From Sometime to Now | Raising the Bar Week 5 | Stephen Hart (Rototuna North)

So if you've got your Bibles and you want to begin to turn there, that's where we're going to be.

And it's where Joshua is speaking to the Israelites.

And he says, choose today whom you will serve.

But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Father, I thank you for your word.

Thank you that it is sharper and it is so powerful.

It cuts between all the things that we have hiding in our hearts that we don't even realize are there half the time.

So I pray that your word would illuminate our hearts and our minds, say that you would expose things that want to be exposed, that need to be exposed, so that us, your people, your children, would be free and free indeed in Jesus' name.

Amen.

All right, so Joshua 24.

I'm going to begin at verse 1 and going to go all the way through, and I'm going to jump around a little bit in there.

So I'll try and point out the verse numbers as we go.

But Joshua 24, 1 begins like this.

Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem.

He summoned the elders, the leaders, the judges, and the officials of Israel, and they presented themselves there before the Lord.

Joshua said to all the people, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says.

Long ago, your ancestors, including Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and they worshipped other gods.

But I took your father Abraham from that land beyond the Euphrates and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants.

Verse 5.

Then I sent Moses and Aaron and I afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there and I brought you out.

Verse 7.

You saw with your own eyes what I did to the Egyptians.

Then you lived in the wilderness for a long time.

I brought you to the land of the Amorites who lived east of the Jordan.

They fought against you, but I gave them into your hands.