Langata Rd, Opposite Uhuru Gardens, Nairobi, Kenya.
Joshua 24:15 – “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” “…choose ye this day whom you will serve.”
Soul winning is a service to God and if you and I are committed to decorate the crown of rejoicing, it is a calling to serve God. Serving God requires a decision, like Joshua made and a decision to serve God is the most profound decision we can make.
Life is a journey of choices and every choice has a corresponding consequence.
The invitation to make a choice was made by Joshua, one of the greatest statesmen God ever placed at the head of a nation, and also a great military general.
Moses, the great Hebrew lawgiver, had led the children of Israel as far as the Jordan, on their journey to Canaan. It was his great desire to lead them into the promised land, but God did not permit Moses to take Israel over into Canaan, and very suddenly he was removed from the headship of that people, and when he was taken, Joshua was selected to take on the burden of that leadership. It was a great responsibility, but Joshua knew and trusted God. Now he has come to the end of his ministry, and, looking back on that long and eventful life that was replete with trials and triumphs, he gives his personal testimony, and makes this strong appeal to that nation.
Joshua knew what he was talking about. He was a witness. No man can preach the Gospel unless he has had an experience, for a Gospel preacher must be a witness, and a witness must know.
You remember that when Cornelius was seeking after light, an angel visited him. The angel did not preach to him, but the angel told him where he could find a saved sinner who knew the way of salvation. Angels will never sing the song of redemption.
Peter had felt it. He had been a bad man; a blasphemer. God had changed him, and being a witness of these things, he could tell Cornelius the way of salvation. Though we may be poor preachers, if we are saved sinners, we can preach a better Gospel than the angels.
Joshua knew what he was talking about. He had settled this great question himself. This is the one thing every man and woman must settle for themselves, just as real and definite as when a man takes a woman to be his lawful wife, or when a woman takes a husband. God has arranged it so that unless you GIVE THE CONSENT OF YOUR WILL, you can never be born again. All the powers on Earth can never force you in this matter. So you see it makes everybody responsible for their standing before God.
Isaiah 1:19,
“If you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land;”
I know there is such a thing as feeling, but I have come to this conviction from the study of the Bible—that if any man, at any time, in any place, “WILLETH” to be born again, let him take Jesus Christ to be his Saviour, there is no power on Earth or in hell that can keep that man from becoming a child of God.
John 1:11-13,
“He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
All through the teaching of Jesus you find Him coming up to the threshold of a man’s will. He can go no farther. He could die for you on Calvary, He could rise from the dead for your salvation, but He cannot cross the threshold of your heart without the consent of your will.
“What is man?” asked the psalmist. We were made in God’s likeness, and whatever we lost in the “fall of Adam,” we did not lose our right to choose who should rule our lives. I am the custodian of my own heart, and I can say who is going to reign in my life. I can go out and turn my back on God and go the way of the world if I want to, and you can say in the seat where you are sitting, “I WILL receive Jesus Christ as my Saviour,” and no power on Earth can keep Him from you.
That is the proposition for every man to face.
God Himself cannot make you if you say, No! If you deliberately say, “I won’t trust Him.”
2 Corinthians 12:9,
“And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
“My grace is sufficient for thee.”
“My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
God is calling upon us to rebuild the family altars as a choice of serving God. The threat against the welfare of the church is accelerated by the current dysfunctions within the family institution.
God brought judgement upon Eli because he did not restrain his sons from defiling the Altar.
Have we neglected our homes? Some of us are hardly ever at home. It is not only the club man that is out nearly every night in the week; not only the sinners that are out to shows and dances all the time, but some Christians go to too many meetings. Some Christian women are away from their homes too frequently, and there are some fathers that are strangers to their own children.
Sometimes we say that preachers’ children turn out worse than any others. Well, I am not so sure about that. And yet I would not wonder if they did, because as a matter of fact, most preachers are looking after everybody else’s children and neglecting their own.
That was the sin of old Eli, who was both priest and judge in Israel. Either office was big enough for any one man to fill, but they gave him so much to do that he could not do anything very well. He never saw his own children (only when they were asleep), and by and by their wickedness became proverbial, and a great judgment came to Eli because of the wickedness of his sons.
His sons made themselves vile, and Eli restrained them not.
I believe in the old-fashioned idea of fatherhood. Time to sit down with your children; time to talk with them. I think there are some recreations and some joys and some pleasures that belong to the family life, and a good, genuine type of Christianity will take some interest in these things.
I know there are some pleasures that are harmful, there are some things that defile, but there are some pleasures that are not harmful. We ought to have enough interest in child-life, and in our boys and girls to share their wholesome joys.
Joshua said: “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” And I believe this is wholesome biblical Christianity that the children all believed in their dad.
We have here not only Joshua’s testimony, but a soul-stirring appeal to the nation. “CHOOSE YE THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE.” He knew better than anyone else that all the victories of the past had come to that nation because God was with them, and everything in the future would depend upon the attitude that the nation took towards Jehovah.
I want to point out what this choice would mean to you or to me.
There is a choice of one of TWO LEADERS. There are two great leaders and they stand before every young life, and they both bid for the loyalty and obedience of that life.
The prince of the power of the air, the great deceiver.
When Jesus began His ministry, this leader actually met Him, and he said to Jesus: “If you will bow down to me I will give you all the kingdoms of this world.” That deceiver bids for your loyalty. That deceiver bids for your life, and unfortunately, he gets too many.
“I am the Way; I am the Truth; I am the Life.”
“Follow Me and ye shall have treasure in Heaven.”
Do you see the force of it?
“Choose ye whom you will serve,” you must make your choice.
There is no neutral ground. I am either following Jesus, or I am following the prince of the power of the air, the ruler of this world’s darkness.
People may resent that, but it is the teaching of the Bible. What did Jesus say?
“He that is not with me is against me.”
Matthew 12:30,
“He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.”