Go with me, if you would, back
to Joshua 3. Joshua 3. Our Lord preached in parables. The scripture says, without a
parable spake he not unto the people. That's what the entire Word of
God is. It's a parable. We just read a parable. All of these earthly stories
were written with heavenly meaning. Every single one of them. I want us to go right into this
looking at the heavenly meaning. You know how sometimes we see
the story and then we kind of go back and start over? I want
us to immediately go right into this looking at the heavenly
meaning. This particular account is all
about God's people crossing the River Jordan. They are physically
crossing the River Jordan, and one of these days, come that
last day, all of God's people are going to cross the River
Jordan. At the end of verse 15 in Joshua
3, it tells us that at this particular time of year, it's in parentheses
there, it says, Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of
harvest. They crossed this river in what
our Lord called the first month. And we find that out in chapter
4. That is the time of harvest. During that time of year, the
Jordan River is absolutely overflowing with water. It's so far past
full capacity. And the reason is because the
snow melts on the mountains. Springtime is when this is, this
exact time. And snow melts and all that water
comes rushing down and the banks of the river cannot contain it. It's a, if you get it in your
mind, it's a raging, rapid, impassable river. It's not still waters,
okay? That river represents death. That river represents sin. And that river represents God's
wrath. All of that. Death, sin, and
wrath. This story is an illustration
of what it's going to take to get God's people through that
river. Sin, death, and wrath. Now if
a man tried to just go into that river, he'd die. The sin would overflow him. God's wrath would kill him. That raging wrath, it would just
take him. If he tried to step out into
it, it would just take him. I did a little historical research
on this. The Jordan River was supposed
to be 90 feet across. Think about that. That's almost
a football field in length. It wasn't from here to the back
wall. Huge river. But the thing about it is, is
it says that the banks were overflowed. There's no telling how wide this
river was. And the historians said it was
deeper than it was wide. Deeper than 90 feet deep. Huge,
huge river. Can you imagine all of those
people standing there? They come up to Jordan and there
they are standing there looking at this river thinking, how on
this earth are we going to get across? This is impossible. You're not just going to throw
a rope to the other side and hope you latch hold of something.
This is impossible. With man, this is impossible. I mean, it's impossible. It is
impossible. Men think they're going to step
out into death. You've seen people think the
water's not as bad as they thought it was and drive their car out
in and there it goes. Men step out into this, and then
as soon as they do, they realize this is impassable. It's impassable. That river is God's wrath, that
river is our sin, and that river is death. How are we going to
get through this? All right, verse 1. Joshua 3, verse 1 says,
And Joshua rose early in the morning, and they removed from
Shittim and came to Jordan, he and all the children of Israel."
They all came with him. They are all going into that
river with him, all of them. So they came with him and it
says, they lodged there before they passed over, verse 2, and
it came to pass after three days that the officers went through
the host And they commanded the people saying, when you see the
ark of the covenant of the Lord your God and the priest, the
Levites bearing it, then you shall remove from your place
and go after it. I love that. I love that. Those officers who represent
God's preachers, they went out through all the people And they
said, when you see Joshua command the priest to lift up the ark,
go after it. Follow it. Joshua's name means
Savior. Same name as Jesus. He, in this
allegory, in this illustration, represents Christ. The Ark of
the Covenant. That was a wooden box. They made
it out of wood. And then they covered the whole
thing in gold. Inside that ark, three things
were kept. They placed three things inside
that ark. The tables of stone that God gave to Moses, the law,
the Ten Commandments, Aaron's rod that budded, and a bowl of
manna. Those three things were in there.
And then that box was covered with a lid called the mercy seat. And that's where the blood was
sprinkled when the priest went into the Holy of Holies. And
that's where God said he would meet with me. And he said, I'll
meet with you right there at the mercy seat. That ark is Jesus
Christ. That wood represents his humanity. The gold represents his deity. The law was kept in Christ. Does that make sense? The tables of stone were physically
put inside the Ark of the Covenant to show us that the law was kept
in Christ. We kept the law in Christ. All right, Aaron's rod that budded.
Can life come out of a dead thing? Here Aaron has a dead stick with
no root in and of itself, and it budded. Can life come out
of a dead thing? It can in Christ, as long as
it's in Christ. That heavenly bread, the bread
of heaven, the bread that our Lord said, if a man eats it,
he'll never hunger again, that bread can only be had in Christ. So Joshua is Christ. The Ark is Christ. Those priests
that bore the burden of the Ark, they're all Christ too. Now God's preachers have been
called to lift up Christ for all the people to see. They have.
