Join It Is Written Sabbath School host Eric Flickinger and this quarter’s author, Dr. Barna Magyarosi, as they provide additional insights into this week’s Sabbath School lesson, “Choose this Day!”

<p>Join It Is Written Sabbath School host Eric Flickinger and this quarter’s author, Dr. Barna Magyarosi, as they provide additional insights into this week’s Sabbath School lesson, “Choose this Day!”</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

It Is Written

Sabbath School 4th Quarter 2025: Lessons of Faith from Joshua

Eric Flickinger

Barna Magyarosi

01 Recipe for Success

02 Surprised by Grace

03 Memorials of Grace

John Bradshaw

Alive From the Dead: The Strange Truth About Baptism

04 The Conflict Behind All Conflicts

05 God Fights for You

06 The Enemy Within

07 Ultimate Loyalty - Worship in a War Zone

08 Giants of Faith: Joshua and Caleb

09 Heirs of Promises, Prisoners of Hope

10 The True Joshua

11 Living in the Land

Eric Walsh

12 God is Faithful!

13 Choose this Day!


Welcome to Sabbath School brought to you by It Is Written. We're glad that you are here today joining us. This is lesson 13, the final lesson in our journey through the book of Joshua. We are looking at lessons of faith from Joshua, and we're gonna tie everything together today. It is choose this day.

So let's begin with prayer. Father, we ask that you will bless us again today on our final chapter in the book of our study of Joshua. We ask that you will help us to bring a lot of ideas together and find how we can apply these ideas, these principles, these lessons practically in our lives today. And we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.

Well, we're grateful that you are here, but we are also grateful that the author of this quarter's Sabbath school lesson is here for 1 final time on our program, Barna Modjarosy. Barna, thank you for joining us once again. Thank you again for having me. It's been a real privilege to have you with us and for you to share some of these insights that God has given you over the years into the book of Joshua. We appreciate that immensely.

This lesson, last 1, lesson 13, choose this day. The last chapter of Joshua is structured in a particular way for a particular purpose. What is that structure and what is its significance? We have to understand that the purpose of the last chapter is basically covenant renewal. And the whole chapter is structured according to how the ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaties were structured.

And for those who would like to understand deeper what is a suzerainty treaty, a suzerain is a higher king that is offering protection to a lesser king and they sign a kind of an understanding, a memorandum of understanding of their relationship. And of course in the relationship between God and Israel, God is in the role of this suzerain and Israel is the vassal that receives this treaty. And there are several elements to a treaty. 1 is a preamble. It's a historical overview of the relationship of the 2 parties.

Then it is followed by a historical prologue which then is followed by the covenant stipulations. What are the obligations and what the 2 parties pledge to fulfill. The fourth element is blessings for obedience and of course curses for breaking the Covenant. Finally we have witnesses, Who are the witnesses of this covenant? And in the end, it is a ratification of the covenant.

Now, we have to underline that this is not the making of the covenant. This is just the renewal of the covenant. But if we go back and we study how the book of Deuteronomy is structured, it follows the same structure. That is the covenant. This is a shorter version which shows us that God wants Israel to once in a while recommit themselves to this covenant.

So there's a significant structure here. We understand now a little bit more about that structure. And in this section here, we find that Joshua chooses Shechem to address the leaders of Israel. Why does he choose Shechem? Simple answer, because the place speaks.

It is a historical place. It is the first place that is mentioned during the journey of Abraham when he entered Canaan. And this is a place where he erects an altar and worships the true God. So this is a very significant place because this is the place where Abraham received the first time the promise of the land. Now 400 some years later, we have come all the way full circle back to the same place and we see that everything that God has promised to Abraham has been fulfilled now.

So Shechem is a very rich historical place. But if we look at the life of the patriarchs, Shechem is also a place where we have some questions and doubts because It is the place where Jacob comes back and faces Esau. And as he comes back, he promises something. I mean, he promised something to God. We remember that he said, when he had that dream with the ladder going up to heaven, it says, and that was at Bethel.

