Thank you again, Mark, for leading us, and good morning to everyone. Beautiful sunny day this morning. The Lord has given us this morning. 

We're going to come to the end of the book of Joshua, a wonderful study that we've had in this book for many months. We've learned so much together, grown in our understanding of who God is, His faithfulness to His people, and His promises, and the amazing works that He did giving the land to Israel. 

In our text this morning, we see the end of the life and time of the leader of Israel in the book of Joshua. He gathers the people together to remind them of the works of God, to call on them to remember, and to charge them to put away the gods of this world, the foreign gods of the land and its people, and serve the Lord God of Israel. 

The call is to put away the things of this world, to turn from false worship, to serve the Lord, to fear Him, and to obey Him. God had done so much for Israel. He'd proven His faithfulness again and again over vast amounts of time through so much trial and trouble, disobedience, and unbelief. God kept His promises. He continues to work out His will patiently through His people, for His people, and for His glory.

This principle applies to us today as well, and we can know from the history of Israel and also from the history of our own lives and testimony that God is faithful. That He has done mighty works in me, for me, for His glory. I should look back and remember, and I should constantly consider the faithfulness, the trustworthiness of my Lord and my God, knowing that He is the only true God and my only Savior. I should accept this challenge from Joshua as well to put away the gods of this world, the false gods, the worship of idols, and choose this day to serve the Lord.

Paul gives us a similar admonition in Romans 12:1 and 2. We're going to look at that text later at the end of the great doctrinal section of the book of Romans. After those amazing profound truths concerning the gospel in the first 11 chapters, he writes, "Therefore, based on the mercies of God, based on all of these truths of who God is and what He has done, the great doctrines of the gospel and our salvation in Christ." He says, "Therefore, knowing all of this, looking back on the faithfulness of God, stop being conformed by the world and be being transformed by the renewing of your mind." 

Stop being conformed by the world. This is the basic charge that Joshua gives in our text this morning. It was going on; it was happening. The people were being drawn away to the false gods, vacillating, being influenced, conformed by the people and the false gods of the land. Joshua says, "You cannot serve the Lord and other gods, for He is a holy and jealous God." 

Choose you this day whom you will serve. Jesus taught us this same basic truth. You cannot serve two masters; you cannot serve God and mammon. We will see this morning that this is the essence of the challenge from Joshua at the end of his days to the people he had so faithfully led all these years to great victories and the realization of the promises of God by His grace and power. We will see that this is the vital application for us as well as we close our study of the book of Joshua. 

Let's look at our text, Joshua 24:1. We will read this again for everyone who is listening online or on the website later. 

"Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and called for the elders of Israel, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers. They presented themselves before God, and Joshua said to all the people, 'Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the river in old times, and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from the other side of the river, led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his descendants, and gave him Isaac. To Isaac, I gave Jacob and Esau. To Esau, I gave the mountains of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt.' Also, I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt according to what I did among them. Afterward, I brought you out. Then I brought your fathers out of Egypt, and you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. So they cried out to the Lord, and He put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them and covered them, and your eyes saw what I did in Egypt. Then you dwelled in the wilderness a long time, and I brought you into the land of the Amorites, who dwelt on the other side of the Jordan, and they fought with you. But I gave them into your hand that you might possess their land, and I destroyed them from before you. Then Balak the son of Zippor, the king of Moab, arose to make war against Israel and sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you. But I would not listen to Balaam; therefore, he continued to bless you. So I delivered you out of his hand. Then you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho, and men of Jericho fought against you. Also, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. But I delivered them into your hand. I sent the hornet before you which drove them out from before you; also, the two kings of the Amorites. But not with your sword or with your bow. I have given you a land for which you did not labor, in cities which you did not build. And you dwell in them; you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant. Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the river and in Egypt. Serve the Lord. And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.' 

So the people answered and said, 'Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods. For the Lord our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage, who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all the way that we went and among all the people through whom we passed. And the Lord drove out from before us all the people, including the Amorites who dwelt in the land. We also will serve the Lord, for He is our God.' 

Verse 19, but Joshua said to the people, 'You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after He has done you good.' And the people said to Joshua, 'No, but we will serve the Lord.' So Joshua said to the people, 'You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord for yourselves to serve Him.' And they said, 'We are witnesses. Now therefore,' he said, 'put away the foreign gods which are among you and incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel.' And the people said to Joshua, 'The Lord our God, we will serve and His voice we will obey.' 

So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. Then Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. And Joshua said to all the people, 'Behold, this stone shall be a witness to us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord which He spoke to us. It shall therefore be a witness to you, lest you deny your God.' So Joshua let the people depart, each to his own inheritance. 

