Word in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Our text this morning is Joshua 23. Please turn your Bible to Joshua chapter 23. Just one more chapter to go which Lord willing we will come to the week after missions week, here the 23rd of 24 chapters in the book of Joshua. Follow along as I read beginning at verse 1.

A long time afterward when the Lord had given rest to Israel from all their surrounding enemies” and Joshua was old and well advanced in years, Joshua summoned all Israel, its elders and heads, its judges and officers and said to them, “I am now old, well advanced in years and you have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake, for it is the Lord your God who has fought for you. Behold, I have allotted to you as an inheritance for your tribes those nations that remain along with all the nations that I have already cut off from the Jordan to the Great Seat in the west. The Lord your God will push them back before you and drive them out of your site and you shall possess their land just as the Lord your God promised you, therefore be very strong to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right hand nor to the left that you may not mix with these nations remaining among you or make mention of the names of their Gods or swear by them or serve them or bow down to them, but you shall cling to the Lord your God just as you have done to this day, for the Lord has driven out before you great and strong nations and as for you no man has been able to stand before you to this day, one man of you puts to flight a thousand since it is the Lord your God who fights for you just as he promised you. Be very careful therefore to love the Lord your God for if you turn back and cling to the remnants of these nations remaining among you, and make marriages with them so that you associate with them and they with you know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you, but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides, and thorns in your eyes until you perish from off this good ground that the Lord your God has given you.” “And now I am about to go the way of all the earth and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you.” “All have come to pass for you, not one of them has failed, but just as all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you have been fulfilled for you, so the Lord will bring upon you all the evil things until he has destroyed you from off this good land that the Lord your God has given you if you transgress the covenant of the Lord your God which he commanded you and go and serve other Gods and bow down to them then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and you shall perish quickly from off the good land that he has given to you.”

I bet I get asked 20 or 30 times a year, I’m sure I’ve been asked this question dozens of times in the past year. How are things going at Christ Covenant? I get that from friends outside the church, I get it from family members, I get it invariably if I’m traveling or speaking somewhere and maybe it’s someone I haven’t seen for a while, or I’m meeting a new person or someone is just trying to make small talk and they will ask that question, “So, how have things been at the church?” Sometimes they will say, “Now you’ve been there what, two-three years?” I say, “No eight”, “Oh wow, that’s been a long time”, “Yes, it’s been eight wonderful years.” And when they ask me that question I know they’re interested a little bit and they’re also being polite and making conversation, they’re not looking for a long answer, “Thanks for asking, no one’s ever asked me that before. Please sit down I have a lot to say.” So I just try to have a short paragraph in my head, a one or two minute answer that usually goes like this, “Things are going really well by God’s grace. Christ Covenant is a great church, there are lots of wonderful people and by and large the people who come on Sunday, they want to hear the Bible taught, they want to help each other, I love the pastors I work with and the rest of the staff, the elders and deacons are working hard at their tasks, we have great women in the women’s ministry and Bible study leaders, we’re thinking about a church plan, the school has been growing, Charlotte is a really nice city and it grows and a risking tide lifts all ships and so that means lots of new people moving to our area coming to the church and, I throw in an of course there are always struggles, there are, and people have some intense suffering in our midst, there are things I wish I was better at as a pastor, there are things we want to keep growing at as a church, we want to keep growing in evangelism and outreach, we want to keep expanding our missions budget, but, and I can tell they didn’t want this long of an answer already, I will say by God’s grace I think the Lord has given us a healthy season of growth and blessing and harmony. We are in a good season, thanks for asking.” And they say, “I gotta go talk to someone else.”

Now I mention that little speech, which I have given dozens of times, not to pat any of us on the back let alone this pastor or any pastor. In fact you’ll see that this sermon is quite the opposite of a big pat on the back, but I mention that speech to draw a parallel with the chapter that we just read because did you notice the context here jumped out to me three times what the Lord says and there’s perhaps an echo of God’s commendation even of Eden itself which he looked and said and Genesis behold it is very good. Do you see this in verse 13, “You have been given this good ground.” Again in verse 15, “This good land that the Lord your God has given you” and then the very last phrase of the chapter, “This good land that He has given you.” Three times God is reminding them, “I have given you good ground, I have given you a good land.” God has given to all of us a good church.

