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The cost of discipleship
‘I have decided to follow Jesus, No turning back, No turning back’.In last week’s meditation we looked at Joshua’s farewell address. Today we see a strange consequence
1Then the people answered, ‘Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods! It was the LORD our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we travelled. And the LORD drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the LORD, because he is our God.’
Joshua said to the people, ‘You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.’ But the people said to Joshua, ‘No! We will serve the LORD.’ Then Joshua said, ‘You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the LORD.’ Joshua 24: 16-22
It is like a scene from a pantomime. Joshua has challenged the people to decide whether they will follow LORD or not. When they declare their desire to serve God, Joshua replies ‘Oh, no you won’t’ and the people respond ‘Oh yes, we will’. One commentator calls Joshua’s negative response ‘perhaps the most shocking statement in the OT’. Joshua seems to be warning the people not to enter lightly into a covenant that they would be unable to keep. He stresses that the LORD is a holy God and a jealous God (v 19), whose demands for total devotion and pure worship, the people are incapable of meeting.
One can see in verse 20 a parallel to Jesus’ teaching about the sin that could not be forgiven (Matthew 12:31-32), the sin of ascribing to the evil one the deeds done by the power of God. We might also see a parallel to Luke 14:25-27 where Jesus makes the hyperbolic statement, that unless a person hates parents, spouse, family and even their own life in order to take up their cross, they cannot be his disciples. The meaning seems to be the solemn warning that if the people attribute God’s actions to idols, there can be no forgiveness and restoration for them. That Joshua has raised the stakes makes the people’s response the more significant.
When and why do we find ourselves in danger of representing God as a ‘cuddly Santa in the sky a cellophane Christ who acts twice as fast as aspirin rather than Joshua’s holy and jealous God’*?
*DR Davis, Joshua.