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Hello, we are so glad you have joined us back for another look at the scriptures. We will be looking in the book of the law of God 24. You may wonder, first of all, what difference does it make? What you are looking at, to be sure.

(0:22 - 0:45)

It makes a good deal of difference between that and whose book you are in. See, it is one thing to have your position or your place as a lord taken over there by the lord. It is quite another to have him have his say in all of your lives.

(0:45 - 1:12)

And that is what I'm afraid has just happened here in the text. This is actually the part that starts this whole thing off. And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers, and they presented themselves before God.

(1:13 - 1:23)

It all started with, in the beginning, a gathering as unto the Lord. Perhaps not at first. It did not.

(1:24 - 1:49)

Way back in Egypt, or on the other side of the flood, when the people served other gods from a long time before. However, it is important to see that the one they serve here is the Lord. And after all of this journey that they have taken, after everything that they have been through, they now face a return to the Lord at this time.

(1:49 - 2:04)

So it matters not who is leading them still. Whether Joshua, or the elders, or the heads, or the judges, or the officers. It matters not at the time where they gather together at in the place.

(2:05 - 2:51)

Although what very much matters here, most of all, is that they gather themselves together as unto the Lord. And the place where they gathered unto is known as, from much idol worship, a place known as Shechem, in which there were some gods at one time, and also some idols thereof, of the rich the people had needed to once cleanse the lands. But now, there is none of that seen, as these have just come to present themselves before God, and in their hands is nothing else that they bring.

(2:53 - 4:17)

And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood, in old time even Terah the father of Abraham and the father of Nicor, and they served other gods. Perhaps you might remember at this time in this, how that Abraham was spoken of previously as seen in the text, wherein he sat and observed the other gods that his fathers had worshipped, and the fathers before that, and now that none of them, whether the moon, the sun, or whatever of wood or stone, of which moved and breathed also of the people thereof, then nothing could have matched there the Lord of this time. And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and I multiplied his seed and gave him Isaac, and I gave unto Isaac a Jacob and Esau, and I gave unto Esau Mount Seir to possess it, but Jacob and his children went down into Egypt.

(4:18 - 5:03)

I sent Moses also and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt according to that which I did among them, and afterward I brought you out, and I brought your fathers out of Egypt, and you came unto the sea, and the Egyptians pursued after your fathers with chariots and horsemen under the Red Sea. Sometimes it appears that our sin really does find us out of the same, because here was a generational issue. Abraham came from a family who worshipped their idols, and the gods of wood and stone that neither saw their void nor they moved.

(5:03 - 5:46)

In fact, some of them required to be moved from place to place, until Abraham himself, as the book of Jasher had said, had taken an axe due to some before them, and destroyed them all in the sight of his father. And then his father came in and was exceedingly wroth at the things he had done. Though you know a valid point was made at the time that if these had been the works of the true God, he would not have permitted them to do so to his place or his name, or also that of his frame.

(5:47 - 6:06)

And that is just the thing here that all those other gods that they served were nothing but idols there in their midst. And even when they brought through the land of Canaan, the people thereof did much of the same. See, it is a common thing, put in man there to worship.

(6:07 - 6:35)

It is given to man to seek unto God. But yet, when it comes down to it fully, we often mistake the wood we should worship, and often the objects thereof much of the same. Then it came down to the children, where Abraham had Isaac and Jacob and Esau there also.

(6:35 - 6:56)

And then Jacob had his children twelve there in number. And then you might have wondered what happened to them then. For these children had wandered there long in the land, and probably it was hard at this time to have remembered the name of the Lord and also the place they were from.

(6:57 - 7:23)

And then they went down into Egypt, just as the Scripture had said. And there were a lot of strange things that they saw in that land. See, Moses and Aaron were but leaders sent for a time meant to point the people back in the name of the Lord and also toward the direction thereof.

