September 13th, 2026: Israel Remembers God's Deeds | Joshua 4:14-24

There is a stone, across from my church, which bears the name of my lifetime hero, my dad.  On the stone is recorded his name and the span of his earthly life, but on the back, a promise.  While I can’t bear to think of what we surrendered there, I rejoice to remember what we look forward to seeing when the resurrection power of God is revealed.  As Paul said, “sown in weakness, raised in power.”  Jesus’s  words from John 14 testify from that stone, “In my father’s house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you.”  My dad  often called those the most gracious words ever spoken, because God would not allow us to suffer the pain of this life for a lie.  Heaven is real, and it was prepared for us.  God’s promises can be trusted.  

When God spoke to Joshua, after the death of Moses, his hero, about the calling He was placing on Joshua’s life to lead His people, He assured Joshua that He would be with him just as He had been with Moses.  God offered His presence, His leadership, and His protection.  The Jordan River was flooded and dangerous when God commanded Joshua and the entire congregation to cross over it.  The situation looked impossible, but Joshua believed God and told the leaders of the 12 tribes to prepare their people to cross in three days.  

In the Bible, stones marked significant transformation. They marked the place where the past was laid to rest, and new life began.  God traced the history of his covenant relationship with the family of Israel with the placement of monuments He commanded them to build.  They were for teaching the next generation, encouraging faith in the word of God, and remembering where God had brought them from and that their journey wasn’t over.  

¹⁴ On that day the Lord magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they feared him, as they feared Moses, all the days of his life.

On the day of the crossing, the look of the river hadn’t changed, magical boats did not appear, everything looked as bad as it had on the first, but Joshua sent the priests to cross first, believing that God would make a way for him, just as he had done with Moses.  When the priests bearing the Ark of the Covenant placed their feet in the swollen river bed, the water parted, and the path was dry.  They did not see the miracle until they took a step in faith. The people were delivered, as they had been at the Red Sea, God was faithful.  The priests remained in the river until the last one had crossed, bearing the testimony of God on their shoulders.

¹⁵ And the Lord spake unto Joshua, saying,

¹⁶ Command the priests that bear the ark of the testimony, that they come up out of Jordan.

¹⁷ Joshua therefore commanded the priests, saying, Come ye up out of Jordan.

¹⁸ And it came to pass, when the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord were come up out of the midst of Jordan, and the soles of the priests' feet were lifted up unto the dry land, that the waters of Jordan returned unto their place, and flowed over all his banks, as they did before.

The river returned to the flooded mess that it had been before, but the people were changed.  This was the river they had refused to cross forty years earlier, when they had sent spies to examine the “promised land.”  Their fears had been greater than their faith.  Joshua and Caled had been the only spies who had believed God on that day, and here they were a second time.  Now, when the river closed behind them, it marked a transition from wandering slaves to a conquering army.  

¹⁹ And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericho.

²⁰ And those twelve stones, which they took out of Jordan, did Joshua pitch in Gilgal.

²¹ And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones?

²² Then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land.

²³ For the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red sea, which he dried up from before us, until we were gone over:

²⁴ That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the Lord your God for ever.

They carried those stones from the middle of the river; they were representative of the families that God had delivered that day.  Twelve tribes built a monument, at the request of God, to mark a change.  Symbolically, something was buried in that river, and something else came out from it.  It reminds me of our salvation.  When I became a child of God, by His grace through faith in the work of His Son, my change was commemorated by the act of baptism.  Into the water, we are a picture of the death of the old man buried with Christ.  Out of the water we are a picture of the new birth in freedom, a soul made alive in Christ, never to die.  We mark our born again experience as a living monument to what Jesus did for us.  

Why set up a memorial for 12 stones?  God told them someday someone who wasn’t here will ask you what the stones mean.  And you will tell them that you crossed on dry land.  The way you came was not one that you made, it was the hand of God that made it possible.  He said, use these stones to teach your children that God brought you through and He can do the same for them.  Someday, the whole world could look and remember the stones and the testimony to the faithfulness and greatness of God and they will know that God is mighty and they will have fear and respect for His power.  

You are the lively stones, you are a body of Christ, you are the witness that needs to explain to the world that you have crossed over the river into a life free in Christ, and that God made it possible.  He saved you, He keeps you, and He can do the same for them.  Stop and take a moment, and bear witness to what only God can do!

Thank you for studying with us! God bless!