Crossing the Jordan, Part 1

Joshua chapter 3 is where we're at tonight. Joshua chapter 3 as we make our way through this great narrative concerning Israel's entrance into the promised land. This is a great day for Israel as they cross the Jordan. It's a great day because they end as they began. They began when they left Egypt. When God called them out of bondage, and they began by crossing that Red Sea and that great miracle of God. And now they end that wilderness wandering by crossing the Jordan River and entering into that land that was promised.

To Abraham, way back in Genesis chapter 15, when God told Abraham, listen, when the Amorites' iniquity has been Filled or filled to the brim, then I'm going to bring your people back into the land. And sure enough, that time has come. And Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 6 said in verse 23, he brought us out that he might bring us in. He brought us out of bondage, out of slavery, that he might bring us into this land. And you know what? Joshua was the man who believed that. He believed it. God told him in chapter 1.

In verse number 2, these words, Moses, my servant, is dead. Now therefore arise, cross the Jordan, and all this people to the land which I am giving to them. To the sons of Israel, every place in which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, as far as the great sea toward the setting of the sun, will be your territory. God said to Joshua, This is your land.

Joshua believes what God says. And in verse 10, then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, Pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, saying, Prepare provisions for yourselves. For within three days you are to cross this Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess it. And then, just to bolster his faith even more, when the spies returned from Jericho, listen to what they said in verse 24 of chapter 2. They said, Surely. The Lord has given all the land into our hands, and all the inhabitants of the land, moreover, have melted away before us.

When the spies returned from Jericho, they came and told Joshua, This is the land that God has given to us. All of our enemies have melted away. And that, too, was the fulfillment of what God said way back in Deuteronomy chapter Chapter 2, verse number 25. It was Moses who said these words: This day I will begin to put the dread and the fear of your of you upon the peoples everywhere under the heavens, who, when they hear the report of you, shall tremble and be in anguish because of you. As God relayed that message to Moses and Moses relayed that message to the people, they were assured that the people in the land would melt before them.

And so when the spies returned and came back and said, listen, Joshua, they are fearful of us. It was a confirmation in the mind of Joshua that God was true to his word. Listen, if you want to be a person of victory, as Joshua was a man of victory, if you want victory in your life, you must believe. What God has said. It's as simple as that. If you don't believe what God has said, you will be a victim and you will not be a victor. But when you believe what God has said, you will have strong faith and you will be able to operate bas on the testimony of the living God of the universe.

And that's how Joshua was. He believed what God said. And I guess the sad thing is that there are so many people who don't know what God said. And there are so many people who, when they try to speak, In pulpits and speak for God, don't even say it right. I was taken back by my son's baccalaureate that he had just a couple of days ago, and the speaker that was there. He used to be a Bible teacher in a Christian school, and he gave the bacc address. And I'm sitting and listening to him as he speaks, and he absolutely slaughters the text.

And I'm thinking to myself, how are you going to encourage all these high school students to walk with God and trust God and believe God if you can't articulate the text in a way that they can understand it and interpret it in a way that's supposed to be interpreted? You see, we need to know what God says.

And you need to know what God says. All of us do. We need to be people of the book. We need to be people who memorize the scripture, who meditate upon the scripture, who live the scripture, because we want to act upon what God has already said. That's the person who's the victorious one. There's a hymn written a long time ago called Faith is a Victory. Remember that? Faith is a victory, faith is a victory. Oh, glorious victory that overcomes the world. Remember that song? That's a great song. That's based on 1 John 5.

1 John 5 says this. Verse number 4: For whatever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. And who is the one who overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? Who is the one who overcomes? He's the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. He's the one who believes that Jesus is God in the flesh. He is the one who believes in what God has already said. That's what faith is. Faith is believing in what God has already said and already established.

