Well, again, it's good to be back with you after missing last week. I was able to listen to Rick online and enjoyed the message he brought last week. We will today get back on track of our study of the life of Joshua. This will be the fourth in the series. How many we're going to go, I'm not sure yet, but we've got several more to go, that's for sure. Would you turn to the book of Joshua, chapter 3. Let me read this third chapter to acquaint you with its contents. Follow along as I read from verse 1 down through verse 17. Joshua, the third chapter, beginning with verse 1. And Joshua rose early in the morning, and they removed from Shittim and came to the Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over. It came to pass after three days that the officers went through the host. And they commanded the people, saying, When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God and the priest of the Levites bearing it, then you shall remove from your place and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it about 2,000 cubits." That's 3,000 feet, about three-fifths of a mile. "'About 2,000 cubits by measure. Come not near unto it that ye may know the way by which ye must go. For ye have not passed this way heretofore.' And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves. For tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. And Joshua spoke unto the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass over before the people. And they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people. And the Lord said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. And thou shalt command the priest who bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When ye are come to the brink of the water of the Jordan, ye shall stand still in the Jordan. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come here and hear the words of the Lord your God. And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites and the Jebusites. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into the Jordan. Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man." 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 from the waters that come down from above, and they shall stand upon a heap. And it came to pass, when the people removed from their tents to pass over the Jordan, and the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people, And as they who bore the ark were come unto the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, for the Jordan overfloweth all its banks at the time of harvest, that the waters which came down from above and rose up upon a heap very far from the city Adam, that is, beside Zarethon, and those that came down Towards the plain, even the salt sea failed and were cut off, and the people passed over right against Jericho. And the priest who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm upon dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground until all the people were passed clean over the Jordan." But if we think back on our study thus far, we have seen sort of the rise of Joshua to prominence. Remember that we first encountered him back in the book of Exodus where he is Moses' sort of aide-de-camp, his assistant, his minister, the King James calls him, his gopher if it were. We saw him up on Mount Sinai with Moses when Moses received the law. We saw him out in that tabernacle that was set up outside the tent when Moses went out there to worship God. And so we saw as it is time now for Moses to die, that Joshua is raised up by God to take his place. Moses is to lay his hands on Joshua and to give him some of his honor, the Scripture says, that he would be honored in the sight of all Israel. And then we saw in the first chapter that yes, the land is going to be given to Israel. It's free. There's no price attached. The only problem is the people living on that land don't know it. They think it's theirs. And so Joshua is instructed in the first chapter that though this is the land I am giving you, you're going to have to go take it. You're going to have to take it from the inhabitants. You're going to have to drive out those people that are living on it in order for it to be yours. And we see there the picture of a life of faith, faithful obedience, trusting in God to do and to receive that which He has promised us. I kept going back to thinking about that sermon and wishing I had quoted that text out of Hebrews that says that ye be followers of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Do you get that? Follow those who through faith and patience, perseverance, inherit the promises. In other words, God has given us a promise, but it's not a possession. until we lay hold of it. And that is what Joshua is being instructed in the first chapter. Then we saw in the last time I was with you, this wonderful story about Rahab the harlot. It is a wonderful picture of justification by faith. In fact, she is used as an example of a saving faith in Hebrews 11. And also James points out in the book of James that her faith was a working faith, a faith that could be seen by what she did. You say, well, what was behind the act of defecting over to the Israelites? What was behind the action of hiding those spies up on a roof? It's because she believed the report that had come unto her about the greatness of this God, how this God had intervened for His people Israel. Well, now it's time to move on. It is time for Israel to actually take a step into Canaan proper and to claim to obtain that which God has promised to give. But there is an obstacle, and there's always obstacles. Isn't it strange that the work of God never really comes easy? There's always things in the way. In this case, it is the Jordan River, and it is the Jordan River at flood stage. Now, most of the time, in fact, you'd never see it like this today. The Jordan you could almost wade across anywhere you wanted. So much water is taken out of it for