Remembering the Works of God

Why do I call Romans 8 the best chapter in the Bible?

Because it is. Christians for centuries, I think, have turned to Romans 8 because it gives us the gospel in one chapter. It talks about the doctrine of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And I had a deacon one time saying to me that this was in some way calling into question the inspiration of all of Scripture, and isn't all of Scripture.

Great and the greatest. And I said, well, just answer this question. If you've got two minutes to live, do I read the first few chapters of Chronicles, which is a list of names, or do I read Romans 8? And I think the answer is always going to be Romans 8, because it says everything that needs to be said about the gospel in one chapter. Coming up next on Renewing Your Mind… Continue now with our study of the book of Joshua.

Return our attention today. To the third chapter, where we have the record of the crossing of the Jordan River. We read in chapter 3 these words, that the officers went through the camp, and they commanded the people, saying, This is interesting because of the ritual that surrounds this event of the crossing of the Jordan River. The parallels here in the third chapter of Joshua to the book of Exodus in the crossing of the Red Sea, when the Israelites were being pursued by the chariots of Egypt, is difficult to miss. That this, in a sense, replicates or reduplicates the historic moment of the crossing of the Red Sea, which was the crossing of the sea out of bondage, and now they're going to cross this body of water into the promised land.

And so these two crossings are of immense importance in the whole history of Judaism. And we have a tendency to remember the great significance of the Exodus and of the crossing of the Red Sea, but there's a tendency for us to underestimate the vast importance of this event. And really, the crossing of the Red Sea would be meaningless were it not for the additional crossing of the Jordan at this point. Also, we have a tendency to think that the crossing of the Jordan, which was not a sea, was nearly the big deal that the crossing of the Red Sea had been. But at this point where the Jordan was to be crossed, the Jordan was extremely deep and the current extremely strong, and it was a perilous action, to say the least, to try to get across this water. It is as if now God has led the people through all these years of the wilderness experience to bring them to the brink of the promised land, but there this natural barrier prevents access.

There's no opportunity here for the army corps of engineers in Joshua's army to build a bridge across the Jordan. This was a formidable obstacle that stood in the way of the promised land, apparently barring access to the promised land. And guaranteeing to the inhabitants of Canaan safety from this threatening invasion. Now, as they set out for the crossing, after this waiting period, Joshua gives the command, so the way this is going to take place is in the lead, on the point, will be the priests and the Levites bearing the ark of the covenant.

Again, reminding us of the way in which the throne of God had been used in earlier periods of Jewish history as the symbol of the presence of God going before His people. Joshua is saying, not follow me, but follow God. Follow the throne of Yahweh.

Follow His judgment seat. Follow the ark of the covenant. But remember that the ark of the covenant was normally placed inside the tabernacle and so on.

It was the most sacred vessel of Israel. And Joshua says, before you follow the priests and the Levites and the throne of God, you have to allow thousands of cubits of space, about a half a mile or so, I'm not sure of the exact distance here, quarter of a mile at least, a very long distance that they are to keep from coming too close to the ark of the covenant. And then Joshua said to the people, Behold, I am a prophet, and I am a prophet among you. Now, again, this is reminiscent of the style of Moses' leadership where when God was about to do something of dramatic redemptive importance, He would announce in advance such as the giving of the law from Sinai and call a solemn assembly of the people. And the people had to go through a process of sanctification, of cleansing, of purification, so that they may be prepared to be witnesses of the redemptive action of God.

And this takes place here as well. God said, I'm not just going to exalt myself. I'm going to exalt you, Joshua. I'm going to put my stamp of approval before all of the nation on your leadership.

This is the day that I'm going to demonstrate to the people that I am with you. I once talked to a consultant who told me about the Rothschild principle, and I didn't know what he was speaking about when he told about the Rothschild principle. And he talked about how Baron Rothschild in Germany was a fabulously wealthy man, and how a young businessman who had a great idea for establishing a company that he hoped would be prosperous, but he needed it.

