Remembering the Works of God

Why do I call Romans is best chunky Bible because seducing Christians for centuries and think of trying to Romans eight because it gives us the gospel in one chapter talks about the doctrine of the Trinity, father, son and Holy Spirit, how to determine one time saying to me that this was in some way calling into question inspiration of all of Scripture isn't all of Scripture breaks and the greatest and I said well, just answer this question if you gratuitous to live dry read the first few chapters of Chronicles, which is a list of names are driving. Romans eight and I think the answer is always Romans eight because it says everything that needs to be said about the gospel in one chapter. Romans eight a teaching series with Derek Thomas to learn more visit Lincoln era.org/teaching series coming up next on Renewing Your Mind throughout the patriarchal history of the Old Testament whenever God does a particularly significant act of redemption for the people that people want to remember holy ground for a moment about the amazing things that God did for the Israelites, freedom from Pharaoh but them safely through the Red Sea and provided food for them in the wilderness today on Renewing Your Mind on premises bolting to look at the book of Joshua. The show is another astonishing miracle, and we will see why it's important for us as followers of Christ to remember what the Lord has done for us. Continue now with our study of the book of Joshua turn 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 and Joshua rose 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 so it was after three days the officers went through the camp and they commanded the people, saying, when you see the Ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests and the Levites bearing it, then you shall set out from your place and go after yet, there shall be a space between you and it about 2000 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. 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 mess that this in a sense replicates or re-duplicates the historic moments 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 that there is 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 C was not merely the big deal that the crossing of the Red Sea had been, but at this point were 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. If now God has led the people through all these years of the wilderness experience, bring them to the brink of the promised land but their this natural barrier prevents access. There is no opportunity here for the Army Corps of Engineers and Josh was 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. Joshua gives the command when you see the Ark of the covenant of the Lord your God.

The priests and Levites bearing it, then you shall set out from your place and follow after. 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 and so now Joshua, 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 of the throne of God. You have to allow thousands of cubits of space, but 1/2 a mile or so. I'm not sure the exact distance here were about least very long distance that they are to keep from coming to close to the ark of the covenant, and then Joshua said to the people, sanctify yourselves for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. 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 so we read they took up the ark and went before the people in verse seven the Lord said to Joshua this day, I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I will be with you that interesting to go to them. I just can 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 I am with you once talk to a consultant who told me about the Rothschild principal and I didn't know what he was speaking about 20 told about the Rothschild principal and he talked about how Baron Rothschild in Germany was 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 venture capital to start his business and so he went to the office of Baron Rothschild and asked Baron Rothschild if he would advance in the loan to be the investment capital for this business and Rothschild listen to the story and when the young man was finished explaining 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. He said that I tell you what I will and said what's that accident. I'll take you across the street to the bankers club over there and you and I will walk across the floor of the bankers club and I will put my arm around your shoulder and talk to you as we walk across the floor of the bankers club and then I will leave and I promise you that after I leave every banker in the club will give you the lesson for this Rothschild understood the power of his endorsement and so this person who told me the 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 and 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've 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 advised parasites ago.

Besides the Amorites and the Jebusites. Behold, the ark of the coming of the Lord of all the earth is crossing over before you into the Jordan. Now therefore takes yourselves 12 men from the tribes of Israel.

One man from every tribe and it shall come to pass as soon as the soles 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 with the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off the waters that come down from upstream and they shall stand as a heat for noticing 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 stepped into the water with the ark of the covenant, the waters will receive, so he tells in advance that this miracle will take place. Let's read what happens. So 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 in this those who bore the ark came to the Jordan and the feet of the priests who bore the ark in the edge of the water for the Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest that we are told by the archaeologists and so one that the banks of the Jordan in this particular place are extremely steep. Their wall and so it's not like the priest could go up to the edge and step in without falling in over their heads was like a go wading out into a lake. We get out there so many yards and then the water slowly inches up toward your head.

In this case. Had they stepped directly into the water they would've dropped, 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 besides their attendance of the waters that went down into the sea of air above 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 melody realized this is not a group of 50 to 100 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 1/4 of the lower half a mile. This is a huge host of people and for the river to separate to allow the passing over of this ward of people required a massive separation and this separation was not just a little gap of 15 feet. But again, it ran for miles in the Jordan River as on the one and the waters that were flowing were heaped up as if the dam were placed there and since that water stopped in the water that was going downstream just continued to go and nothing was following afterward 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 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 13th century and to in the 20th century so as recently I believe is 1927. We have the record of a 21 hour.

Where this section of the Jordan River dried up and the waters were damn this were 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 40 years or so and that because of the particular terrain here. This phenomenon is not on now that in no way diminishes the miraculous character of this event because no matter how many times this happens in the Jordan River doesn't happen when you have hundreds of thousands of people waiting to invade the promised land 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 the 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, the Lord spoke to Josh was saying take for yourselves. 12 men from the people. One man from every tribe and command them, saying, take for yourselves. 12 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 lodged tonight. So the first commandment 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 dried riverbed, as the people cross the river.

This ritual is performed by which Joshua commands that a representative from each of the troughs picks up a stone from the riverbed and is required to take it with him to wherever they would lodge that night. No one 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 that 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 commemorated 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 preceded 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 with oil and set it up as a memorial and called the name of that place yet L 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 could be used later on as a memorial. Then in verse eight, the children of Israel did so, just as Joshua commanded and took up 12 stones from the miss the Jordan according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel and carried them over with them in the place for the lost and laid them down there. Then Joshua set up 12 stones in the midst of the Jordan, in the place were the feet of the priests who bore the ark of the covenant stood and they are there to this day, some critical scholars say Hall here is clear evidence of a conflict within the story.

Word of the stones really Gourley's post ago to the other side of the Jordan release post be piled up in the Jordan there's nothing that prohibits what the text says here that is to memorials. One, the place where they're going with her to take 12 stones from the Jordan and then after this takes place and you still have the pre-standing out there in the middle of the Jordan because I have to stay there with the ark of the covenant to every person has passed across now he commands the 12 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, I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work and meditate on your mighty deeds.

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 heard a message from Dr. RC Sproul series from the book of Joshua here on Renewing Your Mind. Each Saturday we continue the series and if you like to continue your study of Joshua will send all 10 messages to you today. Just contact us and request the book of Joshua on MP3 CD for your donation of any amount to look at your ministries. You can reach us online at Renewing Your Mind.word work. You can call us with your gift and 800-435-4343.

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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. scroll but were saying already in the book of Joshua is continuity that God does not act in isolation but the promisee makes to Abraham, he reduced Isaac and then to Jacobs then to the sons of Israel, then to Moses. Now the Joshua and throughout the passage of time of history, God consistently is working out his promises covenant promise of redemption. We stand on this side of the Jordan where 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 is a profound moment is next week here on Renewing Your Mind