Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Joshua 24:15

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that [were] on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

15. choose you this day ] Like Elijah afterwards on Carmel (1Ki 18:21), the Hebrew leader challenges the people with the utmost freedom to decide once for all that day whom they would serve. He gives them their choice between the old worship of Penates or household gods practised by their fathers, and the Baal-worship of the Amorites, if they would not serve Jehovah, Who had brought them out of Egypt.

as for me and my house ] Whatever may be the decision of the people, Joshua tells them what he and his family are resolved to do. “ I and my house will serve Jehovah.” Compare the words of the Lord respecting Abraham, “I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment,” Gen 18:19.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Choose – Service of God in sincerity and truth can only result from a free and willing allegiance of the heart. This accordingly is what Joshua invites, as Moses had done before him (Deu 30:15 ff).

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Jos 24:15

Choose you this day whom ye will serve.

The Christians choice

Seem evil unto you to serve the Lord! How can the service of the Lord seem evil to any one who is not either wholly void of understanding or altogether hardened against religious impressions? The service of God is exclusive. It does not admit of interference, or of competition, or of divided homage. It must have the whole man. He requires your whole heart–with all its principles, and dispositions, and sensibilities. And if your heart be thus surrendered to Him, the conduct, which is but a demonstration of its influence and actings, will exhibit, in all its departments and in all its bearings a single regard to His will and glory. Now, apply this test to yourselves. It is no doubt a strict and searching one. But it is scriptural and true.

I. Choose you whom you will serve–the Lord, or those idols which an evil heart of unbelief has substituted in His place. You may allege that it does not seem evil to you to serve the Lord. And, speculatively, this may be true; but, practically, it is false. You think, you feel, you act, as if it did seem evil unto you to serve the Lord. There is a latent repugnance in your minds to His service. There is a real devotedness to those whom you ought not to serve which is essentially and irreconcilably inconsistent with a real devotedness to Him whom you ought to serve. And the idea that you are submitting to His sway, when you are, in fact, their slaves, merely because you reject the atrocious saying, that it is evil to serve the Lord, and are not disinclined to do many things included in that service, is all a delusion, which, however long it may last in this land of self-deception and shadows, must inevitably be broken. Now, it is our wish that this delusion, so sad and so fatal, under which you labour, should be broken before the day of retribution comes. You have been halting between two opinions; embrace one of them and abide by it. You have been trying to amalgamate two systems: abandon the one, and cleave to the other.

II. Choose you this day whom ye will serve. Having acknowledged that you have been in error–grievous, perilous error–why should you delay forsaking it? Is not this to belie your own professed convictions? Choose you this day whom ye will serve; and instead of hesitating, as if you might still snatch another pleasure before you renounce your connection with the world, account the time past as far more than sufficient to have wrought the will of the flesh. Wonder at the forbearance of God in not making you long since a monument of His righteous anger against the unholy and impenitent. Choose you this day whom ye will serve; because the sooner that you enter on Gods service, in its full import, the sooner will you consult the dignity of that rational nature which He has given you, and which you have been hitherto degrading. Choose you this day whom ye will serve; because to delay the change which a right choice implies will be the means of rendering it more difficult in the end. Choose you this day whom ye will serve; for if you do not embrace the existing opportunity of devoting your selves wholly and heartily to God, which is your reasonable and bounden service, another opportunity may never be afforded. (A. Thomson, D. D.)

Promptitude of choice recommended

I. The act of choice.

1. Our choice should be Divine in its object. We should choose the Lord for our God.

2. Our choice should be rational in its character. Let us wisely consider what we are doing.

3. Our choice should be decisive in its nature.

4. Our choice should be practical in its operations. Having chosen God, serve Him–

(1) Totally;

(2) uniformly;

(3) evidently.

II. The period of choice.

1. We should make our choice this day, because of the criminal neglect of which we have been guilty.

2. From a view of the shortness and uncertainty of our time.

3. Because the present is the only time when God has promised the aid of His Spirit.

4. Because the difficulty of choosing will increase in proportion to our neglect of it.

III. The motives for choice.

1. The capacity which we have for choice is a reason for its exercise. God gives nothing in vain.

2. The perilous state in which we are without this choice is another motive.

3. The happiness that results from our choosing God should prompt us to comply with the requisition in the text. He who has chosen God is in a state of safety and tranquillity. (Sketches of Sermons.)

Religion voluntary, personal, powerful

I. Religion is voluntary.

1. The choice, how ever, is not between religion and no religion. Man is a religious being. Religion is as necessary to his soul as breathing is to his body. To be religious is a necessity, but the kind of religion adopted is a matter of choice. In selecting religion, care should be taken to understand fully the merits of each. The antiquity and popularity of a system, though they show that such a system ought to be examined, are in themselves no arguments in favour of its truth. Truth is beautiful though hated and hooted by the majority of men. The diamond glitters however mean the setting. Like the diamond and the star, truth is beautiful everywhere and always.

2. The choice of religion is limited as to time: Choose you this day. The present time is Gods time and ours: Now is the acceptable time. We know that; but as for to-morrow, as for the future, we know nothing.

II. Religion is personal. He says, Choose you. It cannot be done by proxy. Every man must come to God himself.

III. Religion is powerful. Religion is life; life is example; and example is almost omnipotent. The smallest pebble cast into the quiet pool causes a series of undulations, and the smallest of these leaves its impression, for millions of ages, on the shore; so does the feeblest soul of man, renewed by grace, make a series of moral impressions on the world–impressions whose record will be legible throughout all eternity. (Evan Lewis, B. A.)

On choosing the service of God

It is an act of choice, of preference, to which you are called; one of the most familiar, every-day acts of the mind. You are called to change masters; to renounce the world as your portion and to choose God as your portion; to submit to His authority and control, and henceforth live, not to your self, but to Him who died for you and rose again. And this act of choice or preference is of the nature of a supreme, governing purpose of the mind–such a purpose as gives direction to the current of feeling and desire in the soul.

1. Is it not right that you should choose God as your portion and His service as that which should engage your supreme regards? He is in Himself a being of boundless excellence and glory; your creator, preserver, benefactor, and ruler.

2. The duty in question is enjoined by express command of God.

3. This is a duty which perfectly accords with the nature and destiny of the intelligent, immortal mind with which the Creator has endued you.

4. The choice of God, as the being whom you will serve, is the sum and substance of religion; and you ought all to be religious; friends of God and followers of the Saviour.

5. Every man must choose either God or the world as his portion; and according as he chooses the one or the other, so is his character in the sight of God, and his condition in eternity.

6. There is nothing either within or without you which need prevent your choosing the service of God. He who knows perfectly your frame, your intellectual and moral faculties, and all the circumstances of your condition–He, the God who made and upholds you in being, calls you to enter into His service, to choose Him as your Lord and portion.

7. The service of God is the highest glory of your nature, the most perfect freedom of rational moral beings; the surest and most abundant source of inward comfort and outward prosperity. It exalts those who are devoted to it to an alliance with the purest and noblest beings in the universe, with prophets and apostles, and glorified spirits in heaven; with ministering angels on high, and with God Himself, the supreme good. It sets the soul upon an endless career of improvement in all that is worthy and good, opens before it bright visions of heavenly glory, secures Gods presence and favour for its support and guidance while passing through this world; brings Divine comforts into the bosom in the hour of death, and finally exalts to everlasting rewards in heaven. (J. Hawes, D. D.)

Our choice

I. Serve the Lord because of His goodness.

II. Serve the Lord because of His wondrous mercy.

III. Serve the Lord because of His love. Let His love in dying for us cause us to serve the Lord.

IV. Serve Him because of His providence.

V. Serve the Lord also because of His salvation. (W. Birch.)

Serving the Lord

I. True religion is a service to the lord. How well this was understood under the old dispensation by truly good men! The Lord was set foremost as the aim of all piety, not man. If you are in anothers service you do not follow your own wishes, but his; you do not aim to please yourself, but him; your business is to help him and promote his interests.

II. The beginning of religion in the heart is with the choice of that service. Shall Christ have dominion over you or the world? Who has the first right? What says reason? what says conscience? what says the voice of your immortal interests? Thus deliberates the soul in the crises of its history. All persons are to be addressed in this matter as free moral agents.

III. To some persons it seems an evil thing to choose the Lords service.

1. One reason is that which Joshua gives in the lesson: Ye cannot serve the Lord, for He is a holy God. To choose His service is to renounce sin. This is the secret of many irreligious lives.

2. It seems evil to give up idol worship.

3. There is a mortification of pride in the choice of Gods service which often seems evil.

IV. Whether it seems good or evil to choose the Lords service, there is a necessity of choosing, and of choosing now.

1. Those Israelites were to weigh the fact that they did that day make some choice. That is the serious dilemma of every awakened soul. You are under the necessity of preferring the service of God or some other.

2. The more important, then, to note that the choice of to-day is likely to be that of to-morrow and all time to come.

3. Last, but not least of all, your choice will have a controlling effect on others. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. What a lesson to all who are in high places! What an example for men of prominence in every community! What an admonition to every father of a family! How wide-reaching is the influence of such persons over the decision of others! (W. E. Knox, D. D.)

The only alternative

There are few delusions more fatal, and yet more common, than that of persons labouring to negotiate a treaty betwixt the service of sin and the service of holiness, striving to reconcile the claims of Christianity with the claims of the world. In many cases of every-day life, neutrality is not only lawful, but commendable. But it is far otherwise in matters of religion and in the high interests of immortality. Here no reserve can be admitted–no demur or debate sanctioned–no discreet caution allowed.

I. The two sides of the alternative proposed.

1. The first particularised is the tragical or fatal side. If you choose this day to give yourselves up to the thrall of your turbulent passions, and to become the slaves of all ungodliness, then drown every rising conviction, strangle in the birth all boding apprehensions and all gloomy forecastings of the future.

2. But if you choose an opposite course, if you prefer the service of Jehovah to the service of Satan, the pleasures of holiness to the pleasures of unrighteousness, then stand not for a moment in fatal hesitation, but range yourselves at once under the standard of the Cross and resign yourselves, without reserve and without condition, to the faith and obedience of the gospel, to the love and service of Christ. Let everything bear attestation to the fact that you consider you have a work to execute of great difficulty and of infinite importance, on the issue of which the whole burden of the destinies of endless ages is staked, and therefore you cannot permit your attention to be for a moment diverted away from this one grand and all-absorbing business of your existence, or your faculties to be engrossed by an inferior object.

II. The special time when this option is to be made and this decision come to: Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. In every relation and condition of human life much depends on the cultivation of favourable junctures and the improvement of propitious moments. The greatest revolutions that have taken place, the most splendid victories that have been won, and the most permanent conquests that have been achieved, have all depended upon a judicious estimate and critical application of time. If it be true what a writer has observed, that it is possible to live a thousand years in a quarter of an hour, it holds still truer, that a few minutes lost or improved may decide the complexion of our whole destiny for eternity. Seeing, then, that there is equal hazard and criminality in every moments delay, in a business so critical and so momentous as the restoration of the soul to Gods favour and image, and the insurance of its eternal well-being, we would with all earnestness press it upon you as your first, your predominant, and your ultimate interest, to give yourselves to God now, to give yourselves to God wholly, and to give yourselves to God for ever. (Joseph Sommerville.)

Gods service as a, choice

Choose. God speaks this word to every man amid the thunders of Sinai and the pleadings of Calvary.

1. Christianity is a religion of reason, intelligence, not of authority and force; it appeals to motives; it sets right and wrong, life and death, before every mans mind and calls upon him to choose between them.

2. The choice is voluntary. No deception is used, and no compulsion of any kind. God never coerced a creatures will, and He never will, even to save him!

3. The choice in all cases is a personal one, in view of motives: Choose you, &c. Each soul will decide his course and destiny, and wilt be required to give account of himself at the judgment.

4. Every one is at liberty to decline Gods service just the same as he is to enter it; but to refuse is to choose. Not to serve Christ is to serve the devil.

5. Hence the entire responsibility of choosing rests on each individuals mind. (J. M. Sherwood, D. D.)

Reasons for choosing Gods service

1. Justice and equity imperiously demand this of us.

2. The claims of gratitude join in enforcing it

3. The mysteries of redemption.

4. Our best interests are necessarily involved in it. (The Pulpit.)

Joshuas permission and determination

1. First as to the permission. There is no leave given–and this we wish to be well observed–for the renouncing religion altogether, but only of choosing between the true and the false. Joshua does not say, Choose whether ye will have the Lord or no God; but, Whether ye will have the Lord or the gods of the idolators. Rut we may not suppose that Joshua here distinguishes atheism from idolatry, as though the people might choose idolatry with a less degree of guiltiness than atheism. He only assumes a broad principle, which the experience of mankind has all along verified, namely, that a nation must have some religion, and that they will worship false gods if they do not worship the true. And then observe, in respect of this permission, that it does not argue indifference on the part of Joshua as to the religion which the people might adopt. He leaves them indeed free to make their election; but still he takes the most effectual made of recommending truth to their acceptance. His declaration as to the religion which he himself would uphold was the giving all his influence to the side of righteousness; and it were not easy to imagine a more dexterous, and at the same time a more powerful, method of bringing the Israelites to yew allegiance to God than thus leaving them their choice, whilst he gave the weight of his own example to the cause which he desired to support. And yet there is more than this to be advanced with regard to the apparent refusal of Joshua to interfere otherwise than by example with the national religion. It would be easy to misrepresent the permission in question–to construe it into an intimation that in matters of religion rulers should leave a people altogether to themselves; but if you consider the circumstances of the Jewish nation when Joshua delivered the address you will perceive that toleration is the only thing enjoined, and not the non-interference of rulers with religion. The Jews were not without an established religion when Joshua bade them choose between truth and error. Their rulers, acting under the immediate direction of God, had woven a system of worship into all the national institutions, and provided, by every possible means, for the instruction of the people in the fear of the Lord. Rulers cannot interfere with conscience, and having established what they know to be the true religion, and determining to uphold it by their example, toleration, and not persecution, is their business. Therefore choose you this day whom ye will serve; decide whether ye will be worshippers of Jehovah or idolators with the Amorites. The intrepid leader of Israels thousands resolved, even if deserted or opposed by his countrymen, that he would remain staunch in his loyalty to Jehovah. He had satisfied himself as to the nature and demands of true religion; and if none had espoused the same side, his purpose was fixed–to stand alone in the championship of truth. This was sublime, because moral heroism; and Joshua was not a thousandth part as glorious when crossing the Jordan as the captain of the Lords host, or bidding the sun stand arrested in the firmament as when, contemplating the possibility of national apostasy, with the image before him of the tribes whom he had led on to victory abandoning the God who had fought all their battles, he uttered the permission and the resolve–Choose you this day whom ye will serve; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

II. Now, we had intended to speak at length on Joshuas determination, as we have done on his permission; but, in handling the one, we have touched on most of the points suggested by the other. The wisdom, for example, of Joshuas choice is demonstrated by the insufficiency of the reasons which were likely to produce a different choice in the Israelites. Neither the antiquity nor the extent of idolatry could justify its adoption; and if, therefore, the ranks of idolators were swelled by accessions from Gods professed people, there would be nothing to warrant a change of purpose in Joshua; and it would still be his wisdom, though it would ask great courage to act on the principle that the Lord alone should be worshipped. Hence the wisdom of the determination requires no proof, whilst its boldness may well put us to the blush, when deterred, as we often are, by a frown or a sneer, from avouching ourselves the resolved servants of God. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

The evil and danger of fickleness in religion

I. An intimation of the danger there is that a great part of the world may grow weary of religion, even whilst it is taught in simplicity and truth.

