As For Me And My House, We Will Serve The Lord

We trace Joshua’s final charge to Israel and the call to be strong, cling to scripture, and choose whom we will serve. Stories of answered prayer, a pastor’s calling, and the urgency of preparing for the last mile bring the message home.

• Joshua’s legacy and God’s charge to be strong 
• Living by the Book as daily practice 
• The long day in Joshua 10 and divine help in battles 
• Prayer that shifts closed doors and hard hearts 
• Cleaving to the Lord through valleys and waiting 
• Take heed: guarding life and guiding children 
• Wealth’s limits versus a lasting walk with God 
• Choose today whom you will serve at home 
• A reluctant calling, decades of steady faith 
• Household rhythms of prayer and renewal

Transcript

Joshua’s Last Words And Legacy

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Trust you've been blessed by the singing. If you have your Bibles, turn with us to the book of Joshua. And we're looking at chapter 23 and 24. Jonathan is most of you know away from us, but I am glad to be here and glad that you are here with us. As we look at this passage of scripture, Joshua comes to the stage for the very last time to speak to a people that he loved, and of course, he was a great warrior. It was Joshua and Caleb out of the twelve tribes that said, When they come that they were able to conquer the land. But there were ten of them that said, We can't. And God told them to turn and go into the wilderness. And as they went into the wilderness, those who are twenty and above, their carcass was going to fall in the wilderness. And Caleb and Joshua was the two men that walked through all of that, come out, and then God said to him, Moses, my servant, is dead, and I'm pointing you, Joshua, to be the man to lead the people. And if you look in chapter one of the book of Joshua, God told him, As I was with Moses, so will I be with you. I will not fail you. And God said four times there in that one chapter, I want you to be strong for the Lord. I want you to be strong. Do you know that need to be said to all of us today? I'm meeting some folks and says, I don't know if I can make it or not. Boy, by God's help we'll make it. Amen. Don't be puny and acting like you whipped or down. You be strong and say, by God's help. When we did the building here, there were some folks quit us. Oh, you can't, you'll never do it. I said, by God's help, by God's help. And he was with us. And he's with us today. Amen. Bless his name, praise his name for it. And then God said there in verse, I believe it's eight and nine, how to be successful in the battles of life. That is, you go by the word. This word shall be in your heart. This word shall be in your mouth. You shall talk about the word. And hallelujah, he comes here. And even in his chapter 23, he talks about the book. Hallelujah. We're going by the book. Amen. I love the book. If the book says it, hallelujah,

Be Strong And Live By The Book

SPEAKER_00 3:20

we'll do it by God's help. Look in verse two of 23 and 3. We're going to read these two verses and speak to you out of our heart. And Joshua called for Israel and for their elders and for their judges and heads and for their officers, and said unto them, I'm old and stricken in age. And you've seen all that the Lord your God has done unto all these nations because of you. For the Lord your God is he that have fought for you. Think about that. What a promise and what he is saying here. And if you look back to chapter ten, there was nothing like it in the entire Bible. They're in chapter ten of the book of Joshua. Joshua and them was come up against and was in a battle, fighting, and the one king and his army, but he also sinned and got to come. So there was five armies fighting against Joshua and his men. And the battle was so furious and so strong to fight and fighting that God let the moon and the sun stand still for all day long. It's the only scripture that that's recorded in. And you may want to look it up and read it this evening. You'll be blessed by it. And the battle was so furious that when it was all over with, there was more people killed with uh stones than they were with a sword. God got in the battle with them. And God has been with us at times, and God's been with you at times. There's a family that's sitting here today. They had found a little piece of property and trying to buy it and trying to fix it up and so forth. And the man that was in charge would not agree to nothing. Everything was no, no, no, no, no. And it got so for a while. They just went home and just began to pray about it. And later on they called up the same person and he said, Oh, I don't think that's no problem anymore. We can just pass that. I don't think they'd have any problem there. You can have, yeah, you can have that. Yeah, you can do this, you can do that. What made the difference? They prayed and talked to God. And happened to be the man over here sitting on the stool at the piano was going through all of that. But he began to pray, and God turned the tide. Hallelujah. Is there anything in your life that you know God intervened? If there are, give him praise here this morning. Hallelujah. Give him praise. Amen. Give him praise. But anyway, when it was all over with, those five armies was captured.

