Dr. Thomas White
“Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.”
Joshua 24:14b (ESV)[1]
The word exclusive means limiting or limited to possession, control, or use by a single individual or group. And Christianity’s most controversial claim, both in Joshua’s day and in ours, is the exclusivity of Jesus Christ.
Many people around the world are happy to include Jesus in their spiritual framework if they don’t have to exclude their other beliefs. But the message of Scripture is not “add Jesus to your life” — it’s “repent and believe.” The call to faith is a call to abandon all other gods.
That’s exactly what Joshua challenged Israel to do. In his final speech, he didn’t just ask the people to believe in God. He called them to put away the gods of their ancestors, of Egypt, and of the Amorites and to serve the LORD alone.
Let that sink in! Even after the Jordan River stopped flowing, the walls of Jericho fell down, the sun stood still, and hailstones crushed their enemies — some Israelites still held onto foreign gods.
Seriously? After all they had seen, they still clung to idols?
Yes. And so do we.
We may not worship statues or golden calves, but we still serve false gods — just with different names: money, comfort, sexual gratification, reputation, power, pleasure, approval, or control.
The idols are more subtle, but just as enslaving. What we love most — what we think about, what we spend our time and resources on, what shapes our decisions — reveals our true object of worship.
Who sits on the throne of your heart?
Whatever occupies the throne of your affections is your god. So we must ask hard questions:
- Where do I spend the bulk of my time, treasure, and talents?
- Do I idolize sports, social media, comfort, or achievement?
- Do I derive my identity, meaning, or security from something other than God?
Joshua’s call is clear: Put away your other gods. Serve the LORD only.
This is the same decision Rahab made. When she hid the spies, she aligned herself with the God of Israel and turned away from the gods, culture, and security of her past. That’s real repentance. That’s the exclusive call of biblical faith.
The Commands Are Clear
In Joshua 24:14–15, the people are confronted with five commands:
- Fear the LORD.
- Serve Him in sincerity and faithfulness.
- Put away the foreign gods.
- Serve the LORD.
- Choose this day whom you will serve.
This is not passive faith. This is active, intentional surrender.
It reminds me of the old saying, “If Christ is not Lord of all, then He is not Lord at all.”[2]
So today, ask yourself:
- Am I merely adding Jesus to my life, or have I surrendered all?
- What gods do I need to put away?
- Will I follow Christ exclusively, no matter the cost?
The Gospel isn’t just an invitation — it’s a decision. It’s not a spiritual supplement. It’s a total allegiance to the only God who saves.
So put away other gods.
COURAGEOUS STEP Stop! Put everything else down. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal any “other gods” in your life. Seriously! You know you have them. Something you spend time, resources, thoughts on more than God. Now, repent. Surrender that idol to the Lord today. Ask the Lord to help you love Him more than you love anything else this world has to offer.
Dr. Thomas White
President and Professor of Theology, Cedarville University
Joshua was the successor of Moses, who led Israel into the promised land, and in his final speech, he called the nation to put away the gods of their ancestors, of Egypt, and of the Amorites, and to serve the LORD alone. He was not merely asking them to believe in God but to abandon every rival loyalty. The command came after Israel had seen God act on their behalf again and again, which made their lingering attachment to idols all the more striking.
The consistent message of Scripture is that genuine faith is exclusive. Joshua did not invite Israel to add the LORD to their existing gods but to put the others away entirely and serve Him alone. The call of the gospel is not to add Jesus to a crowded shelf of loyalties but to repent and believe, surrendering every rival for the one God who saves.
To put away other gods means to renounce every loyalty that competes with God for the throne of the heart. In Joshua’s day, that meant the carved idols of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Canaan. Today it more often means the subtler gods of money, comfort, reputation, power, pleasure, approval, and control. Whatever a person loves most, thinks about most, and builds life around reveals the true object of worship, and Scripture calls for that rival to be set aside.
Joshua names three sources of idolatry: the gods served beyond the River, the gods of Egypt, and the gods of the Amorites. Beyond the River refers to Mesopotamia, the region of Abraham’s origin, where his own ancestors served other gods. Egypt was the land of Israel’s long slavery and its many deities, and the Amorites were among the peoples of Canaan whose idols surrounded Israel in the land. Idolatry had followed Israel through every chapter of its history.
In these two verses Joshua presses Israel with a series of commands: fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and faithfulness, put away the foreign gods, serve the LORD, and choose this day whom they will serve. The progression moves from reverence to wholehearted service to a decisive break with idolatry, and it ends with a demand for a clear choice. This is not passive belief but active, intentional surrender.
Leaders apply this passage by honestly naming the rivals that compete for their devotion and deliberately setting them aside. The diagnostic question is where a leader spends time, treasure, and attention, and what supplies a sense of identity and security. Serving the LORD alone does not mean abandoning responsibility or ambition, but refusing to let career, reputation, comfort, or control take the place that belongs to God alone.
Joshua 24:14 matters because the temptation toward divided loyalty never disappears. Believers may not bow to carved images, but the heart still manufactures idols out of good things turned into ultimate things. The verse calls every generation to the same decision Israel faced, to put away every rival and serve the LORD with undivided allegiance, trusting that He alone is the God who saves.
Footnotes
[1]Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version (ESV).
[2]This saying is commonly attributed to the nineteenth-century missionary J. Hudson Taylor and reflects his teaching on the lordship of Christ in his work Separation and Service. It circulates in several wordings.
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