The Thursday after Septuagesima Sunday
Posted on February 5, 2026 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
The people insisted that they wanted to serve the Lord and have Him be their God. Joshua warned them that they cannot do that if they cling to vanity and idolatry, but they still insisted. Generations later, the holy Servant of God stood before them and they rejected Him, condemning Him to death as a criminal and a blasphemer. After hypocrites called for Jesus to be crucified, Pilate said, “I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it”; all the people answered and said, “His blood be on us and on our children.” (See Matt. 27:24-25).
God is loving, gracious, and merciful, but He is also just. If people mock and reject His gracious Words, then those people call down upon themselves the righteous wrath and judgment of the Lord. We cannot pretend to be servants while we unrepentantly reject His truth.
The Church faithfully upholds all that our Lord teaches and promises. We show forth His love and grace, but we also show proper fear and respect for His discipline and Law. False teachers talk about love while rejecting discipline. They do not serve the Lord; they serve vanity and preach licentiousness, and they deserve the consequences of their persistent error. Proper fear, love, and trust in Christ Jesus values all His Words, because they are all a holy blessing to His faithful people.
Collect: 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.