The Day The Sun Stood Still

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The kings were destroyed, and there was a place for the children of Israel. They began to live in houses. They didn't even build. They began to gather fruit from trees they didn't plant. God was with them and God blessed them. And so He is to be, He's blessing us today as well. And you can look there in the latter part of chapter 5, and it talked about God has promised unto you. And I want to tell you, there's many little promises that God's made for with me. He said, You go ahead, I'll be with you. You go ahead, I'll help you. You go ahead, I'll be there, I'll help you along the way. And God has been faithful and blessed us. And if I had two lives to live, I'd live them all for the Lord Jesus Christ. I've never been disappointed. God's never failed me. God's always come through. Yes, there were times I waited on the Lord. There was times, brother, I said, I'll just lean on you, Lord. I'll trust you. And God has been wonderful, wonderful to us. And then look what he says there in verse 8. He said, Cleave to the Lord your God as ye has done to this day. If I could encourage everyone here that's a professing Christian to just cleave to the Lord. Trust the Lord. Keep on, keep on trusting in the Lord. Yes, there'll be difficult times. Yes, there'll be times that you walk through the valley. There'll be times, sometimes you may feel like you're alone. But I know I'm not alone. He will walk with us. He will help us. And he's blessed the labor of our hands. And there's some folks here who have been blessed of God. You're to thank him. You're to bless him and praise him for all the wonderful things that he has done for you. And then of course he goes on down. Look what he says there. And he said, Take heed therefore unto yourself. Now take heed appears many times in the Word of God. And if you have raised children, especially when they get with this age of driving, you say, Now you be very careful. It's dangerous out there. You be careful out there. Don't you be out there too late. Don't you be out there too long. I can't sleep till you come home. So you know, you're talking to them about being careful. Well, that's the way we ought to feel about the word of God. He said, Take heed now. And to the children, the young people that was just here and gone out there. Listen what he says in the book of Mark, there in chapter ten. They were bringing the children for the Lord to bless them. And disciples saw it and said, Hey, stop that. Don't be bothering the Lord. He's too busy. And Jesus said, Suffer the little children to come unto me, for such is of the kingdom of heaven. And Jesus took them up and blessed them. And Jesus began to say, Precious is the children. And you and I need to say that too. The children are precious. We love them. Amen. This church loves you and we want to teach you. We want to help you. We want to see you grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Someone

Prayer That Turns The Tide

SPEAKER_00 10:20

was just talking even before the service about some children, had no guidance. No one loved them. No one guided them. No one directed them. And what a mess in their life that they've made. And there are those who have messed with drugs, alcohol, smoking, and all of these things. And I'm just talking to the young people, so don't be offended at Brother Lochler. God said say it. But there are a lot of folks, brother, who went to an early grave because they abused it. This little body is a gift from Almighty God. But we need to take care of it. How many agrees to that? Raise your hand if you do. We need to take care of that. We need to teach the children to do the same thing. Children, that little body of yours is precious. It's a gift from Almighty God. Take care of it, if you will. And so take heed here. He says, therefore, and if you even go back and fail God, there's going to be a storm that's going to come in your light. So he's urging them there. And look what he said there in verse 14. Behold this day I go the way of all the earth. So don't be sitting here and thinking, boy, that guy's old, he won't be here long. There's a chance there all of us will be gone in a time to come. So we all need to prepare for it. Amen? We need to prepare for that crossing when we come the last mile of the way. I've been to the hospital, I've been in the homes, I've seen folks coming down to the last mile of the way. And I've seen folks so troubled and so upset they didn't know what to do. But I said, honey, I've been trying to tell you along the way. Or, sir, I've been speaking to you. Oh, but I was too busy. I was too busy. I was young. I had plenty of time, we thought. But you don't have any promise of even tomorrow. There's just a step between you and death. And so Brother Lockler is preaching out of his heart here this morning. He's talking to somebody. You may say, Oh, I got this and I got that. I want to tell you what, I have yet to see a truck following an amulet