He needed venture capital to start his business. And so, he went to the office of Baron Rothschild and asked Baron Rothschild if he would advance him alone to be the investment capital for this business. And Rothschild listened to the story, and when the young man was finished explaining in all of his excitement, his imaginative vision, Rothschild looked at him and said, no, I will not grant you the loan. And the man's heart sunk, and he was profoundly disappointed, but even as his face was sinking, Rothschild smiled and he said, but I'll tell you what I will do. The man said, what's that? He said, I'll take you across the street to the Banker's Club over there, and you and I will walk across the floor of the Banker's Club, and I will put my arm around your shoulder and talk to you as we walk across the floor of the Banker's Club. And then I will leave, and I promise you that after I leave, every banker in the club will give you the loan that you need. Because Rothschild understood the power of his endorsement. And so this person who told me this story said, this is very important that we help one another in this way, to transfer credibility, to transfer leadership to up-and-coming young people who show promise and so on.

I've never forgotten that story. But that's what God is doing here for Joshua. He said, I am going to put my arm around you as we walk across the Jordan River, and from that day on everybody will know that you are my man. Then he said, you shall command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant, saying, when you have come to the edge of the water of the Jordan, you shall stand in the Jordan. So Joshua said to the children of Israel, come here and hear the words of the Lord your God.

And he said, by this you shall know that the living God is among you, and that He will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hibites, the Perizzites, the Gergashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all of the earth is crossing over before you into the Jordan. Now therefore, take for yourselves twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man from every tribe, and it shall come to pass as soon as the souls of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off, the waters that come down from upstream, and they shall stand as a heap.

So notice the instructions. Joshua commands the priests and the Levites not only to go to the edge of the water with the ark of the covenant, but to go and stand in the water. And then Joshua said, as soon as that happens, as soon as the feet of the priests step into the water with the ark of the covenant, the waters will recede. So he tells in advance that this miracle will take place.

Well, let's read what happens. So it was, verse 14, when the people set out from their camp to cross over the Jordan with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people. And as those who bore the ark came to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water, for the Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest. Now we are told by the archeologists and so on that the banks of the Jordan in this particular place are extremely steep.

They're walled. And so it's not like the priests could go up to the edge and step in without falling in over their heads. It wasn't like you go wading out into a lake where you get out there so many yards and then the water slowly inches up towards your head. In this case, had they stepped directly into the water, they would have drowned. But the point was that at this point of the year during harvest, the river overflowed its banks. And so there was a shallow degree of water over the precipitous edge of the river, and that's what Josh was saying.

As soon as they step in that shallow place of the overflowing water, then the action will take place. The waters which came down from the upstream, we are told, stood still and rose in a heap very far away at Adam, the city that is beside Zaratan. So the waters that went down into the Sea of Arabah, the salt sea, failed and were cut off, and the people crossed over opposite Jericho.

And all Israel crossed over on dry ground until the people had crossed completely over the Jordan. Now do you realize this is not a group of fifty to a hundred people who are coming up to the edge of a little brook that temporarily separates and they rush across the thing. We have hundreds of thousands of people here, the columns of which would stretch out for a quarter of a mile or a half a mile.

This is a huge host of people. And for the river to separate, to allow the passing over of this horde of people required a massive separation. And this separation was not just a little gap of fifteen feet, but again it ran for miles in the Jordan River, as on the one end the waters that were flowing were heaped up as if a dam were placed there. And since that water stopped, then the water that was going downstream just continued to go and nothing was following after it to replace it.

And so the riverbed became dry for a long period of time here, a long distance and for some amount of time. Now this is clearly being communicated here in the book of Joshua as a supernatural event, as a miracle. And certainly I believe that it was a miracle because it happened by divine command and it happened at exactly the right time and the right moment as God and Joshua had predicted it. But one of the interesting footnotes to history is that there are at least three accounts of similar events that took place in the Jordan River around this particular point in recorded history.

