The Terrible Choice Text: Joshua 24:14-28
Introduction: The Covenantal Crossroads
We come now to the end of Joshua's life, and to the end of his book. He has led Israel in a stunning military conquest of Canaan, settling the tribes in their allotted inheritances. The land is at rest from war. But Joshua knows, with the grim realism of a seasoned saint, that the most dangerous war is never the one fought with swords and spears. The most dangerous war is the one fought for the heart, for the allegiance of the soul. Military victory is one thing; covenant faithfulness is another thing entirely. And so, at the great covenant renewal ceremony at Shechem, Joshua brings the people to a crossroads. He forces a choice upon them.
Our modern evangelical sensibilities are often allergic to this kind of thing. We like our choices to be comfortable. We want a Jesus who is an add-on, a lifestyle enhancement, a helpful supplement to our already existing plans. We want to add "serving God" to our list of hobbies, right next to gardening and collecting stamps. But Joshua will have none of it. He presents the choice in the starkest possible terms. It is an exclusive choice, a costly choice, and, as he will point out, a seemingly impossible choice. This is not a mild suggestion. This is a demand for total, unconditional surrender.
Joshua is not playing games. He understands that neutrality is a myth. There is no Switzerland in the spiritual warfare that defines all of human history. You are serving some god, whether you admit it or not. The choice is not whether to worship, but who to worship. Your heart is an altar, and something is always on it. Joshua's task here is to make the people stare at that altar and identify what, precisely, they have placed upon it. Is it Yahweh, the God who brought them out of Egypt? Or is it the dusty, impotent gods their fathers served back in Mesopotamia? Or is it the sensual, localized gods of the Amorites, whose land they now inhabit? You must choose. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot serve God and Mammon. You cannot serve Yahweh and Baal. You cannot serve the God of the Bible and the gods of this age.
What Joshua does here is lay down the fundamental principle of all true religion. It is a covenantal confrontation. And it is a confrontation that every generation, every church, every family, and every individual must face. The choice of Shechem is before us today as much as it was for them. Whom will you serve?
The Text
"So now, fear Yahweh and serve Him in integrity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve Yahweh. If it is evil in your sight to serve Yahweh, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh.”
And the people answered and said, “Far be it from us that we should forsake Yahweh to serve other gods; for Yahweh our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery, and who did these great signs in our sight and kept us through all the way in which we went and among all the peoples through whose midst we passed. And Yahweh drove out from before us all the peoples, even the Amorites who lived in the land. We also will serve Yahweh, for He is our God.”
Then Joshua said to the people, “You will not be able to serve Yahweh, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgression or your sins. If you forsake Yahweh and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after He has done good to you.” And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve Yahweh.” And Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen for yourselves Yahweh, to serve Him.” And they said, “We are witnesses.” “So now, put away the foreign gods which are in your midst, and incline your hearts to Yahweh, the God of Israel.” And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve Yahweh our God, and we will listen to His voice.”
So Joshua cut a covenant with the people that day and made for them a statute and a judgment in Shechem. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of Yahweh. And Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be for a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of Yahweh which He spoke to us; thus it shall be for a witness against you, lest you deny your God.” Then Joshua dismissed the people, each to his inheritance.
(Joshua 24:14-28 LSB)
The Unavoidable Choice (v. 14-15)
Joshua begins by laying out the terms of the covenant. This is not a negotiation.
"So now, fear Yahweh and serve Him in integrity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve Yahweh. If it is evil in your sight to serve Yahweh, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve... but as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh." (Joshua 24:14-15)
The choice is grounded in the command to "fear Yahweh." This is not the cowering dread of a slave before a tyrant, but the reverent awe of a creature before his holy Creator. It is the beginning of wisdom. Without this holy fear, all our service is just religious play-acting. And this service must be in "integrity and truth." Not half-heartedly. Not with divided loyalties. It must be sincere, from the inside out.
This requires a radical act of spiritual housecleaning: "put away the gods." Notice the two categories of idols. First, there are the ancestral gods, the gods from "beyond the River" in Ur of the Chaldees. These are the idols of tradition, the comfortable, respectable idols that have been in the family for generations. They are the things we do because "that's how we've always done them." They are the dead religious forms we cling to, long after the Spirit has departed. Second, there are the gods of the Amorites, the gods of the new land. These are the idols of assimilation, of cultural compromise. These are the gods of "when in Rome," the pressure to conform to the prevailing paganism of the day. Joshua says you must renounce both. You cannot bring your old idols with you, and you cannot adopt the new ones you find here. The service of Yahweh is exclusive.
Then comes the famous challenge. "Choose for yourselves today." Joshua employs a brilliant rhetorical strategy. He doesn't say, "You must serve Yahweh." He says, "If serving Yahweh seems evil to you, then by all means, choose another god." He puts the choice in their court. This forces them to confront the sheer absurdity of their options. Will you serve the dead gods of your ancestors, who couldn't keep them from bondage? Will you serve the gods of the Amorites, whom Yahweh just soundly defeated and drove out before you? Or will you serve Yahweh, the God of deliverance and victory? He makes them look their idolatry square in the face.
But before they can answer, Joshua throws down his own commitment as a gauntlet. "But as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh." This is masculine, covenantal leadership. Joshua is the head of his household, and he takes responsibility for the spiritual direction of his family. He does not take a poll. He does not wait to see which way the wind is blowing. He sets the standard. He plants his flag. This is the pattern for every Christian father. Your responsibility is to lead your family in the service of God, establishing the worship of God as the non-negotiable center of your home.
