Midweek Bible Study | Joshua 3-4:9 | Gary Hamrick

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] for tonight we are joshua chapter three let me pray and then we will dig into this chapter we'll see how far we get tonight we might even get into chapter four uh after i pray i'll summarize where we are up to this point so let's just first go to the lord father it's good to be in your house we thank you for this time that we can share together we're grateful for your word we're grateful for all those who are going to be baptized tonight we just praise you and exalt you for what you're doing in our lives and in our church and we just continue to ask lord for your grace for your mercy for your favor we thank you that you love us so much that you are never content to allow us to remain as we are so in the different areas that we need to be challenged and changed we pray also that you would do your good work there in us and we just want to be vessels that are surrendered to you more and more and we commit this bible study to you now lord we love you we give you praise and thanks together in jesus name and everybody said amen so just to get our bearings straight with where we are at this point in the book of joshua this is a book that details the entrance into the promised land that the jewish people the the people who had been slaves for 400 years are finally going to enjoy and so this is that book that talks about their coming into the promised land and so i shared a map with you last week i'll share it again i'll walk to the back here this is a uh an aerial view a satellite view of israel we have the sea of galilee to the north we have the dead sea to the south and the jordan river that connects the two when the hebrew slaves had finally been freed after 400 years of slavery in egypt uh they took a kind of a circuitous route as you know bid they spent 40 years in the sinai uh peninsula because of their disobedience to god and then at the time when moses was dying just prior to that god handed over the batana ministry to his protege joshua after whom this book is named and after the 40 years of wilderness wandering an entire generation dies their children will enter the promised land along with only two from that previous generation joshua himself and caleb and when they end up coming into the promised land they're going to make this this route south of israel around to the east of the dead sea and they will encamp at a place called shatim in the new king james it says acacia grove because that's what shatim means in hebrew acacia grove acacia trees were and are basically thorny flowery trees you're going to see in a moment tonight that something is made from acacia wood we'll talk about from chapter three and so the israelites settle in shatim which is just east of the jordan river in what is today on a map modern jordan and they are going to end up coming acro going across the jordan river as we're going to read tonight god does a miraculous thing for them in a similar way that he had done for them in crossing the red sea when they came out of egypt and they're going to cross the jordan river and they're going to end up taking jericho which is the first city that they will take and as as we mentioned last week a principal person in the city of jericho was a woman by the name of rahab she was no ordinary woman she was a prostitute she was a gentile but she plays a significant role not just in this story in the book of joshua but she's also mentioned three times in the new testament and she has a pivotal part in the genealogical record of jesus which we'll get to when we revisit her again because even though she's mentioned in chapter two we finished chapter two last week she gets mentioned again in chapter six when the israelites actually come into jericho and she and her whole household are spared and they become proselytes to judaism it's an amazing story when you think about it this prostitute gentile receives god's mercy she's a picture of every single one of us in need of god's mercy estranged from him and yet who make a profession of faith can be received by him and that's what happens with rahab she's a wonderful story of redemption and god's mercy she marks her home with the scarlet cord this red cord which of course is a picture it's a type of the blood of christ a reminder to us of how when christ died on a cross for us we can also be rescued from our sins and from our previous way of life and so that's where chapter two ended and again as i said we'll come back to rehab rehab a little bit later but for the moment um in chapter 3 we come now to this wonderful moment when the the israelites are going to cross the jordan river and enter the promised land you have to remember everyone who's about ready to step foot into the jordan river and across it and into the promised land has never seen the promised land no one because again for the last 400 years they've been slaves in egypt for the last 40 years um after that they've been wandering in the wilderness until an entire generation died off no one who's about to go into the promised land with the exception of you would say perhaps joshua and kayla because they spied out the land but other than that no one has ever been there and certainly no one has ever lived there not among this generation so this is an exciting time i mean you have to imagine how this is god's promised land on oath to their forefathers to abraham isaac and jacob it's part of this abrahamic covenant the land was part of the covenant of god in genesis 15 verse 18 and it spells out even the territory from the nile river and to the mediterranean on the west to the euphrates river on the east which is in iraq and israel has never occupied that territory even to this day and so god swore on oath this land to the jewish people and they're about ready to enter it after 400 years of slavery and none of these people have ever been there before so this is an exciting moment for them as they're ready to step across into the promised land and so here in chapter 3 it says in verse 1 and then joshua rose early in the morning and they set out from acacia grove again that's shatim and came to the jordan to the jordan river and he and all the children of israel and lodged there before they crossed over so it was after three days that the officers went through the camp and they commanded the people saying when you see the ark of the covenant of the lord your god and the priests the levites bearing it then you shall set out from your place and go after