Crossing Jordan (Part A)

Baring it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it. Ten times the ark is mentioned in this chapter alone, the Ark of the Covenant, emphasizing the continued presence of God. Yes, they had the Shekinah earlier. That's going to stop now, along with the manna. The ark is going to lead them in. They're being weaned off of a visual contact with the presence of God, and they're going to learn to live by faith now. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Joshua.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, please turn to chapter 3 of the book of Joshua. Let's join Pastor Rick for his study called Crossing Jordan.

Joshua chapter 3. All through the week you struggle. So many things press on us. We come into the house of the Lord and everything outside kind of shrinks for a little bit.

And we build up, hopefully, and go back at it. Israel today in the Promised Land owes her presence to this chapter. This is where really all began for them as far as they're actually being in the Promised Land. And so important is it that Joshua takes chapter 3, 4, and 5 just to talk about crossing into Jordan.

And then, of course, Jericho is next. And their neighborhood, more than their neighborhood, of course, was about to change. They were leaving, and this is what we also come away with it. There's a parallel. There's the historical account. And then there are other lessons that apply to us centuries later. But the crossing of Jordan symbolizes leaving the self-life for the Christ life, that wilderness experience, that area where they really should never have been for so long.

But they were there, and all of that is coming to an end now. This second generation disproved so many of those clichés we're familiar with, you know, kids today, this generation, well, in my day. Well, in your day, you didn't believe the Lord.

They could have said to their mothers and their fathers. But they were occupied with obeying God, and they did a great job, this generation going into the Promised Land. So we look now at verse 1. Then Joshua arose early in the morning, and they set out from Acacia grove and came to the Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they crossed over. Early in the morning, it says, he arose. Then Joshua arose early in the morning. He's up and at them, or up and at them.

Why is that singled out here and in seven other spots in the book of Joshua concerning this man? Now, he's in his 90s, and when you're excited about something, it is certainly easier to get up in the morning. I think for him that day, this would have been the second most exciting thing, the first thing being that first cup of coffee. You non-coffee drinkers, it's not funny. But for us who like the bean, it's a unique time of the day.

Well, of course, as I said, easier to get out when you're excited. But Joshua, just for a moment, we're going to pause about this. I try not to go over too much that we went over the first time through Joshua, but this is not one of them.

This one merits attention again. He was a student of the sudden strike school. He's quick to go at what he had to do.

Here, getting up early to go to the Jordan. In chapter six, we are told that he would get up early so that they would march around Jericho. He did this for six days, and then on the seventh day, he did it again.

That is singled out for us. When Achan was causing problems because of his lust for things, his disobedience, we are told again in chapter seven that Joshua arose early. And then at Ai, where the battle was to take place in chapter eight, he got up early again at Gilgal for a night op. He's not getting up early, but he's eager.

He's at it. He sneaks up on the opposition and takes them out. And then again in chapter 11 in Merom, there it is implied that he was up and Adam again early. You say, well, is there any precedence maybe that Joshua could have picked this up, or was he just that kind of a guy, an early starter? Well, Abraham, we're told, got up early three times that it's singled out for us. One, the first one that is mentioned is when he got up the next day after Sodom's judgment and he stood and he looked and he saw the smoke coming from Sodom and Gomorrah like a furnace. But two other times, we read about Abraham up early in the morning to take care of business. And the second one was when he was sending Hagar and Ishmael away. He got up early to deal with this stuff. He didn't beat around, let this thing hang over his head all day.

He went right at it. And then there was perhaps the most pronounced of all when he was commanded by God to take Isaac, his only son, whom he loved and offer him a burnt sacrifice. Abraham was up early in the morning.

I would have lingered for, I don't know, five, six decades before I got around to such a task. So Abraham had a habit of facing the hard task resolutely. That's, I think, one of the great lessons of that little snapshot just of Abraham. Four times we read about Moses doing this. So there's this precedence, these examples in the life of this ex-slave, Joshua. Four times.

