GOD WILL NOT FORGIVE YOU!
Joshua 24:14-27
Introduction: God will not forgive your transgression or your sin! Wait a minute! Haven’t I always been taught that God was ready and willing to forgive my sins the very moment I say I’m sorry? Is this a contradiction in the Bible? Won’t God always forgive me? Let me say this there are no contradictions in Scripture. For us to understand this statement we must consider the events occurring in the time this statement was made. Joshua had called all the tribes of Israel together at Shechem and reviews the providential hand of God in bringing Israel out of the land of Egypt and into the Promised Land of Canaan. In his review he rehearses how greatly God demonstrated His love, mercy, grace, majesty and His power. He then brings the people to a spiritual crossroad where they must make some decisions that will impact not only their future but also the future of generations to follow. He issues…
I. A CALL FOR A CHOICE
A. Joshua 24:14-15a "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 ye the LORD. "And if it seem 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, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell..."
B. Choice determines character and destiny.
C. To every soul there openeth A high way and a low; And every man decideth Which way his soul shall go. – John Oxenham (1861-1941)
D. Deuteronomy 30:19 "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:"
E. On the top of a hill in a Midwestern state stands a courthouse so situated that raindrops falling on one side of the roof travel by way of the Great Lakes into the Atlantic, while drops landing on the opposite side find their way through the Ohio and Mississippi to the Gulf. Just a breath of wind one way or the other may determine whether a single raindrop will end up either in the Gulf or in the Atlantic. Even so, one single decision is enough to determine man’s destiny, either heaven or hell. Have you made the right decision?
F. Romans 6:16 "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?"
TRANSITION: Joshua personally made the right decision and publicly makes a commitment before the people to which the people concur.
II. A COMMITMENT AND A CONCURRENCE
A. Joshua 24:15b-17 "… but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods. For the LORD our God, he it is that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed:"
B. Joshua was Committed to God
1. Resolved: that all men should live for the glory of God. Resolved second: That whether others do or not, I will. – Jonathan Edward
2. A Christian without commitment is like a promise made with your fingers crossed.
3. If God has first place in your life, you won’t have to worry about who has the other places.
C. The People Concurred
1. Israel was influenced by the example of Joshua. Note their response in Joshua 24:18, “We also will serve the Lord.”
2. Half-heartedness and mediocrity don’t inspire anybody to do anything. But the radiating influence from one person rightly related to God is measureless.
D. Joshua hearing their words wants them to realize and consider the gravity of their choice. An old Chinese Proverb says, “He who lightly assents will seldom keep his word.”
TRANSITION: Fearing that the people might indeed be assenting lightly and follow previous patterns of infidelity to the Lord, Joshua makes a charge and gives a caution.
III. A CHARGE AND A CAUTION
Joshua 24:19-20 "And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the LORD: for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. If ye forsake the LORD, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, after that he hath done you good."
A. The Charge – You cannot serve a Holy and Jealous God.
1. You cannot serve God with a divided allegiance.
a. Matthew 6:24 "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
b. Deuteronomy 4:24 "For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God."
c. As long as we give half of our heart to the world or sin, God will not accept the other half. God will not accepted half a heart. Although God demands a whole heart, he will accept a broken one providing he gets all the pieces.
2. You cannot serve God with your own righteousness.
a. Isaiah 64:6 "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."
b. Isaiah 45:24-25 "Surely, shall one say, in the LORD have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come; and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed. [25] In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory."
3. You cannot serve God in your own strength.
a. Romans 7:18-19 "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwells no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil, which I would not, that I do."
b. Galatians 5:17 "For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would."
c. Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me."
4. Commitment to Christ should go hand in hand with commitment to his Church.
5. If your car started one out of three times, would you consider it faithful? If the paperboy skipped Monday and Thursdays, would they be missed? If you didn’t show up at work two or three times a month, would your boss call you faithful? If your refrigerator quit a day now and then, would you excuse it and say, "Oh, well, it works most of the time." If your water heater greets you with cold water one or two mornings a week while you were in the shower, would it be faithful? If you miss a couple of mortgage payments in a year’s time, would your mortgage holder say, "Oh, well, ten out of twelve isn’t bad"? If you miss worship and attend meetings only often enough to show you’re interested but not often enough to get involved, are you faithful?
