A Serious Vow

“And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the LORD: for He is an holy God; He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.  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.  And the people said unto Joshua, Nay; but we will serve the LORD…..So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day and set them a statue and an ordinance in Shechem.”  Joshua 24:19-21;25

The Israelites were now in the promised land, and Joshua was nearing the end of his life.  He had instructed the people to choose whom they would serve, either God or idols (verse 15).  They answered unanimously, “God forbid that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods”.  However, Joshua knew what a fickle and stubborn people that they were.  He desired for them to think deeply about their quick and affirmative response to his ultimatum.  He wanted them to know that there were devastating consequences to breaking their vow to serve the LORD God.  It seems as though by their instant response to Joshua in promising to serve the LORD that they were thinking that it would be easy, a “piece of cake”, to forever worship and serve God.  They were likely believing that they could serve Him faithfully in their own power.  I can almost hear them saying, “Of course we can do that.  We would never forsake Him.  No big deal!”  But it was a big deal.  Their intentions were likely honest, but they didn’t take into account their weaknesses.

Joshua was forced to speak harshly to them, challenging them to count the cost of serving God–“don’t make promises you can’t keep”–because failure was not an option.  He stressed the holiness of God, that God was a jealous God.  Where had they heard that before?  When Moses met God on Mt. Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, the second one warned against idolatry.  God said, “I the LORD God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me.”  Some of these people hearing Joshua were present at Mt. Sinai.  Did they not remember what happened when the Hebrew people made a golden calf to worship?  Memories can be fleeting.  It would be no different for this current generation as it was for those under Moses’ leadership.  If, after vowing to worship and serve God only, the people turned to idolatry, God would destroy them especially after all the good that He had done for them.  Joshua wanted them to understand the extent of their vow, and what God required of them.

Even after Joshua’s stern warning in attempting to make them understand the seriousness of their vow, they still promised to be loyal to God.  Their vow was made before God, Joshua, and themselves.  They were their own witnesses, like the man in the movie who was questioned about a statement that he had made, and he replied, “I know that I said it because I was standing there when I said it!”  The Israelites would not be able to claim they forgot, or they didn’t understand to what they had agreed.  Joshua’s words were indelibly written on the heart and mind of each person who promised to always obey the LORD.  To show their allegiance to God and their compliance with their vow, Joshua commanded them to rid their possessions of any images or idols they may have been keeping.  Some of these idols may have been mementos from ancestors or used as “good luck charms” like a rabbit’s foot or a four-leaf clover.  However, some may have been secretly worshiped.  The people agreed to comply, to serve God, and to obey His voice.

Like many other times before in ancient Israel, a covenant was made to make the people’s affirmative response to Joshua official.  This covenant would include their declaration of service and honor to the LORD God.  This happened before.  In Exodus 24:4-7, Moses wrote the same covenant and read it to the people.  It was repeated in Deuteronomy 28 and 29.  In Joshua 8:32-35, Joshua presented the words of the law to the people, thus, Israel had no excuse to disregard the law, claim ignorance, or defy it in any way.  It was an iron-clad, certain, and binding covenant on the people of Israel.  For posterity, Joshua wrote the words of the covenant in the book of the law of God.  He then took a huge stone, rolling it under an oak tree that was near the sanctuary and set it up as a memorial to the covenant that was renewed that day.  The stone was a witness of the people’s agreement to honor and obey God.  Anyone who looked at the stone would be reminded of the covenant wherein they all agreed to never forsake the LORD God, to cling to Him only, and to obey Him completely.

After this solemn ceremony, Joshua sent all of the people back to their respective homes.  I think that these folks truly intended to honor the covenant, but it didn’t take long before they broke it.  As long as Joshua lived, Israel remained as dedicated servants of the LORD.  They continue to serve God for several more years as the elders of Israel took charge of overseeing them.  As long as the older generation lived, the memories of all that God had done for Israel remained alive and as an influence upon the people.  However, once Joshua and the elders had passed away, the younger generation did not know the LORD, nor did they think they were bound by the covenant.  They forsook God and worshiped gods of other nations (Judges 2:10-13).  Just think how many generations have come and gone since then.  So many young people today are not being taught about God, or His word, or about Jesus and the gospel.  Those of us who do worship and serve God find ourselves as little fish in a great big pond of unbelievers as we swim against the current of sin, persecution, mockery, and blasphemy against the LORD God of heaven and earth.  May God help us to remain vigilant, loyal, brave, and strong witnesses against a world of sin and unbelief.