irrigation these days that it's not much of a river. But in those days when the snows up on Mount Hermon are melting, we had a similar situation at the Bear River where I lived in Wyoming. Just a little trout stream for just about all the year except in late May. In early June, when the snowpack up in the Uintah Mountains that fed that river are melting, and all of that water that is accumulated up there all winter long from the heavy snows has to go somewhere, and it comes down that river, and suddenly that little trout stream is this raging torrent, muddy, out of its banks. Some of you know my story about almost drowning on that river at flood stage. A dangerous situation. And here's the swollen Jordan River, standing in their way. Now, they have already conquered the east bank of the Jordan, where the nation of Jordan is today. They defeated Sihon and Og. Remember, two and a half of the tribes want to stay over there. They want that as their inheritance. They're ranchers. This is good ranch country. We want to stay here, they said to Moses. Moses said, OK, you can have it under one condition. When the rest of the people go across to the east side of Jordan, you've got to go with us. Got to leave you women and children back here, but you've got to go with us and fight with us to take the rest of the nation." So now it has come time to pass over the Jordan and to enter Canaan proper, to enter to the west side of the Jordan River. Our guide in Israel a couple of years ago pointed out something I'd never thought about. He said, that generation that grew up out in the 40 years that they're wandering in the wilderness, remember all the old folks have died off, right? All the folks that remember the Nile back there in Egypt, they're all dead. There's a new generation who have never, ever seen a river like this. The only thing they've encountered is out there in the wilderness, out there in the desert, these little streams or little wadis, they call them, these dried up creeks. And all of a sudden you come to this huge river that you've never seen anything quite like this in your life. I'd never thought about that fact. They would never have witnessed a scene like what they are seeing here at the Jordan River. How are they going to get across? Well, they're given instructions. Let us look closely at our text. The first five verses give Joshua the instruction that the priests, who are also of the Levites. Now, normally the Kohathites, one branch of the Levites, bore the Ark of the Covenant. They were the ones that were usually the ones who carried it. In this case, it is the priests themselves that are given the obligation to host and bear up the Ark of the Covenant. They are to head down to the river. Notice they have removed the camp from Shittim, which means the Acacia Grove. It's a place they camped for quite a while before going into Israel. They have now moved to the riverbank of the Jordan River itself, and they're going to stay there for about three days to get ready to go across. The priests are given directions as to what to do. They're to take the ark and to step out into the swollen floodwaters of the Jordan River. The people, on the other hand, are told to keep their distance. Remember I told you about the 2,000 cubits while ago? By the way, back in the Middle Ages, there was a priest who came up with the notion that this is a Jewish Cohen, they call them, that that's a Sabbath day's journey because if they were to worship at the ark, It doesn't make any sense, but that became known, that three-fifths of a mile became known as a Sabbath day's journey, because he reasoned that they would have to go down and worship at the ark. I don't know. But anyway, that's where the idea of the notion of what determined a Sabbath day's journey came from this text. But notice they're to stand a good ways back. Now this is a huge congregation of people, probably a half a million. They are to stay three quarters or three-fifths of a mile back from the Jordan River, from the Ark of the Covenant. And so you ask yourself, well, what is that for? Well, number one, it let the entire group then witness what is about to happen. They're all told to keep your distance because you're going to see the Lord do wonders here at the Jordan. Secondly, and the thing that the scripture emphasizes, is because you don't know where you're going. You've never passed this way before. You have not set foot in this territory. You don't have anybody to guide you. Remember when they came across the wilderness that one of Moses is kinfolk from the land of Midian, sort of was their guide. God, of course, would lead them with the Shekinah glory. But one of these guys who knew that country went with them to help them get across the wilderness. Now they have no one. They're entering into unknown territory. And so God says, stay back. Keep your distance. You've never passed this way before. In preparation, they are to sanctify themselves. You say, what does that mean? Well, it means take a bath. That's how the Jews do it today. Then they take the mikveh bath. It's a purifying. It's not just for cleanliness, but it's a ceremonial thing to make their bodies clean in an outward visible way for entering into the presence of God. I told you the story of seeing the ruins of about 60 some odd mikveh baths at the south steps of the temple there in Jerusalem. Because if you were coming from the Gentile world, say to keep the peace of Passover in Jerusalem, before you entered into the temple, you had to take one of these mikveh baths. They had one for women. They had a bunch for women, a bunch for men. You did it nude, by the way. You had to go in and wash. You had to immerse your whole body, let water touch every part of you in order to make you presentable in a ceremonial way to go into the temple grounds to worship God. Well, we're looking at a primitive version of that. Get ready. Sanctify yourself. Clean up your act. Wash