Sunday, August 10, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Joshua 24, Judges 1-2
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 92
Devotional Thought
The book of Joshua closes with an old man gathering a nation to himself one last time. Joshua, who had watched Jericho’s walls fall and had led Israel through years of conquest, summons the tribes to Shechem and rehearses the whole story — from Terah beyond the river, from Egypt and the Red Sea, from the Amorites and the Jordan. Then he lays the choice before them plainly: “choose you this day whom ye will serve.” The people answer with confidence, “God forbid that we should forsake the LORD,” and Joshua makes a covenant and sets up a great stone as a witness. It is a noble ending. Yet the very next pages, in Judges 1 and 2, tell us that this generation served the Lord, and then “there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD.” The stone remained; the memory did not. Judges 2 gives us the sad refrain that will echo through the whole book: the people did evil, God gave them over to their enemies, they cried out, and He raised up a deliverer — and then the cycle began again. It is a sobering thing to read on a summer Sunday, when the fields are full and the year still feels young, that faithfulness is not inherited automatically. Every generation must choose.
Psalm 92, appointed for the Sabbath, answers this drift with gratitude. “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord… to shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night.” The psalmist does not deny that the wicked flourish like grass; he simply sees the end of the matter. The brutish man cannot understand it, but the righteous “shall flourish like the palm tree… planted in the house of the LORD.” Notice the contrast with Judges: a generation that forgot God withered, but those who are planted in His courts “still bring forth fruit in old age.” Joshua, an old man still bearing fruit, is proof of it. So is the palm, which grows in the desert because its roots reach deep water.
This is the season of long evenings and gardens heavy with produce, and the psalm invites us to read our own lives the same way — morning thanksgiving, evening faithfulness, fruit even into old age. The stone at Shechem was meant to be a witness; so is the table where you give thanks, and the evening prayer you keep saying when no one is watching.
Reflection
- Joshua set up a stone as a witness because Israel’s memory would fade — what “stones” of remembrance has God given you, and are you still telling the next generation what He has done?
- Psalm 92 promises fruit in old age to those “planted in the house of the LORD.” What would it look like this week to sink your roots deeper into His courts rather than merely visiting them?
Prayer
Lord God of Joshua and of Israel, Thou art our rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Thee. We confess that we are prone to forget Thy works as quickly as Israel forgot the Jordan and the walls of Jericho. Plant us firmly in Thy house, that we may flourish like the palm tree and the cedar of Lebanon, and still bring forth fruit in old age. Teach us to show forth Thy lovingkindness in the morning and Thy faithfulness every night, until the day when we see Thy enemies scattered and Thy name exalted for evermore. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 92:1 — “IT IS A GOOD THING TO GIVE THANKS UNTO THE LORD, AND TO SING PRAISES UNTO THY NAME, O MOST HIGH:”