Joshua 4:11-24.  Yesterday I mentioned that this story connected back to Moses.  Just like God did a great miracle at the beginning of Moses’ time of leadership He did a great miracle at the beginning of Joshua’s.  this was sort fo like a stamp of approval on these leaders.  Later on when things got tough the people should have been able to remember these miracles and been reminded about the power of God and been that Moses and Joshua were speaking for God.  There is another echo in the story of past events too, we are told that everything was completed “just as the LORD had commanded”.  That phrase is repeated over and over in the book of Exodus as the Tabernacle and all the stuff in it was being made.  It is important to see that both Moses and Joshua were faithful to God.  They listened and acted.

Today’s part of the story is an echo too.  It repeats the story from yesterday from a different point of view.  Yesterday the author focused on the miracle.  The reading today focuses more on the obedience of Joshua and the people.  We see the 2-1/2 tribes from the east side of the Jordan crossing over just like they had agreed to do with Moses.  But now they are doing it under the leadership of Joshua.  Then we see Joshua giving direction to the priests to come up out of the riverbed and when they do the river returns.  This is a lot like when Moses put his hands out and the waters of the Red Sea returned to their place (Exodus 26:14-28).  Finally Joshua took the stones that they had brought from the riverbed and set them up as a memorial just like God had told him to do. So they were obedient.

The story ends today with Joshua reminding the people about the reminder.  He reminds them what the stones are about and what they are to tell their children.  The stones were set up in a place called Gilgal.  Jericho was six miles from the river and Gilgal was in between.  The Israelites set up camp in Gilgal when they crossed the river.  It looks like Gilgal remained their command center the whole time Joshua was alive and even for part of the period of the Judges.  In Judges 2:1 we see God approaching the Israelites to scold them about not doing what He had told them to do about getting rid of the people in the promised land.  God came to them from Gilgal.  That is probably where the Ark and the Tabernacle had been set up in the beginning.  By the time of the second judge, Ehud, there are idols set up in Gilgal (Judges 3:19).  Right next to pile of stones which were to remind them about the power of the true God were false and useless images of so called gods.

It is sad how quickly we can forget, even when we have things around to remind us.  It’s also sad how many things we bring in that crowd out those reminders. Sometimes it isn’t things that make God hard to remember sometimes it’s other memories.  It’s interesting in relationships how one bad thing can wipe out a whole bunch of good things.  One lie and people see us a liar even after years of honesty.  I’m not saying lying is right I’m just saying we are quick to forget, especially good stuff.  In Deuteronomy 4:1-9 Moses was reminding the people to be diligent about remembering all the things God had shown them and told them (Deuteronomy was Moses’ farewell speech to the Israelites.  It was given shortly before crossing the Jordan River several day or maybe a few weeks before the stuff we are reading about right now.).  We need to be diligent to remember what God has done in our lives and the lives of those around us.  We need to work hard at doing the things that please God (Deuteronomy 6:17) and we need to be diligent to teach our children about God (Deuteronomy 4:9.  But, not quite yet for you Junior High students).  And we need to be diligent so the world around us can see God too (Deuteronomy 4:6-8 and Joshua 4:24).  We need to remember and act and teach and show so that the all those around us will see and know about God to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).  God help me remember.  Help me set up the stones from the rivers you have me cross.  Help me not allow other monuments to be set up and hide the stones.  Help me be diligent to remember.  Let my actions be faithful to what you have done in my life.  Help me be evidence of you to the world.

