Monuments of Victory

Audio on demand from Vision Christian Media Here's David to introduce his special message, Monuments of Victory.

Well thank you so much for joining us. We have been talking a lot about going forward and finishing and dreaming and risking. We thought before we start our new series in November we would take a moment and just talk about the importance of victory in our lives. If you want to follow along, it's kind of an exposition of Philippians 3, 7-14. How many of you know that God wants us to be victorious and not defeated? So many Christians that you and I know are defeated, and God wants us to be victorious.

Let's talk about that right now as we open our Bibles to Philippians 3. Back in May of 1979 motivational speaker Dennis Waitley was in Chicago waiting to get on a flight from Chicago to Los Angeles for a speaking engagement. He was late. He was running through O'Hare Airport toward K-5.

Many of us have been to K-5. And he got there just as they closed the door and told him he could not get on the flight. He begged. He threatened. He prayed.

He told them he had a speaking engagement, but they wouldn't budge. And he was really upset. He went back to the ticket counter to get in the complaint line. And 20 minutes later the line hadn't moved when an announcement came over the airport intercom that American Airlines Flight 191 from Chicago to Los Angeles had crashed upon takeoff. And 258 passengers and 13 crew members all died in that crash. It was the deadliest aviation accident in U.S. history.

Not to be in the wrong emotion about this, I just need to say it. Dennis got out of the complaint line. He didn't register a complaint. In fact, he didn't even return his ticket. He took that ticket home and he put it up on his bulletin board in his office. And every time he would get a little frustrated and upset that things were happening in his life that weren't happening the way he wanted them to, all he had to do was glance at that ticket and it was a reminder that life was a gift, a gift not to be taken for granted.

That invalidated ticket for Flight 191 is what you could call a memorial, a life symbol. It is a symbol from the past that gives meaning to the present and faith for the future. And the fourth chapter of the book of Joshua presents the dynamic truth that the hope of the future is based on the memories of the past and that the hope of the future based on the memories of the past gives meaning to the present. Now, the chapter begins as Israel has finally crossed over the Jordan River.

Remember, it was at flood stage when this happened. The priests had taken the Ark of the Covenant and they'd held it high so that everyone passing over could see it. God had held back the southward flow of the Jordan River so that the people could cross over the Jordan River on dry ground and some three million people did that. They're up on the banks of the river and now we come to chapter 4. And let me read to you these first three verses of the fourth chapter. 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 will lodge tonight. Twelve men, one from each of the twelve tribes of Israel, were to take a stone out of the riverbed of the Jordan River. That means from the middle where the river had dried up, they were to take some stones from that riverbed and put that stone on their shoulders and carry it to Gilgal, which was the little place of encampment on the west bank of the Jordan River. And there they were to take these twelve stones and arrange them as a memorial of how God had led his people across the Jordan River at flood time. Now, men and women, Joshua 4 is a passage about the importance of memory, about the importance of telling stories. When Israel remembered the stories that told them who they were, where they came from, and who their God was, Israel prospered.

When they quit telling the stories, they no longer understood who they were and they invited disaster. And this is why Joshua ordered each of the tribes of Israel to contribute a rock to commemorate God's provision for them in leading them across the River Jordan. The rock monument in their midst is a story prompt.

In other words, when you see it, it reminds you of something. The rock monument in their midst would cause the children of the next generation to ask, why are these rocks here? And that question would prompt a story and a new generation would understand the power of God. How many of you know God loves to give his people memorials so that they will not forget all that he has done for them? He preserved Noah and his family through the flood, and when it was all over, he gave Noah a memorial. He said, the memorial, Noah, for you to see, and every time you see it, remember that I will never again destroy this world through a flood is the rainbow. And we see that memorial, don't we, every once in a while around here. We see that memorial in the sky. God's memorial reminding us and Noah and his family that never again would he ever destroy the world as he did through the flood. And of course, we talk about the Ark of the Covenant, how they carried this box on their shoulders, and we told you what was in the Ark of the Covenant. You know what was in the Ark of the Covenant? Memorials. God has given us some memorials, too. Did you know that? You have some. You may not even know it, but I'm going to tell you about some of them.

You have them. Baptism through immersion is a memorial to our relationship with Jesus Christ in his death, his burial, and resurrection. Baptism is a picture of the fact that when we're saved, we are buried with Christ in baptism. We are raised again in resurrection. Old things pass away. Behold, all things become new.

We are old creatures who are being created into new creatures. That's what baptism is. It's a memorial.

It's a symbol. Every time we see it, we should be reminded of the fact that when God saves us, he changes us and makes us new. And then we have communion. The Scripture actually says that communion is a memorial. This due in remembrance of me, it says. And we take the bread and the cup, and I've explained this so many times, that the bread and the cup are memorials of the body and the blood of Jesus, which was given for us in our salvation. Every time we have the Lord's Supper, every time we have baptism, we tell the story, the story of redemption.

