FOURTH QUARTER 2025
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #13
DECEMBER 27, 2025
"CHOOSE THIS DAY!"

 

“You Cannot Serve the Lord”

“‘Now therefore, fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt.  Serve the LORD!  And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.  But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.’

“So the people answered and said: ‘Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods; for the LORD our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, who did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way that we went and among all the people through whom we passed.  And the LORD drove out from before us all the people, including the Amorites who dwelt in the land.  We also will serve the LORD, for He is our God.’

“But Joshua said to the people, ‘You cannot serve the LORD, for He is a holy God.  He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.  If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you, after He has done you good.’

“And the people said to Joshua, ‘No, but we will serve the Lord!’

^“So Joshua said to the people, ‘You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord for yourselves, to serve Him.’

“And they said, ‘We are witnesses!’

“‘Now therefore,’ he said, ‘put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the LORD God of Israel.’ 

“And the people said to Joshua, ‘The LORD our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey!’” (Joshua 24:14-24, NKJV). 

For many years I was puzzled by this passage.  Joshua had invited the people to choose whom they would serve, and he himself had declared, “As for me and my house we will serve the LORD.”  Yet when the people responded affirmatively that, yes, they also would serve the LORD (far be it from them to do otherwise), Joshua does not commend them for this.  Instead, he tells them that they cannot serve a holy and jealous God and that He (God) will not forgive their sins if they forsake Him and serve foreign gods.  Was their leader trying to discourage them?  Was he testing their sincerity?

Clarity came when I began to see, appreciate, and understand the gospel.  I began to better understand the two covenants.  The message of Christ our Righteousness, the writings of Ellen White, personal Bible study, and gospel centered sermons and reading material all helped to shed light on many Bible passages including this one.

As was the case at Mount Sinai when their fathers had declared, “All that the Lord has said we will do and be obedient” (Exodus 24:7), the people had yet to grasp and acknowledge the sinfulness of their hearts.  They understand not the utter impossibility of their keeping their promises.  They did not know themselves.  If they were to serve the Lord, they must place their faith in His promises as opposed to their own promises which were but ropes of sand.  They must fall upon the Rock, and look to God’s word to do for them that which they could not do for themselves.

Ellen White points out that Joshua’s hearers’ answer was an old covenant response.

“‘Ye cannot serve the Lord,’ said Joshua; ‘for He is a holy God…He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.’  Before there could be any permanent reformation, the people must be led to feel their utter inability in themselves to render obedience to God.  They had broken His law, it condemned them as transgressors, and it provided no way of escape.  While they trusted in their own strength and righteousness, it was impossible for them to secure the pardon of their sins; they could not meet the claims of God’s perfect law, and it was in vain that they pledged themselves to serve God.  It was only by faith in Christ that they could secure pardon of sin, and receive strength to obey God’s law.  They must cease to rely upon their own efforts for salvation, they must trust wholly in the merits of the promised Savior, if they would be accepted of God.

“Joshua endeavored to lead his hearers to weigh well their words, and refrain from vows.”—Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 524.

“We must have a knowledge of ourselves, a knowledge that will result in contrition, before we can find pardon and peace…It is only he who knows himself to be a sinner that Christ can save.  He came ‘to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised’ (Luke 4:18).  But ‘they that are whole need not a physician’ (Luke 5:31).  We must know our real condition, or we shall not feel our need of Christ’s help.  We must understand our danger, or we shall not flee to the refuge.  We must feel the pain of our wounds, or we should not desire healing.”—Ellen G. White, Christ Object Lessons, p. 159.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3, NKJV). The first Beatitude informs us that it is true poverty of heart that assures us a place in God’s kingdom.

“The proud heart strives to earn salvation; but both our title to heaven and our fitness for it are found in the righteousness of Christ. The Lord can do nothing toward the recovery of man until, convinced of his own weakness, and stripped of all self-sufficiency, he yields himself to the control of God. Then he can receive the gift that God is waiting to bestow. From the soul that feels his need, nothing is withheld. He has unrestricted access to Him in whom all fullness dwells.

“We often sorrow because our evil deeds bring unpleasant consequences to ourselves; but this is not repentance. Real sorrow for sin is the result of the working of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit reveals the ingratitude of the heart that has slighted and grieved the Savior, and brings us in contrition to the foot of the cross. By every sin Jesus is wounded afresh; and as we look upon Him whom we have pierced, we mourn for the sins that have brought anguish upon Him. Such mourning will lead to the renunciation of sin…. The tears of the penitent are only the raindrops that precede the sunshine of holiness. This sorrow heralds a joy which will be a living fountain in the soul.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 301.

There is life-giving power in God’s word.  By faith we are to take hold of God’s promises.  We must look to Jesus, who alone can cleanse the soul temple.

The Captain of Our Salvation, the King of Israel

The context of the last chapter in the book of Joshua, as the lesson’s author points out, is a covenant renewal ceremony.  “Joshua is close to the end of his life; no replacement is on the horizon.  The covenant renewal is a reminder to the Israelites that their king is Yahweh Himself and that, if they remain loyal to Him, they will enjoy His protection.  Israel does not need a human king.  As a theocratic nation, they have to ever keep in mind that their only king is the Lord.”—Lessons of Faith from Joshua, Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, p.104.  