II. An admonition that such as are disposed to throw off the bonds of duty to their maker would think seriously what sort of change they are about to venture upon, and how they hope to be gainers by it.

III. The resolution which prudent men will make, whatever others do, to continue in the practice of it themselves, and preserve a conscientious regard to it amongst all that are placed under their inspection. (Archbp. Secker.)

National religion

1. It is here supposed that a nation must be of some religion or other. Joshua does not put this to their choice, but takes it for granted.

2. That though religion be a matter of choice, yet it is neither a thing indifferent in itself nor to a good governor, what religion his people are of.

3. That true religion may have several prejudices and objections against it: If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord; intimating that, upon some accounts, and to some persons, it may appear so.

4. That the true religion hath those real advantages on its side, that it may safely be referred to any considerate mans choice.

5. The example of princes and governors hath a very great influence upon the people in matters of religion. (Archbp. Tillotson.)

Choose God now–a sermon to children

I. Choose. The melancholy majority of men never did choose their course of life, but have been content to take it from circumstances, from accident, from teachers, from outward influences in which they happened to find themselves. And although they may, step by step, have chosen immediate action for immediate results, what a host of people there are that never set clearly before them the definite aim for which they were living. Choose. Standing as you do at the parting of the ways, get a clear notion of what you are aiming at, and do not let yourselves be moulded by mere accident; do not let yourselves be mere children of impulse; do not owe the shape of your lives to the pressure of circumstances; do not let yourselves be ruled by the moments inclination; do not be like the weeds in the stream, that move only as it flows. Do not be like the jelly-fishes in the sea, that have no locomotion, or next to none, who are borne along helplessly in the current. Be a hammer, and not an anvil. Choose! Do not let the world shape you. Exercise your will, your reason, your conscience. Formulate your purposes, say to yourselves what you mean to be and to do; and say it strongly, for this world is no place for weaklings; and wishes and inclinations and good intentions are all very well, but they are not enough. Will and choose, and in the name of God choose the right.

II. Choose God. I mean choose the God that has come near to you in the Saviour that has loved you and lived for you and died for you; and give your hearts up to Him to be cared for, to be blessed, and your spirits to Him to be cleansed, and to be saved; and then, yielding yourselves to Christ, you will have taken God for your portion. Contrast for one moment the objects that are set before you for your love, trust, and service. And opposite: what a rabble of bestial divinities! Surely there need be no question where a mans heart may fold its wings, like a weary dove, and rest for evermore. For not only is there a contrast between the objects, but there is also a contrast between the results.

III. Choose God now. It can never be too soon to do what is right and noble; it can never be too soon to do what is duty and safety. And let me tell you four reasons why I pray you this. First, the peril of delay. It is not likely that many of you will be laid in your graves before this day next year; it is certain that some of you will. And because no hand can point to the one that will, let us all listen to the beseeching, Choose you this day whom ye will serve. Second, because of the rapidly increasing difficulty of making a choice, which is a change. When the clay is on the potters wheel the lightest touch of the finger can impress it with any form that he desires; when it is taken off and hardened, nothing will change the shape of the vase but smashing it to fragments. Thirdly, because of the loss that you sustain by delay. Why should you be another day without the best blessing that a man can have? Why should you be another day poorer than you need to be? Fourthly, because of the bitter fruits which you are laying up for yourselves by delay, if ever you come to Christ. I would have you innocent of much transgression. I would have you to grow up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, that you may never have to look back, in the event of a late return to Him, on a life all given to idols, consumed for self and wasted by sin. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Moral masterhoods

I. All men have some moral master. The moral monarch of the soul is the object of its supreme regard; the predominant love evermore sways the soul.

II. The moral master is always the object of choice. No soul is coerced into the service of any object.

III. The sooner men choose their moral master the better.

1. Because a wrong moral master will ruin you.

2. Because there is only one right moral Master–the Supreme One. (Homilist.)

Religion founded on reason and the right of private judgm

ent:–

I. I observe that religion is a voluntary thing and a matter of choice. For mankind are beings endued with reason and liberty, and this alone makes them capable of religion and virtue. Without these powers they would be upon a level with brute creatures, and it is the right or wrong exercise of them that constitutes the moral good or evil of actions.

II. We may infer from the text that no man can re obliged to embrace a religion that is evil, i.e., contrary to reason and the moral fitness of things; but, on the contrary, is bound to reject it. If any scheme of religion undermines the perfections of God, which the reason of our minds can demonstrate from certain principles, it cannot be true. Again, that scheme of religion must necessarily be false, and ought to be rejected with detestation, which dissolves or weakens the obligations to universal purity, and tends to licentiousness and vice. And though religion must be a voluntary thing and a matter of choice, it is, however, our duty, in order to the making this choice, to be diligent and impartial in our inquiries. For the great Author of our nature hath endued it with such faculties, as are proper to distinguish betwixt truth and error, and appear to have been given us for this very purpose. There is also a fixed and certain standard of truth in the reason of things which, in all cases of importance and necessary influence upon our happiness, is sufficiently clear and explicit to well-disposed minds. And again, though we may with safety reject a religion that is unreasonable, that patronises vice, and is dishonourable to Almighty God, yet it must be allowed that, in order to our being able to judge whether it deserves that character or no, we must carefully and calmly examine it.

III. We should learn, from Joshuas example, to re faithful to the cause of God and the interest of religion and virtue even in times of most general corruption and depravity. Singularity in things indifferent may generally perhaps be an argument of weakness and folly, or of unbecoming stiffness and obstinacy; but men have carried the argument much too far when they have paid so great a compliment to custom as to urge it against the practice of virtue itself. For the obligations of virtue are upon no considerations whatsoever to be dispensed with, much less for a piece of foolish fawning complaisance, and a man of reason would never consent to do a thing that was really dishonourable for the sake of avoiding undeserved reproach. Again, to daze to be singularly good is an argument of great resolution and strength of mind, and of a confirmed and established virtue: for such must that virtue be which repels the contagion of ill-examples, and flags not at reproaches and ill-treatment.

IV. I shall conclude all with observing that the design of Joshua, to use his utmost credit and influence with his more immediate dependents for the support and maintenance of religion, was truly noble and generous, and what it will be highly for the honour of every one of us to imitate. (James Foster.)

Joshuas proposition and resolution

First, Joshua took it for granted that a nation must have a religion of one sort or other. His whole address is built upon this principle; and if there had been a middle way between serving the God of Israel and serving other gods, his discourse would have been inconclusive. Some have pretended that a society of atheists might be tolerably good, and regulated by humane motives, by present rewards and punishments, by shame, disgrace, fear, honour, good-nature, reputation, and self-interest. But this cannot be. Take away religion, and you take away with it the influence of conscience and the strongest motives to social duties. Nothing remains on which mutual reliance can be firmly grounded. All will be done in compliance with external power, and every law will be disregarded, when it may be done with secrecy or impunity and with any present pleasure or profit. Religion, then, is a matter of deliberation and choice. Amidst the diversity of opinions and of worship which divide the world, to walk at hazard in the first path that lies before us, and to which birth and education direct us, and to continue boldly in it without any sort of conviction that it is the right way, this is not the behaviour of rational agent. God will be loved freely and unconstrainedly, and served by choice and preference. He requires a reasonable service, and man being a rational, a free agent, ought to be able to give some account and some reason for his belief and his actions, and to be afraid to compare truth and falsehood, God and an idol, and to examine which deserves the preference, is doing wrong to God and to His truth. A third remark is upon the time when this is to be done. There is an ago of life, and there are occasions, when every one should resolve and make his choice. Choose you this day, says Joshua. To-day, with every person, is the time when his understanding is mature and opportunities offer. In a Christian nation everything invites us to remember our Creator–the voice of conscience, the example of the wise and good, and the public religion. Here is another thing observable in the text. Joshua supposeth that the Israelites might be weary of serving God, and think His laws to be an unsupportable burden. If it seem evil to you to serve the Lord, how can it seem evil to any rational creature to serve the true and the living Lord? But consult experience and matter of fact, and you will find that men have often been disgusted at truth, and weary of a reasonable service. Thence the inconstancies, rebellions, idolatries, and apostasies of the Jewish nation. True religion hath its difficulties and its dark side, and in some respects may be disagreeable. False religions have in some respects more allurements, are more easy, and more accommodated to indolent inattention, to carnal and corrupted minds. And yet, notwithstanding these advantages of error, no reasonable person can make it a doubt which ought to be preferred. Religion hath its difficulties relating both to faith and to practice, both to the understanding and to the heart. As to faith, it contains things hard to be received by worldly-minded persons. I observed before that false religions may in many respects be more agreeable than the true one to persons of a carnal and sensual temper. Joshua supposed that the religion of the Chaldeans or of the Canaanites might appear such to the people of Israel, when he said to them, If you will not serve the Lord, choose whether you will serve the gods of your forefathers or the gods of the nations where you now dwell. Here, then, were two false religions to choose out of. Both might please them by their antiquity; and as to that of the inhabitants of Palestine, the Israelites by adopting it might make themselves acceptable to their neighbours. And both these religions, though they might have different objects of worship or different names for their gods, agreed in this, that they taught the worship of many deities and the use of images, and such ceremonies as amused the senses, and required no integrity and purity of heart. If you consider all the more remarkable false religions that have been or are in the world, and all the corrupted systems of true religion, you shall find that they recommend themselves by one or other of these four privileges and characters–either antiquity or extent or ceremonious pomp, or an accommodation to the follies and vices of men. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. If the doctrines of revealed religion concerning the perfections and the providence of God and the doctrines of revealed religion taught us in the gospel have in them some obscurity and difficulty, it is no more than might justly be expected from the sublime subject. All atheistical and idolatrous systems are, beyond comparison, harder to be admitted by a reasonable man. The moral part of religion is conformable to our nature; and if it be contrary to our depraved inclinations, that is our own fault. Religion hath motives to induce us, examples to direct us, assistances for our infirmities, and helps in time of distress; and if God be a holy and a jealous God, He is also a God of mercy, who forgives and receives the penitent. The boasted advantages and prerogatives of false religions are false and unsound at the bottom. Having considered the wisdom of Joshuas choice, let us consider his person. He was the prince of Gods people, and, like Moses, had the authority though not the title of king. Princes and rulers of nations are as much obliged as the meanest of their subjects to serve God. Their example is of great consequence, and whether they walk in the paths of virtue or of vice they induce others to walk after them. Observe also that the prince of Israel answers for himself and for his family. I and my house will serve the Lord. He was a wise and a happy man; happy to be so fully assured of the good disposition of his household. (J. Jortin, D. D.)

An honourable servitude

There are words which will never be popular–as service, servant, master. They carry the idea of humiliation. Every man seeks independence; all aim for position to be at least equal to the highest, the best. Yet service is honourable, if the master is sufficiently honourable. All men are servants of some master. We are all under authority.

I. The service of God is the most honourable in the world.

II. The honour is to be seen in the work the christian is called upon to do.

III. Observe the treatment received by those who serve God. A servant wishes kind, generous, just treatment. The service of Satan is at first pleasant, then ends in shame and remorse. Where is the liberty of him who serves appetite, passion? Ask Lord Byron. Said he, I have not had ten happy days. Lord Chesterfield declared, I have been the whole round of pleasure, and I am disgusted; and for myself, I mean to sleep in my carriage for the rest of my journey. Sinners, you think you are free; loaded with shackles, yet know it not.

IV. The time will come when the final settlement will be made. (G. E. Reed.)

Betweenites

I can see where you are, you betweenites. The saints will be ashamed of you, because you did not join with Christ in the day of battle, and the adversary himself will despise you because you shrank away even from him. Be one thing or the other. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

A fated decision

A young soldier from Glasgow was talking to a comrade. In their ears was the muffled sound, the Dead March in Saul, as a comrade was carried to his last resting-place; and this Glasgow soldier, converted up there at Maryhill, was talking to his friend, and pleading with him to come to Christ. The young Highlander there in the funeral march was terribly impressed, and he said, Jack, I will be a Christian when I leave the service. He had just nine months to put in. He said, I am determined to be a Christian when I leave the service. Ah! that was his decision. Next week there came orders for the 79th to embark for Egypt. The two friends were in the march across the sands to the Arab encampment of Tel-el-Kebir, marching side by side–the one with the acceptance of salvation in his heart, and the other putting it off till he should leave the service. Softly did they walk across these sands, silently did they steal through the darkness of midnight to the camp of the slumbering Arabs; but the sentinels were on the alert, and they saw a flash of light, and five hundred rifles from the Arab encampment poured their bullets on the advancing Highlanders; and there, dead and cold, was the body of the man who put off the acceptance till he should leave the service. Oh, comrade, what a fatal decision! (J. Robertson.)

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Joshuas choice

I. If we attend to the writings of some, and the manners of more, in the present age, we shall be led to think that we are not to serve either God or man; in a word, that we are born free and independent. Why, we should not live six hours after our birth in such a state. From the first moment in which we see light, we depend, for preservation and support on the good offices of those around us; they depend on others, and all on God. Man being thus dependent, it is but reasonable that he should acknowledge such dependence, and that he should serve.

