Turn to Joshua chapter 4. Joshua chapter 4. I don't believe
I had these last time I was here. I'm trying to get used to them. And it came to pass when all
the people were clean passed over Jordan, that the Lord spake
unto Joshua, saying, Take ye twelve men out of the people,
out of every tribal man, and command ye them, saying, Take
ye hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where
the priests' feet stood firm, twelve stones, and ye shall carry
them over with you, and leave them in the lodging place where
ye shall lodge this night." Then Joshua called the twelve men
whom he had prepared of the children of Israel, out of every tribe
a man. And Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the
Lord your God into the midst of Jordan, and take you up every
man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of
tribes of the children of Israel, 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? Then you shall answer
them that the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of
the covenant of the Lord when it passed over Jordan, and the
waters of Jordan were cut off. And these stones shall be for
memorial unto the children of Israel forever. And the children
of Israel did so as Joshua commanded. and took up twelve stones out
of the midst of Jordan, as the Lord spake unto Joshua according
to the number of tribes of the children of Israel, and carried
them over with them unto the place where they lodged, and
laid them down there. And Joshua set up twelve stones
in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests
which bear the ark of the covenant stood, and they are there unto
this day." But a priest which bared the ark stood in the midst
of Jordan, until everything was finished that the Lord commanded
Joshua to speak unto the people according to all that Moses commanded
Joshua. And the people hastened and passed
over. And it came to pass, when all
the people were cleaned, passed over, the ark of the Lord passed
over, and the priest in the presence of the people The children of
Reuben, the children of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh
passed over armed before the children of Israel as Moses spake
unto them. About 40,000 prepared for war
passed over before the Lord unto battle to the plains of Jericho. On that day the Lord magnified
Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they feared him as they feared
Moses all the days of his life. And the Lord spake unto Joshua,
saying, Command the priests that bear the ark of the testimony,
that they come up out of Jordan. Joshua therefore commanded the
priests, saying, Come ye out of Jordan. And it came to pass,
when the priests that bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord
were come up out of the midst of Jordan, and the soles of the
priests' feet were lifted up unto dry land, that the waters
of Jordan returned unto their place, and flowed over all his
banks, as they did before. And the people came up out of
Jordan on the tenth day of the first month and encamped in Gilgal
on the east border of Jericho. And those twelve stones which
they took out of Jordan did Joshua pitch in Galilee. And he spake
unto the children of Israel, saying, When your children shall
ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these
stones? Then you shall let your children
know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. For the Lord your God dried up
the waters of Jordan from before you until you were passed over
as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up from
before us until we were gone over. That all the people of
the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty,
that ye may fear the Lord your God forever. Let's pray. We read in these passages and
see such wonderful miracles. But Father, the wonder of your
grace is it no less a miracle. We hear of your Son. We beseech
you that we may decrease and you may increase before us this
night. Father, we just desire to glorify Christ, to help the
brethren, and to magnify your name among us. We ask these things
in your name. Amen. For our devotional, we're going
to be looking at this passage in Joshua. But before I do that, it's good to see, it's been a
while, we can't remember how long it's been since I've been
here, but it's good to see some familiar faces. And when I see
such things, it's just wonderful, seeing the faithfulness of God in each and every one
of you. And I think about what John wrote. He says, I have no
greater joy than to hear that my children, that the Lord's
children walk in truth and to see some of your faces. And there's
new faces here that I haven't seen. Let us walk together. But it is so. I've been doing
this for a little while now. And not everybody loves this
gospel. And they walk away. They'll come in here and they'll
walk away. But for some reason, tonight,
we're here together. Let us honor and glorify his
name. Well, I've got just three points for us this evening. Three simple
thoughts. The first thing Let me look back
at chapter 3 and read verse 17. And the priest that bared the
ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the
midst of Jordan. And all the Israelites passed
over on dry ground until all the people were passed clean
over. And my first thought is found in verse 1. I was looking
at this, just boom, right? First verse, here it is. And
it came to pass when some of the people were clean passed
over Jordan." Is that what it says? It came to pass when a third
of the people were clean passed over. No? If I read this right,
if I understand it right, it says all the people were clean
passed over. And that word clean is completely
So if I understand it right, every single person intended
completely passed over the River Jordan without so much as any
real harm coming to them and not even losing one single person. I know you're familiar with this
passage. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out, for I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but
the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will
which has sent me, said Christ, that of all which he hath given
me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the
last day. clean, completely saved, totally
redeemed. Matter of fact, it would be an
impossibility for one such as our Christ, the Christ, to set
out to accomplish redemption and to fail at any point. It's
just an impossibility. We preach a successful Savior. We preach a victorious Redeemer. We don't preach a God who tries
to do anything. We don't preach a God that we
say, if you let him do such and such. No, we preach a covenant
God, covenant mercies, covenant grace. I will redeem. When he hung on the cross, he
said, it's finished. It is finished. Like Judah of
old, if you remember in Genesis, who said, I will be surety for
the lad, and if I do not bring him back home with me, I will
bear the blame forever." Now, he was talking about Benjamin.