yourself. Get ready for what is coming. All of this is in preparation, Joshua says, for what God's going to do in the morning. And then the second thing, from verses 6 down through verse 13, they're now told to move out. The next morning, the priests take the ark. They step out into the water of this swollen river, and suddenly it stops. We're told that the water sort of collected like a heap up at a place called Adam, and then the water's going down. Now, the word Jordan, by the way, means descending. Because it drops from, well it's almost all below sea level, but it drops from the foot of Mount Hermon and just constantly goes down in elevation all the way to the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth, about 1400 feet below sea level. So this is one low down river, put it that way. But notice what is happening is that the waters have stopped upstream, allowing the waters to continue going downstream into what is called the salt sea, or we call today the Dead Sea, below them, and suddenly there is nothing there but exposed river rock, riverbank. And they are able then to walk across. They are told then, once the waters stop, the people are to cross, the priests are to stand in the middle of the river, holding the ark of the covenant of God as the people fowl by. And so you get the picture of, that would make an impression on you, wouldn't it? Here are the priests holding the ark, standing there where that swollen river once flowed, and now all the people passing by from one side of the river over to the other. In Joshua chapter 4, we didn't read that far. We did read about 12 men being selected, one from each tribe of Israel. And we learn in Joshua chapter 4 why that was done. Each one of those 12 men is to pick up a stone from the bottom of the river, where the bottom had been, where the water had been flowing, there to all pick up a stone and carry it with them. They're going to camp that evening in a place called Gilgal. We'll talk about that next week. And there they are to create a monument of these 12 stones, a stack of stones to be a monument, a reminder, a witness of the miracle that God has done. In addition, we read that Joshua takes 12 stones from the middle of the river and makes a little pile of 12 stones there in the river bottom. In other words, we have one at the bottom of the river, we have another one over here on the bank where they're going to be camping that evening. The reason we are told is because when your children come along who weren't here this day, you're going to be able to point to that pile of stones and say, look, those stones came from the bottom of the Jordan River. It is a constant reminder to you of what God has done. Then we learn in Joshua 4 verse 18, that the moment that the priest stepped out of the river bottom, the waters returned." So you get the picture. The priest, bearing the Ark of the Covenant, stepped into the water at the edge of the Jordan. The waters stopped. They stand out in the middle where the water had been. While the people pass by, as soon as everybody is over, the priest then carried the Ark out of the river bottom, and lo and behold, the waters returned. Did that really happen? Skeptics have had a field day with this story, claiming that this is nothing but legend, it's nothing but myth. But not only could it happen, it has happened on a number of occasions. I want to show you a few pictures of to let you know sort of what is going on here. Number one, this is a map. If you can blow that up a little bit for me, Webster? Can't do, huh? You see that blue at the bottom? I mean, my eyes, bad as they are, I can barely see it. You see the blue at the bottom? That's the Dead Sea. Right at the top of the Dead Sea, there's a dot. That's the city of Jericho. Notice that they are crossing from the right side over to the left side. Just about five miles or so north of the Dead Sea, that's where the crossing takes place. They're going to cross from over on the east to the west side, right in front of the city of Jericho. That's where they're going to be camping at Gilgal the next evening. You'll notice about 15 miles due north is another dot, the city of Adam. it is called today, but it still has that original sound to it. Notice that that is where the scriptures say that the water stood like in a heap. In other words, this was not within sight. All they know is that the water suddenly has ceased flowing, and then when they get to the other side, the waters come back. What we're being told here is the details that the water stopped flowing, not just right there where they are. In other words, this isn't sort of like the Red Sea where you walk out and you see water on both sides of you. You're walking out on a dry riverbed with no water at all. And then when you leave, here comes the water back and that the water actually has stopped some 15 miles to the north. Go on if you would. This is an old picture. I told you you would never see the Jordan River out of its banks in these days. This was taken from about a hundred years ago, and it shows the Jordan River at flood stage. Reminds us a little bit of what happens on a smaller scale with the Mississippi at flood stage, out of its banks, going across the way. In other words, my point is this is not some easy thing to cross. This is a major obstacle in your way when you have especially women and children that have to get across this thing. So that gives you an idea of what the Jordan would look like back in the early days when it was at flood stage. This is looking at the Jordan River up at Adam. You see that sort of row of sandy-like looking hills over there on the far side? The Jordan River is flowing right at the foot of that big embankment over there. Let's look at another picture here. This is the Tell of Adam. A tell is a mound where ruins of cities were built upon one another. As they would be destroyed, they'd go back, rebuild it in the same spot. And