The Bible is a big book, it’s a perfect book, it’s God’s book and one of the wonderful things about the Bible being a big book and God’s book, is it has something to say to us at all times, it has something to say to us when we’re afraid, when we’re sad, when we’re facing death, when we’re grieving loss, when we’re worried about the future, when we are wandering from the path, when we are walking through the valley, all of those times that’s good, and we are apt to turn to God in those times. We want a prayer, we want a promise, we want a proverb, we want something to hold onto, yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death thy rod and thy staff they shall comfort me. But what about when you’re not facing dire circumstances, some of you know are, you are facing a difficult diagnosis, you have many things that are weighing on your mind and heart, but for others it may be relatively speaking a season of noticeable prosperity or growth or harmony or as our church what do we do in seasons where things seem to be going pretty well. I have, this is a very wrong attitude and I know it’s wrong and yet it still creeps up in my heart sometimes, almost feel like I maybe shouldn’t mention something out loud. God is going to notice, and wait a second, wait a second, they’ve got blessing, come over here, come over here, we forgot about this, things have been going well. Of course that’s not what God is like. What does God have to say to us if there is relative peace and rest and obvious blessing because that’s the situation God’s people are in. Now they’ve had a few mixups, __ 9:42 was bad and we’ve seen some seeds of compromise, so no one is flawless, but at this point God says, “You have been, this generation at least, has been faithful, and you have a good ground, you’ve been given good land.” And the great thing about the Bible is it has something to say to us in those times too. Some of us sort of check out from God during those seasons of life. Right God, thanks, I love you, I’ll be back when I have to take a test, I’ll be back when I have a scary doctor’s appointment, I’ll be back when there’s a funeral, right now things are good. I’ll pay attention to you again when stuff seems to be falling apart, that’s how too many people live their lives, but God means to speak to us in every season of life.

As I said two weeks ago, these last three chapters are very deliberately the application section of the book so the end of chapter 21, that paragraph summarizes what the book has been about, that God’s promises have come true and look again in chapter 22 here at Shiloh, Joshua summoned, verse 1, “The Reubenites, the Gadites, the half-tribe of Manasseh said to them, so there’s the first speech before the two and a half tribes go back to the eastern side of the Jordan, he brings them here at Shiloh, he says, “Time for one more speech”, and then chapter 23, if we’re not given the location it seems that may still be at Shiloh, some long time afterward, at least a long time after the major events of the book. Now at the end of Joshua’s life and here again he summons the people, verse 2, all Israel, and then it clarifies all Israel does not likely mean all of these millions of people, but all Israel as given by it’s representative leaders, it’s elders, it’s heads, it’s judges, it’s officers. So that’s the second speech and in chapter 24, gathering them again at Shechem, and there the same four groups are mentioned, elders, heads, judges, officers, and it also mentions the people so maybe a slightly larger, this may be a more representative, more comprehensive group of the people gathering for one final speech at Shechem.

So, it’s like a good sermon, there are three points of application at the end. There’s one speech, second speech, third speech. Joshua is an old man, he’s about to die, he has lead them faithfully for many years and like any good leader, he wants to address the people he’s been leading before he passes the baton to someone else. Chapter 24 will be about a choice, choose for yourselves whom you will serve. Chapter 23 is about a charge. Maybe you’ve put together in your head these similarities between Joshua and Moses because this is very much Moses-like. Both Joshua and Moses cross a body of water that God parts, the Red Sea for Moses, the Jordan River for Joshua. Both have God appear to them as a part of their commissioning, Moses in the burning bush and Joshua with the captain of the Lord’s Army who appears to him before he enters into Jericho. Both of them hold out a staff in the midst of a major battle, both build an alter of thanks to the Lord and both conclude their ministries with a farewell address. Just like Moses, now here’s Joshua, and he starts by saying, look at verse 3, “You have seen all that the Lord your God has done.” In fact, this whole speech bubbles over with recounting and reports of all that God has done for Israel. I’m not going to attempt to outline the speech because it doesn’t outline neatly, but rather weaving in and out are reminders and exhortations, warnings and promises, but notice it starts and ends by remembering the blessings of the Lord.