And at Bethel he says, I will come back and I will settle this place and I will build here a place to you. He comes and instead of going back to Bethel, he settles at Shechem. And this is the place where something terribly bad happened to 1 of his daughters. She was raped by a prince of the Canaanites and then his sons take a terrible and bloody revenge and Jacob is fearful for his life. And this is the moment when he starts analyzing himself and he says, wow, I promised the Lord that I will go to Bethel and yet I'm at Shechem.

And then he tells the family to gather all the idols. Wow, what were the idols doing in the life of Jacob and his family? So there were still idols there at Shechem. So on the 1 hand, this is a place that reminds us of God's faithfulness. But Shechem also raises the danger and the prospect of idolatry in the life of the Israelites.

In this section also Joshua gives this speech and as he gives this speech it implies a very strong sense of corporate solidarity within Israel. Obviously there's a reason for that We can extend that down to our day. From this example, how can we have a better understanding of being 1 body, the body of Christ, living in our day with all these implications, with all the implications for our church today? For us, corporate identity is a strange concept. But we have seen that God treats Israel as a unit.

Even in the previous chapter, we didn't have time to go into that detail. But we see what happens. God says, you were there. You were there when the Red Sea was divided. You were there when we had the covenant.

They were not there. They are second generation. Yet, because they belong to Israel and they have this covenantal relationship with God, they are treated as 1. Now there is something similar in the New Testament because Jesus comes as the true and the new Israel. In the first letter to Corinthians, Paul says that in him, all the promises of the covenant have become yes, which means that Jesus with his life has fulfilled the covenantal expectations on behalf of Israel.

He is the real Israel and he repeats the history of Israel and he stands tall where Israel failed And then Paul goes on and develops this theme of you are in Christ. It's another type of corporate identity. But once our life is hidden in Christ, We are treated as Christ. We are 1 with Christ. So this is perhaps a little intro into this concept of corporate solidarity.

And having that corporate identity is important for us living in the days in which we live. There's a passage in here where it talks about Joshua serving the Lord in sincerity and truth. What does it mean? It talks about God also being jealous. Maybe we feel a little uncomfortable with this idea of God being jealous.

If he's perfect and loving and so forth, how can he be jealous? Jealousy in most cases, in our human experience, is a negative term. It can be translated as this, if this happens to me, then I'm going to do this to you. But in the case of God, says if this is going to happen to you, then this is what is going to happen to me. It is the opposite.

It is God's caring and loving attitude toward Israel. Usually when we are jealous, we are afraid of what will happen to us if our partner or if our beloved 1 will do something. In God's case, He is not concerned about Himself. He is concerned about our well-being. And He says, I don't know what I'm going to do if this is going to happen to you.

So it comes, it springs from God's deep love for us and for his people. Now of course you mentioned that God expected Israel to love and to serve God in in 2 terms in sincerity and in truth. I like what Walter Brueggemann says in 1 of his books. He says this covenantal relationship between God and Israel is an all-giving and all-demanding relationship. And when it comes to faithfulness, there is 1 single principle, I mean there are many, but 1 is crucial.

And this is called the principle of all or nothing. When it comes to faithfulness, there is not faithfulness 99%. You know, which is that husband or wife that would be happy with such a declaration. Honey, I am 99% faithful to you. Or 99.99%.

Is that enough? It's not enough. It falls short. It falls short because when it comes to trust and loyalty and faithfulness, fidelity, it is all about all or nothing. And that's what it says here.

In sincerity, it is the Hebrew term tamim, which is a term that described how the sacrificial animal had to be perfect or blameless. Now to serve the Lord in a perfect way does not necessarily mean that we are completely eliminating the possibility of sin in our lives. It means though that we give our best. As you know, that lamb or that sacrificial animal was not perfect because sin affected all nature, but it was the best that that person had and could bring. And then the second term is in truth.

That's another difficult term in Hebrew, emet, in Hebrew that can be translated as truth or truthfulness or even better faithfulness. And this is a word that describes many times how God is towards us. He is a God of truth. He is a God of truthfulness. He is trustworthy.

