Josh 24:14+15, "Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." 
    	What a joy to consider this statement, proclaimed by the man who followed the Lord throughout his life on this earth. We first encountered Joshua as an aide to Moses and as a general of the army. Moses sent him to fight Amalek, at the time when Moses had to keep his arms raised for the Israelites to win the battle. Joshua was also one of the two faithful spies who urged the first generation to trust God and enter into the Promised Land. He was at the side of Moses throughout the time of the wilderness wandering. And finally, he was the one who faithfully led the people into the Promised Land. 
This statement of service to the Lord from Joshua was not bluster; it was not hyperbole: it was in fact the way that Joshua had lived his life in service and trust in the Lord. He put his life on the line many times for the sake of the Lord’s testimony in His people. His actions proved that this had been and ever would be his stand in this world.
	Accordingly, it is no stretch of scripture to know that Joshua would have taught his family in the ways of the Lord. He boldly declared that … as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. He fully meant that his family, from eldest to youngest, spouse or child, servant or other family member would all serve the Lord in the fullness and the completeness of what God required of all of them. We have no direct statements concerning the children of Joshua. However it can be stipulated that one who took such adamant delight in serving the Lord would have followed all the precepts of the Lord. This would absolutely include the manner in which the children, the heritage of the man, would be taught and counseled and instructed and encouraged and disciplined to follow the Lord with all their hearts. 
Admittedly there would have been those struggles with growing into adulthood and being able to choose the manner of walking in the light of the Lord. But the children and the grandchildren of Joshua would have been fully taught of the course of service that was expected as a family whose God was the Lord God Almighty, Jehovah. There would have been no place for the idols of this world or any other forms of religious activity save for that which was part of the familial service unto Jehovah, the Lord God Almighty.
This decree to teach the household to hold singly to the Lord was put into place by God at the very beginning of His announcement to Abraham that he would be made the father of a great nation. We find this recorded back in Gen 18:17-19. Please recognize what the Lord requires of those who are part of this living relationship with Him.
Gen 18:17-19, And the Lord said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed? "For I have chosen him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice; in order that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him." 
      	Note God’s direct statement, actually directive, concerning the Lord’s choice of Abraham … in order that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice…. Those who followed the Lord were to take, as a primary edict in that choice to honor the Lord, the wholehearted and ordained truth that they were to teach their household, all those in their homes and families, the manner in which to honor and to obey and to cherish their relationship with Yahweh.
	Consider Jacob’s response, in Gen 35:1-3, when the Lord made Himself known in a vital manner to this direct descendant of Abraham. Jacob understood what was necessary within his family that he was leading back to the land as directed by God. Many of the wives and servants and children had been raised as idol worshippers in a land that was filled with pagan teachings.
	Gen 35:1-3, Then God said to Jacob, "Arise, go up to Bethel, and live there; and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau." So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, "Put away the foreign gods which are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments; and let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and has been with me wherever I have gone." 
	The entire family and household was to put away all the gods which had no place within the community of those chosen by The Lord God Almighty. All those elements of foreign entanglement and constant and blatant dishonor and adultery before the Lord were to be cleaned out, as were the hearts and lives of those children and spouses and servants and herdsmen and shepherds. Everything was to be set in its perfect place in all the tents and hearts of this family as it traveled the course that God set before it.
	This was further stipulated for the nation as a whole when they were released from their slavery to Egypt with all its idol worship. As a side-note, it appears as the nature of mankind lost in sin and death, to ever fill the void that God has created for Himself in each one, with anything other than seeking after the Lord. 
This nation, just freed from the bondage of the false deities of Egypt was very quick to either make a golden calf for itself, or to adopt any of the other vile idols and evil practices of those wicked nations surrounding them. God had to emphasize over and over and over and over again that they were to have no other god before Him. They belonged to Him and He would completely bless them if only they would fill their hearts with seeking after Him and not all the garbage and wickedness of this age. 
Consider, for example, Ex 23:24-26. Ex 23:24-26, You shall not worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly overthrow them, and break their sacred pillars in pieces. But you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water; and I will remove sickness from your midst. There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days. 
Later, in Deut 30:19+20, the Lord, through Moses, reiterated once again what was required from the nation in its obedient observance of all that the Lord had put before them for their own well-being and blessing in the land. This was to be reinforced with the teaching of the children, age to age. The promise of the Lord had been passed down from generation to succeeding generation. Accordingly, the people were teach each of their children and their children’s children of the goodness and the blessing of the Lord with the obedient observance of all His commandments and ordnances. The were to be very careful and obedient not to befoul themselves with the idolatry that surrounded them.
