We're actually going to be in Joshua. If you want to go ahead and grab your Bibles. This is actually a passage. I love this passage. It's always an encouragement and it's It's kind of one of those passages that you, I don't know about y'all, but there's some passages that you revisit every once in a while. You just kind of do a health check, a spiritual check on yourself and whatnot. And this is actually one of those passages. Is that too loud? No? I feel that's really loud. We're gonna be in Joshua chapter 24. And this is actually a very popular passage to hear like youth pastors preach when they're dealing with young men and women. I've heard so many people preach out of this passage, especially when I was in Bible college. But the funny thing is, is when I was in Bible college, I kind of dove into the whole chapter. and really discovered some amazing things that God had done in the life of Joshua. And it's a passage that I like to kind of revisit and remind myself and kind of do a health check, a spiritual check on myself to make sure that I'm keeping the right focus. Joshua chapter 24, and we'll actually read a good couple of passages. We're going to read verse 14 and 15 real quick. And it says, now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth and put away the gods which your father served on the other side of the flood and in Egypt and serve ye the Lord. And if it seemed evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve, whether the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the flood or the God of the Amorites in whose land ye dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. I can't tell you how many times I've gone into people's houses and I see a little plaque that says that. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. It's an amazing passage that, I mean, if you're a Christian for more than two years, you're gonna hear a few handful of passages or lessons out of just that phrase right there. But I want to take you a little bit further in this and skip down to verse 21 to 29. And chapter 24 is a big chapter. I mean, we could spend a good month in this whole chapter. But what we're going to do is we're going to actually read a little bit further. And starting in verse 21, It says, And the people said unto Joshua, Nay, but we will serve the Lord. 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. Now therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you. and incline your heart unto the Lord God of Israel. And the people said unto Joshua, The Lord our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey. So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. 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. 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. So Joshua let the people depart, every man unto his inheritance, And it came to pass after these things that Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died being a hundred and ten years old." Almost every single passage I've ever heard preached or any lesson out of Joshua 24 has always been 1415. It wasn't until I actually took the time to read the whole passage that I actually realized what the end of the story was like. Because no one talks about what happens is the people declaring and claiming the Lord and choosing him. And then what Joshua does in response. And we're going to look at that a little bit this evening. But before we get to that, I want us to read, and you can go there if you want, it's only a few pages over, it's in Judges chapter two, and we're gonna start in verse eight. And what a lot of people don't realize is the very end of Joshua overlaps with the very beginning of Judges. There's a little bit of a time period that they overlap. So in Judges chapter two, we actually find where Joshua chapter 24 leaves off, chapter 2 of Judges picks up. And it says in verse 8, And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being a hundred and ten years old. And they buried him in the border and his inheritance in Timnath Aris, in the mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill Gash. And also that And also all that generation were gathered under their fathers. And there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. and served Balaam. And they forsook the Lord, God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the Lord to anger. And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtoreth. That, it blows my mind. And I just, it's amazing because the further we get in time, the more I see this correlation and picture of what's happening even in our own country today. I mean, it wasn't just, not even a few decades ago, that everyone had an understanding of the basics of Christianity. Now you go up to anyone and you ask them who Jesus is and they're like, um, you talking about my gardener? or someone else. It's sad because we've gone from one generation serving God and doing amazing things for God to the point where there are other countries that we used to send missionaries that are producing more missionaries than we are. And you see the condition of our young people today. There's so much mirrored in Judges and in Joshua, but what happened? Why did it go from one generation of people like Joshua and the elders of that time saying, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And then literally just years later, they go to serving Baal and Astaroth, a complete 180. And there's actually something that you find here in Joshua that I find that there's, it's not coincidence that this takes place. The people committed themselves to serve God, but the mouths of their children, it was declared that God was dead. Their father said they chose God, but their children's hearts, they decided that God was no more. And the book of Joshua, Joshua is given so many, I mean, thousands, if not millions of Christians encouragement. You can't help but read Joshua and feel kind of empowered. And you know what, that's the God I serve and to be encouraged. I mean, God in Joshua tells Israel and to us really to be strong and not afraid. teaches me that God wants me to be a conqueror and a victory already won. That was the lifestyle that Joshua had throughout on Joshua. I mean, even before Joshua, you look at Joshua before he followed behind Moses, Joshua was just a man of victory and a man of courage. But how did this happen? The first thing that we have to look at is we have to look at the final chapter of one of the greatest legacies seen in the Bible. The first scene of this legacy is the commitment. Joshua challenged them to not turn back on the way their fathers lived on the other side of the flood. If you remember, Joshua 24, 15 says, and if it seemed 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, And Joshua also challenges them not to compromise and turn to the gods of the people of the land that they lived in. Joshua 24, 15, if it seemed evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your father served that were on the