it and yet there shall be a space between you and it about 2 000 cubits to measure do not come near it that you may know the way by which you must go for you have not passed this way before all right let's stop there for a moment because what is mentioned here to us is uh something there in verse 3 that's very significant and that is the ark of the covenant the instruction that joshua has been given by the lord it's inferred but he passes it on now to the people of israel that they are to follow the ark of the covenant what exactly is the ark of the covenant well if you're familiar with your old testaments you will remember that it is one of the articles and i think you could make the argument the most sacred of the articles that used to occupy the tabernacle and after that occupied the temple that solomon built and it was kept in the interior of the most holy place of the tabernacle or the temple and it was where god would visit with the high priest who would make his entrance into that most holy place only once a year on yom kippur the day of atonement to make atonement for the sins of the people so just a quick background of what we're talking about the ark of the covenant and then we'll talk about why they were supposed to follow it so the dimensions are given to us in the bible it's a small box it's basically three and three quarters feet long by two and a quarter feet high and two and a quarter feet wide the bible tells us that the lid of the ark of the covenant which was also called the mercy seat was made of solid gold with these gold cherubim or angels on top fixed on top also made of gold on top of the mercy seat with their wings outstretched facing towards each other this was all prescribed by god to moses how he should fashion this ark of the covenant and it was made of acacia wood which is what we're reading here about the acacia grove so the acacia wood was something that was grown it was indigenous to this particular region and so the box was made of wood and overlaid with gold and inside this box were kept articles of israel's history the ten commandments aaron's budding staff and a sample of the manna which i just sampled a moment ago in front of you uh and so this is the ark of the covenant now this was a holy sacred uh article and in fact the bible tells us uh in psalm 80 verse 1 and in psalm 99 verse 1 that god would sit enthroned between the cherubim his very presence would manifest above the ark of the covenants so when the high priest when it was situated in the tabernacle or later the temple when the high priest would go in to this holy place once a year he would go with the blood of of the lamb to make atoma for the sins of the people he would sprinkle it on the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant because it would be there that god would make atonement for the sins of the people this is prior to jesus dying on a cross it was a temporary means by which people could be made righteous temporarily until such time that jesus would die as a sacrifice for all people for all times for all sin okay but in the meantime what was god's gracious provision if the high priest would take blood on behalf of the sins of the people a sacrifice from a lamb sprinkle it go into the inside of the holy holies sprinkle on the mercy seat atonement for the sins of the people would be made yom kippur day of atonement and so god would visit the high priest there in his presence in his shekinah glory not a tangible physical being but the spirit of god the glory of god would be manifest there between the cherubim and by the way in the book of hebrews it tells us that um that the articles of the tabernacle and the temple itself in hebrews chapter seven it says that those things were a copy and a shadow of what exists in heaven there is an actual temple in heaven the bible says and god's presence dwells likewise on the mercy seat and so there was this replica or this type or copy or shadow of one on earth and every time the high priest would go behind the curtain into the most holy place to make atonement for the sins of the people it would be there that god would visit them so this being a very sacred article it would take the lead on their entrance into the promised land because what joshua instructed the priest to do was to take the ark of the covenant and to lead the way and so what the priests would do is they would hoist it up on their shoulders with with these these uh staffs between the ringlets on the side of the ark of the covenant so that they could then hoist up the ark on their shoulders and transport it this way they were never to touch the ark itself they were only to transport it like this by holding up hoisting it up on their shoulders with these staffs that pass through these ringlets on the side of the ark of the covenant the instruction was that the priest should lead the way in crossing the jordan river and that the people should follow the ark of the covenant now he tells us there if you'll notice again when he says in verse 3 when you see the ark of the covenant of the lord your god and the priests the levites bearing it then you shall set out from your place and go after it but he says in verse 4 yet there shall be a space between you and it about 2 000 cubits by measure do not come near it that you may know the way by which you must go for you have not passed this way before so two thousand cubits is roughly uh a thousand yards so we're talking a little more than half a mile the priests with the ark of the covenant were supposed to be a little more than half a mile in front of all the israelites who are ready to move into the promised land and they're not to go near this is this is the sacred presence of god and and so these priests are to take the lead and the people are to follow now there's three basic things i want to point out from chapter three that we're going to go through here basic instructions that were given to the people as they prepared to cross over into the promised land and the first one is this that they're to follow the lord's lead this is good advice by the way for us in everyday living the lord's in charge sometimes we get ahead of god we we get adventurous and we start doing things and then we pray and ask god to bless it what it really should be is we should be praying and asking god how is he leading and then follow him sometimes we get impulsive and we start to do things and we start to make decisions and then we just hope that you know god's going to get behind him god's in front of it and if we're not