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 After a long time had passed and the Lord had given Israel rest from all their enemies around them, Joshua, by then a very old man, ² summoned all Israel—their elders, leaders, judges and officials—and said to them: “I am very old. ³ You yourselves have seen everything the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake; it was the Lord your God who fought for you. ⁴ Remember how I have allotted as an inheritance for your tribes all the land of the nations that remain—the nations I conquered—between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea in the west. ⁵ The Lord your God himself will push them out for your sake. He will drive them out before you, and you will take possession of their land, as the Lord your God promised you.

⁶ “Be very strong; be careful to obey all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, without turning aside to the right or to the left. ⁷ Do not associate with these nations that remain among you; do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them. ⁸ But you are to hold fast to the Lord your God, as you have until now.

⁹ “The Lord has driven out before you great and powerful nations; to this day no one has been able to withstand you. ¹⁰ One of you routs a thousand, because the Lord your God fights for you, just as he promised. ¹¹ So be very careful to love the Lord your God.

¹² “But if you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, ¹³ then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁴ “Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed. ¹⁵ But just as all the good things the Lord your God has promised you have come to you, so he will bring on you all the evil things he has threatened, until the Lord your God has destroyed you from this good land he has given you. ¹⁶ If you violate the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land he has given you.” (NIV)

As we come to look at this chapter, I find Warren Wiersbe’s words instructive:

‘No matter how great leaders may be, they cannot last forever, although their work is never lost (1 John 2:17). Like his predecessor Moses, Joshua gave a farewell address, first to his leaders (chap.23) and then to the people as a whole (chap.24).

He magnified the Lord and not himself. No one would question that Joshua was a gifted leader and a great general, but he gave the glory to God…

…You are writing your own ”farewell speech” right now. What will it sound like?’

Someone said, ‘Death is the ultimate statistic: one out of one dies.’ No matter how great a person’s achievements under God, that individual will not go on forever. We cannot hold back time. As Joshua came to the end of his days on earth, his focus was on the Lord and on what He had done, and on what He would still do for His people if they remained true to Him. He was God-focussed.

PRAYER: Lord God, please keep all of our hearts and minds stayed upon you, for your Name’s sake.

For the director of music. With stringed instruments. A maskil of David.

¹ Listen to my prayer, O God,
    do not ignore my plea;
²     hear me and answer me.
My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught
³     because of what my enemy is saying,
    because of the threats of the wicked;
for they bring down suffering on me
    and assail me in their anger.

⁴ My heart is in anguish within me;
    the terrors of death have fallen on me.
⁵ Fear and trembling have beset me;
    horror has overwhelmed me.
⁶ I said, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!
    I would fly away and be at rest.
⁷ I would flee far away
    and stay in the desert;
⁸ I would hurry to my place of shelter,
    far from the tempest and storm.”

⁹ Lord, confuse the wicked, confound their words,
    for I see violence and strife in the city.
¹⁰ Day and night they prowl about on its walls;
    malice and abuse are within it.
¹¹ Destructive forces are at work in the city;
    threats and lies never leave its streets. (NIV)

When someone once said to me that they wished they could run to some place far away from their problems, I felt I had to gently reply, ‘But you wouldn’t get away from them. You would still carry those things inside you.’ There is a saying, ‘Wherever you go, there you are.’

But it’s not always the wrong instinct. A pastor observed that ‘Change of pace plus change of place equals change of perspective.’ Many of us have proved the truth of that.

In David’s case it was an understandable desire. It would seem that his life was in danger. It is thought that Psalm 55 belongs to the time of Absalom’s rebellion, and the betrayal of Ahithophel (see 2 Samuel 15). The latter was one of David’s closest advisors. David was forced to flee from Jerusalem…

…But this Psalm shows him fleeing to God. Once again, David points the way to a life of prayer in all circumstances.

Whatever it is, take it to the Lord in prayer.