The Lord is wise. He institutes memorials. Why does he do that? Because we're forgetful. Because we get preoccupied. We have a tendency to go through life, and if we're not careful, we miss the symbols along the way, and it hurts us, and it breaks the heart of the Father. So as we look at this passage in the fourth chapter, I want to give you three reasons why there are memorials. These are reasons for the Israelites, and they're reasons for us. First of all, memorials encourage the present generation. The generation that was entering the land to conquer it needed a memorial. They needed something to look to, not an idol, but a reminder. Because the road ahead for the Israelites was going to be very tough. Remember, the Israelites didn't know anything about warfare.

They'd been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. And they were going into the land of Canaan, and before you know it, they're going to be up against Jericho, one of the biggest fortified cities in the land. How do we know we can do this? Well, God is going to put something in their life that will cause them to remember what he's already done. And what we've already learned is what God's already done is the surest guarantee of what he's going to do. And the Israelites were going to go into Canaan and drive these nations out, and every time the soldiers went off to war, they would be filled with this sense of insecurity.

Now let me tell you a little bit of logistic information that will help you understand how viable this is. The Scripture tells us that when they took those rocks out of the riverbed, they took them up on the shore and they put them on a place in Canaan. It was called Gilgal, and if you look at the map, you can see it. It's right on the edge of the Jordan River.

This became Israel's home base. From this place, they reconnoitered. They went out and they did all of their fighting, but they always came back.

They set up their camp in Gilgal. They went out to Jericho. They would come back. They went out to Ai. They went to all these places they were going to fight, but they always came back.

Now get this. Every time a soldier left Gilgal, he had to march past that memorial. Every time he walked out of the city, every time he marched out with his buddies, he would look over and there's those stones piled on each other. Hey Jack, remember that?

Man, that was something, wasn't it? Every night when they came back to camp, maybe discouraged, maybe having lost a few skirmishes that day, they walked back into the camp, and as they walked back in, they had to walk past that memorial. That memorial told them that the God they served was mighty, mighty to save. It's kind of interesting, isn't it, when the priests were told to go into the riverbed as the children of Israel marched across? When they went into the riverbed, the Ark of the Covenant went before them, but it didn't go all the way to the other side. Remember that? The Ark of the Covenant left the bank, and it got into the middle of the river bank, and it stayed there until all the people had passed through.

Why did that happen? So that God could convey to his people, I am with you in this, I am with you in the middle of it, at the beginning of it, at the end of it, at the middle of it, and that was the purpose of that memorial. Those rocks were telling the story that God was still with them, and they should be encouraged. It's an amazing thing what little or even big memorials can do for us. Memorials encourage the present generation.

Secondly, memorials educate the next generation. In Psalm 102 and verse 18, there's an incredible little writing. This is what it says, this will be written for the generation to come, that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord. Who is this future generation for which this story has been recorded?

It includes, among others, you and me. How is it that we have had the opportunity to know the God who created us because someone lived that story a long time ago, and someone else told that story, and then someone else wrote down the story, and others chose to repeat the story, and many were willing to die for that story. And so, generation after generation after generation, the story of God's love for his creation has been told, and we're the ones who benefit. So, God ordains memorials as an educational tool for the next generation because children easily forget the faith and the instructions of their parents.

In fact, there's not even any doubt about the fact that this is one of the reasons for memorials. Let me show you two passages, Joshua 4, 6, and 7. When your children ask in time to come, saying, what do these stones mean to you, then you shall answer them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, when it crossed over the Jordan, and the waters of the Jordan were cut off, and these stones shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever. Jump down in your Bibles to verses 21 and 23. When your children ask the fathers in time to come, saying, what are these stones, you shall let your children know, saying, Israel crossed over the Jordan on dry land, for the Lord your God dries up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up before us till we crossed over. Children need to be reminded of their spiritual heritage, and Joshua was preparing the parents for their day when their children would come to them and say, hey, Mom and Dad, I was just walking around Gilgal today, and I saw this big pile of rocks, and they don't look like they got there by accident.

What's that all about? Then Mom and Dad sit their kids down and say, well, let me tell you what those stones mean. There was a day when we were on the east bank of the Jordan River during the flood season. There was no way to cross. I mean, kids, there was no way. And you're not going to believe this, but it's absolutely true. We trusted God, and we did what he told us to do, and we walked toward the river, and when we got to the edge of the river, God just rolled it back like a scroll, and we walked over here on dry ground. Kids, that's the kind of God we have. He's your God.

He's the kind of God we want you to worship. And the Bible offers this master story so that it can be inclusive of everyone who hears it. Stories are powerful.