over time, the tell, the mound, gets higher and higher. Will you see the mound out there in the foreground? That's the Tell of Adam. So this was the city where they said the waters stopped. Notice again, over on the far side of the river over there, there's those muddy looking hillsides. Okay? One more. This gives you a better look at what those hillsides are made of. This is called marl. Marl is something made of the silt. of an ancient seabed. So this is real chalky, real loose. This is not rocky. A lot of it is shells and things like that that have decomposed that makes this very chalky, muddy hill. Okay? I think that's the last one. Not only, as I said, did this happen, but something very similar to this has happened a whole bunch of times in recorded history. For instance, in 1927, if you want to Google this when you get home, don't do it now. When you get home, Google the Jericho earthquake of 1927. What happened is these hills were saturated with water. An earthquake hit and a landslide took place up at Adam and blocked the Jordan River for 22 hours before it began to flow again. The same thing happened in 1906. It was blocked for 24 hours. The same thing happened in 1834. In 1546, on January the 14th, it was blocked for two days back then. In 1534, 1267, it was blocked on December the 8th for 10 hours. And then again, in 1160, there's an Arab historian that relates the Jordan River being blocked. In other words, periodically, especially when there's a lot of rain, and then an earthquake. Now you are in what is called the Great Rift Valley. It's not only the lowest place on earth, but it's one of the most active as far as volcanic activity and earthquakes on earth. That Rift Valley runs all the way through Israel, down through Africa. So this is a very active area for volcanoes, earthquakes, that kind of thing. And we have a number of occasions where you get these hills soaked with water, then an earthquake, a landslide slides down the side of that mountain, blocks the Jordan River for a period of time. Now you say, well, wait a minute. Does that mean this wasn't a miracle? Well, let's talk about what a miracle really is. Sometimes a miracle is a suspension of natural law. In other words, we're dealing with something that is simply physically impossible to do. An example of that would be like Jesus turning water into wine. Or the Baptist version, turning wine into water. Okay. Well, whatever. But the idea is, no, you cannot naturally convert one thing into another like that. That requires a suspension of natural law. Raising Lazarus from the dead, that requires something more than normal, natural means. But there's a number of times that God seems to work other ways. He works miracles, and yet He uses natural means for some reason. Our God loves to use means to fulfill His purposes. Now that doesn't mean He's not omnipotent. To say God is omnipotent, we mean He's all-powerful. That means He can do anything He wants. But it also means He can do anything He wants, any way He wants. Sometimes He works without means. At the Red Sea, what did He tell Israel? Moses, just tell them to stand back. Watch this, sort of like the famous last words of a redneck. Y'all watch this. Moses, go out there, hold that rod out, and the water's divided. He worked completely without means. God is not limited to have to use natural causes, natural means. He doesn't need us. But most of the time, our God loves to use means. He uses us, doesn't He? In His work, in the work of salvation, in the work of evangelism, He could have had angels preaching. He could have written the gospel on the skies. But He's chosen to use us as the means, as the instruments. And oftentimes in these miracles, there are certain ones that we can say look like God used means. And that's what this one looks like. In other words, it is a providential miracle. It is a miracle of miraculous timing that the moment the priest's foot step in the river, the water stops. And the moment they leave the river, the water comes back. Boy, wasn't that lucky. Think about what all you got to do to make things happen. Talk about the timing, if this was due to a landslide upstream some 15 miles up. Think about what had to happen for that to have happened. The intricate timing of it all is nothing short of miraculous. It shows us that God is able to order the events of His creation in such a way to do things that we would stand back and say, this is a miracle. My life, by the way, is filled. I've bored you to tears on occasions with my stories of those kinds of providential miracles. of times God has come into the picture at just the right time, in just the right way. And you look at it and you say, Brother Mark, that really wasn't a miracle. Well, it wasn't a miracle in the sense of God suspending natural law. But you'll never convince me it wasn't a miracle. Because I knew what was going on, and I knew what was needed, and I knew that exactly at the right moment, at the right time, in the right way, here came the answer. That came from God. And that's maybe what's going on here. Again, God can do this any way He chooses. If He just chooses to stop the borders in place, He can do that. But all I'm saying is, is that rather than just writing this off, as the skeptics do, as some legend and some story, some myth, there's plenty of historical data that this kind of thing has happened on a number of occasions in the past. Well, what is it that we are to learn from this? I knew sooner or later somebody was going to ask that question. Great story. What does it mean? And especially, what does it mean to us? Well, let's stand back. Remember that I've already told you that certainly it's not unique with me to stand back and look at Israel enslaved in Egypt, delivered into the wilderness, and entering Canaan. those three, shall we say, phases of Israel's history. And many have seen, and certainly we're on firm ground here, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10 that the things that happened to them in their history happened for us. They're object lessons for us. God used an entire nation to act out in their history things that are lessons for you and me. That's why we're studying Joshua. If it wasn't for that, we might as well just tear Joshua out of the book. I mean, we're not going back to the banks of the Jordan. We're not going to have to cross into Canaan. We're not going to have to kick out a bunch of Canaanites. That's not our circumstance. So you could say that doesn't apply to us. Let's just rip it out. But what Paul is telling us is these things were written for us to learn from. They're object lessons to teach us something. And it doesn't take a genius to figure out Israel in Egypt, enslaved to the Egyptians, dominated by Pharaoh, forced labor, is a pretty good picture of where we were in our lost and ruined condition, right? We were slaves. Not literal slaves, but slaves to sin, slaves to self, slaves to Satan. He was, as Oscar pointed out this morning, he's called the God of this world, the prince of the power of the air. There was a Pharaoh that ruled us. And God sent Moses. to deliver His people miraculously, to part the waters, to free us from the dominion of Egypt. And now we see a very similar thing. Can you read this account here in Joshua chapter 3 and not be reminded of what happened at the Red Sea? Do you see the similarities? That once again the people are told to stand back, watch what's going to happen. This time it's not Moses with a rod, it's the priest with the ark. of the covenant, but the same thing happens, the waters stop, the waters part, enabling them to cross. This is a second exodus, if you will, except this exodus is not out, it's in. And it's not being led by Moses, it's being led by Joshua. So how do those two things, the wilderness experience of Israel and now the Canaan experience of Israel, how do those things relate to us? I shared with you that many make these things sequential. In the holiness tradition among the holiness churches, Pentecostal churches, they see these as two phases. Yeah, you were saved when you came out of Egypt, but you came out of Egypt carnal, under the flesh, And you need to have this second experience. You need to have a second water work here, a work of the Spirit of God, a second blessing that enables you to go on into Canaan. You're over here in this defeated life. Get over here in this victorious life. Now, I spent enough time in the Deeper Life Movement. I'm pretty much an authority on that kind of stuff. I think I read every book there was in that. Made perfect sense to me at the time. It was just later that things didn't stack up. Because I started seeing in the New Testament, yeah, you got the flesh and the spirit, but it's not like we were in the flesh and now we're in the spirit and we're no longer in the flesh. In fact, I read in Galatians that the flesh and the spirit are doing what? They're lusting against one another, they're warring against one another so that you cannot do the things that you would. In other words, these are not sequential episodes of my life. They're simultaneous episodes. They're laid over the top of one another. That in one sense, I am in the Spirit if I am in Christ. In fact, Paul makes a big point of that in Romans 8, that if Christ's Spirit is not in you, you're none of His. If you don't possess the Spirit of Christ, you're not His. You're not saved. But at the same time that I have that new nature, that old nature is still there. And this may be explained sequentially. For instance, Paul may say, put off the old man. with his deeds. All that sinful stuff. Fleshly stuff. Okay? Put off the old man. Then he says, put on the new man. And we tend to think, well, he's talking about two sequential things. But notice, it's not sequential. It's all happening at the same time. At the same moment I am a new man in Christ Jesus, my old man is still very much present with me. You let me get to hurting. Hungry. The old man suddenly emerges, right? And you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, it's still there. I may cover it up well at times. And so I'm told to mortify, to put to death the old man and to put on this new man. What I'm telling you, that's what's going on in Israel's history. We're seeing it sequential. If we think of Israel as one man, one man, Israel, came out of Egypt, but he's the old man, and that old man must die. That old man, I mean, just look at their wilderness experience. How would you characterize Israel in the wilderness? Griping? Complaining? Whining? Unbelieving. I mean, that's their default response to every crisis that came along. We've got nothing to eat, Moses. You just brought us out here to kill us. I mean, that's their default response. Unbelief. That's the old man. Now we see a completely new generation, a new Israel, going into the land of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua. How would you characterize them? Victorious! Triumphant! Believing! Trusting! Obeying! But what I'm saying is what is presented to us historically in two segments is not sequential at all. It's really the thing going on at one and the same time in the believer's experience. In Christ, I'm triumphant, I'm victorious. But, oh, in myself, In my flesh dwelleth no good thing. In my flesh I'm still the griper, the complainer, the whiner, the unbeliever." Now that being the case, what are these lessons teaching us in this chapter about this new life, this life in the Spirit, this life in Christ? What does that look like? Number one, it shows us very plainly and clearly our need of supernatural power to live that life. We are sometimes told, well, you know, you Reform folks, you don't believe in miracles. Not true. In fact, in my mind, there is no greater miracle that you will ever see than a person regenerated by the power of God saved and washed from his sins. His life from that moment on is a supernatural life. A walk of life in the power of God. Now there are plenty of folks who don't live that way. But if you ask what does the saved life look like? What does life in the Spirit look like? It is life lived by the power of the Spirit. You remember my illustration, about worn it out, of the airplane running down the runway, about to take off, and that huge thing. Darren, where are you? Darren, how much did that thing weigh fully loaded? 