Benjamin's security, Benjamin's safety was in the hands of Judah. We sing that song, Under the
Blood of Jesus. safe in the shepherd's fold,
under the blood of Jesus, safe while the ages roll, safe though
the worlds may crumble, safe though the stars grow dim. Under
the blood of Jesus, I am secure in Him. And I'm 54 years old. I feel like I'm 64, 74. But every
time I look in this book, I just am continually reminded of the
simplicity, the singularity, of the gospel. And what I find
endearing through the ages is that His Word, it cannot fail. And this book is a book of promises. Mr. Spurgeon said, read the book,
gather up the promises, and then spend them at leisure. When you're
struggling, when things are difficult, to say the least, Go back and
look at the Word and remember, everyone for whom he intended
shall pass over. That's the first thought. Now
the second thought we find in verses 5-9 and 21-24. And Joshua said unto them, Pass
over before the ark of the Lord your God in the midst of Jordan.
Take every man a stone upon his shoulder according to the number
of tribes of the children of Israel. that it may be a sign
among you that when your children ask their fathers in time to
come, saying, What meaneth these stones? Then you can tell them
what this means. And then in verse 21, he basically
recounts it and says, He spake to the children of Israel, saying,
When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come,
saying, What mean these stones? Then you shall let your children
know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry ground For
the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before
you until you were passed over as the Lord your God did to the
Red Sea, which he dried up before us until we were gone over, that
all the people of the earth, everybody, not just your children,
may know the hand of the Lord. It is mighty and that you may
fear the Lord your God forever. The second thought is we are
to recount We are to memorialize, we are to preach in the ears
of our children and to any who will hear the gospel of the sovereign
grace of God. You look at what happened. This
is what happened. We tell our children and we tell
anyone whom we're working with, who we see on the street, who
is interested, we tell them of God's sovereign grace in salvation. He says He brought us out of
our Egypt and caused us safely to arrive in Canaan. The journey
was never in any doubt. They would have crossed over
the River Jordan on dry ground. God is in His sovereign grace,
is sovereign, is immutable, omnipresent, omniscient in our salvation. Because what happened there,
only before the Red Sea, it had never happened before. We tell
all who will hear, especially our children, God is on the throne. Scott used to say, either God
is governed or not. Either God will govern or He'll
not. Either God is on His throne or He's not. I mean, that's the
only two things you got. Either He's governed Or he governs. We preach, God governs. Second thing I think we see and
hear simply is God's sovereign mercy to a people totally undeserving. Totally undeserving. The Scripture says His mercies
are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. If salvation depended on our
faithfulness, Probably it's going to fall when we leave here, or
maybe even before. So we speak, tell our children,
we tell anyone who will hear of God's sovereign grace and
salvation. He alone accomplished the feat, took us from one side
to the other. Secondly, we speak of God's sovereign
mercy to a people totally undeserving. Paul said, I'm less than the
least. I'm not even fit to be called an apostle. That's because
that's what the grace of God does. It shows us that we are
an undeserving people. Thirdly, I think we tell folks
that God is sovereign in power in His purpose and decree. He
set His eye upon His people. They're the apple of His eye.
