"When They Ask You"
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· 5 viewsRecounting the moment Israel crosses through the Jordan to the Promised Land
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The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they encamped at Gilgal on the east border of Jericho. And those twelve stones, which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up at Gilgal. And he said to the people of Israel, “When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”
Precious, Tried, and Proved
Precious, Tried, and Proved
A poor old Christian woman was accustomed to make marginal notes in her Bible, and she placed against one text a “T” and a “P.” The minister asked her what that meant, and she said “It meant Tried and Proved, for I tried that promise on such-and-such an occasion, and found it true.”
“But, my dear sister,” said he, “I see up and down these pages, whenever there is a choice verse a great ‘P’ put against it; what does it mean?
“That means precious, sir, for I have found it precious, and have therefore set my seal to it.”
We too have our Bible spiritually if not literally marked after the same fashion, and often does the letter “P” appear against “exceeding great and precious promises” of God that have been sweet in our experience. We hope to die with a promise on our lips, and enter into heaven to enjoy their full fruition.
The Book of Joshua in Context
The Book of Joshua in Context
The five book of Moses anticipated the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham regarding the Promised Land. Now (either about 1440 or 1220 B.C.), through a string of military victories under Joshua, Israel conquerors the land and divided it among the twelve tribes. In these battles it became evident that God frights for his people when they are “strong and courageous” (1:6, 7, 9, 18; 10:25) and put their full trust in him. At the close of the book, Joshua charged the people to remain faithful to God and to obey his commands, and the people agreed to do so. “As for me and my house” said Joshua, “we will serve the Lord” (24:15). Although anonymous, the book appears to contain eyewitness testimony, some of which may have been written by Joshua himself.
Chapter 4 in Context
Chapter 4 in Context
Moses, Israel’s first leader and pastor died on Mount NeBo, unable to cross the Jordan because of his disobedience at the waters of strife. Joshua, and rightful so is nervous as the new leader of this people. God holds a private funeral and burial, provides thirty days to grieve, then God tells Joshua that it is time for them to cross over into the Promised Land. Rahab the harlot cares for the spies while she tells them Jericho has heard of their God and have shut up the city for protection. God confirms his presence with Joshua in the parting of the Jordan as God confirmed his presence with Moses at the Red Sea as both crossed on dry ground. God instructs Joshua to gather twelve stones from the Jordan while it’s split to carry with them to Gilgal as a reminder of their crossing over the Jordan. To this day, those stones memorialize God’s fulfillment of his promise to Abraham to bring his people into the Promised land (Genesis 12:1-3). Leaving the stones behind in God’s mind would serve as talking points to share with future generations about God’s exploits, and what God did for Israel would live on in their
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Remind them to worship God
Remind them to worship God
The tabernacle in the wilderness served as a “mobile sanctuary” for Israel as a sign of his presence as they journeyed towards the Promised Land. The timing of their crossing in Joshua 4:19:
The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they encamped at Gilgal on the east border of Jericho.
Nisan is the first month in the Jewish calendar for our calendar its between March-April, which is also the same time that Jews select the Passover lamb (Exodus 12:3)
Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household.
It foreshadowed the keeping of the Passover in 5:10 on the fourteenth day of the month in accordance with the Passover calendar (when the lamb actually was killed) (Exod 12:6, 18 ). And the fact that this happened at Passover helps to connect the crossing of the Jordan even more closely with the events of the exodus and the crossing of the Red Sea, which is made explicit in v. 23.
In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening.
The Israelites encamped at Gilgal, just east of Jericho in the Jordan Valley. Gilgal was the first of three religious bases the Israelites occupied in Joshua’s day. The second was Shiloh (18:1), and the third was Shechem (24:1; cf. 8:30). This is the first reference in the Book of Joshua to this important religious site. Here, the Israelites celebrated several religious rituals, including circumcision and Passover (Joshua 5), and it was the place where a sanctuary and an altar were built for God (9:23, 27). It remained as an important place of sacrifice for many centuries later (see 1 Sam 10:8). It was one of the cities where Samuel judged (1 Sam 7:16) and where Saul was made king (1 Sam 11:14–15). However, worship there eventually became apostate, and two eighth-century prophets condemned it (Hos 9:15; 12:11; Amos 4:4; 5:5).
