Thursday after Septuagesima Sunday
Posted on February 4, 2021 by under
Scripture: Joshua 24:14-25 (NKJV)
24:14 “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! 15 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.”
16 So the people answered and said: “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; 17 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. 18 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.”
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. 20 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.”
21 And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the Lord!”
22 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!”
23 “Now therefore,” he said, “put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel.”
24 And the people said to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey!”
25 So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.
Devotion
Joshua was a faithful spiritual son to Moses and he left no doubt regarding the commitment which the people of Israel were making when they swore to hold to the Word of the Lord. The people came from a life among the heathen, and the promised land was filled with the heathen. In the midst of a world which hates the Lord, in the midst of nations who worship idols, the Church is surrounded on every side by the enemies of the faith. In this week when we have heard the Gospel of those who labored throughout the heat of the day, and those who labored for but an hour, we are taught again that the Lord perfectly fulfills His Word. Where there is apostasy from the truth and those who had been among the people of God turn aside to follow idols, the punishment is most severe: “ 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.” The point Joshua sets before the people—“You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord for yourselves, to serve Him.”—might well be spoken in the Church today, as often as men and women are tempted to turn from the pure confession of the truth and to be turned aside to false teaching.
True faith is solely the work of the Holy Spirit, who creates and sustains faith through the Word, and thus our hope of salvation is always outside ourselves, in Christ.
Prayer: O Lord, we beseech Thee favorably to hear the prayers of Thy people: that we, who are justly punished for our offenses, may be mercifully delivered by Thy goodness, for the glory of Thy Name; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
