“WE WILL SERVE JEHOVAH”

Joshua 24:15 (from ‘but as’)

It has always been in mind from the divine side that believers and believing households should be used in service towards God. When the children of Israel were in Egypt, God said, “Let my people go, that they may serve me”, Exod.8:1. It was not simply that they would be released from the pressure and all that was affecting their life in Egypt, but that they would be set free to serve Jehovah. This scripture has come to me in the past few days as I was thinking of this occasion because a feature of our brother’s life was to serve. Service involves commitment and faithfulness and it involves steadfastness and endurance. I was also thinking of the Hebrew bondman; he said, “I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go free”, Exod.21:5. He committed himself to serve his master, and then he was taken to the doorpost where his ear was bored through with an awl, and for the rest of his life, he would have served his master in love. How wonderful! You may say, I cannot do much, but we are able to serve the Lord, under His direction about what He would have in mind.

This scripture is very precise. Joshua did not say, ‘as for my household’, he said “as for me”. There is a need for the head of the household to give a lead in this matter of service and subjection to the master. For us, it is the Lord Jesus. It is for the household to follow that lead as it is given, and it then becomes a household set for service: “as for me and my house”. How wonderful is a household set for service to the Lord, a household set in relation to the local assembly, a household seeing what needs to be done, a household given strength and spiritual power to do it. These features were seen in our brother and I commend the matter to everyone, because there is room for us all to increase in serving God. It does require commitment. Joshua was making a statement here, setting out what he intended to do. It is like Daniel; Daniel “purposed in his heart”, Dan.1:8. We need purpose of heart to say, “as for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah”. How commendable, how profitable, how encouraging.

This day in which we are is a day of small things (Zech.4:10), but today we have an opportunity to recommit ourselves to serve God. There is great need for it. We can take account of a life completed; the Lord Jesus has put our brother to sleep, his service is finished. And now the Lord Jesus would draw near to comfort us, for He has “borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”, Isa.53:4. The Lord Jesus felt things, He felt death, and it says of Him that, when Lazarus was in the tomb, He wept (John 11:35). This is a sad occasion, but think of the Lord Jesus entering into our grief, not only to sympathise but to comfort and to encourage. He would draw near, and our heavenly Father would come near to us, to show us the reality of the constant care that we so often sing of, and to give us the succour and comfort and support that we need.

But as well as that, He would encourage us to go on; He would set us forward. Our brother has said in prayer that we would look for encouragement and we have a God who gives us great comfort; He is always there to encourage us and establish us. There is sadness in our hearts in one sense, but may we be set forward to commit ourselves and to be able to say from our hearts “as for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah”.

May we be encouraged, for the Lord’s name’s sake.

David Marshall