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The People of Israel
10-13The army got ready for battle and crossed the Jordan with everyone else. They marched quickly past the sacred chest and into the desert near Jericho. Forty thousand soldiers from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and East Manasseh led the way, as Moses had ordered.
The priests stayed right where they were until the people had followed the orders that the Lord had given Moses and Joshua. Then they watched as the priests carried the chest the rest of the way across.
14-18“Joshua,” the Lord said, “tell the priests to come up from the Jordan and bring the chest with them.” So Joshua went over to the priests and told them what the Lord had said. And as soon as the priests carried the chest past the highest place that the floodwaters of the Jordan had reached, the river flooded its banks again.
That's how the Lord showed the Israelites that Joshua was their leader. For the rest of Joshua's life, they respected him as they had respected Moses.
19It was the tenth day of the first month of the year when Israel crossed the Jordan River. They set up camp at Gilgal, which was east of the land controlled by Jericho. 20The men who had carried the twelve rocks from the Jordan brought them to Joshua, and they made them into a monument. 21Then Joshua told the people:
Years from now your children will ask you why these rocks are here. 22-23Tell them, “The Lord our God dried up the Jordan River so we could walk across. He did the same thing here for us that he did for our people at the Red Sea, 24because he wants everyone on earth to know how powerful he is. And he wants us to worship only him.”
Reflect
Why, instead of simply moving north from the Sinai Peninsula and entering the Promised Land from the South, as every invading army since has done, did God have this mass of people continue east of the Dead Sea, then North, then face West with a river in between them and their objective? It’s like so many things that happen in my own life and in the life of my family that I don’t really understand. It seems like there should be an obvious and easier way for God to direct me. Actually, there is a reason, for me, and for the children of Israel: “He did this (drying up the Jordan and having them cross it) so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and that you might always fear the Lord your God” (4:24).
Faith means believing in what is not seen, and in God who, while he cannot be seen, has come into our world in Jesus Christ and has powerfully acted to rescue us. More than that, he has given us a future, a shining life everlasting. This is what he has promised us. It might be when we are quiet, but sometimes in the middle of a roar of catastrophe, or even while we are laughing our heads off, that we realize the reality of God and the wonder of his being and love. And, that’s why we are in the situation, in quietness, terror or joy; so that we might know again that, though he is unseen, he is God in our lives.
Respond
Father in Heaven, in the ordinariness of my life let me not forget how extraordinary you are, in the hurry of life let me hear the quietness of your voice and in the joy of life let me feel the mist from the cataract of your infinite pleasure.
Franklin Pyles
Franklin Pyles was a pastor of churches that served inner city neighborhoods, taught theology at Canadian Theological Seminary, and then was a pastor in a medium sized Ontario city. He then served his denomination, The Christian & Missionary Alliance as President for the full time allotted. He has written on C.S. Lewis and on a variety of ministry and church concerns. He continues a preaching and teaching ministry, currently at McMaster Divinity College. Publications: Most electronic and in house for the Alliance.