In his sermon “Worship” Broaddus asked “Why ought we to worship God? Because it is due to him; and because it is good for us.” My brethren, if we learn to worship aright, there will be beautiful and blessed consequences. It will bring far more of good to our own souls. It will make worship far more impressive to our children. Haven’t you observed that it is getting to be one of the questions of our day how the Sunday-school children are to be drawn to our public worship? We are often told that the preacher must try to make his sermon more attractive to children, and so he must. But let us also make our worship more impressive, and make our children feel that it is their duty to worship God, and try to bring them under the influence of this worship. I heard last week in Washington one of the foremost Sunday-school laborers of this country, a Methodist minister, make this statement in private. He said: “Of late I have been telling the people everywhere, if your children cannot do both, cannot go to Sunday-school and go to the public worship also, keep them away from the Sunday-school, for they must go to the public worship.” You may call that an extravagant statement. I am not sure that it is extravagant, but I am sure of this, that we need not merely to try to make our preaching attract children, but to try to make the worship so solemn, so real, so genuine, so earnest, that those strange little earnest hearts of our children will feel that there is something there that strikes to their souls.
Remind them of God’s power
Remind them of God’s power
then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”
After 413 years of Egyptian slavery, God delivered his people with a mighty hand through unleashing ten plagues and a miraculous highway through the Red Sea, never to see Egypt again. The author mentions more detail in verse 22 than he does in vs. 6-7 when he says the Lord dried up the Jordan like he dried up the Red Sea, but introduces a new fact that “he dried it up until they all passed over.” For Israel, their defining moment came at the Red Sea and the Jordan River. Joshua reminds them of God’s power in seemingly uncrossable situations at the Red Sea brought them through a dried up sea. Joshua reminds them that the God who brought plagues was the God who brought deliverance to them at the Red Sea. Psalm 62:11
Once God has spoken;
twice have I heard this:
that power belongs to God,
Remind them of who God is
Remind them of who God is
so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”
The miracle was performed for a greater purpose than merely getting the Israelites across the Jordan River. Here, two purposes are given: (1) it was to be a “sign” to all peoples that God himself was mighty, that it, a testimony to his greatness, and (2) an inducement to the Israelites to fear God all their days, that it, accord to him (and him alone) the worship and allegiance due him. The miracle was so amazing that it should call forth such a response from God’s people. The statement about being a testimony to all peoples recalls the words of Rahab, who acknowledged that the inhabitants of Jericho had indeed heard about how great Israel’s God was, when he defeated Sihon and Og in the wilderness (Joshua 2:10-11). The word hand in Hebrew is yad, meaning power, the force and ability sufficient to accomplish a task, as an extension of the hand as a body part which is essential to manipulate one’s environment.
For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.
It also recalls the purpose of the tenth plague in Egypt, which was much more than merely to convince the pharoah to release the Israelites. Exodus 12:12
For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.
It states that the tenth plague (if not also all the others) was God’s challenge to the Egyptians gods: “I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt.” All of these cases show that God performed miracles to attest to himself, along with the more immediate purposes of accomplishing certain ends for the people involved.
Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.”
Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”
So now, O Lord our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone.”
So now, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord.”
“You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord,
“and my servant whom I have chosen,
that you may know and believe me
and understand that I am he.
Before me no god was formed,
nor shall there be any after me.
and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: On the day when I chose Israel, I swore to the offspring of the house of Jacob, making myself known to them in the land of Egypt; I swore to them, saying, I am the Lord your God.
And they shall know that I am the Lord their God with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Lord God.
“The threshing floors shall be full of grain;
the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
I will restore to you the years
that the swarming locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
my great army, which I sent among you.
“You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
and praise the name of the Lord your God,
who has dealt wondrously with you.
And my people shall never again be put to shame.
You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,
and that I am the Lord your God and there is none else.
And my people shall never again be put to shame.
As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
When they ask you......
Ancient of Days Victorious as his train filled the temple
Bright and Morning Star Wheel in the middle of a wheel
Isaiah’s Counselor Xemplart
Our Deliverer Yaw
Eternal, Existent One
The Faithful God
Immortal, Immovable and Immutable One
The Just God
King of Kings
Lord of Lords
Mighty God
Nearer to Me
Omni God
Potent and Powerful
Quentisentially God
Abraham’s Ram in the Bush
Saviour more than Life
Timeless
Unique