Joshua's Final Words in Joshua 24
- mww
- Jan 5, 2017
- 13 min read
Have you chosen to follow God in all areas of your life?
Bible Study Ideas and Commentary for Joshua 24:14-28
At the end of his life, Joshua has the people reaffirm their covenant with God. However, he warns them that they are not as strong as they think they are! Nevertheless, the people insist on their commitment. We can take from this passage the importance of our own commitment, but also our need for help keeping it.
You are witnesses against yourselves that you yourselves have chosen to worship the Lord. (24:22)
Getting Started: Things to Think About
This might be the easiest lesson you teach all year—if you let Joshua do the teaching for you. About the only thing I might suggest is that you have some good illustrations that help explain what Joshua is saying in today’s context.
Powerful Final Words.
Obviously, the pinnacle of “final words” would be those of Jesus, which is why we study the last chapters of the Gospels with such tenacity. But lots of people have given powerful speeches or statements at the end of their lives. You can go two directions with this: (1) examples of famous such words (take them from movies or, better, from personal experience), OR (2) what is the purpose of such final words? I kind of like this slant on the illustration. Why do people give passionate last words? They want to pass something of value to the next generation. They don’t want their wisdom and experience and advice to perish with them; they want to make sure that the world will be okay without them, so to speak. If you go this direction, ask your group to think of times they have been at a transitional moment (retirement party, the time your child takes the keys by himself for the first time, a wedding rehearsal dinner, etc.)—what was said and why? If you were the one speaking, what did you want to pass on? How did you feel saying it?
“Choose Your Gods.”
When Joshua said this to the people, he meant it literally. They had many gods to choose from, and Joshua wanted them to choose the right one (the only True God). There are two ways you might kick some brains in gear:
Apologetics. There are plenty of people out there who think all religions (and gods) are the same, and so it doesn’t matter which one they choose. You don’t have time to dwell on this, I don’t think, but you might ask some basic questions like Why don’t Christians worship other gods? or What separates Jesus from other gods? or the like. Make sure your group members understand that Christianity really is the right (only) choice for having a saving relationship with the True God. If there are lots of questions, you might recommend a book like Jesus among Other Gods.
Spiritual Growth. I’ve recommended the book Gods at War before in another lesson. If we can define an idol as anything that draws your heart’s attention away from God, then there are lots of gods in our life that we choose to worship. This book looks at several (including entertainment, food, pleasure, work, money, etc.) and offers helpful ways to reduce their power in your life. If you think your group would be more interested in this approach than apologetics, then you would want to help them understand that “gods” can take many forms—including things we can’t see.
Long-Term Decisions.
This is a good one that works in two ways: the benefit of a careful decision and the “slippery slope”. Ask “Would you rather have $1,000/day for a month, or a penny a day doubled for a month?” Would you be surprised to learn that the penny choice would give you more than $10 million in just one month? Depending on how you want to use this, it can mean that a careful decision, even if it sounds strange immediately, can yield tremendous long-term results. Or, you can use it to say that little tiny decisions can add up to something catastrophic in a short time (take the money out and replace it with something bad). God wanted to prevent His people from going down the bad road of idol worship. That destination would be awful. Plus, worshiping God is priceless.
Pennies
If you need the math on this illustration, here it is. Day 1: $0.01; 2: 0.02; 3: 0.04; 4: 0.08; 5: 0.16; 6: 0.32; 7: 0.64; 8: 1.28; 9: 2.56; 10: 5.12; 11: 10:24; 12: 20:48; 13: 40.96; 15: 81.92; 16: 163.84; 17: 327.68; 18: 655.36; 19: 1310.72; 20: 2621.44; 21: 5242.88; 22: 10485.76; 23: 20971.52; 24: 41943.04; 25: 83886.08; 26: 167772.16; 27: 335544.32; 28: 671088.64; 29: 1342177.28; 30: 2684354.56; 31: $5,368,709.12
This Week's Big Idea: The Gods of Egypt and Canaan
The Old Testament speaks many, many times of other gods that the Israelites foolishly chose to worship (breaking their trust with Joshua’s challenge in our passage). Here’s a quick refresher for what you might have forgotten:
Baal (bay-ahl). This was the biggest of the Canaanite gods. The name means “master” in the sense of “lord”, which helps explain why God did not want His people to tolerate that cult, and came to be used exclusively for the storm-god Hadad. Baal was the god of nature / rain, and the Israelites would join the Canaanites in praying to Baal for rain when they planted their crops. Baal shrines were on a raised platform (a “high place”) which included a statue of a young man (an idol), an altar, and often an asherah (sacred tree). Asking for rain was a fertility ritual, so there were many temple prostitutes at Baal shrines. There was also a “rain dance” which included cutting one’s self such that one’s blood spilled on to the ground. Part of God’s law was for the purpose of ingraining in the people that their behavior could not include such sin.
