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May 28, 2006
Many Christians demand constant evidence of God’s action on our behalf, even as we forget what He has done for us in the past. After the Israelites miraculously crossed the Jordan River, God told them to remember their deliverance. We also are called to remember and to acknowledge, again and again, that God has done what we could never do. If we fail to recall God’s action with a grateful spirit, Alistair Begg warns, we run the risk of our relationship with God growing cold and distant.
1When all the nation had finished passing tover the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, 2u“Take twelve men from the people, from each tribe a man, 3and command them, saying, ‘Take vtwelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place wwhere the priests' feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you and lay them down in xthe place where you lodge tonight.’” 4Then Joshua called the twelve men from the people of Israel, whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe. 5And Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, 6that this may be a sign among you. yWhen your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ 7then you shall tell them that zthe waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel aa memorial forever.”
8And the people of Israel did just as Joshua commanded and took up twelve stones out of the midst of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, just as the Lord told Joshua. And they carried them over with them to the place where they lodged and laid them down1 there. 9And Joshua set up2 twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan, bin the place where the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the covenant had stood; and they are there to this day. 10For the priests bearing the ark stood in the midst of the Jordan until everything was finished that the Lord commanded Joshua to tell the people, according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua.
The people passed over in haste. 11And when all the people had finished passing over, the ark of the Lord and the priests passed over before the people. 12The sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh cpassed over armed before the people of Israel, as Moses had told them. 13About 40,000 ready for war passed over before the Lord for battle, to the plains of Jericho. 14On that day the Lord dexalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they stood in awe of him just as they had stood in awe of Moses, all the days of his life.
15And the Lord said to Joshua, 16“Command the priests bearing ethe ark of the testimony to come up out of the Jordan.” 17So Joshua commanded the priests, “Come up out of the Jordan.” 18And when the priests bearing the ark of the covenant of the Lord came up from the midst of the Jordan, and the soles of the priests' feet were lifted up on dry ground, the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and overflowed all its banks, fas before.
19The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they encamped at gGilgal on the east border of Jericho. 20And hthose twelve stones, which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up at Gilgal. 21And he said to the people of Israel, i“When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 22then you shall let your children know, j‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ 23For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, kwhich he dried up for us until we passed over, 24lso that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mmighty, that you may nfear the Lord your God forever.”3
Copyright © 2024, Alistair Begg. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.
