Now behold, today I am going the way of all the earth, and you know with all your heart and soul that not one of the good promises the LORD your God made to you has failed. Everything was fulfilled for you; not one promise has failed. Sermons
I. HIS GRACES ENDURE TO THE END. Bodily vigour leaves even his stalwart frame. Nervous energy begins to flag even with him. The mind loses elasticity and keenness. But his graces thrive. He chose God in his youth; he clings to Him in his age. His faith expected much in his manhood; it still enthrones God as the fountain of all that blesses a man or a people. His hope was bright, and still continues bright. His love of his God and of his country warm his whole being at an age when the chill of wintry age seems as if it must lower all warmth of interest. The outward man perishes; the inward man has been renewed day by day. What a sight to animate us! No regrets lament the early choice. No declension stains the early purpose. The bitter words of the elder D'Israeli, "Youth is a mistake, manhood a struggle, old age a regret," are all of them contradicted here. They are too often true. They are so when the early choice is made by passion rather than by principle. But when we choose God, we go "from strength to strength until we appear before the Lord in Zion." The perseverance of the saints is beautifully illustrated in such a case as this. Let the faint hearted be of good cheer. Grace, however feeble, is a "living and incorruptible seed; a living and deathless seed;" and whatever its varying fortunes, it will persist until it reaches its great reward. Connected with this, yet worthy of separate mention, observe - II. THE LONGER THE GOOD MAN'S EXPERIENCE, THE LARGER IS HIS SATISFACTION WITH HIS CHOICE. A short experience sometimes leaves good people in doubt whether their goodness will be worth its cost. Moses, when he had to flee to Midian, was very much tempted to repent of the zeal with which he had taken up the cause of his oppressed people in Egypt, In the Slough of Despond Christian was tempted to regret his setting out on pilgrimage. Joshua was tempted, when they refused the advice of Caleb and himself and talked of stoning them, to wish he had not unsettled the minds of the people by avowing his dissent from the conclusions of the majority of those sent out to spy the land. And often we drift into a mood the reverse of that of Agrippa, and are "almost persuaded" to cease to be Christians. But a longer experience always means a stronger sense of the wisdom of our choice. The earlier doubts of a Moses or a Joshua all fade away, and the aged saint is only thankful for his early choice. This should hearten us, and keep us from attaching too much weight to temporary depression, or even failures. When we choose God we choose "the good part" which shall not be taken away from us. Observe - III. THE GOOD MAN'S LAST SERVICE IS HIS BEST SERVICE. He had done illustrious service throughout: as the faithful spy; as the faithful helper of Moses; as the heroic warrior; as the wise and upright divider of the land. But here he conquers not the arms of enemies, but the hearts of friends: infuses the energy to win not an earthly, but a heavenly kingdom: leads them into covenant with God: secures that deepening of conscience and strengthening of faith which will give them, in the degree in which it endures, the power to keep all that they had conquered. There is something characteristic of grace here. The last service may always be - and perhaps almost always is - the best. As it was said of Samson so, in a different sense, it may be said of the Saviour Himself and of all God's saints, "The dead he slew in his death were more than all they that he slew in his life." The progressive usefulness of the saintly life is a very marvellous feature of it. Rejoice and hope in it. Lastly observe - IV. HOW FIT FOR IMMORTALITY THE OLD MAN STANDS. There may be a physical theory of another life which convinces some of the truth of the Christian doctrine of immortality; but the great argument for immortality lies in men's meetness for it. The Enochs and the Joshuas were in early ages - and such spirits are today - the great arguments of immortality. Such ripeness of spirit cannot be wasted by Him who gathers up the fragments even that nothing may be lost. For such power to serve and faculty for enjoyment men could not help feeling there must be some provision and some scope beyond the grave, The other world is hidden, but occasionally the entrance of a great soul brightens it. They, lifted up, draw our hearts and thoughts up after them. And when, like the men of Galilee, we stand gazing upwards after those who leave us, like them we see the angels, and receive the promise of a blessed heritage with those who have gone. The belief in immortality has existed ever since good men died; and while there are good men to love, the belief in a bright glory will survive. Joshua stood ready for heaven, proving the existence of a heaven by that readiness. Let us, like him, be fit for the other world as well as this, that, to the last, hope, propose, and usefulness may be rich and bright. - G.
