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Take Out The Trash!


Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God. Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshiped other gods. But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the River and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac, and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I assigned the hill country of Seir to Esau, but Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt. Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there, and I brought you out. When I brought your fathers out of Egypt, you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued them with chariots and horsemen as far as the Red Sea. But they cried to the LORD for help, and he put darkness between you and the Egyptians; he brought the sea over them and covered them. You saw with your own eyes what I did to the Egyptians. Then you lived in the desert for a long time. I brought you to the land of the Amorites who lived east of the Jordan. They fought against you, but I gave them into your hands. I destroyed them from before you, and you took possession of their land. When Balak son of Zippor, the king of Moab, prepared to fight against Israel, he sent for Balaam son of Beor to put a curse on you. But I would not listen to Balaam, so he blessed you again and again, and I delivered you out of his hand. Then you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. The citizens of Jericho fought against you, as did also the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites and Jebusites, but I gave them into your hands. I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove them out before you—also the two Amorite kings. You did not do it with your own sword and bow. So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.’ 
           “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”
           Then 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 fathers 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 traveled. 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.” 
            “Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied. 
                “Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel.” 
            And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the LORD our God and obey him.” On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he drew up for them decrees and laws.
             And Joshua recorded these things in the Book of the Law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak near the holy place of the LORD. “See!” he said to all the people. “This stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all the words the LORD has said to us. It will be a witness against you if you are untrue to your God.”
 

            Today's passage has one of those lines in it that make me say, "Huh?" Joshua told the Israelites, "all or nothing," (Yesterday's post.) He ran down the list of great things God had done for the Israelites. Then he told them to throw away all their foreign gods. They insisted that they would serve the Lord. Joshua insisted that they couldn't serve the Lord because God is an "all or nothing" kind of God. The Israelites insisted that they would serve the Lord. Then Joshua says his line again. "Throw away the foreign gods that are among you. Joshua calls them as witnesses against themselves, and set a stone as a witness against the Israelites.
            It doesn't seem possible that the Israelites, given all that had happened since they left Egypt, could still be worshipping Egyptian gods, or that they could be worshipping foreign gods, but it seems that they did. And God did all that He did in spite of their rebellion. I fear that this is the condition of the Church today, serving other gods - the same gods that are served by the nonChristians in this country: gods of sensuality, licentiousness, and self. Christians have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.  Although they know God’s righteous decree that   those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them (Romans 1: 29-32) 
            Now is the time for each of us to throw away the foreign gods that we have worshipped, to turn from our sinful ways and to ask forgiveness. Now is the time for each of us to say, "But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD," even if it means our deaths. And when we get up off our knees, we need to be sure that we don't bring those gods that we've thrown out  back in.
            It is not by putting new - even good - people in office that our nation will be healed. It is not by changing the system from Progressive to Conservative, or to more Progressive. It is not about the system. It is about the man or woman  in your mirror becoming a reflection of Jesus Christ. Nothing less will do.
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All Soul's Day

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