And so, for you to be a man of faith is to be a man or woman of victory. You are an overcomer. Romans 8 calls us over conquerors through him who loved us. We are not just overcomers. We are over conquerors. We are hu nike. That means overabundant conquerors. And that's the way we are. You say, well, man, I don't feel that way. I don't feel like I'm an overcomer. I don feel like I'm conquering anything. That's because. That's because you don't know God has already said. That's the bottom line. See, we like to make Christianity this big mystical kind of religion where it's hard to understand.

We don't really get it. We kind of, you know, walk by some kind of faith, believing in something we can't see, and just kind of hope it's out there. That's not what Christianity is. Christianity is believing what God says and then acted upon it.

Very simple. But see, Satan wants to move you away from that. He wants to distract you away from the truth of God's word. And you need to be a person that understands what God has said. Joshua knew what our Lord God said to Abraham in Genesis 15. Joshua knew what God said to Moses in Exodus chapter 4. I will bring them out of this place, and I will bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey. He under what Moses said in Deuteronomy chapter 6. He understood what the God said to him in Joshua chapter 1.

He believed what God said and took God at his word and began the process of entering to that great land that God had promised. To his people. And when it was all said and done, Joshua said these words in Joshua chapter 21, verse 45. Not one of the good promises which the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed. All c to pass. Isn 't that good? Not one word failed. Not one word. It all came to pass. And then over in Genesis, I mean, Joshua chapter 23, verse number 14. Now, behold, today I am going the way of all the earth.

And you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one word of all the good words. Which the Lord your God spoke concerning you has failed, all have been fulfilled for you, not one of them has failed. You see, he was a leader. And Joshua had to remind the people that God was faithful to his word. He never fails. That's why he was a man of victory. Joshua was no loser. He won the battles because he believed in the God who gave him the word. Let me read to you the narrative.

Joshua chapter 3. Then Joshua rose early in the morning, and he and all the sons of Israel set out from Shittim and came to the Jordan, and they lodged there before they crossed. And it came about at the end of three days that the officers went through the midst of the camp. And they commanded the people, saying, When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, with the Levitical priests carrying it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it. However, there shall be between you and it a distance of about two thousand cubits by measure.

Do not come near it, that ye may know the way by which ye shall go, for you have not passed this way before. Then Joshua said to the people, Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. And Joshua spoke to the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant and cross over ahead of the people. So they took up the ark of the covenant and went ahead of the people. Now the Lord said to Joshua, This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you.

You shall moreover command the priests who are carrying the ark of the covenant, saying, When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan. Then Joshua said to the sons of Israel, Come here, and hear the words of the LORD your God. And Joshua said, By this you shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will assuredly dispossess. From before you the Canaanite, the Hitt, the Hiv, the Perizzite, the Girgus, the Amor, and the Jebus. Behold, the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of all the earth is crossing over ahead of you into the Jordan.

Now then, take for yourselves twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man for each tribe. And it shall come about when the soles of the feet of the priest who carry the ark of the LORD, the LORD of all the earth shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off, and the waters which are flowing down from above shall stand in one heap. So it came about when the people set out from their tents to cross the Jordan with the priests carrying the ark of the covenant before the people, and when those who carried the ark came into the Jordan, and the feet of the priests carrying the ark were dipped in the edge of the water, for the Jordan overflows all its blanks.

all the days of harvest, that the waters which were flowing down from above stood and rose up in one heap, a great distance away at Ad, the city that is beside Zar. and those which were flowing down toward the sea of the Arab, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. So the people crossed opposite Jericho. And the priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground, in the middle of the Jordan, while all Israel crossed on dry ground, until the nation had finished crossing the Jordan.

Israel crosses the Jordan. I want you to look at two things with me this evening: the messages before the crossing and the miracles.

At the crossing. Two simple points. The messages before the crossing. The text tells us that they were there for three days. They were there three days. What were they doing? They were there resting, regrouping, reflecting. At the river, think about what has God done. We read in a text that the Jordan overflows during the time of harvest. Why is it God would lead them to cross the Jordan at this time? Why not wait to another time of the year so that there weren't floodwaters to cross? Why not make it so it's easy to cross?

