Last Words of Joshua
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souls,” he said, “that not one thing hath failed of all the good things
which the Lord your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass
unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof.” He declared to them
that as the Lord had fulfilled His promises, so He would fulfill His
threatenings. “It shall come to pass, that as all good things are come
upon you, which the Lord your God promised you; so shall the Lord
bring upon you all evil things.... When ye have transgressed the
covenant of the Lord, ... then shall the anger of the Lord be kindled
against you, and ye shall perish quickly from off the good land which
He hath given unto you.”
Satan deceives many with the plausible theory that God’s love for
His people is so great that He will excuse sin in them; he represents that
while the threatenings of God’s word are to serve a certain purpose in
His moral government, they are never to be literally fulfilled. But in all
His dealings with His creatures God has maintained the principles of
righteousness by revealing sin in its true character—by demonstrating
that its sure result is misery and death. The unconditional pardon
of sin never has been, and never will be. Such pardon would show
the abandonment of the principles of righteousness, which are the
very foundation of the government of God. It would fill the unfallen
universe with consternation. God has faithfully pointed out the results
of sin, and if these warnings were not true, how could we be sure that
His promises would be fulfilled? That so-called benevolence which
would set aside justice is not benevolence but weakness.
God is the life-giver. From the beginning all His laws were or-
dained to life. But sin broke in upon the order that God had established,
and discord followed. So long as sin exists, suffering and death are
inevitable. It is only because the Redeemer has borne the curse of sin
in our behalf that man can hope to escape, in his own person, its dire
results.
Before the death of Joshua the heads and representatives of the
tribes, obedient to his summons, again assembled at Shechem. No
spot in all the land possessed so many sacred associations, carrying
their minds back to God’s covenant with Abraham and Jacob, and
recalling also their own solemn vows upon their entrance into Canaan.
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Here were the mountains Ebal and Gerizim, the silent witnesses of
those vows which now, in the presence of their dying leader, they had
assembled to renew. On every side were evidences of what God had