Brian Maloy

Our study this week is over Joshua 3:14-4:9, but we have to begin in the start of Joshua 3. Let’s read first — and let God’s Word speak. 

Joshua leads God’s people right up to the Jordan, and they stay there. We know that the Jordan was in flood season during the harvest. I looked up what that means for the river…

So a few helpful details:

1. They were crossing the Jordan right across from Jericho. 
2. This means they were crossing closer to the Dead Sea.
3. I learned that this is where the river is actually narrower NOW, but then during flood season it overflows its banks a lot.
4. Potentially at this season, the river would have been 10-12 feet deep, and possibly 100-300ft wide. 
5. Evidently it also was not just slow wide flooded river, but raging often because of the snowmelt from Mt. Hermon. 
6. The water stopped 15-20 miles upstream!

So God’s people have been camping by a wild river, without a ford or bridge. In most ways still today, a deal breaker. I have watched enough outdoor shows to know, this is folly. But as we can expect, this a perfect moment for God to show up — why would the creator of the snow on Mt. Hermon, the author of this new Promised Land, the faithful Yahweh — not be able to make a perfect way in only His fashion?

But we also see God confirming Joshua’s leadership — lots of cool parallels with He and Moses today. 

AMAZING miracles are to come. Let’s dig into our study more. 

Preface

Think about this — what are the “memorials” in your life that you often look back to? Things that help you remember? Things that are significant? 

Maybe you can’t think of any personal ones per se. But do you recall those of your family? Amazing things they endured? Crazy circumstances that still are talked about years later? 

Just the past couple weeks, Cyclists have traversed from Cherokee, NC to Tahlequah, OK to “Remember the Removal”, commemorating the horrors and sorrow of the Trail of Tears. I’ve always admired them, and secretly wanted to do it myself with them — but nevertheless, it’s this amazing memorial that serves to help us not forget this cataclysmic event that happened nearly 200 years ago. 

These things are important — and in all seriousness, God reminds us over and over to not forget, to teach our children, to tell what He has done. I was pondering this idea of the last week, I have heard the adage “we can’t live in the past”, and “if we don’t study history we’re doomed to forget it”, and probably other similar things. While there is certainly truth to those, I kept wondering how it might intersect with the commands from God to not forget, to remember to share, to tell His story and faithfulness? 

I don’t think I have an answer yet… but I will purposefully rest on the commands we see in scripture (Deuteronomy 4:9–10, Deuteronomy 6:6–7, Deuteronomy 6:12, Deuteronomy 8:2, Deuteronomy 8:11–14, Deuteronomy 11:18–21, Joshua 4:6–7, Psalm 78:4–7, Psalm 103:2, Psalm 105:5, Malachi 3:16), versus worrying how to fit those all together. And today — we see this reality played out in our passage, Joshua and the 12 Tribes purposefully set a reminder of God’s provision brining them into the Promised Land. 

I think it’s worthy of remembering as we study today — 
Find ways to remember God’s presence and work in your life too. 
Big or small — we are called to remember His faithfulness. 

Joshua 3:14-17

I love understanding more of this narrative. The flooded nature of the river is important context that was previously lost on me. I live near a large tributary of the Mississippi, actually I also live close to the Mississippi… BUT, I love driving to go see when the river is swollen. There is something powerful and mysterious about it. I have always lived around water, and floods have been part of my life as far back as I can recall.

• Living in Fenton, creek flooding up our backyard when young. 
• Living in Hill Country, massive floods blocking us in our neighborhood.
• Living back in Sunset Hills and on the hills over the river watching it swell.
• Living in Bolivar during college and camping near Pomme de Terre River when it wasn’t in flood. 
• Living in Colorado in the summers, lots of small streams flooding with initial snowmelt in summer.
• Even now, in Concord Village, I live a little less close to a river — but regularly spending time in water, near water, and watching water. 

Here though, the Israelites are right by a massively swollen powerful river. They cannot hop in their late-model Highlander and drive back to higher ground, or find a different path — they have a direction they know they’re headed, Jericho, directly across the river. 