But really and truly, who is bearing that burden? Really?
Ultimately, whose shoulder is that burden? bearing the burden. I can tell you, it's not the
preacher. If God does not descend into a place with His Spirit
and lift up His Son, then He's not going to be lifted up. Those
priests are Christ. They are all Christ, okay? So
that's what, when we see them in our story, Joshua, the priest,
the ark, they're all Christ. Verse 2 says, It came to pass
after three days that the officers went through the host, and they
commanded the people, saying, When you see the ark of the covenant
of the Lord your God and the priest, the Levites bearing it,
then you shall remove from your place and go after it. Yet there
shall be a space between you and it about 2,000 cubits by
measure. Come not near unto it that you
may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed
this way heretofore. God said, I want you to stay
2,000 cubits. A cubit is 18 inches. 3,000 feet behind my priest in
my ark. Now, once they cross that river,
they're going to be in enemy territory. They're going to be
behind enemy lines. You may remember that the tribe
of Reuben, the tribe of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh
wanted the land that was on the east side of the Jordan River
because it was good for cattle. Moses said, you can have it.
but your men of war are gonna cross with the rest of the children
of Israel and go fight, and once they win their battles and their
land, then you can come back. Well, the way I would have thought
it would have been handled, the way man naturally thinks he needs
to help God out, you would think God would have said, all you
men of valor, I want you to be out front. And then I'm going
to put my priest and my ark 3,000 feet behind you. Thank God for
good reason. That's not God's ways. That is
not his ways. He said, I want you men of war
to grab your swords, grab your bows, grab your arrows, put your
armor on, and then get 3,000 feet behind my priest and my
ark. And you stay back there. Verse five says, and Joshua said
unto the people, sanctify yourselves for tomorrow the Lord will do
wonders among you. We are going into that river
tomorrow. We're going in tomorrow. The
word sanctify means prepare yourselves. Make yourselves ready. It means
separate yourselves. Be ready for this. It actually
means be holy. Be holy. That is only possible
in Christ. Isn't that right? Only possible. He is our sanctification. We don't decide to sanctify ourselves. Either we are in Him or we're
not at all. One of the two. So spiritually
this verse is saying We're going over this river tomorrow, and
if you want to make it across, you have to be in Christ. You
just must be in Christ. Verse 6, And Joshua spake unto
the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and
pass over before the people. And they took up the ark of the
covenant, and went before the people. And the Lord said unto
Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight
of all Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses,
so I will be with thee, in the same way that I magnified my
law. Oh, he came down on Horeb, and
he set the whole mountain on fire, didn't he? And when Moses
delivered, his face shone like an angel. And he said, in the
same way that I set forth my law and lifted up my law, I'm
going to honor my Redeemer. I'm going to set forth and I'm
going to magnify my Redeemer and I'm going to do it through
that river. I'm going to do it through that river, that river
of death, sin, and wrath. He said, because you're going
to lead every single one of my children safely over, I'm going
to magnify you in that. I'm going to make you high and
lifted up. I'm going to give you a name
that's above every name because of what you're about to do in
this river. Verse 8 says, And thou shalt
command the priests that bear the ark of the covenant, saying,
When you are come to the brink of the water of Jordan, you shall
stand still in Jordan. Now Joshua is Christ, and he's
commanding the priests who are Christ, while they bear the ark
who is Christ, to go into Jordan and stand still. When you come
to the brink of sin and wrath and death, step in and stand
still. Christ our Lord said, no man
takes my life from me. I lay it down of myself. Christ commanded Christ to do
this. He did it willingly. He commanded
himself to do this. Verse nine, and Joshua said unto
the children of Israel, Come hither and hear the words of
the Lord your God." This is precious. God was speaking to Joshua. He was doing all his talking
to Joshua. And Joshua told all the people, come up here and
listen to what your God is saying. Come up here and listen. Come
hear the words of the Lord your God. Hebrews 1 says, God who
at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto
the fathers by the prophets hath in these last days spoken unto
us by his Son. Joshua said, Christ himself said,
you come up here to me and I'll tell you what God said. Verse
10 says, and Joshua said, Hereby you shall know that the living
God is among you and that he will without fail drive out from
before you the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Hivites
and the Perizzites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Jebusites,
all your enemies. All your enemies. I looked up
some of those names. Not many were given, a couple.
