EP4 - Crossing The Jordan

[00:00:00] Hello, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Sultan Stevenson and you're listening to the Anywhere But Backwards podcast. [00:00:08] In this episode, we're going to be looking at Joshua, chapter three. Before we do, I'm going to pray, Father Lord. Fall fresh upon us, Father God. Endow us with the wisdom, Father God, that is able to seek truth, Father, from your word, Lord. Father Lord, I pray that you'll bless this message, Father. Bless what I'm about to share with the people, Father God. And I pray that you will remove all ego, Father Lord, also that you will be lifted and you'll be exalted above all things, Father God, I pray that your word will translate to the people in such a way that they can understand, Father God. In such a way that they can understand and respond and understand the will for their life that is according to you, Father God, that their own wills and their own plans will be made mute, Father God, but your will will shine, Father, I pray all these things in the name of Jesus. And I say amen. [00:01:03] So today we're going to continue onwards with our chapter by chapter study of Joshua. Today we're going to look at Joshua, chapter three. [00:01:12] So it reads, the crossing, crossing the Jordan. And I'm reading from the NIV, verse 1. Early in the morning, Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to the Jordan where they camped before crossing over. [00:01:29] After three days, the officers went throughout the camp giving orders to the people. When you see the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God and the levitical priest carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. [00:01:43] Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before. But keep a distance, about 2,000 cubits between you and the Ark. Do not go near it. [00:01:57] Joshua told the people, consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you. Joshua said to the priest, take up the Ark of the Covenant and pass on the head of the people. So they took it and went ahead of him. And the Lord said to Joshua, today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of Israel so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses. Tell the priests who carry the Ark of the Covenant, when you reach the edge of Jordan's waters, go and stand in the river. [00:02:29] Verse 9 says, Joshua said to the Israelites, come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God. [00:02:36] 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, Girgishites, Amorites and Jebusites see, the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you. Now then choose 12 men from the tribe of Israel, one from each tribe. [00:03:03] And as soon as the priests who carry the Ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand in a heap. Verse 14. So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, their priests carrion, the Ark of the Covenant went ahead of them. [00:03:26] Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the Ark reaching the Jordan and their feet touching the water's edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away at a town called Adim in the vicinity of Zarathin, while the water flowing down to the Sea of Arabah, that is the Dead Sea, was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. Verse 17 says the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground. [00:04:18] That is the word. That is the word, the Lord. So we're continuing onwards with our study of Joshua, as I've said. And if you've been listening up until this point, you've seen in chapter one the great calling and commissioning of Joshua. So to just remind the listeners, or maybe some new listeners who are only tuning in now, so far in the book of Joshua, we've seen that Joshua has had a new calling, he's had a new anointing to take over from his master, Moses. [00:04:52] And remember, this book is coming out directly from the Torah. So the Torah, this is the first five books of the Bible. [00:05:00] And this is entering a new phase of Israel's journey. This is a new chapter in Israel's journey in which they're coming out of the wilderness which they were in Exodus, and they are entering into the Promised Land. They are finally able to enter in to the promises of God. [00:05:20] And as you notice in chapter one, one point I really tried to drive home was the fact that the only way they could achieve these promises and achieve their calling and go into their inheritance was if they put their foot down. And here in Joshua 3, we really see the putting down of one's foot. And we're going to explore that in much more detail. [00:05:44] In chapter two, we saw Rahab and we saw God do what he always does, where he even if there's but one soul, even if there is but one soul, God is ready to suspend his plans almost and rescue that one soul. And we saw Rahab and we had the contradiction between Rahab, who was willing to give up and deny her past and deny where she came from in order to follow the God of Israel. [00:06:16] And in Jack's position