Stay Faithful to the End - Joshua 23 (Session 17)

In this verse-by-verse study of Joshua 23, Reasoning Through the Bible looks at Joshua’s farewell address to the leaders of Israel. Joshua is old, advanced in years, and near the end of his life. His final message is not about himself, but about the faithfulness of God and the need for Israel to remain faithful after he is gone.

This session explores why Joshua reminded the people that the Lord had fought for them, why there was still work to do even after Israel had rest, and why the remaining nations were still a danger. Joshua warns Israel not to turn aside to the right or left, not to cling to pagan nations, and not to worship other gods.

A major theme in this episode is finishing faithfully. Joshua remained true to the Lord to the end of his life, and his final words challenge believers today to leave behind a clear testimony of faith. The session also applies Joshua’s warning to the Christian life by showing how believers can stop fighting sin, grow tired spiritually, and allow the world, the flesh, and the devil to remain too close.

Topics in this episode include:

•  Joshua 23 study 
•  Joshua’s farewell address 
•  faithful to the end 
•  final words to the next generation 
•  God fights for His people 
•  unfinished obedience 
•  fighting sin after salvation 
•  do not turn to the right or left 
•  love the Lord your God 
•  blessings and warnings 
•  God’s discipline and judgment 

Reasoning Through the Bible is a verse-by-verse Bible teaching ministry committed to careful exposition, biblical context, and faithful application.

Questions from this session:

• How can we pass along our beliefs to our children?
• Why would Israel stop fighting before they finished? 
• What would you want to pass along when you die? 
• How do we reconcile God’s justice and love? 
• How can I stay faithful to the end?

Transcript

Joshua's Farewell Message and Faithfulness

Speaker 1 0:14

Music . Welcome back to Reasoning Through the Bible . We've been working our way through the book of Joshua and here we are in Joshua , chapter 23 , as Joshua is about to give his farewell address . He's towards the end of his life and he's going to be giving a message to the people that are remaining after his death .

Speaker 2 0:43

So , steve , if you could just jump right in at the beginning of Joshua 23 and read the first 11 verses Now , it came about after many days , when the Lord had given rest to Israel from all their enemies on every side , and Joshua was old , advanced in years , that Joshua called for all Israel , for their elders and their heads and their judges and their officers , and said to them I am old , advanced in years , and you've seen all that the Lord , your God , has done to all these nations because of you , for the Lord , your God is he who has been fighting for you .

Speaker 2 1:20

See , I have a portion to you , these nations which remain as an inheritance for your tribes , with all the nations which I have cut off , from the Jordan even to the great sea , toward the setting sun , the Lord , your God , he , will thrust them out from before you and drive them out from before you , and you will possess their land , just as the Lord , your God , promised you .

Speaker 2 1:48

Be very firm , then , to keep and do all that is written in the book of Law of Moses , so that you may not turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left , so that you will not associate with these nations , these which remain among you , or mention the name of their gods , or make anyone swear by them , or serve them or bow down to them , but you are to clean to the Lord your God , as you have done to this day , for the Lord has driven out great and strong nations from before you , and as for you , no man has stood before you to this day . One of your men puts to flight a thousand . For the Lord , your God is he who fights for you , just as he promised you . So take diligent heed to yourselves to love the Lord , your God .

Speaker 1 2:40

So in verse one it talks about how there had been rest . So the fighting had stopped . And the fighting had stopped for a pretty good while , but it doesn't tell us the exact number of years . But it , josh , was still alive . It seems that within a few years of entering into the promised land the fighting was over . Uh , and later we learn some more things about the Canaanites . But here the fighting's over with . Joshua , in verse two calls together some people . So who does he call together in verse two ?

Speaker 1 3:14

The elders , the heads , the judges , the officers , so all of the leaders basically , and he's about to give a message , and Joshua knows that he is old and he's going to tell us that he is about to , in his words , go the way of the earth , and he gives this sort of deathbed message or at least a end of life final message .

Speaker 1 3:39

Here is what he's doing , and I think of several other times where that's done in the scriptures Jacob gave one back in Genesis , moses , when he was about to die , gave one , joshua was giving one here . David gave a deathbed message , paul over in second Timothy gave a message that he knew was probably his final one . I think of that as these are their final message that they want to leave to the people that are there after they're gone . I think that's just wise for everybody to think about , that question , the thing that's before us today . If , if today was the last day of my life , or the last day of your life , what would you want to say to the next generation ? I think that's a question . Wouldn't you think , steve , that that's , that's a wise thing to at least think about ?