You have to realize that at any given period during the time of the Jordan, it's usually maybe 100 or 200 feet wide. But when the Jordan overflows, it's a mile wide. Not only is it a mile wide, but the water's running down. The Jordan. Remember the Jordan descends a thousand feet from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. The Jordan is fed from the melting snow of Mount Hermon. Mount Hermon has snow on it all year round. And when that snow begins to melt, It goes into three basic locations: one in Lebanon, two in Israel.

And those three rivers convene to make the Jordan River. The word Jordan is a word that means to descend or to flow down from Dan. Tell Dan is one of the areas in which the the Jordan the the the snow melting feeds into. Another one is Ban or Caesarea Philippi. And every year when we go to Israel, we sit right next to that water and it runs right through where we're standing when we preach on Matthew 16 and we're able to see the fresh spring water. Flowing down from Mount Hermon. And that water forms the Jordan River, which flows into the Sea of Galilee.

And that water then flows further down to the Dead Sea and then stops. That's why it's called the Dead Sea. It's dead because it has no out. It's always a good thing to remember.

Why is the dead sea dead? Because it has no out. For you not to remain dead, you must have an outlet. It does you no good to keep soaking it in week after week after week after week without giving it out, giving it out, giving it out. What you take in, you must give out, or you'll be like the Dead Okay, you got to take it in, you got to give it out. You got to tell somebody about what you heard. You got to preach the gospel to somebody else. You got to teach someone else the truth of what you've heard.

That's so important. And so when the when during the harvest time, we're talking about a mile wide. So here are these people, some two and a half million Jews. Sitting by the Jordan, overflowing its banks. And because it's a thousand feet descent from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. The water begins to run very rapidly during harvest time, of upwards of 10 to 12 miles per hour as it flows from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. So there they sit. The water is rushing by them. It's at least a mile wide.

And they're probably asking themselves, why did God bring us here at this time? Why couldn't he wait to another time of the year when it was easy to cross, or at least easier to cross? They couldn't build a boat. Wouldn be enough wood to make boats big enough to get everybody across. After all, the water's rushing too rapidly to be able to get in a boat and get across. They couldn't swim across. So, what were they going to do? God was going to do something great. God's going to do something great.

The next time you've got to cross a river that seems to be too deep and too wide, you need to wait for God to do something great. And that's what Joshua chapter 3 tells us. A lot of times we face rivers that we think are so big, so humongous, so deep. So rapid that we can't even begin to cross them. And yet, God wants us to trust Him to see what He can do. Joshua gives five messages. Five messages. From those five messages, we begin to understand what it is that will encourage us. To see the work of God.

First of all, message number one is a message of consolation. It's all about the Ark of the Covenant, because the Ark of the Covenant will go before them. The Ark of the Covenant in chapter 3 and chapter 4 is mentioned 16 times. The Ark of the Covenant represents is a symbol of the presence of Almighty God. Psalm 80, verse number 1 tells us that God dwells between the cherubim on the ark of the covenant. The Ark of the Covenant is a box of acacia wood. It's 45 inches Long, 27 inches deep, 27 inches wide.

It's got gold rings on it where the gold poles go through it, and the priests carry it on their shoulders. On top are the two wings of the cherubim. And the presence of the Lord resides over that. Inside that ark is the law of God. On that ark is the mercy seat where the blood on the day of at will be sprinkled. And so what you have is a symbol of what God does for his people. The only way that people who break the law of God can get to him is through blood that has been shed for their sins. And this Ark of the Covenant is representative of the presence of Almighty God in the nation of Israel.

And the message of consolation that Joshua gives is that the Ark of the Covenant will go before them. In other words, he's saying, God's presence is going to go before you. There is no more a pillar of fire by night. No more a cloud during the day. It's the Ark of the Covenant. And that represents the presence of Almighty God. And that's why there had to be 2,000 cubits between the priests and the people. Because every had to see God in order to get across. The reason we can't cross our rivers is because we don't see God.