II. Whom he should serve. For, as the apostle has remarked, there are gods many and lords many, who, in different ages, have obtained the homage of mankind. The oldest and first idolaters worshipped the powers of nature instead of the God of nature. The world, with its fashions and its follies, its principles and its practices, has been proposed in form to Englishmen as the proper object of their attention and devotion. A late celebrated nobleman has avowed as much with respect to himself, and by his writings said in effect to it, Save me, for thou art my god! At the close of life, however, his god, he found, was about to forsake him, and therefore was forsaken by him. I have run, says this man of the world, the silly rounds of business and pleasure, and have done with them all. I have enjoyed all the pleasures of the world, and, consequently, know their futility, and do not regret their loss. I think of nothing but killing time the best I can now he has become mine enemy. It is my resolution to sleep in the carriage during the remainder of the journey. When a Christian priest speaks slightingly of the world he is supposed to do it in the way of his profession, and to decry, through envy, the pleasures he is forbidden to taste. But here, I think, you have the testimony of a witness every way competent.

III. How we are to serve God. A concise way of coming at this will be, to reflect upon the qualifications you require in a good servant, and to see that they be found in yourselves, considered as the servants of God. These qualifications may all be reduced to two–that he be careful to know the will of his master and diligent to do it. In our inquiries after the will of God we are often apt to be partial. We inquire after only such parts of it as may happen to coincide with our circumstances, our situation, our tempers, our constitutions, our interests. But there are no reserves in St. Pauls question: Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? Whatever it may be, whatever the difficulties, whatever the consequences, I am ready. There is yet a different error in the conduct of men. It is when they employ themselves to discover the obligations and the failings of others, entirely forgetful of their own. The last mistake that shall be mentioned, relative to our inquiries after the will of God, is, when we make those inquiries as matter of speculation only, as an amusement of the mind. (Bp. Horne.)

Decision for the Lord

I. First, let me describe it. It means many things, all of which must be wrought in us by Divine grace, or we shall never possess them, though we may have their counterfeits.

1. Decision implies, first, that all hesitation is gone. You will make no journey, O traveller, if, now that the sun is in its zenith, you do not decide which way to walk! Mariner, your voyages will be scant if you much longer lie at anchor! The season of favourable winds is passing away, and yet your sail remains unfilled; will you never have solved the problem, To what port shall I steer? With what cargo shall I load my ship? Is our life to end in a constant repetition of the question, What shall I be?

2. This state of heart indicates superiority to the evil influence of others. Our own understandings should now be exercised, or else why are they given to us? God waits to guide us, but He would have us cry to Him, and not follow the trail of our fellows.

3. Right decision for God is deep, calm, clear, fixed, well grounded, and solemnly made. Joshua does not speak his determination lightly. He speaks with immovable resolve: his soul is anchored and defies all storms–As for me and my house we will, despite crowds and customs, we will, despite temptations and trials, we will, despite idols or devils, to the end of the chapter serve Jehovah.

4. That resolve on the part of Joshua was openly avowed. That is sorry courage which skulks behind the bushes: that is poor loyalty which never utters the kings name; that is questionable decision which dares not own itself to be on the Lords side. Are you not ashamed of being ashamed, and afraid to be any longer afraid?

5. In Joshuas case his resolve was not only openly avowed, but earnestly carried out. He was a soldier, and if any one had asked him, Whose soldier are you, Joshua? he would have answered, I am Gods soldier. Whose battles do you fight? I fight the battles of Jehovah. And what is your object in fighting? To glorify Jehovah.

6. Joshuas decision was adhered to throughout the whole of his life. He had begun early in the service of God, and he never repented of it. Blessed are they who have this abiding thoroughness in the cause of the Lord their God.

II. Let me now praise decision. In religion nothing is more desirable than to be out-and-out in it.

1. To enjoy religion you must plunge into it. To wade into it up to the ankles may make you shiver with anxieties, doubts, and questionings, till you resemble a trembling boy unwillingly entering a bath on a cold morning; but to plunge into its depths is to secure a glow of holy joy. The central position iii religion is the sweetest. The nearer to God the sweeter the joy.

2. Decision for God enables a man to direct his way. David prayed, Lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies, and the man who has made up his mind by Divine grace that he will serve the Lord has that prayer fulfilled.

3. This saves many men from temptation. As a giant walks along unconscious of the cobwebs across his path, so does a thoroughly consecrated man break through a thousand temptations, which indeed to him are no longer temptations at all.

4. Thorough-going men wield a mighty influence. Joshua was able to speak for his house as well as for himself. Many fathers cannot speak for themselves, and therefore you may guess the reason why they cannot speak for their families.

III. I close by demanding this decision for Christ which I have described and praised. Decision is required because the Lord deserves to have it. He who made us ought not to be served hesitatingly; He who gave His Son to die for us ought not to be trifled with. By the splendour of Deity, and the glory of the Cross, I claim your whole hearts for my Lord. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Joshuas resolution to serve the Lord

I. The occasion of these words.

II. What is included in the resolution?

1. A solemn and exclusive worship of God from the heart.

2. In all the actions of our life to have respect to the will of God, to seek to please Him, to seek to glorify Him.

3. There are three ingredients in the service of God that may be considered as giving vitality to it.

(1) The first is sincerity. The servant of God makes an entire surrender of himself to the service of God, and keeps back nothing from Him.

(2) Next, this obedience must be minute–His service must be universally adhered to. There is a harmony and consistency between all the parts of real practical religion, so that they cannot be separated one from another, and if we separate them we deceive ourselves and lose sight of God.

(3) Another ingredient in the service of God, if it be true and genuine, is that, like the principle from which it proceeds, it is permanent and abiding.

III. Some of the reasons why we should close with the resolution of Joshua.

1. It is our duty to serve the Lord from the relation in which we stand to Him and the unspeakable benefits we derive from His goodness.

2. The grand distinction of man above the other creatures consists in such a constitution of our nature as appears to have no other end or object but that of qualifying us for the end of worshipping God.

3. Consider, next, the great rewards which hereafter necessarily accompany the service of God.

4. Recollect, again, the impossibility of neutrality and the danger of delay.

5. Recollect, in a very short time, if you are not employed in the service of God, you will have no portion, no employment beneficial or dignified or delightful to all eternity. (R. Hall, M. A.)

Concerning resolution and steadfastness in religion

I. Of the brave resolution of a good man, that if there were occasion, and things were brought to that extremity, he would stand alone in the profession and practice of Gods true religion.

1. The matter of this resolution. Joshua here resolves that, if need were, he would stand alone in the profession and practice of the true religion. And this is not a mere supposition of an impossible case, which can never happen; for it may, and hath really and in fact happened in several ages and places of the world.

2. The due limits and bounds of this peremptory resolution. In all matters of faith and practice which are plain and evident, either from natural reason or from Divine revelation, this resolution seems to be very reasonable; but in things doubtful, a modest man–and every man hath reason to be so–would be very apt to be staggered by the judgment of a very wise man; and much more of many such, and especially by the unanimous judgment of the generality of men, the general voice and opinion of mankind being next to the voice of God Himself.

II. To vindicate the reasonableness of this resolution from the objections to which this singular and peremptory kind of resolution may seem liable.

1. It may very speciously be said that this does not seem modest for a man to set up his own private judgment against the general suffrage and vote. And it is very true that about things indifferent a man should not be stiff and singular, and in things doubtful and obscure a man should not be over-confident of his own judgment; but in things that are plain, either from Scripture or reason, it is neither immodesty nor a culpable singularity for a man to stand alone in defence of the truth, because in such a case a man does not oppose his own single and private judgment to the judgment of many, but the common reason of mankind and the judgment of God plainly declared in His Word.

2. It is pretended that it is more prudent for private persons to err with the Church than to be so pertinacious in their own opinions. To which I answer, that it may indeed be pardonable in some cases to be led into mistake by the authority of those to whose judgment and instruction we ought to pay a great deference and submission, provided always it be in things which are not plain and necessary; but surely it can never be prudent to err with any number, how great soever, in matters of religion which are of moment, merely for numbers sake; but to comply with the known errors and corruptions of any Church whatsoever is certainly damnable.

3. It is pretended yet further, that men shall sooner be excused in following the Church than any particular man or sect. To this I answer, that it is very true, if the matter be doubtful, and especially if the probabilities be equal, or near equal, on both sides; but if the error be gross and palpable, it will be no excuse to have followed any number of men, or any Church whatsoever.

4. It is objected, that as, on the one hand, there may be danger of error in following blindly the belief of the Church, so, on the other hand, there is as great a danger of schism in forsaking the communion of the Church, upon pretence of errors and corruptions. Very true; but where great errors and corruptions are not only pretended, but are real and evident, and where our compliance with those errors and corruptions is made a necessary condition of our communion with that Church, in that case the guilt of schism, how great a crime soever it be, doth not fall upon those who forsake the communion of that Church, but upon those who drive them out of it by the sinful conditions which they impose upon them. (Abp. Tillotson.)

Concerning family religion

I. I shall show wherein the practice of this duty doth consist. The principal parts of it are these following:–

1. Setting up the constant worship of God in our families.

2. Instructing those committed to our charge in the fundamental principles and in the careful practice of the necessary duties of religion.

3. I add further, as a considerable part of the duty of parents and masters of families, if they be desirous to have their children and servants religious in good earnest, that they do not only allow time and opportunity, but that they do also earnestly charge them to retire every day, but more especially on the Lords day, to pray to God for the forgiveness of their sins; and for His mercy and blessings upon them, and likewise to praise Him for all His favours conferred upon them from day to day.

4. One of the most effectual ways to make those who are under our authority good is to be good our selves, and by our good example to show them the way to be so. Without this our best instructions will signify but very little, and the main efficacy of them will be lost.

II. Our obligation to it.

1. In point of duty. All authority over others is a talent entrusted with us by God for the benefit and good of others, and for which we are accountable, if we do not improve it and make use of it to that end.

2. We are hereto likewise obliged in point of interest; because it is really for our advantage that those that belong to us should serve and fear God, religion being the surest foundation of the duties of all relations and the best security for the true performance of them. Would we have dutiful and obedient children, diligent and faithful servants? Nothing will so effectually oblige them to be so as the fear of God and the principles of religion firmly settled in them.

III. The causes of the so common and shameful neglect of this duty, to the exceeding great decay of piety among us.

1. This may in good part be ascribed to our civil confusions and distractions.

2. This great neglect and decay of religious order in families is chiefly owing to our dissensions and differences in religion, upon occasion whereof many, under the pretence of conscience, have broke loose into a boundless liberty.

IV. The very mischievous and fatal consequences of the neglect of this duty.

1. To the public. Families are the first seminaries of religion, and if care be not there taken to prepare persons, especially in their tender years, for public teaching and instruction, it is like to have but very little effect.

2. To ourselves. We can have no manner of security of the duty and fidelity of those of our family to us if they have no sense of religion, no fear of God before their eyes. If children were carefully educated, and families regularly and religiously ordered, what a happy and delightful place, what a paradise, would this world be in comparison of what now it is? (Abp. Tillotson.)

Joshuas resolution

I. True religion consists in the service of God.

II. They who truly serve god make his service a matter of choice.

III. If the service of god is the object of our choice, it is our duty to engage ourselves to it by open profession and solemn covenant.

IV. If we have devoted ourselves to the service of god it is our duty to use every means to engage others in it. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)

Historical and family religion

The valedictory charge of Joshua clearly shows that the Jewish religion was built upon a definite historical experience; was founded on the rocks of impregnable fact. Never in the whole course of their history had the Israelites found God unfaithful to His promises or forgetful of His threatenings; and as God had been from the beginning, so (said Joshua) will He continue to the end. What God has been He will ever be, what tie has done He ever will do–therefore choose ye, said Joshua, this day whom you will serve. If history proves that the Lord Jehovah is God, then follow Him and faithfully obey His voice. This, then, is what we mean by an historical religion. An historical religion is an appeal to the witness of the past as a groundwork and reason for present allegiance to God. And as the Jewish religion was an historical religion, so also is the Christian religion. The Christian religion is not a doctrine of ideas, an untested philosophical theory: it is founded on the life of an historical Person, for Christ is no less historic than Divine. And as Jewish leaders and prophets appealed to the witness of history, so likewise have Christian guides and teachers, from the earliest times, made history a principal reason for faith. All true religion, however, and most notably the religion of the Bible, is much more than an historic faith. Its foundations lie deep and strong in history; but its superstructure is continuously and essentially practical. Historic religion, like historic knowledge, is useless unless it serves as the guide and inspiration of daily conduct. The use of history chiefly consists in its application of the experiences of the past to the circumstances and resolutions of the present. It was this use to which Joshua applied the striking historical survey of his great valedictory charge. Upon the ground of their historical experiences he based his fervid appeal to the Jewish people to make choice of Jehovah as their national Deity, and to remain consistently faithful in their allegiance to Him. Whatever became of the national religion, his own family religion at least should be settled and unwavering in its loyalty to Jehovah. Family religion is the best beginning for all religious life. The Church in the house is the best temple for the education of righteousness and true holiness. As the sun is the centre of the earths light and heat, so from the family radiates throughout the world the heat and light of religion. When families are religious, nations are religious; when families are religious, individuals also are religious. Even the very structure of the Bible seems to lend authority to the conviction of the primary importance of family religion. The three great divisions of the Old Testament–the law, the prophets, the psalms or hagiographa–broadly represent the three great spheres in which religion ought to work. The book of the law, the foundation of all revelation, was written during the patriarchal period. It describes the origin, the management, the sacred functions, of the family. In the New Testament, also, great stress is laid upon family religion. As nature makes families into little kingdoms, so Christianity makes families into little Churches. It was in the devotion of family life that Jesus nursed His faculty for worship and His character for holiness. It is impossible to conceive any institution hedged round with more firm and higher walls than the institution of the family. The New Testament regards the family as a Divine institution, and its relationships as sacred, heavenly, relationships. It cannot but be that an institution with an origin and sanctions so Divine, should be intended to work out great blessings for humanity. And all experience proves that family love and family religion are more fruitful of happiness and holiness than any other single source; and that family discords and family irreligion are the cause of endless miseries and countless iniquities. (Canon Diggle.)