following him we're going to end up in making decisions for ourselves without his lead we're going to end up bringing you know disaster upon ourselves so we need to make sure that as believers as followers of christ we're always following the lord's lead what is god up to how is god leading how is god directing in this situation in your life how is god opening the doors or not how is god uh making a way for you we need to be seeking him and following his lead not getting out in front of god and then hoping he'll just bless it and so this was the instruction here a half a mile keep your distance he says to the people and then he says in verse 5 and joshua said to the people sanctify yourselves for tomorrow the lord will do wonders among you and then joshua spoke to the priest saying take up the ark of the covenant and cross over before the people. so there in verse five we have something else number two on our list he says to the people sanctify yourselves now the hebrew word is kadash and and some of your translations might say consecrate or purify and and this was the command that was given to them now it doesn't specifically say in what way they were to sanctify themselves but you can use your imagination i mean anything that might have been corrupt in their hearts or in their lives some action activity behavior thought word deed get it cleaned up get right with god because g campbell morgan said it this way the church pure is the church powerful there is a certain measure of god's power that is manifest in an individual's life when we walk in purity before him he calls his people to follow his lead and then to consecrate or sanctify themselves to walk in purity why because god says be ye holy because i am holy and so holiness and purity and consecrated heart and life should be something that we as christ followers as believers take to heart as something that god will honor he wants us to walk in holiness before him now i like the instruction there because notice what joshua did not say even though they're about ready to cross the jordan river and they're about ready to engage in war at jericho he didn't say sharpen your swords he he didn't say you know get ready for war because god's going to take care of them he just says sanctify yourselves like get right before god and let god fight your battles you know purify yourself and then watch what god will do so that's his instruction here and he says to the priests in verse 6 about taking up the ark of the covenant crossed over before the people they have to take the lead they got to be out a half a mile ahead so they took up the ark of the covenant and went before the people verse 7 and the lord said to joshua this day i will begin to exalt you in the sight of all israel that they may know that as i was with moses so i will be with you that's a wonderful thing that god's going to do for joshua because you know how many of you understand it's hard to follow somebody who's pretty popular i mean moses for 40 years have been leading the people they were used to moses they loved moses i mean at first they grumbled against moses they didn't like what he was doing and how he was leading but nevertheless they came to respect and honor and revere moses as a prophet of god well moses has died now joshua has to fill his sandals and so that's kind of hard sandals to fill except that god's going to put it in the hearts of people to give joshua the kind of love and respect that he deserves as god's new assigned leader here verse 8 god says to joshua still you shall command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant saying when you have come to the edge of the water of the jordan you shall stand in the jordan now you can jump ahead if you'd like but in verse 15 it tells us that it's a parenthetical comment in in verse 15 the jordan overflows at its banks during the whole time of harvest this is harvest time this is april and in april and actually starting in march the snows on mount hermon begin to melt and the headwaters of the jordan river is at the base of mount hormone and so the jordan river gets at flood stage at the harvest time so march and april it's at flood stage and the instruction is to these priests carry the ark of the covenant be half a mile in front of the people when you get to the jordan river just go stand in it what what do you say yeah we're supposed to go stand in it all right i'll be in the back of the ark you guys will be up at the front you know and so here they are they're having to just obey god and and walk by faith here literally and so it says in verse nine so joshua said to the children of israel now he turns to them 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 without fail drive out from before you the canaanites and the hittites and the hivites and the perizzites and the gergescites and the amorites and the jebusites behold the ark of the covenant of the lord of all the earth is crossing over before you into the jordan now therefore take for yourselves twelve men from the tribes of israel one man from each tribe and it shall come to pass as soon as the souls of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the lord the lord of all the earth shall rest in the waters of the jordan that the waters of the jordan shall be cut off the waters that come down from upstream and they shall stand as a heap now this is joshua's instruction to the children of israel so god is already impressed upon his heart this is the way it's going to work it's interesting how god sometimes operates isn't it god in his providence could have just decided when he sees the israelites about ready to approach the jordan river well in advance i'm just going to roll the waters up for them and then they just would have walked over on dry ground but no the instruction is for the priest i want you to dip the soles of your feet into the jordan river and then then i will roll the waters back because what god often asks of us is to walk in faith that's number three is to walk in faith you know sometimes we just want god to go ahead and do things in advance for us and what god often says to us is i will be happy to do things for you if you will trust me and walk in faith and so this is his instruction here and the people are prepared to walk across the jordan river on a dry riverbed because the priests are going to be faithful to carry the ark in front of them and to put the soles of their feet into the jordan river and this is what happens verse 14. and so it was when the people set out from their camp to