God’s Covenant

Joshua was a great man and, as he came to the end of his life, he wanted to give a charge to the people. He wanted to say something they would remember and by which they could guide their actions in significant ways in the years that lay ahead.

God does great things for us, and God has done great things. Still we find ourselves drifting away from the memory of what God has done and so falling away from a following after God as we should do.

The second part of Joshua’s address is that on the basis of what God has done, you have present obligations. There are a couple of them. One obligation is the obligation of obedience. It’s what he talks about in verses 6 to 8: “Be very strong. Be careful to obey all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, without turning aside to the right or to the left. Do not associate with these nations that remain among you. Do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them. But you are to hold fast to the Lord your God as you have until now.”

Yesterday we looked at the first obligation in response to God’s past actions. The second obligation of the people is in verse 11, where Joshua says, “So be very careful to love the Lord your God.” That hasn’t been emphasized much until now. The need for obedience has been there all along; but now Joshua is stressing, as he talks to them, that they really must love God. The clue to interpreting what Joshua means here in chapter 23 is the way he talks about love in chapter 22. It’s interesting that each of these chapters throws light on the other.

Well, we come to the last part of Joshua’s charge, and it’s in the form of a challenge. He challenges them not to drift along, but rather to make a choice for God. Perhaps it’s not as clear here at the end of chapter 23 as it’s going to become in chapter 24, where the very word, “choose” occurs: “Choose you this day whom you will serve,” says Joshua. But that’s still the idea here in chapter 23.