Speaker 2 4:29

Yeah , yeah , absolutely . And I would want to say what Joshua is basically saying here follow and stay close to the Lord and , as Joshua was saying here , he's the one that's been fighting for you , he's the one that has brought all this about and given you the victories you have . A thousand to one odds , basically , is what he says here because the Lord's on your side , so stay close to the Lord , and I think that's what I want to leave to my children and grandchildren as well Stay true to the Lord and stay close to him .

Speaker 1 5:01

I had an aunt one time that passed and at the funeral I find out there were all kinds of things about her that that I didn't know .

Speaker 1 5:09

She was a member of a church and had a lot of spiritual things and I never knew it . But that was one of the things I never wanted to be in a position which was of , after I'm gone , people not knowing what was important to me , for us . What are some practical ways that , if I were to suddenly pass on , would the people around me know what was important to me ? It's just wise to settle our affairs , and likewise in the New Testament , today is the day of salvation , so we shouldn't put off getting right with the Lord . But just from a practical standpoint , how could we make a record or make sure the message gets passed on to those around us that if we were to suddenly be put in a position where we were on our deathbed , what could we do today , in the modern day , to pass on to the next generation so that they would know what was important to us ? What are some practical things we could do ?

Speaker 2 6:04

Well , I think the very basic thing would be to put it in your will and testament have a will .

Speaker 1 6:09

That's one thing .

Speaker 2 6:11

But then also in that will and testament too , there might be some specific articles , like your Bible that has your personal notes in it . You might want to leave the particular members of your family , and things like . That's one practical way .

Speaker 1 6:26

So one of the things I always suggest to people is it's really easy today to make a diary , real easy today to make a recording , a video or an audio recording nowadays so that your children or those around you would really be able to read it . Nothing else , just call them together at the next opportunity and say , hey , these are the things that's important to me and I just wanted to make sure everybody , everybody knew that . But I encourage all of our listeners don't end this life without the people around you knowing what's important to you . That's very critical . So Joshua views this as one of his last messages before he died , and the last thing he does is to tell us how faithful God is . Joshua was faithful to the end . It tells us in this last part of Joshua that he lived to be 110 and that he was faithful to the end . He's pointing people to God . So that's something that we should all do . We should all be faithful to the end . It's not good enough to well get to the point where it's late in life and I'm done and I can go live a life of dissipation . No , we need to all be diligent to be faithful to the end , and Joshua was a great example of that Our descendants should remember us , for the same reason that , hey , that person was somebody . They stayed true to God all the way down to the end of their life .

Staying Faithful to God's Importance

Speaker 1 7:47

And then , in verse three , joshua is reminding Israel that they saw the many great things that God did for them . God gives credit for the past victories . And then in verse four , it says God gave them the land from the Jordan River on the east to the . It says a great sea is what my translation says . What is the great sea , which we call it ? The Mediterranean Sea ? That aligns with a famous covenant that we've mentioned several times , which is what Abrahamic covenant , back in Genesis , promised them the land . So he's mentioning it again , once again , that God gave them this particular land . And in verse five , god's going to give them future victories . Verse six be strong , or courageous , or firm , and be and carefully obey all that the Lord commands . So he reminds them don't forget , be strong , be courageous , carefully obey . He reminds them again . Why would he keep reminding them over and over again to carefully obey all that the Lord says ?

Speaker 2 8:57

Mankind has a tendency to have a short memory and they get distracted and they go off . I mean , it's just like we are today .

Speaker 1 9:08

You mentioned in the last chapter he said several times , we all tend to want to deviate . In verse five , notice what versus four and five notice it says I have a portion to you , these nations plural , which remain present tense . So this is key . What did it say in verse one ? The fighting had stopped . But , yet , right here in verse , four nations which remain as an inherent . What does that tell ?

Speaker 2 9:35

us . It tells them that all of them haven't been driven out yet and there's nations that are in the various areas of where the inheritance is , and we see that when we get the judges we're going to see that there's various nations that are being fought all over Israel as God brings up those judges . But it's an acknowledgement that their job of conquering the land is not over . There's still work to be done so .

Speaker 1 10:03

The reason I pointed out verse one was they had been in the land for a while , they had stopped fighting . They had quote unquote rest . But here we learn there's still nations there . They hadn't driven them all out .

Speaker 2 10:18

Why .