He is consistent. You always can count on Him. So, now we turn this around. Serve the Lord. Give Him your best and do it in all faithfulness.

That makes a lot of sense for Joshua to be sharing with the people of Israel as we come down to the end of his ministry. And as he's getting down to the end of his ministry, we're also kind of getting down to the end of our time together here. We're not finished yet. We've still got another segment to go, but I want to give you an opportunity 1 final time to share with people about this companion book that you have written to this quarter's Sava School lesson. Why would somebody want to pick that up, even though we're on the last lesson?

Maybe they haven't picked up. This may be the first 1 that they hear. Why would they want to pick up that companion book? What's in it that's beneficial, worthwhile for them to grab? What I tried to achieve, I'm not sure to what extent, but I hope I did, with the companion book is twofold.

1, to go deeper in some of the more difficult concepts that we have in Joshua and in our quarterly, and then to deal with the practical aspects that are present in our study. How do we apply the book of Joshua to our everyday life? So that's perhaps the greatest benefit of the companion book. So if you would like to receive those benefits, understand it more deeply and know how you can apply all these principles, all these lessons that we have learned in the book of Joshua to your life living today with all the situations that you are going through and you have going around in your family, in your work, in your church, in your life, make sure you pick up that companion book to this quarter's Sabbath school lesson. You will find it at itiswritten.shop.

Again, that's itiswritten.shop. You're looking for the companion book to this quarter's Sabbath school lesson. It's on lessons of faith from Joshua. We're going to be right back as we continue looking at Choose This Day. We'll be right back.

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Thank you for partnering with It Is Written in opening eyes to the goodness of God and offering hope to the world. Welcome back to Sabbath School brought to you by It Is Written. We are on lesson number 13, the final lesson of our study together here, choose this day. Barna, we're kind of getting down toward the end here, but there's an interesting passage here in Joshua chapter, I think it's 24, verses 18 and 19, where Joshua tells the people to serve the Lord, and then he says, you're not able to serve the Lord. Why would he tell them to do something that they're not able to do?

There's a reason for this. What is it? It is interesting because what Joshua tries to accomplish is to convince them that their only option is to serve the Lord. And we have these famous verses, you know, I don't know about you, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And then finally he gets to the point that the people are ready to respond and they say we choose the Lord We want to serve the Lord and then he says you are not able to serve the Lord I think that Joshua here is doing more than playing the devil's advocate I think he wants to tell them that your own resolution is not enough.

You need God's help. You need his power to be able to serve the Lord. And that's the same situation for us today. Oh, yes. In and of our own strength and power, we're not able to, but with Christ's help we absolutely can.

There's another section in here where where Joshua talks about the risk of idols and the importance of getting rid of idols. Now, back in those days, those might have been physical items that were made of wood or stone or metal or something. How do we take the principles, the importance of Joshua saying, get rid of these idols, what does that look like in our day? How do we translate that into our time? Idolatry is not a phenomenon that belongs to the past.

We have been created to be reflective beings, to reflect the image of God and to worship God. And if we do not worship God, we are going to worship something. And anything and anybody who we choose to provide us with safety, with satisfaction, and with meaning in life, that is going to become an idol. Anything else than God, of course, Because this is how we were made. Augustine said that deep down in every human heart, there is a hole that has the shape of God.

And if we fill that hole with something else than God, then that thing or that person or that concept or whatever it is, it is going to take the place of God in our lives. What is the difference though? The difference is that worshipping God will give us fulfillment, will make us who we were meant to be, while anything else will devour us alive. It will make us miserable. What we see today, we can make gods of many things.

It can be power, it can be pleasure, it can be money, it can be a spouse, it can be a child, it can be anything. If we make, it can be a good thing, But if we make that good thing into the ultimate thing, it becomes an idol. And This is where we need to set our priorities right. And Joshua, of course, was fully aware of this danger, that we cannot expect our safety, our security, our meaning in life from anybody else than God. And that's sage advice from Joshua.