Joshua 3:14-4:10.  Some people are skeptical about miracles like the one that happened in these verses.  Skeptical scholars like to say the Israelites walked through a marsh when they left Egypt.  And I’m sure they are no less critical of this story.  The language is very clear though.  In fact verses 14-16  form only two sentences.  In Hebrew the sentence starts out “And it happened” it is then followed by several clauses which describe leaving the tents and going to the Jordan River where the priests put their feet in the water.  Then the sentences returns to the opening thought with four verbs related to the water.  What happened to the water is the main idea of verses 4-16.  The four verbs are:  stood, rose up, completed, and were cut off.  As to the last two words it is clear that there wasn’t even a trickle of water passing by the word for cut off is used for when a persons head is cut off and the word completed can mean clean or finished.  This is a done deal.  The first two words are impressive too.  Stood means to be firmly established in one place and rose up has a similar meaning.  When you couple them with heap  it means something like “stood up like a wall and stayed put.”  Water just doesn’t do that.  Then verses 16 ends almost casually with the people going across near Jericho.   If you’ve ever surfed you might be thinking, “I’ve seen water pile up like a wall before.”  Sure me too, in Hawaii, but it didn’t stay put.  In that moment before that wall of water came crashing down it was impressive and it wasn’t even a big day.  If a wave is impressive how much more impressive is it when God hits the pause button.  Can you imagine if a wave was all piling up right in from of you and then God hit the pause button.  But you could walk over and touch the water, “gnarley dude.”   Unfortunately the water was piling up about 15-20 miles up stream so they couldn’t do that.  But there was something else impressive about this.  As you walk over toward the wall of water you notice that the sand is dry, like middle of the desert dry.  Twice in verse 17 we are told that the ground was that dry.  If you missed the hint in Joshua 2:7 (the Soldiers went to the “fords”, those were places where you could cross a swollen river more easily so this river was not just a trickle) the author is very clear in these verses that the river was high.  It was harvest season when the river was high, very high, ready to overflow it’s banks.  This is not the same harvest season we think of at the end of summer this is an early harvest at the end of March.  The river was big from spring rains and snow melting on the mountains to the north.  And remember that this is at the lower end of the river just above the Dead Sea so we are talking all of the Jordan River’s water.

I hope you’ve gotten the point by now this is 100% major supernatural.  It is a total God thing and it started when God’s main men, the priests, stepped into the water with God (God’s presence was represented by the Ark of the Promise).  It continued until every last person was across, almost two million (There were more than two million Israelites at this point but remember that the women and children from Reuben and Gad and part of Manasseh were staying on the east side of the river.).  I’m sure it took a lot of time.  Verse 10 says the people hurried across.  I bet.  The water just stops and they are supposed to cross.  I don’t know if they could see up the river to where the water was but I would suppose the invisible dam of God’s will was just getting fuller and fuller.  Now God’s power is limitless but if they could see the heap getting higher I’m sure they would have hurried.

After they all got across Joshua has one more thing for a few of the people to do.  One guy from each tribe has to go back to the middle of the river and grab a big rock from near the feet of the priests (The priests had stopped in the middle of the river with the ark).  I wonder if they hurried too.  The rocks were to be put at the place they camped that night as a memorial for all the generations to come.  Joshua also had them set up a pile of rocks in the middle of the river as a  similar memorial.  A pile in the water to remember the pile of water.

Finally notice in the part we read in chapter 4 that God spoke to Joshua, Joshua spoke to the people, and the people did just what Joshua said (v. 8).  They all did what the LORD (Yahweh) had told them to do (v. 10).  At the very end Moses is mentioned in name but the idea of Moses is in the whole story, not Moses as a man but Moses as the leader.  The whole story echoes Moses bringing the Israelites across the Red Sea (Exodus 15). That event is probably the one, more than any oter, that showed the Israelites tht Moses was God’s leader for them.   Now there is a new leader, same God, new man and he gets a similar stamp of approval from God.  There is one diference though, at the Red Sea the Israelites were being pursued now they were entering the promised land.  In Deuteronomy 11:4 we are told that the waters engulfed the Egyptian army.  That word means pursued, chased, or persecuted.  I wonder if God let the waters rush back down the Jordan from where they had been stopped or if the flow was peaceful as it passed the Israelites.  It was gentle enough that it didn’t take out the monument in the middle of the river (v.9).  Hopefully the whole event was a source of peace and confidence as the Israelites now faced Jericho and the rest of the promised land.  Could the God who pushed back the water push the inhabitants out of the land?  Would the Israelites faithfully step into the new situation God was giving them?  Those are the questions we need to ask ourselves.  Will we do all God asks us to do and trust Him?  God help me trust you.  Help me take each step that you show me.  Help me not be scared by the waters as they pile up in my life.  You held back a sea, you held back a river, and you held back your punishment from me.  Thank you for holding back.  Give me faith and give me peace.  Help me be obedient and do all that you ask.