1 Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel. And they presented themselves before God. 2 And Joshua said to all the people…14 “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
16 Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods, 17 for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our fathers up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed. 18 And the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”
“Pastor!” said the eager voice on the other end of the phone. It was a young woman I had confirmed nearly two decades ago. She had looked me up and given me a call out of the blue. She had grown up, went to college, got married, had children of her own. She was thinking about those days we had spent with her little confirmation class and decided to give me a ring.
She was attending church, in another state from where we had met. I was glad of that, very glad. It is a rare thing to find that to be so. A study I remember from some years ago suggested that less than ten percent of the confirmands in the Northwest District attended church when they were 25. That should give all of us an occasion for circumspection and introspection, along with a strong vocation to pray for parents, young people, pastors and others who teach them, and the church which they are abandoning. Something is happening and it needs Jesus to fix it.
Joshua, in his farewell sermon the people of Israel, challenges the people of his day. He will follow the Lord, but they need to decide what they will do. Will they follow the Lord or one of the local deities or one of the deities their forefathers worshiped in Egypt or Mesopotamia? Joshua says he and his family will follow the Lord. Like everyone of the confirmands who stand before the altars of our churches, the people of God in Joshua’s day pledge their undying allegiance. If you have read the rest of that history in Judges, Samuel, and Kings, you know that they did not keep that promise. They ran after the other gods of the Arameans, the Baals and Asheroth. But if you have read the rest of that story, you know something else. God never stopped loving them and never stopped calling them home to Himself. Even when He sent them into exile, He was calling them to Himself. I pray for all the young people I have confirmed, but I never pray that God loves them and is searching for them with the diligent love of a shepherd. I know He is. I count on it.