The Pulpit Commentary — Joshua — Section 388

HOMILETICS. Ver. 1-16.-The last words of the aged servant of God. The influence gained by a long and successful life is immense. It was so in J osbua's case, for it outlasted his life, and continued as long as any of his former colleagues and companions in arms were alive. It was only when a fresh generation arose who knew him not, save by the report of the younger men, such as Othniel, that Israel declined from the true path. Joshua's last charge, therefore, is full of interest and profit. I. How A LONG LIFE OF USEFULNESS MAY BEST BE CLOSED. When Joshua felt bis life drawing to an end, he assembled those who had been partakers of his toils, reminded them of the great things God had done during his leadership, and warned them of the danger of departing from the course which had been marked by such signal and uninterrupted success. So may those who, by God's grace, have been the means of improvement or usefulness to others, parents to their children, pastors to their flocks, men who have won for themselves a moral influence in the religious or even the social, philosophical, or political world, when they feel their powers failing, assemble those who have worked with them, review the past, and draw a moral from it for the future. The last words of any one we deeply respect have a weight with us which no others have, and live within us when those \Vho uttered them have long since passed away. This is even the case with the last words our Lord and Master spoke before His crucifixion, though in His case they were not His last, for not only did He rise from the dead, but He bath since spoken to us by His Spirit. Yet His dying co=and concerning the bread and wine has touched the heart more than any other; and His last speech in John xvii. has n.lways had a peculiar interest fo1· Christians. Perhaps His followers have too much shrunk, from Christian modesty, from the most powerful means of influence they have. Forms of belief vary. The religious earnestness of 0111· age is replaced by a different form of religious earnestness in another. The new wine has to be put into new bottles. Thus exhortations to maintain a particular form of doctrine or organisation may fail of their effect, or when (as is very often the case) they do not fail, t~ey may be undesirable. But exhortations to love,joy, peace, zeal, energy, self-restramt, indifference to the world, may derive a vltst ltdditional fol'Ce when they are the farewell words of one whose life bas been a life-long struggle to practise them. II. WE MUST OBEY THE WHOLE LAW. We are not to pick and choose either in doctrines or precepts. There is an eclecticism now, as ~h~re :was in the 9'.POstle's day which rejects particular doctrines or precepts of Chr1strnmty as " unsU1table to the 'times." We are of course to distinguish between doctrines ltnd development of doctrines, the last being, perhaps, the product o~ lt particular ltge, an~ unsuitable or impossible for philosophic ~r scientifi:c _reasons m another. So aga!n, the f?rm of a precept (e.g., those touclnng ah_nsg1vrng) must be aH~red. from time to time, as Cln·istian principles are transformmg so01ety by permeatmg 1t._ But the spint of a precept is for ever binding. And, we may observe, ex~e~~ 1s as bad, as. defe_ct. It was sltic.1 of the law, that men should" add nought to it, as we!l lts • ,limm1~h JOSHUA, z 838 THE BOOK OF JOSHUA. [en. xxm. 1-18,