And behold this day I am going the way of all the earth. Death is so dim-sighted and so blundering-footed that he staggers across Axminster tapestry as though it were a bare floor, and sees no difference between the fluttering rags of a tatterdemalion and a conqueror's gonfalon. Side by side we must all come down. No first class, second class, or third class in death or the grave. Death goes into the house at Gad's Hill, and he says, "I want that novelist." Death goes into Windsor Castle, and he says, "I want Victoria's consort." Death goes into Ford's Theatre, at Washington, and says, "I want that President." Death goes on the Zulu battlefield, and says, "I want that French Prince Imperial." Death goes into the marble palace at Madrid, and says "Give me Queen Mercedes." Death goes into the almshouse, and says, "Give me that pauper." Death comes to the Tay Bridge, and says, "Discharge into my cold bosom all those passengers."(T. De Witt Talmage.) Not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord... spake. — I. DEATH IS A WAY. It leads the believer from the means and streams of religious ordinances to the fountain-head of living waters; from the society of earthly, and at best imperfect connections, to the company of triumphant saints, &c.II. Death is a way THAT ALL MUST GO. Some journeys may be deferred and postponed a week, a month, a year, and perhaps be wholly declined. But this cannot be put off or avoided. III. Death is a way WHICH WE MAY SOON BE REQUIRED TO TAKE. (Isaac Bachus, D. D.) With Joshua as with Simeon, at eventide it was light, the hues of a golden sunset coloured with the tints of the rainbow, which St. John beheld before the throne. The words that I have read to you contain a retrospect and a prospect. He looks behind for them; he looks forward for himself.1. We, too, have a retrospect like his, and we too have a prospect. Let us look back at life, each from our own standing-point, each colouring with the hues of his own experience the common outline. Begin at the beginning, and look back at childhood. I do not think childhood the happiest time of life, and therefore I will not say it is. And yet in the spring of our life, though it had its biting winds and its cold nights, lest our characters should bud too fast and in an atmosphere too genial we should grow unequally and develop too rapidly, there were gleams of bright sunshine, showers dropping with fruitfulness, in which our minds expanded and our souls grew. Some of us it may be were brought to the feet of Jesus, to hear His Word. As children we knew the Holy Scriptures, and our infant lips were tutored in prayer. But manhood is the time of man's glory, when we partake of the full joys of home life, when opinions mature and cultivation grows, and experience mellows, and noble duties open out before us, and grow into the full liberty of the sons of God, and by faith we overcome the wicked one. Oh, how full manhood may be of pure and generous happiness, if lived unto God, if we will but look up to Him as a reconciled Father, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost follow the Lamb whithersoever He went on earth! Sorrow there must be, but there is strength to bear it; losses, but there is time to redeem them; sin, but the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin; imperfectness, but then we are complete in Him. And then, as to old age, in one view of it that is the best of all. The aged man, if he is a Christian, is nearly at home. His activities may be diminished, but his wisdom is augmented. If not strong in action, he is great in counsel. He looks back over a past of unbroken, unvarying love, and his song is, "Surely, goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life; I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." Oh, I pray you, wherever in life you be, whatever in life you have, gather up your mercies and count them; see how the Lord's faithfulness has given you every one of the good things that He has promised to His people. Where you wandered, it was through your own wilfulness, and He brought you back. When you fell He lifted you up. When you wept your tears came to you with a message from God. You may indeed be forgetting Him; that I know not, but this I do know, that He has been love to you, trying to embrace you with the arms of His mercy, willing to draw you with the cords of love. 2. There is also a prospect. "Behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth." "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment." My brethren, this way is a universal way, and a sorrowful way, and a cloudy way. (Bp. Thorold.) I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH JOSHUA HERE REPRESENTS HIMSELF AS PLACED. Time has gathered death's memorials on that form; and warned, perhaps, by some communication from the world invisible, or feeling, it may be, in the pain, the weakness, or the gathering wrinkles, that his closing hour is