to this, you had all of the people of Jericho who were melting in fear, as the text says, who were not willing to heed the knowledge that the people of Israel were going to come in and take the land. But yet for all, they just stood in fear. [00:06:32] And the message to us was, who will you choose? [00:06:37] Which heart will you choose? Will you choose a heart of Rahab, a heart of surrender, or will you choose the heart of the majority in Jericho who weren't willing to surrender? [00:06:49] Generation and generation and years and years and centuries had passed and they knew that a judgment was coming. [00:06:57] God gave them many an opportunity to repent from their sins. But yet for all, they stood their sin and didn't repent. And only one person was saved. And what that one person, Rahab, brought herself into the genealogy of Jesus Christ himself. [00:07:15] This is the power of repentance and the power of faith that it exceeds. It supersedes generation over generation and it stretched even into the New Testament. And we read Rahab today and she forgetful, she was probably the lowest of the low in where she came from. She was a prostitute. But again, God isn't concerned with title. God isn't concerned with where you are. God doesn't consider this God. Again, he sees all. He's the I am that I am. He sees all of time. And he saw how he was going to use Rahab in a very, very mighty way. And I believe that God is saying to you listening, that sometimes we are too concerned with our title, our position, and we don't actually understand that God doesn't see these things. These are earthly things. God sees the heavenly things that aren't concerned with things that all titles and labels that mankind will put on you. So now we finally cross in to Joshua 3. And these people, it's amazing that God gave them the great commission of, you are going to possess the land, and it's time to get ready, it's time to go, and the freedom to give you land. They give you the land. And as I said in the previous episode, he didn't actually tell them how he was going to give them land. He didn't Give them the process. [00:08:36] All he did was say, I'm going to give you the land. And it's actually only in. It's actually only in Joshua 6 that they actually begin to take the first territory, which is when they. The famous story of them walking around marks are marching around in silence the walls of Jericho. And then they blow their trumpets one day and the walls fall down. We're going to look at that story in due time. But. But the point here is that it was process and it took a long process in order for them to be ready and as the scripture says, consecrate themselves. So they were in a spiritual position to obtain the blessings and their great inheritance that they were promised. [00:09:16] So if we now go back to the text, Joshua, chapter three, verse one. So we're not going to break it down and pull this apart verse by verse, portion by portion. So again, crossing the Jordan early in the morning, Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to the Jordan where they camped before over night. [00:09:42] I'll say that again. Early in the morning, Joshua and all the Israelites set out to Shittim and went to the Jordan where they camped before crossing over. [00:09:52] Now, this is very interesting, the crossing over. So they had to cross over the River Jordan. Now, the River Jordan is a. [00:10:00] It's almost a representation of crossing over into a new season of your life. [00:10:06] They are crossing from one place to another place. They're crossing from their wilderness into the promised land. And the thing that lies between them is the river. [00:10:20] The wilderness represents an old season, and it represents an old time. It represents waiting. It represents a lack of faith. Whereas the place, the destination that God wants to bring them into represents the fullness of the inheritance. It represents something they were supposed to achieve a long time ago, but because of lack of faith, they didn't follow through with the plan. [00:10:45] And what lies between them is the river. The river lies between them. And a lot of the times where we are faced with our own rivers, we have our own River Jordans. And we're in a place where God has finally given us a mandate and has said, it's time for you to inherit and go into the fullness of the blessing and the promise I've given to you. But he'll put this river in between you. And this is what he did with the Israelites. He put the river between them. [00:11:15] And this is, as I said, this is what the River Jordan represents. It represents the. [00:11:22] It represents a challenge. There's a final frontier. There's a final Challenge that can only be crossed by faith. It's impossible for them within their own right to cross this river by themselves. Later in the text, it says the river was overflowing. The river was ready to overflow. [00:11:42] It was impossible for them to walk out this within their own, within their own right. They had to have faith in order to cross the