I now pass on to that truly memorable resolution of Joshua, "Choose you this day whom ye will serve . . . . but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." (Josh. xxiv. 15.) Observe, "Me and my house." He felt it was not sufficient that he himself should be personally pure from all contact with the defilements and abominations of idolatry; he had also to look well to the moral character and practical condition of his house. Though Joshua were not to worship idols, yet if his children did so, would he be guiltless? Certainly not. Moreover, the testimony of the truth would have been as effectually marred by the idolatry of Joshua's house as by the idolatry of Joshua himself; and judgment would have been executed accordingly. It is well to see this distinctly. The opening of the first book of Samuel affords most solemn demonstration of the truth of this--"And the Lord said to Samuel, 'Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle. In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning _his house_: when I begin, I will also make an end. For I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knoweth; BECAUSE HIS SONS MADE THEMSELVES VILE AND HE RESTRAINED THEM NOT.'" (1 Sam. iii. 11-13.) Here we see that no matter what the personal character of the servant of God may be, yet if he fail in the due regulation of his house, God will not hold him guiltless. Eli should have restrained his sons. It was his privilege, as it is ours, to be able to count upon the specific power of God in the subjugation of every element in his house which was calculated to mar the testimony; but he did not do this, and hence his terrible end was that he broke his neck about the house of God, because he had not broken his heart about his own house. Had he waited upon God about his willful sons--had he acted faithfully--had he discharged the holy responsibilities devolving upon him, the house of God would never have been desecrated, and the ark of God would not have been taken. In a word, had he treated his house as part of himself, and made it what it ought to be, he would not have called down upon himself the heavy judgment of Him whose principle it is never to separate the words, "_Thou and thy house_."