near, he thus addresses the multitude around: "Behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth." What was dying Joshua but just the representative of dying man? and what is Joshua dead but an instance, from the midst of ten thousand times ten thousand of the human form, erect and strong, and animated once, consigned to mournful silence, and the human spirit vanished from the scenes of enterprise and life, where it thought so loftily or toiled so zealously of old? And if we commit ourselves to the pages of recorded history, and find them full throughout with the alternations of life and death, or mark the common course of society and providence around us, how many an illustration may be found of what to us is specially momentous in the idea afforded by the words, "the way of all the earth" III. THE APPEAL WHICH JOSHUA MAKES TO THE PEOPLE HE ADDRESSES. 1. Joshua's appeal may suggest the idea of a pious and active old age. To earlier years and robuster vigour may belong the more stirring and laborious forms of Christian enterprise and zeal; but age has the same principles of duty to regard, and the same animating motives to cherish in the heart. In the apparent proximity of death it has a consideration in some degree peculiar, to urge it on to zealous and devoted services for God; and, oh! how powerfully ought that consideration and many a motive else to animate the minds of those who, "old and stricken in age," are ready, like Joshua, to say, "I am going the way of all the earth"! If you have given your more vigorous years to sin, why should you delay with contrite and devout heart to give the close of your continuance here to Christ, and piety, and God? And if you have, in some degree, like Joshua, given your earlier life to the cause of righteousness, oh I have you not found, in your experience of its dignity, anti blessedness, and worth, a motive strong to keep you steadfast to the end? 2. Not only is the appeal of Joshua in the text representative of a pious and zealous old age, but it expresses an important fact presented by the providence of God: "Ye know," says he, "in all your hearts, and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed," &c. Of all men Christian believers perhaps will be the readiest to perceive, and the most willing to acknowledge, the absolute faithfulness and the gracious liberality of God; and how can they but know that, sad as the outward condition of God's chosen may sometimes be, and sadder still as may be the general aspect of the earth, to neither can the Almighty's pledge be broken, to neither can His promise fail? (Alex. S. Patterson.) Homilist. I. A man dying IN PHILOSOPHIC CALMNESS: "I am going the way of all the earth."1. It is not a strange road. All that have ever been, have gone through it; and all that ever will be, must. 2. It is not an avoidable road. To complain is useless. II. A man dying FULLY SATISFIED WITH GOD: "Not one thing hath failed," &c. 1. That God had promised "good things." 2. That all the "good things" promised had come. III. A man dying WITH SPIRITUAL INTEREST IN SURVIVORS: "Ye know," &c. He wished his contemporaries and survivors to cherish confidence in God when he was gone. (Homilist.) I. THE SOLICITUDE OF A NOBLE VETERAN. Joshua was solicitous that the Israelites(1) (2) (3) II. THE TESTIMONY OF AN AGED PILGRIM: "And behold this," &c. We learn here (1) (2) (3) III. THE CALMNESS OF A DYING SAINT. What a peaceful, glowing sunset! (W. Fry.) I. THE LARGENESS OF GOD'S PROMISES. To bring Israel out of the prison-land of Egypt, through the death-land of the wilderness, into triumphant possession of the fortress-land of Canaan, was what God undertook. If some great leader had undertaken, some years back, to emancipate them of the Southern States of America, to conduct them over the broad Atlantic, and make them owners and masters of military and imperial France, he would scarcely have promised any more, allowing for the difference of the times. All God's promises are "exceeding great and precious." II. THE STEADINESS OF GOD'S PURPOSES. Just when the promise appeared utterly forgotten, its final fulfilment was being planned. Just when the good seed appeared altogether perished, the labourers who were to gather in the harvest were being engaged. The rest of the history to which Joshua looked back furnished other instances of like kind. III. THE COMPLETENESS OF GOD'S WORK. God had wrought all that He had promised. I apply the subject to the earnest expectations of the humble believer in Christ. You too are looking forward to the end of your wanderings, to the enjoyment of absolute rest, to perfection of spiritual condition, to the subjugation of every enemy, in a word, to complete conformity to your Lord. Be assured that the time is approaching when you shall look back in triumph upon all. (Homilist.) (H. Christopherson.) (Canon T. T. Shore.) I. JOSHUA BECAME THE MAN HE WAS BECAUSE HE KEPT COMPANY WITH ONE OLDER AND BETTER THAN HIMSELF. He was Moses' servant. Watching Moses and hearing his words moulded Joshua's character. My