The cloister of grapes; or, family prayer

Man, we all know, is not made to live alone. None of us could do so, even if we wished it. As no man can come into the world without a father or mother to bring him into it–as no child, when it has received the gift of life, could keep that gift for much more than a single round of the clock without some one to tend and feed it–in like manner, after we are grown up, and have gained strength to stand alone, we still need the help of our brethren in a thousand ways. Every worthy and reasonable and honourable work which man is permitted to perform can only be performed by him so far as he lives in union and communion with his brethren. Thus too is it with the highest and most precious of all the gifts which God has bestowed on mankind, the religion of Christ. This also is a gift which cannot be received alone, which cannot be enjoyed alone, which cannot be turned to any use alone. In giving it to man God did not give it to him as standing alone, but as living in communion with his brethren. He purposes that in spiritual things, as well as in temporal things, we should help and feed each other, that we should nourish each other with the bread of life, as well as with the bread that perishes. You remember our Lords beautiful parable in which He compares Himself to the vine and His disciples to the branches. All the members of the same family, all the members of the same parish, should draw their spiritual life from the heavenly Vine, not singly, but together, joining heart and soul in the exercises and offices of devotion, and keeping in mind that it is when two or three are gathered together that our Lord has promised to be in the midst of them. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. This should be the plain, the avowed, the steadfast resolution of every one who bears rule in a house, of every master of a household, of every father, of every mother of a family. When God ordains that every one should be the master or the mistress of a household, He likewise ordains that they should take care of those who are under their authority, and should look upon them as committed to their special charge. In like manner when He is pleased to grant any one the blessing of being a father or a mother He links this blessing with the duty of taking care of the children, of bringing them up, of providing for them. We shall have to give account, not only for our own souls, but also, more or less, for the souls of those whom God has committed to our charge. Let this then be your watchword, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. It is not enough for you to say, As for me, I will serve the Lord. A grape never stands alone: it is always part of a cluster. In truth no one can feel any hearty desire to serve the Lord himself, without being at the same time anxious that others also, that his friends and neighbours, above all, that the members of his own household, should bear their part in thin godly service. And one of the ways in which it behoves you to provide that your house shall serve the Lord is by setting up His worship in your house, by taking care that you and your whole house join day by day in serving Him with prayer and thanksgiving and praise. Most important, too, is it that every family should be perpetually reminded that, as a family, it is a Christian family–that the Church is not Gods only house in the parish, but that every house in the parish ought to be a house of God. We have been led by our Lords parable to liken a Christian family and a Christian congregation to a cluster of grapes. Such are they, if they hang from the true Vine, if the life which springs from the true Vine be ever flowing into them through prayer–through prayer offered up in brotherly communion one beside the other. And what can give a more beautiful image of the love, the neighbourly kindness, the peace, which ought to prevail in a brotherhood of Christians, than a cluster of grapes? None of them seems to have any desire of thrusting itself forward before the others, or of pushing them into the background, or of showing itself off at their cost. On the contrary each seems contented to stand just peeping out of its cell, half hidden by its neighbours, retiring behind them, and almost, as it were, in honour preferring them. Such are the grapes of the true Vine. Such are the families in the living Church of Christ. They hang from Him. Their love flows into them from Him; and therefore they love each other. (J. C. Hare, M. A.)

The Christian household

The household is not an accident of nature, but an ordinance of God. The household is a representation, on a small scale as regards numbers, but not as regards the interests concerned, of the great family in heaven and earth. The father of a household stands most immediately in Gods place. Of all the influences which can be brought to bear on man, paternal influence may be made the strongest and most salutary, and whether so made or not is ever of immense weight one way or the other. For remember that paternal influence is not that which the father strives to exert merely, but that which in matter of fact he does exert. None so keen to see into a mans religion as his own household. He may deceive others without, he may deceive himself, he can hardly long succeed in deceiving them. But if, on the other hand, his religion is really a thing in his heart; if he moves about day by day as seeing One invisible; if the love of Christ is really warming the springs of his inner life, then, however inadequately this is shown in matter or in manner, it will be sure to be known and thoroughly appreciated by those who are ever living their lives around him. But in treating of a household ruled in the fear of God another most important influence comes to be considered–one which, without holding so paramount a place as the first, yet ever lies closer to the hearts of children, and is more wound about all their schemes and plans. From the very necessities of life the father is kept ordinarily at a distance from his family during a great portion of his time. He is that one of the household who goes forth into the external world and savours of it; and thus not only in continuity, but in character also, his influence is in some measure broken; lying at some little distance, not employed on the thoughts and schemes of his children till they have acquired some degree of consistency; not called in to mould and cherish their first openings of intention and desire. This necessary deficiency is, however, amply and most graciously supplied by the mother of a household. She is ever the ministering angel to her children; with the same hand guiding their infant steps, and smoothing the fevered pillow of after-life; with the same voice teaching them their infant prayers, and with quiet and loving admonition tempering the waywardness of the rising spirits of youth. And thus while she shares in many of the feelings of reverence and affection due to the father, she yet has a narrower circle of her own. To her is committed by God the training and forming of each individual character among her children; in her bosom will take root those finer fibres of personal feeling from which, after all, our strongest emotions are fed. Oh that every Christian mother were living and moving in her household in the full consciousness of this power and this responsibility! Much might be said on a mothers share in the after-training of her children, even when other help is requisite and necessary; but it is only one very short and simple thing which need be said on their earliest training–it is a matter to which a mother alone is competent, a sacred duty which she can never neglect, and ought never to delegate. (Dean Afford.)

The charities of the Christian household

I wish now to speak of the good works of the Christian household, its religious standing and progress within, and its beneficent employments without, for the good of man and the glory of God. Now we must lay the foundation of all such external duties in the religion of the household. Let the well-spring of the religion of the family be in the closet and by the bedside of the father and mother. And not only this, but let the children, let the servants see that it is so, and learn to take not precept only, but pattern from them. And if the foundation be thus laid, let us go on to inquire what, and how raised, must be the building. First of all, it must be real, consistent with itself; raised for a dwelling, and not for a show. In a mans own religion reality is the first and most constant requisite; but where influence is to be exerted over others it is even doubly necessary. Hearts are not won by words, nor will knees ever so often bended prompt one syllable of prayer. And here is often a fault in Christian heads of families. Their own religion is real–felt in their hearts, and shown in their lives. But their way of putting it forth is unreal. They are perhaps the bondsmen of a rigid system, or they fall into the opposite extreme, and leave that on which they themselves feel so deeply to take its chance among those whom God has given them to train for Him. In the one case, that of rigid adherence to system, the force of their own example is marred, the attraction of their own faith and love disturbed; in the other they are bearing indeed good seed, but sow it not, letting human nature, which ever wants help from above and from around, get its good as it best may. How often do we see heads of families, whom we know to be earnest and genuine Christian men and women, yet attempting to guide their households by the merest and emptiest commonplaces, which never had, and never can have, life or power in them. Oh that we knew and remembered this–that nought unreal will ever stand Gods test of time and trial. You may teach the child his theological lesson ever so well; he may be apt to distinguish, apt to retain, ready to profess; yet meantime, if you have not preoccupied it, the heart, which really guides the life, will have been learning from things themselves another and a surer lesson, and you will find, when the voyage of life begins, that voyage which you had expected would be so straight and so sure, that another hand than yours is on the helm. In promoting family religion let parents study the hearts of their children. Let them see what those cords really are which, according as they are drawn one way or the other, turn the course of life itself. Let them remember what it was in their own case which really influenced them for good, and reflect that their children are like themselves. Win the heart, and the victory is yours. Lose that, and you have lost all. Before I pass to the outward acts and fruits of family religion let me exemplify these remarks in two departments of the inner life of the household: in their use of the Bible and in family prayer. The Bibles of a household, if they could testify, would be no bad witnesses respecting its religion. And I fear their testimony would be often of a sad and a startling kind. The Bible in the chamber, how often is it taken down for genuine use? The contents of that Bible, how much is known of them? I do not believe there ever was an age when the Bible has been so much printed and so little read as in our own. And this is the book which is to be a light to our feet and a lamp to our paths. And therefore one of the very first cares in a Christian and Protestant household ought to be that the Bible may be known by all its members: known, I mean, by familiarity with its contents, and a habit of thinking and speaking intelligently on them, and a habit also–for this should never be forgotten–of their devotional use. It is plain that this subject might be pursued much further, but we must drop it now, to mention another nearly connected with it–I mean that of family prayer. Family prayer is an absolute necessity of the Christian household. It is indeed an affecting and solemn sight; and it might be a vast opportunity for good. Here is a priest of whose power we can never speak too highly, a teacher standing in the place of God Himself. But what are, for the most part, his ministrations–what his instructions? To judge from the books which have been printed for use at such times, for the most part, I fear, formal, disconnected, lifeless; or if earnest and fervent, then passing perhaps into another fault equally fatal to usefulness-lengthy and tedious. The effect of this must be mischievous. You cannot expect children, you cannot expect servants, to love and consult and study a work which you have accustomed them to loathe and to be weary over. Nor, to recur back to the other fault again, can you expect them really to feel wants which have been so long lifelessly and formally expressed; uttered perhaps in words far above their comprehension, and in a strain to which their simple minds never attained. Of all united acts of the family this one should most bear the impress of life and reality. Read no more than the ear, no more than the mind can retain–and that little with earnestness and solemnity. If explanation is given let it be short and to the point–neither dilating nor diluting. And with regard to prayer, the rule should be of the same kind. The simpler the better. And I may also say, without fear of being misunderstood, the shorter the better. But from these counsels respecting the inner life of the family we must pass now to its outward fruits of its religion. And here at once let me say that such fruits ought always to be found. There never ought to be such a thing as a hidden family religion in any sense, and least of all in the sense of being without visible and sensible fruit for good. And in family charity, as in all other family duties, the spring must ever be found in the heads of the household. Let them be known by their children and dependents to be engaged in works of charity and mercy. And in their places and proportions let each, even the humblest member, be encouraged, as soon as self-control and responsibility begin, to bear a part in such works. And I cannot impress it too strongly on young persons that this duty is binding on them from the moment that they can call money or time their own. Whatever is allowed you by your parents for ordinary purposes, all of it belongs to God, and you are but His steward. On the beneficence due from every Christian household to the poor and needy around it I will not at present enlarge; it is a wide subject, and comes before us in the course of our teaching in various ways. I will only say no household can escape its claims or venture, from any excuse, to set them aside. But I would especially now speak of that other department of a Christian familys benevolence which should be spent in their work as disciples of Him who commanded us to enlighten all nations with the word of His truth. Every Christian is described in Scripture as holding forth the word of truth, shining as a light in the world. Every Christian is a missionary, and ought to be employed in the work of one–either in personal labour and influence, or by contribution to institutions established for the purpose. And as a family duty this possesses peculiar interest. In Christ are all families of the earth blessed. (Dean Alford.)

The mutual duties of the family

From the tone of these words we see that they are not the voice of one man only. There is about them a concerted determination, they bear evidence of deliberation having been had, and a combined resolution come to. There is something even of triumphant union about them, something of a challenge to Israel to look and see whether they of whom they are said did not fulfil them by serving the Lord. Every member of a household, whether among children or domestics, has a place assigned by God and a solemn account to render to Him. I will touch on this portion of our subject–the duties of the members of a household, and their reflection on those who are set at the head of it. If I were to ask what is the first duty of a child to a parent the answer would be one and uniform. All would say, obedience. Yet is this quite understood? At all events, is it generally acted on? What I understand by obedience being the first duty of young persons to their parents is this–that, irrespective of all concurrence of their own individual approval with what is ordered, there is a sacredness about a parents word, because it is so, which ensures prompt and ready compliance. I would say, then, to my young friends, guard carefully and with all diligence this your chief jewel and treasure–constant and scrupulous obedience. It is the bloom of your whole character. Nothing becomes you so well–nothing contains so great promise for your future days. It is a link which, between a loving and wise parent and a Christian child, is never dissolved; and I know of no sight so pleasing as to see men and women, moving in life and filling important posts which God has assigned them, and yet with reverence and affection retaining the pious habits of childhood and youth–observing the wishes and ruling themselves by the guidance of an aged parent. I am sure I need not remind ourselves who are parents how very solemn is the position of one who is thus to be obeyed–how necessary the wisdom which is from above to guide us in guiding them. I need not say how much love, how much consistency, how much temper is required to lead up and train this sacred principle of obedience, so that it be not relaxed on the one hand nor overstrained on the other. Before I pass on to the other great division of the members of a family, let me say a word to young persons as to the direct subject of the resolution in our text–the service of the Lord. You will some day know and feel, on looking back over these first years of life, that it is the memory of the service of God which constitutes the real charm of your recollections of home. And if it is but fitting to say something of those others who dwell under the roof of a household to minister to their wants, I would say to the servants in our households, Your gracious Father in heaven has called you out of your own country and from your own fathers house, and He has caused you to be adopted into other families, of a rank and situation in life different from your own. If you are His servants your position is one full of interest, and full of honour. He has put you in reach of many blessings, both temporal and spiritual, to which others of your family have not access. And more especially is this so ii your lot is cast in a household where God is feared and served. But as the servants life is one of much and undoubted privilege for good, so is it one of enormous temptation to evil. There is no class of persons in our days the contemplation of whom more fills the Christian mind with sadness, or suggests more forcibly the frightful account which the votaries of fashion and pleasure will one day have to give. How many souls have the ungodly heads of a household helped to ruin, or been the means of ruining altogether? God sent to them, to be kept and influenced for Him, dependents whose souls were as valuable as their own; whose account before Him will be as solemn, their condemnation or justification as final, as theirs. They came to them from the Sunday school and the village pastors instructions; they came with the Bible which was to be the guide of their lives, with the prayer which had been the practice of their childhood, with the resolution which the last communion prompted and the mothers parting words urged forward. Where are those Bibles now? What is become of that daily prayer? Where, but under your roof, and with your sanction, was that resolution laughed to scorn? Who made it impossible for them to keep up those monthly communions? If you have in your family and before your dependents denied Christ, He also will deny you. And let servants themselves remember that no circumstances can excuse them in unfaithfulness to Him whom they have once learned to know and to serve; that on themselves the ultimate burden must rest, and the final condemnation come, if they allow themselves to be laughed or tempted out of Christian habits of life. I would willingly think, too, that I am speaking to some of this class whose lot God has mercifully east in families such as that in our text, where their souls are cared for, and their moral and spiritual welfare attended to. Then I say to you, Blessed indeed is your lot, and great in proportion will be your accountableness. (Dean Alford.)

Hindrances to home religion

I. The want of a vivid sense of God, as personal and present.

II. The loose manner in which the present home life is conducted.

III. The diminished regard for the Sabbath.

IV. The overlaying of the Bible and the family altar by the newspapers, and especially the Sunday papers.

V. The dispersion of families among Churches having different views of Divine things.

VI. The division of families on the line of Christian discipleship. VII. The lack in some homes of an expressive and impressive piety in such as do profess to be believers, such as will quietly control and at last convert the household. (J. L. Withrow, D. D.)