river. [00:11:54] So in verse two, it says, after three days, officers went through the camp giving orders to the people. When you see the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God and the Levitical priest carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. Then you will know which way to go. Since you've never been this way before, but keep a distance, about 2,000 cubits. So this is really, really profound. [00:12:18] So what's happened here is that the officers and almost the government system at the time have said, we're about to go. We're about to inherit what's ours. And but in order to do this, we have to use something called the Ark of the Covenant. And the Ark of the Covenant is a thing that we saw in Exodus, and it's a physical representation of God. It's what they used. It's how they. It's their customs. It's how they were able to do all of the feats that they were, that they could do. They needed to use the Ark of the Covenant and notice how the Ark of the Covenant has to go before them. [00:12:58] They're not in front of the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark of the physical representation, the embodiment of their Lord and Savior. It has to go before them, that in order to cross the river, the Ark of the Covenant has to go before you. [00:13:13] So in order to cross your final frontier, in order to overcome your adversary, in order to walk in to the promises of God, the Ark of the Covenant has to go before you. [00:13:28] It was impossible for them to cross the river without having the Ark of the Covenant before them. Within their own right, they were unable to cross this river. The river has been there for a long, long time. And it's only now that God has said it's time for you to go through and cross the river. But you have to have the Ark of the Covenant ahead of you. It has to go ahead of you. But before you enter in, I have to have the glory. And a lot of the times we don't really understand that. And we're trying to cross our Jordans, we're trying to cross our challenges, we're trying to enter in, into our promises. The promises are rightfully ours. But I think a lot of the time, as Christians, we don't actually understand that the Ark of the Covenant has to go before us. And the question here is, what is the Ark of the Covenant? The Ark of the Covenant to the Old Covenant believers was a physical thing. [00:14:23] It was a physical thing, and it had many, many, many, many regulations and laws and specifications around it. It had to be made in such and such a way, and it had to have this amount of measurements for this particular thing. It was a very specific thing that the Old Covenant believers were dealing with. So the question for you is, what is the Ark of the Covenant for us as Christians living today, who are sons and daughters of Jesus Christ, who brought in and ushered in a new covenant? Where's the Ark of the Covenant for us? Well, it's the blood of the Lamb, it's the cross, it's what happened at Calvary. [00:15:02] This is our Ark of the Covenant. We have been brought into a new covenant. The Old Covenant says the Ark of the Covenant. The New Covenant says the blood of Jesus Christ. [00:15:12] The Old Covenant speaks of John, John 3:16. So the new covenant, it speaks of John 3:16. The new covenant says that if I confess with my mouth that I am a sinner and I upset the blood of Jesus Christ and I follow after him, then that is my Ark of the Covenant. [00:15:37] And this is our Ark of the Covenant. This is how we are. This is how we are to go into our promised lands. This is how we are, how we are to obtain what's rightfully ours is we have to have Jesus Christ before us. The same way they were going to cross this river, this impossible task with the Ark of the Covenant before them. We, as Christians of today, we need to have Jesus Christ before us. He needs to go ahead of us. We need to be following him. Notice how they're following the Ark of the Covenant. [00:16:12] They are following the Presence, the embodiment of God, the same way we are supposed to follow Jesus Christ through our tests, trials, tribulations, and challenges. [00:16:24] And now, a really important and very small point here is it says, but keep a distance about 2,000 cubits between you and the Ark. Do not go near it. I'll say that again. Catch this. But keep a distance of about 2000 cubits between you and the yacht, and do not go near it. And this is really this. This is very, very in keeping with the theme and the mood of the Old Testament. It's all about distance. [00:16:56] It's all about keep your distance. It's all about territory. And Land and fighting and armies. And I think this is maybe some of the reason why it kind of people get put off of reading the Old Testament because they see all this fighting and they see all the wars and they see all of the distance and there's all these kind of Levitical laws of you have to do this and you have to eat this and you have to wash yourself like this and you have to, you know, all of these different laws. But yet for all in the