advice to young people is to keep company with folks older and better than yourselves. Why does God let people live to a long age, if not to give the younger generation their experience? Don't leave home in a hurry. If father and mother are people that pray, don't hurry to leave them. It is the same with old books: those used to be bound in sheepskin; nothing to look at outside, but all inside. Nowadays they put it all outside, and the bookbinder does what the author should have done. It is a responsibility which older people should consider, that they ought to live so as to attract the young. This is one of the wants of the age. Live so that your young people may say when they go out into life, "I leave my best friends behind." I never had such a fine compliment paid me before as I had from my boy the other day. It was in class, and when I came to my son Charlie, he said: "Well, father, I am only getting my eyes opened to see what a privilege mine has been to live with such people as you and mother are." I wouldn't give that away for £20,000. II. JOSHUA BECAME THE MAN HE WAS BECAUSE HE HAD THE COURAGE OF HIS CONVICTIONS. There were twelve of them sent to spy Canaan, tea of them said, "It's no use. The country is good enough, but it is full of giants." "Yes, we shall go up," said Joshua and Caleb. Joshua was willing to be out-voted. It was ten to two, but the ten had their coffins made before the two. Have the courage to vote for the right. One man and God makes a strong party. Joshua's experience was that God had been as good as His word. There are no crises but what God can surmount them. Go and ask George Muller. A man thought that he would give a thankoffering for his life being spared to fifty years. He intended to give £50, and he thought he would send the Bristol Orphanage £10. He was so haunted by this thought that he could not wait for his birthday, but got an envelope and despatched a cheque for £10. He got the usual receipt, and there was no more of it until the yearly report of the Orphanage appeared. He thought he would just turn up the date and see if his money were there. There at the very date he saw George Muller's words, "No money and no bread to-day, but cheque has arrived for £10." Friends, believe in a prayer-hearing God. Don't be afraid to leave your case in His hands if you are doing right. Some of these days you will have to say with Joshua, "I go the way of all the earth." You will have to give up going to business and to lie in bed. Everything is growing dim, and the loved voices seem miles away. Will some of those loved ones, writing to the son in Australia, have to say, "Father's last words were these: 'Not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord spake'"? (T. Champness.) (R. P. Buddicom, M. A.) (R. Vincent.). 1. Israel's enlargement (vers. 2-4). 2. Israel's exodus (vers. 5-7). 3. Israel's entrance into Canaan (vers. 8-12). II. JOSHUA'S THREEFOLD APPEAL. 1. He exhorts them to fear and serve this great and this good God. 2. To manifest in yet clearer light that the service of God is a reasonable service, and to show the utter folly of idolatry, Joshua, in the gravest irony, upholds the alternative for the adoption of the people, and mocks the apostasy, the latent germs of which he knew too well ware in the hearts of the great assembly before him. 3. Then, having, both with tender love and with withering scorn, set forth the two alternatives, he declares his own resolute decision in words which should be the motto for every ruler, and for every householder. This is the true order of the growth of piety. First, individual consecration; then follows family control; and then the third stage in the gradation — namely, public influence — will not be lacking. III. ISRAEL'S THREEFOLD COVENANT. IV. A THREEFOLD AFFIDAVIT TO ISRAEL'S COVENANT. 1. The first is the memory of the transaction in the minds of the people themselves. 2. Joshua himself, moreover, puts the whole matter into writing, even as we have it here before us in this last chapter. 3. But there is another testimony that shall witness against Israel if they apostatise — "a great stone," which he places beneath the oak in Shechem, "that was by the sanctuary of the Lord." V. A THREEFOLD SEAL TO GOD'S PROMISES. The Book closes with the mention of three burials. In the peaceful graves of three of God's saints we seem to see three seals to the truth of God's Word. These holy men once served Him among strange nations, but now their bones are laid within the borders of the promised land. (G. W. Butler, M. A.) 1. In the record of Joshua's speech contained in the twenty-fourth chapter, he begins by rehearsing the history of the nation. He has an excellent reason for beginning with the revered name of Abraham, because Abraham had been conspicuous for that very grace, loyalty to Jehovah, which he is bent on impressing on them. We mark in this rehearsal the well-known features of the national history, as they were always represented; thy frank recognition of the supernatural, with no indication of