We're in Joshua chapter 3 and
we're going to read from verse 1. And Joshua rose early in the
morning and they removed from Shittim and came to Jordan, he
and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they
passed over. They're going to be going over
the River Jordan. And it came to pass, after three
days, that the officers went through the host, and they commanded
the people, saying, When ye see the ark of the covenant of the
Lord your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then
ye 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 ye
may know the way by which ye must go, for ye have not passed
this way heretofore. And Joshua said unto the people,
Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among
you. 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. And thou shalt command the priests
that bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When ye are come to the
brink of the water of Jordan, ye shall stand still in Jordan. And Joshua said unto the children
of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of the Lord your God.
And Joshua said, Hereby ye 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.
Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth
passeth over before you into Jordan. Now therefore take you
twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe
a man. And it shall come to pass, as
soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the
ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, 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 an heap. and it came to pass, when the
people removed from their tents to pass over Jordan, and the
priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people, and
as they that bear the ark were come unto 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 a 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, 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. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. Now, I've heard a lot of Bible
stories and I've heard a lot of sermons. I've preached a lot
of sermons. But I do not think I've ever
preached or even heard a sermon from this chapter. And maybe
that's just me, but I don't really know why that is. I wondered
about it and I thought maybe we move too quickly from the
story of Rahab and the two spies to the story of the walls of
Jericho and we just glide over these few chapters. Well, if
that is the case, it's our error because these are very important
chapters. This was the end of more than
40 years wandering in the wilderness for the children of Israel. And
it was the beginning of the fulfilment of God's promise to give possession
of Canaan to Israel. A promise that had been made
hundreds of years ago, over 400 years ago. almost 500 years ago,
to the children of Israel and to, well no I'm sorry it's even
more than that, to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob. It was about 500 years that Joseph
was in Egypt. But here is a people now ready
to fulfil as it were their destiny to enter into the promises which
the Lord had made. It was the end of one age and
the start of a new age in the history of God's people. And
there are several interesting points worth noting about what
is said and what is done here. as well as the obvious miracle
of Israel passing over this natural barrier, the river, and crossing
the Jordan on dry ground, just as the people had passed through
the Red Sea on dry ground 40 years before. We find that there
are some things that are unusual and differ and are therefore
noticeable from what we might expect. So for example, we read
here about the Ark of the Covenant. Now the Ark of the Covenant,
as we've learned in recent weeks and months, the Ark of the Covenant
was in the tabernacle. It was there in the tabernacle
and when the children of Israel moved, when the tabernacle was
taken up because it was a mobile tent, the Ark of the Covenant
was carried in the midst of the people. The Ark of the Covenant
here goes before the people. Normally when the people travelled,
the Ark was in the middle of the tribes, reminding the people
how the Lord was among them. But here the Ark would go ahead
and the people would follow. That was a rare thing. For 40 years it had been the
cloud that the people had followed. Remember the cloud by day and
the pillar of fire by night. but the guiding cloud passed
with the death of Moses. And now it was the Ark of the
Covenant that would lead the people. And also we remember
that the Ark, let me just say, I hope no one's thinking about
Noah's Ark. This Ark was the Ark of the Covenant. It was the box made of chitin
wood and covered with gold that Moses had made and placed in
the tabernacle. But the Ark was to be carried
by priests. or it was to be carried by priests
here into the Jordan. Previously, it was Levites who
carried it. And so here is just a slight
change, an alteration, but it shows us that something new is
happening. And the ark was to be carried
by unarmed priests into the river in the face of the enemy with
the main body of the people almost half a mile behind. All of these things occurred
when Jordan was in flood and it was a fast flowing river. So the situation here is changing. The situation is altered. And we learn that the Lord spoke
to Joshua. The Lord spoke to Joshua for
his encouragement and he confirmed that he would be with him as
he had been with Moses. and that the events of this day
with its miraculous crossing of Jordan would testify to God's
presence with Joshua and the people of Israel. Joshua informed
the people that the Lord, who was the Lord of all the earth,
in power and glory, would do wonders among them. Power of
God over this natural barrier of water was to be a token that
God would drive out the seven nations that lived in the land. and several times we are told
that the waters of the Jordan would build up in a heap so they
would stack up as the priest's feet came to the brink of the
river. But we will know it, I trust,
that it is the power of the ark of the covenant that holds back
the water, not the feet of the priests. It was as if the ark
was forming an invisible dam to hold back the water. The water
drained away downstream. probably for about 15 miles or
so down to the Salt Sea or the Dead Sea, and it backed upstream
in an area between the cities of Adam and Zaretan. So I don't
know whether that means that they land up there flooded, But
what it does mean is that there was a space created and probably
quite a wide space where the children of Israel in their tribes
