5 Steps to a Miracle

5 Steps to a Miracle
Joshua 5-6

There are many times I have preached and taught against steps to a miracle by the "Name It Claim It" bunch, but this is very realistic in that it takes into account a real biblical situation. Pastor Ray has put all of this in perspective as well. Folks, we are in the hands of God for our very breath while we are on this earth if we are believers. He has the day in mind when we will depart this earth. He is just and He has proven He loves His people with His whole being. He provided the way to be with Him through the death, burial and resurrection of His Son. Do you need a miracle? We are not guaranteed a miracle by following steps but we are guaranteed God will hear us and His answer is TRUST that He knows best!

In Christ,

Ted

Pastor Ray Pritchard

Keep Believing Ministries

Few stories in the Bible are better known than Joshua and the battle of Jericho. We learned to sing this song in Sunday School:

Joshua fit the battle of Jericho,
           Jericho, Jericho
Joshua fit the battle of Jericho,
           And the walls come tumbling down.

And then comes this verse:

You may talk about your men of Gideon
           You may brag about your men of Saul
There's none like good old Joshua
           At the battle of Jericho.

We only need to know one crucial fact: It was totally impossible to bring down those walls.

Totally, absolutely, completely and utterly impossible.
Jericho stood between them and all God had promised.
A smart man would walk away.
Sometimes you must "know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em."

Yet God’s people won a great victory that day. How did it happen? Hebrews 11:30 answers with two words. "By faith." That's all it says. But the story seems so incredible that we need to investigate further.

As we study Joshua 5-6, we discover five steps to a miracle. In putting the matter that way, I’m not suggesting that if we take these steps, God will work a miracle for us. But these steps are principles that reveal how God works with his people in every generation. They are as true today as they were in Joshua’s day.
 

Step #1: Yield Your Right to be in Charge

In order to understand this story, we need to start with a strange encounter recorded at the end of Joshua 5:
 

Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” (Joshua 5:13)

 
This seems like a natural question. “Whose side are you on, anyway?” It reminds me of the time when someone asked President Lincoln if he thought God was on the Union side in the Civil War. Lincoln wisely replied, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.”
 
Here is the rest of the story:
 

“Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?” 

The commander of the Lord’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so (Joshua 5:14-15).
 

We tend to think in terms of us vs. them. Are you Republican or Democrat? Are you on my team or the other team? Are you for us or against us? We all like to think we are on the “right” team, but God doesn’t join human teams. In this case, Joshua met the commander of the army of the Lord (probably a preincarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ).

Note how Joshua responds. He falls on his face and asks what message the Lord has for him. He doesn’t ask, “How can we win this battle?” or “Can you help me bring down the walls?” All those human considerations go out the door when you come face to face with the Lord of the universe.
 
This brings us to a key message of the book of Joshua: God’s work must be done God’s way in order to receive God’s blessing. Every Christian would agree with that, but when facing a crisis, we want to tell God how to answer our prayers.
 
It doesn’t work that way.
 
At some point we must yield to the Lord. I say “at some point” because yielding doesn’t come easily to most of us. We often sing these words in church:
 
Have Thine own way Lord
Have Thine own way
Thou art the potter I am the clay
Mold me and make me after Thy will
While I am waiting yielded and still

It’s one thing to sing it.
It’s another thing to mean it.
 
There is a place for the sword and the spear, and there is a time when we must advance against the enemy. But first, we must learn this lesson:
 

“The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but victory belongs to the Lord” (Proverbs 21:31).
 

We can make all the plans in the world, but if God doesn’t bless our efforts, it will come to nothing. We don’t need God on our side; we need to make sure we are on God’s side before the battle begins.
 

Step# 2: Face the Challenge

If you ever travel to the Holy Land, you will no doubt visit the remains of the ancient city of Jericho. To get there you either travel down through the mountains from Jerusalem or you take the River Road coming south from the Sea of Galilee, running parallel to the Jordan River. The city itself is located not far from the river, an important point to keep in mind when you read the story of Joshua’s amazing conquest. The Canaanites built Jericho as a kind of “gateway fortress” to their land. Any invading enemy would have to deal with the walled city of Jericho. You couldn’t bypass it. Jericho was too large and too strong to be ignored.

