How will you enter YOUR Promised Land? I want you to think on this, on the Red Sea with Moses and the River Jordan with Joshua. Because God says, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. The God of Moses and Joshua IS with you, if you consecrate yourself and stand firm on His Promise. I’m very moved by Joshua Chapter 1, where God is speaking to Joshua after the death of Moses, saying, “Now therefore, go over this Jordan with the people and enter the Land I have promised you, as I said to Moses… Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid. No man will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not fail you or forsake you!” I take a lot of courage from this. Despite all the difficulties in life, and even though we make mistakes – I am very conscious of mistakes that I have made – yet God has always been with me and has never failed me.
I’ve always been impressed by the crossing of the Red Sea, and by the walls of Jericho falling down. What I hadn’t put into context is that the people of Jericho were about to see the people of Israel crossing the Jordan! In Joshua 3, Joshua says to the people, “Sanctify yourselves, because tomorrow God will do wonders among you.” And to the priests he said, “Take up the Ark of the Covenant and pass over.” They took up the Ark and went ahead. And the Lord said to Joshua, “This day I will begin to magnify you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.” The greatest miracle with Moses was the crossing of the Red Sea, now Joshua, in v10, is prophesying another miracle saying, “Hereby you will know that the Lord God is among you and He will not fail to drive out before you all the inhabitants of the Land, behold the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord is passing over before you into Jordan.”
As the feet of the priests carrying the Ark dipped into the water (for the Jordan overflows its banks all the time of harvest), the waters stood up in a heap… Believe me, the river Jordan was much fuller in those times than it is now, and the Dead Sea into which Jordan flows was much higher then. These days, fresh water is being siphoned out of the Jordan to supply the needs of the dry Middle East countries, so that both the river and the Sea are drying up. In Biblical times the Jordan was much bigger, and in the time of harvest, was in flood. This was not just a matter of coming to a small trickling river and crossing over, it’s a fast-flowing tide.
As soon as the priests stepped into the flood, the waters stood up in a heap very far from the city, and the waters that flowed down to the Sea failed and were cut off, so that the priests stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the riverbed, and all Israel passed over towards Jericho!
Just as with Moses the greatest miracle was the crossing of the Red Sea – (and the whole might of the Egyptian army was destroyed as the waters closed back over them) – here we have a very similar miracle, in that not just Jericho, but the Jordan stood between Israel and the whole Promised Land. I had always thought that it was Jericho that was the problem. But how do you get two million people, with all their sheep and cattle, and their little children, across this fast-flowing river? But God worked the same miracle as He did for Moses and held up the water so that they crossed over on dry land!
So great was the miracle, Joshua commands twelve men, one from each tribe, to take a stone out of the river bed, and place them on the other side as a memorial; in the future, when their children asked, what are these stones, they were to say, they are a reminder that God was with us, that He opened the waters of the Jordan as He did the Red Sea, and we crossed over on dry land – so that all the people of the earth might know the Hand of the Lord, that He is mighty, and so that you would fear Him for ever. Joshua 4.