New Testament, Jesus says draw near. [00:17:30] God always speaks of it's almost anti distance. The theme of the New Testament is about drawing near. [00:17:37] It's about drawing near to God. It's about praying fervently. [00:17:43] It's about trusting him and getting as close as you possibly can. Again, we think of the story of the woman of the issue of blood who draws so near to, to Jesus that she touched the hem of his garment and was made clean and was made whole. As the scripture says, there isn't much more closer you can get than what she did. But yet for all here in Joshua 3, they are told to keep their distance. [00:18:12] They are told, keep your distance. They're told, keep a distance. There should be a distance between you and the physical presence, the physical embodiment of God, the representation of God that is embodied by the Ark of the Covenant. Now the question is, so what happened? Why has God changed his perception about us? What's so different between the Old Covenant Christians or the Israelites that we see here in Joshua and us as New Covenant Christians? [00:18:44] Well, the answer is again, it's the cross. [00:18:48] It's what happened at the cross. It's the atonement, it's the sacrificial blood of the Lamb that brought about salvation for all of mankind. This broke the distance. It broke the curtain that was in the temple. [00:19:02] It broke all of the distance between us and God that we can now enter in and buy into salvation through Jesus Christ. No one comes to the Father except through me. There is no more distance for us as believers of the new covenant of sons and daughters of Jesus Christ himself. There is no more distance. We don't have to keep our distance anymore. We don't have to do all of the same rituals that the Old covenant believers used to do. Why? Because we have entered into a new covenant, a new promise, a new relationship on the basis that Jesus died for our sins. And yes, the wages of sin, our death is death. But Jesus went to the cross and paid it all for us. And this is the reason why there's a stark Difference between keep your distance and draw near. Keep your distance in the Old Testament, draw near in the New Testament. So the text goes on and it says, Joshua told them, told the people, consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you. He says, consecrate yourself. Consecrate yourself. What does that word mean? Consecrate yourself. Consecrate yourself. The question to the listeners is, how many times, when you're about to enter into a challenge, do you consecrate yourself? [00:20:24] How many times do you pray fervently and seek the face of the Lord before you're about to enter into something new? How many times do we consecrate ourselves here, God? Joshua tells the people, consecrate yourself. Consecrate yourself. Consecrate yourself. [00:20:42] Consecrate. Make sure that your heart is in the right place. Make sure that your mind is on the right things. Make sure that you're seeing straight, making sure that you're walking in the purpose of the Lord. How many times do we consecrate ourselves before we're about to walk into a new day, before we're about to walk into the doors of our job, before we're about to walk in to wherever we go? How many times do we consecrate ourselves? How important is consecrating yourself to you when you're about to meet someone new? How many times do you consecrate yourself when you're about to go to a new building, a new country, you're about to move country, when you're about to have a significant shift in your life, when you're about to enter into a new season? Just as the Israelites were about to enter into a new season, it required for them to consecrate themselves. [00:21:36] How many times do we consecrate ourselves? [00:21:39] This is the message that's in this text. Consecrate yourself. It says, Joshua 5. Joshua told the people, consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you. Verse 6 says, Joshua said to the priest, take the ark of the covenant and pass on ahead of the people. So they took it and went ahead of them. [00:22:00] And the Lord said to Joshua, today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of Israel, so that they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses. So again, he's directly speaking to Joshua. [00:22:15] He's directly speaking to Joshua because he knows that Joshua's mission is heavy. The task of Joshua is not easy, and he's given him an encouragement, he's given him a word that I am going to, I'm going to really prove you today because again, Joshua has a very big challenge within his own right. He has to lead the people of God, but he also has to fit in the shoes of his master, Moses. He has taken over from Moses, the great man Moses, who was, who literally had arguably the closest, the closest within his human body, the closest seeing of God. This was Moses. This is the man that he had to fit into. So he says again in verse six, Joshua said, oh sorry in verse seven and the Lord said to Joshua, today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of Israel so that they may, so that they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses. Verse 8. Tell the priests who carry the Ark of the covenant, when you reach the edge of the Jordan waters, go and stand in the river. [00:23:37] Joshua said verse 9. Joshua said to the Israelites, come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God. 