E. J. Waggoner addresses Israel’s failure to fully enter into the rest their Sovereign Lord desired to provide for them and their posterity.

“For if Joshua had given them rest, then would He not afterwards have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest to the people of God (Heb. 4:8,9).

“We have seen that although not one word of God’s promises to Israel failed, ‘the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it’ (Heb.4:2), and that a long time after the Lord had given them rest, He set before them, through Joshua, the conditions on which they might enjoy the inheritance.  

THE KINGDOM THE LORD’S

“Passing over a period of more than four hundred years, during which time the history of the children of Israel is a record of apostasy and repentance and apostasy again, we come to the time of David, when the kingdom of Israel was at the height of its power.  Although in demanding a king the children of Israel rejected God, He did not reject them.  It was not God’s design that Israel should ever have any other king than Himself, but they were not content to walk by faith, having a King whom they could not see.”—E. J. Waggoner, The Everlasting Covenant, p. 330, emphasis supplied.

Oh, if only, if only, throughout their history, God’s people had always entrusted themselves to their King, the Captain of their salvation!  Approximately fourteen hundred years would pass till another Joshua (Yeshua, whose name means “Yahweh saves”) would enter the flow of human history.  The Desire of the Ages, the Desire of all nations came to His own.  Their King came to deliver His people and set them free, but by and large, He was rejected.  After three and a half years of selfless public ministry the King of glory was crucified on Calvary’s hill by those He came to save.  The title placed above the Redeemer of the world’s crown of thorns proclaimed Him, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”  

Pilate had ordered it thus.  When he inquired of the nation’s leaders, “What?  “Crucify your king?” their unwitting reply sealed the nation’s fate.   

“We have no king but Caesar.”  The Jewish leaders realized not the import of their words.  

Their chosen blindness, their rejection of the promised Son of Abraham, the Son of David, the Son of God, brought an end to the theocracy.  Still, being a God of infinite love, through His chosen instruments, God appealed to the Jewish nation to freely receive the gift of His Son.  There were those who believed, and they rejoiced in the wonderful truth of a crucified and risen Savior.  But the leadership of the nation spurned the Gift.  Three and a half years after Christ’s death and resurrection, Stephen (Acts 7), as Joshua had done centuries earlier, reviewed Israel’s history.  Rather than a covenant renewal, however, Stephen delivered a covenant lawsuit to his audience.  They stoned him.  The theocracy was no more.  “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37, NKJV).

God’s people today have yet to fully take to heart the history of God’s chosen people recorded for our benefit in the Scriptures.  This is evidenced by God’s last day church’s own history.  We have been the recipients of great light for want of which many are perishing.  We cannot fault our predecessors without faulting ourselves.  Our individual and corporate sins continue to wound and pierce our Savior.

“The Lord in His great mercy sent a most precious message to His people through Elders Waggoner and Jones.  This message was to bring more prominently before the world the uplifted Savior, the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.  It presented justification through faith in the Surety.  It invited the people to receive the righteousness of Christ which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God.  Many had lost sight of Jesus.  They needed to have their eyes directed to His divine person, His merits, and His changeless love for the human family.  All power is given into His hands, that He may dispense rich gifts unto men, imparting the priceless gift of His own righteousness to the helpless human agent.  This is the message that God commanded to be given to the world.  It is the third angel’s message, which is to be proclaimed with a loud voice, and attended with the outpouring of His Spirit in a large measure.  

“The uplifted Savior is to appear in His efficacious work as the Lamb slain, sitting upon the throne, to dispense the priceless covenant blessings, the benefits He died to purchase for every soul who should believe on Him…Christ is pleading for the church in the heavenly courts above, pleading for those for whom He paid the redemption price of His own life blood.”—Ellen G. White, 1888 Materials, p. 1336.

The King is coming soon in splendor and glory.  We stand in need of humbled and converted hearts.  May Jesus be enthroned within so we may say, “Here am I, Lord.  Do for me what it is impossible for me to do for myself.  Write your law of love upon my heart, and use me in whatever way you deem best to proclaim a crucified and risen Savior.  Let the world be lighted with Your glory.”

Let us receive Jesus’s promised rest, and invite fellow sinners to receive this wonderful rest which our Shepherd King longs to impart to all.

“Come, thou long expected Jesus,

Born to set thy people free;

From our fears and sins release us,

Let us find our rest in thee.

Israel’s strength and consolation,

Hope of all the earth thou art;

Dear desire of every nation,

Joy of every longing heart.

 

Born thy people to deliver,

Born a child and yet a king,

Born to reign in us forever,

Now thy gracious kingdom bring.

By thine own eternal spirit

Rule in all our hearts alone;

By thine all sufficient merit,

Raise us to thy glorious throne.”—Charles Wesley

 

~Martha Ruggles