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Joshua III.
R ECAPITULATE. What was Joshua's chief characteristic? Courage. What will do most to make our lives courageous? Remember illustration last lesson of your being sent to Africa. Repeat it. That was Joshua's faith.
Now comes a test of this faith in God. What? They knew that the river Jordan in high flood (v. 15) had to be crossed. No bridge. Dangerous, impossible to attempt marching through a deep river with an enemy watching to swoop down on them at the crossing. Did Joshua give up? Not he! He had been commanded to march on. But the people surely were puzzled and afraid. "How can we? We shall surely be stopped when we come to the river."
People are often like that still when they see a duty before them and it seems impossible to do it. What should they do? If it be clearly a duty which they feel God wants done better go straight ahead and try it at any rate and leave result with God. People are often frightened unnecessarily at difficulties which vanish when they come up to them. E.g., the women going to tomb of Jesus on Easter morning. Who shall roll us away the stone? Women could not attempt to move the great rock at door of tomb. What happened? When they came they found the stone had been rolled away. So they had been worrying unnecessarily. Just like that here.
Joshua knew that God would make it possible for them. What did he command? (v. 5). Sanctify yourselves. Why? How? Clothes washed and pure. God taught them like children by object-lessons. Must be clean and pure drawing near to God's presence. Sanctify their hearts too in preparation—examine themselves about the past, repent of all wrong, resolve henceforth to serve God better. Just like people before Holy Communion.
So they came to the banks of the Jordan all frightened, excited. Then with astonishment and awe and gratitude in their hearts they saw—what? The river went dry before their eyes. Somewhere far back the river stopped flowing and the lower waters flowed away to the sea, leaving a dry river bed for the people to cross! How could the river stop flowing? By a miracle from God. Perhaps God did it by what would seem to us a natural occurrence. It has been suggested that somewhere far back was a narrow gorge of the river and that a great landslide fell in there and stopped the river for hours. It is interesting here to notice that there is a record by an Arabic chronicler telling of the sudden damming of the Jordan by a landslide in A.D. 1267. (See Hasting's Dictionary of Bible, article Joshua.) Maybe something like that happened here. If so would it be less a miracle of God? Why? Because a landslide happening just at the critical moment is as miraculous as any other miracle. For example, in 1588, when the great Spanish Armada was about to crush England, and the people in their dread were calling upon God—just in the crisis of their danger a great storm came that blew the Spanish fleet irresistibly northward and ruined their whole expedition. A storm was quite a natural thing, but the English people looked on it as an answer to their prayers and lifted up their hearts to God in thanksgiving for a great deliverance.
We do not at all know that there was a landslide at the Jordan. We are only guessing. We only know the belief of the people as told us in the book that the waters far above were stopped and the waters below flowed on to the sea. And that Joshua and his people bowed with wonder and gratitude before God and set up a memorial (ch. iv.), a caisson of great stones from the Jordan piled up at the crossing place where God had done this mighty deed for Israel, and that the Canaanites heard that the Lord had dried up Jordan before the feet of the children of Israel and their hearts melted, neither was there spirit in them any more because of the children of Israel (ch. v. 1).
Now what do we learn from this story? Let the class
guess the answers, and then emphasize for them these
(1) That God is what Joshua called Him, "the living God," "the Lord of all the earth," master of all the powers of nature, ruler of all the nations of the earth. That He is looking down still on all peoples, the Friend of all righteousness, the enemy of all evil. That in the recent Great War He was looking down and caring and listening to prayers as in the days of Israel and the Canaanites. He is still the living ruling God.
(2) That no matter what obstacles are in the path of a duty, if we are sure it is God's will then that makes it God's command and we must go straight ahead like Joshua and trust Him and leave results to Him. Deal especially with the duties and difficulties likely to come to your pupils. Then close with the thought that God's presence is as sure to us as it was to Joshua. He can lead us through all struggles—through all human opposition and at the end of the life battle lead us across the Jordan of death into the Promised Land beyond.
What was the first test of faith of Joshua and his host?
What religious direction did he give the people before coming to Jordan?
What did they find when they came to the river?
Tell of instance in secular history somewhat like this.
If it happened through a landslide would it be less a miracle? Why?
What lesson here about God?
What lesson about duty?