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 the Jebusites. [00:23:59] So again, the text is reminding us of the opposition that the people of Israel faced. Yes, they were to enter in to the promises and inherit the land, but it wasn't that simple, it wasn't that easy. They still had this opposition of again of these different sets of people, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, etc, etc. There was still a challenge there and God was almost, he was almost preempting them, he was giving them a prior warning that yes, you're going to enter into this land, but you have to again you have to consecrate yourself because you have to be in a position, your heart has to be in a position of complete surrender. That I can do. I can prove to you guys that I am the God of Israel. Because there is different opposition in the land you're going to inherit that you will need. And the only way you can inherit this is if you are in a place of faith and if you have consecrated yourself. So this is the reason for this opposition is. And again, sometimes God, he'll give you the vision, he'll prepare you, he'll start to prepare you. Because again, it's only in Joshua 6 that these people actually begin to engage in military battle, as was forewarned by God. But in Joshua 2, Joshua 3, Joshua 4 and Joshua 5 this was all prep work. [00:25:27] This was all the consecration process. This was the process of God making their hearts ready. [00:25:35] Because remember, this is a new generation. God was preparing them. He'd given them the vision. Yes. And they probably thought when they heard Moses, sorry, Joshua, come down and say, hey guys, we're getting ready to go out, they probably thought, great, let's go out in the next hour or so, we're going to be fighting. [00:25:53] But yet, for all there needed to be consecration in place, God needed to take care of things before they would enter into their promised land and they would start to engage in this battle that was forewarned. [00:26:06] They're consecrating themselves and they know of the, of the pushback that they're going to face from all these different oppositions. [00:26:16] And God has given them a prior taste, a prior warning of, look, when you go in, there's going to be this opposition, this opposition, this opposition. But fear not, be strong and courageous, as it says in the previous chapter. [00:26:30] So then verse 12 says, now then choose 12 men from the tribe of Israel, one from each tribe. [00:26:38] And as soon as the priests who carry the Ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand in a heap. Verse 14. So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant went ahead of them. [00:27:00] Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing. [00:27:16] So watch this. So I'm going to go back to 14. [00:27:20] So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carried the Ark of the Covenant went ahead of them. Now this is really where you have to watch out. Verse 15. Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet notice that their feet touched the water's edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing. [00:27:53] So not only do they have this river, the River Jordan ahead of them that they have to cross, not only do they have the River Jordan, but they also have the fact that it's at flood stage. And this is very, again, it's very in keeping with how God works, is sometimes God will make the challenge in front of you even that much more harder. Sometimes he'll turn the heat up just a little bit more. The heat is really high, but he's going to turn the heat up even more. Why? Because he wants to want you to understand that the only way you can do this is by his strength, that in your strength it's impossible. But by his strength, all things are made possible. This is exactly what God is doing here. [00:28:39] The water is about to flood. [00:28:41] The water is about flood. And imagine this as a picture. So Joshua goes down to the priests and all of the clergy and all of the people who play a role in, again, the spiritual governing of the people of Israel. And Joshua has gone down to them and has said, you guys are gonna. You see that river that's. That's about to overflow. You guys are gonna put your foot in there and it's gonna dry up. Like, imagine, imagine the amount of courage that Joshua had to have. And this is, this is again, why God has to keep encouraging him, is imagine that. That Joshua has to say to these people, that river, that's. That that's gonna overflow. You're going to put your foot in there and it's going to dry up and you're going to cross and dry land again. It's the same type of miracle that we saw in Exodus where he created an