Ashtoreth. This was the female counterpart to Baal in Canaan, though her true origins are the Babylonian fertility goddess, Ishtar. Whereas Baal was the sun, Ashtoreth was the moon (but note that not everyone thought of them the same way!), and her cult tracked the moon’s position and phase carefully. Her cult was primarily sexually based.
Asherah. Believe it or not, this is a different goddess than Ashteroth. Asherah (the word means “grove”) was a tree goddess from Assyria; that means these people were truly tree worshipers. He refreshing of the shade and the subtle movements of the trees gave the feeling of an unseen presence (pay attention to all the times God calls attention to “wind”; trees were not animated by spirits). And trees were a literal source of life and a means to find water. She was by some believed to be the mother of all gods. At shrines, worshipers would stand a simple wooden pole to represent her.
Molech (Milcom). This was the tribal god of the Ammonites. They sought his wisdom when making national decisions and asked for his help in battle. Because he preserved the tribe, the tribe maintained his good graces by sacrificing their firstborn—cattle and child. Although it does not seem that everyone did such, the Bible states that Molech worshipers did kill their firstborn sons in his honor.
Dagon was the father of Baal and an important god for the Philistines. Anath was a rival of Ashtoreth and the most important goddess of Lebanon. She would annually rescue Baal from death at the hands of Mot, the death god would brought the dry summer season by killing Baal, the rain god. Another antagonistic god was Yam, the god of chaos and the sea (primarily for the Phoenicians).
We find elements of these false worship practices both in terms of Jews worship false gods and Jews integrating them into their worship of Yahweh. Both outcomes are detestable to God, and hopefully you can see why! For everyone who says, “What’s the big deal about what we do in church?” you can point to the slippery slope that leads down these very dangerous roads.
More about False Gods
This map traces Abraham’s steps, but you’ll notice that it also marks out the places that Joshua warned the people against.
Along his travels, Abraham picked up people from all of these regions. By Joshua’s day, those connections should have been long, long gone. But the Promised Land was located along the major trade route connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa, so there would be no shortage of strangers passing through with the worship practices of these disparate lands. Part of the purpose of putting His people there would be for the Jews to able to shine their light quite literally on the whole world and change the lives of all of these travelers who would take the message back to their countries (think about how quickly Christianity spread in the apostolic church). But the Jews failed to do so; in fact, they failed to push back the darkness at all and let it consume them. In some ways, we have to say that the Israelites did not take Joshua’s warning seriously, but in most ways, we simply have to say that they were disobedient and selfish. God did not make them different to make them weird, but to make them holy.
The Context of Joshua
Joshua 23-24 are Joshua’s two final speeches to the people. The first (23) recaps his main themes: God faithfully fought for His people, but they must remain obedient. If they did not (and he specifically mentioned intermarrying as a quick step to failure), He would drive them from the land. The final speech (24) is a covenant ceremony. Joshua called on the people to present themselves to God, reminded them of the ways the superior party (God) had acted toward them, gave specific stipulations to the subservient party (the people), recorded and sealed the covenant with a memorial stone, then dismissed the people. We focus on Joshua’s challenge to fulfill the stipulations. Finally, the book records Joshua’s death and burial, the burial of Joseph’s bones, and the death and burial of one of Aaron’s sons.
