Well, let us give our attention then to God's own word, Joshua chapter 24. Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel. And they presented themselves before God. And Joshua said to all the people, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, long ago your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor, and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the river, and led him through all the land of Canaan, and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac, and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. And I gave Esau the hill country of Seir to possess. But Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. And I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt with what I did in the midst of it. And afterward, I brought you out. Then I brought your fathers out of Egypt, And you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. And when they cried to the Lord, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians and made the sea come upon them and cover them. And your eyes saw what I did in Egypt. And you lived in the wilderness a long time. Then I brought you to the land of the Amorites, who lived on the other side of the Jordan. They fought with you, and I gave them into your hand, and you took possession of their land. and I destroyed them before you. Then Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and fought against Israel, and he sent and invited Balaam, the son of Beor, to curse you, but I would not listen to Balaam. Indeed, he blessed you, so I delivered you out of his hand. And you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho, and the leaders of Jericho fought against you, and also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I gave them into your hand. And I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out before you, the two kings of the Amorites. It was not by your sword or by your bow. I gave you a land on which you had not labored, in cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant. Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the river and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your father served in the region beyond 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.' Then the people answered, Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods. For it is the Lord our God who brought us and our fathers up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed. And the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore, we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God. But Joshua said to the people, you are not able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you after having done you good. And the people said to Joshua, no, but we will serve the Lord. Then Joshua said to the people, you are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord to serve him. And they said, we are witnesses. He said, then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord, the God of Israel. And the people said to Joshua, the Lord our God, we will serve, and his voice we will obey. So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and put in place statutes and rules for them at Shechem. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God. And he took a large stone and set it up there under the tarbin that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. And Joshua said to all the people, behold, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord that he spoke to us. Therefore, it shall be a witness against you, lest you deal falsely with your God. So Joshua sent the people away, every man to his inheritance. After these sayings, Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being 110 years old. And they buried him in his own inheritance at Timnas Serah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountains of Gaash. Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work that the Lord did for Israel. As for the bones of Joseph, which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt, they buried them at Shechem. And the piece of land that Jacob bought from the sons of Amor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred pieces of money, it became an inheritance of the descendants of Joseph. And Eliezer, the son of Aaron, died, and they buried him at Gibeah, the town of Phinehas, his son, which had been given him in the hill country of Ephraim. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Beloved congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, We come at last to the end of Joshua and the end of his life. And as we come to the end of this book and the end of his life, we remember that his pilgrimage has been long. After the exodus from Egypt, he was one of the 12, you recall, selected by Moses himself, who went into the land of Canaan to spy out the land. bringing back with them some of the grapes of the promised land. All 12 spies tasted those grapes, but of course they also saw the giants. Only Joshua and Caleb believed that God would fulfill his promise and give them the land. The rest of them did not believe. They were fearful of the giants. They quickly forgot the taste of those grapes from the promised land, that sweet taste in their mouths. And all they could see were the giants. And their hearts were filled with fear. And they gave a bad report. And the people of Israel, so prone to grumbling, so prone to complaining, believed the bad report. And you know the result. 