exit for the people. [00:29:36] Again, in the same way God turns up the heat, what does he do in Exodus? These people are just about to cross the river and God is about to part the Red Sea. [00:29:49] And what God does is he increases the heat because the people can hear the footsteps. They can hear the footsteps of their oppressors. They can hear the horses or the chariots or wherever it is. And they can hear their oppression is coming. They can hear their path is about to catch up with them. [00:30:08] And a lot of you may be listening. You might be in this same position. You might be in a position where God has turned up the heat, where there was already a challenge. But there's another thing, and there's another thing, and then there's another thing, and then something else goes wrong. Then this is going wrong in your life, and this is going wrong in your life. And you're looking at, you're looking around and you're seeing it's all going wrong. [00:30:30] You're seeing around you that it's all going wrong, that everything that could go wrong is going wrong. And this is the position that the people of Israel were in, in Exodus when they were about to cross the Red Sea on dry land, is they could hear their past catching up with them. They could hear Egypt chasing after them. A lot of you listen again, you can probably hear Egypt is coming for you. Your Egypt is coming for you to Take you back to where you once were. [00:31:01] But as Again, as Joshua 2 says, Be strong and courageous. [00:31:07] Be strong and courageous. [00:31:10] Because this is just a test. This is a way that God is going to get the glory out of your situation. This is a means in which he's going to prove to you that he is able and he is with you. And that the only way you can cross on dry land is with God. Because your Jordan is about to overflow. For some of you listening, I guess your Jordan is about to overflow, that it's harvest time and the river is about to overflow. The weight of the problem is about to overflow. It's about to capsize you, that your water's about to capsize you, and you feel like you're going to drown. You feel like you're going to sink in the water that's about to overflow outside of your Jordan. [00:31:51] But yet for all, God still wants you to put your foot in the Jordan. Notice that he commands the people, put your foot in the Jordan. And we've seen that somewhere else. We've seen that same sentiment somewhere else. Well, we saw it in Joshua 1, where God says, wherever you put your foot, it will be yours. But again, you have to put your foot down. If you don't put your foot down, it's not yours. [00:32:21] And putting your feet down on something, it requires an action. [00:32:25] Standing still doesn't require an action. Sitting down doesn't require an action. Lending bed doesn't require an action. Sleeping doesn't require an action. Standing in the wilderness doesn't require much action. [00:32:36] But when you put your foot down on something, that requires faith, that requires the currency of faith. You have to have faith to put your foot down on something. And this is what they are doing. So this is the first time they've had to put their foot down. Where Joshua has commanded his people, if you put your foot down, you can have it. And even better still, there's an order to this whole process. And the order is that you put your foot down on it first, and then God will come through. So sometimes when we're faced with our Jordans and we're faced with something that could overflow, something that could completely wipe us out, God expects us to make. He expects us to put our foot down. It's not a thing where he'll clean. He'll take care of the problem, and then you can put your foot down, and then you can walk into a land. No, sometimes you have to take the first action of faith. You have to walk it out in faith for God to then take care of the rest. [00:33:41] And this is what the priests had to do. They had to put their foot down. They had to have enough faith to trust in the God of Israel that he was going to take care of the situation. And they had to put their foot down. [00:33:55] And then God would drive the river, he would do a miracle. He will take what is overflowing and what had the potential to completely wipe them out, but yet for all, because he is faithful and he is true, he was able to deliver them from their Jordan. [00:34:14] And I believe God is speaking to you right now. He knows that he can deliver you from your Jordan. But you have to put your foot down. You have to make the first move of faith in order for him to take care of the rest. [00:34:27] And if you don't put your foot down, then it's possible that the river could wipe you out. [00:34:34] The only way to escape the river that is about to wipe you out, the overflow of the river, the overflow of your problems, the overflow of the situation, the overflow of you getting from your wilderness into your promise, the overflow could wipe you out. [00:34:55] But if you put your foot down and if you claim it by faith and if you move, then God