Crossing the Jordan
Text Joshua 3 Time 31 05 20 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church (Zoo
The next thing we come to in the Book of Joshua is what one scholar calls the single most important event in the book - the crossing of the River Jordan. Just as when they left Egypt God brought them safely through the Red Sea so now they enter the Promised Land in a similar way, through the Jordan River. The story is found in Chapters 3 and 4. Some of the detail is a little difficult to follow but the broad picture is clear. This week we will just look at what we are told in Chapter 3.
n his commentary on Joshua, Dale Ralph Davis points out how the story is marked by suspense. If you read it as it is written it only slowly becomes clear what is going to happen. First, they are told to camp by the Jordan then to consecrate themselves and keep their eyes on the ark. Then Joshua is told he is going to be exalted and the priests carrying the ark are told to stand in the river. It is only in verse 13 that the people are told that as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the LORD - the Lord of all the earth - set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap. Even there. what is to happen is not spelled out. The miracle itself only comes at the end of Chapter 3.
There are at least four lessons that come out of the text
1. Consider the importance of being prepared for God to work
The story starts, as so often in Scripture Early in the morning. We are told how Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim (about 6 miles east of the Jordan) and went to the Jordan, where they camped before crossing over. In verses 2-4 we read how After three days the officers went throughout the camp, giving orders to the people: "When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before. But keep a distance of about two thousand cubits between you and the ark; do not go near it."
2000 cubits = about a thousand yards/914 metres.
So they are told to follow the ark, which is going to lead the way. The ark is mentioned 17 times in Chapters 3 and 4. It is very important. It stands for God's presence here. The distance is more about allowing Israel to see God's work than simply reverence.
We also read in verse 5 how Joshua told the people, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you." Nothing is spelled out but they are to be prepared for God to work. Such consecration involved washing their clothes, refraining from sexual relations, making sure they were ceremonially clean.
Finally, under this first heading note how (5) Joshua said to the priests, "Take up the ark of the covenant and pass on ahead of the people." So they took it up and went ahead of them.
Pop groups were very popular in the 1960s and there were lots of different ones - The Beatles, The Move, The Who, The Kinks. As child I always liked to know who was the most important person in the group. Sometimes it was difficult to know. In The Dave Clark Five, Dave Clark was the man on the drums not the singer. Or take Fleetwood Mac - that name is from the drummer Mick Fleetwood and the bass player John McVie not the singer or guitarist. In the group Manfred Mann, Manfred Mann was not the singer but the man on the keyboards. With the Spencer Davis Group, on the other hand, it was Steve Winwood who you needed to know about rather than Spencer Davis himself.
At this point in Israel's history it was important for them to know who was most important in this situation. God was the one they should be looking to not themselves or Joshua or even the priests. Thus the emphasis on looking to the ark and on consecrating themselves to God for Joshua tells them tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you.
This brings us to the matter of having the right attitude and preparing ourselves as we should. One reason why gatherings for worship or our own time with our Bibles is less than rewarding is because we have the wrong attitude and are not prepared. We need to come to worship focussed on God and prepared to meet with him. $ You know the expression priming the pump. Some water pumps will only work once you get the air out of them - usually done by putting water into them. Priming simply means preparing. Sometimes we need to prime the spiritual pump if we are to know blessing.
2. Realise that what God does for us is intended to exalt Christ
In verses 7-9 we read And the LORD said to Joshua, "Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses. Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: 'When you reach the edge of the Jordan's waters, go and stand in the river.'" Joshua said to the Israelites, "Come here and listen to the words of the LORD your God."
Later, in 4:14 we read That day the LORD exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they stood in awe of him all the days of his life, just as they had stood in awe of Moses.
It is still not clear how God is going to begin to exalt Joshua in the eyes of all Israel but the LORD announces that is part of his intention. Moses brought them through the Red Sea, Joshua will do the same at the Jordan. God was with Moses and he will be with Joshua.
It is important that people retain confidence in their leaders. There is an expression in football "to lose the dressing room". This is used when a manager of a football team loses the confidence of his players and they stop listening to him and so things go from bad to worse. There is no football at the moment but back in January the Independent was saying that Norwegian Ole Gunnar Solkjaer at Manchester United was
"losing the dressing room, with a number of squad members "irritated" by his drills and what is more, his wider tactical approach.
It's stated that while the players like him - and there's no denying Solskjaer is a very likeable character - they do not think he should have been appointed in the first place."
