The Two-Edged Sword of God's Faithfulness Text: Joshua 23:14-16
Introduction: The Old Man's Warning
We come now to the final words of a great man. Joshua is old, he is "going the way of all the earth," and he has gathered the leaders of Israel for one last charge. When a man like this, a man who has walked with God, fought the Lord's battles, and seen His faithfulness firsthand, speaks his last words, we ought to pay very close attention. This is not the sentimental rambling of an old man in his dotage. This is the sharp, clear, final testimony of a faithful servant. And his message is not one of unqualified optimism. It is a sober and solemn warning, grounded in the very character of the God they serve.
Our generation does not like this kind of talk. We want a God who is all promise and no threat. We want the blessings without the curses. We want to hear about the "good words" and we want to quietly edit out the "calamitous words." We want a God who is faithful to His promises of grace, but we imagine He will be unfaithful to His promises of judgment. But Joshua, standing on the brink of eternity, will not allow Israel, or us, to indulge in such sentimental foolishness. He presents God as He is: utterly and inflexibly faithful. He is faithful to bless obedience, and He is just as faithful to curse disobedience. God's faithfulness is a two-edged sword. One edge is for salvation and blessing, and the other is for judgment and cursing. The same hand that gives the good land will be the hand that takes it away.
This is the nature of a covenant. A covenant has blessings for keeping it and sanctions for breaking it. A covenant with no curses is not a covenant; it is a flimsy suggestion. Joshua's final charge is to remind Israel of the high stakes of their relationship with Yahweh. They have the land, they have the victory, they have the promises. But all of it is contingent on covenant faithfulness. And the central, non-negotiable demand of that covenant is exclusive worship. The moment they turn to other gods, the very faithfulness of God that had been their greatest comfort will become their greatest terror.
The Text
"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 words which Yahweh your God spoke concerning you has failed; all have come to pass for you; not one word of them has failed. And it will be that just as all the good words which Yahweh your God spoke to you have come upon you, so Yahweh will bring upon you all the calamitous words, until He has destroyed you from off this good land which Yahweh your God has given you. When you trespass against the covenant of Yahweh your God, which He commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, then the anger of Yahweh will burn against you, and you will perish quickly from off the good land which He has given you.”
(Joshua 23:14-16 LSB)
The Infallible Record (v. 14)
Joshua begins by appealing to Israel's own experience as undeniable proof of God's character.
"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 words which Yahweh your God spoke concerning you has failed; all have come to pass for you; not one word of them has failed." (Joshua 23:14)
Joshua starts with his own mortality. "I am going the way of all the earth." This is the common destiny of man because of sin. But his point is not to be morbid. It is to say, "My time is ending, but God's Word is not." He then turns the responsibility of testimony over to them. He says, "you know." This is not an intellectual exercise. This is a deep, settled conviction, "in all your hearts and in all your souls." He is calling on them to be honest with what they have seen and lived through.
And what is it that they know? They know that God has a perfect track record. "Not one word of all the good words... has failed." He repeats it for emphasis: "all have come to pass... not one word of them has failed." This is an astonishing claim. Think of all the promises God made. He promised to deliver them from Egypt, to sustain them in the wilderness, to defeat their enemies, to give them this land. And Joshua, at the end of his life, can stand before the entire nation and challenge them to find even one instance of divine unfaithfulness. And the silence is deafening. There are no counter-examples. God's Word is as good as God Himself.
This establishes the bedrock principle for everything that follows. God is not a man, that He should lie. His promises are not hopeful suggestions; they are declarations of what will be. The history of Israel up to this point is a monument to the absolute, meticulous, infallible reliability of God's Word. This is the foundation of our faith, but as Joshua will immediately show, it is also the foundation for a holy fear.
The Awful Symmetry (v. 15)
In the very next breath, Joshua turns this glorious truth on its head. He uses God's perfect record of keeping His promises of blessing as the guarantee that He will also keep His promises of cursing.
"And it will be that just as all the good words which Yahweh your God spoke to you have come upon you, so Yahweh will bring upon you all the calamitous words, until He has destroyed you from off this good land which Yahweh your God has given you." (Joshua 23:15 LSB)
Notice the perfect symmetry. "Just as... so." The logic is inescapable. The same God who was faithful to bless is the same God who will be faithful to curse. His character does not change. He does not have a "good side" and a "bad side" that are at war with each other. He is one, holy, and just. His faithfulness is not a sentimental attachment to our well-being, detached from His holiness. His faithfulness is to His own character and to His own covenant Word.