What was Jericho to Joshua and the people of God?

A city of pagan unbelief.
A city of strategic importance.
A city of human impossibility.

When we say that the people of Jericho were pagans, that’s an understatement. The Canaanite religion included child sacrifice and gross sexual immorality. It could never coexist with the true worship of God. It must be confronted and defeated. Because the walls were so high they seemed to reach to the sky (Deuteronomy 9:1), the city must be completely defeated, or the Jews would never be safe.

In the last 140 years archaeologists have done an enormous amount of research on the ruins of ancient Jericho. We now know that the city had two walls—an inner wall and an outer wall, both built on a slope, making it virtually impregnable to any attacking army.

The road to the Promised Land ran through Jericho. Stamp over it one word: Impossible!
 

#3: Follow the Plan

At first glance God’s instructions seem very odd:

March around the town once a day for six days (v. 3).
March with the ark of the covenant in the front (v. 4).
Put seven priests in front of the ark (v. 4).
On the seventh day, march around Jericho seven times (v. 5).
Have the priests blow rams’ horns as they march (v. 5).
On the seventh time around on the seventh day, have the people shout (v. 5).
When the people shout, the walls will come down (v. 5).
When the walls come down, enter the city and conquer it (v. 5).

All of that seems strange enough, but Joshua added a few refining details to the plan:

1) He instructed the people to be silent as they marched around the city (v. 10).
2) He put soldiers in front of the priests and behind the ark (v. 13).
3) He had the priests blow the ram’s horn (the shofar) continually (v. 13).

At this point, the people of God face a clear choice. Either they attempt to take the city by following God’s instructions, or they come up with their own plan and suffer overwhelming defeat. It’s all to their credit that they did what God asked them to do.

For six days they marched one time around the city and then returned to their camp. On the seventh day, at the end of the seventh time around the city, the priests sounded a long blast, and the people shouted as loud as they could.

What are the chances of this working? Here’s the whole plan:

            Marching.
            Blowing horns.
            Shouting.

That sounds like something you’d see at a football game. From a human perspective, the “Joshua Plan” doesn’t seem very promising:
 

Marching + Trumpets + Shouting=???? 
 

How exactly will that bring the walls down? Years ago I visited the Great Wall of China, a fantastic wall that stretches for hundreds of miles in northern China. What would happen if you marched up to the wall and began blowing horns and shouting? Not a single stone would move.

So far what we’ve got is a History Channel special called “Greatest Military Blunders.”

But the story isn’t over yet.
 

# 4: Remember the Promise

What gave the people any hope of taking Jericho? The answer is simple. They only had to remember the promise of God. We get two hints of this in the story. First, God said he was going to give them the city. This is what God said to Joshua before he gave him the plan:
 

See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men (Joshua 6:2).
 

Notice the past tense. When God gets involved, it’s as good as done. When God speaks, you can take it to the bank. That’s what gave Joshua the confidence to follow God’s plan. He knew God had guaranteed victory. All he had to do was obey what God told him to do.

Second, God put himself in the middle of the battle plan. By placing the ark of the covenant in front of the people, God was saying, “I’m going to lead this parade.”

I wonder what the people of Jericho were thinking. We already know (from Rahab’s testimony in Joshua 2) that they knew about the miracle at the Red Sea, and they knew about the defeat of Sihon and Og, the Amorite kings. Furthermore, they could see for themselves that God had miraculously heaped up the water of the Jordan River, allowing the Jews to walk across on dry ground. The daily march around the city was a kind of divine psychological warfare to unnerve the citizens of Jericho. They knew an attack was coming, but they didn’t know when. It must have been terrifying to watch the Jews march around the city day after day and then return to their camp. But then you wonder, did the fear begin to wear after the third day? Did the Canaanites start laughing at those “crazy Jews” and their silent march around the city? Or was it a kind of nervous laughter, wondering what would happen next?

