Sermon Central
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A Time For Re-Dedication
Contributed by Jack Woodard on Jul 7, 2011 (message contributor)
Summary: Joshua is now an old man facing the end of his life. He had spent all of his life fighting to possess all that the Lord had promised his people, now he spends his last days fighting to assure that his nation does not sin those same blessings away.
TEXT: JOSHUA 23:1; 24:14-31
TITLE: A TIME FOR RE-DEDICATION
AUTHOR: JACK WOODARD
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INTRODUCTION:
Joshua is now an old man and realizes that his days are numbered and that the last great act of service to his nation must be a bold challenge to them to Repent and Re-dedicate their lives to the Lord. Their repentance and re-dedication must be TIMELY and TOTAL. I believe that every older person surely must see that our beloved Nation is in dire need of a Revival in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every Parent and Grandparent needs to see the mess we have made of our Nation, a mess we are passing on to our Children and Grandchildren. Having seen this mess we need to like Joshua, spend the last days of our lives no longer living for ourselves, but we must, for the sake of the coming generations, give the rest of our lives, committed to cleaning up the mess we have made so that our children and grandchildren will not have to inherit this mess we have made of our Nation.
As Joshua gathered the Nation together he stood before them and boldly challenged them to join him and his family in re-dedicating their lives unto the Lord. Let’s break his message down and let us repeat it to our Nation that stands where Joshua’s Nation stood so many generations ago. Let us be as committed to seeing Revival among the Lord’s people before we die, as was Joshua.
1. THE MOTIVATIONS TO CONSIDER
To call them to Re-dedication Joshua gave them two Motivations to Consider.
A. The Lord’s Past Blessings (24:17)
Joshua calls his nation to remember what their life was like before the Lord had led them out of Egypt and brought them into the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
1. Their Salvation (24:17a)
Their former life in Egypt was one of bondage. They were a nation of slaves with no freedom. They got up every morning to the cruel orders of their taskmasters. They were never to have any plans, but their master’s plans. They never had a future except what their slave masters had planned for them. Their whole lives and the lives of their loved ones were dominated by slave masters and slave labor, under the poorest of conditions.
All of that changed one day with the arrival of one who would become their deliverer, Moses. In a short space of time Moses would be used of the Lord to bring the mightiest nation upon the face of the earth to its knees, begging the Jewish Nation to depart from their borders. They would be so eager to see them leave that they would enrich them with lavish gifts. Oh, what a day of rejoicing that was. What a love affair they had with the Lord in those early days of their salvation.
Every person who has ever been saved has a similar testimony. Our lives before we were saved were ones of being enslaved to our passions, with a future without God and without hope, and then one day our Savior come to us in conviction, leading us out of our life of sin and into eternal life. We too had the joy of our First Love with Jesus, but through the years that love and devotion to Him has become just a faint memory for many, just as it had done with Joshua’s generation.
The memory of those early days, when we came fresh from Calvary, ought to be a great motivation for each of us to examine our lives and relationship with Jesus and to rededicate our lives to Him if we find ourselves wanting.
2. Their Preservation (24:17b)
Not only had the Lord brought them out of Egypt, the house of bondage, and into the Promised Land, but He had preserved them through many dangers, toils, and snares. He had enriched every part of their lives with His favor. He had given them homes they had not built, vineyards they had not planted. Their children had a future now that they had not once had. They were owners of their land and no longer another man’s slave.
Since we have been saved the Lord has also preserved us in all of our ways. [Psalms 34:19] "Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivereth him out of them all." Each one of the Lord’s children could write a book on all the times the Lord has preserved us from the time He saved us until this very day. What a motivation for a wayward Christian to re-dedicate their life to the Lord.
The Hymn, AMAZING GRACE could have been Joshua’s Invitation Hymn!!
"Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me!