Now that parallel that I was wanting to pull together here, Joshua, like Paul, fought the good fight. Both of them did. We lift them up as examples for how we might live our lives today. What was the key to Joshua's success? What was it that helped him to fight that good fight?

And what kind of decisions do we need to make today that are also going to help us face the future with the same assurance of salvation and victory that Joshua had? We started with Joshua receiving a challenge, an advice, and an appeal from God. And we remember what that was. It was, be courageous and then keep this Word. Meditate upon this Word and make it your guide.

I am paraphrasing here, of course. And I think Joshua, if we look through the entire book, he tried to be, and he proved to be, faithful to the guidance that the Lord provided. Now it was only 1 time when we have seen that he was absent. Now we don't know if the leaders of Israel have ever brought that to his attention. So we cannot say it was his fault that he didn't know about the Gibeonites.

But other than that we see that all throughout the book, You know, whatever the Lord says, Joshua faithfully fulfills it. So the success of Joshua was that he understood who the Lord was, what the Lord wanted, and I am sure that he had a copy of the Law, which was basically back then the 5 books of Moses, and he had a high esteem for those writings, and he searched those writings, and he wanted to discern God's will from those writings, and not only to discern, but to apply in his own life. So to me, the success of Joshua rests in his faithfulness. He's been faithful to the end. He fought the good fight and he stood faithful.

So faithfulness is a theme that runs from chapter 1 through chapter 24, beginning to end of this book. We're essentially at the end of our time together. We've had 13 wonderful lessons together. We're ending on this note of choosing this day, who we're going to serve. If there's somebody out there who's watching right now, and they grasp some of the concepts in Joshua, they want to be ready for Jesus to come.

They wanna have a strong faith like Joshua, even stronger perhaps than Joshua, and they want Jesus to work in their lives, what kind of encouragement, what words of wisdom would you share with that person to give them encouragement that they can be ready and not only they, but that maybe they can be an influence on others to be ready when Jesus comes back. I would like to encourage you to take the example of Joshua, because in the time of Joshua the task was daunting. There were giants, there were all kinds of dangerous challenges, problems that he needed to face. And what I, I look at Joshua and I see in him this person that was ready even to untie his shoes when the Lord said, be careful, this is holy ground. And you see Joshua on his knees, worshipping the Lord and accepting guidance from the Lord.

I think if you, dear viewer, would like to have a similar success to that of Joshua and would like to experience the guidance of the Lord in your life, I would encourage you to take this book, take it to your heart, study it, make it your own, underline it, mark it. But more than that, I would urge you to allow this book to mark your life. We used to underline, mark our Bibles. I prefer to have a life that is marked by the Bible, that I make the Bible my own. I learn as much as I can from the Bible, and I ask God to transform me through the Word and through the inner work of the Holy Spirit.

May this be your experience as you study and as you ponder upon the book of Joshua. Barna, thank you for joining us and leading us on this journey. We appreciate it greatly. And thank you for being with us as we have taken this incredible journey through the book of Joshua. May this not be the end of your study of the book of Joshua, but merely the beginning.

Mine its depths, find the truths, and by God's grace, apply them to your life so that he may be able to shine through you. Thank you for joining us this quarter. We have a brand new quarter of Sabbath School starting again next week, and we look forward to seeing you there. This has been Sabbath School brought to you by It Is Written. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ You

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Series

Sabbath School 4th Quarter 2025: Lessons of Faith from Joshua

13 Choose this Day!

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Other Teachings in Series

01 Recipe for Success

28m

02 Surprised by Grace

28m

03 Memorials of Grace

28m

Alive From the Dead: The Strange Truth About Baptism

28m

04 The Conflict Behind All Conflicts

28m

05 God Fights for You

28m

06 The Enemy Within

28m

07 Ultimate Loyalty - Worship in a War Zone

28m

08 Giants of Faith: Joshua and Caleb

28m

09 Heirs of Promises, Prisoners of Hope

28m

10 The True Joshua

28m

11 Living in the Land

28m

12 God is Faithful!

28m

13 Choose this Day!

28m

Sound Doctrine