And that covenant Word, which they had agreed to at Sinai, was filled with both blessings and curses. You can read them in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. God had been painstakingly clear. If you obey, you will be blessed in the city and in the field. But if you disobey, you will be cursed. Joshua is simply reminding them of the terms of the contract they signed. The "calamitous words" are not some new, vindictive threat. They are the agreed-upon sanctions for covenant rebellion.
And the ultimate sanction is exile. He will bring these curses "until He has destroyed you from off this good land." The land was a gift, not an entitlement. It was a gift conditioned on faithfulness. The moment they turned from the Giver to worship the gifts, or to worship the gods of the people they had displaced, they would forfeit their right to the land. God's goodness in giving the land is the very thing that makes their rebellion so heinous and the judgment of losing it so just.
The Covenant Trigger (v. 16)
Joshua now specifies the precise sin that will trigger this covenant lawsuit and judgment. He makes it crystal clear.
"When you trespass against the covenant of Yahweh your God, which He commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, then the anger of Yahweh will burn against you, and you will perish quickly from off the good land which He has given you.” (Joshua 23:16 LSB)
The central trespass, the covenant-breaking sin, is idolatry. "When you... go and serve other gods and bow down to them." This is the great temptation. It is the temptation to syncretism, to try and have Yahweh plus the Baals. It is the desire to be like the surrounding nations, to hedge their bets, to have a more tangible, manageable, less demanding god. Idolatry is spiritual adultery. It is a direct assault on the first and greatest commandment. It is treason against the covenant King.
And the result is not divine disappointment. It is divine anger. "Then the anger of Yahweh will burn against you." This is not the petty, capricious anger of a pagan deity. This is the holy, righteous, settled opposition of a holy God against sin. It is the wrath of a spurned covenant lover. A God who is not angry at sin is not a God of love, because love rejoices in the truth and hates evil. A God who is indifferent to idolatry is an idol Himself.
And this burning anger leads to swift and total judgment. "You will perish quickly from off the good land." The book of Judges, and the subsequent history of Israel and Judah, is the sad, bloody, and repetitive commentary on this verse. They did exactly what Joshua warned them not to do, and God did exactly what He promised He would do. The Assyrians and the Babylonians were not historical accidents; they were the instruments of God's covenant curse, the "calamitous words" made flesh.
The Cross and the Covenant
Now, how do we, as new covenant believers, read a passage like this? Is it simply a record of Israel's failure? No, it is far more. This passage drives us to the foot of the cross, because it reveals an impossible standard that no man can keep. Israel failed. And if we are honest, we fail. Our hearts are idol factories. We constantly "go and serve other gods", the gods of money, approval, comfort, power, and self.
The terrible symmetry of God's faithfulness remains. "Just as" He is faithful to bless, "so" He is faithful to curse. This is why the gospel is such glorious news. In the cross of Jesus Christ, the awful symmetry of God's faithfulness is perfectly satisfied. Jesus is the true and faithful Israel who never once bowed the knee to another god. He fulfilled all the terms of the covenant. He earned all the "good words," all the blessings.
But on the cross, something astonishing happened. He who deserved all the good words took upon Himself all the calamitous words. The burning anger of Yahweh against covenant-breakers was poured out upon Him. He was "destroyed from off the good land," cast out into the outer darkness, so that we, the idolaters and covenant-breakers, could be brought in. He took the curse that we deserved (Galatians 3:13).
God's faithfulness was not compromised. It was magnified. He was faithful to His promises of blessing by crediting them to us in Christ, and He was faithful to His promises of cursing by executing them upon His own Son. The cross is where the two-edged sword of God's faithfulness met in the heart of Jesus.
Therefore, our security is not in our own ability to keep the covenant. Our security is in Christ, who has kept it for us. But this does not lead to laziness or license. It leads to grateful, loving obedience. We are warned, as Israel was, not to trifle with idolatry. For a believer to flirt with idols is to trample upon the grace that saved him from them. God's warnings are still for our good. They are the guardrails on the path of life. Joshua's final words still ring true: God is faithful. He will be faithful to keep you in Christ, and He will be faithful to discipline you when you stray. Let us therefore heed the warning and cling to the Savior, in whom all the good words of God are "Yes" and "Amen."