Speaker 1 10:19

Why didn't they do it ? We asked this question earlier in the book , but here it is again . Why would they stop fighting when there's still work to be done ? I think it's because they just got tired . And we're fighting for a while and they got tired . So here's a question we said before yes , this is true history , but it's also a picture of our salvation . We go from the wilderness of following rules with Moses , following the law . We follow the Savior . We cross over into the promised land , the land flowing with milk and honey . That's a symbol of salvation . But once we get into salvation , we still have struggles . We still have the world , the flesh and the devil , just as Israel had things they had to fight with . Is it ever the case with you and I that once we're saved , we're in a right relationship with God , but we still have these struggles , but after a while we quit struggling ? Yeah , and they're still there . Is that ever the case that we just get tired of fighting against sin and just give up and quit and the sin still hanging around ?

Speaker 2 11:27

Yeah , and also , just like here , you have a tendency to forget that it was God that brought you through those previous areas of your life , whatever it might have been , but yet you have a tendency to forget that , as you forget that he brought you through , it's the weariness of going and saying he is going to bring me through in the future , and that's what Joshua brings out in chapter five , or verse five is but stay faithful , because God is going to give you these nations . He's going to go before you and he's going to stay with you and deliver you out of these nations , just like he did the other ones .

Speaker 1 12:07

So here in Joshua they quit , they stopped fighting . They live with these nations . What happens later in the Old Testament ? With these people that are around them ? What problems did it cause ?

Speaker 2 12:17

Well , they go off and start worshiping their idols , they , their world and their paganism and I'm saying paganism of just being simply not believers in Yahweh , the God of Israel . Their paganism of other gods infiltrates the people of Israel , the tribes of Israel , and they go and worship them . They abandon God . God doesn't abandon them . They abandon God and go after the influence that's there , that's close to them .

Speaker 1 12:49

So likewise , what happens to us in our lives when we stop fighting against the world , the flesh and the devil , and we let these sins just hang around in our life . What happens later on ?

Speaker 2 12:59

It's always there . The world is always there , just waiting for you to let your guard down or for you to get tired , or for you to give up . The world is always there , constantly going after you . So the world doesn't rest while you might .

Speaker 1 13:16

The world doesn't rest , the devil doesn't rest , and my old sin nature seems to not rest as much either . So look at verse six and , flowing on down through verse eight , he gives us several things that they were supposed to do with the pagan gods . What does he say , starting in verse six ? What are they supposed to do with these pagan gods ?

Speaker 2 13:38

Well , don't turn aside from your left or to your right , in other words , don't be distracted to the things that are going on around you . Keep straight ahead focused on .

Speaker 1 13:48

God . And when he said don't turn to the left or right , don't add to or subtract from the laws . We're always good at either creating more rules or leaving some out . So don't turn to the left or the right . What else does he say ? Keep and do all that is written in the book of the law .

Speaker 2 14:06

Don't even associate with the other nations or mix with , Don't mention their idols , don't mention the name of their idols , which is kind of a curious thing . And he's not just saying don't talk about them , but their names specifically .

Speaker 1 14:22

I mean , I find that kind of curious , don't swear by them , don't serve them or bow down to them . Cling to who ? The Lord , your God , cling to the Lord . So again , over and over and over , I'm reminded of Paul in 1st and 2nd Timothy . If you go through those books over and over and over , he's telling them keep to the teachings , stay with the word , don't deviate from all that I commanded you . These commands are just throughout Scripture , and it's because we are also weak and we all do have an old nature and we allow these things to draw our attention away instead of staying in the Word and staying with God and using His power to eliminate sin from our lives . It ends up being a snare and a trap In another way .

Speaker 2 15:13

The term that Paul and Peter use as well , and I think James too is not to be deceived , don't be deceived , don't be deceived .

Speaker 1 15:24

Verse 10 , one of your men puts to flight a thousand . Here's a trivia question for you , steve who , over in the book of Judges , got rid of a thousand people with a jawbone ? Samson Samson , judges , chapter 15 . So it's true , they were so powerful at this point because they had trusted God that they could drive all these people out Once they had started accepting sin . Then that's when God removed his power and they got weak . So does God give us power over our enemies , over the world , to flesh and the devil ?

Speaker 2 16:01

Yes , especially if we adhere and stay close to .

Speaker 1 16:06

Him If we submit and obey and stay close to Him .

Speaker 2 16:10

It says if God is for us , then who can be against us ? But at the same time , we need to not abandon God like Israel did . If we don't abandon God and we stay faithful to Him , then he will be faithful to us .

Speaker 1 16:26

Let's go to the next section . We'll start reading in verse 11 . So take diligent heed to yourselves to love the Lord your God . For if you ever go back and cling to the rest of these nations , these nations which remain among you and intermarry with them so that you associate with them and they with you , know with certainty that the Lord , your God , will not continue to drive these nations out from before you , but they will be a snare and a trap to you and a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes , until you perish from this good land which the Lord , your God has given you .

