Joshua Chapter 23
What a person says before his death must be an extremely important exhortation. In this chapter, Joshua is very old and has called the leaders of Israel to tell them his last words.
This reminds me of my own grandfather when he was advanced in age. Due to the decline of his health, he seemed to realise that the Lord was about to take him back to heaven soon.
So, he summoned all his children and grandchildren and explained his wishes to us. At that time, I was only a teenager and I didn’t fully understand what was going on. I just remember that my grandfather had spoken very earnestly for a long time. At that time, the whole atmosphere was solemn and everyone was silent.
Later, I realised that my grandfather was telling his children and grandchildren to keep the most precious faith that had been passed down through the generations, just as Joshua did here. For the elders who will leave us, our faith and the salvation of souls are invaluable treasures that cannot be lost (Matthew 31:44-46).
Joshua once again reminded the Israelites how God treated them with grace, fought for them, gave them victory, so that they could get the promised inheritance, and promised them to help them drive out their enemies. The Israelites only needed to “be courageous”, that is, to trust God, and 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 hand or to the left” (23:6).
In the same way, the Lord Jesus has overcome death for us, just as God fought for the people of Israel. He has prepared a heavenly inheritance for us, just as He granted the people of Israel land. God gave us all these blessings in advance and promised us a far better future. The condition is that we must be careful to obey God’s words, in order to preserve the pure faith.
God said to the people of Israel, “and lest you go among these nations, these who remain among you” (23:7a), and then said, “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 in to them and they to you, know for certain that the LORD 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 and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land which the LORD your God has given you.” (23:12-13).
We know that the Israelites did not completely obey God’s instructions to drive out the Canaanites. As God said, those Canaanites who were not completely driven out or destroyed by the Israelites did later cause trouble to the Israelites. These Canaanites prompted the Israelites to leave God, and even drove them to worship idols which offended God.
From a spiritual perspective, we ought to “put off the old man” in our behaviour. This old man “grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts” (Ephesians 4:22).
There is a Chinese saying that goes, “If the roots are not removed during weeding, the weeds will grow again when the winds of Spring blow.”
We want God to become our Lord, yet we want to “mix” with the people of the world, to pursue what the world pursues, to do what the world does, to marry the people of the world, and to communicate with the world… And unwittingly, gradually, because of the influence of unbelievers, we no longer cherish the precious grace that God has given us, and we have forgotten the inheritance that God has promised us.
We lose our resolve, become separated from God, and we fail to sever our love for the world, and so we are deceived by selfish desires, and our souls will gradually become corrupted.
Just as God drove out the big and strong nations for the sake of the people of Israel, the Lord has paved the way for us to be saved (John 14:6). So let us resolve to obey God’s word and rely on the Holy Spirit to increase our strength to resist the deception around us, and fix our eyes on the hope of heaven.
Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. (James 1:21)