We should think about the religions welfare of others

A poor woman came into a village one dark night and asked her way to the house of a friend. It was three miles off yet, and the road was strange to her, and it was so dark. If you make haste, some one said to her, you will overtake the doctor. He has just gone down the road to go to the same place, and he carries a lantern. This was glad news to the timid woman, and off she started looking eagerly ahead in the hope of catching some glimmer of the lanterns light, but never a flash of it could she see. At length, after a weary trudge, she reached the house of her friend, and there she found the doctor newly arrived. Oh, sir! she said, I have had such a weary run after you. They told me you had a lantern, but I saw nothing of its light. Very true, said the doctor, showing a dark lantern fastened to his belt; I had a lantern, but I did not think of drawing the slide so as to let the light shine, for I know the road very well myself. Now there are people in the world very like this doctor. They know the right way themselves, and dont trouble about others who may not know it. Make it very clear to others that you not only know the right road yourself, but that you have also a heart to think of them and influence them for good. (W. Francis.)

Decision for God

I was the guest of Colonel–, a leading man in his county, Master of the Hounds for two counties, keeping the hounds at a cost of $20,000 a year. He was a man of passionate character, and, when excited, very profane. He attended the meetings every evening. But he complained that he had a headache the next morning. One morning at breakfast he said, I dont think I shall go to the meetings any longer. My head aches with the bad air, and then I do not think you are quite fair. You make everybody out as no better than heathen. That may be true of the common people; but you will drive all the gentry away. I said, Colonel, I am your guest, and I did not introduce this subject. But let me ask you, Are you a Christian? What do you mean? I support a Church and two or three ministers. I said, Unless you will take a stand as a Christian as plainly as you do as Master of the Hounds, I do not think you have any claim to be called a Christian. To my surprise, he was in church that night, with his wife, who was a Christian. I preached on the Pharisee and the Publican. At the close I said, If there is any man or woman who is ready, with the publican, to say, God be merciful to me a sinner, I invite him to rise. To my surprise, up rose the Colonel, and folded his arms, and his wife by his side. I thought, Will it do to call the Colonel up here and ask him to go on his knees? I did so. The Colonel moved right forward with his wife. And the next that came was the Irish servant, and he kneeled down by his master. Next morning, as I opened the Bible for prayers, the Colonel rose and said, Before the Doctor reads, I want to say that last night I went forward and took God as my Saviour. I ask you, my friends, to pray for me. This in the presence of all the servants. (Dr. Pentecost.)

Who will volunteer?

One night, in the army on the banks of the Potomac, the colonel came for volunteers to cross over the river in flat boats. Wholl volunteer? I want so many men. Ill go! Ill go! Their decision made up the number; the colonels heart was rejoiced. They went, and returned with 150 or 200 contrabands and other trophies of war. That was the result of decision. They took their lives in their hands and went on reckless of consequences. In order to spiritual success we need decision. How long would it take the Lord Jesus to do His part if you make the decision? There are a hundred strings whereby you are holding on to the interests of the world. You cut a string here and a knot there, but there are more left than you have cut off; come right to the central point where they all come to a focus, then you can cut them all at once. The work is all in a nutshell. Some are converted by piecemeal. The better way is to take it in a lump. How long does it take to give away a house and land? Only while you sign your name, that is all. When we go forth, a troop of decided souls, we can take the world for Christ. Take Christ fully, completely, that will give us inward power.

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 15. Choose you this day whom ye will serve] Joshua well knew that all service that was not free and voluntary could be only deceit and hypocrisy, and that God loveth a cheerful giver. He therefore calls upon the people to make their choice, for God himself would not force them – they must serve him with all their heart if they served him at all. As for himself and family, he shows them that their choice was already fixed, for they had taken JEHOVAH for their portion.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

If it seem evil; unjust, unreasonable, or inconvenient.

Choose you this day whom ye will serve: not that he leaves them to their liberty, whether they would serve God or idols; for Joshua had no such power or liberty himself, nor could give it to any other; and both he and they were obliged by the law of Moses to give their worship to God only, and to forbear all idolatry in themselves, and severely to punish it in others; but it is a rhetorical and powerful insinuation, whereby he both implies that the worship of God is so highly reasonable, so necessary and beneficial, and the service of idols is so absurd, and vain, and pernicious, that if it were left free to all men to make their choice, every man in his right wits must needs choose the service of God before that of idols; and provokes them to bind themselves faster to God by their own choice. See such manner of speeches in Rth 1:8,15; 1Ki 18:21.

But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord; but know this, if you should all be so base and brutish, as to prefer senseless and impotent idols before the true and living God, it is my firm purpose, that I will, and my children and servants (as far as I can influence them) shall, be constant and faithful to the Lord.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

And if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord,…. Irksome and troublesome, a burden, a weariness, and not a pleasure and delight:

choose you this day whom you will serve; say if you have found a better master, and whose service will be more pleasant and profitable:

whether the gods your fathers served, that [were] on the other side of the flood; the river Euphrates; these may bid rid rest for antiquity, but then they were such their fathers had relinquished, and for which undoubtedly they had good reason; and to take up with the worship of these again was to impeach their wisdom, judgment, and good sense:

or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but then these were such as could not preserve their worshippers in the land, or the Israelites had not dwelt in it, and therefore no dependence could be had upon them for future security. The Amorites are only mentioned, because they were a principal nation, some of which dwelt on one side Jordan, and some on the other, and indeed there were of them in the several parts of the land:

but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord; be your choice as it may be: this was the resolution of Joshua, and so far as he knew the sense of his family, or had influence over it, could and did speak for them; and which he observes as an example set for the Israelites to follow after; he full well knowing that the examples of great personages, such as governors, supreme and subordinate, have great influence over those that are under them,

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

      15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.   16 And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods;   17 For the LORD our God, he it is that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed:   18 And the LORD drave out from before us all the people, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land: therefore will we also serve the LORD; for he is our God.   19 And Joshua said unto the people, Ye 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 ye forsake the LORD, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, after that he hath done you good.   21 And the people said unto Joshua, Nay; but we will serve the LORD.   22 And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the LORD, to serve him. And they said, We are witnesses.   23 Now therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the LORD God of Israel.   24 And the people said unto Joshua, The LORD our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey.   25 So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.   26 And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the LORD.   27 And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the LORD which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God.   28 So Joshua let the people depart, every man unto his inheritance.

      Never was any treaty carried on with better management, nor brought to a better issue, than this of Joshua with the people, to engage them to serve God. The manner of his dealing with them shows him to have been in earnest, and that his heart was much upon it, to leave them under all possible obligations to cleave to him, particularly the obligation of a choice and of a covenant.

      I. Would it be any obligation upon them if they made the service of God their choice?–he here puts them to their choice, not as if it were antecedently indifferent whether they served God or nor, or as if they were at liberty to refuse his service, but because it would have a great influence upon their perseverance in religion if they embraced it with the reason of men and with the resolution of men. These two things he here brings them to.

      1. He brings them to embrace their religion rationally and intelligently, for it is a reasonable service. The will of man is apt to glory in its native liberty, and, in a jealousy for the honour of this, adheres with most pleasure to that which is its own choice and is not imposed upon it; therefore it is God’s will that this service should be, not our chance, or a force upon us, but our choice. Accordingly,

      (1.) Joshua fairly puts the matter to their choice, v. 15. Here, [1.] He proposes the candidates that stand for the election. The Lord, Jehovah, on one side, and on the other side either the gods of their ancestors, which would pretend to recommend themselves to those that were fond of antiquity, and that which was received by tradition from their fathers, or the gods of their neighbours, the Amorites, in whose land they dwelt, which would insinuate themselves into the affections of those that were complaisant and fond of good fellowship. [2.] He supposes there were those to whom, upon some account or other, it would seem evil to serve the Lord. There are prejudices and objections which some people raise against religion, which, with those that are inclined to the world and the flesh, have great force. It seems evil to them, hard and unreasonable, to be obliged to deny themselves, mortify the flesh, take up their cross, c. But, being in a state of probation, it is fit there should be some difficulties in the way, else there were no trial. [3.] He refers it to themselves: “Choose you whom you will serve, choose this day, now that the matter is laid thus plainly before you, speedily bring it to a head, and do not stand hesitating.” Elijah, long after this, referred the decision of the controversy between Jehovah and Baal to the consciences of those with whom he was treating, 1 Kings xviii. 21. Joshua’s putting the matter here to this issue plainly intimates two things:–First, That it is the will of God we should every one of us make religion our serious and deliberate choice. Let us state the matter impartially to ourselves, weigh things in an even balance, and then determine for that which we find to be really true and good. Let us resolve upon a life of serious godliness, not merely because we know no other way, but because really, upon search, we find no better. Secondly, That religion has so much self-evident reason and righteousness on its side that it may safely be referred to every man that allows himself a free thought either to choose or refuse it for the merits of the cause are so plain that no considerate man can do otherwise but choose it. The case is so clear that it determines itself. Perhaps Joshua designed, by putting them to their choice, thus to try if there were any among them who, upon so fair an occasion given, would show a coolness and indifference towards the service of God, whether they would desire time to consider and consult their friends before they gave in an answer, and if any such should appear he might set a mark upon them, and warn the rest to avoid them. [4.] He directs their choice in this matter by an open declaration of his own resolutions: “But as for me and my house, whatever you do, we will serve the Lord, and I hope you will all be of the same mind.” Here he resolves, First, For himself: As for me, I will serve the Lord. Note, The service of God is nothing below the greatest of men; it is so far from being a diminution and disparagement to princes and those of the first rank to be religious that it is their greatest honour, and adds the brightest crown of glory to them. Observe how positive he is: “I will serve God.” It is no abridgment of our liberty to bind ourselves with a bond to God. Secondly, For his house, that is, his family, his children and servants, such as were immediately under his eye and care, his inspection and influence. Joshua was a ruler, a judge in Israel, yet he did not make his necessary application to public affairs an excuse for the neglect of family religion. Those that have the charge of many families, as magistrates and ministers, must take special care of their own (1Ti 3:4; 1Ti 3:5): I and my house will serve God. 1. “Not my house, without me.” He would not engage them to that work which he would not set his own hand to. As some who would have their children and servants good, but will not be so themselves; that is, they would have them go to heaven, but intend to go to hell themselves. 2. “Not I, without my house.” He supposes he might be forsaken by his people, but in his house, where his authority was greater and more immediate, there he would over-rule. Note, When we cannot bring as many as we would to the service of God we must bring as many as we can, and extend our endeavours to the utmost sphere of our activity; if we cannot reform the land, let us put away iniquity far from our own tabernacle. 3. “First I, and then my house.” Note, Those that lead and rule in other things should be first in the service of God, and go before in the best things. Thirdly, He resolves to do this whatever others did. Though all the families of Israel should revolt from God, and serve idols, yet Joshua and his family will stedfastly adhere to the God of Israel. Note, Those that resolve to serve God must not mind being singular in it, nor be drawn by the crowd to forsake his service. Those that are bound for heaven must be willing to swim against the stream, and must not do as the most do, but as the best do.

      (2.) The matter being thus put to their choice, they immediately determine it by a free, rational, and intelligent declaration, for the God of Israel, against all competitors whatsoever, v. 16-18. Here, [1.] They concur with Joshua in his resolution, being influenced by the example of so great a man, who had been so great a blessing to them (v. 18): We also will serve the Lord. See how much good great men might do, if they were but zealous in religion, by their influence on their inferiors. [2.] They startle at the thought of apostatizing from God (v. 16): God forbid; the word intimates the greatest dread and detestation imaginable. “Far be it, far be it from us, that we or ours should ever forsake the Lord to serve other gods. We must be perfectly lost to all sense of justice, gratitude, and honour, ere we can harbour the least thought of such a thing.” Thus must our hearts rise against all temptations to desert the service of God. Get thee behind me, Satan. [3.] They give very substantial reasons for their choice, to show that they did not make it purely in compliance to Joshua, but from a full conviction of the reasonableness and equity of it. They make this choice for, and in consideration, First, Of the many great and very kind things God had done for them, bringing them out of Egypt through the wilderness into Canaan, Jos 24:17; Jos 24:18. Thus they repeat to themselves Joshua’s sermon, and then express their sincere compliance with the intentions of it. Secondly, Of the relation they stood in to God, and his covenant with them: “We will serve the Lord (v. 18), for he is our God, who has graciously engaged himself by promise to us, and to whom we have by solemn vow engaged ourselves.”

      2. He brings them to embrace their religion resolutely, and to express a full purpose of heart to cleave to the Lord. Now that he has them in a good mind he follows his blow, and drives the nail to the head, that it might, if possible, be a nail in a sure place. Fast bind, fast find.

      (1.) In order to this he sets before them the difficulties of religion, and that in it which might be thought discouraging (Jos 24:19; Jos 24:20): You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God, or, as it is in the Hebrew, he is the holy Gods, intimating the mystery of the Trinity, three in one; holy, holy, holy, holy Father, holy Son, holy Spirit. He will not forgive. And, if you forsake him, he will do you hurt. Certainly Joshua does not intend hereby to deter them from the service of God as impracticable and dangerous. But, [1.] He perhaps intends to represent here the suggestions of seducers, who tempted Israel from their God, and from the service of him; with such insinuations as these, that he was a hard master, his work impossible to be done, and he not to be pleased, and, if displeased, implacable and revengeful,–that he would confine their respects to himself only, and would not suffer them to show the least kindness for any other,–and that herein he was very unlike the gods of the nations, which were easy, and neither holy nor jealous. It is probable that this was then commonly objected against the Jewish religion, as it has all along been the artifice of Satan every since he tempted our first parents thus to misrepresent God and his laws, as harsh and severe; and Joshua by his tone and manner of speaking might make them perceive he intended it as an objection, and would put it to them how they would keep their ground against the force of it. Or, [2.] He thus expresses his godly jealousy over them, and his fear concerning them, that, notwithstanding the profession they now made of zeal for God and his service, they would afterwards draw back, and if they did they would find him just and jealous to avenge it. Or, [3.] He resolves to let them know the worst of it, and what strict terms they must expect to stand upon with God, that they might sit down and count the cost. “You cannot serve the Lord, except you put away all other gods for he is holy and jealous, and will by no means admit a rival, and therefore you must be very watchful and careful, for it is at your peril if you desert his service; better you had never known it.” Thus, though our Master has assured us that his yoke is easy, yet lest, upon the presumption of this, we should grow remiss and careless, he has also told us that the gate is strait, and the way narrow, that leads to life, that we may therefore strive to enter, and not seek only. “You cannot serve God and Mammon; therefore, if you resolve to serve God, you must renounce all competitors with him. You cannot serve God in your own strength, nor will he forgive your transgressions for any righteousness of your own; but all the seed of Israel must be justified and must glory in the Lord alone as their righteousness and strength,” Isa 45:24; Isa 45:25. They must therefore come off from all confidence in their own sufficiency, else their purposes would be to no purpose. Or, [4.] Joshua thus urges on them the seeming discouragements which lay in their way, that he might sharpen their resolutions, and draw from them a promise yet more express and solemn that they would continue faithful to God and their religion. He draws it form them that they might catch at it the more earnestly and hold it the faster.