cross over the jordan with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people and as those who bore the ark came to the jordan and the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water for the jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest that the waters which came down from upstream stood still and rose in a heap very far away at adam the city that is beside zeratan and so the waters that went down into the sea of the arabah the salt sea that's the dead sea failed and were cut off and the people crossed over opposite jericho and then the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the lord stood firm on dry ground notice that dry ground in the midst of the jordan and all israel crossed over on dry ground until all the people had crossed completely over the jordan now let's talk about this for just a minute adam is a city about 16 miles upstream 16 miles now why why did god roll it back 16 miles well somebody did the math so don't credit me for this but you have to remember the number of israelites that came out of egypt how many went down into egypt when the famine started 70. the ones who came out were hundreds of thousands according to the census but when you multiply women and children because only the men were counted in the census it is estimated that there were as many as three to three and a half million israelites now how long does it take yeah how long how long does it take to get three and a half million people across the jordan river if say the waters only parted enough for two people to walk abreast well i'll tell you actually at two abreast the line would be eight hundred miles long and it would take about one month to cross but at five thousand abreast there would be a three mile wide swath and you could pass in a day so they're crossing here now how long are they are the priests holding the ark of the covenant you know waiting for the people and they're a mile they're half a mile upstream too to make sure they're not anywhere near the people uh and so at the very at the very least you know the reason why god rolled back the waters miles ahead was because he wanted to create a large enough swath for millions of people to cross over the jordan river into the promised land and i love here that it says also that they crossed over it says it says twice about dry ground in verse and verse 17. the priests who bore the ark of the covenant lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the jordan and all israel crossed over on dry ground and the reason i love that is because you know god glorifies himself in the details it wasn't that people were crossing over in this marshy muddy you know fish were you know flapping around you know as as they're trying to cross over on on the wet riverbed it was dry it was dry that god rolled back the waters and it was dry for them to walk across now again this is very similar to what god did when he delivered the israelites out of their slavery in egypt and they had to cross the red sea and god rolled back the red sea so that they could cross over and now he's doing something similar where he's rolling back the jordan river which is at flood stage so people can cross over on dry ground again you know when when people struggle to go i don't know if i can believe this i mean you know it's obviously a miracle it's hard to believe my answer always is if you can accept genesis 1 1 you can accept the rest of the bible if you stumble at genesis 1 1 then you'll stumble everything else so you know in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth when i believe that and know that he's the divine creator of the universe he can roll back the waters of the jordan river but if you stumble at genesis 1 1 you're going to stumble at everything else in the bible so this is god's miraculous hand at work so that the people can walk over on dry ground let's get into chapter four for as far as we can and it came to pass when all the people had completely crossed over the jordan that the lord spoke to joshua saying take for yourselves 12 men from the people one man from every tribe and command them saying take for yourselves twelve stones from here out of the midst of the jordan from the place where the priest's feet stood firm you shall carry them over with you and leave them in the lodging place where you lodge tonight and then joshua called the twelve men whom he had appointed from the children of israel one man from every tribe and joshua said to them cross over before the ark of the lord your god into the midst of the jordan and each one of you take up a stone on his shoulder according to the number of the tribes of the children of israel that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come saying what do these stones mean to you then you shall answer them that the waters of the jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the lord when it crossed over the jordan the waters of the jordan were cut off and these stones shall be for a memorial to the children of israel forever and the children of israel did so just as joshua commanded and took up 12 stones from the midst of the jordan as the lord had spoken to joshua according to the number of the tribes of the children of israel and carried them over with them to the place where they lodged and laid them down there and then joshua set up 12 stones in the midst of the jordan in the place where the feet of the priests who bore the ark of the covenant stood and they are there to this day well at least at the time when this was written who knows with floods if it might still be standing but i think to myself and wouldn't that be just natural in god's providence that they are still there and what a great archaeological discovery that would make if the jordan river were to you know recede so much that it would be protruding then from somewhere in the jordan river around there by jericho here's what we're reading god says to joshua and then subsequently joshua says to the people i want there to be two stacks of 12 stones each one stack of 12 stones will be on the other side of the jordan river once you cross it and you set up camp there which will be at gilgal we'll talk about that uh later not tonight that's where one of the stack of the twelve stones shall be and the other stack of the twelve stones is going to be right in the middle of the jordan river where the priests were standing with the ark of the covenant while the people crossed and he says i want these stones to be a memorial as a reminder of what god did on this