In the river. You see, we need to be able to understand that God goes before us. Joshua was going to give them a message of consolation. Our God is going before us. He said, you have not gone this way before. In other words, he's saying, but God has gone this way before. Why? Because he's the living God, as he says later, the God of all the earth. So because he's the God of all the earth, he's the possessor of heaven and earth. He's already been that way before. have not gone that way before and because you haven't you must see him in your journey Very important.

Joshua had to console them and give them something to hold on to. Remember back in Exodus chapter 33? God was speaking to Moses, and Moses said to God in verse number 14. Or, extremely, God said to Moses, My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest. Then he said to him, If thy presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here. For how then can it be known that I have found favor in thy sight? And thy people is it not by thy going with us so that we I and thy people may be distinguished from all the other people who are upon the face of the earth?

What distinguishes you and me from everybody else on the face of the earth? It is the presence of God that goes before us. That's what makes us different. We have a different perspective than everybody else. We see God in situations they do not. That's why the Bible is replete with exhortations. Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. Unto him. Colossians 3: Set your affections on things above, not on things below. Matthew:, see ye first the kingdom of God, his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.

The Bible is replete with exhortations. To keep looking above, to keep looking at God, because if you don't, if you don't, you will fail. Turn in your Bible to Mark chapter 6, verse 45. Very familiar story, and immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side to Bes. While he him was sending the multitude away, and after bidding them farewell, he departed to the mountain to pray. And when it was evening, the boat was in the midst of the sea, and he was alone in the land.

and seeing them straining at the oars, for the wind was against them, at about the fourth watch of the night, he came to them walking on the sea, and he intended to pass by them. Here are the disciples in the boat in the midst of a sea. There's a great storm. The Lord sees them from where? From where he is praying. Now, how do you see someone in the midst of the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the night when you're in the mountains praying? Well, if you're God, you can see anything, right? So he sees what's going on.

He sees them straightening at the oar. And so he comes to them on the sea. He walks on the sea. He walks on the sea of Galilee. And he intended to pass by them. In other words, he wasn't going to stop until they cried out to him. They had to see him. Now listen to what the text says. But when they saw him walking on the sea, they suppos that it was what? A ghost. They didn't think it was Jesus. You know why? Because they didn't expect Jesus to show up. You see, if they were expecting him to show up, they would be able to say, Oh, there he comes.

Here he comes. Instead, it was like, What is that? Who is that? Walking on the sea. In the midst of our storms, we usually don't expect Jesus to show up. But he did. He showed up. And they cried out. For they all saw him and were frightened. But immediately he spoke with them and said to them, Take courage, it is I. Do not be afraid. It's me now.

Listen to Matthew. Matthew's account of this. After he says, take courage, be not afraid. Verse 28. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. Peter says, I want to walk in the water too. That's a pretty amazing thing you're doing there, Lord. I want to get out there too. And Jesus said, Come. And Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. This is amazing. You can imagine what all the other disciples are thinking. I should have asked that question.

I could have been in the water, too. Listen to this. But seeing the wind, he became afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, Lord, save me! And immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and took hold of him and said to him, O you of little faith, why did you doubt? O you of little faith. You see, what caused Peter to doubt? There was a time, a brief time, during his journey on the Sea of Galilee. that he did not believe what God said. God said, come so he came but all of a sudden he looked to the wind and there was a wave No longer was he fixed on Jesus.

No was he focused on what God said. He was focused on the circumstances around him, and he began to sink. That's why you sink. That's why we fail. That's why we're not people of victory. Because we look at the circumstances around us, and all of a sudden, we're like, oh, Lord, save me.

What happened to me? I'm going down. I'm going down fast. And of course, God in his grace, his mercy, picks us up and says, Oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt? Doubt what? Doubt what God said. And you see, that's what happens when we get our eyes off of the Lord Jesus. And that's why there had to be 2,000 cubits between the Ark of the Covenant, the priests carry, and the people. They all had to be able to see the pres of Almighty God. Didn't see him. I wonder tonight, what did you see?