REVIEW: What problems did Israel have at this time?
Were they unwilling to follow the LORD? NO!
Were they lacking a good leader in Joshua? NO!
Were the people living in moral compromise? NO!
Was Israel complacent in their faith? NO!
Was Israel ignorant of the one true God and His Word? NO!
As Israel camps for the last time on the east side of the Jordan River, they were washed, worshipping and waiting for God to work wonders and make a way for them.
So, what problems did Israel have at this time? Just two -- the River and the Giants!
The river separated them from the Promised Land.
The Giants terrified them in the Promised Land.
God will turn these two problems into pathways.
How?
God will perform an unforgettable, spectacular, supernatural miracle right before their very eyes! So... they would all...
**1. Know the Living God is among you. **
Joshua 3:9 (NASB), Then Joshua said to the sons of Israel, “Come here, and hear the words of the Lord your God.” 10 And Joshua said, “By this you will know that the living God is among you, and that He will assuredly drive out from you the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Hivite, the Perizzite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, and the Jebusite.
Those are the 7 nation-tribes that currently inhabited the land of Canaan (Promised Land).
By this... what is this?
The miracle at the Jordan River!
Every miracle in the Bible has a meaning.
The miracle is: the river will be driven back!
The meaning is: the giants in the land will be driven back too!
If God can drive back the waters of a mighty river God can certainly, absolutely, assuredly drive out the mighty armies inhabiting the Promised Land.
The false gods of the Canaanites cannot work miracles.
Rahab already knows the living God is with Israel. She said, in Joshua 2, Israel’s God is the true God of heaven and earth... and the God who had given Israel the land! (Joshua 2). Who is Rahab? Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute, she helped Israel’s spies, she converted to the living God of Israel who will save her whole family.
The living God is a God of miracles.
The living God keeps His promises!
**Why did God give the land to Israel in the first place? **
God said to Abraham in Genesis 12:2 (NASB), "I will make you into a great nation... 3 and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed... 7 ... to your descendants I will give this land."
The living Lord gave Abraham and his descendants (Israel) the right to the land.
This was not a land grab; it was a land gift for Israel from the Lord of all the earth.
Through this gift, Israel will bless the world by giving us the Law of God and the Son of God, Jesus, the seed of Abraham.
God gave the land to Israel, because the corruption of Canaan had reached its critical limit.
Gen. 15:16 (NASB), "… in the fourth generation they [Israel] will return here, for the wrongdoing of the Amorite is not yet complete."
This promise to Abraham was made 500 years before Israel crossed the Jordan.
In those 500 years, the Canaanites (another name for Amorites) went from bad to worse.
Kathleen Kenyon was the famous British archeologist who studied the remains of Jericho. One of her many findings in Jericho was evidence of ritual child sacrifice. The Canaanites in Jericho offered their babies in sacrifice to their gods.
These gods of death, brought about a culture of death and the living God would drive them out of the land.
Israel was given the land NOT because they were more righteous, but because of God’s faithfulness.
Deuteronomy 9:4 (NASB), “Do not say in your heart when the Lord your God has driven them away from you, ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to take possession of this land.’ Rather, it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you."
Israel will soon find out, that the living God who works miracles among them -- He does not play favorites.
When Israel acted wickedly, God would drive them out of the land too.
**2. Behold the Lord of all the earth. **
Joshua 3:11 (NASB), Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is crossing over ahead of you into the Jordan... 13 when the soles of the feet of the priests who carry the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan will be cut off, that is, the waters which are flowing down from above; and they will stand in one heap.”... 15 ... (for the Jordan overflows all its banks all the days of harvest), 16 then the waters which were … flowing down toward the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off.
Behold – means look, see!
The Lord of all the earth (used 2x). It is the title of His Sovereign rule over all creation.
What did the people see?
The people were told previously to stay back 1000 yards from the ark, so there, on the eastern bank of the Jordan, all of Israel could see what was happening below.
The priests carried the ark, on two long poles. As soon as the priests put their feet in the Jordan River, the waters were cut off. God turned off the spigot. The Jordan River turned into a trickle until the river bottom was exposed. Then in a second miracle, the river bottom was dry. Behold! All the people saw it.
V16, says the waters piled up a great distance away at a place 18 miles upstream, so, I believe we have more than a path through the Jordan, God provided miles and miles of dry river bottom for the whole nation to crossover quickly.
V15, adds a note that the river was at flood stage, probably April, which made the miracle all the more miraculous.
Why did God do the miracle? Why does God do any miracle?
So everyone, not just Israel, would know that God is the sovereign Lord of all people.
Joshua 4:24, “... so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, so that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”
**3. Cross over by the Lord’s way.**
Joshua 3:16 (NASB), So the people crossed opposite Jericho. 17 And the priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel crossed on dry ground, until all the nation had finished crossing the Jordan.
Imagine the celebration!
The Jordan River is usually 100 ft. wide but can be a mile wide in flood season.
As long as the ark of the covenant stood firm in the middle of the Jordan River, there was dry ground as far as the eye could see.
All the people crossed safely into the Promised Land.
Not one was lost.
God turned their problem into a pathway – and much, much more!
The Jordan River crossing was just as miraculous as the Red Sea crossing.
CONCLUSION
The crossing of the Jordan points directly to the Gospel.
Just as the ark of the covenant stood in the middle of the river, allowing the people to crossing over safely, so Jesus hung on the cross as the only mediator between God and man.
Jesus provides the only way to crossover from God’s wrath into God’s blessings.
1 Timothy 2:3, "This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and mankind, the Man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave Himself as a ransom for all..."
All who put their trust in Jesus, by faith, crossover from death to life.
Baptism is a symbol of passing through the waters of death and crossing over into eternal life!
Sometimes I think we do not know the living God is at work among us, because we simply will not wait on the Lord to make a way for us.
We think God’s way is too hard, or too impossible.
We grow impatient, we trust in our own strength.
We build a raft and ford the river ourselves.
We go our own way instead.
Wouldn’t you rather trust God to make a way for you?
Don’t you want to be part of something where there is no other explanation other than God did it?
That is the life in Christ we should all expect and all experience.
A general rule in the spiritual life is this: when we force things to happen, we are not living by faith. But when we trust God to make things happen, He will, make a way.
SONG:
God will make a way
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me
He will be my guide
Hold me closely to His side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way, He will make a way