Now it came to pass after these things that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died being 110 years old, and they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath-Serah, which is in the mountains of Ephraim on the north side of Mount Gash. Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had known all the works of the Lord which He had done for Israel. The bones of Joseph which the children of Israel had brought up out of Egypt, they buried at Shechem in the plot of ground which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for 100 pieces of silver, and which had become an inheritance of the children of Joseph. And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; they buried him in a hill belonging to Phinehas, his son, which was given to him in the mountains of Ephraim.

I have four points for you this morning on the outline. You don't have an outline, my apologies, but I have four points for you: the faithfulness of the Lord, second, choose you this day, third, the only true God, and fourth, the end of an era. 

Well, in the first 13 verses of our text this morning, Joshua gives the children of Israel a history lesson. He reminds them, calls on them to remember all that God has done in the nation of Israel, His faithfulness all of these years. I'd like for you to turn to Acts 7 with me; I want to read a few verses from a lengthy passage from Stephen as he testifies before the Sanhedrin, and these words are so similar to Joshua's words here. 

We'll just read a few of these verses, but Acts 7 at verse 2. This is Stephen testifying before the Sanhedrin. He said, "Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelled in Haran, and said to him, 'Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.' Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelled in Haran, and from there, when his father was dead, he moved him to this land in which you now dwell. Now in the next many verses, he gives them basically the same history lesson that Joshua did. If you go down to verse 44, he says, 'Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he appointed, instructing Moses to make it according to the pattern that he had seen, which our fathers having received it in turn also brought with Joshua into the land possessed by the Gentiles whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the days of David. Who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob, but Solomon built him a house. However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says: Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool. What house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Has my hand not made all these things?' 

Then Stephen says to these Jewish leaders, 'You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in hearts and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.' 

It is so interesting to me that some 1,300 years after the death of Joshua, we see the faithful witness for Jesus, Stephen, giving almost identical history lesson to the leaders of Israel that Joshua gives in the first 13 verses of our text. Stephen was in a much different situation, speaking to a hostile group of people, but it was the same content given to the same people of God, the nation of Israel. Why? What is the point? Why is this so important? It shows to us, to them, the faithfulness of God. I mean, this is an amazing history, an amazing account of all that God did over these vast expanses of time, with great patience with Israel and her people, to accomplish His will and purpose and to bring His promises to pass. He is continuing that work now, and He will keep His promises to Israel in the future. 

The message is this: you can trust the Lord. You can look to the Lord and believe Him and obey Him and serve Him alone. Know that He is faithful, always faithful to keep His word. The children of Israel in Joshua 24 seem to get this; they seem to have an eager will to obey and to heed the words of Joshua, and this lasts for a good deal of time in the life of Joshua and all his elders who outlived him, who saw all the works. But we know that down the road, in a new generation, and because of a failure to separate from the world, Israel does mix with the nations, does worship false gods, and does suffer God's correcting hand again and again. 

To the people to whom Stephen testified were the same nation, the leaders of Israel, but they did not respond in a positive way. It says they were cut to the heart and took up stones and stoned Stephen to death. 

The message is the same: remember, look back at all that God has done for you and fear the Lord and serve Him. Look to Him, believe Him, know that God is faithful. My friends, we must make this application in our lives continually. Look back at what God has done in your life: saving you, placing you into Christ, transforming you, giving you eternal life, grace and peace and assurance and hope, and all the fruit that God has produced through you for His glory. Look back, remember and know that God is faithful, and put away the worldly things, the false gods. Serve the Lord. 

This is what Joshua is saying to them and to us. Next, we see in our text that based on these truths and the history and the faithfulness of God, Joshua charges them: choose you this day whom you will serve. In verse 14 he says, "Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the river and in Egypt. Serve the Lord." He tells them, if you don't want to serve the Lord, then choose who you're going to serve. Are you going to serve other gods? Are you going to serve the God of science? You're going to serve the God of government? 

I feel so bad for people today who have government as their God. I mean, it's an absolute destruction thing for them to realize that government might do something to harm them because government is their God. He says if you don't serve the Lord wholeheartedly, if you don't put away the worldly things and the worldly gods, then God is not going to have favor on you. He's not going to allow you to worship other gods and worship Him. He is the only true God, and we must choose to serve Him. 

And the people said to Joshua, "The Lord our God, we will serve and His voice we will obey." And Joshua says to them, "You cannot serve the Lord." We're going to talk about that, but that's a stunning statement. So Joshua let the people depart, it says, and go back. And he's telling them, based on the longtime trustworthy faithfulness of God and the awesome evidence that He is all powerful, that He is all wise, He is the only true God, based on your history and the evident faithfulness of God, serve the Lord. Trust Him. Believe and obey Him and Him only. 