You see verse 1, “A long time afterward when the Lord had given rest.” So beginning of the speech you’re at rest. End of the speech references the good land that God has given to you. So the context here is he is speaking to God’s people, they’re in the good land which has been given to them as a gift and there is rest, these many blessings have come upon Israel and Joshua is doing something very important, he is reminding them as each of us need to be reminded, that the story of their prosperity is the story of what God has done. Now, they haven’t been passive, that’s important. They’ve been fighting for seven years to take conquest of the land and yet notice when Joshua recounts their story, I’m gonna tell you the story, and he’s gonna give a longer version of their story in chapter 24, and it’s not that it would have been wrong to talk about some of their great triumphs and, “remember when you went in there, and what a great day that was”, but primarily the story of their prosperity is not the story of their courage, it’s the story of God’s blessing. Even though they’ve been fighting for seven years, the emphasis in this chapter, as it has been in previous chapters, is that the Lord their God fought for them. That’s why they have what they have, because God was fighting for them.

Verse 1, rest from their enemies. Verse 3, he’s driven out the nations and has fought for you. Verse 4, you have an inheritance. Verse 9, he’s driven out strong and powerful nations. Second half of verse 9, no one has been able to stand before you. Again in verse 10, we are told the Lord fights for you. And then in verse 14, good ground. Verse 15, good land. Verse 16, good land. That’s the story and Joshua like a good leader reminds them that this story is the tale of God’s many kindnesses in their life. Do not forget that about your own life or the life of your family. I know you could easily recount trials and some of you have been through very difficult ones in the past year. The life of this church over 40+ years, and some of you have been here for those years, know that there have been seasons of conflict and seasons of loss along with many seasons of obvious growth and strength so we all have those various seasons in life, but in so far as you can look around and you see this place and you see blessing, you ought to think, the Lord did that. That’s one of the things that, I love to have John Piper here, sorry, it’s just me this week, he didn’t stick around, but one of the reasons is not only because you all get to hear John Piper preach or next week you get to hear Peter Williams preach, that’s great. I love bringing these people that know one walk of life or another because they get to meet you and I love for them to see this church and invariably almost everyone who comes they walk around and they say, “Wow, how many acres do you have here?” They look around, “This is a beautiful space.” And then if they’re paying attention say, “Man Harry Reeder liked those crosses up there didn’t he?” Yeah, there’s seven of those Celtic crosses up there and they comment again, “Wow I loved meeting your pastors, your elders”, and they notice what I hope you still notice, the Lord’s blessing, the Lord’s kindness, and let us never forget that it is because of God and His grace to us. You know when you have your kids on your car insurance as we have lots of them. USAA loves us, because we pay them a lot of money each week for our auto insurance because I have a 21-year-old auto insurance, 19-year-old, 17-year-old, we’ve got a 15-year-old who is getting his hours now. Yeah, it’s a used car lot in our driveway, cars. And I have to remind my children sometimes as they refer to my car, I understand, you mainly drive it, and they say, “Dad why’d you take my car?” We just have to have a lesson about possessive pronouns. I understand you mainly drive it, it is not in fact, so say my son he did buy his truck, the rest, that is not your car. How many of your dollars pay for it, none, none of your dollars are paying for your insurance. I’m happy for you to use it, glad to you to refer to it colloquially as “your car” as long as we remember you are a steward of the car, that your good father has purchased for you. We know that as parents, and we don’t begrudge to give good gifts to our children, we simply want them to remember that ultimately it is not theirs. And so all of the good things that have come to Israel, Joshua is telling them, “Yes, you can talk about your land and your inheritance, yes, but remember God gave this to you.”