were able to march through and dry ground and enter into the
land of Canaan. Joshua also instructs 12 men
to collect a stone each from the river bed and locate it where
the people would camp on the other side of the river. And
the men collected those stones from the middle of the river
and they set them up in their camp at Gilgal as a memorial
of the event of this day. And I thought there was an interesting
suggestion. One of the places that I read was talking about
the fact that as the men took those stones, they may well have
taken them to a separate part, not brought them all together
in one place, but took them to a separate part of the land into
which they were going so that each of the tribes knew that
that was where their tribe had to encamp in Gilgal. and therefore what we see here
is a large-scale movement of people, a very large number of
people, perhaps two or three million people. And yet it was
an orderly march in the tribes of the people, speedy and efficiently
organised. which must in itself have struck
fear into the hearts of the people of Canaan. Imagine seeing this
massive number of people simply walking. You thought that the
river was going to be a barrier. You thought that the river was
going to keep them out. And suddenly in their massed
groups, they simply walked down into the riverbed and back up
the other side and in camp where these stones were placed. Joshua himself set up another
additional monument of 12 stones in the river to mark the event
while it was still dry there. And interestingly enough there's
a little reference in Matthew chapter 3 to stones at the time
of John the Baptist and it may well be that there is a connection
between the stones in the memorial that Joshua placed there in the
river and John the Baptist's ministry, but that's a story
for another day. Here's a couple of quick lessons
for us from this little passage. The days of Moses had come to
an end. This was now the era of Joshua. And you'll remember that we said
that Joshua is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there
is a lovely picture here of Joshua leading the people into a new
land, in a new age. for a new beginning. And this
is what the Lord Jesus Christ does for his people when he brings
us to conversion and he brings us to trust in him. The old things pass away and
all things become new. We often speak of new life in
Christ. And when we trust in the Lord
Jesus, it means that we honour and serve him as our Lord and
Saviour. It means that he leads us, just
as Joshua led the children of Israel. It means that we see
him as Lord, because he has become our King, our Leader, as well
as our Saviour. And we enter kingdom, as his
people and as his followers. It is a blessed privilege to
be a follower of Jesus Christ and also under Joshua's direction
the people were to follow the Ark of the Covenant and of course
we learned when we were thinking about the tabernacle and the
the implements and parts of the tabernacle and about the furniture
of the tabernacle and about the Ark of the Covenant within the
tabernacle, we learned that that too was a picture of Christ.
The cloud of Moses' era had gone and the clarity of a new dawn,
a new day had begun. The wilderness was behind and
now a new life in the new land of promise and new blessings
beckoned. All those whom the Lord brings
to himself, all those that the Lord saves, they come to a place
of crossing over in their minds. It's as if once we followed after
our own desires, once we pursued our own ways, once we were strangers
to the Lord, once we were lost in our sins and guilty, And then we are brought to that
place of change. We commit to follow the Lord
who calls to us by saying as he did to his disciples, follow
thou me. And I want us to listen to our
hearts today and listen for the Lord's invitation to come and
listen for his command to follow. And may he enable us to do both. And here's another little application
that I want to make and then we'll be done. It's a little
bit like the first, but the Ark of the Covenant as a type of
the Lord Jesus, we have seen, I mentioned at the beginning
that it was the presence of the Ark not the feet of the priests
that held back the waters of the river Jordan. Joshua told
the people, in verse 11, behold, the ark of the covenant of the
Lord of all the earth passeth before you into Jordan. In our lives, we shall have many
problems and many difficulties. We might be afraid about something. We might be nervous about what
the future holds. We might dread what lies ahead
for us. The children of Israel were excited
about entering the promised land, but they were also nervous. They
were nervous about the nations that dwelt there. They were nervous
about the walled cities that they would have to overcome. They'd heard the stories about
these various nations. But that the Ark of the Covenant
went before them into Jordan was God's promise that he would
deliver the people from their enemies in the land. What is
it that we fear? What is it that we fear? That
the nation, the seven nations of the land were the Canaanites,
the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites,
the Amorites and the Jebusites. In the Bible, seven is often
used as a picture of completeness. And what I think that means is
that because there were seven nations, that was the way that
the Lord was saying to the children, all your fears, your complete
bundle of fears is bound up in these seven nations. But no matter
what they do, they shall not overcome. You will overcome. because the Ark of the Covenant,
because that Ark which typified the Lord Jesus Christ goes before
you. He will defend his people because
he has gone before us. He will look after us no matter
what the future holds because the Lord Jesus Christ goes before
us. Some people think that going
over Jordan is a picture of dying. Well if it is, even death is
not to be feared because by dying on the cross for us the Lord
Jesus Christ has gone this way before us and by rising again
he has removed the sting of death, defeated the grave and he promises
us everlasting life in heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ is a blessed
Lord to follow and a wonderful Saviour to trust. Joshua typifies
a victorious leader. The Ark of the Covenant typifies
mercy, atonement, sacrifice and forgiveness. And our Lord Jesus
Christ is both our Lord and our Saviour. He gives meaning to
this life and promises for the life to come. And may he give
us grace that we may learn to trust him more and more every
day. Amen.