Joshua 23:6-13 | Episode #1257

August 11, 2026

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Joshua 23:6-13

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for over 25 years. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse-by-verse and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Hope Alive, where we apply God's Word to our daily life. My name is Chad Harrison. I'm first a husband, a father and a grandfather. I'm also the teaching pastor at Lake Community Church in Dadeville, Alabama on beautiful Lake Martin. I've been serving as a pastor for over 30 years. I also serve as the Tallapoosa County District Judge. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse by verse through the Bible and to find his purpose and will for your daily life. If you would like sponsor this podcast, go to the Show Notes where there's a link where you can make a donation. I pray in the name of Jesus that God would open his word to you, allow you to see him and to know him, so that you would know his will and his way for your life that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today. Word of God, please speak to the hearers of your voice today in the name of Jesus. Amen. Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in Joshua chapter 23, and we're going to do verses 6 through 13 this morning. I apologize. Last night I was in court till, well, I wouldn't say late in the evening, but it was, it was, it was a good bit into the evening and couldn't make it to Bible study. But I'm very thankful we've got a large group of people who can handle that. God has given us a lot of pastors that can step in and do that. And I appreciate Jimmy and Philip handling Bible study last night. It's good to be able to count on your brothers to handle and step in when you can't do. And we have that. And so we've got that in abundance, really. And so I look forward to, to being back with you and getting back in the Revelation. We're going to have to get going to get it finished. Anyway, we're in verse six of chapter 23, and this is Joshua's farewell. And now we're getting kind of in the meat of the matter. And what I mean by that, well, this is where he kind of gives some of his important instructions as a farewell. And so obviously, if you're going to tell people the important things, you're going to tell them for sure the important things when it's the last thing you tell them. So if it's going to be a farewell, if it's going to be, you're not going to see them again. You want to invest all of your good stuff you don't want to get into the mundane and the things that don't really matter. You want to tell them what matters. And that's what Joshua does. And what does he say in chapter six, in verse six, he says, therefore, be courageous. And you go, well, why is that so important? Well, because that's what Joshua was told by the angel of the Lord, or the commander of the Lord's host, or really it was. Jesus told Joshua when he met him outside of Jericho to not be afraid, to be strong and courageous, to be very courageous. And so Joshua took that message, that message right before he began his fullness as leader of Israel. He was already leader, but he was about to go through the real battles of being the leader. Right before he did that, what did he do? Well, Joshua, Joshua. Joshua was told by God three separate times in that conversation to be strong and to be courageous, to not be afraid. And so he leaves that with the Israelites. He tells them, you need to be strong and courageous, therefore, be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses. He's telling them, okay, you've taken the land. And Joshua was the leader of that. He says, now you've gotta be strong and courageous. To do what? To follow the law, to live by the word of God, to live by God's precepts, to live by God's character. And that's what really the law is. It's a definition of God's character. And he says, you gotta be strong and courageous to do that. And you know what you do? You do have to be strong and courageous to do that. It's not easy. It's not something that happens overnight. It is an effort. Salvation is a walk with God. And as we're being saved, well, we're being changed. And that change is oftentimes painful, oftentimes difficult, oftentimes leads us in places we never imagined we'd be struggling through things we never imagined we'd see. And so when we're doing these things and walking with God, it takes. Well, it takes courage. It does. It takes us being courageous in the midst of our struggle, in the midst of our loss, in the midst of our failures. It is a difficult thing to be strong and courageous and to keep God's commandments, to keep his precepts, to keep his will well, to keep the fullness of Christ that has been revealed to us. He says. He says, lest you turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left, unless you go among the nations, These who remain among you, meaning you choose to deviate from God's word or you allow the world to change you. And you know, those are two separate issues. One is allowing the world to your emotions and your desire to be accepted by the world. Allow it to change you or to you turn to your own, your own fleshly desires. And that would be turning to the right into the left. And it is so easy to turn to our fleshly desires. They are. Well, David said, my sin is ever before me. What he's saying is I'm struggling with it all the time. And so he says, be strong and courageous. Unless you turn from the light right to the left, unless you go among the nations, you shall not make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause anyone to swear by them. You shall not serve them, nor bow down to them. What he's saying is, have nothing to do with other, well, false religions, he's saying, have nothing to do with them. Don't call them by name. Don't swear by them. Have nothing to do with them, he says, but you shall hold fast to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day. Now, notice I love. That's a. That's a word of encouragement. He says, you shall hold fast to the Lord your God, as you've already done. You've already done this. This is something that has been a part of your life, something been a part of your walk. You've already, you've already accomplished this. Keep doing it. And that's