But some of them meant things like fear, Humiliation. Personal enemies. Things that
are hindrances. Things that are standing in your
way. The Lord's going to remove every
single one of them. Every one of them. Verse 11, Behold the
ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth. The ark of
the covenant of the Lord of all the earth. He's the Lord of all
the earth. passeth over before you into Jordan." Now this is
what Joshua was telling the people. He said, the ark of the covenant
of the Lord of all the earth is going to pass before you. He is going to go into that river
before you. He's going in before you. That's
why he said everybody get 3,000 feet behind this ark. This ark
is going in first. Verse 12, now therefore take
you 12 men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe
of man, and it shall come to pass as soon as the soles of
the feet of the priest that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord
of all the earth, As soon as the soles of their feet shall
rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall
be cut off from the waters that come down from above, and they
shall stand upon a heap." As soon as the feet of those priests
get wet, as soon as they enter the waters
of death sin and wrath, as soon as they do that, that raging
flood that's coming down from above is going to get cut off. It's going to be stopped. And it's going to stand up upon
a heap. Verse 14 says, And it came to pass, when the people
removed from their tents to pass over Jordan, and the priest bearing
the ark of the covenant before the people, And as they that
bear the ark were coming to Jordan, and the feet of the priests that
bear the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, for Jordan
overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest, that the
waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap
very far from the city Adam that is beside Zaretan, and those
that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea,
failed and were cut off. As soon as those priests bearing
the ark were touched with the feeling of that river, as soon as they entered in and
were smitten by sin, wrath, and death, that raging deluge was
cut off. soon as they were touched by
it. He said as soon as the bottoms of your feet, as soon as you're
touched by it, that's going to be cut off. All the way back
from the city Adam, all the way down to the Dead Sea, that's
18 miles. Now how precious is it that God
caused somebody at some point to name that city Adam? And how
precious is it that that's where God chose to cut the water off? Where did sin begin? Adam. It began with Adam. When Christ endured that river,
God cut off death, sin, and wrath all the way back to Adam. All
the way back from Adam to Zaretan, A to Z. All of it. All of it. The end of verse 16
says, And the people passed over right against Jericho. And the priests that bear 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 Jordan. Every child of Israel went into
that river. But Christ was the only one that
got wet. He was the only one. Every child
of God crossed that river, but Christ was the only one who was
touched by death, sin, and wrath. The only one. Those priests went
into that current. As soon as they did, God cut
the water off at Adam, and now it started at that point piling
up like a heap, okay? But that water kept coming, okay? It was cut off, and it kept flowing.
And that rage of sin and death, of wrath, it just kept flowing.
And the whole time, those priests stood there still. That ark had
four rings and staves going through it, wooden poles. And they stood
still, enduring the current, until finally the water passed.
And it was over. And the priests were standing
on dry ground. They were standing on dry ground
before anybody ever went in. The priests were on dry ground.
Our Lord endured every bit of it alone to the end, all the
way to the end. And now it's over, and now we
can cross that river on dry ground. Verse 17 says, the priests that
bear 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 Jordan. Clean over means two things.
Number one, it means every single soul made it all the way across. Nobody got stuck in the middle.
Clean over. Number two, it means every single
soul made it all the way across clean. Clean. They made it over clean. They
came out of that other side clean. That's God's saints. God's lamb
was slain in that river. And God's saints are washed in
the blood of that lamb, and that blood makes them white as snow,
clean. I told you I was thinking about
Brother Dale in studying this. He did recently go into that
river. Right? He did. He walked across, though, on
dry ground. Because the whole time, God's
priest and God's ark were standing there firm. He went in and he went as we
knew him to be, a loving man, a precious man, but a sinful
man. But do you know how he came out,
came up out of the other side, started walking up, came out
out of the other side? He came out clean, spotless. Spotless. Now, I want to close
by reading this to you. When I say, usually when I say
I'm going to close, I mean in the next 20 seconds. Not in the
next 20 seconds, okay? Give me a few more minutes. I
just want to finish the story. I really struggled over whether
to stop at chapter 3 or read on into chapter 4. And I've been
watching my time, and I want to finish the story, okay? I
made notes for it just in case. Chapter 4, verse 1 says, And
it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over
Jordan, that the Lord spake unto Joshua, saying, Take you twelve
men out of the people out of every tribe of man, and command
ye them, saying, Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out
of the place where the priest's feet stood firm twelve stones,
and you shall carry them over with you, and leave them in the
lodging place where you shall lodge this night." These twelve
men, one from each tribe, they represented all the people. And
they had stayed back. In chapter 3, the Lord told Joshua,
we read it, take 12 men. They stayed back. All the people
passed over. And after they were all gone,
Joshua said, now I want you to pass over, and as you pass over,
I want you to pick up a stone from the bottom of this river.