One of the secrets to being a humble person instead of a haughty person is to ask this question, do you consider the good things in your life ultimately, I use the word ultimately because God uses means, but ultimately are the good things in your life, in your life as something earned or something given? If God uses me to use his hard work, he wants us to be responsible, he doesn’t want us to be passive, but ultimately we have these things because God has seen fit in his kindness to give them to us. Incidentally that’s one of the secrets to maintaining a happy healthy marriage, be careful married couples when you begin to, you only think of the things that bother you, the things that annoy you, you have lost track of the many blessings that are yours, that God has given to you in your spouse. It’s one of the best ways as you have to go through the inevitable dips and twists and turns and hurts and sins with each other to always think, yet God has been kinder to me than I deserve. And I know that’s hard, that’s a statement of faith for some people in very difficult marriages and circumstances, but the eyes of faith are looking for what God has done to bless us. Joshua gives these great reminders to Israel, but he does more than just remind them, he also commands them. And so God wants us here at Christ Covenant to do more than just say let’s take a walk down memory lane and let’s remember all the good things, isn’t that great. Yes, start there, but then two commands. There’s more but we can boil them down to two central exhortations.

Verse 6, be strong to keep. Verse 11, be careful to love. Look at verse 6, here’s the first central command Joshua is giving to the people, “And God would give to us. Be strong to keep.” Now it goes on, “Be very strong to keep and do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses.” So you got a good land, you’ve got a good ground, you’re at rest, he’s defeated your enemies, he’s fought for you, now what, because God doesn’t think that his people are just ready now to just get the Tesla to drive itself. Be strong to keep all that is written in the law of Moses. Here’s what God wants to tell to us at Christ Covenant again and again, be a person of this book, let us be a church of this book, do not ever be embarrassed by anything that God teaches in this book. This book reveals the heart of God, it shows us the character of God, it lays out the pathway of blessing from God. This was the commandment, you recall, from the beginning, I mean the beginning of Joshua. Chapter 1, verse 6, verse 7, verse 9, verse 18. Many of you have memorized “be strong and very courageous, be careful to do all the law Moses my servant commanded you.” Four times in chapter 1. That’s the big idea. Be strong and courageous. And how do you be strong and courageous? Do everything God has commanded you.

Let me say something especially to men. It’s for women, but I want to think especially of men and maybe young men out there. You wanna be strong, good. It’s part of true masculinity is a strength, a God given spiritual strength. Men, you want to be courageous, good, and you’re looking for a battle to fight. You want to give your life for something bigger than yourself, good, that’s an impulse I believe that is hard wired into us. And maybe you’re saying, “I wanna be a knight, a crusader, a soldier in the cause of some great conflict.” You want to prove your metal as a man, good. Here’s how you do it. Obey this book. Don’t settle for substitutes, don’t listen to the influencers in the manosphere who tell you something else. You listen to this book. Don’t you see the connection? Be strong. How do you be strong, what does it look like to have true strength? The courage God wants in your life is the courage to be a man and a woman of this book. Study this book. Don’t deviate one iota from this book. Don’t be afraid to do what this book tells you, to think what this book teaches you, to feel what this book tells you to feel. You notice it says, turning aside, verse 6, “Neither to the right hand nor to the left.” It would be eisegesis to say that that’s a statement about politics. Don’t go too far to the right or too far to the left, that’s not what it’s talking about, but it is illustrative, I think, to remind us that there will always be two different ways that you can deviate from the Word of God. You can be too soft or too hard. You can veer towards legalism or license. You can be uncaring or unthinking. You can be a person of no truth or no grace. What we tend to do is we lock into our own personality type and so we gravitate and we say, “Well, but Jesus overturned the tables in the temple with the money changers”, and didn’t Ezekiel say some pretty hard things and the prophets go naked sometimes and so it’s not always a great analogy, but you’re drawn to all of those hard edges and you say, “See that’s where it is.” And other people say “But Jesus he was a friend to sinners and tax collectors. Jesus was weeping with those who would weep and he was always seeking after the lost sheep.” Do not have a reductionistic view of Jesus. Jesus is big enough for all of your personalities to grow up into in God given holiness. Don’t just latch onto say, “Well, that’s what I wanna be like to the right or to the left.” No it’s not that in every single controversy that the middle of the road is the way to go. Sometimes the middle is right, sometimes the middle is where you get hit by traffic. It takes wisdom, it takes discernment. Again, there’s no simple formula except to follow the words of this book. Can’t say, “Well whatever the most conservative person said must always be right.” Well no whatever seems to be the most kindly compassionate must be right. No there must always be a third way and that way is always right, it doesn’t work like that. You must be a person of this book. Be strong to keep and do every word in this book. Let is not be an embarrassment to you that you are a Bible person.