40 years of wandering in the wilderness of all that generation. Only two men were allowed to enter the promised land, Joshua and Caleb. All the rest died in the wilderness. Even Moses, the mediator of the old covenant, even Moses, the giver of the law, died outside the promised land. A stark reminder that by the keeping of the law, no one can enter the promised land. Even the Old Testament mediator dies without inheriting the land. Before his death, Moses chose Joshua to be his successor, the one who would stand as a mediator between God and his people. And so Joshua then becomes the great leader of Israel after the death of Moses. Joshua is the one who leads the people out of the wilderness. Joshua is the one who leads the people through the waters of the Jordan River on dry ground. Joshua is the one who brings them into the promised land. And under the hand of Joshua, victory after victory after victory is won. And finally, near the end of the book, it is Joshua who then secures the land and allots the inheritance to each of the tribes of Israel. And so the life and history of Joshua has been long. It has been an illustrious life, but now He is about to go the way of all the earth. He is about to die. His pilgrimage has come to its end. One last time, he speaks to Israel. One last time, he addresses the children of Israel, these men and women with whom he has sojourned now for so long. Joshua 24 is his farewell speech. It is his final word. And notice where he gives this final word. He gathers all Israel to Shechem. Why Shechem? Well, Shechem, of course, is in the promised land. But Shechem is also the place that Abram first came to way back in Genesis chapter 12, as he left the land of his fathers and journeyed to the promised land, having been promised that land by God. It was to the city of Shechem that Abram first came. In fact, it was in Shechem according to Genesis 12 where God first spoke to Abram and said to him, to your offspring, I will give this land. And now, hundreds of years later, Abraham's descendants are in this very place in possession of the land God promised. And so here in verse one of the final chapter of Joshua, the great point of the book of Joshua is being made clearly and loudly. God is a covenant God. God is the God of promise. He is a God who keeps his word. The land is theirs as God said it would be. And God has given it to them as a gift of grace. And now as Joshua assembles the people here at Shechem, here in this land that God promised to them, God himself speaks to the people through Joshua. He preaches a sermon to them filled with their history. If you have your Bibles open yet or the words of Joshua 24 before you, just look down these opening verses. In verses 2 through 4, God summarizes the book of Genesis. I took your father Abraham from beyond the river and led him through all the land of Canaan and made his offspring many." Here we are reminded that the very calling of Abram was all of grace. Abram was an idolater. He was a pagan. There was nothing in Abram that was moving him toward God. There was nothing in Abram that was seeking God. He was an idolater, a pagan among the nations. It was God's hand of grace that reached down and called Abram out. It is all of grace. and he gave to Abram offspring, Isaac and Jacob and Esau. And then in verses 5 through 7, God goes on in this sermon and proclaims the message of the book of Exodus. I brought you out of the land of bondage. I brought you out of the land of slavery. Your eyes saw what I did in Egypt. Again, it was of grace. And then, verses 8 through 10, God summarizes the book of Numbers. I brought you to the land. I delivered you out of the hand of your enemies." Again, it was all of grace. Then, verses 11 through 13, God summarizes the book of Joshua. I gave you the land. You see, God is preaching a sermon through his servant Joshua to his people. His word is sovereign. It is the perfect interpretation of what he has done. He is saying to the people, this is how you are to understand history. This is how you are to understand what I have done. I am faithful to my word. I am the God of promise. And that calls for a response. And so beginning with verse 14, Joshua now calls the people to response. He calls the people to fear. this great God a promise. He calls them to serve this great God in sincerity and faithfulness. He calls them to put away the gods their fathers served beyond the river, and also the gods they served in Egypt. And he goes on to say to them, in verses 14 and 15, if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, then choose whom you will serve, either the gods your fathers served beyond the river, or the gods of the people in whose land you now dwell. The point Joshua is making is this, after all the good that God has done for you, after all the promises that he has kept, it would be utter foolishness for you to serve any other god. What did the gods of Egypt do for them? Did not the Lord your God judge all of them? and win victory after victory through the plagues, even casting Pharaoh himself and his army into death. And what about the gods of the land in which you now dwell? What did their gods do for them? Did you not destroy city after city? Did you not tear down strongholds? Did I not defeat that spiritual kingdom of darkness for you? If it seems evil to you to serve this great God, then choose which of these non-gods you will serve, as one commentator put it. Well, Joshua makes very clear where he stands. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Joshua commits not only himself but his household also to serving the Lord. He has clearly taken the responsibility of teaching and training and, dare I say, catechizing his children and his house to serve the Lord. What a wonderful reminder for those who are husbands and fathers on this Father's Day of the great task that is ours and the great responsibility that is given to us to teach and to train our children, to set before them the great acts of God in history for the redemption of a people. Those acts that all culminate in the giving of his own son, our Lord Jesus Christ. One of the greatest gifts we can give to our children, to our grandchildren, is to teach them to read the scriptures in such a way that they see Christ. And to call them to repentance and faith in him standing upon the promises of the gospel. Well Joshua makes clear where he stands and the people respond in verses 16 through 18. We too will serve the Lord our God. He has done these things for us. We confess that we too will serve Him. Joshua then gives a most interesting response in verses 19 and 20. He warns the people, you're not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your sins if you forsake Him. How are we to understand that? They've just made this good confession. And Joshua turns around and says, you can't keep your confession. How are we to understand that? What are we to make of that? Well, what has the Lord been preaching to them through Joshua? He's been preaching that it's all of grace, and that our salvation ultimately is not dependent upon the strength of our promises to God, but on the steadfastness of his promises to us. This is the point that Joshua is capturing here. You see, this statement, you are not able to serve him because he is a holy God and a jealous God who will not forgive you if you abandon him and turn to other gods. This is not a statement meant to drive them away from God. It's a statement that's meant to drive them to God, to drive them to this God of promise, to drive them to this God of grace. The warning is intended to keep them focused upon what God has done, that they might not forget the Lord or what he has done for his people, that they might live their lives in response to that. Well, the people go on to reaffirm their choice. Verse 21, and Joshua then calls them in light of that choice to put away the foreign gods among them. Verse 23, isn't that a striking statement? At this point in Israel's history, They still have foreign gods among them. Even after all God has done for them, even as they make their public confession to follow and serve God, they do so with foreign gods among them. It doesn't bode well, as the book of Judges will prove. But you notice what Joshua does in response. He cuts a covenant with them, verse 25. That's the literal language. He cuts the covenant. Covenants are not simply made, they are cut. And it reminds us back to that great covenant cutting ceremony in Genesis chapter 15, where those animals were cut in half, creating a valley of blood and of death between them. And Abraham slept outside. He never walked that valley, but God came down in the form of a smoking oven and a burning torch, the pillars of God, the legs of God, as it were, and he himself walked that valley and said, let me become like these cursed animals if I don't keep my promise. And again, you note, it's God who makes the promise, not Abram. And so Joshua cuts this covenant, verse 25, And he puts in place statutes and rules for them at Shechem. He knows, he knows that they have no other hope than God's faithfulness and the reliability of God's promises. For you see, if the inheritance of the promised land depends on them, they could never attain. And if their continuance in the land depends on them, they will not remain. It is only by grace, the grace of this covenant God, the grace of this God of promise. But then look at what Joshua does next. Verses 26 through 28, he writes down the words in the book of the law and he sets up a large stone by the sanctuary and tells the people that this stone is a witness against them. for it has heard all the words of the Lord that he spoke to them." Notice that, it didn't hear the words that the people spoke. It didn't hear their promises, it didn't hear their confession, it didn't hear their oaths. It heard the words that God spoke to them, his promises, his oaths. You see, the gospel, the good news, is not our promises to God. If it were, it wouldn't be gospel, would it? It wouldn't be good news because we are a promise-breaking people. The gospel is God's promises to us. And you see it so beautifully and visibly illustrated here in what Joshua does. He inscribes these words in the Book of Law. But then proceeds to set up a large stone, and notice where he puts that stone. By the sanctuary. By the place where this holy, jealous, righteous God has made a way for sinners to draw near. By the blood of the sacrifice poured out of the mercy seat. Already a visible portrayal of Jesus Christ who is our mercy seat. Even the stone is placed by the sanctuary where it is to be understood in terms of the gospel. At the end of the day that was their only hope and it's our only hope as well. We make promises to God. We've done so this morning in baptism once again, but how much greater the promises God makes to us in baptism as we've witnessed it. God makes the promise of the gospel that whoever repents of their sins and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. And this is a public administration. It's a declaration not only to the recipient of baptism this morning or to his parents, but to each one of us who have been baptized. God's promises, his gospel promises, are true. And these are promises that are stronger than our sin. These are promises that are stronger than death itself. And you see that as we come to the conclusion of our chapter and the conclusion of this book. Look with me as we wrap things up to verses 29 