6. An acre of performance is worth the whole world of promise.
7. God’s service is not, as you seem to fancy, a slight and easy thing, but it is a work of great difficulty, and requires great care, and courage and resolution and a full dependence on the precious Holy Spirit’s power.
B. God will not forgive your transgression nor your sin.
1. Transgression – rebellion, in this passage refers to a “breach of covenant”
2. Sin – missing the road or the mark.
3. Forgive – to remove or bear the burden of guilt.
4. When read in light of these meanings what Joshua is saying is “If you forsake the Lord and serve other gods, your breach of your commitment and covenant will not relieve you from the terms of that commitment. As long as you willfully continue in that condition God will not remove your guilt or the chastisement that will follow continued disobedience.”
5. Hebrews 10:26-27 "For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries."
6. Ecclesiastes 5:4-5 "When you vow a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed. [5] Better is it that you should not vow, than that you should vow and not pay."
7. God will forgive the worst of sins when there is genuine, sincere repentance. However, even if a person asks forgiveness, God cannot forgive so long as the person is insincere and continues to walk in sin.
8. Psalms 66:18 "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me"
TRANSITION: Israel hearing the terms and conditions of true commitment and service to God consent and enter into covenant with God.
IV. A CONSENT AND A COVENANT
A. Joshua 24:21-25 "And the people said unto Joshua, Nay; but we will serve the LORD. [22] 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. [23] Now therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the LORD God of Israel. [24] And the people said unto Joshua, The LORD our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey. [25] So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem."
B. Three times the people affirm their desire to serve only the Lord, and Joshua takes them at their word and calls them into covenant with God.
C. Covenant – a permanent binding contract between God and man.
D. When you gave your heart and life to Christ, when you promised to serve and love Him, when you asked Him to be the Lord of your life, He accepted you and took you at your word. He entered into an eternal covenant relationship with you and holds you to those words of commitment. Are you as committed to Christ as you once were?
E. A few centuries before Christ a man named Alexander conquered almost all of the known world using military strength, cleverness and a bit of diplomacy. The story is told that Alexander and a small company of soldiers approached a strongly fortified walled city. Alexander, standing outside the walls, raised his voice and demanded to see the king. When the king arrived, Alexander insisted that the king surrender the city and its inhabitants to Alexander and his little band of fighting men. The king laughed, "Why should I surrender to you? You can’t do us any harm!" But Alexander offered to give the king a demonstration. He ordered his men to line up single file and start marching. He marched them straight toward a sheer cliff. The townspeople gathered on the wall and watched in shocked silence as, one by one, Alexander’s soldiers marched without hesitation right off the cliff to their deaths! After ten soldiers died, Alexander ordered the rest of the men to return to his side. The townspeople and the king immediately surrendered to Alexander the Great. They realized that if a few men were actually willing to commit suicide at the command of this dynamic leader, then nothing could stop his eventual victory. Are you willing to be as obedient to the ruler of the universe, Jesus Christ, as those soldiers were to Alexander? Are you as dedicated and committed? Think how much power Christ could have in our area with just a portion of such commitment. [James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988) pp. 102-103.]
Conclusion: The call goes out today, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve!” How will you respond? Those who have never entered into a relationship with Jesus Christ you are faced with two choices. You can choose to continue without a relationship with Christ which will inevitably lead you straight into the fires of hell for eternity or to receive Christ by making a commitment to Him through a reception of Him as Lord and Savior which immediately imparts eternal life to you. The choice is yours! Those of you, who have in the past entered into a relationship with Christ as Lord and Savior, are you keeping covenant? Are you trying to give Him half a heart and not the wholeheartedness He demands? Why not renew that covenant commitment right now?