particular occasion why 12 stones because there were 12 tribes of israel so one stone for each of the 12 tribes so there was one man designated from each tribe who when in crossing the jordan river would stoop down on the dry riverbed pick up a large enough rock that he needed to hoist it on his shoulder it says it's not just a pebble it's a large rock he would hoist it on his shoulder he'd walk over to the other side of the of the jordan river and then pile it down there and then they would they would stack it you know un until it made like this column of 12 stones so large stones enough to make this memorial marker and then the same thing was done in the middle of the jordan river joshua did that to commemorate where the priests stood and both stacks of stones were reminders of the miraculous hand of god why because there's this human tendency to forget the good things that god does and i love this because god appeals to our human nature here at this moment where he's basically saying to the children of israel you have the tendency to forget and so sometimes tangible reminders of god's faithfulness and goodness nothing that we should you know like idolize but just simple tangible reminders they were never obviously to bow down to these stones they weren't the sacrifices on these stones they were just a memorial marker of the faithfulness of god and sometimes because of our human nature we forget the goodness of god and it's okay to have some kind of memorial marker a reminder something tangible to remind us of what god did in his faithfulness years ago when our kids were little terry was in a car accident where our car got totaled but she and our three kids walked away without a scratch it was really the hand of god but i took a picture of that car and it is still in the top desk drawer in in my office at home because every once in a while when i come across what's in that drawer i can remember as a tangible reminder that was the faithfulness of god and sometimes those faithful reminders those those tangible reminders of the faithfulness of god are important in our lives because we as humans can forget so again you don't you don't idolize anything about those tangible reminders you don't set it up as some kind of icon but you you just have it as a reminder this is why god said set these stones up i don't want you to forget what happened here there's a song that we sing sometimes here and it's a classic hymn of your of the faith called uh come thou fount of every blessing and there's a line in that song that every time we sing it i i say to myself i wonder how many people really know what that is because in that in that song come thou found of every blessing there's a line that says i raised to you my ebeneezer you guys know that that that line in there i raised you my ebenezer now the song was written in 1758 by a baptist minister by the name of robert robinson who um after he was converted at the age of 22 he wrote that song and he gives credit to his conversion to the preaching of george whitefield but in 1758 he pens these words i raised to you my ebeneezer ebenezer what is he talking about in first samuel chapter 7 the prophet samuel um pled with god on behalf of the israelites because the philistines the perennial enemies of the israelites were advancing to attack them and so samuel the the people of israel plead with samuel as the prophet in that day beg god on our behalf we're going to be destroyed by the philistines so samuel makes a sacrifice to the lord and after he makes the sacrifice to the lord it tells us in first samuel chapter 7 that he sets up a stone because god gave them the victory by the mighty hand of god the philistines were defeated the israelites were preserved and were rescued and they had victory that day and samuel sets up this stone there as a stone of remembrance and he calls it ebenezer eben means stone ezzer means help and ebenezer means stone of help because it served as a tangible reminder that on that day god helped the israelites and gave them the victory over the philistines these tangible reminders in the bible are given to us on more than one occasion because what samuel did is just another reminder of what joshua's doing here with the people of israel by the instruction of god because we tend to forget the goodness of god the mighty hand of god the faithfulness of god so it it's not out of the ordinary in fact it's biblical for you to maybe have some kind of tangible reminder so that you would never forget the faithfulness and the goodness of god and by the way and i'll leave you with this and then we'll circle back to it the instruction is in verse 6 notice again that this may be a sign among you when your children ask when your children ask in time to come what do these stones mean then you're going to be able to tell them that was the day god rolled back the waters of the jordan river and the people came into the promised land and what we find out later in the chapter is actually verse 21 is that it says when they ask their fathers there is a spiritual responsibility that dads have in the instruction of their children that is not to diminish moms who play a spiritual role and particularly single moms who have to be both mom and dad but the responsibility of giving spiritual instruction rests primarily with fathers to help the next generation understand and so it's a challenge to us as men to make sure we have our act together because god is looking particularly to the fathers to be able to give spiritual instruction to their children this is where god did that miraculous work he brought us into the promised land by his mighty and faithful hand so we'll pick it up there next time but for tonight let's pray and then we got some people to baptize lord thank you for your grace and thank you for your goodness there are many times you are faithful to us and it's easy for us to forget may we set up little stones of remembrance little tangible things to remind us that you are a faithful god you are a good god you are a miraculous god may we always remember your faithfulness may we follow your lead lord may we purify our hearts may we walk by faith in this journey of life lord seeing your marvelous miraculous hand at work in many different wonderful ways we praise you lord we thank you together in jesus name and all god's people said amen and amen you

Channel: Cornerstone Chapel - Leesburg, VA

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Length: 37min 53sec (2273 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 29 2021