Joshua 24: Putting Away the Gods of Your Fathers

Introduction

"As for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh." That was the theme Joël Warzecha was given to preach at a church in Kinshasa. That evening, at Église Évangélique Paris Métropole, he shares what he experienced there and what God put on his heart.

Right before this famous declaration by Joshua, there is an instruction we often forget: put away the gods that the fathers served. The preacher connects this call to the story of Rachel, who secretly carries off her father's idols, and then to the story of Zacchaeus, in whose life Jesus' arrival produces a concrete change.

The message is direct: you can know God for years and still keep, in some corner of your life, things that tie you to your old life. God wants you to be free, and that freedom sometimes comes through very concrete actions.

Outline of the Message

1. Joshua 24: Before "As for Me and My House," a Call to Separate

• Joshua led the people of Israel into the promised land. They crossed the Jordan, conquered many places, and divided the land among the tribes.
• At the end of his ministry, he gathers all the people (Joshua 24). He retraces Israel's history from Abraham's ancestors to the present moment. The land is at peace.
• That is where he declares: "As for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh." But right before that, he gives an instruction: put away the gods your fathers served in Egypt.
• He is speaking to men and women who had been freed from Egypt for years, and he also asks them not to serve the gods of the land where God has brought them.

2. Rachel and the Teraphim: Attachment to What Comes from the Father

• Jacob marries Rachel and lives for a time with Laban, his father-in-law. Laban is both a source of blessing and a source of torment: he takes advantage of the couple, and the situation becomes too complicated.
• The whole family leaves Laban's house. As they go, Rachel does something surprising: she steals her father's teraphim (Genesis 31). "Maybe some of you, when you left your father's house, took furniture, keepsakes, paintings."
• The preacher took an interest in the word: he links it to the idea of "shameful things," and it refers to household idols, objects that belonged to the house and were used for divination.
• Laban pursues the family and asks: "Why have you stolen my gods?" Jacob, who knows nothing about it, answers that whoever is found with them shall not live.
• Rachel steals, lies, and hides. She sits on the idols, and when her father asks her to get up, she pretends to be unwell. This passage shows how attached she was to these things that came from her father.

3. What We Hide in the Corner of Our Room

• A few years ago, Joël Warzecha was serving God on an island off the coast of Naples, in southern Italy. He was walking alongside a man who had been converted and baptized for several years, married, faithful, a father, and a servant of God.
• This man comes to see him: "Listen, Joël, I want to share something with you. I am tormented." Before his conversion, on this very touristy island, he had lived through many sexual relationships that had marked his whole youth. He had also grown up with a father who was a former legionnaire, violent and very hard on him.
• He finally says: "I keep a lot of objects at home." In a corner of his bedroom, the preacher discovers photos of the women he had been involved with, and love letters. When things got complicated in his marriage, he would take refuge in these shameful things and feed what belonged to his old life.
• In another corner, he kept what his father had left him, including the weapon with which his father had killed and the clothes he wore at war.
• "My friend, it is time to get rid of everything that binds you to your old life." They tore up the photos and the letters, cut up the weapon, put everything in a big bag, and threw it all away. "There was a before and an after" in this man's life, because he chose to put these things away and to live the freedom planned for him.

4. Before Entering God's Presence

• In Kinshasa, after this testimony, many respond to the call, and people are touched and set free. But the preacher is stirred inside, because a word from God echoes in his heart: "Joël, you must put these things away." He asks the leaders for permission to speak again, something that is not usually done.
• He recalls Genesis 35: God asks Jacob to build him an altar, but first to remove the foreign gods. Before entering God's presence, the family brings everything to Jacob.
• "You have had a blessed time, you have been touched, but there are things you need to do."
• A few days later, the leaders send him a video. People are bringing in objects they had kept at home, including a Christian woman from the church who had lost her husband and who, in her trial, had gone to see marabouts who gave her protective objects. A second video shows a big fire where everything is burned.
• One of the leaders confides in him what troubles her: these are people who have been in the church for years. The preacher, for his part, thinks of the man in Italy: "Sometimes we have no idea what is in our closets, deep inside our homes, where no one sees what we hide."