      (2.) Notwithstanding this statement of the difficulties of religion, they declare a firm and fixed resolution to continue and persevere therein (v. 21): “Nay, but we will serve the Lord. We will think never the worse of him for his being a holy and jealous God, nor for his confining his servants to worship himself only. Justly will he consume those that forsake him, but we never will forsake him; not only we have a good mind to serve him, and we hope we shall, but we are at a point, we cannot bear to hear any entreaties to leave him or to turn from following after him (Ruth i. 16); in the strength of divine grace we are resolved that we will serve the Lord.” This resolution they repeat with an explication (v. 24): “The Lord our God will we serve, not only be called his servants and wear his livery, but our religion shall rule us in every thing, and his voice will we obey.” And in vain do we call him Master and Lord, if we do not the things which he saith, Luke vi. 46. This last promise they make in answer to the charge Joshua gave them (v. 23), that, in order to their perseverance, they should, [1.] Put away the images and relics of the strange gods, and not keep any of the tokens of those other lovers in their custody, if they resolved their Maker should be their husband; they promise, in this, to obey his voice. [2.] That they should incline their hearts to the God of Israel, use their authority over their own hearts to engage them for God, not only to set their affections upon him, but to settle them so. These terms they agree to, and thus, as Joshua explains the bargain, they strike it: The Lord our God will we serve.

      II. The service of God being thus made their deliberate choice, Joshua binds them to it by a solemn covenant, v. 25. Moses had twice publicly ratified this covenant between God and Israel, at Mount Sinai (Exod. xxiv.) and in the plains of Moab, Deut. xxix. 1. Joshua had likewise done it once (ch. viii. 31, c.) and now the second time. It is here called a statute and an ordinance, because of the strength and perpetuity of its obligation, and because even this covenant bound them to no more than what they were antecedently bound to by the divine command. Now, to give it the formalities of a covenant, 1. He calls witnesses, no other than themselves (&lti>v. 22): You are witnesses that you have chosen the Lord. He promises himself that they would never forget the solemnities of this day; but, if hereafter they should break this covenant, he assures them that the professions and promises they had now made would certainly rise up in judgment against them and condemn them; and they agreed to it: “We are witnesses; let us be judged out of our own mouths if ever we be false to our God.” 2. He put it in writing, and inserted it, as we find it here, in the sacred canon: He wrote it in the book of the law (v. 26), in that original which was laid up in the side of the ark, and thence, probably, it was transcribed into the several copies which the princes had for the use of each tribe. There it was written, that their obligation to religion by the divine precept, and that by their own promise, might remain on record together. 3. He erected a memorandum of it, for the benefit of those who perhaps were not conversant with writings, Jos 24:26; Jos 24:27. He set up a great stone under an oak, as a monument of this covenant, and perhaps wrote an inscription upon it (by which stones are made to speak) signifying the intention of it. When he says, It hath heard what was past, he tacitly upbraids the people with the hardness of their hearts, as if this stone had heard to as good purpose as some of them; and, if they should forget what was no done, this stone would so far preserve the remembrance of it as to reproach them for their stupidity and carelessness, and be a witness against them.

      The matter being thus settled, Joshua dismissed this assembly of the grandees of Israel (v. 28), and took his last leave of them, well satisfied in having done his part, by which he had delivered his soul; if they perished, their blood would be upon their own heads.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

15. And if it seem evil unto you, etc It seems here as if Joshua were paying little regard to what becomes an honest and right-hearted leader. If the people had forsaken God and gone after idols, it was his duty to inflict punishment on their impious and abominable revolt. But now, by giving them the option to serve God or not, just as they choose, he loosens the reins, and gives them license to rush audaciously into sin. What follows is still more absurd, when he tells them that they cannot serve the Lord, as if he were actually desirous of set purpose to impel them to shake off the yoke. But there is no doubt that his tongue was guided by the inspiration of the Spirit, in stirring up and disclosing their feelings. For when the Lord brings men under his authority, they are usually willing enough to profess zeal for piety, though they instantly fall away from it. Thus they build without a foundation. This happens because they neither distrust their own weakness so much as they ought, nor consider how difficult it is to bind themselves wholly to the Lord. There is need, therefore, of serious examination, lest we be carried aloft by some giddy movement, and so fail of success in our very first attempts. (201) With this design, Joshua, by way of probation, emancipates the Jews, making them, as it were, their own masters, and free to choose what God they are willing to serve, not with the view of withdrawing them from the true religion, as they were already too much inclined to do, but to prevent them from making inconsiderate promises, which they would shortly after violate. For the real object of Joshua was, as we shall see, to renew and confirm the covenant which had already been made with God. Not without cause, therefore, does he give them freedom of choice, that they may not afterwards pretend to have been under compulsion, when they bound themselves by their own consent. Meanwhile, to impress them with a feeling of shame, he declares that he and his house will persevere in the worship of God.

(201) Latin, “ Atque ita inter primos conatus nos successus destituet.” French, “ Et qu’ainsi entre les premiers efforts nous nous trouvions n’estre pas bien fournis pour rencontrer ainsi qu’il faut, et tenir bon;” “And that thus among the first efforts we may find ourselves not well furnished for encountering as is meet, and standing firm.” — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(15) The Amorites.Here used generically for the inhabitants of Canaan.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.For Joshua himself the service of Jehovah on earth was nearly over. He pledges his house to the same service. What is known of his family? It is a singular fact that no descendant of the great conqueror, no member of his household, is named in the Bible. In the genealogies of Ephraim in 1 Chronicles 7, Joshuas name is the last in his own line (Jos. 24:27 : Non his son, Jehoshuah his son). I cannot but regard the silence of Scripture under this head as profoundly significant. It is one more analogy between the Joshua of the Old Testament and his great Antitype in the Gospel: whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end (Heb. 3:6). The house of Joshua embraces all the faithful servants of the Lord.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

15. Choose you this day “Joshua releases them from obligation, that, like free men, and of their own accord, they may honestly decide what god they will serve. Liberty of choice is granted to them in order that they might not afterwards plead that they were compelled.” Keil. Joshua assumes an important truth man cannot be godless; if he repudiates the true God, he will fall under the baleful influence of some false religion. He cannot divest himself of his religious nature. Jehovah will not share with any idol the worship of his people; every god must be dethroned before he will reign in their hearts.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

“ And if it seem evil to you to serve YHWH, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served who were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve YHWH.”

Now that it was the future that was being challenged the gods of Canaan were introduced. Joshua challenged them as to whether they would serve their ancestors’ gods, or the gods of the Amorites (the Canaanites under another name), who had done nothing for them, or YHWH, Who had done so much for them. We can compare 1Ki 18:21 for a similar challenge. It was an important challenge, and was no light choice. It was choosing between the God Who made righteous demands and expected a strict morality, and gods who made no moral demands and would introduce them to sexual perversions and lascivious living.

“But as for me and my house, we will serve YHWH.” Joshua had no doubt as to where he stood and became the first to make his declaration as an example to the remainder.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Ver. 15. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, &c. Satisfied that the Israelites, as a nation, are very far from falling into atheism, or being averse from serving God; Joshua cannot think them so blind and ungrateful as to desire to serve any other God than Jehovah. This, and nothing more, is his meaning in this place. He speaks like an orator; he invites them to choose, merely because he supposes the choice already made. Just as if he had addressed the Israelites thus: “Put away from you every object of idolatry, and determine only to serve the Lord. Ah! whom will ye serve, speak candidly, whom will ye serve, if ye refuse Him your homage? Where could you hope to find a god worthy to be compared to him? If the worship of those gods which your ancestors worshipped beyond the Euphrates has the sanction of antiquity, ye know, on the other hand, that Abraham openly abjured that worship; that from his heart he renounced those idols; and that, drawing down the benediction of the Most High, he obtained from his munificence, as his inheritance, the country of which you have now taken possession. As to the gods of the Amorites, I know that you are convinced how despicable those impotent idols are, whose worshippers you have subdued. Make your choice, however. Nothing should be more free than the preference given to a religion. But know, O Israelites! that the choice of Joshua no longer remains to be made; I and my house, I and all my family, if I am master of it, will serve the Lord; and will remain faithful to him even to death.”

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

“Handfuls of Purpose”

For All Gleaners

“Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” Jos 24:15

There is a point at which all religion becomes voluntary. There is a sense in which natural religion is not voluntary, although there is a strained sense in which a contention may be set up for its voluntariness. The whole value of spiritual religion consists in its expressing the supreme desire of the heart. An appeal is thus made to reason, inasmuch as man is called upon to make a choice. To make a choice means, in other words, to examine, to attach values, weigh one thing against another, and to pronounce on rational grounds for the election of a certain course of conduct. A beautiful union of words is here found, namely, “choose,” and “serve.” Here is a beautiful instance of voluntary slavery. There is a service that is merely of the eye, regulated by selfish considerations and determined by self-indulgence: that service is of no account in the sanctuary: it is a vain oblation, and is rejected by God. The apostles did not hesitate to describe themselves as “slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ;” the word slave seems to mean more than servant, and it was after that further and deeper meaning, that the apostles strained themselves when they described their service as slavery. There is a slavery of love. Love can never rise too early, or toil too severely, or give too lavishly; it lives to give; it lives to gratify others; its joy would be taken away if its service could be limited. In such a case as is referred to in the text, “service” must not be taken as a merely intellectual or ceremonial relation, it means downright hard work, genuine obedience, hearty devotion, complete, unsparing, and joyous consecration. The profession of religion may be an aggravation of immorality. To profess and not to do is to be guilty of the blackest falsehood. Great mistakes about the service of God must be cleared away: it is a mistake, for example, to suppose that we may serve God by singing hymns, attending services, and patronising ministers, when in doing all this we only gratify our own desires without exposing ourselves to a single pang or loss. Exercises of this kind must be taken as merely part of the great consecration. The beauty is not the flower, nor is it the fragrance; there must be root-life, hidden sources of nutriment, and direct connection with the sun. We cannot serve God if we are not living in God, and God is not living in us. To serve God is to bring the spirit into activity at every possible point of life, thinking good, doing good, and. where necessary, suffering for good. The greatness of this service may be seen in the fact that it is always associated in Christian teaching with concentration. Jesus Christ said, Ye cannot serve God and mammon, as ye cannot be going east and west at the same time. Here, therefore, the meaning clearly is that divine service means undivided concentration, complete and absolute devotion to the will of God. In view of this definition (a definition realised only by the Lord Jesus Christ) let every man say how far he is worthy to be called a servant of the living God.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

Jos 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that [were] on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

Ver. 15. Choose you this day whom ye will serve. ] He leaveth them not to their own free choice to do either, but to make proof of their voluntary and professed subjection to the true religion, which would further engage them to constancy in their covenant.

But as for me and my house. ] Joshua was not of the mind of most householders in these days, who make no other use of their servants than they do of their beasts; while they may have their bodies to do their service, they care not if their souls serve the devil: these forget that they must answer for those souls, and give an account of their blood.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

The Choice of a Master

Choose you this day whom ye will serve.Jos 24:15.

1. This was the farewell charge of the veteran chieftain Joshua to the tribes of Israel gathered together at Shechem. He had watched the childhood of the nation. He had seen a band of fugitives organized into an army, disciplined by adversity, entering at last as a victorious nation on the promised possession. He had watched their religious history, the triumph of the great truth of the One God which they were to hold as a sacred deposit, and hand down to after ages. It was their greatness that to them were committed the oracles of God. Yet he had seen them already false to their high mission. He had noted the reappearance of polytheistic ideas, he had seen the return to the Apis-worship of Egypt, he had mourned over the importation of more than one foreign cult. He knew that he was the leader of a chosen people, but of a people chosen not for their own greatness, but for a special duty or vocation in Gods world. And he saw that they had not realized their vocation. In the new phase of their history on which they were entering, everything now turned upon a choice. They were at a solemn crisis. God had chosen them for His work; but Gods choice is never absolute, never a mere selection for pre-eminence, never a mere display of power, but part of a great purpose which runs through time. To fail to do that work to which God calls is, by that failure, to nullify the choice. It was, then, a matter of life and death for Israel. How would they decide?

2. The place in which that question was asked and answered was full of memories. It was there, tradition said, that the first promise had been made to Abraham: Unto thy seed will I give this land (Gen 12:7). It was there, in the valley between Ebal and Gerizim, the mount of cursing and the mount of blessing, that, in obedience to the word of Moses, the Law had been rehearsed. It was there that the embalmed body of Joseph, which they had brought up from Egypt, was to find its final resting-place.

It was fitting that this cradle of the nation should witness their vow, as it witnessed the fulfilment of Gods promise. What Plymouth Rock is to one side of the Atlantic, or Hastings Field to the other, Shechem was to Israel. Vows sworn there had a sanctity added by the place. Nor did these remembrances exhaust the appropriateness of the site. The oak, which had waved green above Abrams altar, had looked down on another significant incident in the life of Jacob, when, in preparation for his long journey to Bethel, he had made a clean sweep of the idols of his household, and buried them under the oak which was by Shechem (Gen 35:2-4). His very words are quoted by Joshua in his command, in Gen 35:23, and it is impossible to overlook the intention to parallel the two events. The spot which had seen the earlier act of purification from idolatry was for that very reason chosen for the later. It is possible that the same tree at whose roots the idols from beyond the river, which Leah and Rachel had brought, had been buried, was that under which Joshua had set up his memorial stone; and it is possible that the very stone had been part of Abrams altar. But, in any case, the place was sacred by these past manifestations of God and devotions of the fathers, so that we need not wonder that Joshua selected it rather than Shiloh, where the ark was, for the scene of the national oath of obedience.