And here’s the second big command. Be strong to keep and then look down at verse 11. “Be careful to love.” Isn’t that interesting. Be very careful therefore to love the Lord your God. How often do you put those two words together? Careful, love. No, careful is doing your taxes, careful is double checking a math problem. Careful is signing a legal contract. Careful is what the engineers like to do. Love, that’s the poets, that’s the romance. Love happens to you, love is something you feel, love is a state of mind, love just sweeps over you, you can’t control it, it just comes upon you and this says be very careful to love. That is to say, loving the Lord your God will take your devotion, your intelligence, your commitment. To love the Lord your god is not just to wait for the feelings to tell you where to go and be swept away by them. You must be careful because God tells us how he wants to be loved and you know what Jesus says, if you love me, what, you will keep my commandments. Yes, we want affections, those are commands those. He tells us what He wants and how we can love Him.

Think about it, kids if you tell your parents, mom, dad, I love you so much, so much, so special, and I’m gonna make you a card on your birthday, I’m gonna draw a picture, I’m just never gonna listen to anything you say, but I love you. I tell all my friends I’ve got the best mom and dad, and they’re so great. How well do you love your parents if you never listen to your parents, you never honor or respect or obey your parents or again with spouses, be careful to love. This is when you’ve been married for years and decades, you can understand what your spouse likes, flowers the way to go, probably never a wrong way to go. Is it something else? How can you love the one that you’re with. How can you honor them, how can you listen to them and as you know them better you understand what it is that they appreciate. Is it a gift, is it a drink, is it a note, is it a movie, what is it? Be careful then how you love.

Did you notice, putting this in the analogy of marriage, because that’s what God does here, did you notice two times you have this word cling. It’s the same word that’s used way back in Genesis, about Adam and Eve clinging for the Lord, verse 8, but you shall cling to the Lord your God in verse 12, but if you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations, it’s talking about a marriage word, be careful how you love. You can’t go out and say that you are loving your wife, men, and then you hook up with some other woman, say, “But I love you.” No you don’t, that’s not love, your clinging to the wrong person. When you make that vow, you say forsaking all others till death do us part. Forsaking all others and so it is in coming to Christ, forsaking all others. Be careful then, how you love. Here’s how God wants to be loved. You cling to Him alone, not to the Gods of the nations. The danger here was literally, in their day, intermarriage. You see that in verse 12, making marriages with them. Now let’s be careful here, the problem is not marriage between different ethnicities, they probably wouldn’t have even thought in the terms of race, but they had different nationalities. We know that’s not the problem, Moses and Zipporah were two different nationalities. We’ve seen here the Gibeonites were folded into Israel, Caleb the son of Jephunneh was a Kenizzite. That was initially one of the Canaanite people. We’ve seen that Rahab has been brought into the fold, so no, this is not an ethnic thing, this is not a prohibition against different nationalities or even in our terms different races intermarrying, certainly that is not what God is prohibiting. But here in this context, it’s the marrying of those who will lead them into idolatry. We might say in our terms, marrying an unbeliever. That’s the compromise. You have some of these people who are still in the land and if you marry them, now if they want to come into Israel and they want to embrace Yahweh just as Rahab has done, then that’s a possibility but in so far as they are worshiping the Gods of the Canaanites if you intermarry with them, it will lead to compromise. When God says that single people, to marry only a believer, I’m not trying to make your life more difficult and to narrow a pool that may be feels too narrow already, He’s trying to help you. As I heard one woman say once, “If you feel alone now let me tell you how lonely you can feel if you are married to a man who doesn’t share your faith.” And by God’s grace maybe that’s where you’re at, you’re praying that God might redeem that and stay as you are, but those who have that choice yet in front of them, it’s here for a reason because it leads to compromises. Blood is often thicker than theology. What I mean is our own relations, husband and wife, kids, grandparents, our blood is often thicker than theology. We find ways to change what we always said was true because of something that’s happening in our own family.

Many of you know this pain very personally and I know many of you have stories of courageous resolute confidence in God’s Word nonetheless, because all of us have seen it happen many, many times. A son, a daughter embraces a sexual lifestyle that the Bible does not commend or someone has some other aberrant theology or practice and because your mom heart is breaking and your dad heart wants everything to go after them and your grandparent heart wants to wrap your arms around them, you think might there be a way that maybe God’s Word has meant something different than what everyone has thought it meant for 2000 years. Blood ends up being thicker than theology. It’s not how it should be, but God understand that’s how it often is. It says here, you must be careful how you love. It is often the case that that natural affection which is so often a good thing and often a God given thing that we feel for our own family which God has in us for a spouse, for kids, for brothers, for sisters, for kin. Because it is such a good gift, just like sex is a good gift, the devil knows to take those best gifts and turn them to his purposes. So he will take those natural affections and will lead you to a place of compromise, syncretism, wandering from the Word of God. At first you’ll just say I’m asking questions, and then you’ll say well I just think we need to be more tolerant and eventually you will be holding as if by a spider’s web this great boulder of syncretism, idolatry, fall teaching, holding on, but everything in you has this weight dragging you down, that’s what God knows will happen. He says be very careful then to love the Lord your God, forsaking all others, clinging to Him alone and what will happen if you disobey? Joshua says, look at verse 13, “The nations will be a snare to you, a trap, a whip, a thorn.” Do you see how he’s piling up terms to describe what the consequences will be like. Sometimes we put this euphemistically, well it’s just gonna be messed up, things won’t be the way God wants it, or it will be less than ideal, but Joshua is using better words. No, no this isn’t just imperfect, or it’s not quite the ideal, it will be a trap, a snare, whip, and thorns and this is what happens brothers and sisters when we go our own way, when we are not careful to love God, when we do not keep His Words. You have a life of lies, maybe addiction eventually, broken relationships. You have to cover your tracks, you become short on money, you’re constantly concerned about your reputation, what seemed to be just an innocent compromise in times becomes a great snare and a whip and a thorn.

Verse 13, God will no longer drive out the nations before you. You will perish and be driven from the land and finally in verse 16, if you disobey persistently, habitually, unrepentantly, you will perish and the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you. Someone said in one of the commentaries, sort of tongue in cheek said, “Obviously Joshua hadn’t been to his preaching class because he ends this on a rather somber note.” He says be careful. Started all this good, look at all God’s done, he says, but I want you to notice he’s talking covenant language. This is the mosaic covenant through and through. There are blessings as God’s people obey. Not that every single person in the covenant has everything go right for them, but as a nation blessings, and if they disobey as a nation, curses until finally if their sin is consistent, corporate and stubborn He sends them away from the good land, that’s the warning. So do you see friends here, the challenge and the blessing. Here’s the good news, one generation’s sin does not doom the next generation to disobedience. That generation sinned and they died in the wilderness. This is the second generation and so far they have been faithful. One generation’s sin does not doom the next generation to disobedience. That’s the good news, here’s the warning. One generation’s faithfulness does not guarantee the next generation cannot fail. You must not think, young people, children, that because you’re in church now and you look around and mom and dad are here, maybe some of you have grandparents here, it’s a wonderful heritage, and you think that’s all we need. We’ve got mom, we’ve got dad, I grew up in the church, we’re always only one generation away from losing the Gospel. The generation in the wilderness fell and a new generation rose up and they have been walking with God, but they have to keep walking with God, they cannot let go of His hand, they cannot wander off. That’s what this message is about. You know parents, grandparents, when you have a young child and I still have some young enough that I walk them down from the white house to their classroom and on a good day reach up and hold my hand and you walk across that street or you’re walking through a mall, there’s some busy downtown. Now they’re walking, they have to walk, sometimes you’re actually dragging them, but usually they’re walking, they’re moving, their hand is in yours. They must keep that hand in yours. If they let go in the midst of a crowd, you turn around, and some of you have had that terrifying experience as parent or child, where did I go. If you’re a child every parents legs look the same from the knee on down, because you wandered off, you’ve let go. This is Joshua’s message to say, “You’ve kept your hand in His and He’s given you this good land, now keep walking with Him, you have to pass this on to the next generation, you have to keep going, you can’t let your guard down.” The Lord means to help you, His plans are good for you, but never forget King Uzziah. It says about Uzziah he was marvelously helped until he became strong.

They theme of this whole conquest was summarized at the end of chapter 21. Remember what Joshua says there, “The Lord gave them rest on every side just as He has sworn to their fathers. Not one enemy had withstood them. He had given all the enemies into their hand not one word of all the good promises that the Lord made had failed, all came to pass.” That’s what this story has been about. God keeps every one of his promises and do you see how the warning is about the very same thing. God promised them blessings and he warned them of covenant curses and so he’s telling them, in fact he makes this explicit in verse 15, just as all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you have been fulfilled, so the Lord will bring upon you all the evil things. You can’t just say, “Well God keeps all of his good promises and the threatenings he just sort of forgets. He has fulfilled the promises for good, He will fulfill the promises for evil.” You must stay alert. Ya know when you’re driving in bad weather, I mean we’ve had some blizzards the past week, just, did you get your mild and bread, has everyone, okay. There were a few moments in one of those days where you had snowflakes coming and if you have to drive through snow or a torrential downpour, a thunderstorm, especially if you had to do it for any length of time and the wipers are going as fast as they can go, what do you do when you’re in the car? It summons all of your concentration and maybe you turn down the radio and you’re not going to mess with your phone, you shouldn’t do that anyways, and you tell the kids, they all get quite, they know, and you’re just looking, it’s all very summoning of your concentration because you know that the weather is rough. Then you get through that 45 minutes and it clears up and you turn off the wipers and you turn on the radio and you start looking at your phone again. Joshua is telling them, you have made it through the storm, you have made it through the conquest, you are driving now with some sunny skies, but you cannot take your eyes off the road.

This generation has been faithful. Verse 8, cling to the Lord your God as you have done to this day. They’ve had some wobbling, but by and large they have stuck close to the Lord and I believe the same can be said of Christ Covenant Church over these 40+ years. There are many, many hundreds, hundreds of faithful believers in this church. Faithful single people, faithful students and children, faithful families and couples. Keep hold of Christ. When you sin, run to Him quickly, immediately, do not add to that sin the sin of thinking that you can earn your way back to Christ, just turn and run, and if you are walking with Him as many of you are walking with Christ this day do not turn back, do not take your eyes off the road, do not let go of His hand. Through many dangerous toils and snares we have already come, tis grace has brought us safe this far and only grace can lead us home. Let’s pray.

Father in heaven help us as your people to be humble, to be thankful, to be watchful that we might be strong and courageous to obey your Word even when our world disagrees, even when our family disagrees and help us to be careful to love you, to cling to you alone and know your blessing. Give us your grace for all our sins and give us grace to walk with you in Jesus’ name. Amen.