5. Zacchaeus: Salvation Is Free, but It Bears Fruit

• "Salvation is absolutely free." Jesus paid for our redemption at a great price on the cross. Religion demands effort, paying the price, going from place to place, a list of things to do to reach God. The gospel says that God became man to save you, that he died in your place, that he rose again, and that he is alive.
• But when Jesus enters a life, it bears fruit. Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector who used his position to rob the poor, stands up before Jesus: "Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor. If I have wronged any man, I restore four times as much" (Luke 19:8).
• After his conversion, for several weeks, the Lord gave the preacher a list of people to ask forgiveness from. In high school, he had stolen scientific calculators, twice from the same classmate. God told him to go to him, ask forgiveness, and give them back. The situation was very awkward, "but I knew I was obeying God."
• In high school, he had also kept drugs for a dealer in an airtight jar. He threw everything away when he was converted, but God asked him to ask his parents for forgiveness, because it was in their house that he had done it.

6. Do Not Harden Your Heart: The Sorting to Be Done

• "Today if you will hear his voice, don't harden your hearts" (Hebrews 3:7-8). The leader in Kinshasa said it: they had already preached on this. The man in Italy had also heard it before, but he had hardened his heart.
• "There is some sorting to do in your life." People to call to ask forgiveness, debts to repay, things to return to the police, people toward whom you hold resentment, things to throw out of your house, photos to delete from your phone.
• Sometimes you need to cut off a relationship with people who have led you far into sin. "It is not an absolute rule": God does not want you to automatically cut off everyone, but there are times when it is necessary.
• The preacher also talks about bitterness toward a situation, a brother, a sister, or a friend, sometimes to the point of dividing families. Several years ago, God freed him from the bitterness he held toward a church leader who had hurt him: "Call him and ask his forgiveness for the bitterness you have in your heart."
• "God sets us free. But when he does, he produces in us this desire for holiness, this desire to live a free life."

7. As for Me and My House, We Will Serve Yahweh

• The preacher invites you to draw near to Jesus, who bought our freedom at a great price, and to let God search your heart to show you what to throw away, whom to ask forgiveness from, and what to give up or cut off.
• You can repent before God, but there are also concrete actions to take when you get home this week. A sister in Congo could not sleep all night because God's Spirit was speaking to her so strongly. "I pray that you will not be at peace until you have removed what does not glorify God in your life."
• To the person who does not yet know God, he reminds that true freedom is found in no religion and no philosophy, but in Jesus alone, the only name by which there is salvation (Acts 4:12). He died for you, he rose again, he is alive.
• The closing prayer takes up Joshua's words: "Lord Jesus, I want to be free. I want to get rid of what does not glorify you." And each person can say: as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh.

Key Takeaways

• Joshua asks the people to put away the gods of the fathers before declaring "as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh."
• Like Rachel, you can leave your father's house and secretly carry off what ties you to it.
• Having been converted for years does not guarantee that nothing shameful remains in some corner of your life.
• Salvation is free, but Jesus produces concrete fruit: asking forgiveness, giving back, throwing away, cutting off.
• When God speaks, the answer is not to harden your heart.

Personal Application

1. Is there anything in your closet, a drawer, or your phone that still ties you to your old life?
2. What have you inherited from your family (habits, objects, wounds, practices) that does not glorify God and that you need to put away?
3. Is there someone you need to ask forgiveness from, a debt to repay, or something to give back?
4. Are you holding bitterness toward someone who hurt you? What step can you take this week?
5. Have you already heard this call without responding to it? What keeps you from obeying today?

Verses Cited

• Joshua 24:14-15
• Genesis 31:19-35
• Genesis 35:1-4
• Luke 19:1-10
• Hebrews 3:7-8
• Acts 4:12

Frequently Asked Questions

What does "put away the gods of your fathers" mean?

In Joshua 24, before declaring "as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh," Joshua asks the people to put away the gods their fathers had served. For Joël Warzecha, this call still applies today: break with everything that still ties you to your old life, the shameful things kept in a corner of your home or your heart.

Why did Rachel steal her father's teraphim?

Genesis 31 does not give all her reasons, but Joël Warzecha sees in it a deep attachment to what came from her father. The teraphim were household idols used for divination. Rachel steals them, lies, and even goes so far as to sit on them to hide them, even as she is leaving Laban's house.

If salvation is free, why take concrete actions?

Salvation is entirely free: Jesus paid for it on the cross. But when Jesus enters a life, it bears fruit, as with Zacchaeus, who gives back four times as much to those he had wronged. Asking forgiveness, repaying, throwing away objects, or cutting off a relationship does not save you: it is the fruit of the freedom God gives.