The essence of this charge from this text, the words of Joshua is this: put away the foreign gods. Separate yourselves from the pagan people in their worship and their ways and choose this day to serve only the Lord. And the people respond positively to the great warning of Joshua about what will happen if they serve other gods. "Far be it from us to forsake the Lord and serve other gods, we will serve the Lord." 

But again, this most fascinating statement, verse 18, they say, "We also will serve the Lord, for He is our God." And Joshua said to the people, "You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a holy God; He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after He has done you good." 

They were being drawn away. They were being taken captive by false worship, by the foreign gods of the land. And they say, "Oh, we will serve the Lord." This is what my wife would call a pie crust promise that we've seen again from Israel over and over. It's easily made and easily broken. But Joshua responds to their positive affirmation with a stunning statement: "You cannot serve the Lord." 

Now this is a surprise to me. He charges them to serve the Lord. They say yes, he's been faithful, he's done all of these things that you've said, we will serve him. And Joshua says, "You cannot serve him." What does this mean? Didn't they give the answer that he wanted? Didn't they know to serve the Lord? Their vow to serve the Lord? 

I just want to make a couple of applications. First of all, Israel has always been all too willing to make a pledge and a vow. When Moses read all the words of the law to Israel and sprinkled them with the blood affirming the covenant, what did the people say? "We will always do all things to obey all the words of this law." I always say that's the first promise keepers meeting. Have you ever read Exodus and Leviticus? It's a chore just to read all of those things, let alone hear the whole thing and say, "I will always keep all the words of that law." 

It's easy to make a pledge. It's easy to make a vow, a promise to say you believe. I thought of John 2. Remember in John 2:23, it says, "Now when He was in, speaking of Jesus, when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them because he knew all men and had no need that anyone should testify of men, for He knew what was in man." 

Jesus did these great signs in Jerusalem, and it says many believed. This is the proper response, right? Believe me. See the works. Believe. But notice that Jesus did not commit Himself to them because He knew their hearts. This was not a trust, a belief unto salvation; they affirmed faith, but it was no saving faith. It was an attraction to the works which He did, perhaps an intellectual affirmation of who He is based on the works. 

And I think Joshua knew their hearts as well. He knew these people well. He had led them all his life. He had been there with Moses. He knew, and he knew they were serving false gods now. So what he says here is you cannot serve the Lord and other gods. That's what he's saying. 

For notice the word "for." For God is a holy God, and a jealous God, and if you have other gods before Him, it will not go well with you. He's saying the same thing as Paul in Romans 12. Again, you must stop being conformed by the world. You must forsake all other gods and worldliness and false worship and mixing with the pagans of this world. You must stop being conformed by this world. 

But I also want to make one other application here because it struck me when I came to verse 19. Again, this was a time under the law of Moses, and the people say we will keep the law. We will serve the Lord. And Joshua says you cannot. And this is such an important message, the very purpose of the law. It's why Jesus preached the law to the religious Jews of His day in the Sermon on the Mount. We will keep the law, the rich young ruler said. "I have kept all these things since my youth." 

But the truth is no man can keep the law. No man can be righteous. No man can serve the Lord in his own strength. And the only way that we can live for the Lord and glorify Him is by His grace through faith alone in Him alone. 

So Joshua says, "You cannot serve the Lord, not in your own strength, not while you serve other gods, not by the means of the law. You better get it straight. You are wholly dependent on God and His grace and mercy to ever produce any righteousness in and through you." And if you read the bulk of this chapter, what did we see? "I did this, and I did this, and I gave Jacob, and I brought you out of Egypt." God did all these things by His grace and power. 

Joshua was saying to them, "You better hold fast to Him. You better seek Him with a fear and a desperation and need for Him every moment, every day, and never turn to the left or the right, but serve the Lord for He is the only true God." This is the same application for us today, isn't it? I am only fruitful as far as I understand and sense my desperate need for Jesus every day. Without Him, I can do nothing. But I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me. He can do it; He can produce the fruit out through my life, but not when I'm out serving other gods. 

You know, not when I'm caught up in all the things of the world, when I'm taken captive by hollow and deceptive philosophies according to the traditions of men, not according to Christ. The same message for us today: serve the Lord, hold fast to Him. 

Well, we see in our text also the end of an era. Verse 29: "Now it came to pass after these things that Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died being 110 years old, and they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath-Serah, which is the mountains of Ephraim on the north side of Mount Gash. Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had known all the works of the Lord which He had done for Israel. The bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had brought up out of Egypt, they buried at Shechem in the plot of ground which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for 100 pieces of silver, and which had become an inheritance of the children of Joseph. And Eleazar, the son of Aaron, died; they buried him in a hill belonging to Phinehas, his son, which was given to him in the mountains of Ephraim." 