what he's saying here. Keep going. Don't slow down. Don't stop. Keep going. And it's something that is important to this day. For the Lord has driven out from before you great and strong nations. But as for you, no one has been able to stand against you to this day. Now that's true even for us. We are a kingdom of priests. We're the kingdom of God. And we walk in his kingdom and his likeness. And. And as we walk in that kingdom, we're powerful and, and the enemy has no place to. To take us. But, but it does require us to be strong and courageous in who we are. And so he's saying, no one's going to be able to stand against you. The gates of hell, in fact, will not prevail against you. One man of you shall chase a thousand. For the Lord your God is he who fights for you as he promised you. And by the way, Samuel, Samson is going to do that in just a few chapters. We're going to see Samson doing that one man of you shall chase a thousand. For the Lord your God is he who fights for you as he promised you. So in many ways this is a prophecy, but it's also a principle. And the principle is that you're going to be victorious. It doesn't matter what comes against you as long as you walk with him, he says. Or else if indeed you go back and cling to the remnant of these nations, these that remain among you and make marriages with them and go to them, and they to you know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations. What he's saying is, if you, if you begin to take on the practices of these nations, if you intermarry with them, if you go back to them. And by the way, they. They'd driven them out of a lot of the land. Some tribes had not. And by the way. But the problem was is they still were around them. Philistia was beside the sea. You had the pagan religion in the south, you had the. And I'm forgetting the name of the peoples that were to the north and Tyre and Sidon and that region. They were all there. They were really what we call, what were called during the Bronze Age collapse, the Sea People. The Sea People were on the coast and the Sea People were in the north. And those people still worshiped Molech, they still worshiped baal, and they still practiced, well, human sacrifice. And that's why they were destroyed. And by the way, that's why the Romans destroyed them and salted their city and made sure that they were no more, none of them ever again. And they did that everywhere. They found them because they were evil. The Romans did it because they did not want the stain of that human sacrifice on them. And you go, well, they had the Coliseum and those things, that's true, but they didn't have actual human sacrifice to their gods. And God said he wasn't going to have any of that. And that's why they were driven out. And God says, have nothing to do with them. Know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations, but from before you. And you know, that's one of those things that you need to understand. God's not going to be able to. God is not going to protect you when you walk in the middle of that. He's not. When you join with them, he's not going to be able to protect you. And when a people or a group or a organization or a political party or any of those things, when they go to places that are clearly, definably unscriptural, then you can't have anything to do with them. You can't have anything to do with them. And so they are an anathema to you. And so when we see those things he says, don't have anything to do with them, and you go, why are you telling us this now? Because it's part of the spirit filled Christian life. When you see the power of God and the ability for God to change things, oftentimes you think that you can compromise and still have that ability and still see those things happen. And the truth is you can't. The reason they're happening, the reason you're seeing life change, the reason you're seeing healing and hope and you're seeing people's lives made anew and made powerful, the reason you're seeing those things, the reason those things are happening is because of your faithfulness to God's Word and the power of God's word and the power of his Son. So sometimes you begin to think, well, I can compromise that and take that over to this situation or this group of people and I can change them. Well, see, the first change is the change of will. Remember that when you're born again, God calls you and, and your conversion experience involves your will being changed to God's will. And so if you're going to take this to them and be light to them, that's fine. But you can't become one of them. You can't be one of them because the light cannot. The light has nothing to do with the darkness. And so if you think, if you think compromising with them so that they can have light is going to work, that's putting a cover on your light so that they can stand you. And that won't work. That will never work. And so you have to be light to them. And if they're going to receive you, they've got to receive that light. And if they're not going to receive that light, they're not going to receive you. These are important understandings. These are very important understandings. He says, but they shall be snares and traps to you and scourges on your sides and thorns in your eyes until you perish from the good land which the Lord your God has given you, what he's saying is, when you go and compromise yourself with them so that they might accept you, well, snares and traps for you, scourges on your sides, thorns in your eyes till you perish from the good land God gave you. That's pretty detailed I mean, that's detailed right there. I mean, he says they're going to trap you and they do. They're going to scourge you mean they're going to beat you down and then they're going to shut your eyes to the truth. They're going to be thorns to your eyes so that you actually don't see the truth anymore. And then you're going to perish from the good land that God has given you. So Joshua's. Joshua's. The meat of his message is to be strong and courageous. To do the things that God has told you to do. To walk with God and to not join the nations around you, to not join the world, to not compromise for the world. But be light, an intense light all the time. It's a good message, isn't it? As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.