Hello, my “Walking with Jesus” friends all around the world,
If you are a parent or grandparent, you’ve probably had a conversation with your children or grandchildren in which you tried to help them understand that the experience they were having was very, very similar to an experience you had a generation or two ago? Can you remember such a multi-generational conversation?
Come back with me, 3400 years to a place called Gilgal. Do you know its significance? This is the place Joshua and more than 1 million Israelites camped and spent their FIRST night in the land of God’s promise, after they had crossed the Jordan river! Yesterday I left you there so let’s return to find out what happened next. Joshua has just piled up the 12 big rocks which were carried from right where the priests stood holding the Ark of the Covenant on their shoulders, in the middle of the dry Jordan riverbed, while all the people, their families and their belongings, crossed over from the desert into this wonderful new homeland God had promised Abraham nearly 500 years before! Joshua is speaking and he’s having a multi-generational conversation as I suggested you and I have probably had with our kids or grandkids: ‘”In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these rocks mean?’ tell them, “Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground!’ For the LORD your God dried up the Jordan river before you until you had crossed over. The LORD your God did to the Jordan river what He had done to the Red Sea when He dried it up before US until WE had crossed over...” (Joshua 4:21-23)
You heard it, didn’t you, my friends? Joshua did what you and I have done. Joshua challenged the two generations standing before him that day, to recognize that both his generation and theirs had experienced the mighty, miraculous work of God! As Joshua looked out over the sea of faces NONE of them had been older than 20 years old when God freed the Hebrew slaves from Egypt. Those before Joshua that day, from age 40-60 had been children and teens as they ran out of Egypt with their parents that Passover night. Those younger than 40 had been born in the desert during those 40 harsh years of wandering. Only two people among the more than 1 million, were older than 60 years old that day… Joshua and Caleb! Do you remember why?
Numbers 13 and 14 have that story. Joshua and Caleb had been selected by Moses to join 10 other trusted young Israelite leaders, one from each tribe of Israel, to go in from Kadesh Barnea and investigate the land of promise and return to Moses with a report. They did go in and spent 40 days touring the land.
Upon their return 10 of these young men gave a frightening report which spread fear among the people, and only Joshua and Caleb called the people to remember all God had done in the past and urge them to trust God and follow GOD into the land. The people rejected Joshua and Caleb’s appeal and refused God’s offer of this new land. In response God promised that ONLY Joshua and Caleb, among all those over age 20 in the entire Israelite camp, would survive the 40 years in the desert and enter the land of promise!
Did you notice how Joshua called the people, who stood before him that day at Gilgal, to recognize how God had miraculously dried up the Jordan for them very similarly to how God opened the Red Sea for their parents and grandparents more than 4 decades before, as they fled Egypt?!
And now let’s listen as Joshua explains WHY God had done such great miracles for these Israelites in both generations: “God did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God!” (Joshua 4:24) Now THAT is a powerful statement, would you agree?
Oh, my friends this is so very critical! Do you understand that the great miracles God does in your part of the world and mine; in your city and mine; in your extended family and mine; even in your life and mine… are so the world can see and know the uniqueness of the LORD God Almighty! The prophet Isaiah spent several chapters clarifying this. From Isaiah 40-48, over and over again, God says “I am the LORD God who created the heavens and earth. Beside Me there is no other god!” And God wants every person in the world to understand and embrace that great truth! And that’s why God does the great miracles that He does! And also, that those of us who have already begun a relationship with the One, True God will, as a result of these miracles, deepen our relationship with Him and live in awe of God every day the rest of our lives! May I ask, is that how you have responded to the miraculous things God has allowed you to experience in your life?
Here’s an even bigger question: how have the people who know you and the things going on in your life responded when God has done amazing things in your life? I wonder if you remember what our friend the apostle Paul wrote in his second letter to the Christians in Corinth. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old is gone and the new has come, and all this is from God… We are therefore Christ’s AMBASSADORS as though God is making His appeal [to the world] through us!” (2 Cor.5:17,20) So, my friends, how is God making HIS appeal to the world through what God is doing IN your life and mine? How is your world and mine responding?
Listen to what Joshua records for us as how the people who heard about this Jordan river miracle responded: “Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan river and all the Canaanite kings along the Mediterranean coast heard how the LORD had dried up the Jordan river before the Israelites until they had all crossed over, their hearts melted in fear and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.” (Joshua 5:1) Do you see it my friends? Word evidently spread very quickly from Gilgal to that entire region of the land, even all the way to the Mediterranean coastal peoples!
As we saw in Joshua 2 the God of the Israelites had a reputation in the city of Jericho, and far and wide in that region! They had heard about the plagues in Egypt and the Red Sea opening so the fleeing Hebrew slaves could escape the pursuing Pharoah. But that was 40 years ago, and I wonder how often you and I find ourselves asking for God to do something fresh and new because we don’t want to live on the memories of long ago? Now with this new generation, and this new great miracle of drying up the flooded Jordan river, word spread quickly! The God of the Hebrews was still as powerful, still as directly involved in protecting and guiding these Israelites, as He had been 40 years before when their parents and grandparents had fled Egypt running through the water tunnel of the Red Sea.
I think multi-generational, frightened conversations were happening in homes throughout the region from Jericho all the way to the Mediterranean. Grandparents were gathering their kids and their grandkids around campfires to tell them what they had heard 40 years ago, about what God had done in Egypt. And I imagine those grandparents were cautioning their kids and grandkids to be very careful how they handled these Israelites, for the Almighty God, traveling with these Israelites, could open the Red Sea and dry up the flooded Jordan river, so He could escort His people into the land!
Let’s pause and reflect. When was the last time you gathered the younger generations of your family around you and told them the great stories of your past, of your ancestors’ past, which declare the majesty and greatness of God? Do you understand the power of that my friends? Here’s a wonderful worship song, sung by the younger generation, thanking God for ancestors who knew God and God’s faithfulness to them!
Today’s Scripture is Joshua 4:21-5:1.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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