other side of the flood or the God of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. He gives the Israelites three options. He says, you have the option of either serving the gods that your father served hopelessly in Egypt with no prevail. They were prisoners in bondage to sin. And he gave them the option also of not compromising. If you look through the Old Testament, God time and time and time again warns Israel not to mix in with the locals. not to allow them to become compromised, to keep themselves set apart from the local religions in that time. Because what happened is, as soon as they let a lit... What is the saying goes, you let them take an inch, they take a mile. And that's what happened. And the funny thing is, it's a picture of us as Christians. We have to make a choice. We have to make a determined choice not to live the life of sin, not to live a life of compromise. We need to stand strong on what the Bible teaches. And Joshua encouraged them to do so. He encouraged them to turn their backs on the gods of the fathers, those idols that they turned in and made the golden calf out of sadly. told them to turn their back on the gods that the locals had worshiped. And Joshua, he didn't give them a third option. He gave that example of the third option. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. He didn't say you can choose this, you can choose that, or you can choose the third option. No, he said you can choose A, you can choose B, I'm going to do C. And it's amazing because he gave that example to the Israelites, but I hear a lot of people stop there. That's where they stop in the life of Joshua. It's almost as if that was the end of the scene, the movie's over, everyone roll credits and we're done. But it's not like that. That leads us to the next chapter of this legacy. And that's the tribute and witness in Joshua 24. So let's go ahead and read Joshua 24, 24 through 27 real quick. And we're going somewhere with this. Just bear with me. It says Joshua 24, 24, and the people said unto Joshua, and this is the people saying this now in response. And if you actually read Joshua 24, it's kind of funny because he says, all right, choose you this day. And they say, we'll serve the Lord. He says, no, no, no, no, no, no. Choose you this day. And he says it a second time and challenges them a second time. And they say, all right, we'll serve God. We'll turn our backs against the God of, Our fathers were to turn our backs against the God of the Amorites. And then he challenges him a third time. No, no, no, no. You're not hearing me. Choose ye this day. to serve the Lord. And it's after the third time that they commit themselves to serving God that Joshua kind of continues on with that. So, And the people said unto Joshua, The Lord our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey. So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. 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. And Joshua said unto 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. So we finally see, it's amazing, we finally see them commit themselves to the Lord, but just take a moment and try to imagine what this scene looked like. You have Joshua challenging and rallying Israel together to serve God. And they're really into it. And they just three times, Joshua kind of whipped them and beat them up. And three times they gave themselves to God. And what does Joshua do? And just imagine it. There's a beautiful scene. Just think, it's a green pasture. You could see the wind blowing and the grass kind of waving back and forth as the breeze kind of goes through the pasture. And there's a beautiful oak tree just by itself, almost like out of a movie or a photo. And then all of a sudden there's a large stone. You ever see something and you ever wonder what in the world is that doing there? That does not belong there. Someone obviously put that in that location. I mean, you see a car on top of a building, well, that didn't just magically appear there, someone put that up there. You drive over by some, what is it, the Toyota, I always get a kick, you drive by Toyota, I think Keith Pearson or whatever, they've got the big building and there's always trucks parked on top of the roof there. Those trucks didn't just get thrown up there, I mean, someone obviously put that there. And I couldn't help but just think what it would have looked like to see this group of men just slowly roll this massive stone under this oak tree. If you were walking down a beautiful pasture and you just saw this massive stone that took a group, and I mean a group of men, strapping large men to move under an oak tree, you'd sit there and you'd think, what in the world is that doing there? What would it, and I can't help but think what they thought when they saw that. Say like a week later, you were there. You just committed yourself to God. You committed to turn your back against the God of your fathers, to not compromise in your life, to live a life for God. And a week later, you come to that tree and that stone. You ever, it's just, I can't help but think what that would have felt like to be there, to see that and how beautiful it would have been. To see that oak tree and that pasture with the long grass and the large stone sitting underneath it. But Joshua did more than just make this picturesque scene. He actually wrote into personal law and the rules of the land. When it was talking about writing into the statue and ordinance in Shechem. After Israel committed themselves to God, he made it law. He went to Shechem and he made it local law that this is how it's supposed to be. And not only did he, and as a leader and based off the people's promise, he wrote into legal law of the land, but not only did he do that, but he wrote in the word of God. This promise they made was not only to be remembered by those that live amongst the Israelites, but this was to be remembered by those that are spiritual. It was written into the Bible itself. And that's what we're reading at this moment. This isn't the first time that Joshua uses stones in the book of Joshua. If you read the book of Joshua, stones end up being a common theme throughout the whole book. And I can take you through chapter after chapter after chapter of how God tells Joshua to use stones for different things. I mean, with Achan and Ai, we see it, and actually we're gonna read a little bit in chapter four, but we see God make a promise and deliver and do something for Israel. And what does Joshua do? He makes a stone as a remembrance of what God has done, what God has said, and what God has accomplished through Israel and in Israel. And I wanna show you the example of what he was doing So in Joshua chapter four, we'll read a few verses here, and then we'll kind of begin to wrap all this up. Joshua chapter four, and beginning in verse one, it says, and it came to pass when all the people were clean passed over Jordan, that the Lord spake unto Joshua saying, and this is the