Joshua Finished Well at The Age of 110

As a speaker, Bible teacher and former pastor Dr. Lehman Strauss in his later years was a full-time Bible Conference preacher who spoke at the Word of Life Camps and Conference Center for many years. I have heard him often say that he wanted to finish well. The last weekend of hi … More

Finish Well

Realizing that further words would be fruitless, Joshua solemnly renewed the covenant (vv.25-26). The covenant between Israel and God was that the people would worship and obey the Lord alone. Their purpose was to be a holy nation that would influence the rest of the world for God. The conquest of Canaan was a means to achieve this purpose, but Israel became preoccupied with the land and lost sight of the Lord God. The same can happen in our life. We can spend so much time on the means that we forget to finish well. Religious traditions can be helpful or hurtful depending on how we use them.

The book ends with three burials, the first being Joshua’s. He died at the age of 110 and was buried with honor in the town he had carved out of the wilderness, which was a part of the inheritance he claimed (vv. 29-30). There is no record of any great memorial built for him. There were ten memorial stones placed in the land during Joshua’s lifetime, and they were all memorials to God and what God did. The second burial was that of Joseph. His bones had been brought up out of bondage and carried through the wilderness, and finally he rested in the land that Jacob had purchased (v. 32). The third burial is that of Eleazar the high priest, the son of Aaron, the former high priest of Israel (v. 33).

No greater tribute could be paid to this man, Joshua, than that he was simply called “the servant of the Lord” (v. 29). His influence lived on (v. 31). His lifestyle had demonstrated his great leadership abilities, and the message his life told had a lasting impact on his generation and the generation that followed. Joshua’s epitaph was not written on a marble gravestone. It was engraved on the hearts and lives of people who had submitted themselves to his leadership.

Application

The desire of my life is that I may finish well and bring glory to my Lord and Saviour.

Joshua 24:25-33 (English Standard Version)


Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to parse RSS file. (Space required at line 39, column 24) in /var/www/html/familytimes/includes/magpie6-1/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_slice() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /var/www/html/familytimes/includes/rss/esvLookup.php on line 15

View this passage in NIV (Bible Gateway) »