“If it seems bad to you to serve Adonai, then choose today whom you are going to serve! Will it be the gods your ancestors served beyond the River? or the gods of the Emori, in whose land you are living? As for me and my household, we will serve Adonai!”-Joshua 24:15
After Joshua finished revewing Israel’s history with the people, a conclusion was reached.
It would be nothing less than idiotic to do anything but fear the Lord their God and serve Him faithfully.
Yet, even after reaching this conclusion, Joshua still posed the question:
“If you don’t want to serve the God of Israel,
then whom WILL you serve?”
“Is it going to be the gods of your Father Abraham’s ancestors?”
“Or will you serve the gods of the Amorites?”
The gods of the Amorites were the most popular god system in the land of Canaan at the time.
Here’s the thing,
Every human being on the planet ultimately serves someone or something.
And that would even include atheists.
They may claim to answer to and serve only themselves, but at the end of the day, they are serving the evil one.
The only question then is WHO do we decide to trust and decide to give our serve and allegiance to?
When Israel left Egypt, what really happened is they freed themselves from dependence on the gods of Egypt.
And then switched their dependence to Hashem.
And for those who deny the existence of God, unbeknownst to them, they have switched their dependence over to the great adversary, otherwise known as Satan.
It is that fallen angel who is now their master.
Keep in mind folks, the philosophy of atheism is only about 300 years old.
In the ancient world, there was never the question of should we or should we not serve a god or a set of gods?
The only question was…
…which god…
…or set of gods…
…should we serve?
So when Joshua asked Israel the question “Who should you serve?”, it never would have occurred to the people to not serve any god at all.
However, the matter is a bit more complex than that.
There was an important point the people were missing and Joshua knew it.
That’s why what follows is a bit of a strange conversation.
Which we’ll explore more the next time we meet.
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