What If?

There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them.

Joshua 8: 36

 

This event might not look the same in our times as there is little probability that any large gathering of people, much less that any nation of people would gather together in this manner. Here the sum total of the people of Israel had come together across one great valley and its adjoining mountain sides in order to worship God in celebration of the Lord’s redemptive work in their military victory over the city of Ai. The centerpiece of this celebration was the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and the priests were the ones who were leading the nation in both substance and in the form of this great victory party. Yet, as they transition from focusing on the tactics and the methods of war and return to the task at hand of settling the land, the people are reminded of the true power that was behind their success and of the basis for all that defines their national and individual character.

 

They are a people who have been given their identity by God, and they have gained their understanding of morality and of justice through God’s Law, His Holy Word. There is nothing that stands before this recitation of God’s will in the law of the land or in the ordering of their society. This was a special time and place in the history of the world, and it has really never been duplicated since. Even under Joshua’s strong and Godly leadership, the people were very quick to depart from the Lord’s way and to set out upon their own course of thought and action. Today the best that we can hope for is an off-handed reference to God or a quote from His Word, but our nations seldom express any real interest in following the Lord or in even hearing and utilizing His truth as counsel or as direction to be followed. It is as if God were now an irrelevant part of ancient history and His Word is granted the status of troublesome and obscure literary fiction.

 

None of these modern attitudes can possibly be pleasing to God. He is not amused by our self-reliance and negation of His wisdom and direction. Although a modern day turning to God on the parts of people, our leaders, and nations might not look exactly like that assembly in a natural amphitheater at Shechem. Yet, the location is not really the point. The idea is that the entire collection of people were giving praise and honor to God as their one true King, and as they did this they engaged in group recitation of God’s Word in its entirety. They left out nothing; so, they made no editorial or cultural changes to the message of that word. In sharing it in this highly public manner, they were also affirming its priority as their singular point of guidance for their moral, cultural, and spiritual lives. Thus, they were affirming that the Lord was the singular and final authority over all aspects of life and over its conduct into the future.

It seems to me that this might not be such a bad idea in our world. There is an aimlessness to the way that our nations and our leaders are going that might find focus and valid purpose in God’s Word. The degree to which the people of this earth have become self-reliant and absorbed in actions and enterprises that we think will benefit ourselves primarily and that often work against the well-being of others must be troubling to the God of justice and peace. God’s design for this world works, and our redirection of it has not. Although I am not so naïve as to think that the leaders of nations or the people of those countries would actually do what the people of Israel did on that day, I do wonder what effect such a turning to God would have on us all. So, how might our world be different if each of us began to do the sort of things that Joshua led them into as they centered their day upon worship of God, devoted themselves to reading and to sharing His Word, and gathered openly in a universal fellowship of faith? What might that world look like?

 

A Strong City

We have a strong city. He sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks.

Open the gates that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.

Isaiah 26: 1, 2

 

The first thing that comes to my mind is that this must be a comment that is rooted in history and is about a time long in the past. For in my world, there is no such place and none of the nations that I can identify could be described as righteous. This is a world that is filled with the exact opposite. The cities and their nations are places where strong-willed individualism reigns. They are environments in which greed, oppression, lust, and murder are lifted up as exemplars of virtue, and Godliness is mocked as foolishness or as superstition and weakness.

 

Yet, despite the fact that Isaiah was describing events in the history of Judah, I think that God was speaking to us about our world through the prophet. So, even in our sinful and defiant world, there must be a strong city and a righteous nation. God sees the place where His faithful can dwell in the peace and the protection of His walls of strength. Not only does He see it, but the Lord wants to lead us through its gates and into its joyous bounty.

 

In Christ we have eternal protection and current provision. Through the Holy Spirit we possess truth, its wisdom, and the grace of God. These are the essential components of citizenship in God’s temporal and heavenly kingdom, the everlasting dwelling place of God’s own people. Still, as individuals we do not stand as a city and gather into a nation. I believe that our Lord desires for those of us who know Him to commit to one another in a covenant of faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to gather into a fellowship that is grounded and centered upon Christ, Himself alone. In order to do this we would need to subordinate all other allegiances and loyalties to faith in the one, true King. Yet, gathering as Christ’s body, we enter into His strength, and our feet are standing on the Lord’s holy mountain.