Speaker 1 17:02

Now , behold , today I am going the way of all the earth , and you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one word of all the good works which the Lord , your God spoke concerning you has failed . All have been fulfilled for you . Not one of them has failed . It shall come about that , just as all the good words which the Lord , your God spoke to you have come upon you , so the Lord will bring upon you all the threats until he has destroyed you from this good land which the Lord , your God has given you when you trespass the covenant of the Lord , your God , which he commanded you , and go and serve other gods and bow down to them , then the anger of the Lord will burn against you and you will perish quickly from the good land which he has given you . So he tells us here kind of a contrast where he tells Joshua is telling the people of Israel , kind of a contrast between what happens if they obey or disobey .

Love, Obedience, and Consequences

Speaker 1 18:00

In verse 11 he talks about love . Love the Lord , your God . And I find it very interesting here that love is a command , it's something that you do , it's not just an emotion that you fall into . If I ever write a book , I think I'm going to write one that says love is not a hole in the sidewalk .

Speaker 1 18:20

I mean people talk about love as if I was just walking down the street and I fell into this thing . Well , love is not a just a hole , it's not a tiger trap . I'm just walking through life and I fall into love . Love is something . Yes , there's emotion there and there's a there's a attraction . That's emotional , but love is something we can command people to do . It's an action , it's something we do . It's not just an emotion . If I don't feel it , then I don't do it . No , love is an action , and here we're commanded to love the Lord , your God . What did Jesus say when they came to him and he asked what is the greatest commandment ? What did he say ? Love , the .

Speaker 2 19:02

Lord , your God .

Speaker 1 19:03

Love the Lord , your God , with all your heart , mind and strength . Matthew , chapter 22 , verse 37 . So the greatest commandment is love , and Joshua here is repeating this and in verse verse 12 . What was Israel to do in verse 12 ?

Speaker 2 19:19

If you ever go back and cling to them , to these nations . The ones that are there and intermarry with them and associate with them know certainly that God is going to be angry with you .

Speaker 1 19:32

What are we as followers of the true God , the followers of Yahweh , what are we supposed to do regarding marrying non-Christians ? What does it tell us over in the New Testament about marrying people outside of our faith ? 2nd Corinthians 614 . Do not be unequally yoked . It tells us not to intermarry or attach ourselves with with non-Christians , and in verse 13, . What happens if they do these things ? What does it tell us that ?

Speaker 2 20:03

God won't continue to drive the nations out . He won't be with them in regards to the conquering .

Speaker 1 20:10

So what's the story for most of the rest of the Old Testament ?

Speaker 2 20:14

They don't . They continue to go after the other gods and worship the other gods , and they're not driven out . God doesn't drive them out and in fact , with the story of Samson , Samson goes and marries a Philistine .

Speaker 1 20:29

And his parents advised him against it .

Speaker 2 20:31

And he still did it .

Speaker 1 20:32

Yeah , most of the rest of the Old Testament is Israel leaving God , following the pagan nations , following the pagan gods , god removing his blessing and allowing the other nations to come in and give them trouble . Israel then repents from the pain of that and says , oh my goodness , we've we've stopped following God . They repent and they throw out the idols , and then God blesses them and they drive out the other nations , and then the cycle starts again . They start worshiping the idols again and the cycle continues until towards the end , there's less and less repentance and more and more of the other pagan nations coming in . So verse 14 , joshua says he's about to die . What can we be sure of in this life ? You're gonna die . You know death and taxes .

Speaker 2 21:23

We can . We can be sure of this life .

Speaker 1 21:25

We will all go the way of the earth , as this says here . What should we do to prepare for our inevitable death ? We get our earthly affairs in order and get our relationship to God in order ? I mean , some of the people listening to this might not , might not finish this podcast , might not finish the day . Bible says today is the day of salvation here .

Speaker 1 21:48

Joshua was faithful to the end . He got his relationship with God in order , and I think that's a good example for all of us . We should all not let a day go by before we realize that we need to get right with the Lord . Don't wait for your death bed , yeah .

Speaker 2 22:06

And and , and there's always two people that know what your relationship with the Lord is you and God . If that relationship is not where it needs to be and and you know , we know , I should say we know whether or not that relationship is where it is we need to get it straight and get it . Get it straight with God and get that relationship back .