We won't go over Moses. You can look it up in your concordances. It's worth looking up. But then there's another one that's quite unique, and that is Job. Now if you're a late riser, this is not a rebuke. I would like to believe that if you enjoy, you know, some are night owls. They're just, you know, they function late at night, one or two o'clock in the morning, they're at it. I used to be that way.

I prefer to be that way, but I'm not. But anyway, the idea is that when it's time to take care of business, you do it. And I've known quite a few people who like to sleep in late, but when it comes time for them for an early appointment or something, they're there, and they're ready. Job routinely got up in the morning early and worshiped and interceded for others. Job chapter 1 verse 5. So it was when the days of feasting had run their course that Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, it may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus Job did regularly. Again, Joshua has precedence. The book of Job was in existence at the time, Joshua in his day, long in existence, and certainly Moses put together Genesis from material that Joshua would have been aware of. Then we come to our Lord Jesus when he served on earth.

Mark chapter 1. In the morning, having risen long, a long while before daylight, he went out and departed to a solitary place, and there he prayed. With all of the struggles that we face in this life and how long it takes sometimes for God to grant prayer, if he grants at all, there he is praying nonetheless. Because we do not pray based on whether we get what we want. We pray because we are told to pray. We are told to communicate with God.

And that is incentive enough. That is what we will be held accountable to on the subject of prayer, and I don't plan to get it wrong. In Luke's gospel, in chapter 4 again of Jesus, now when it was day, he departed and went into a deserted place, and the crowd sought him and came to him and tried to keep him from leaving. He departed and went to a deserted place when it was day.

That's what it says at sunup. Now E.M. Bounds has put together the definitive work according to some on prayer. I don't see it the way E.M. Bounds saw it. He was a profound Christian, a devout man. He would rise up four in the morning. I mean, he lived 200 years ago or so. He would rise up before the sun, and he would pray, and he gives all of these incentives, and you read that book, and you say, yes, this is what I want, and then you go try it, and you get, you know, you can't do it.

You got to go to work, and it's just a whole other schedule we live by, and you can't. It was said of John Gill, who was one of the predecessors of Charles Spurgeon, and his commentaries, Gill's commentaries are very good, that Dr. Gill would be at his desk before the people in his parish would be up for work. He'd beat them to work. I tried that for years, but then in an evening study on a Wednesday, you'd be dragging if you get up at, you know, 4.30 in the morning just to beat everybody, and they don't even know where we live.

Everybody's spread out in a little village. My point, again, is not that we beat everybody up as far as time-wise or any other way, as inviting as that sometimes may be, but that we just, we have this resolve to go at our task the right way, the zeal and the energy to get it done now when it is supposed, no procrastination, which is, again, something we all get around to, most of us, some fear, wasting time, that is an asset, because they're always in motion. John Wesley was that way.

John Wesley, Samuel Johnson, a great intellect of his day, and even by our own standards today would be considered so, but he was frustrated because Wesley never stayed long enough in one place for Samuel Johnson to try to pick his brain, because Wesley was always on the move, reading his Bible while he rode hundreds of miles on horseback. Well, we come to verse 2 now. We just covered that Joshua's up and he's at them early. So it was after three days that the officers went through the camp. This, of course, reflects back to chapter 1, verse 11, where the initial command was given to Joshua by the Lord, three days, and we crossed Jordan. And so now he's going back. There's been a parenthesis inserted in the story that tells us about the spies.

We'll come back to that in a moment. Within those three days mentioned by Joshua, they were to get the food ready and whatever other items they needed to be prepared to cross into the promised land and be ready for whatever would come their way, which they were not aware. They did not know what they would encounter. And as I mentioned, the three days, probably a little before the spies went out and they end up coming back and giving Joshua their report and everyone's excited about that. But that pause of the spies held everything up. Probably two and a half million people were held up because two men had to go look at Jericho. Joshua stressed Jericho. And the reason why this was so vital to the story is because there were souls to be saved. And that's another lesson that comes out. The Jews didn't know that.

