Good morning. My children’s lesson this past Sunday pointed out that living in memories means you are living in the past. Living in fear means that you are living in the future. Living in confidence, joy, hope, and love means you are living in the present, in the arms of the Lord.
The Israelites had endured their forty years in the wilderness. In that time Moses had, as God’s spokesman, guided them. For forty years God had provided for all of their basic needs. After those forty years nearly all of the adults of the huge group of people who had previously rejected God’s Promised Land were dead. They refused to believe that it would be possible for them to be victorious in taking the land. Only the two faithful ones, Joshua and Caleb, remained. God led them back to the eastern border of the land He had told them would be their possession, and through the new leader, Jacob, God assured them that it was time for their victory.
However, the eastern border of the land was defined by the Jordan river, which at that time of the year was swollen with flood waters. The kings of the nations in the area who would oppose the people of God, assumed they had at least a month or two until the river’s water level went down so that Israel could cross.
The people marched toward the Jordan, and there is no record of them complaining or doubting. Joshua said to them: “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.” Joshua 3:5
Forty years earlier the people of God’s covenant pulled back in fear, doubt, and rebellion. Now, hearing Joshua’s words they hurried forward with excitement, eager to see what God was going to do.
At God’s command, as the people approached the river, the priests led the way carrying the ark of the covenant. When they entered the water’s edge the raging river stopped flowing. The river “piled up in a heap a distance away” Joshua 3:16
The people of God crossed the Jordan and entered into the Promised Land. The scripture doesn’t record that the people had anything to say about this amazing event. They simply obeyed. When all the people had crossed, Joshua commanded that an altar of remembrance be constructed to remind them of what God had done.
The only words that could be used to describe the hearts of the Israelites would be confidence and obedience. With absolute and unquestioned confidence in the love, the power, and the will of God, they walked through the river. This act should have reminded them of their parents and grandparents who crossed the Red Sea in much the same way. But that crossing occurred through pure desperation and did not lead to confident faith. It was only through forty years of trial in the wilderness that words like “confident faith” would describe them. The result of confident faith is unquestioned obedience. None cried out as their parents had that it would have been better to have been left alone in Egypt. No, they had come to trust in the power and the love of God.
Meanwhile, the kings and the people of the land God had promised in His covenant to Abraham’s descendants had their own reaction to the news of the river crossing. We read in Joshua 5:1-2 Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted in fear and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.
Those who knew that they were acting faithfully, and therefore were safe in the arms of God, did what would have seemed to be impossible. They didn’t doubt, or fear, or hesitate, or complain, or rebel. They simply obeyed, and they did so without any remarkable problems.
The kings of the area knew that they had set themselves against the Lord God Almighty, for they had worshipped evil-false gods and lived evil lives. Knowing this, they reacted quite differently. “their hearts melted in fear and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.”
Very soon God’s people would face another impossibility. They were to go to Jericho and claim victory. We know of Jericho’s supposed invincibility. It was the most fortified city in the world. Its’ three layers of walls were high and thick, and the armies within the walls were mighty.
One of the very powerful verses of scripture is Joshua 6:2, and it is a verse we don’t often notice: Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.”
God said this as Joshua and the people drew near to the city. No one argued. No one doubted. No one ran away. They obeyed and the walls fell down.
We may feel as though we have been, for the past couple of years anyway, been wandering in the wilderness. Is it time for our victory? I won’t speculate on the Lord’s timing, but I do know this: only when we humbly accept the will of God and obey will victory be ours. Perhaps we can fill in the blank of God’s promise to us today:
“See, I have delivered _____ into your hands” Trust in God for your needed victory. Living in that confidence, which is revealed in humble obedience, is the key.
Vern