Although the people of Jericho did not know it, they were defeated before the walls ever fell. They lost the battle when God got involved. Let’s redo that equation one more time:
 

March + Trumpets + Shouting + God = “The walls came a-tumblin’ down!”

God made all the difference! Those high walls couldn’t keep him out. The God who created those stones could easily blow them over. We don’t know exactly how he did it, only that he did it, and the city was then taken by Joshua and his people.

There was a day when Robert Morrison was a passenger on a ship to China. History records that he was the first Protestant missionary to China. One day the captain of the ship asked a rather disparaging question. "What do you think you're going to do? Convert China?" "No," came the quiet reply. "I don't think I'll ever convert China. I think God will." That’s the same faith that brought down the walls of Jericho.
 

#5: Never Give Up

Why march around the walls six days in a row? Why march seven times on the seventh day? Couldn’t the walls have fallen on the first day or the third or the fifth? The answer is yes, the walls could have fallen any time God desired. So why all the marching? The answer is clear. This is how God ordinarily works. The Lord could have said, “Sit tight! Let me handle this.” But his normal plan is to use people to accomplish his purposes. So even though God caused the walls to fall down, the people still had to march, they still had to shout, and when the walls fell down, they still had to take the city, fighting door to door.

When James Montgomery Boice preached on this passage, he noted that the Lord gave the instructions to Joshua personally, and not to the people. That means the people only learned about the plan one day at a time. All he told them on Day 1 was, “March around the city and keep your mouth shut.” There must have been some perplexed Jews after the first day. I imagine them saying, “General, what’s the plan?” And Joshua said, “Tomorrow we’re going to do it again.”

In this case, faith meant marching in total silence around the city day after day. Imagine the scene. It’s the longest parade you’ve ever seen. First the soldiers, then the priests blowing the trumpets, then the priests with the ark, then more soldiers, then thousands of armed men marching in total silence.

This strange procession circles once around the city on the first day and then retires to their camp.

           Next day the same.
           Next day the same.
           Next day the same.
           Next day the same.
           Next day the same.

Dr. Boice remarked that partial obedience is never enough. What if the Jews had stopped marching after the first day? Or the fourth day? Or the sixth day? Or on the fifth time around on the seventh day? The walls would not have fallen because the miracle would not have happened. Here’s how Dr. Boice applies this truth:
 

Not only is there no substitute for obedience to God, there is no substitute for obedience in all particulars—to the very end. And when God does not act as quickly as we think he should or in precisely the way we are convinced he should act, we are still not justified in pulling back or adopting an alternative procedure.…It was only when the people had obeyed God faithfully that victory came and the walls tumbled (Boice, “Joshua,” Loc. 1027).

On the seventh day, the army marched around Jericho seven times. This is what happened next:
 

When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city (v. 20).

That's how faith works.
Don't you think there were some doubters?
Don't you think there were some critics?

Don't you think there was some grousing in the ranks? Probably. Complaining seems to be part of human nature. These are real people who are tramping around in the heat day after day. It's hot and dusty and extremely frustrating.

But they did it. When they took the step of faith, God honored it, and the walls of Jericho fell to the ground.

I ran across a quote from J. Hudson Taylor, a man of dynamic faith whose missionary efforts helped open China to the gospel. Time and again he saw God do amazing things in the face of hopeless circumstances. Reflecting on his experiences, he remarked that "there are three stages in any great task undertaken for God: Impossible . . . Difficult . . . Done." Here's one thing you learn whenever you start to do anything for the Lord: It won't be as easy as you think. It's not hard to see why we have unrealistic expectations. After all, when we work for God, our motives are lifted to a higher plane. We search the Scriptures, we seek godly counsel, we pray for guidance, and we believe God is pleased with our efforts. But things move slowly. What we thought would take weeks takes months. And sometimes months turn into years. Enthusiasm lags, we feel stuck in the mud, the curious become skeptical, and doubt takes dead aim at our faith.

Why should it be so? Couldn't the Lord set it up another way? Yes, he could—and sometimes he does. But often God lets us struggle and sweat so that we learn to trust him at a deeper level than ever before.