will come through and he will deal with the river and he will calm the sea. It's the same thing that we see in the New Testament when the disciples are in a boat with Jesus. And then it seems like. [00:35:17] It seems like the boat is about to capsize. The waters have. [00:35:23] The atmosphere is in such a way that it seems like there is no end to the situation. And it seems like they're about to capsize. It seems like they're about to get wiped out. But because Jesus is in the boat, nothing can. Nothing can touch him. [00:35:38] Nothing can touch them. And I think that's a lot of that. That is very reminiscent of a lot of our situations where we're going through. We're going through the rivers of life, we're going through problems. And it seems like it's one thing after the other. One thing after the other. [00:35:54] The river keeps rising. It keeps rising. It keeps rising. It's getting to the point where it seems like it's going to wipe us out, but it's just. It's part of the passing from your wilderness to your promise. It's all part of the promise. Sometimes. Sometimes getting to the promise is the hardest part. It wasn't even the wilderness, the wilderness we could do with the wilderness, but it was actually crossing. [00:36:23] And for some of Us, for some of us, for some of you listening, you're probably at the stage of crossing. You're crossing your Jordan, you're crossing from your wilderness into your promise. [00:36:34] And God is with you. [00:36:37] But you're seeing the river is about to overflow. [00:36:42] You're seeing that the river is about to wipe you out, and you're, you're faring for your life. [00:36:50] But the beauty of the situation is that sometimes the hardest parts are when you're close. There's a lot to be said for when you're close, when you're close to your promise. That's usually when the hardest things come. That's usually when the final test is. The final test is there to as a final test, as the final test of faith, as the impossible is now before you and then right after the impossible is the promise. But in order for you to get to the promise, you have to deal with the impossible. But you can't deal with the impossible within your own strength. You have to firstly put your foot down and in faith and in full trust in God. And then, and then God will take care of the overflow. Then God will take care of the rivers that are just about to capsize you. [00:37:41] So this is, this is now the challenge that Israelites are facing, that Joshua has to now go to his, to his people and say, I want you to stand in, I want you to put your foot down in the river. And then God will take care of the rest. But in faith, you have to make the first move. God will not just wipe it out for you and deal with it. Then God requires you to act first in faith, and then he'll come through. [00:38:09] So verse 14. [00:38:12] So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priest carrying the Ark of the Covenant went ahead of them. [00:38:20] As I said, now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, 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 Zarephan, while the water flowing down the sea of Arabah, this is the Dead Sea, was completely cut off. [00:38:49] And notice how God has dealt with the situation. It's heaped up, it's piled up in one place and it's cut off in another place so that the Israelites can cross in dry ground. And this is what God is bringing you into. God wants you, his promise and his plan for you. And his vision is for you to cross Your Jordan in over dry land. [00:39:08] It's not for you to swim through his. His promises aren't for you to swim through the Jordan when it's. When it's about to overflow, because he knows that that will capsize you, that will cause your downfall. [00:39:21] It's not in his. It's not in his plan. It's not what. It wasn't in the Israelites plan for. It wasn't in his plan for the Israelites, I beg your pardon, to build some kind of boat or some kind of raft for them to try and negotiate the river by themselves. That wasn't his plan. It also wasn't his plan for them to stay in the wilderness until the river, until the sea had calmed down and they could, they could make their way. That also wasn't the plan. [00:39:49] It also wasn't the plan of God to completely take care of the situation, dry up, and then bring the land that they needed to walk in too closely. That also wasn't the plan. But the plan was for them to put their foot down in faith, as Joshua 1 says, and for God to take care of the rest. [00:40:11] And out of this, on one side, something's heaped up, on the other side, he's put a complete stop to it. [00:40:19] And they could, they couldn't see this. When, when the priests put their foot down, they couldn't see this. But because of their faith, they put their foot down. They trusted in the Lord and the Lord brought it to an end. And he was able to create a safe passage for them to enter into their promise from their place of wilderness. [00:40:38] And it's the same promises that God is leaving a few. God wants you