One in the thirteenth century and two in the twentieth century. So as recently I believe as 1927, we have the record of a twenty-one hour period where this section of the Jordan River dried up and the waters were dammed as it were or heaped up through a natural phenomenon. And the phenomenon that caused it in all three episodes was an earthquake. And we know that earthquakes happen frequently in this area of the world, usually about one every forty years or so. And that because of the particular terrain here, this phenomenon is not unknown. Now that in no way diminishes the miraculous character of this event because no matter how many times this happens in the Jordan River, it doesn't happen when you have hundreds of thousands of people waiting to invade the promised land and it doesn't happen on cue with the coming of the ark of the covenant and so on.

And so I think it's somewhat fascinating that we have more recent examples of a similar thing taking place here at the Jordan River. Chapter 4 begins, And it came to pass, when all the people had completely crossed over the Jordan, that the Lord spoke to Joshua, saying, Take for yourselves twelve men from the people, one man from every tribe, and command them, saying, Take for yourselves twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the place where the priests' feet stood firm, you shall carry them over with you and leave them in the lodging place where you lodge tonight. So the first command that Joshua gives is that as the people are crossing over, and they're going around the ark now where the priests are holding the ark in the dry riverbed, as the people cross the river, this ritual is performed by which Joshua commands that a representative from each of the tribes picks up a stone from the riverbed and is required to take it with him to wherever they would lodge that night.

Now why is he doing this? Look throughout the patriarchal history of the Old Testament. Whenever God does a particularly significant act of redemption for the people, the people want to remember holy ground and holy time.

I speak of sacred space and sacred time. God requires after the Passover that the Jews commemorate it every single year because it was a sacred time in their lives. And after these events, it was customary among the patriarchs to erect a memorial of some sort to mark the place where God had delivered His people. When Noah came from the ark after the waters from the flood receded, the first thing that he did was he built an altar.

Again after Jacob had his vision at Bethel, when he woke in the morning, he took the rock that he had been resting upon that night and anointed it with oil and set it up as a memorial and called the name of that place Be'et El, the house of God. And so now a provision is made to memorialize this saving event in the life of the Jewish people by the picking up of stones from the dry riverbed that could be used later on as a memorial. Then in verse 8, the children of Israel did so just as Joshua commanded and took up twelve stones from the midst of the Jordan according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel and carried them over with them in the place where they lodged and laid them down there. Then Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan in the place where the feet of the priests who bore the ark of the covenant stood, and they are there to this day.

Now some critical scholars say, oh, here's clear evidence of a conflict within the story. Where do the stones really go? Are they supposed to go to the other side of the Jordan, or are they supposed to be piled up in the Jordan?

Well, there's nothing that prohibits what the text says here. That is two memorials. And the place where they're going were there to take twelve stones from the Jordan, and then after this takes place and you still have the priests standing out there in the middle of the Jordan because they have to stay there with the ark of the covenant until every person has passed across. Now he commands that twelve stones be placed in the middle of the river, big stones, so that in the future when the rapids were moving down, people could look out into that river and see at times the tips of those rocks that were placed there to remind them for all history of what God had accomplished. In Psalm 77 we read, It was deeply ingrained in Jewish culture to remember the many things that God had done for them. Likewise, what an encouragement it is to look back and remember God's faithfulness to us.

We've heard a message from Dr. R.C. Sproul's series from the Book of Joshua here on Renewing Your Mind. Each Saturday we continue this series, and if you'd like to continue your study of Joshua, we'll send all ten messages to you today. Just contact us and request the book of Joshua on MP3 CD for your donation of any amount to Ligonier Ministries.

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And when you find us on YouTube, be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications so that you won't miss any upcoming live streams and teaching series. Before we go, let's listen to a final thought from Dr. Sproul. What we're seeing already in the book of Joshua is continuity, that God does not act in isolation, but the promise He makes to Abraham. He renews to Isaac, and then to Jacob, then to the sons of Israel, then to Moses, now to Joshua. And throughout the passage of time and of history, God consistently is working out His promise, His covenant promise of redemption. We stand on this side of the Jordan. We are those who have benefited from God's keeping of these covenant promises that have taken centuries and centuries to come to pass. Next Saturday, Joshua comes face to face with a mighty warrior. It is a profound moment. That's next week here on Renewing Your Mind. .