Joshua 24:5
I sent Moses also and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt, according to that which I did among them: and afterward I brought you out. I sent Moses also and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt, according to that which I did among them: and afterward I brought you out.
After the Lord had given Israel rest from its enemies, near the end of his life Joshua did his closing work of gathering the people, their leaders, and the tribes at Shechem to recount Israel's history since they were called out as the people of God. This gathering matched Moses calling the children of Israel together just before his death to rehearse their past experience, trials, failures, and the warnings given them. The verse records that God sent Moses and Aaron, afflicted Egypt with plagues according to what He did among them, afterward brought Israel out, and led them into a land they had not labored to possess.
In this farewell review the history reminded Israel of God's works, faithfulness, love, mercy, and providential care in order to strengthen the faith of God's people. The review of God's dealings was meant to awaken gratitude and to humble the people over their past murmuring, complaints, and neglect of His revealed will. By recalling these acts Joshua called the people to recognize God's love and mercy and to serve Him sincerely and truthfully, warning them against idolatry and close ties with idolaters including intermarriage because these expose them to corruption and sin. He taught that departing from God brings desolation and that God is faithful both to His promises and to His warnings, a lesson that applies to each person.
The verse establishes the pattern for those who have had experience in God's dealings in the rise and progress of the work to do the same, recounting the sacrifices of those who led out, the simplicity of the early workers, and the power of God manifested to keep the work free from error and delusion and extravagance. Doing this blesses those who tell it and proves a blessing with a molding influence upon present workers who have not had the experience; when sight of what the Lord has done in the past is lost, sight of His present working in their behalf is lost. Those who enter the work now know comparatively nothing of the self-denial and self-sacrifice of those upon whom the Lord laid the burden at its commencement, and this should be told them again and again so they will carry the work forward in the same humble spirit and with the same self-sacrificing principles that have characterized the true worker in the past.
This recounting gives the pattern for repeating and repeating everything given to ministers, responsible men, teachers, managers, and conferences, working earnestly to bring this instruction before the people, because Satan is doing a special work to make God's Testimonies of no effect and to unsettle confidence with apparently inoffensive errors and dangers, and God's people must stand firmly in defense of the truth understood after the passing of the time in the ongoing warfare between light and darkness.