Stories of what God has done are heavy. It's the testimonies, the memorials, the things we pass on, the legacies we give to those who follow us. Memorials encourage the present generation, and they educate the next generation. And finally, number three, memorials are evidence to the whole world concerning the true and living God. When the people of Israel had safely crossed over the Jordan River, they camped at Gilgal on the east border of Jericho, and here Joshua gave his people the final two reasons why memorials are important. Let me give you a little grammatical clue here if you have any interest in English, which has always been kind of a fantasy of mine. The word that, when it appears in a text, usually is the introduction either to a purpose clause or to a because clause. And there's two that's in this verse.

Watch them. The Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over, that all the people of the earth may know the hand of the Lord. That it is mighty that you may fear the Lord your God forever. That memorial was built so that all the people of the whole earth would know that the Israelites served a mighty God and that the people of Israel themselves might continue to reverence and fear God forever. So God gives us memorials so that we can encourage ourselves and so that we can educate our children and so that the whole world might know that God loves us and is to be worshipped. Having said all of that, consider these questions for you and me. Number one, what is God doing in your life that is worth memorializing? I mean, if nothing comes to mind, maybe you're listening to his instructions, but not doing them.

See, that's the thing I'm saying. Memorials are what tell the people what we believe. You can give them your creed with your lips, but you have to give them what you believe with your life, what you do with your time, the things that are precious to you. So the first question is, what is God doing in your life that is worth memorializing? The second question is, what are you leaving to your children concerning God's work in your behalf?

I've told you a little bit about this before, but let me do this quickly. There's a college in Cedarville, Ohio that is a memorial for me. My father left a successful ministry in Dayton as a pastor to become the first president of that small struggling school back in 1953. I was in the seventh grade. Everybody told my dad he was making a huge mistake, and there were times when he thought they were right. We didn't get a salary for the first summer that we were there.

I don't know how we made it, but God provided. Believe it or not, there were less than 90 students on that campus when I moved there, but my father had faith that God was calling him to that position. He'd never been a college president before. After he got there to be the president, he went down the road to Wilberforce University to get his degree so that he wouldn't hurt the college by not being credentialed.

Today, Cedarville College has 3,700 students. It's one of the finest colleges in America. I served on its board for a number of years. It's a memorial to my father's faith. And whenever I visit, I have all these things that come back into my mind, but I remember my dad left this testimony to what happens when somebody steps out and walks by faith over a long period of years.

He literally gave 50 years of his life to that college, 25 years as the president and 25 years as the chancellor. Now, I know I'm not going to have a college to leave anybody or any big things like that, but I want something left behind besides the fact that he just lived. I find in my heart a desire to provide a legacy for my children. What is there around my house that will cause my children to say, remember that? And then thirdly, the last question you should ask is, what do your neighbors know about your God by the memorials you've constructed where you live? You know, it's a wonderful thing if you're a Bible-believing Christian because every Sunday, whether you know it or not, you tell everybody in your neighborhood you're going to church. You get out of your house, you start up your car. Somebody's upset about that because you woke them up. Maybe you have a garage and you have to put your garage door up and your car comes out and there goes those crazy people going to church again. But you know what? That has an accumulative effect on people.

You just wait until they face some trouble. They're going to find the person in that community that they heard going to church every Sunday morning, not the people that came home late on Saturday night stoned out of their mind. What we do with our lives in our communities, how we reach out and touch other people, how we care about children that aren't even our own children, how we reach out to those we know are in need even if they don't happen to be Christian people, we are building memorials. We are writing the epitaphs for our tombstones. We are creating a legacy for the future generation. Let's believe God this year and let's build some monuments to his faithfulness in our lives, in our families, in our homes, and most of all in our hearts. We can make a much bigger difference than we're making if we'll determine by the grace of God that we not only believe it because we say it, we believe it because we do it and we live it. This community and this world is just crying out for a body of believers to say, this year I'm going to build some monuments to my faith in Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Kind of a good wrap-up for all we've been talking about throughout this month and thank you so much for being with us.

We have had a great time teaching this, not only here in the radio studio but on television. Whatever you do, friend, don't go backwards. Don't look in the rear-view mirror. You have a big windshield that tells you about the future. Go forward. Let's go forward together. For more information on this special message from Dr. Jeremiah, please be sure to visit our website where you'll also find two free ways to help you stay connected, our monthly magazine Turning Points and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio. When you do, be sure to ask for your copy of David's powerful new book, Forward, Discovering God's Presence and Purpose in Your Tomorrow. It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard Version, the New International Version, and the New King James Version.

All are available in a variety of handsome cover options. Visit davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio for details. I'm Gary Hoopfleet. Join us Monday as Dr. O. S. Hawkins joins David to discuss his book, The Bible Code. That's here on Turning Point.