Part 1: The Example Set (24:14-15)
Therefore, fear the Lord and worship Him in sincerity and truth. Get rid of the gods your fathers worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and worship Yahweh. But if it doesn’t please you to worship Yahweh, choose for yourselves today the one you will worship: the gods your fathers worshiped beyond the Euphrates River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. As for me and my family, we will worship Yahweh.
If Joshua did anything before he died, he wanted to hear the Israelites confirm the covenant they had with God. You could spend the entire lesson just on the first verse. We’ve talked about fear many times—not being afraid but truly, reverentially respecting God. The next phrase gets to the heart of the matter: true fear of God will always result in true worship of God. Sincerity here means “wholeness” or “completeness”—which he explains by saying that they cannot worship God and any of the false gods of their neighbors or ancestors. That would be insincere or incomplete, and God sees into the heart. Jesus widened the scope beyond idols when He said that we cannot serve both God and money. If you didn’t use the Gods at War idea from the first page, you might use it here. The people had to make a choice, both for themselves and their children. Other nations did not have to make a choice; they could worship as many gods as they wanted. Not so the Israelites, whom God called to be different.
I would recommend explaining a little about the false worship practices of their neighbors (see above); make it clear that it was no innocent decision or mistake, but a path that led to personal destruction and even murder. God did not want His children to suffer in that way, especially since worshiping Him brought life and peace. But Joshua also set a positive example for them. What a powerful statement he makes! That’s why this is the recommended memory verse. Ask what is so tempting about the “false gods” of this world, and then ask how a statement like this can help us resist that temptation.
Aside: Shiloh and Shechem
You might remember Shiloh from 1/2 Samuel. Shiloh was Joshua’s headquarters—the place where he distributed the land and established the first permanent worship site for Yahweh. It was about halfway between Shechem and Jerusalem on a high, fertile plain. It was difficult to defend; there are remnants of large walls, but it seems that by Joshua’s day there was no attempt to inhabit it—it was simply a headquarters.
Shechem, on the other hand, was on a major road into the valley in between two important mountains. That made it very wealthy, which they used to build large walls (because it was at an extreme military disadvantage). It was the first place where Abraham built an altar to Yahweh (Gen 12:6); Jacob did the same (33:18). Joshua built a stone altar on the nearby Mount Ebal where he copied the law of Moses and read it to the people (Jos 20). After they made an oath to God that they would forsake all other gods but Him, Joshua set up a huge stone under an oak tree to be a continuous witness against them. In later times, Shechem would be the headquarters of the violent Abimelech and Jeroboam.
That’s an interesting history. The earliest “Israelites” (Abraham and Jacob) both chose to worship God at Shechem. Joshua then made all Israelites choose their God/god at Shechem (note that Joshua did not destroy the existing temple there as he had elsewhere). Not surprisingly, Shechem became the location of great failures. It was where the Israelites fell under a curse (on Abimelech) and the place where the northern Israelites first officially practiced idolatry (under Jeroboam).
Part 2: The People’s Reflection (24:16-18)
The people replied, “We will certainly not abandon the Lord to worship other gods! For the Lord our God brought us and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery, and performed these great signs before our eyes. He also protected us all along the way we went and among all the peoples whose lands we traveled through. The Lord drove out before us all the peoples, including the Amorites who lived in the land. We too will worship the Lord, because He is our God.”
So the people say all the right things. This group, at least, understands what God has done for them and what they must do in return. The language they use is the strongest possible. Maybe they were being immaturely overconfident. At the very least, they had the facts right.
I would recommend combining this with the next section and using the timeless illustration head-knowledge vs. heart-knowledge. The truth is that Joshua knows that the people will not keep their promise. Why? Because no matter how much they know and understand, it hasn’t penetrated to the core of their being, the source of their decisions: their hearts. Our heads feed information but our hearts make decisions.
Part 3: A Somber Warning (24:19-20)
But Joshua told the people, “You will not be able to worship Yahweh, because He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not remove your transgressions and sins. If you abandon the Lord and worship foreign gods, He will turn against you, harm you, and completely destroy you, after He has been good to you.”