The Jordan River is a LARGE powerful intimidating barrier. 

For humans… but not for God, the maker of the water drops that fell as snow on Mt. Herman and melted to flow downriver later in the season. 

Think about that though — why are barriers important in our spiritual journeys? What are we to learn from barriers along the way?

Again…
We can’t necessarily drive away.
We can’t always reroute.
You can’t wait for the waters to recede.
You can’t go around.
The only way forward is through.

That’s the spiritual pattern we’re seeing that God is laying out. 
So why again are barriers important?

• Barriers expose our limits
• But also reveal God’s power
• Barriers can help grow faith
• They can shape our memory/memorials
• Barriers can prepare us for battles ahead

Barriers are often where God teaches us who He is, who we are, and how to walk with Him. Praise the Lord for barriers. 

Joshua 4:1-7

So if creating memorials, if remembering is so important — what’s the danger in failing to remember important events in our lives?

So when we look at Joshua 4, this all needs to be understood in light of what we JUST read in Joshua 3. Remember that. 

This is an important moment of obedience. It’s a big contrast from the generation of Hebrews before… they are obedient here, with something that seems relatively insignificant, that bodes well for the obedience to be expected of them soon. 

This section if very narrative driven, but I think there is MUCH that we can gain by asking questions relating to this moment in the life of God’s people.

Possible Questions (sometimes for Sunday School I have lots ready to go just in case):

• What do these stones mean — What “stones of remembrance” has God placed in your life that you need to stop, name, and carry forward so you don’t forget His faithfulness?
• Why does God command remembering — Why is remembering so central to spiritual formation, and what happens to us when we drift into forgetfulness?
• How has God brought you through deep waters — When you look back at your own “Jordan crossings,” where can you see God making a way where there was no way?
• What will your children ask you someday — If your kids or grandkids pointed to a moment in your life and asked, “What does this mean?”, what story of God’s faithfulness would you want to tell them?
• Where is God calling you to remember publicly — Israel’s stones were not private souvenirs but public testimony. Where might God be calling you to speak openly about His work in your life?
• What do you need to carry out of the riverbed — The stones were taken from the middle of the Jordan. What lessons, wounds, or graces from your hardest places is God asking you to carry forward as markers of His presence?
• How does remembering fuel obedience — How does recalling God’s past faithfulness strengthen your courage to obey Him in the present?
• What story will these stones tell the nations — God says the stones are for “all the peoples of the earth.” How might your testimony of God’s deliverance point others toward Him?

Joshua 4:8-9

I love this part. They took 12 stones FROM the Jordan to remember. 
But Joshua also placed 12 stones IN the Jordan. 

Some commentators say this is the same set of 12 stones — removed from the Jordan by each tribe, but then placed back in the River where the priests stood with the Ark of the Covenant. Regardless, great testimony!

I always wonder — and hope — are those 12 stones still there today? Scripture says that, but we know it could have meant when this was written. But I can hope 🙂 

In the end, the river would have covered this stones anyway, even if they remained. Which I suppose we can view this that not all memorials are not necessarily meant to be seen, but remembered. 

In light of that… how can our own past experiences, of that of our family/friends, strengthen our faith?

How can we pass on those faith stories, what God has done, to future generations? Why do we fail to do this?

I just read recently that most younger people today have NO idea about their ancestors even a generation or two back. They can’t tell you where their people came from, where they lived, what jobs they held, certainly not what convictions they held. 
— and that this lack of family history is tied to weaker identity formation.

Wrap Up

Psalm 78:4-7 –> the command to tell the next generation so “they should set their hope in God.”

Friends, let us heed these words well. 
Let us memorialize the moments where God provides, shows His faithfulness, sustains us, comforts us, guides us, glorifies Himself. 

Not only does this help us remain steadfast, it also helps us share the Good News of the Gospel with others. We don’t always feel equipped to share the Gospel, but we can share our story, how God has been faithful and good. 

So again — let us finish with those words from Psalm 78:4-7, let this along with our story from Joshua today cause us to hold fast and memorialize the faithfulness of God, and teach it to those who come after us.