through 33. Here we're given a most striking end to what has been a most encouraging and uplifting book. So many positive things have happened in the book of Joshua, but we end here, the final little vignette from Joshua 24 in the book of Joshua, it brings us to a cemetery. It brings us to the grave. It brings us to burials. Joshua is recorded victory after victory after victory, and yet the book ends in death. Not one death. Not two deaths. But three deaths. Three burials. Three graves. We read of that the death and the burial of Joshua in verses 29 through 31. We read of the burial of the bones of Joseph in verse 32 and we read of the death and burial of Eliezer the son of Aaron in verse 33. Why does Joshua end here? Well notice that for each one of them the place of their burial is recorded. The site of their gravestone is recorded. Joshua is buried in Timnath Sarai, which is in Ephraim. Joseph, the bones of Joseph are buried in Shechem in the piece of land that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor. Eliezer is buried in Gibeah, which is in Ephraim. The point of this is not just simply to give you some geographical detail. The point of this is that all three of them were buried. in the promised land, that they rest in the promised land. You see, God has kept his word. Death is not the final word. The grave is not the final word. God has the final word, not even death. can undo what God has promised. And the children of Israel need to know that. Because there are difficult days in their pilgrimage ahead. Challenging times up ahead. These last verses in Joshua 24 allude to that. It speaks of at least two of these burials as being in the hill country and we're reminded that the children of Israel have not yet taken possession of the plains. That will become a dominant theme in the book of Judges as they begin to settle with the Canaanites in the plains. We're also told there near the end of chapter 24 in verse 31 that Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua but we know already in Judges chapter 2 that once that generation died Israel immediately fell into apostasy and unbelief. Challenging times are ahead. And how are they to face them? By looking to the God of promise. They need to do that because the true land of promise has not yet been won. At this point in redemptive history, the last enemy has not yet been defeated. At this point in redemptive history, Joshua, this great leader in the Old Testament, Joshua, leaves us with graves that are full. It leaves us lacking. And it leaves us looking forward, looking ahead, looking to the great Joshua who must come, looking to the Lord Jesus Christ, because it's only when Jesus comes that the true promised land will be secured. It's only when Jesus comes that the last enemy will be defeated. It's only when Jesus comes that we will finally, at long last, be left with an empty grave. And yet so certain is his coming that the Old Testament Joshua leaves us with the hope of resurrection. And how do we have that hope? Because Joshua's God is a God of promise. And so this is the end of Joshua. It is the end of his life. It is the end of his pilgrimage. It is his final word. How did Joshua pilgrim through this barren land? Well, he tasted of the grapes of the promised land. And having tasted the sweetness of those gospel grapes, the giants didn't concern him. Indeed, he came through many dangers, toils, and snares, and he did so in faith, standing on God's promises, looking to him who is the death of death and hell's destruction, looking to him who alone could land him safe on Canaan's side. And so what did Joshua do in his farewell speech? What final word did he give to them? He proclaimed to them this great covenant God and the promises of this great covenant God, this God who is pleased to meet with his people, knowing full well what will come, and yet is pleased to meet with them to renew his covenant. And dear friends, What we are given here in Joshua 24 in the Old Covenant is just a shadow of the far better things that we get every Lord's Day, morning and evening in the New Covenant. As our God comes to meet with us, to renew his covenant, the New Covenant, that was sealed in Jesus' blood. That new covenant that proclaims salvation and rest for all who believe in him. That doesn't mean an easy life. It doesn't mean that we too will not have our challenges. There are many challenges on our pilgrim way. but we taste each Lord's Day the fruit of the promised land. God gives us gospel grapes, as it were, as he comes to proclaim to us his son. We belong to Jesus, the one who is the death of death, the one who is hell's destruction, the one who lands us safe on Canaan's side. He is our great Joshua. And every Lord's Day he meets with us because he knows our pilgrimage is hard. And he meets with us to give us himself and all of his benefits. He nourishes us on our pilgrim way with that great promise, be strong. and courageous, do not be frightened and do not be dismayed, for I, the Lord your God, am with you wherever you go." That's his final word. And what a comfort for us that the trials of this life, the hardships of this life, the griefs and sorrows of this life, The illnesses and viruses and pandemics of this life do not have the final word. Not even death has the final word. Jesus has the final word, and his word is life. All of God's promises are yes and amen in Jesus Christ. And so, dear believer, his promise to you is that you will reach the end of your pilgrimage. You will reach the rest remaining. And there, at the end of your pilgrimage, you will ever sing the praises to this great God, the God a promise. Amen.