3. Such were the associations which gathered around them as the multitudes in the valley of decision listened to the words of their great leader; and the charge was a retrospect and a prospect, a review of Gods unchanging goodness, and an anxious looking forward to the future. Would the people be true to their mission? God had given them a land for which they did not labour; He had driven the nations out before them. But for what? That they might keep his statutes, and observe his laws, that they might be the repositories of the great truth which was to prepare the world for its regeneration, the truth of monotheism which should prepare for Christianity. Would they be true to their vocation? Had they really apprehended that for which they had been apprehended? Would they choose that for which God had chosen them? If not, still they must choose. If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve. Shall it be the polytheism from which Abraham had been called, or the polytheism of the Amorites among whom they were now dwelling? They might choose their vocation to be the servants of the One True God, or they might choose among the many idolatries in which they might miss their vocation. But choose they must.

It is the critical position to which the prophet Elijah also brought the people. How long halt ye between two opinions? How long will you spend your life in inconclusive flirtations? Settle the matter. Make up your minds. If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word; and the timid flirtations went on! And so it is to-day. In spiritual relationships men flirt, but they do not wed; they pay courteous attention, but they do not choose; they give a respectful hearing, but they do not risk an issue. Everything is open, nothing concluded. And so this old-world counsel comes into our modern conditions as counsel which is pertinent to much of our inconsequent and inconclusive life.1 [Note: J. H. Jowett.]

Keeping strictly to the words, Choose you this day whom ye will serve, we find four facts contained in them

I.All Life is Service.

II.We may choose our Master.

III.There are only Two Masters to choose between.

IV.The Choice is Urgent.

I

All Life is Service

Joshua does not ask the Israelites whether or not they will serve any god. It is taken as a matter of course, and assumed as a fact, that they must serve some acknowledged superior, because it is a part of mans nature to fear and serve a Superior Being, or a Superior Power. It is only the fool who hath said in his heart, There is no Godone who has utterly rebelled against the better side of human nature, and has crushed out the natural feelings of fear, awe, and reverence. Now this is the statement of an important truth. If men will not serve the Lord, they will nevertheless be the slaves of somethingof Satanof sinof their own lustsor of the riches, pleasures, or cares of this world. It has been well said: We have not the liberty to choose whether we will serve or not; all the liberty we have is to choose our master.

One often felt about Dr. Rainy the note of the soldier. I remember a fine phrase of his about life: We must succeed as soldiers succeed. Soldiers succeed, not by gaining honours and applause, nor, it may be, by gaining even victory. Their success is obedience to the call of duty. Their profession is the service. Principal Rainy, even as the Church leader, was always the soldier in the service of the good cause.1 [Note: P. Carnegie Simpson, The Life of Principal Rainy, ii. 201.]

It is at once strange and true that there is no state so dear to the highest type of man as that of independence. One of its greatest poetic prophets was Robert Burns, and you will call to mind his words

To catch dame Fortunes golden smile,

Assiduous wait upon her;

And gather gear by evry wile

Thats justified by honour;

Not for to hide it in a hedge,

Nor for a train attendant;

But for the glorious privilege

Of being independent.

That yearning for independence runs through all his poems, and we regard it as the first and foremost of his manly virtues. Yet, sad irony, it must be confessed that poor Burns was bound hand and foot by a master quite as cruel and despotic as a golden onethe master of low passions and appetites. But the case of Burns, so far from being solitary, is universal. Men may boast of their independence, and in some particular lines they have a right to do so, still they are servants or slaves of some power.

It is not the spirit of obedience that is wanting in man; he is not only willing to obey, but there is a necessity on him to do so. In his maddest dreams of freedom he enthrals himself to a Marat; in his wildest theory of individual judgment he makes a Pope of Chalmers or Wesley or Canning. Only let a man see what he ought to obey. Here rather is the difficulty. I will not obey the Church, says one, for the Church does not exercise any power over me; I do not acknowledge its authority; I do not feel its superiority. I am not a loyal subject, says another, because I know that the Queen is an inexperienced little girl, no wiser than one of my daughters. It is only by attesting their divine mission that institutions can be, or it may be ought to be, obeyed.1 [Note: Lord Houghton, in Life of Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton, ii. 486.]

Fair is our lotO goodly is our heritage!

(Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth!)

For the Lord our God Most High

He hath made the deep as dry,

He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the Earth!

Yea, though we sinnedand our rulers went from righteousness

Deep in all dishonour though we stained our garments hem,

Oh, be ye not dismayed,

Though we stumbled and we strayed,

We were led by evil counsellorsthe Lord shall deal with them!

Hold ye the Faiththe Faith our Fathers seald us;

Whoring not with visionsoverwise and overstale.

Except ye pay the Lord

Single heart and single sword,

Of your children in their bondage shall He ask them treble-tale!

Keep ye the Lawbe swift in all obedience

Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford.

Make ye sure to each his own

That he reap where he hath sown;

By the peace among our peoples let men know we serve the Lord!2 [Note: Rudyard Kipling.]

II

We may choose our Master

1. The Bible is full of the recognition of the responsibility of each man for his choice. We go back to the very beginning of the Bible history, and we find that the Eden story all revolves round the ability of the individual to choose for himself. Now you may have any theory of the first chapters of the Bible that you please. You may call the story of Eden a parable or literal history. We shall all be agreed, however, when we recognize that the very central thought of all is that sin came into the world by disobedience, disobedience in point of power to choose in the opposite direction. A little later on we come to the Ten Commandments. A commandment implies that it may be obeyed or disobeyed. Obedience must choose in one direction or choose in another direction.

From the very beginning of the Old Testament to the very end of the New there is a run of invitation, beautiful words, golden words, diamond words; the most glowing words of all the Bible are those words of invitation. But invitation implies a possibility of resistance; if an invitation cannot be resisted it cannot be accepted.

2. A sense of power to choose between good and evil is part and parcel of the primitive consciousness of the race, and the speech of the rudest tribesman implies it. It is stamped upon every language, presupposed in all social systems, and is the sure foundation upon which the earliest and the latest codes of justice rest. It is for many reasons denied in theory by the great majority of the human race, and implied in practice. Fetish-worshipper, Pantheist, Muhammadan, even the Christian has repudiated the doctrine of moral freedom, but the repudiation has been limited to the sphere of religion, and has rarely, if ever, been applied to citizenship. The savage who, if he has any theory of the world, looks upon it as a ghostly despotism against which man, apart from charms, is helpless, forgets his religion of Fate, and deters his child from evil by frowns and encourages him to good by smiles. Every expression of the countenance witnesses to the belief that man moulds himself to vice or virtue. The student of science makes the laboratory or museum his universe, and convinces himself that the power of environment is limitless, and that the human faculties which are supposed to resist or modify it are less than nothing, and he comes forth from his refuge to applaud an act of heroism in the streets, or to scathe with denunciation some foul wrong done to a widow or a little child. The theologian in his study reads Jonathan Edwards on the Will, and convinces himself that the Infinite Sovereignty leaves no room for human freedom in the scheme of things; but he takes up his newspaper and his heart goes with every sentence meted out to a crime.

The soul in its consciousness of freedom repudiates determinism. Man as a moral agent is freefree to choose, free to think, free to act. Hence the exhortations of Scripture: Choose you this day whom ye will serveI have set before you life and death, therefore choose lifeAbhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. Power of choice implies free will and therefore responsibility. Christ in addressing men always assumed their freedom of choiceFollow meCome unto meYe will not come to me, that ye might have life. And the Apostolic injunction, Quench not the Spirit, has no meaning unless we are able to do so. Our destiny is thus largely, if not wholly, in our own hands. I canI oughtI will. We are not feathers in the wind, or straws on the stream, but men with souls and wills and consciences, and as men we fix our destiny by our character, and we fix our character by our actions.1 [Note: D. Watson, The Heritage of Youth, 35.]

The will in man, like some small independent nation, such as Switzerland or Holland, seems to maintain itself by means of great toil and effort. Bordered on all sides by strong encroaching nations, which threaten to absorb its very life within them, and menaced by a rude unfriendly nature, with which it must keep up a constant war, it yet continues, by the very fact of its existence, to utter a protest for mans inviolable right of freedom. Often must the will exclaim

Oh, mother Nature, broad indeed thy feast,

Widespread thy table, pasture for the beast

And death to man, most like the fruit whose thin

Smooth shining golden rind shows fair within

Its crimson gleaming seeds deep-hearted hid

Harmful, whereon, a harmless guest unbid,

The sweet bird feeds.2 [Note: Dora Greenwell, Liber Humanitatis, 66.]

Henry Ward Beechers father, old Dr. Lyman Beecher, was quite as remarkable as his distinguished son and his distinguished daughter, Harriet Beecher Stowe. One day Dr. Lyman Beecher had an exchange with a Methodist brother. Dr. Beecher believed in fore-ordination. The two men met on a hillside, each going to his place of worship, according to the way that was common in those days, riding his own horse. Now, said Dr. Beecher, you see my doctrine is right, you see that it was fore-ordained from the foundation of the world that we should make this exchange, and we have met here on the crest of this hill, you going to my church and I going to your church. Very well, said the Methodist preacher, if it was fore-ordained from the foundation of the world that we were to make this exchange, I will break the fore-ordination, and he deliberately turned round and went back to his own church. Now that seems to be only toying with a profound and very perplexing principle, but underneath we come to this very simple fact, that every man must be loyal to his own conscience, and when we are discussing the fact as to whether we have the power to choose or not we get back to this, I know I could have done differently.

3. Religion, no less than the other interests to which we give ourselves in life, is the subject-matter of human choice. We sometimes look upon it as pre-determined by language, climate, tradition, and ancestry. Max Mller speaks as though the idolatry of the Aryans grew out of their habits of speech. St. Paul perhaps displays a deeper insight into human nature when he looks upon idolatry as the product of fatuous and evil acts of choice.

The best religion is always that which men, after due inquiry and full counsel with their own consciences, choose for themselves. It has greater binding power than a religion which is merely prescribed. It is true even in common things that, after we have reached years of maturity, the best decisions are the dispassionate decisions we make for ourselves. The choice other people may make for us is of passing value only, and cannot command us like the choice we make in the exercise of our just personal liberty. Genuine religion begins with the exercise of individual judgment, although of course that judgment, when once formed, must ally itself with kindred judgments in the community and so acquire accumulative intenseness.

I think full vision prevents the exercise of choice between good and evil, and the fact of our being conscious of a power to choose between the two shows that we are in the darkwe could not choose evil if we really saw it to be only evil. In the case of a temptation, the very force of the temptation lies in the fact that the thing does appear good, pleasant to look upon, and likely to advance our knowledge. I would venture to suggest that you should criticize your notion of choice under the remembrance of the conditions in which we start and move in this existence. Consent, I think, is a better word than choice in relation to mans so-called free will. True, when we are standing in the natural or old Adam, it seems a choice to us; but when we come to stand in the spiritual or new Adam, we discover that our free will is not exercised in the way of choice as between two alternatives, but in the free consent to the Will of God that it is good and acceptable and perfect. I incline to think that in the distinction between the natural and spiritual perceptions the solution of the perplexity will be found in the question of so-called free will.1 [Note: Letters from a Mystic of the Present Day, 10.]

Still will we trust, though earth seem dark and dreary,

And the heart faint beneath His chastening rod,

Though rough and steep our pathway, worn and weary,

Still will we trust in God!

Our eyes see dimly till by faith anointed,

And our blind choosing brings us grief and pain;

Through Him alone, who hath our way appointed,

We find our peace again.

Choose for us, God, nor let our weak preferring

Cheat our poor souls of good Thou hast designed:

Choose for us, God! Thy wisdom is unerring,

And we are fools and blind.

So from our sky the night shall furl her shadows,

And day pour gladness through her golden gates;

Our rough path lead to flower-enamelled meadows,

Where joy our coming waits.

Let us press on: in patient self-denial,

Accept the hardship, shrink not from the loss;

Our guerdon lies beyond the hour of trial,

Our crown beyond the cross.2 [Note: W. H. Burleigh.]

III

There are only Two Masters to choose between

1. God will accept no divided allegiance. He will have from us all or nothing in the way of service. No man, says our Lord, can serve two masters (Mat 6:24). The alternative, as Joshua put it to Israel, was between the One True God and some of the many false gods of that age; the alternative for us, in the matter of service, is between sin and Christ. Our choice lies between these two only. Servants to the one or the other we must be.

Thou canst not choose but serve; mans lot is servitude;

But this of choice thou hast, a bad lord or a good.1 [Note: Archbishop Trench.]

We may engage in a thousand pursuits. There is always one of two great ruling principles which guides our thoughts, words, and actions, and gives a distinct and peculiar colouring to our whole life. And it is from these two dominating powers that we have to chooseGod or the devil, the love of virtue or the love of vice.

I remember so well, soon after my conversion, the exercise of mind I went through in 1844. I was ambitious and determined to get on in my profession, and I felt the three or four seasons of reading and prayer that I had set aside each day were a great hindrance to me in the way of military studies, and that if my mind was always so full of religious thought and reading I could not hope to make a name for myself. So the question came plainly before my mind, Shall I choose to live to God, and keep up all this reading and prayer (which I felt needful because of my sinful, unruly heart), or lessen these exercises and apply myself to get on in the service? I have never regretted the choice God helped me to make, and I believe He gave me great blessing in consequence, and has not even allowed me to fall behind my contemporaries in a professional point of view, but, as you know, has always prospered me in my work, and preserved me through perils.2 [Note: Sir John Field, Jottings from an Indian Journal, 127.]

Many lives which reach different goals start together in the closest intimacy. The characters of two lads, who are side by side in the same home or in the same school, are akin, and there is no apparent reason why they should not have the same value in the world. The possibilities, humanly speaking, are interchangeable. They sing from the same book, bow in prayer on the same hearth-stone, and show the same susceptibility to good impressions. For years their lives run parallel in the same church, the same business house, the same city. But after a while they get more or less apart. One is strict, conscientious, diligent in good works. The other loves society, grows lax in his habits, neglects the house of God. Their sympathies flow in diametrically opposed channels. One pours out his life on a foreign soil in the service of the Cross; the other dies on the scaffold or in a convict prison.1 [Note: T. G. Selby.]

The river Amazon and the chief tributary of the river Plate rise within a few hundred yards of each other, and the Indians often drag their canoes from one stream to the other over the intervening strip of land. For many miles the little rivers run in parallel channels, and it often seems as though they might unite into one. At last a little knoll or ridge is reached, and the waterways diverge. It is difficult to judge what issues are involved in this turning-point, for it gives complexion to the entire map of South America, and it has put the stamp of destiny upon some great empires. These two rivers never come within sight of each other again, and empty themselves into the sea more than a thousand miles apart.