Well, Joshua was faithful all of his life to seek the Lord, to lead the people, to trust the Lord. Remember all the way back, Joshua and Caleb were the only two spies that came back and gave a positive report. Joshua was with Moses. Remember we studied that at the beginning of the book, and he was a servant to Moses, and he was always faithful to do what was needed and to help Moses and to be an example. And certainly, when he took on leadership and brought him across the Jordan and into the land and took Jericho, it was a constant faithfulness and an example to the children of Israel, and he led them well. 

He was faithful to seek the Lord, to lead the people, to trust the Lord, and his final words are this very charge. It's the end of an era, and the people would choose to serve the Lord for a time as long as the elders of Joshua lived, until a subsequent generation. Joshua was a godly man who chose to believe, to seek, to serve the Lord, and Israel prospered greatly under his leadership, but it did not last for Israel. A stiff-necked and disobedient people always going astray in their hearts is what God said. 

Turn to Judges chapter 2 with me, please. Next book, Judges chapter 2 at verse 8. Judges 2:8 says, "Now Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died when he was 110 years old, and they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath-Serah in the mountains of Ephraim on the north side of Mount Gash. When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel. Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals, and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, and they bowed down to them and provoked the Lord to anger." 

My brothers and sisters, we live in a different time under a different dispensation than did Joshua and the children of Israel. We have so much more in Christ. But what is the key for us to remain faithful and fruitful and to have our children follow the Lord? It is to remember. It's to remember the faithfulness of God, to study His Word, see the works that He has done, remember, renew your mind to who He is. Remember the works that He's done, how faithful He has been in your life. Preach the gospel to yourself every day. Remember your first love. 

Stop being conformed to this world, to the fear and the doubt that Satan assails us with continually. Why should you fear? Why should you doubt? Remember that the Lord is faithful. I mean, this is the example of Israel to us, if nothing else. Can you imagine being one of those children of Israel under Joshua at this point? And this is why he goes through all this and reminds them. This is why Stephen goes through all of this: to remind them, to be a witness against them. But think about what those people had experienced, all of those works, all of those years from being brought out of Egypt through the wilderness to taking the land. And it's nothing compared to what we have, regeneration and Christ living in us, the Word of God complete that we can look to and study, renew our minds to, to think God's thoughts, to know who He is, to remember what He's done. 

Remember that the Lord is faithful and renew. That's what I want to close with in that passage we've been referring to, Romans 12:1, if you'd turn there with me. Romans 12:1 and 2. And remember, this admonition is based on all of the great doctrines of the gospel that he's just taught. 

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." 

Well, we must first know the truth, the doctrines of our salvation, and that's why we preach the Word, that's why we study the Word, that's why Paul spent so much time in the book of Romans in those first eleven chapters, to lay that foundation. We must first know the truth, the doctrines of our salvation, who we are in Christ, because of our death, burial, and resurrection with Him. Regeneration, that we died, that we died to sin and the law, and we're free from the fear of death. 

And then we must continually renew our minds to these truths. Literally here, Paul says, stop being conformed to the world. Stop letting the outward influence of the world shape and conform your actions, which are not consistent with who you are on the inside. Rather, present tense, be being transformed. How? By the renewing of your mind to the words of God. "Sanctify them by your truth; your Word is truth." Literally, let your outward actions, the way you live, the way you think, come continually into conformity to the reality of who you are on the inside because of the work of God in salvation and regeneration when He gave us a new heart and a new spirit and came to make His home in us, Christ in you, the hope of glory. 

Remember, renew. Believe God. Eagerly pursue Him and His Word, His truth, and choose to believe Him. Not your doubts and fears, not the crazy wisdom of this world, not the information that constantly inundates us, but the Word of God. That's the way that we can be fruitful. That's the way we can hold fast and not be drawn away or taken captive. You know, we have these serious warnings in the New Testament as well. Beware, Paul says in Colossians 2:8, that you not be taken captive, hauled away and pillaged, is the word, by hollow and deceptive philosophies. They're constantly coming at us. 

But the key is to trust Him, to look to Him, to believe Him, to abide in Him one day at a time. And my brothers and sisters, He is faithful, and He will work out His will in your life. Just hold fast to Him. 

Let's close in prayer. 

Father, we thank You for this great book and the life of Joshua, and we thank You for all the wonderful works that You did in the life of Joshua and the nation of Israel. Thank You for recording that and preserving that for us to go back and to see and to learn and know who You are, that You're faithful, that You tell the truth, that You cannot lie, and that You will bring to pass all that You've promised. And that's so important for us as we look to the promises that we have in Christ, as we trust Him one day at a time, know that His grace is sufficient and that You're going to bring Your will to pass in this world and in our lives, and You will keep Your promises, and You will use us to bear fruit for Your glory. Thank You for that privilege, in Jesus' name, Amen.