The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Joshua 23:16,
"If you violate the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, the Lord's anger will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land he has given you."
As Joshua gives his farewell to the leaders of Israel, he tells them that, although the Lord has blessed them in fulfilling his promise to give them the land of Canaan, he will take it from them if they turn from him. Just as the Lord gave, he can just as easily take away, and take away he will if they turn to other gods. Unwisely, Israel will fail to heed Joshua's warning and in six to eight hundred years or so, this will be the very case of things.
What I am reminded of in this passage is something intrinsic to our Lord. He provides us the freedom to make our own choices and based on those choices he responds. Although there is much theology that fails to account for this and even denies this, it is nevertheless something true of the Lord, something he has made abundantly clear in his word to us.
Listen to what the Lord has to say through the prophet Jeremiah at the very time Joshua's warning to Israel becomes a frightful reality, "If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it."
Here is a sobering truth about our Lord. He will even change his mind about the fortunes he intends for a nation based on choices a nation makes. I find nowhere in the new covenant where the Lord's interaction with nations has changed. This is just as true today as it was in Jeremiah's.
Our God is not to be trifled with - he responds to choices we make!
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd love to hear from you!
Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com
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