(7:24 - 7:53)

And the plagues thereof much of the same of which he had sent there to Egypt were meant that the people should seek unto him. See, our God is a true God when he is exceedingly jealous thereof. And that just as there would be no other gods before him, so were they to him as no other people in his sight at the time.

(7:54 - 8:20)

And when they cried unto the Lord, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians and brought the sea upon them and covered them. And your eyes have seen what I have done in Egypt, and you dwelt in the wilderness a long season. And I brought you into the land of the Amorites, which dwelt on the other side, Jordan, and they fought with you.

(8:20 - 8:42)

And I gave them into your hand that you might possess their land, and I destroyed them from before you. Then Balak the son of Zipporah, king of Moab, arose and warred against Israel and sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you. But I would not hearken none to Balaam, therefore he blessed you still.

(8:43 - 9:01)

So I delivered you out of his hand. And see what happens, the disorder that serving other gods there has caused in the house. The land of the Amorites, first of all, it caused there a wilderness wandering.

(9:02 - 9:24)

Then it came on down to the land of the Amorites. These were people who loved anything and everything else aside from the Lord himself of the same. And these people, it seemed, did not love the strangers as they passed through their land.

(9:29 - 9:52)

And so our God had to clear out the land therein for his people to dwell. And you might have wondered how that there was a recompense there for the wilderness wanderings. Perhaps not as you knew, but that God was having a return of all things to his son.

(9:55 - 10:23)

And then there arose someone also of the disorder who thought to rise up and curse there the people. See that it is not just a possession matter, but also a matter of cursing there also, which is a reflection of the heart, deeper heart issue. That of the trying to fight with the people there for the land are coming up against them.

(10:24 - 11:10)

Themselves of the same, and it is a wellspring out of the heart there in that problem. Although our God is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, he is the God that if we confess that he is our Lord and Savior, just as we confess our sin, he is faithful and just, and that is his name all the time. Balakir knew not the Lord, and Balaam himself was much of the same.

(11:12 - 12:04)

Though it is important to notice that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and also the opening up of the same. So that when he is sought unto to be inquired thereof, he will be found, and Balaam, it seemed, was just finding it out of the same. And you went over Jordan and came unto Jericho, and the men of Jericho fought against you, the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Colchisites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I delivered them into your hand, and I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites, but not with your sword nor with your bow.

(12:04 - 12:54)

And I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and cities which you built not, and you dwell in them of the vineyards and olives which you planted, but not do you eat. Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt and serve you the Lord. And if it seemed evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, and that might be our stopping place for a time.

(12:55 - 13:57)

It is important to notice, though, that just as there are many gods and many things that are served, so also is there a division of people. See, there are all these different groups of people, largely because of what they believed at the time, and it caused them to forget their identities and not have themselves so wrapped up in him then. And with the loss of identity came also a disrespect on the matter, because these people thought to come up and fight against the Lord and also his name, and to claim they're his people of what of their frame, and that God had given his children these long wilderness wanderings, and just as they thought that there would be nothing that came from it, still there was recompense there in the house of the Lord.

(13:58 - 14:53)

It is a recovery season, a recompense for all the things that were lost of the same. He was there to say that God does not reward his people for their service to him, just as they had faced their long desert wandering, so that when they finally came to a place of rest for his name, then he was able to start moving in each of the circumstances, the situations thereof, and aligning up of all things itself of the throne. And in fact it is not even by sword or by battle, or rather the people, but rather by his own name, of the same justice he delivered the Egyptians before them.

(14:54 - 15:42)

So he sent the hornet, and it cleared out all of their enemies, so that they no longer had to go back to the warlike people they once had been, and also all of them that had known not his name, that had fought there like the book of Jasher had told, like nobody's business. But yet, when our Lord is the mighty man of war, and he is the mighty in battle, then strange things start to happen in himself of the frame, also his name. It is by his name we have come, and also to whom we are from.

(15:44 - 16:10)

Thus you must decide yourself for the service thereof, whether you will serve the Lord or to anything else in this world.