Texts: Joshua 24; Genesis 12:7; Deuteronomy 17:19; Deuteronomy 5:6; 1 Kings 11:2, 4, 9; 2 Timothy 4:7-8

After 80 years of relative peace, Germany finds itself confronted with two alarming realities: as the United States pulls out of its NATO commitments to defend Europe, Russia becomes increasingly aggressive. Germany now must rearm and rebuild its military to face this Russian belligerence. The question for Germans is, what will a remilitarized Germany look like?

Many Germans today are well-aware of and grapple with their nation’s history of military aggression, all the while hoping to avoid a repeat as they face an uncertain future.

“We started two world wars,” admits Markus Ziener of the German Marshall Fund. “Even though it’s 80 years since World War Two ended, the idea that Germans should stay out of conflict is still very much in many people’s DNA.”

Eighteen-year-old Berliner Charlotte Kreft, a life-long pacifist like many modern Germans, finds herself re-thinking her position. “For a really long time, we thought the only way to make up for the atrocities we committed in World War Two was to make sure it never happened again,” she explains, “and we thought we needed to demilitarize. But now we are in a situation where we have to fight for our values and democracy and freedom. We need to adapt.”

To succeed in that fight, Germans are trying to come to grips with both the need to ramp up defense spending and—to the dismay of many families—reinstate the draft. The current German army is woefully undermanned and underequipped to repel the Russian invasion it believes is coming before the end of the decade.

Germans, as a nation, are wrestling with a choice: Will a newly militarized Germany revert to the evil ways of the past? Or will they remember the lessons of history and avoid a repeat of that pattern?

After all, “Those who cannot remember the past,” stated philosopher George Santayana, “are condemned to repeat it.”

Ellen White expressed a spiritual version of Santayana’s statement: “We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us and His teaching in our past history.” (3SM p.162)

Joshua may have had the same sentiment in mind when he gave his final address to the Israelites. “Choose you today,” he challenged the nation, “who you are going to serve.” (Joshua 24:14-15)

The aged Joshua knew that his leadership term was ending. Now that Israel possessed the Promised Land, would God’s chosen people forget how God led them in conquering the Canaanites and slip into their old habits of the past? Would they go back to worshipping the gods Terah’s family knew in Ur and Haran, before Abram made the choice to follow Yahweh? Would they choose to adopt the worship practices of the local communities who remained in their presence? Or would they develop new habits of faithfulness to the Lord?

Joshua confronted them with the uncomfortable reality—he knew their idolatrous hearts. “Throw away the foreign gods that are among you,” he challenged them in Joshua 24:23. Even after all that God had done for them, leading them out of Egyptian slavery into possession of this fertile land, many of them still kept collections of personal idols. If they thought they could hide this evil practice from Joshua (and God), they were sadly mistaken!

After spending several years learning leadership lessons from Moses, and then putting those lessons into practice, Joshua knew the most effective leadership style is to lead by example. Remembering both the painful warnings from Israel’s faithless past, as well as the blessings of following God’s leadership, Joshua proclaimed his choice: “As for me and my household,” he declared, “we will serve Yahweh.”

 

For Reflection

 

Connecting: What do you do when you see someone close to you make bad decisions? Does it help to point out the probable outcome of their life’s choices? At what point do helpful suggestions become nagging?

Sharing: We know from Scripture that Israel does, indeed, choose to practice idolatry later on. Why do humans persist in forgetting the lessons of the past and foolishly make bad decisions?

1. The devil makes us do it
2. Each generation thinks it knows better than its elders
3. Since we have learned lessons from our past experiences, we often think we now know how to repeat earlier bad practices without experiencing the bad outcomes
4. History classes are boring; we need to learn how to make the lessons of the past more engaging
5. Our attention spans are increasingly shortening
6. Other:

Applying: How well does your congregation do when it comes to mentoring the next generation of Christian leaders? What can you and your study group do to enhance your leadership training and to equip leaders of the present and future?

Valuing: An idol can be anything that takes God’s place in your life. Make an honest inventory of your own priorities. Is God truly #1 in every aspect of your life? Do you have any idols you need to throw away?

~ Chuck Burkeen