And He has brought every event and every circumstance to pass
in order to fetch us like He did Mephibosheth. Is there anybody
left of the house of Saul that I can show mercy? Yeah, there's
this one. Oh, and incidentally, he can't do a thing for himself.
He's lame on both feet. Go fetch him. Maurice Montgomery
called fetching grace, fetching grace. We speak of God's sovereign
power and his purpose and his decree. There's no such thing
as luck. There's no such thing as, you
know, an accident or this or that. We believe that all things
All things, you know, it's like a cog in a gear. Every single
thing is working together for good to them who love God and
are called, be called. They were called, weren't they
called? In our passage? Sure they were. According to
his purpose, there it is, his purpose. And fourthly, we must
tell people of God's sovereign preservation of his people. Look
at verse see where they passed over in
verse 16 of the previous chapter, and that the waters which came
down from above stood and rose up upon a heap very far from
the city of Adam and the five Zeritain, the sides Zeritain,
and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the
salt sea, failed and were cut off, and the people passed over
right against Jericho. Right against Jericho. Now, you
tell me this, if you got Thousands of people and you're kind of
making them go not a single file But you're kind of making it
you're squeezing them to go over the Red Sea or the Jordan When
are you the most vulnerable? The people Jericho Hey Look it
let's go wipe them out But if you read the first three chapters
Because the people Jericho heard what it would God had done for
his people and Every man's heart fainted. And oftentimes in life
or situations with believers especially, we struggle. He's going to preserve and take
care of his people. If he sent his son to die. Nothing was ever so free that
cost so much. Nothing was ever so free that
cost so much. if he sent his son to suffer,
bleed, and die for us, for his people. And the Scripture says he's able
to keep us from falling. And I believe he will. The last
point is found in verse 14. And on that day, the Lord magnified
Joshua. Now, you know, Joshua, the name
means Savior. And you know, this is a beautiful
picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. and also the Ark of the Covenant
that went before them. Christ is our captain of our
salvation. He goes before us. There's just so many wonderful
types and pictures here. But my point and my last point
is that they magnified and feared Joshua. The word magnified is
simply to make large. And the word feared is simply
to be in awe or reverence. Awe or reverence. Isn't this
what we do as believers when we hear of our Lord being lifted
up among us. Isn't this what we do when we
gather together, the Fellowship of Believers? We make his name
large. We can't make it near as large,
but that's our desire, is to make it large. To lift him up. Lift him up before all to see.
And we reverence him. We're in awe of him. Because
he is our all in all. We seek no one but Christ. We
desire to be more like Him. I could ask anybody in here,
are you satisfied, happy, whatever, with your knowledge of Christ?
Don't you want to know more about Him? Don't you want to learn
more of Christ? Don't you want to love Him more?
Yes, and these little children, what's their goal? They don't
want to be a child all their life. They want to grow up. It's
the same with the believer. We want to grow up in the grace
and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I think that
happens. I know it happens when we gather
together and reverence him. When we hear about the Christ
of this book and reverence him, because the lovely thing about
reverence is that it shows itself up in worship. It shows itself
in love. It shows itself in adoration.
It shows itself in obedience. And it shows itself when we fellowship
with those who also reverence God. That's why, you know, when
you go out and work in the world or you rub shoulders with this
world, it is difficult because they don't reverence God. At
least the God of Scripture, they may have some small reverence
to their God that they've created. But when you gather together
with those of like mind, It did take us two minutes of like mind. Laying down under, we've got
a church family. We've got a brother and sister. When you gather together and
we speak of him in reverence, that fellowship is sweet. It's
so sweet. So everyone for whom he came,
They're going to make it. If you see anybody, especially
your children, talk to your children. And I mean, even after they're
gone and married, they're still your children. See anybody, anybody
you can talk to. Tell them of Christ. And reverence
him only. And always.