When Joshua was old, he charged the people of Israel to serve God only, for God had delivered them, and promised them temporal blessings and abundance.
Indeed, God's mighty power toward Israel to do it good, had been well demonstrated with miracles and provision from Heaven itself! God had granted Israel repeated military victories, and given His people a land free and clear.
The only reasonable thing Israel could do was to worship and obey such a God, the only real God in all the world.
When Israel insisted that it would serve the Lord, Joshua warned the people, "you cannot serve the Lord," and pointed out that God would not ignore Israel's sins, and would hold the people to account for any wickedness.
Israel's response was, in substance, "hey, we've got this. Don't worry, we're not going to blow a good thing like this. We will obey the Lord and serve Him only."
Herein we observe the tragedy of Israel, that in fact it could not and would not obey God, and would fall into repeated, catastrophic judgments due to backsliding and rebellion.
Joshua was right: we cannot serve the Lord.
So long as we try to attain unto righteousness by works before God, we will all fail, because of our broken and sinful nature. We are bound by sin, and are never able to perform our commitments to God, and then, where are we left but wrath?
This wasn't the first time Israel had made such bold promises to God, only to fall into horrible sin shortly thereafter. The people swore they would obey the Ten Commandments, and were mightily cowered by the power and potential wrath of God displayed at Mt Sinai.
And yet, 40 days later, they were dancing naked before a golden calf! |