And I want you to carry that stone to the place where you're
going to rest tonight. These are going to be signs to
you. These are going to be reminders
that I have done this for you. Verse 4 says, 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 ye up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according
unto the number of the 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? That's exactly what he said with
the Passover. You kill this lamb, and when
your children ask you, why are you doing this? You tell them. You tell them. Our Lord gave
us some remembrances. This do in remembrance of me.
You tell them. 7 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 That that what he's
saying right there is God's ark cut off those waters. We didn't
they were cut off for the ark's sake When it passed over Jordan,
the waters of Jordan were cut off, and these stones shall be
for a memorial unto the children of Israel forever." You tell
them that God's ark stood firm in the midst of that river. That's
where these came from. God's ark stood right there.
God's ark cut off that flowing wrath and delivered us safely
to the other side. Verse 8 says, and the children
of Israel did so as Joshua commanded and took up 12 stones out of
the midst of Jordan as the Lord spake unto Joshua according to
the number of the tribes of the children of Israel and carried
them over with them unto the place where they lodged and laid
them there. In the book of Samuel, after
God gave victory to Israel, Samuel set a stone and he called it
Ebenezer. And the reason he called it that
is because Ebenezer means, hither by thy help we are come. We're here because you helped
us. He raised up a stone. That's
what they're doing. They raised up an Ebenezer, a
reminder, by thy help we made it to the other side. Verse 9
says, And Joshua set up twelve stones. Joshua raised his own
Ebenezer. Now watch this. In the midst
of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priest which
bear the ark of the covenant stood, and they are there unto
this day. They're still there. Joshua took
twelve stones and he set one at the feet of each priest that
stood there. He did that as a reminder. When that wrath, that water eventually
let go and it came back down, that wrath from above that came
back down, it had to roll over those stones. And those stones were a reminder
that God's ark stood here. My people made it safely across.
And the reason is because the ark stood here. Those stones
are still there to this day. All the people are safe because
of that ark. Verse 10, for the priest which
bared the ark stood in the midst of Jordan until everything was
finished. You think about the strength
that God gave those men. I don't know how heavy that box
was, but how long does it take to get a couple of million people
across 18 miles of riverbed? And the whole time, there they
stood, the whole time, didn't move until it was all
finished. Never moved until it was finished. They went into that river, they
lifted up that ark and they stood still until all that water was
gone. All the children of Israel passed
over and the whole time they stood still. Those twelve men
gathered their stones, and the whole time they stood still.
Joshua set all his stones, and the whole time they stood still.
Can't you see these people watching these priests and that ark go
into that river, and all of a sudden the water is cut off, and there
it goes. And here they go in. How do you
think they crossed that river? How afraid do you think they
were until they heard what God said and saw what God said? They
said, we're going into this river. Can't you see their children?
I don't want to go into that river. How do you think they
crossed that river? The whole time, they were looking
to that ark. The whole time, they went in
looking to that ark. The whole time, they were looking
to that ark. When they got to the other side,
I guarantee you, they turned back around and they took a look
at that ark. Thank God for that ark. Thank God. Verse 10 says, And I'll be quick
here. And it came to pass, when all
the people were clean, passed over, that the ark of the Lord
passed over, and the priests in the presence of the people,
and the children of Reuben, and the children of Gad, and hath
the tribe of Manasseh passed over, armed before the children
of Israel, as Moses spake unto them. About forty thousand 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 commanded the priests
to come up out. Our Lord said, I lay down my
life that I may take it again. I have the power to lay it down,
I have the power to take it again. I've received that commandment
of my father. Verse 17 says, Joshua therefore
commanded the priest saying, come ye up 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 the dry land,
that the waters of Jordan returned unto their place, and flowed
over all his banks, as they did before." After Christ brought
all of his people safely across, a great gulf was fixed again,
a great gulf. Fixed between God and His people
and everything else. I love that. I thank God for
that. No sin is coming back in. God's
people are safe with their God. I'll be their God, they'll be
my people, and I'm fixing a great gulf between us and everything
else. Verse 19, the people came up
out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month and encamped
in Gilgal in the east border of Jericho. And those twelve
stones which they took out of Jordan did Joshua pitch in Gilgal. 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 you might fear the Lord
your God forever. My closing statement to that
is amen.