	Deut 30:19+20, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them." 
    	This nation was fully informed of both the blessings and the curses that would be upon them depending whether they sought the Lord with all their heart and mind and being, or chose rather the defilement and the death of being an idolatrous nation just like the people whom they had disposed in the land of Promise. 
God was not slack in making the consequences of their choices known. Because of that, the people were to so instruct their households unto following The Lord, generation after generation in order to continually know the blessing and the fellowship of being faithful unto Jehovah.
	This then brings us back to our hero of consideration as he spoke to the two and ½ tribes who had been faithful in their promise to help the rest of the nation in the conquest of the Promised Land. As recorded in Josh 22:4+5, the Lord, through Joshua, dismissed them back to their homes and their children with the encouragement to not forget the Lord and to hold to Him all the days of their lives and their children’s lives and their grandchildren’s lives. We have already considered, in a prior lesson, how they had built a large altar to the Lord to remind the succeeding generations on both sides of the river that they all belonged to the Lord.
	Josh 22:4+5, And now the Lord your God has given rest to your brothers, as He spoke to them; therefore turn now and go to your tents, to the land of your possession, which Moses the servant of the Lord gave you beyond the Jordan. Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God and walk in all His ways and keep His commandments and hold fast to Him and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul." 
    	One can hear this same command reverberating throughout the household of Joshua in dealing with each member as Joshua faithfully obeyed the Lord. At every opportunity, as the Lord used every occasion to train and to teach and to cajole His nation …Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God and walk in all His ways and keep His commandments and hold fast to Him and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul. 
This encouragement should reverberate in our hearts and our minds and in our homes and families. It needs to become the course of our daily walk as it was with Joshua.
	We find the results of this later in an account given in the Book of Ruth. In this book is detailed the manner in which the Lord fulfilled the promise of His blessing upon those who remained true to Him, even if they were not the direct descendants of His nation. His heart was ever after all the nations of the earth turning to Him through the effective witness of His people. 
Naomi must have been such a witness. The reverence to The Lord in her home must have been clear and distinct. She must have taught her sons well in the ways of the Lord as we hear the manner in which Ruth was so moved to leave her own family and national heritage. She chose to turn to the Lord God Whom she must have seen evidenced in the lives of her mother-in-law and Naomi’s sons.
	Please open to Ruth, Chapter 1, and we will read verses 8-17. Ruth 1:8-17, And Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go, return each of you to her mother's house. May the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me. May the Lord grant that you may find rest, each in the house of her husband." Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. And they said to her, "No, but we will surely return with you to your people." But Naomi said, "Return, my daughters. Why should you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? "Return, my daughters! Go, for I am too old to have a husband. If I said I have hope, if I should even have a husband tonight and also bear sons, would you therefore wait until they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters; for it is harder for me than for you, for the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me." And they lifted up their voices and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. Then she said, "Behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods; return after your sister-in-law." But Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me." 
	The testimony of the love of Ruth for her mother-in-law, Naomi, reverberates within our hearts. That is why this passage is so beloved, especially that definitive statement of Ruth, the Moabitess. …for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.
	She was so moved by love for Naomi and for her God that Ruth forsook all other allegiances. She turned her back on her false idols to worship and to honor the Lord by holding fast to Naomi and following her and making every provision for her. 
Therefore the Lord fulfilled all the statements of His blessing upon those who will seek and honor and follow Him. He turned the widowhood and the meager daily gleaning of subsistence grain into a joy filled newfound husband with a resultant child who was part of the lineage of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
There was fulfilled all the blessing of God because Naomi held to her stand as of the heritage of the Lord’s people! Accordingly Ruth was so moved and instructed and receptive to the honoring of Yahweh as her Lord and Savior. That is the course of our living lives that give evidence to the fact that we love the Lord and call out to Him and rely upon Him in the presence of all those in our households. 
	Lord willing, we will conclude this consideration of the declaration so made by Joshua, and in fact the whole of the book of Joshua when next we are together. May the Lord so bless us with hearts that honor Him in all our instruction, verbally and livingly, before our families as the Lord God Almighty Whom, Alone, we will serve with all our hearts and beings. So be it! 
"Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Amen. 
	
This morning’s benediction is Isa 48:17. Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; "I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, Who leads you in the way you should go. Amen.