625,000 pounds. Got my authority right over here. Can you imagine? How do you get 625,000 pounds off the ground and in the sky? That's not natural. But notice what's going on is that the law of gravity is the problem. That's what's holding the thing on the ground. But as it moves down the runway, air flows over the wings, creating aerodynamic lift, and a new law, a new principle comes into place, the law of aerodynamics. And when the lift from that law exceeds the pull downward from the law of gravity, what does it do? That 625,000 pounds flies. But you let the power quit. You understand that just doesn't happen normally. You've got to have a power supply, right? You've got to have those engines pushing the plane. You let the power quit and they have not suspended the law of gravity because the moment those engines quit, let me tell you, I got a little experience with that too. I took flying lessons out in Wyoming. I didn't realize it was a crash course, but anyway. Flying around the airport one day doing some touch and goes, and lo and behold, the engine quit. Folks, when the engine quits in an airplane, which way are you going? Down. There is no question. You're going down. Because you've lost your power. Do you understand that that's the mystery of the Christian life? It's though we have this old man, this drag on our system pulling us down, pulling us into sin, pulling us into that old whiny, gripey, unbelieving life. There's a new power present and greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. It exceeds the power of sin. A new principle has come into place enabling me to live a way that I never could have lived without it. And indeed, there are those who struggle with the Christian life. And I mean, maybe let's get honest. You say, I just don't have any power to live above sin. I don't have any power to overcome my circumstance. I don't have any power to overcome. Maybe it's that you're not saved. I mean, it's no use beating around the bush. If you can't fly, it just might be because you don't have any power. You don't have any engines. But even in the Christians, in the most dedicated Christian that's here today, we would all say, well, Brother Mark, sometimes I'm flying, but other times my wings are clipped. Right? And that's normal. That is the normal experience of our life. that this is not automatic, that it wanes and waxes with our walk through this world. So the first lesson, they needed supernatural power to get out of Egypt. Everybody sees that. But they also need supernatural power to get in to Canaan. They needed God to get them out. They're going to have to have God to get them in. Nothing less than the power of God is going to work. That lesson is written very plain on this chapter. Secondly, Second lesson is we need to follow and not lead. Do you see how much material in this chapter is given to this principle? You stand back. The priests are to go forward with the Ark of the Covenant, that representing God in His covenant. They go first. You stand there. You let them get out in the water and then you can go. Our job is not to lead God. is to follow God. Now, I'm not dealing here, you don't have to go to seminary to be able to grasp this stuff. As I said in starting this series, old Conrad Murrow years ago said, I just learned the basic principles of the Christian life from studying the book of Joshua. And that's right. This is not advanced studies. This is just as basic as it gets. Number one, you've got to have God with you. Number two, you've got to let God lead the way. Well, what does that mean? Well, it means sometimes you're going to have to wait. We were studying through the Psalms, well, we still are actually cleaning up some that we missed, but we were just making note, I say we, I was making note of the various synonyms throughout the Psalms and in fact through the Old Testament for what we would call in the New Testament faith. You know, what is faith? Well, the Old Testament uses words like to lean, to look, to trust, or one that we find quite often in the Psalms, to wait upon the Lord. In other words, if I truly am cognizant of God's ability to do what must be done, and I'm also cognizant that I cannot possibly do what needs to be done, I've only got one option. I've got to wait on Him. I want to plunge on ahead with all my plans, all my purposes, and then ask God to come bless them. Instead, I am to follow Him. And you say, well, this is Old Testament stuff. Where are you getting this? Look at your New Testament. How often Jesus says to men, follow Me. To His disciples, follow Me. To Matthew at the receipt of customs, follow Me. A man came and said, I'll follow you, but I've got to bury my dead father first. No, first you come follow me. To the rich young ruler, sell all you've got. Come follow me. I mean, that's the whole definition of discipleship. You say, well, yeah, but that was specific situations. Well, let me give you one that's general. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and what? Follow me. What does that mean? Well, at the least it means you don't lead him. You wait on him. You say, but how do I follow? He's not here. I mean, I could understand how they could follow him. They just left their job like Matthew and got up and traipsed around Israel with him. How do you follow him today? Well, you follow him by listening to his word, to his direction. You follow him by discerning. what God is doing around you in His works of providence, in His works of gifting you and prompting you in certain directions. I mean, if we get into the question of how do I know the Lord's will for my life? Well, I could answer that in a very objective way. Flee fornication. This is the will of God concerning you. You know, be sanctified. You say, but I wasn't talking about that. I know that's God's will. I'm talking about who do I marry? What job do I take? What city do I live in? Those kinds of things. It's a complicated thing, but at the very least, we are saying that God is completely able and capable of leading His people, of making it absolutely plain where I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to be doing. At least that's the way it worked with me. When I was in college, the last thing on earth I wanted to be was a preacher. I'd been around too many preachers. The idea of being a pastor of a church absolutely just was the last thing on earth. By the time I graduated from college, it was my heart's pursuit. What happened? In those years, God did something. That's all I know. God turned my life from this direction to that direction. And if He did it for me, He can do it for you. He made it very plain to me. Others would have looked at me and said, man, what a failure you're going to be. And I've pretty much proven that to be true. Whatever made you think God was calling you? Well, it's a complicated story. God used people. God used providence. God used things in my life. But by the time I got out of college, I knew the direction I had pursued previous to that time was not the way God wanted me to go. I still wasn't all that clear on where I should go. All I'm saying is, if God is sovereign of the universe, if He is able to create this world, if He's able to save your soul, don't you think He's able to get you where He wants you to be? You know, suddenly, we who believe in this all-powerful God, we sort of get wimpy. when it comes to God revealing His will. You know, we get to thinking, you know, God's signal is so weak. It's like, you know, picking something up from the other side of the galaxy, and I've got to have my radio tuned just right. I've got to get myself all in gear. Nonsense! God is entirely capable of revealing what you're supposed to do, where you're supposed to be. He can put His people where He wants them. And He does it over and over again. Our danger is we say, come on God, I've decided that I want to do this. Anybody made that mistake? I've decided how I can get myself out of this predicament. Oh my, bought the t-shirt on that one. No. You've never been this way before. Wait. Wait for God. Thirdly, and I'll end with this, we see the need here to remember. To remember. We didn't dwell much on it, but those stones that were removed from the bottom of the Jordan River, placed over there at Gilgal, were to be a constant remembrance of what had happened here at this place. Again, reading in Joshua 4, verse 6, we read that this may be a sign, these stones he's talking about, this may be a sign among you that when your children ask your fathers in time to come saying, what mean you by these stones? They walk by, they see a stack of rocks there. What do these stones mean? 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 passed over the Jordan and the waters of the Jordan were cut off and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel forever." God is saying, I don't ever want you to forget this. And you who saw it with your own eyes, you who stepped across the Jordan with your own feet, when you're dead and gone, I want there to be a remembrance. I want there to be a witness of what happened this day. So when your children come along, you can point to that stack of rocks and say, let me tell you, sonny, let me tell you, son, where that came from. Let me tell you what God did for His people. this day when we cross into the land of Canaan. Unfortunately, we are forgetters. Anybody over the age of 40 is learning that lesson daily, right? Our memory used to be so sharp when we were these young children, young guys, and now we get old and we get foggy and we get forgetful. We get forgetful of things that we should remember, important things, things that we dare not forget, but we forget. Dates. Deadlines. We forget. We forget where we put our keys. Forget where we parked our car. Forget where our house is. It's just a long stream. We forget. We forget. Well, what is God's direction? I want you to remember. I'm going to give you this sign here, this token, these witnesses. Now, a witness is sort of like when we say eyewitness news in the biblical sense of the thing. There is no other witness but an eyewitness news. In other words, if you weren't a first-hand witness, you don't qualify. I saw enough Perry Mason to understand that. You get on the witness stand, they ask you, well, what did you see? Well, I didn't really see anything, they just told me. They kick you right off of there. That's hearsay testimony. That's not witnessing. A witness had to be there when it happened. And sometimes witnesses were people, but other times witnesses were rocks, stones that were there when it happened to be a long-lasting, eternal remembrance of what happened at this spot. God would have them never, ever forget what happened this day. This is fundamental. You need me. You need me to lead you into this land. You need me to drive these people out. And I never ever want you to forget it. And here's the token. It took me to get you out of Egypt. It takes me to get you into Canaan. And there's the stack of rocks that shows it. You say, well, you know, we don't have that problem in the New Testament time. Peter talks about those who have forgotten that their sins are forgiven. I'm thinking, what? You forgot that little fact? You forgot that your sins were forgiven? Oh, yeah. There are times that we may not forget intellectually, but in our practice, it looks like we've forgotten. And if we know those things, if