Sooner or later we all end up facing a wall of impossibility. The bad news is that it really is impossible. The good news is that God loves to start with an impossibility.

When God wants to do something big, he starts with something very small.
When he wants to do the miraculous, he starts with the impossible.

We'd rather start big and go from there. Not so with our Heavenly Father. He starts with the impossible and then turns it into reality.
 

Joshua and Jesus

And that brings me to my final point. The real battle of Jericho was not with the Canaanites. The real battle was in the hearts of the people of God. Would they believe what God had said? Would they risk public humiliation if the walls didn’t come down? Would they do what seemed absurd (from a human point of view) in order to see God do the impossible?

I love the little chorus that goes like this:

Faith, mighty faith
The promise sees
And looks to God alone,
Laughs at impossibilities
And cries, "It shall be done." 

Hebrews 11:30 says the walls fell "by faith." How will we face and conquer our own walls of impossibility? Where do we find the faith? If we move on to Hebrews 12, we find the answer. "Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith" (v. 2).

He is the author and finisher of our faith.
He starts it and he finishes it.
He's the Captain of our salvation. Keep your eyes on him.

Do you know the Old Testament name for Jesus? It's Joshua! That's right. The name Joshua means "God saves" in Hebrew. In Greek it was shortened to "Jesus" or "Savior." The Old Testament Joshua points us to the Lord Jesus Christ who leads his people to victory.

Keep your eyes on him.
Look to Jesus.
Follow him wherever he leads.

When King Jesus leads the way, the walls must come tumbling down. This is the word of the Lord.

Dads–Kids Will Treat Mom Based On Your Actions

By Dr. James Dobson

Where do children learn to think highly of their mothers? Who sets the pattern for their young minds, positioning Mom as a much-loved and respected member of the family—instead of being chief cook and scrub lady?

The best public-relations agent for Mom—is Dad. Fathers can wield tremendous influence over what children think of their mothers, or of women in general. Early in my marriage to Shirley, I learned that occasional irritation between us quickly reflected itself in the behavior of our children. They seemed to feel, “If Dad can argue with Mom, then we can, too.” I learned how important it was to express love and admiration for my wife, even when there were issues that we needed to iron out beyond their gaze. In short, my attitudes became the attitudes of my children, which I now know to be typical.

In a world that often discounts the contribution of women, especially homemakers, it’s up to us as husbands to say in a dozen ways, “Your mother is a wonderful woman! She works hard and she deserves tremendous credit for what she gives to us all. As far as I’m concerned, she’s number one!”

Kids will quickly recognize the respect shown by a father and reflect it in their attitudes and behavior. It is a public-relations assignment that only they can perform. 

Crossing Jordan

Crossing Jordan
Joshua 3

The Jordan River occupies a unique place in Christian music. For centuries poets and musicians have used the river to represent great spiritual truth. For instance, we have this Welsh hymn written by William Williams in 1771:

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of death and hell’s Destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan’s side.

Samuel Stennett of England penned these familiar words:

On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan’s fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie.

Then there are the spirituals:

Deep river,
My home is over Jordan.
Deep river, Lord.
I want to cross over into campground.

And this one:

I looked over Jordan, and what did I see
Coming for to carry me home?
A band of angels coming after me,
Coming for to carry me home.

Johnny Cash made this song famous:

When I come to the river at the ending of day
When the last winds of sorrow have blown
There'll be somebody waiting to show me the way
I won't have to cross Jordan alone

I won't have to cross Jordan alone
Jesus died all my sins to atone
In the darkness I see he'll be waiting for me
I won't have to cross Jordan alone

Finally, we have these familiar words:

And when my task on earth is done,
When, by thy grace, the victory's won,
E'en death's cold wave I will not flee,
Since God through Jordan leadeth me. 

Joshua 3 tells the story of the crossing of the Jordan River. We can begin by asking an important question: Why does this particular river matter so much? The answer is that the Jordan River serves as a boundary marker. The people of God had to cross that river to enter the Promised Land. In fact, that’s the very first thing God said to Joshua:

“Moses my servant is dead. 
           Now then, you and all these people, 
get ready to cross the Jordan River 
           into the land I am about to give to them” (Joshua 1:2).