2. One may say, I do not know on whose side I am, it is so difficult to tell what is truth and what is false. But we are not required to settle difficult questions in casuistry: we are asked to take a side when we see that there are two sides and only one of them can be taken. It is not a choice of the intellect; it is a choice of the will.

Of course there are problems the elements of which have not been formulated, and to which, for the present, a simple Aye or No is impossible. But these are not questions that touch the heart of salvation. We live, it is true, in perplexing times, but much of our unsettlement is due, not to the conflict between religion and science, faith and criticism, but to personal indecision. Alternatives are put before us which enlist the passions on the one hand and the conscience on the other, and it is for us to select between them. Faith is sometimes looked upon as though it were the product of a peculiar inspiration acting upon the finer sensibilities of a passive nature. It must be swept into men by a tidal wave of supreme emotion. Devout fatalists sit on the shore waiting till the phenomenon appears. It is pleasant to believe when the flowing tide is with us, but we must not forget the part we ourselves have to play.

It were not hard, we think, to serve Him,

If we could only see;

If He would stand with that gaze intense

Burning into our bodily sense,

If we might look on that face most tender,

The brow where the scars are turned to splendour,

Might catch the light of His smile so sweet,

And view the marks in His hands and feet,

How loyal we should be!

It were not hard, we think, to serve Him,

If we could only see!

It were not hard, He says, to see Him,

If we would only serve;

He that doeth the will of Heaven,

To him shall knowledge and sight be given!

While for His presence we sit repining,

Never we see His countenance shining;

They who toil where His reapers be,

The glow of His smile may always see,

And their faith can never swerve.

It were not hard, He says, to see Him,

If we would only serve.

I could not tell you too strongly my own deep and deepening conviction that the truths which I teach are true. Every year they shed fresh light on one another, and seem to stretch into immensity. They explain to me life, God, and the Bible; and I am certain that what fresh light I shall receive will be an expansion and not a contradiction of what I have. As for the words in which I try to make others see what I see, they are indeed poor and bewildered enough. But there is no bewilderment in my mind, though much that is incomplete. The principles are rooted in human nature, God, and the being of things, and I find them at the root of every page in Scripture. The principles cannot be reversed. My mind has grown by a regular development year by year, and I could as easily doubt my own existence as doubt those truths which have grown with my growth, and strengthened with my strength. They are not opinions nor theories, but convictionspart of my being, of my habits of thought and lifecolouring everything, the fountain light of all my day, the master light of all my seeing. These are the truths for which men go to the stake, and relinquish, joyfully, friends, sympathy, good name, worldly prospects. They do not depend upon the accuracy of an intellectual process, but upon the verdict of all the highest powers of soul. For instance, I would not give up a single thing on the certainty that St. Paul did not write the Epistle to the Hebrews. These are matters of intellectual investigation, and I am not sure that I am right, because I am neither certain that all the evidence is before me, nor that I have rightly judged from the evidence. But if I am asked to surrender convictions, I cannot do it for any reward, nor for fear of any loss; these depend upon all I know of God; they are the things seen in the noonday light of my soul; and I cannot pretend to submit my judgment in such things to wiser men or better men. It would be mock humility. I might just as readily, at their bidding, say that green is scarlet. It may be so; but if it be, my whole vision is deranged by which I have walked and lived, and by which this world is beautiful. To say that I am ready for any martyrdom in the defence of my convictions, and that I cannot affect to have doubts or misgivings about them, is only to say that they are convictions.1 [Note: F. W. Robertson, in Life and Letters, 368.]

And they serve men austerely,

After their own genius, clearly,

Without a false humility;

For this is Loves nobility,

Not to scatter bread and gold,

Goods and raiment bought and sold;

But to hold fast his simple sense,

And speak the speech of innocence,

And with hand and body and blood,

To make his bosom-counsel good.

He that feeds men serveth few;

He serves all who dares be true.2 [Note: Emerson.]

When Judas, knowing the Christ to be innocent, dared to sell Him to the Jews for thirty pieces of silver; when the Bishop of Beauvais, knowing Joan of Arc to be innocent, sold her to the English for 2400there is no doubt as to the choice these men had made. When the constituents of James A. Garfield wished him to vote in the American Senate contrary to the dictates of his conscience, and when Garfield stood before them and said: Gentlemen, if I become your representative, it must be because your opinions coincide with mine, and not because I have pared mine down into similarity with yours; I must obey the dictates of my conscience; for obedience to its voice I am responsible to God, and I must not, I dare not, muffle its teachings, bury my beliefs, or cover my convictionsyou will have no hesitation in saying which side he had chosen. There is little difficulty in deciding as to whom you serve.1 [Note: G. H. Morgan.]

3. With the people to whom these words were addressed the issue was very simpleWill you follow the gods of the nations, or will you follow Jehovah your God? The problem is slightly different to-day, but it is the same old problem, and to us, as to those people, rings out the message, Choose you this day whom ye will serve! Shall it be a life spent in the service of self or in the service of humanity? It is not possible to serve God without serving man; it is not possible to worship God without serving man. There never was a prayer offered to God when the heart was at enmity with man. There is no knowledge of God which does not come through man. That is the principle of the incarnation, and, therefore, when we are to choose the service of God, we mean by that the service of man, because God cannot be served and man neglected. If we love not our brother whom we have seen, how can we love God whom we have not seen? Shall our lives be given to Christ and to humanity, or shall they be given to self and to sin?

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.2 [Note: Emily Dickinson.]

IV

The Choice is Urgent

1. It is urgent because it has to be made now.Choose you this day. All our decisions are instant; the processes leading up to decision may be very slow, but the decisions are all instant. A boat changes its course in an instant. It may have been a long time getting ready to make the change, but the change in the course is always instantaneously made. A man is seen to have made a change; it has been growing through long years, but the real change has been instantaneous.

You cannot run away from a weakness; you must some time fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?1 [Note: R. L. Stevenson, The Amateur Emigrant.]

It was at the beginning of these somewhat reckless years that I came to the great decision of my life. I remember it well. Our Sunday-School class had been held in the vestry as usual. The lesson was finished, and we had marched back into the chapel to sing, answer questions, and to listen to a short address. I was sitting at the head of the seat, and can even now see Mr. Meikle taking from his breast-pocket a copy of the United Presbyterian Record, and hear him say that he was going to read an interesting letter to us from a missionary in Fiji. The letter was read. It spoke of cannibalism, and of the power of the Gospel, and at the close of the reading, looking over his spectacles, and with wet eyes, he said, I wonder if there is a boy here this afternoon who will yet become a missionary, and by and by bring the Gospel to cannibals? And the response of my heart was, Yes, God helping me, I will. So impressed was I that I spoke to no one, but went right away towards home. The impression became greater the farther I went, until I got to the bridge over the Aray above the mill, and near to the Black Bull. There I went over the wall attached to the bridge, and kneeling down prayed God to accept me, and to make me a missionary to the heathen.2 [Note: James Chalmers, Autobiography and Letters, 23.]

Ere another step I take

In my wilful wandering way,

Still I have a choice to make

Shall I alter while I may?

Patient love is waiting still

In my Saviours heart for me:

Love to bend my froward will,

Love to make me really free.

Far from Him, what can I gain?

Want and shame and bondage vile

Better far to bear the pain

Of His yoke a little while.1 [Note: A. L. Waring.]

2. It is urgent because it is for eternity.Every choice, says the great German philosopher poet, is for eternity. Yet men often realize that only when it is too late. They have let everything go by default. They are in theory Christians; they imagine that they have taken sides; but when the moment of choice comes, when the temptation is at hand, they shrink from the effort of decision for God, and they give way to evil. Then the momentum of that false choice carries them further. It is not merely that, by the law of habit, acts tend to reproduce themselves. That is true, and it is true of good as well as of evil acts. But every choice has a twofold consequence. It reacts upon the conscience and it reacts upon the will. To choose the higher is to give definiteness and precision and a diviner insight to the conscience, even while it gives to the will new power to be free. But the conscience, once silenced, speaks in a lower tone, judges less certainly and less truly; and the will, in that its wilfulness opposed itself and chose the lower line, is weaker by the act, and has so far lost its freedom. For the freedom of the will, which we vaguely talk about, is a freedom to be won; the Divine light of conscience is at first a spark that may be quenched or kindled. The perfect freedom that can choose God, the perfect light that reveals Him,these belong only to the Perfect Man who knew no sin.

Heard are the voices,

Heard are the sages,

The worlds, and the ages.

Choose well: your choice is

Brief and yet endless.2 [Note: Goethe, translated by Carlyle.]

Literature

Girdlestone (A. G.), The Way, the Truth, the Life, No. 6.

Hughes (H. P.), The Philanthropy of God, 45.

Jowett (J. H.), The Transfigured Church, 253.

Moore (A. L.), The Message of the Gospel, 143.

Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, xi. 193.

Salmond (C. A.), For Days of Youth, 189.

Selby (T. G.), The God of the Patriarchs, 273.

Stewart (J.), Outlines of Discourses, 153.

British Congregationalist, June 11, 1908 (Jowett).

Christian World Pulpit, xiv. 309 (Anderson); xviii. 219 (Vaughan); xliv. 104 (Bradford).

Church of England Pulpit, xvii. 88 (Coleman).

Church Pulpit Year Book, iv. (1907) 128.

Churchmans Pulpit: First Sunday after Trinity, ix. 447 (Alford); Sermons to the Young, xvi. 289 (Soans).

Homiletic Review, xvii. 343 (Hoyt).

Preachers Magazine, xiv. (1903) 86 (Smith).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

choose: Rth 1:15, Rth 1:16, 1Ki 18:21, Eze 20:39, Joh 6:67

whether the gods: Jos 24:14

or the gods: Exo 23:24, Exo 23:32, Exo 23:33, Exo 34:15, Deu 13:7, Deu 29:18, Jdg 6:10

as for me: Gen 18:19, Psa 101:2, Psa 119:106, Psa 119:111, Psa 119:112, Joh 6:68, Act 11:23

Reciprocal: Gen 35:2 – unto his Exo 10:9 – We will go Exo 16:4 – prove them Exo 23:25 – And ye Lev 14:42 – General Deu 1:7 – the mount Deu 30:19 – choose life Jos 5:1 – all the kings Jos 22:5 – serve Jos 24:2 – served other gods Rth 1:8 – Go Rth 2:4 – And they 1Sa 1:21 – General 2Sa 6:20 – bless 2Sa 15:8 – I will serve 1Ch 1:14 – Amorite 1Ch 16:43 – to bless 1Ch 21:10 – choose 2Ch 14:4 – commanded 2Ch 30:8 – serve Ezr 5:11 – We are Est 4:16 – I also Psa 5:7 – But Psa 17:15 – As Psa 73:2 – But Psa 105:7 – the Lord Psa 119:8 – I will Psa 119:30 – chosen Psa 119:57 – I have Psa 119:115 – for I will Psa 119:173 – for Isa 43:9 – that they may Isa 56:4 – choose Mal 3:18 – between him Mat 6:24 – serve Mat 12:30 – that is Mat 27:17 – Whom Luk 10:42 – chosen Luk 16:13 – servant Act 10:2 – with Act 18:8 – believed Act 21:5 – with Rom 6:16 – to whom Gal 4:8 – ye did Eph 6:4 – but 1Ti 3:4 – ruleth Rev 3:15 – thou

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

A DECISION TO MAKE

Choose you this day whom ye will serve.

Jos 24:15

Throughout life we are continually making our choice. But there are times when voice of God in text seems specially to appeal to us.

I. The necessity of choosing.We all have hearts, and the heart is born to love. We all have wills, and are thus under the necessity of choosing.

II. The responsibility of choosing.It is God who commands us to choose. He will bring us into judgment if we do not choose aright (Ecc 11:9). Judgment implies responsibility. As long as there is a God, a law, and a conscience, mans responsibility must continue.

III. There are but two alternatives.We must make our choice between God and sin. To reject the Lord is a deadly sin. Men attempt a compromise, but ye cannot serve God and mammon.

IV. The choice must be (a) free; (b) decided; (c) lasting. Some have made this choicemay the Lord strengthen you with might by His Spirit. Some want to make it; beware of delay. Choose you this day whom ye will serve.

The Rev. Sir Emilius Laurie.

Illustrations

(1) Pizarro, in his earlier attempts to conquer Peru, came to a time when all his followers were about to desert him. They were gathered on the shore to embark for home. Drawing his sword, he traced a line with it from east to west; then, turning towards the south, Friends and comrades, he said, on that side are toil, hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, desertion, and death; on this side, ease and pleasure. There is Peru with all its riches; here Panama and its poverty. Choose each man as becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go to the south. So saying he stepped across the line. One after another his followers followed him. This was the crisis of Pizarros fate. There are moments in the lives of men which, as they are seized or neglected, decide their future destiny.

(2) We cannot be too emphatic in our reiteration of Christs call to all the weary and heavy laden to come unto Him, nor too confident in our assurance that whosoever comes will not be cast out; but we may be, and I fear often are, defective in our repetition of Christs demand for entire surrender, and of His warning to intending disciples of what they are taking upon them. We shall repel no true seeker by duly emphasising the difficulties of the Christian course. Perhaps if there were more plain speaking about them at the beginning, there would be fewer backsliders and dead professors with a name to live.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

Jos 24:15. Seem evil Unjust, unreasonable, or inconvenient. Choose ye Not that he leaves them to their liberty, whether they would serve God or idols; for Joshua had no such power himself, nor could give it to any other; and both he and they were obliged by the law of Moses to give their worship to God only, and to forbear all idolatry in themselves, and severely to punish it in others; but his words are a powerful insinuation, which implies that the worship of God is so highly reasonable, necessary, and beneficial, and the service of idols so absurd, vain, and pernicious, that if it were left free for all men to take their choice, every man in his right senses must needs choose the service of God before that of idols. And he provokes them to bind themselves faster to God by their own choice. We will serve the Lord But know this, if you should all be so base and brutish as to prefer senseless and impotent idols before the true and living God, it is my firm purpose that I will, and my children and servants (as far as I can influence them) shall be, constant and faithful to the Lord. And that, whatever others do. They that resolve to serve God must not start at being singular in it. They that are bound for heaven must be willing to swim against the stream, and must do, not as most do, but as the best do.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that [were] on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: {g} but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

(g) This teaches us that if all the world would go from God, yet every one of us particularly is bound to cleave to him.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes