Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ.
Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church located in Kernersville, North Carolina. Look at Joshua chapter 4 and verse 5. Joshua said, and then pass over before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of Jordan. Let me explain. This is kind of one of the most climactic events in all of history.
The Israelites had been wandering for 40 years. And now the time had come. It was this, the news media uses this word a lot. It was a poignant moment. I've always thought that was a dumb word. Just say it's a special time, okay?
But a point, everybody wants to sound so smart. It was a poignant moment. Behind them, they were leaving the weary wilderness of wandering for 40 something years. There was a whole generation of them that they had had funeral after funeral after funeral because of their lack of faith. They were not allowed to enter the promised land. They wandered because of their lack of faith. And so now that whole generation had died off and now here's Joshua. Moses was gone. And now they are literally in Canaan.
Imagine they'd heard the stories their entire life. They'd wandered in the wilderness in tents eating manna, following a pillar of cloud by day, a fire by night, all these different things. And now they're actually standing in Canaan. Wow.
I mean, finally this is going to happen. And as they enter Canaan, they get to the Jordan River and they couldn't go any further because the Jordan River was so deep, so rapidly flowing, so rough, there's no way to cross it. They didn't have bridges like we have and all these different things. So they finally get to Canaan and now they've got this insurmountable task. How do we get across this Jordan River?
Oh, I don't know. Maybe we ought to think back and remember how when they left Egypt out of bondage and they approached the Red Sea, what did God do? He parted the waters. So here's Joshua and all the people a whole generation later, 40 years later, here they are. They're at the Jordan.
They can't get across. And what does God do? He does again exactly what He did when He made the promise to them. What you don't get a lot of playing time about is the parting of the Jordan River.
The Red Sea gets all the playing time, but guess what? God did exactly what He had done before. And He parted the waters of the Jordan, guess what? And Joshua and the children of Israel crossed the Jordan.
But we have to make note of a very important act that Joshua did. He made the 12 tribes, He made the leader of each of the 12 tribes, all these men, as they crossed over that riverbed, that Jordan River, He made them pick up these big stones that were in the bottom of the Jordan. Now listen, nobody could get to those stones because the Jordan River was deep, it was rapid, it's not like this was… He made them pick up the stones from the middle of the riverbed so that He was going to have them stack them on the other side. And when people saw these stones they were thinking, how in the world do they get those? Those were riverbed stones. I mean those were at the bottom.
You don't get those. They didn't have cranes and all that nowadays. So that was a sign that God parted the waters. It was going to be a reminder to them when future generations saw those riverbed stones stacked, this was gonna be a reminder of what God had done. That God had allowed and parted the waters of the Red Sea — of the Jordan River.
Are you with me? Say amen. And that was gonna be a sign of what God did 40 years before that. It was going to be a memorial. I wanted you to look, if you would, at verse 5. And Joshua said, and then passed over before the ark of the Lord, your God into the midst of Jordan, and take ye… Notice this. Every man of you, a stone upon your shoulder, according unto the number of the tribes of the children of Israel.
Can I give you a little phrase that I want to just point out here is this? We must each make our own memorials. He said every one of you need to get a stone up on your shoulder. This isn't just, hey we want a memorial, let's just have one guy get a stone.
No, no, no, no. He says, listen, each of you need to get a stone. Each of you need to make a memorial about this. And can I say something that I believe that our generation, we have another generation coming, we are blessed as a church, because any given Sunday I have four generations sitting in front of me. May I be a reminder to you that, you know, everybody has their own taste in music and their own things, but here at our church we are trying our best to have a type of music that all four generations can enjoy and worship.
It might not be the particular taste or exactly what every generation wants, but we want to make sure that it's at least safe that every generation can participate. You might say, well that's a little bit of a new song for me. Well guess what, what you sang when you were 20 was a new song then. And it was okay for you to sing a new song back in your 20s, so why is it now wrong for us to sing a new song when you're in your 70s?
So you got to understand that here's four generations sitting in front of us, we all want a new song to sing, but we also want to make sure that we don't have a kind of music that people in their 70s and 80s get offended by. So at this church we're just going to keep it where we are and we're going to be conservative, but we're going to have life and we're going to have energy and we're going to praise God. Can I have an amen right there?
It means it's not about any just one of us. So Joshua says every one of you need to carry a stone. Everybody needs to be involved. Everybody ought to be putting up a memorial of what God has done. And I want to challenge you on this anniversary Sunday, whatever you want to call it, we can't walk into Chapel Hill Hospital and not see some memorials of what God has done. May I say this? The fact that we're still going there is a memorial. You know the alternative?
Kayden wouldn't be here and we wouldn't go to the hospital. So while we don't enjoy being in the hospital, thank God we have a reason to still go. And so what I'm saying in the future, we've got future generations, they're searching. They want to know what's real.
They've heard all this stuff and they heard preachers and all this, but mom and dad seemed to not really be into it, didn't really follow it, and we have a generation of people searching. And may I say something? They need to see our memorials.
They need to hear what God has done. We each must make our own memorials. Look at verse 6, that this may be a sign among you that when your children ask their fathers in time to come saying, what mean ye by these stones? What does this mean?
May I say this? We need reminders in our life what God has done. You know a while back I brought, it was very funny, a while back I showed you a coffee mug that I bought in Chapel Hill when Kayden was born. And we were going through open heart surgeries and it was a North Carolina coffee mug, but I got it there and right when he was born and I've always had that coffee mug. It just reminds me it's chipped and it's broken kind of thing. You might remember I shared that one time and Brother David Averbeck sent a picture, he had the exact same mug.
The exact same one. He said every time I use this I think of you and pray for you and your family and all these things. And may I say this? You do what you want to do. Not everybody likes to keep things or put up things, but you know what? There ought to be some things maybe in your house at the least. There ought to be things when you're sitting around talking with your kids and your grandkids. You should bring up some things that God has done. You should talk about it a little bit.
You ought to bring it up. We need reminders in our life of what God has done. You say, well, I'm not a person that lives in the past. Well, if you're going to head directly in the future the correct way, you need to remember some things in the past. You need to remember what God has done.
You need to remember how good God has been. Joshua said I want you to stack these stones. What did stacking those stones do? It didn't do anything. It didn't build anything. It wasn't a house.
It wasn't a building. It was just there to be a sign. We need signs in our life. We have some families in here that they've taken a wall in their house and they've even taken, you know, pieces of furniture and they've put things on there that their kids something God does something in one of their child's life. They get an item. They put it on there so that their kids see that. It reminds them what God has done.
I think it's a great thing. Hang some stuff up. Listen, you know, instead of, I'm not against it, but instead of me going to Target paying 300 bucks for a painting, put something up that reminds you of what God has done.
Nothing wrong with that. Because you and I need those reminders. Joshua said, listen, God's been good. God was good 40 years ago.
God's been good now. And we're going to put these stones here and people are going to say, how in the world did they get those stones? That was in the bottom of the river.
Well, the only way was because God made it possible. May I say this secondly about this passage? Notice in verse 6 it says, when your children ask their fathers, what does this mean? Can I remind you of something the next generation is watching? Your kids are watching.
Your grandkids are watching. You say what are they watching for? Well, they're searching. They're watching for who and what they can trust. They're searching for truth. They're searching for what is real. You see, we have a generation of people that don't go to church anymore because they're not really convinced that all this junk is real.
Hello? They've sat in church too much, fallen asleep, bored. Everybody's singing the songs, acts like they're ready to die. The preacher gets up and barely, you know, it's just so, you know, segmented and no emotion involved and no heart involved and church is just a business. It's just something we've got to do for an hour on Sunday and we live like the devil the rest of the week but we act like we're whatever on church on Sunday and this generation has seen that and they wonder what's real. And may I say, he says, when your children ask, why are these — that means this, he's already telling them, letting you know, your kids are going to wonder. They're watching, they're looking, they notice things. And they're going to say, why are these here?
What happened? And may I say that there is a lot that's been lost in our lifetime because there's not a lot of dinner around the dinner table and I'm not the best to talk about it but it's not because we just don't want to. Our lifestyle is different and I understand that but there's a lot lost around the dinner table and one of those things is we don't tell our children and our grandchildren and talk about what God's done. And what God has done.
Listen, I lived a different life and I know that. But I'm going to tell you just about every night of my life I was in church and I had to hear my dad preach. And some of you are like, oh, how great would it be being in church every night of your life?
It's not that great. No, if I was pretending to be real spiritual and like, what a heritage in church every night of my life, I wish I felt like that. But can I tell you, I got tired of church every night of my life.
Homeschooled till four o'clock in the afternoons about every day, you eat supper, you go to church. But can I tell you what every night I got to hear is my dad would preach and give illustrations and I heard illustrations over and over and over again. But I knew my parents' life history more than most kids do. You know why?
I heard it every night. I know how they met. I know how my dad got saved.
I know how my mom got saved. I know that my mom's dad was a drunk, my grandpa. My grandpa was picked up in the gutter on Gay Street, which is an actual name not a description, on Gay Street in Baltimore, Maryland, downtown.
That's where all the bars are. My grandpa would get off work on Friday, spend everything he worked, he'd go down there and drink and they'd get him out of those gutters on Monday morning and try to get him in enough sober to come to work so he could still pay some bills. My grandpa came from a Christian family, he was the black sheep.
He had nothing to do with church. My grandpa was a drunk and he would beat my grandma and he would beat people and he would beat my uncles and all those things. And he'd come home drunk and my grandma would have to grab my mom when she was little and have to grab my uncle when they were young and had to haul them out of that house to go to a neighbor's house because my grandpa would probably beat the pulp out of them when he got home. That's what my mom grew up in and that's what she dealt with. But here, God miraculously saves my mom and my mom decides to make something of her life and all those years later my grandpa, finally cirrhosis of the liver, all that drinking, he goes to a surgery and my mom literally watched my grandpa give his heart to Christ to the point that right before my grandpa died he would set his clock wherever my mom and dad were if they were in California.
It was three years — it was three hours behind where he was in Maryland and he would stay up till 10 o'clock at night so that he could start praying at 7 o'clock when my dad would begin the service and pray that people would get saved during an invitation. Guess what? I heard that over and over again. And I came up believing that God can do this. I came up believing God can save a drunk and God can put a marriage back together.
I grew up believing that because I saw the signs everywhere. Listen, this next generation, they're not gonna come near church if we don't start showing them how real and powerful God is. Joshua chapter 4 and verse 7 says, "'Then ye shall answer them — when your kids ask, why are these stones here — then ye shall answer them that the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord.'" Here they are, they're entering the Promised Land, they have the ark of the covenant, and as they approach the Jordan River, God stops those flowing waters, clears a path for them to go over. He says, you tell them what God did, that God — the waters of the Jordan were cut off, just like a water valve stopped. Look what he says, "'The waters of Jordan were cut off and these stones shall be for a memorial under the children of Israel forever.'" Look at verse 22, it says, "'Then ye shall let your children know, saying Israel came over this Jordan on dry land.
For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan from before you until you were passed over as the Lord.'" Now notice this, "'For the Lord your God.'" He's talking to the kids. He says, "'When your children come up and ask you, what do these stones mean?' He says, "'This is how you answer them.'" Notice what he is saying to say to the children, "'Your God.'"
You know a problem? We have a generation that's their God, but it's not the God of their kids. This is what he says. Notice this, "'Then ye shall let your children know, for the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan from before you until you were passed over as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea when he dried up from before us.'" He's reminding them, "'Let me tell you what you tell your kids. God dried these waters. Your God did this and your God did it 40 years ago. That's the God you serve.'" Listen, we have a generation of people that don't think God can do much.
Can I tell you why? They haven't seen God do much. Can I tell you why they haven't seen God do much? Because we've not been people of faith. We like comfort. We want to get our little system. We don't want to be comfortable.
We don't want to do anything that might offend somebody. Let me tell you something. If nothing else, and I'm not trying to make it about that.
Trust me, it's what we're going through. Trust me, this isn't a—if I've seen nothing else, I'm glad that my two oldest get to see what God's done in Kayden's life. Because you know what? They might get married one day. Who knows? Maybe.
I don't know. But they might get married one day and they might have kids. And you know what? I hope that they're healthy, thriving kids. I hope I can hold my grandkids and they don't have what my child has. But if somehow down the line, something comes out and they might—one of their kids might have something. Can I tell you something? They might be able to say, well, let me tell you something.
This doesn't look the best and it might not be the easiest. But I watched what God did to my brother. And I watched God bring him through five open heart surgeries and treatments and procedures. I watched God do miraculous things in his life.
And the only other one died very, very young before two years of age. Every day Kayden has had is a living, walking memorial to the goodness of God. And I'm glad that my sons see that. And, and for what it's worth, I'm glad that you as a church see it. Now I wish we didn't have to go through it, but I'm glad that you can see that God has done miraculous things. And some of you right here, I've watched God do miraculous things in your life.
That's why you ought to be part of a corporate body of believers, a local church, so that we can see what God does for people's lives. It's a memorial. It's a sign.
What do these stones mean? Why is this here? What happened? Oh, I'm glad you asked.
Let me tell you what happened. Your God parted the waters so that we could take those rocks out of the bottom of that river on dry ground. Oh, and by the way, your God did the same thing at the Red Sea 40 years ago. And because your God did it 40 years ago and your God did it here, I'm reminding you, your God can do it now. I want us to be a church of memorials. I don't, I don't care if we don't ever grow another member of pastors, I hope we do. I feel like we ought to be stewards and, and we ought to try to grow.
I can't find anywhere in the Bible where the Bible tells us to be comfortable. And I know at times people here are like, why do you constantly change? I don't like ruts and I don't like all that. Listen, I was born on the road. We were there seven days. We, you know, we're, we're looking to the next place. I always had the next thing on the horizon. Going here, going there. I didn't live a life where I lived in the same house and I lived in the same this and had the same friends.
My life was constant change. I know that. But I don't like for a church to get comfortable and stuck and in a rut and dead and dry and all we hear is we show up to play a little game and to say we sang a song, to say we listened to the preacher and go on with life. I want God to do something great in our church and I think one of the ways to do it is for this generation of kids that we've been blessed with and teenagers that we've been blessed with, they need to hear and know and see how good God is and how powerful God is and He ought to be their God and their God did it then and their God did it now and their God can do it for the rest of their life. Look at verse 24, that all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty.
Can I give you another one here? We must teach this generation about the power of God. We've got to know how strong God is. If our young people really knew how strong God is, they wouldn't pick a fight with Him. If our kids knew how strong God was, they know there's no beating Him. We live in a generation, we're full of anxiety, we're full of fear.
Why are we so full of fear and anxiety? Because we don't understand how powerful God is. We almost don't think God's able to do anything. We don't think God's able to heal.
We don't think God's able to prevent disease. We don't think God's able to, well, if I do this, this might happen. And if I do this, this might happen. And if I do this, this might happen.
I mean, think about it. God in heaven must think, what have I ever done to you? Why are you so full of fear every step you take?
Am I not strong enough for you? You know why those people wandered in the wilderness for 40 years? Because they didn't think God was strong enough to help them defeat the giants. The spies came back. Ten were. Two were good.
The spies came back. Ten of them were like, no, the giants are too huge. Grasshoppers are huge. The area's rough. It's tough.
There's just no way. Can I tell you something? They were full of anxiety and fear, and where did it lead them?
It led them on an endless wandering for 40 years. But can I tell you what God did? God said, listen, I parted the waters of the Red Sea, and when they finally by faith got to Canaanland, what did He do?
He parted the waters of the Jordan. Look at me, folks. God is mighty. He can do it. I have so much else here that I'm going to share, but I'm going to stop.
Happy anniversary to you. Let me tell you why this was on my mind. If you'll notice the passage we read in Joshua. He says, when your children come talk to you, He says, they will come and ask you in time to come. That's the name of our message today.
Do you know in the King James Version of the Bible, the word future is not used? You're going to go home and Google it. So did I. I Googled it. I Yahooed it.
Everything else I could do to it. That sounded horrible, didn't it? You know how the King James Version of the Bible alludes to the future?
I got every reference where it does. I was going to share some with you today. In time to come. In time to come. Fr. Scott Polley was preaching this week, and it led me on a journey to something, and I was listening to a preacher, and he was talking about a Proverbs 31 woman.
And I'm not going to tell you everything he said, because it wouldn't be real popular. But in Proverbs 31, I was going to show you today, but I'm done. In Proverbs 31, as he got to that point, it talks about the Proverbs 31 woman, all that she does, and her husband can trust in her, and she looketh well to the affairs of her family. It says she reaches out to the needy. She's resourceful. She's generous. She's giving.
All these different things. But it comes to a verse, and she says, strength and beauty are her clothing. It says she shall rejoice in time to come.
What does it mean? Because of what she's doing now. She's going to have joy in the future.
Because it's not always easy taking care of a family. It's not always easy reaching out to the poor, reaching out to the needy. But guess what?
She, the Bible says, that kind of woman is going to have joy in time to come. May I say this, you and I, we ought to be investing our lives into people. We ought to literally prepare for a bountiful future by investing our lives into people now. Because I'm going to tell you something, I want to rejoice in time to come.
Can I tell you what is wrong with us, our culture? We want to rejoice now. We want to be happy now.
We don't want to put the work in, we just want the results. We want it now. We want to enjoy it now.
Am I right? Our generation will go into debt up to our eyeballs because we want a car now. We want this now. We want this now. You and I have got to live with eternity in mind.
I want to challenge you at Kerwin. God's been good to us, but how about let's make more of an effort to tell our next generation how good God's been. Are you with me? Let's bring up some stuff that God did. I would never want to embarrass them, they're so kind, anniversary they just, you know, I've known them longer than I've known you. But David, if you don't mind, just kind of wave your hand, I won't make you stand up. Mr. Gilmore, many of you know Mr. Gilmore, they were members here for years, taught in our school, our school closed, they had to get another job, go to another church, we missed that and hate that.
I've known Brother David since I was a kid. But I'll never forget one night my dad said, got me in the house and said, come on with me. I said, where are we going? He said, we're going to the hospital. I said, okay, why are we going up the back hallways? Why is dad looking out the door before, because I wasn't old enough to get there, I wasn't allowed in to the area where Brother Gilmore was. But dad said, you need to see this. So we — I remember dad got me up, snuck me in, I think he lied like I was a brother or something, I don't know. No telling with my dad. I remember going in the hospital bed, Brother Gilmore was laying there and had had a horrible, horrible accident.
Couldn't even recognize him. I don't know if Brother David would remember this, because dad went on a couple of occasions there in Jacksonville when it happened to Brother Gilmore, but I'm telling you, they didn't think Brother Gilmore was going to make it. It was a horrible, horrible wreck. I remember the first time I went with dad, maybe one of the — I think two times that he snuck me up. I remember dad got down on his knees by the bed.
Just prayed somehow God would spare David's life. I remember that. I remember that. Do you know how many times I've been in a hospital since then? Do you know how many times I've had people laying in a hospital bed?
Oh, and you know what I bet? Hey, I've seen what God can do. David's sitting there, precious family, serving in the ministry all these years. I've seen what God can do, but guess why God needed to be my God. I saw as a kid what God can do. I saw over the years, because God was preparing me for October of 2011, because now it wasn't David and it wasn't one of you, it was my child. But I saw God do it with him. I saw God work a miracle in his life. I've seen God work a miracle some of your lives, and guess what? My God did that, my God's done that, and my God did it for me.
Our people need to know that. Yeah, so what's God done for you? Who have you told? Maybe it's time to start telling it again. I wish this would just birth something that maybe you'd have a meal at home this week with your kids, grandkids, any family that you have, and just say, listen, it's been a while, I want to know from each of you, what's God done for you?
Tell me the greatest thing you think God's ever done for you. Let's start talking about it. Let's start proclaiming it. Let's start carrying these rocks and setting them in place so that our kids and our grandkids will see what God has done. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you. God bless you.