we remember those things, they're distant memories and they're not impacting our lives right now. Notice that what we've got down before us is not a pile of rocks, but it's bread, it's the fruit of the vine, given to us for this purpose. Do this in remembrance of me. You say, well, Lord, I'm not going to forget you. Oh, yes. How often in the course of our life we forget who we are, who we belong to, who our Master is, who's supposed to be Lord. My father, as I was growing up, teenage years, all of us wanted to go into Dallas on Saturday night. And he had a theory, nothing good in Dallas happens after midnight on a Saturday night, and he's pretty well right. So he said, I want you out of Dallas by midnight. And he said, secondly, I want you to remember who you are. And I've often thought about that. What do you mean, remember who you are? What is he saying? Did he really think I'm going to forget my name? No, that wasn't what he meant, was it? Remember your family. Remember where you come from. Remember what you've been taught. Don't do something that'll make your mother cry. Remember who you are. And that's what this meal is all about, for us to remember who we are. Remember where we came from. When we were slaves over there to sin, making bricks with no straw, serving Satan, When we were incapable of extricating, as we had the choir sing there just a little while ago, what a mess we would have been had we had to work out a redemption. We had no hope. Hopeless. And yet God came into the picture and redeemed us. Brought us out. And now He has not only brought us out, but He's bringing us in. Another memorial. of this wonderful work of our God in bringing His people into the possession of those promises that He has given to them. This drives us, doesn't it, back to the cross, that there is one thing. I mean, when we think about it, we talk about the gospel and we call it the gospel of grace, the gospel of Christ, the gospel of God, the gospel of the glory of God, all these different languages. But when Paul uses a synonym in first Corinthians one for the gospel, you know what he uses? He calls it the preaching of the cross. The cross becomes the synonym, the sign for the whole message of the gospel. The gospel obviously is more than just about what happened on the cross. It's the whole revelation of God. But it centers, its hub, its focus is on what happened at that old rugged cross. And so God would have us be brought back to dead center. Again, my brief career as a pilot, I learned another thing, is that you have an altimeter inside the cockpit. reads your elevation above sea level. Well, out in Wyoming, where I was taking flying lessons, the airport was about 7,000 feet above sea level. Not a good place to be learning how to fly, by the way. The air is way too thin up there. But anyway, at the end of the runway of every airport, there's a sign that says, so many feet above sea level. And you, as you get ready to take off, are to recalibrate your altimeter. so that it lines up with what that sign says. Because over the course of time and atmospheric pressure changing, it'll get off. So every time you take off, you're to realign, recalibrate your altimeter with that sign. This is sort of my subjective life, what I think it is. That sign out there is telling me what it exactly is. And I am to align and recalibrate my thinking with the objective truth out there. This is our day to do that. To recalibrate our lives to the facts of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What does it mean? We were hearing in Sunday school, studying Colossians, the lesson that Christ is supreme Christ is preeminent. Christ is superior to all. And so why would you want to mess around with those Jewish shadows, Oscar? Why? When you've got substance, this is just shadow. This is the real deal. Why would you want to mess around with visions and angels when you've got Christ? So as we participate today, let us recalibrate. Now, you understand, This is for the disciples. This is for followers. This is for those who have come out of Egypt. If that's not you, you have no business partaking of this. This is for the saved. This is for the sheep. This is for the followers of the Lamb. But if that is you, come and welcome. Come to the dinner. This reminder. of what our Savior has done for us at that old rugged cross, of what our God has done for us not only in opening the door to get us out of Egypt, but opening the door to get us into Canaan, into heaven, into His kingdom. Let us celebrate as we think on these things. Let's pray. Father, we give You thanks and ask You to bless Your Word today. Seal these things to our heart. Let us meditate on them and think about them. Lord, we see our guilt of how often the old man, we look more like Israel in the wilderness than we look like Israel in Canaan. But Lord, help us to understand how we are to live, the principles by which this life is to work. Let us know and taste of your Spirit, of the power that works within us, enabling us to be what we cannot possibly be any other way. To do what we cannot possibly do any other way. May we be debtors to Your grace and Your mercy, and let us refuse to be a debtor to the flesh. Work within us that which is pleasing to You. And Father, one thing You've clearly commanded is for us to partake of this meal to remember. We never forget what our Savior has done for us. And so, Father, bless us as we seek to obey You today We know that our obedience is more than just the outward act of ingesting these elements. That what is truly acceptable to you today is what's going on in our heart. That yes, Christ is our all. He's our only hope. He's an answer for our sin. Our only hope to have our sins washed away. But He's also our only hope of entering heaven. of living this life that we've been called to live, as we should. Help us to focus our minds, our hearts on Him. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.