to get out of your wilderness when he gives you the call. He wants you to get out of your wilderness. And he wants you. He wants you to cross your Jordan, cross the final frontier into the land of promise that he is predestined for you. [00:40:57] Then verse 17. [00:41:00] The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground. Praise God. While in Israel, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completely crossed on dry ground. But people completely crossed on dry ground. They crossed on dry ground. [00:41:24] Not one person lost their life, not one person almost drowned, not one person tripped, not one person fell. But they all crossed on dry ground. [00:41:40] So in closing, are you ready to consecrate yourself when you go into a new situation? When God is about to bring you into the promise? Do you consecrate yourself when you wake up do you consecrate yourself? Is God the first thing you think about when you wake up? Do you give him thanks? Do you pray when you wake up? [00:42:01] Consecrate yourself. [00:42:04] Think of your Jordan. What is your Jordan in your life? What is, what is the passage that God is trying to take you through on dry ground? [00:42:16] The Ark of the Covenant. [00:42:19] This is another theme from the text is when you're going through your Jordan, is God ahead of you or is he behind you? [00:42:28] If God is ahead of you, then you're going to enter into your promise. But if God is behind you and you expect God to follow you, then you have the whole thing the wrong way around. We are supposed to follow God. God is our roots. God is our satnav through the river Jordan. [00:42:47] That's the only way that these people could have crossed the river if the Ark of the Covenant was with them. And notice that if the Ark of the Covenant was ahead of them and arguably the only thing that they could be staring at was the Ark of the Covenant. This is also, this is how God works, is that these people are stirring up the Ark of the Covenant, but yet for all the, there's like rivers either side of them, but their eyes are focused on the Ark of the Covenant. So when we go through our Jordans, when we go go through our challenges, the question is, what are we staring at? Are we staring at Jesus or are we staring at our problems? [00:43:27] If we're staring at our problems and we're looking to the left and to the right and not focused on thee, then we're not, we can't be staring at Jesus. If you're going through something right now and all you can think of is your is the problems and the problems are overwhelming you, then are you. The question you need to ask yourself is, are you staring at Jesus? [00:43:50] Are you staring at Jesus? Have you consecrated yourself? Is the Ark of the Covenant, is it ahead of you or is it behind you? This is the real message for me at the core of this text is, where is your ark? [00:44:04] Is the Ark ahead of you or is the Ark before you? [00:44:09] Is the Ark ahead of you or is it before you? [00:44:14] Are you are. As I said, for some of you, your problems are at flood stage. It seems like the problem is at flood stage. [00:44:22] But if you put your foot down in faith, God will pile up the river and he'll stop it if he needs to. [00:44:31] Father, Lord, I pray in the name of Jesus over this message. Father God, I pray, Lord, that you will reveal where you want people to be Lord, I pray that as people go through their problems and their trials that you will be ahead of them, Father God And I pray that they will invite you to be ahead of them, Father Lord, I pray that you invite them to be ahead of their problems so that they don't look to the left or to the right and they don't even really evaluate the magnitude of what they're going through, but yet they just trust and have faith. Faith in you. I pray that you will give them the encouragement, Father Lord and I pray that you will increase their faith so they can put their foot down. [00:45:16] So that they can put their foot down, Lord, and that you will take care of the rest, Father God Lord, I pray for a fresh hunger for the Bible, for the. For your book, Father Lord, for your word. I pray for a fresh hunger amongst this generation, amongst young people, Father Lord, that they may find pleasure in reading the word of the God or of the one true God, that they may find pleasure in prayer. They may find pleasure in singing songs to you that glorify and uplift your righteous and precious name, Father Lord, I pray all these things and I pray them in the name of Jesus and I say amen. [00:46:03] Thank you for listening. This has been. [00:46:06] This has been Joshua Free. Stay tuned. We're going to look at Joshua 4 in the very next episode. Thank you for listening again. If you, if you enjoy this, feel free to send it to somebody that might appreciate this, that might maybe, you know, someone who's reading Joshua and they might maybe appreciate hearing another believer's interpretation on Joshua and thoughts on Joshua. Please keep yourself safe. Please keep yourself well and take care. [00:46:38] Bye.