Joshua 3 emphasizes a great truth: God’s work must be done God’s way in order to receive God’s blessing. It’s not just getting across the river that matters. It must be done in such a way that God receives the glory. God will bless anyone who does his work his way. And that blessing will be withheld from those who think they have a better idea.

Joshua records the miracle of the crossing in seven steps. Let’s see how the story unfolds.

1) They waited three days.       

Early in the morning Joshua 
           and all the Israelites set out from Shittim 
and went to the Jordan, 
           where they camped before crossing over.
After three days the officers went throughout the camp (vv. 1-2).

Waiting may be the hardest discipline of the Christian life.
Most of us would rather do anything than wait.
Some of us would rather do the wrong thing than wait.

God makes his people wait in order to teach them that if he doesn’t’ come through for them, they will never make it on their own. We need to remember that truth. What would have happened on Day 1 or Day 2 if Joshua had decided to go ahead on his own? It would have been a total disaster.

Waiting time is never wasted time if you are waiting on the Lord.

2)  Joshua put the ark in front of the people.

“When you see the ark of the covenant 
           of the Lord your God, 
           and the Levitical priests carrying it, 
you are to move out from your positions and follow it.
⁴ Then you will know which way to go, 
           since you have never been this way before. 
But keep a distance of about two thousand cubits 
           between you and the ark; do not go near it” (vv. 3-4).

Joshua 3 mentions the ark of the covenant nine times. That means the ark is more important than anything else in the story. It was a chest with a gold top called the Mercy Seat. The ark contained the Ten Commandments, Aaron’s rod that budded, and a pot of manna. It represented the gracious presence of God with his people.

The Lord instructed Joshua to keep a distance of 2000 cubits (about a half-mile) between the people and the ark. This emphasizes the holiness of God. If Israel truly wanted God’s guidance, the people must learn to treat the Lord with respect.

Note the reason given in the text: “Since you have not been this way before.” Let’s be clear on the main point: Only God knows where we should go. We make our plans, but God determines our steps. Everyone reading this message has some idea about the future. We have our hopes and dreams and our big ideas. But when all is said and done, only God knows which way we should go. That’s a crucial point because, like the ancient Israelites, we have not been this way before.

It is a great advance spiritually to come to the place where you admit how little you know about the future. You’re not as smart as you think you are, and neither am I. But that’s okay because Jesus knows where we are, and he knows where we need to be tomorrow and the next day and the next, all the way to the end.

3) The people consecrated themselves. 

“Joshua told the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you’” (v. 5).

To consecrate means to set apart as holy. In the Old Testament, it often involved external cleansing. The Jews were to remove dirty garments and replace them with clean ones. Why does that matter? Why should God care what the people wear? Outward consecration pictures the need for inner cleansing. You clean up on the outside because you need to clean up on the inside.

God is telling the Jews they aren’t ready for the miracle yet. God has work to do in them before he can do work for them. Is this the reason we don’t see more “amazing things” from the Lord? Are you ready for God to do “amazing things” in your life? Consecrate yourself by confessing your sins and rededicating your life to the Lord.

4) They crossed when the river was at flood stage. 

“So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest” (vv. 14-15).

This miracle happened during the spring when the snowmelt from Mount Hermon and other mountains raises the level of the river. If you’ve ever been to the Holy Land, you know the Jordan River is not particularly impressive. During most of the year, it is only 100 feet wide and 5-10 feet deep. But during harvest season in ancient times, the water stretched perhaps a mile across and 40 feet deep in places. When Jeremiah wrote about the Jordan River, he mentions the “thickets of Jordan” (Jeremiah 12:5), referring to the tangled growth of the willow and the tamarisk that formed an almost impenetrable barrier. During harvest season, the river plain became a vast marsh. You’ve got a raging current in the middle of the river, and then you have water that spreads out for nearly a mile, encompassing the thickets and creating an impassable barrier.