Speaker 1 22:30

If people think , well , I'm going to wait till later and you know I'll get sick before I die , and and then I'll get straight with God , well , respectfully , no , you won't . If you're not doing it now , you won't do it then . Middle of verse 14 , he says that not even one of all the faithful promises the Lord , your God , made to you is left unfulfilled . What else can we be sure of in this life ? We can be sure that God's faithful and God's God's faithful , his promises versus 15 and 16 . What are these two verses say about what God will do ? In verse 15 and 16 ? He's saying there just as the good things have come to pass , be sure that if you fall away and worship other gods , god's wrath will come upon you . Now , this is not a popular message in our day . It's probably wasn't popular back in Joshua's day . But we can be sure that God's punishment is as sure as his blessings . Yeah , god will bless . We can be sure that God will bless all those that repent and follow him . But we can also be sure that those that don't repent and don't follow God will be under God's wrath .

Speaker 1 23:40

Deuteronomy , chapter 28 , has a whole chapter of blessings and cursings . It says if you obey , you will get all these blessings . If you don't obey , you will get all these cursings , depending on whether or not , in this case , the Mosaic law , whether they obey , god can and will bring pleasant things and blessings upon us . It's also equally true that God can and will bring painful things upon us . We live in a day where God is presented as kind of this sugarcoated version . It's sort of a God's like a fun uncle that brings presents on our birthday . And , yes , god is God , is a blessing , but he's also a righteous God and he's a jealous God . And , steve , have you found this to be true ?

Speaker 2 24:25

Yeah , and also we go back to the very beginning , whenever they went first into the land and after they had conquered Jericho and they went over to the two mounts Ebal and Gerazine , and they recited the blessings and the curses in regards to what would happen if they didn't follow God , the cursings and what would happen if they did follow God . This is a theme that's also prevalent throughout the Bible .

Speaker 1 24:55

The true God is holy , he's righteous and he is frighteningly powerful and he'll do what's best for us , even if it's painful . Yes , God is loving , he wants the best for us , but like any good parent , he sometimes has to discipline us . And Jesus said over in the New Testament , John chapter 15 , he takes away every branch that does not bear fruit and he prunes every branch that does bear fruit so it'll bear more fruit . So there's times in life where God does things that are painful , and he does it for our own good . Then , moving on verse 15 , God tells Israel he will destroy you off of the land if they persist in disobedience . Israel was God's chosen people and we already made a big deal about the Abrahamic covenant . Was that land ? How can he say here he's gonna pull them off of the land ?

Speaker 2 25:47

How does that work ? Well , it's his land . It was his land to give to Abraham and the descendants , and it's his land to take away .

Judgment and Disobedience

Speaker 1 25:55

There's always a remnant . There's always a remnant In Romans , chapter 11 , romans 9 , 27, . He always talks about a remnant and , as we mentioned in a previous session , he will pull Israel out of the land , but he's gonna send them back If they disobey . He can and will judge , and it's like us , just as Christians . We can't always say , just because I'm a Christian and I believed when I was a kid and I got baptized , therefore God's never gonna judge me for my disobedience , because he can and he will and he does . Verse 16 speaks of a covenant . This was the covenant of the law of Moses , which is conditional again , deuteronomy 28 . And God is going to do the same with modern day Christians , I would believe . Can we hide and say okay , I'm part of the elect , I'm part of the end crowd , I'm in like Flynn and therefore God's not gonna ever do anything painful to me and I can go live like I want , is that ?

Speaker 2 26:49

Yeah , no , and those are things that Paul talks about in over in the New Testament . Since we have the salvation through Jesus Christ and the sacrifice , does that mean that we have license to go off and sin , to do whatever we wanna do ? And of course , paul's response to that is no .

Speaker 1 27:06

So we would believe that individual people not gonna lose their salvation , but that doesn't mean God's not going to judge you , not going to take a people , group or even an individual and have something painful happen . He could pull us out of our situation and take our blessing away .

Speaker 1 27:22

Right here we see that Israel begins to disobey . They begin to disobey God . They begin to worship idols . It happens right here , before the end of Joshua . They start as early as judges and it gets worse and worse by the end of Jeremiah and second king . God is casting strict and hard judgment on Israel because he ended up sending in a Syrian Babylon to take him captive because of their disobedience . It's a sobering message that we need to not lose these things back here in the Old Testament .

Speaker 2 27:55

And , as we've mentioned before , paul mentions over in 1 Corinthians and other areas too , that the stories of Israel and their story and everything that we're seeing here is an example for us and for us to take heed . So , as we walk through these stories and through the scriptures that are here , as we've been pointing out , it's not something that's written to us , but something that's written for us to take heed about and for us to learn lessons from .

Speaker 1 28:28

So that bring us to the end of Joshua , chapter 23 . There's one more chapter in Joshua that we'll get to next time on reasoning through the Bible MUSIC .