Half the Jews were out making provisions for the crossing. They weren't aware of Rahab and her clan, or not a clan, but her family. They had no knowledge of that until much later. But God knew it. And in addition to Rahab, an undisclosed number of souls, consisting of her family, were also saved.

Undisclosed. Always there are souls to be saved somewhere, and we don't know who they are. We know some that we want to see saved, of course, but there are others. And so we come away from this story understanding and entering into the Christ-like life. There are souls to be saved, and I'm supposed to be about that in spite of whatever junk I get going on in my life, which can be pretty intense. Even if there's no immediate flare-up in your life, you know you can still be miserable. It's not uncommon.

A person can have all the material things they need, they can have the friends they need, and yet they just hate life. If you are that way, or you have been that way, don't be too taken by that. Just continue with your orders. That's what duty is about. Duty does not say, do you feel like standing watch tonight? Are you in the mood for guard duty? If you've ever pulled guard duty, you know it's a hateful thing.

Just walking around, waiting to shoot somebody, maybe. And most of the time, it's not that way at all. But that is not something we should tremble in the face of. We'll get through it. God will use us nonetheless. In fact, while we go through these moods and these things, and then we get around people, unbeknownst often to us, those moods were shaping us to be the people that we are where God needs us to be. Ten times in this chapter, the ark is mentioned, the presence of God. We who believe Christ, it is our understanding, His presence is with us all the time, which is confusing when we're not feeling so good about things. But what is God supposed to do? Open the heavens and peek down and say, hey, don't worry, it's going to be okay. Well, He said that in His word.

And we have to be trained to function nonetheless. Now, verse three, speaking of the presence of God, He says, And they commanded the people, saying, When you see the ark of the covenant of Yahweh your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it. Ten times the ark is mentioned in this chapter alone, the ark of the covenant, emphasizing the continued presence of God.

Yes, they had the Shekinah earlier. That's going to stop now, along with the manna. The ark is going to lead them in. They're being weaned off of a visual contact with the presence of God.

And they're going to learn to live by faith now. This ark of the covenant was not something for their eyes. But this may have been somewhat of an exception, this sacred chest that the priests were carrying on this occasion. And in the chest we know what was there, the three items, the two tablets of the law, one table dealing with God and man, the first table, the second table dealing with man and man and the presence of God. Then there was the rod of Aaron, that dead stick that actually butted almonds.

Miraculous! The authority of God and His anointing on His chosen ones. There was the pot of manna that God promises, His provisions, the rule of God, the guidance of God, and the provisions of God, all symbolized and more in that chest, because the lid spoke of the miraculous sovereignty of God in mercy. It's called a mercy seat.

Everything was under the mercy seat. The cherubim, the emblems, the created emblems, living emblems, because our God is a living God, and so are His created beings of these fitting symbols, that they were walking with the ark, that God had gone mobile before them in another way representing His mobility. Now there are other, it doesn't stay, the types do not, the types sort of are like shooting stars. They go across, you got it, you've enjoyed it, but they don't stay and go back and forth and kind of make figure eights like sky writers. And types are the same way.

They make their point, but you cannot keep them, sustain them, and to make, you know, twenty, thirty other points with it, at some point it drops off. This ark being carried by the priest, though, that is unique. Numbers chapter 4, we read this, When the camp prepares to journey, Aaron and his son shall come, and they shall take down the covering veil, and cover the ark of the testimony with it. So, when the ark of the covenant, the tent, the tabernacle, the dwelling place of God was in operation at this point, it's probably being, on this third day, it's being broken down as you would take a tent down and being prepared to carry over Jordan, and the ark would be up in front, but the Holy of Holies, that veil that separated the holy place from the Holy of Holy Place, the priest would take it down and they would cover the ark so no one could see it. Which means that it was likely covered as they're carrying it.