That’s the situation Joshua faced as he contemplated the crossing. There was no human strategy that would get the people to the western side of the river. But if they did not cross somehow, the Promised Land would forever remain out of their reach.

Joshua had no secret plan in his back pocket. The Jews didn’t know how to navigate the dangerous waters of the Jordan. They only had God’s promise, and they had the memory of what the Lord did at the Red Sea. But that happened 40 years ago. Could they trust God in this situation, as their ancestors had trusted when the Egyptian army had them cut off, and the Red Sea stood between them and their deliverance?

What does faith look like when we can’t find a way forward? Faith means trusting God when your circumstances make no sense to you. We all come to crisis moments sooner or later. The “how” is none of our business. God is not obligated to explain himself to you. He arranges life that way on purpose. What do you do when God hems you in? Keep your eyes on him!

5) The priests entered the water before the miracle took place.

“Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: ‘When you reach the edge of the Jordan’s waters, go and stand in the river’” (v. 8).

Suppose you are one the priests appointed to carry the ark of the covenant. That’s a high privilege and the greatest honor you can receive. You feel great about it until you hear the Lord wants you to go and stand in the river.

The raging river.
The overflowing river.
The river bounded by thickets.

That makes no sense. Why stand in the river? Why not stand near the river? What if the water washes you away? What if you can’t swim?

But there will be no miracle until the priests enter the water carrying the ark of the covenant. God arranged it that way so that their faith would move them from safety to danger. It was a test: “Anyone can trust me on dry ground. Will you trust me enough to stand in the water?”

It is the same for us today. There will be no miracle until we move. My favorite definition of faith goes like this: Faith is belief plus unbelief and acting on the belief part. Sure, we all have doubts. Who doesn’t? Nothing in life is certain. We pray and pray, but we’re not sure how things will turn out. If you wait for 100% certainty, you will wait forever. So how does faith work? God responds to those who partly believe, partly doubt, but take their heart in their hands and act on the belief part.

Why go into the water? If God wants to work a miracle, he can do it just as well when we are standing on dry ground. That’s true, of course, but God often asks us to do the impossible. When Jesus worked the miracle of feeding the 5000, he began by telling his disciples, “Give them something to eat” (Matthew 14:16). That was impossible. They found a lad with five loaves and two fish. That’s all they had, but that was enough. Jesus took the little they had and multiplied it until they fed everyone and had 12 basketfuls left over.

God routinely asks us to do the impossible, so that when it is done, he alone gets the credit. That’s what is happening here.

“You want a miracle? Go stand in the water!”
“That’s crazy, Lord.”
“Just do it.”

Remember, they don’t know what’s about to happen. When we read the story, we know how it ends so this may not seem like a big deal. But it’s all to their credit that the priests did not hesitate to obey the Lord.

6) The water stood in a heap.

“The water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off” (v. 16).

It’s early in the morning. Light streaming from the east fills the sky. The vast waters of the Jordan roll onward, the river standing between God’s people and the Promised Land. Two million Jews prepare to cross the river, not knowing how they will do it. Silence settles on the people as they consider the mile-wide river. The walls of Jericho shimmer in the distance.

A little group emerges and begins to march toward the river. The priests in white robes carry the ark of the covenant on poles resting on their shoulders. Everyone watches as the men come closer and closer to the water.

They march in a straight line. Down the bank they go, with the water flowing before them. As their feet enter the water, the river stops flowing from the north. It is as if the Lord reached down and turned off the spigot. It was a pure miracle of God. The water stopped flowing because it was heaped up at a place called Adam, approximately 17 miles north of the crossing. Meanwhile, the water to the south continues to flow into the Dead Sea.

This miracle happened after they obeyed, not before. If the priests had not stepped into the raging torrent, no one would have crossed that day. Only after they obeyed did the water back up in a heap.

How exactly did this happen? Perhaps the best explanation comes in Joshua 3:11 where Joshua calls God “the Lord of all the earth.” That’s the first time this phrase is used in the Bible. It’s a statement of God’s absolute sovereignty. When the Creator speaks, the Jordan River obediently rolls up in a heap. It’s as simple as that.