This certainly isn’t very PC or uplifting. But it’s the truth, and they probably would have been shocked to hear it (especially after making such a bold claim). Joshua explains what the people fail to understand: God is holy and jealous. If you are not wholly committed to God alone, you are not committed to God at all. By declaring such confidence in their own abilities, the people were setting themselves up for failure. A word for this is hubris—a common literary technique to explain why and how people fail (pride goeth before a fall). And look at the consequences! God will remove His special relationship with them and kick them out of the Promised Land. And now that we know that the Promised Land was a symbol of eternal rest in heaven, do you see how serious this is?
Aside: Warning Labels.
I’m sure you can find a place to work this illustration in: what’s the purpose of a warning sign? To keep people from the consequences of the misuse of an item. You might say, “I learn better from my mistakes.” But even you acknowledge that some mistakes cannot be recovered from. That’s what God is doing with all of these commands against idolatry. They are not innocent little mistakes. They are dangerous and reckless sex, mutilation, and even murdering one’s child. That’s not a lesson one wants to learn the hard way. So God takes a hard line with them.
Part 4: A Public Declaration (24:21-28)
21 “No!” the people answered Joshua. “We will worship the Lord.” 22 Joshua then told the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you yourselves have chosen to worship the Lord.” “We are witnesses,” they said. 23 “Then get rid of the foreign gods that are among you and turn your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.” 24 So the people said to Joshua, “We will worship the Lord our God and obey him.” 25 On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people at Shechem and established a statute and ordinance for them. 26 Joshua recorded these things in the book of the law of God; he also took a large stone and set it up there under the oak at the sanctuary of the Lord. 27 And Joshua said to all the people, “You see this stone—it will be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words the Lord said to us, and it will be a witness against you, so that you will not deny your God.” 28 Then Joshua sent the people away, each to his own inheritance.
To their credit, the people don’t back down. I think the problem with the exchange is their brashness. Instead of taking the repentant approach like that of Peter’s hearers in Acts (“what must we do to be saved?”), they are defiant and self-reliant. “We choose to worship the Lord.” Now, it is our choice, and it is a choice we must make every day. But today, we hopefully realize that we need help to make that choice, and we rely on the Spirit to guide us down that right path. Joshua makes it clear to the people what they are saying, and he gives them one last summary of God’s expectations: “You have declared your allegiance to God, now prove it for the rest of your life.” But there is nothing simple about this declaration. It must be complete, utter, and whole-hearted. And that’s where things went off the rails. The Israelites couldn’t fulfill the easy part of the covenant: don’t worship other gods; they had no chance to fulfill the harder parts: don’t put anything before God in your life.
Finally, Joshua set up a lasting reminder of the events of that day. He recorded everything in a scroll that he most likely kept with the Torah, and he placed a large stone under the oak tree (oaks were special to them; note the oak of Mamre that Abraham used) probably marked with something to clarify its purpose. Depressing reality aside, these lasting visual reminders can be very helpful us to. After all, what’s the purpose of a wedding ring, or a baptismal certificate, or signed contract? It’s to remind us of a commitment we made and encourage us to stay true to it. Of course, if your heart’s not in it, no reminder will matter. But to us as Christians, transformed by the Spirit, those visual symbols can have great meaning and purpose (I have a friend who puts a picture of his wife on the hotel room tv when he travels to keep him pure).
As the start of a new year, it would be good to spend some time as a group talking about the encouragement they might need to stay true to their commitments to God. Walk through those commitments, ask where people need help, and talk about the visual reminders they can use to help them stay true to God.
Next week (Jan 15) is the standalone Sanctity of Life lesson (Roe v. Wade is actually Jan 22, but Reagan declared the third Sunday in January—that’s why there’s confusion this year). I invite all of our classes to join us in the fellowship hall for breakfast and lesson. We have some inspiring videos, Dr. Joe will tell some stories, and David will speak. It will be an uplifting and encouraging time for all of us to remember the value of all life.
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