first time that God tells Joshua to use stones in this way. Take you 12 men out of the people, out of every tribe a man. and command ye them, saying, take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priest's feet stood firm, 12 stones, and ye shall carry them over with you, and leave them in the lodging place where ye shall lodge this night. And Joshua called the 12 men whom he had prepared of the children of Israel out of every tribe a man." I'm pretty sure he picked some big guys. I'm pretty sure he picked some big stones to do this with. wasn't a couple of pebbles that these were probably big rocks. You guys ever see those the the videos of the the what is what is it called the um strongest men uh sports they like they're picking up like like uh um uh whole logs of wood that are hundreds and like Good night. It's just crazy. I can't help but imagine some big old burly guys with big guts and whatnot picking up these stones and carrying them over. It was a scene. You just couldn't help but watch what was happening. Kind of like a deer in headlights. I can't take my eyes off of it. And Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of Jordan, and take ye up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, that this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? then ye shall answer them that the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off and these stones shall be for a memorial under the children of Israel forever." So if we continue reading, we find that Joshua leads them to do this. And they take those 12 stones and they pitch it there where they went to rest that night. And it was something they visited. This was a location that fathers would take their sons, mothers would take their daughters, families would come back to, and they would tell the stories. I was there that day when God had done this miraculous thing. And the funny thing is, is when you actually read, when you actually read all of the passages, which I'm gonna read off a few different verses real quick, just to kind of give you an idea. But in Joshua chapter four and nine, it says, and Joshua set up 12 stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests which bear the Ark of the Covenant stood, and they are there unto this day. You know what that means? Someone kept going back to that site. Someone kept on saying, Dad, can you take us over to those stones, the 12 stones? Yeah, let's go tomorrow. There was people that would regularly go back to that site and they would tell that story again, how God delivered them out of the hands of Egypt and took them into the promised land. And the funny thing is, and we're gonna read a couple other verses real quick. And these are just little snippets of other times that God uses stones in the life of Joshua and his leadership. Joshua 7, 26, and they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day. So the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger. Wherefore the name of this place was called the Valley of Achor unto this day." Unto this day. So the funny thing is, is the second time that God tells Joshua to use those stones as a remembrance of something, people went back to that site again. They visited again. And then you read in Joshua 8, 29, in the King of Ai, he hanged on a tree until eventide. And as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his carcass down from the tree and cast it in the entering of the gate of the city and raise there on a great heap of stones that remaineth unto this day. Again, some people were going back to that site, revisiting it, talking about what God had done. Joshua 10, 27, it came to pass at the time of the going down of the sun that Joshua commanded, and they took them down off the trees and cast them in the cave, wherein they had been hid and laid great stones in the cave's mouth, which remain unto this very day. The funny thing is, is whenever you read in Joshua, God leads Joshua in the leadership role that he was given. Every time he used a stone, because God had done something amazing and miraculous, they would go back to that site. They would revisit it. But the funny thing is, is there is one time in Joshua where everyone makes this big stone altar and it's forgotten. And we've already read it. I don't think it's coincidence for a single second. Joshua 24, that chapter we just read earlier. So Joshua let the people depart, every man unto his inheritance. There's not a single mention that anyone checked that stone again. You remember that stone? Think about it again, a beautiful pasture and there's a single oak tree and there's a large stone underneath it. and everyone forgot to visit it. They would go visit the other stones. When it came to what God had done for them, what they get out of the relationship from God, they'll go visit those stones. But the one altar, the one altar that represented their commitment and their promise to God, they forgot. And we see that, we see the fruit of that by the fact that their children forsook God. It's easy to talk about what God has done for us. It's another to tell your children, your friends, your family, what you've done for God, not in a sense of boasting, not in a sense of drumming up some type of worth for yourself, but what have we forgotten when it comes to our commitments to God? Oh, commitments are a serious thing. Commitments are a serious thing. You see that today, good night. Just the aspect of you talk to a lot of these young people about what love is. Love is all about emotion and feelings. Love is a commitment. Love is a promise. But they don't get that. I don't think for a single second that God forgot to mention that they visit that site. No, I think they forgot. to remember the promises that they've made, the commitments that they've made to God. And it kind of reminds me a little bit of Proverbs 22, 28, remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set. Also Deuteronomy 27, 17 says, cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark and all the people shall say, amen. Now there's a lot that can be said about those two verses, because some of it is talking about, and there's a reference to like legal ownership of land and people being nefarious, but there's also a picture that's used there, and those landmarks were usually stones. I kind of wonder what happened to that stone in that oak tree. It was probably beautiful to see when it happened, but I can imagine maybe a year later, that oak tree was probably dead, and that stone covered in moss, an altar forgotten, representing the promises and the commitments forgotten. Where are we today? Where are we today? I'm pretty sure all of us here have made those promises to God. I don't think any of us are just now hearing Joshua 24, 14 for the first time. A lot of us have all made that commitment. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. But where are we in remembering our commitments that we've made to God? Let's go ahead and go to the Lord in prayer.