Oh, it could have been an exception, but it would be out of line when it's not mentioned that way. And of course it speaks of other things to us too, because for so many people the unseen is unreal. They just can't take it by faith that beneath the covering there is the chest with its contents. Even if you can't see it, by faith you accept that Moses wasn't lying to us, Joshua's not lying to us, the priests are not lying to us. We take their word for it as godly men. Well, when we come to Christ, we take his word for it because he has his way of making us understand that faith is not just believing something for the sake of believing it, that there are reasons why we believe what we believe. For me it was the voice, the voice of the Lord spoke to me, I just knew the presence, I knew I was guilty in the presence of his word and I knew he was ready to forgive me, he was to pounce on me with forgiveness and he did just that.

There are laws and rules and there are other laws and rules. There are ways to perceive and know that go beyond sight and that is what faith is all about. Spurgeon says this about seeing God. He says, when a man gets a clear view of the holiness of God it is all over with all claim of personal excellence, from that day he abhors himself in the dust and ashes.

He that looked into the face of the sun is blinded by its light to all other light. And Spurgeon, of course, he can be a little flowery, of course, well why not? Nothing wrong with it, if it makes sense and it's not too long, F.B. Meyer, he could be very flowery for those of you who know who F.B.

Meyer is, but still makes sense. Well, Spurgeon says once you've seen God, everything changes. You don't see yourself the way you used to see yourself. This is miraculous because nothing else does it like this. And he says it's like looking into the sun, you're blinded by that light, no other light can you now see.

You walk away still seeing that sunlight. It says here in verse 4, and the priests, the Levites bearing it, that double insistence. Well, the priests were Levites, they just were not Kohathites, so that part of the Levitical clan, who were entrusted with transporting the ark after the priests covered it. The priests would cover it, the Kohathites would come in and they would cart it away. Well, on this occasion it's the priest. We'll see this again in Joshua 6 as they go around Jericho, and then we'll see it again, well, in a while, in 1 Kings, of course, when the ark is taken to the temple.

There are other occasions is what I want to say. He says in verse, bottom of verse 3, Then you shall set out from your place and go after it. That's follow the ark, because the Shekinah again is not going to be there. That pillar, that giant cloud, and that fire by night, no longer.

It was a different method of guidance now, and also, as I mentioned, the manna would stop. We'll get to that in chapter 5, verse 4 now. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about a thousand cubits by measure. Do not come near it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way before.

Well, about a little over a mile, a half a mile, a little over half a mile distance. Remember, two million people, and they were to keep this little more than half a mile interval. Great lessons in all of this. Give God space to lead. That's one of the first lessons you get.

Give him space to lead. In between that, in that interval, between here and there, there is a long suffering oftentimes. There's doubt. Sometimes there's just full-blown faith and trust, this confidence. God taking the space to maneuver because that's what it calls for. So what if you were in a rush? You say, why do I got to wait three days to go into the... Well, right here I can see the land is right across the river.

Well, certainly I'm simplifying it. But again, it goes back to God sees other things. He saw Rahab, for example. Before he rained down fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, he saw a lot. And we learn these lessons and then we go out to live them so that the Bible never becomes to us just this Bible story that's interesting and fascinating. But it's real when life's not too interesting or fascinating but can be quite difficult. He says, do not come near it that you may know the way by which you must go. And so again, this interval enabled them to see the ark from a distance.

There's a practical reason here. You can't follow the leader if you crowd the leader. Psalm 23, he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He leads me.

Then it goes on in verse three, that's verse two. In verse three of Psalm 23, he restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness.

He leads me, he leads me. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, Paul wrote to the Romans, these are the children of God. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Joshua. Cross Reference is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you're interested in more information about this ministry, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com.

You'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick available there. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. By doing so, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music, or your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. We're glad we were able to spend time with you today. Tune in next time to continue learning from the book of Joshua right here on Cross Reference Radio.