Blessings, Faithfulness, And Remembering

SPEAKER_00 13:00

with all your money, with your car, with your home, everything, dragging it along, saying that's mine. Let me tell you what, the day will come when you lose sight of the money, lose sight of the home, lose sight of the car. What merely counts is your relationship with him. We're going to leave it. Oh, yeah, it takes money. And I got a dollar and you got a dollar. It takes money. But God's taking care of us. Amen. But the point is, don't lean on that. He's going to stay here. The families will be fighting over it and whatever, you know. Am I telling the truth? But oh, listen, what really counts, brother, is your walk with the Lord. Hallelujah. Amen. Amen. My walk with the Lord, that's what counts. Keep on walking with him. Don't you lean on these things here. And so we come to chapter 24. And he's talking about renewing the covenant with God and with one another. It would do us good sometimes, as we have just shaking hands and hug necks, and you know that's a wonderful time. That's a beautiful. I I may be sitting up here, but sometimes there's tears in my eyes. Look at these folks. Look at these folks. I've been to a few churches way back there. I'd run a revival meeting just about every month. I'd be gone sometime. But I've been in churches where they wouldn't even shake your hand. Here's what they do. They look the other way. But thank God that's not it would happen. We love you. We love you. We're glad you're here. And we want to keep it up. Amen? Amen. We want to keep it up. But here he comes to it. And look what he says there in verse 15. He said, Now if it seems evil for you, if it seems hard for you to, but you choose this day whom you're going to serve. But as for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord. Oh, I hope and pray that every one that's here can say for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord. Amen? It's wonderful to walk with him. I come to the age of twenty and got saved. Wasn't raised in a Christian home. My family didn't go to church. We didn't go to church. None of us as Christians. And we live, and Father, when he would got saved and would come see me, he said if I just had it to live over, son, I'd do so many things different. Well, listen, there are folks living and dying with choices that they've made. But let me say this, there's no other choice any better for any individual than to just get right with God. It's very simple. He's the Savior. You're the sinner. You're the one in darkness and lost. And yet there are folks so lost

Take Heed: Guard Your Life

SPEAKER_00 16:30

till they can't even imagine a church. That's a waste of time. Talk about God. And they don't realize that it's God who gives them the very breath that they're breathing. It's God who woke you up this morning. There's a few of my preacher friends, two of them particularly, went to bed and never woke up. And one preacher that I had preached for there in Carolina got up, stood up beside the bed, and died instantly. Just fell back on the bed. In other words, again, there's just a step between us and death. And I'm talking to somebody here, and it's not the man who's 80 and 90. There's some folks younger. But what really counts is being able to say, I know that I know that I'm a child of God. He said, He whosoever shall confess with the mouth, believe in the heart. And the Lord Jesus Christ, thou shalt be saved. And there in St. John chapter 14, Jesus said, Let not your heart be troubled. He believer in God, believe also in me, for in my father's house are many mentioned. If it were not so, I would have told you. But I go and I'll prepare a place for you, and I'll come again and receive you unto myself. That where I am, there ye may be. Thomas said, Lord, but we know not the way. Jesus said, I am the way, I'm the truth, I'm the light, and no man cometh to the Father except by me. Now that was God's plan to send his own son into a lost world. They spit upon him, they belittled him, they made light of him, and there's been a few folks made light of this guy, but it runs off like water. Don't bother me. What I got in my heart that makes it so wonderful. Hallelujah. Amen. Oh yes. I'm glad I know him. I hope you will know him. But he says from us, we're going to live for God. I hope and pray that every household can just say that. We're going to start working on that. We're going to work on it. That we can have all the children be saved, all the grandchildren be saved, and the great-grandchildren. Get everybody in the ark of safety. What God done, and I tell it again, you've heard it, but I would just pray for my family. I didn't tell them immediately that I got saved. But I kept till I got stronger. Then I wrote my mother and said, Mom, I got saved and I'm living for God. And I preached almost a year before I ever told them that I was preaching. And I wasn't going, I wasn't licensed or ordained. But the pastor of the little church said, Today's my last day. I'm leaving. And the deacon got up and said, We're going to point Lloyd Lloyd Locklear. I said, No, no, no. I kind of hid my face. I said, No, no, no. Don't point me. He said, We're going to vote on Lloyd Locklear. And they voted a hundred percent. I couldn't turn that down, could I? But on the way home, God got hold of my arm. God said, You get the book. And we'll be back there in

Preparing For The Final Mile

SPEAKER_00 20:40

that little church next Sunday. I'll be back there. You get the book and get me back there. I said, Yes, sir, Lord, I'll get the book and I'll get back there. I studied that book every day. Every day. And God laid it on my heart what to preach, brother, and I couldn't wait to get there. And I said to God, if this is where you want me, this is where I'll be. And that's almost 67 years ago. Hallelujah. I've never been disappointed in him. I'm talking to somebody here today that needs to think about it. That's for me and my house. We're going to serve the Lord. This would be a good place to start today. And they made a covenant, and this would be a good place to say, yes, by God's help. Mom and Daddy, is prayer going on in the home? I hope they are. I hope there's prayer. Every day, mommy and I, again that morning, would pray in for the church, praying for the sick, praying for the children, praying for whoever. And then I say, Guide me, Lord, today. Let's stand. Father, thank you for the word. Speak to hearts here this morning. There's surely somebody that you're talking to, Lord. Draw them, help them. May there be those that just say, Yes, Jesus. For me and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord. Let's sing. Amen. Amen.