God was determined that Joshua would not "lose the dressing room" but would be exalted in Israel's eyes. Joshua, of course, points us to Jesus Christ our Leader and it is important that we see that in all that God the Father does he is determined to exalt Jesus Christ. We can expect to see that happening and should be on the look out for it.
3. Note how God is eager that we should be assured of victory through him
When I was a boy I remember sitting in the church where I grew up and hearing the minister giving a children's talk. There was a boy there a little bit younger than me called Michael, Michael Derosaire (Indian family). The minister asked if the children expected to go to heaven. Michael was a good little boy and so he said that he hoped to go to heaven - which I thought was a pretty good answer. You don't want to sound too confident. But the minister wasn't happy with that. He wanted the children to know they were going to heaven.
I once heard Sinclair Ferguson talking about Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) Pope Clement VIII’s personal theologian and one of the most able figures in the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation movement in the sixteenth-century. On one occasion, Bellarmine wrote:
“The greatest of all Protestant heresies is _______ .” As Ferguson puts it "Complete, explain, and discuss Bellarmine’s statement. How would you answer? What is the greatest of all Protestant heresies? Perhaps justification by faith? Perhaps Scripture alone, or one of the other Reformation watchwords? Those answers make logical sense. But none of them completes Bellarmine’s sentence. What he wrote was: “The greatest of all Protestant heresies is assurance.”
Bellarmine absolutely hated the fact Protestants wanted people to know they were going to heaven. I think the fear is that if people know they are going to heaven they will become complacent and self-satisfied. And yet God wants us to assured of salvation. He want us to know it will all turn out well in the end.
Here in verses 10, 11 Joshua says to the people This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites. See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you.
We then have verse 12 about choosing twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe which we will come back to another time.
Then verse 13 And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the LORD - the Lord of all the earth - set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap."
So now they know what was going to happen but look why. Then they would know that the living God is among them and that he would certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites. If God brings them dry shod across the raging Jordan river then he will also enable them to conquer the Canaanites.
It is similar for us who believe today. If God converted us in the first place then we can be sure that he will keep us to the very end and bring us safely into heaven. It's the same logic as Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
4. Recall how God's people entered Canaan and how God leads his people all the way
Finally, let's look at verses 14-17. So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. So you get the picture - the priests carrying the ark. They are the ones to keep your eye on. The niv has smoothed things out a bit in verse 15, which should begin with something about the priests who carried the ark reaching the Jordan and their feet touch(ing) the water's edge. But then what is 15a in our translations is stuck in the way - Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. In other words, as we work towards a miraculous climax, there is a spanner in the works. There are places where the Jordan is fairly narrow and shallow about three foot deep and a hundred feet across. But it is harvest time and the Jordan is at flood stage all through. There was also vegetation either side that made it difficult to cross at flood tide when there was also a strong current. This was a raging torrent then perhaps a mile wide.
But (16, 17) the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho - just a brief reminder of the battle that lay ahead - The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground.
Why does God choose to bring this miracle about when it is most difficult? We do not know, but the Lord often seems to make things harder for himself rather than easier. Think obviously of Jonah inside the big fish or the three friends in the fiery furnace or Daniel in the lions' den or Lazarus in the grave for four days or how the man on the cross next to Jesus was saved at the very eleventh hour. The darkest hour, they say, comes before dawn.
In 1 Corinthians 1 (21, 25, 27) we read that since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. ... For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. ... God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
The lesson is obvious - God can lead his people all the way home. All we need to do is to keep trusting him. Keep looking to him no matter how impossible it may seem.
In his commentary on Joshua Rhett Dodson quotes the theologian Andreas Kostenberger talking about his conversion when an economics student in Vienna. He had been trying to be a Christian but getting nowhere. He writes
At one point during this process, I had some sort of vision while eating my lunch during a break from work, sitting at the side of the Danube channel (I was completing my "civil service," a substitute for military service, by working at the Lutheran Hospital located in Vienna's 9th district). At that moment, I felt immobilized on one side of a vast, unbridgeable gulf, desperately wanting to cross over to the other side yet being completely unable to do so. Who would take me across the river? I knew I couldn't do it on my own; it took me several months before I realized that it must be Jesus. Finally, I gave up all resistance, intellectual and otherwise, and abandoned myself completely to my Lord, who took me and brought me safely to the other side by virtue of what he had done for me on the cross.
That's what we all need to do if we haven't already. Cast yourself on Christ and let him carry you over to safety.