myth or legend, with nothing of the mist or glamour in which the legend is commonly enveloped. And, seeing that God hath done all this for them, the inference was that He was entitled to their heartiest loyalty and obedience. Never was a good man more in earnest, or more thoroughly persuaded that all that made for a nation's welfare was involved in the course which he pressed upon them. 2. But Joshua did not urge this merely on the strength of his own conviction. He must enlist their reason on his side; and for this cause he now called on them deliberately to weigh the claims of other gods and the advantages of other modes of worship, and choose that which must be pronounced the best. There were four claimants to be considered — (1) (2) (3) (4) 3. But Joshua is fully prepared to add example to precept. Whatever you do in this matter, my mind is made up, my course is clear — "as for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah." He was happy in being able to associate his house with himself as sharing his convictions and his purpose. He owed this, in all likelihood, to his own firm and intrepid attitude throughout his life. His house saw how consistently and constantly he recognised the supreme claims of Jehovah. Not less clearly did they see how constantly he experienced the blessedness of his choice. 4. Convinced by his arguments, moved by his eloquence, and carried along by the magnetism of his example, the people respond with enthusiasm. But Joshua knew something of their fickle temper. He may have called to mind the extraordinary enthusiasm of their fathers when the tabernacle was in preparation; the singular readiness with which they had contributed their most valued treasures, and the grievous change they underwent after the return of the spies. Even an enthusiastic burst like this is not to be trusted. He must go deeper; he must try to induce them to think more earnestly of the matter, and not trust to the feeling of the moment. 5. Hence he draws a somewhat dark picture of Jehovah's character, lie dwells on those attributes which are least agreeable to the natural man — His holiness, His jealousy, and His inexorable opposition to sin. "Ye cannot serve the Lord," said Joshua; "take care how you undertake what is beyond your strength." Perhaps he wished to impress on them the need of Divine strength for so difficult a duty. Certainly he did not change their purpose, but only drew from them a more resolute expression. 6. And now Joshua comes to a point which had doubtless been in his mind all the time, but which he had been waiting for a favourable opportunity to bring forward. He had pledged the people to an absolute and unreserved service of God, and now he demands a practical proof of their sincerity. He knows quite well that they have "strange gods" among them. Minor forms of idolatry, minor recognitions of the gods of the Chaldaeans and the Egyptians and the Amorites, were prevalent even yet. What a weed sin is, and how it is for ever reappearing! And reappearing among ourselves too, in a different variety, but essentially the same. For what honest and earnest heart does not feel that there are idols and images among ourselves that interfere with God's claims and God's glory as much as the teraphim and the earrings of the Israelites did? 7. And now comes the closing and the clinching transaction of this meeting at Shechem. Joshua enters into a formal covenant with the people. When Joshua got the people bound by a transaction of this sort, he seemed to obtain a new guarantee for their fidelity; a new barrier was erected against their lapsing into idolatry. And yet it was but a temporary barrier against a flood which seemed ever to be gathering strength unseen, and preparing for another fierce discharge of its disastrous waters. 8. At the least, this meeting secured for Joshua a peaceful sunset, and enabled him to sing his "Nunc dimittis." The evil which he dreaded most was not at work as the current of life ebbed away from him; it was his great privilege to look round him and see his people faithful to their God. It does not appear that Joshua had any very comprehensive or far-reaching aims with reference to the moral training and development of the people. His idea of religion seems to have been a very simple loyalty to Jehovah, in opposition to the perversions of idolatry. For his absolute and supreme loyalty to his Lord he is entitled to our highest reverence, This loyalty is a rare virtue, in the sublime proportions in which it appeared in him. The very rareness, the eccentricity of the character, secures a respectful homage. And yet who can deny that it is the true representation of what every man should be who says, "I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth"? (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.) (W. E. Knox, D. D.) 1035 God, faithfulness 1050 God, goodness of 7258 promised land, early history A Summary of Israel's Faithlessness and God's Patience Everybody's Need. Joshua |
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