The People's Eager Vow (v. 16-18)
The people respond with what appears to be great enthusiasm and correct theology.
"Far be it from us that we should forsake Yahweh to serve other gods; for Yahweh our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt... We also will serve Yahweh, for He is our God." (Joshua 24:16-18 LSB)
Their answer is doctrinally sound. They recite the mighty acts of God. They remember the Exodus, the "great signs," the providential protection in the wilderness, and the conquest of the land. They are recounting their redemptive history. This is good. Remembering what God has done is essential fuel for present faithfulness. They conclude with the right confession: "We also will serve Yahweh, for He is our God." On the surface, this is everything a leader could want to hear.
But Joshua is not satisfied. He knows the human heart. He knows how easy it is to make grand promises in a moment of emotional fervor, and how quickly those promises can evaporate under the heat of temptation. He knows that a good confession is not the same thing as a transformed heart. The road to apostasy is paved with good intentions.
Joshua's Shocking Rebuttal (v. 19-20)
Instead of congratulating them, Joshua throws a bucket of ice water on their enthusiasm.
"Then Joshua said to the people, 'You will not be able to serve Yahweh, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgression or your sins.'" (Joshua 24:19 LSB)
This is one of the most startling statements in all of Scripture. After demanding they choose to serve God, he tells them they are incapable of doing so. What is going on here? Is Joshua trying to talk them out of it? Yes, in a way. He is trying to talk them out of a cheap, easy, superficial commitment. He is forcing them to count the cost.
He gives them two reasons for their inability. First, God is a "holy God." His holiness means He is utterly separate, transcendent, and morally pure. He cannot be trifled with. He is not a tame God. He is a consuming fire. Our casual, buddy-buddy approach to God in the modern church would have been utterly foreign to Joshua. Second, God is a "jealous God." This is not the petty jealousy of a flawed human. This is the righteous zeal of a husband for His covenant bride. God will not tolerate rivals. He demands exclusive devotion. Because He is holy and jealous, He "will not forgive your transgression or your sins" if you approach Him on your own terms. This doesn't contradict the Bible's teaching on God's forgiveness. It means God will not simply overlook rebellion. He will not grade on a curve. The standard is perfection, and if you try to meet that standard in your own strength, you will be consumed.
Joshua is preaching the law to them. He is showing them the impossibility of their vow apart from divine grace. He is making them feel the full weight of the demand. You cannot do this. You are sinners. He is a holy God. This is the necessary prelude to the gospel. Until you see that you cannot save yourself, you will never cry out for a Savior.
The Covenant Confirmed (v. 21-28)
The people, however, are insistent. And so Joshua formalizes their commitment.
"And the people said to Joshua, 'No, but we will serve Yahweh.'... 'We will serve Yahweh our God, and we will listen to His voice.'" (Joshua 24:21, 24 LSB)
Three times they declare their intention to serve Yahweh. Joshua makes them witnesses against themselves. He is binding them with their own words. If they turn away, their own mouths will condemn them. This is a deadly serious transaction. Joshua then gives them the practical application: "So now, put away the foreign gods which are in your midst." This reveals that even as they were making these vows, they still had household idols tucked away in their tents. Their confession was ahead of their practice. This is often true of us. But true repentance doesn't just talk; it acts. It throws the idols out.
Joshua then solemnizes the covenant. He writes the words in the book of the law, and he sets up a large stone as a witness. This is crucial. The covenant is not a subjective feeling; it is an objective reality, publicly declared and memorialized. The stone is a silent preacher. "It has heard all the words of Yahweh." In the day of their future apostasy, which Joshua knows is coming, this stone will stand as a mute testimony against them. Creation itself bears witness to our covenant dealings with God.
The Greater Joshua
We read this story and we know how it ends. The book of Judges follows Joshua, and it is a grim, downward spiral of apostasy, idolatry, and chaos. The generation that stood with Joshua at Shechem largely kept the covenant. But their children did not. Their vows, however sincere, were not enough. Their story proves Joshua's point: "You will not be able to serve Yahweh."
So is the story a tragedy? Is it a lesson in futility? Not at all. It is a signpost pointing to our need for a better covenant and a greater Joshua. The name Joshua is the Hebrew form of the Greek name Jesus. The first Joshua brought the people into the promised land, but he could not give them the heart to keep the covenant and find true rest there. He could point out their inability, but he could not fix it.
But the second Joshua, Jesus Christ, does what the first could not. He is the holy one of God who perfectly kept the covenant on our behalf. He is the jealous God in human flesh who went to the cross to absorb the wrath that our idolatries deserved. When we come to Him, He does not simply demand that we "put away the foreign gods." He gives us a new heart, a heart of flesh for a heart of stone, and He writes His law upon it (Ezek. 36:26-27). He puts His Spirit within us, enabling us to do what Israel could not do: to serve God in integrity and truth.
The choice is still before us today: choose whom you will serve. But the good news of the gospel is that in Christ, God chooses us first. He calls us out of darkness. He gives us the grace to respond. And He gives us the power to walk in that choice. The Christian life is one long "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord," not because of our own strength, but because the greater Joshua has secured our standing. He is our covenant head, He is our righteousness, and He is the one who will keep us to the end. That stone at Shechem was a witness against their future failure. But the empty tomb is the witness that guarantees our future victory.