7) The entire nation crossed on dry ground.

 

“While all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground” (v. 17b).

If there were over 2 million people, it would take hours to get everyone across. But no matter. The miracle lasted until every single Jew crossed the river. No one was left behind.

We come to the end of the story in Joshua 4:17-18:

“So Joshua commanded the priests, 
           “Come up out of the Jordan.”
And the priests came up out of the river 
           carrying the ark of the covenant of the Lord. 
No sooner had they set their feet on the dry ground 
           than the waters of the Jordan 
returned to their place and 
           ran at flood stage as before.”

The miracle lasted as long as it was needed, and not one second longer. If a visitor happened to pass that spot the next day, he would see footprints stretching down to the river, but the river would once again be a mile wide. That visitor would have no idea what had happened the day before.

God had two specific purposes for this miracle. First, he wanted to exalt Joshua as his appointed leader (Joshua 3:7). Just as Moses led his people across the Red Sea, now Joshua leads their descendants across the Jordan. Just as God had been with Moses, he would now be with Joshua.

But there is a second reason for this miracle. It prepared the Jews for the battles to come. Very soon the people would embark on seven years of warfare as they conquered the Promised Land. When Joshua explained the miracle to the people, he gave this reason: “This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites” (Joshua 3:10). If God can roll up the Jordan like a heap, the Hivites are a piece of cake.

Got Any Rivers

Let me suggest one final thought from this story. Until we yield ourselves to God, we are not ready for the miracle we need. Joshua had to give up any plans of his own. The priests had to have the courage to step into the rushing water. The people had to walk across the riverbed to get to the Promised Land.

Yielding means giving up our right to give God advice. It means when the time comes to move, we step out in faith, leaving the results in his hands.

When we dare to follow God, we will often find ourselves walking new paths. What God said to the Jews, he still says to us: “You have not passed this way before.” God’s command to his people is always, “Forward!” There will be new service, new songs, new ministry, new land to conquer, new people to reach, new prayers to pray, and new challenges to face.

Following God always leads us out of our comfort zone.

If you want some good news, here it is. When God calls us to move forward into the unknown, we need not fear because he is already there. God never asks us to go anywhere without going before us as we travel by faith. When we say, “God, I’m afraid of the future,” the Lord replies, “Afraid of the future? My child, I invented the future!”

Why be afraid of crossing Jordan when Jesus has crossed it already for us? He went into the dark waters of death and came out victorious on the other side. And that’s why “We won’t have to cross Jordan alone.”

There are moments when we may feel alone, but there is never a moment when we are truly alone. Just as the ark led the people of God into the river and protected them while they crossed over to the Promised Land, Jesus our Savior will lead through the darkest moments and bring us safely to the other side. When the time comes to die, he will not abandon us. Jesus will lead us home to heaven.

I began by talking about the Jordan River and the music associated with it. In 1940 Oscar Eliason wrote a song based on this story called Got Any Rivers. It goes like this:

“Be of good courage," God spake unto Joshua,
When o'er the river God pointed the way;
Jordan uncrossable! things seemed impossible,
Waters divide as they march and obey.

Chorus
Got any rivers you think are uncrossable?
Got any mountains you can't tunnel through?
God specializes in things thought impossible
He does the things others cannot do. 

You may find yourself in a difficult place right now. You aren’t there by accident. The God who brought you to this place won’t leave you now. You don’t need to know what tomorrow holds as long as you know who holds tomorrow.

What should we do when we face one of those uncrossable rivers? Let’s do what the people did in Joshua 3:

Wait.
Trust.
Obey.

We wait because he’s God and we are not.
We trust because Joshua’s God is our God too.
We obey because God’s plan is always best.

If you’re backed into a corner, don’t give up.
Don’t run away.

Let’s go down to the river and see what God will do.

In Christ Our Lord,

Ted

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This week's special podcast is called Pastor Ray, I Have a Question, Part 2.
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Have a great week!

Ray Pritchard
Keep Believing Ministries
Shawnee, Kansas