THE PASSAGE OF THE JORDAN
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Joshua 3:1-6
THE PRESENCE OF GOD
Joshua had received the evening before, through their officers, the reply of the people to the charge which he had given (chap. Joshua 1:16-18). Their unanimous and ardent fealty must have filled this fine-spirited man with thankfulness to God, and given him good hope in the people: “And Joshua rose early in the morning.”
1. God gives us encouragements, not merely for our joy, but for action. The Lord loves the praise of His people; He loves it best when the songs of their lips are set to harmony with the tread of feet that run in the way of His commandments, and with the noise of labour made by hands which hasten to do His will. Mere praise is like a tune in one part; it is only a theme, pleasant for the moment as a solo, but poor and thin and insufficient, unless followed by these harmonies of labour.
2. God gives His servants the confidence of men, that they may use it promptly for the good of men. Nothing sooner loses its beauty and fades than the unused confidence reposed in us by our fellows. Changing the figure, service is, at once the exercise and the bread of trust; and when a leader does not use the confidence given him by those about him, he is simply allowing it to stiffen and die. He who hears over-night, “All that thou commandest us we will do,” had better rise “early in the morning,” and begin to turn this spirit of obedience to good account. This, again, cannot be better done than by leading the people manifestly nearer, not simply to their leader’s, but also to their own inheritance.
3. God gives some men wisdom to see into the possibilities of the future, but he who can read events to come should be careful not to disappoint his auditors. (Chap. Joshua 1:11, with Joshua 3:2.)
Thus the first two verses of this paragraph lead up to the important subject of the Divine presence, on which much stress is laid in the four verses that follow.
I. The sign for the special movement of God’s people is God’s presence going before them.
1. It is noteworthy that in both the Old and New Testaments this is repeatedly made the sign for going forward. This was the case during the marches of the wilderness; the pillar of fire and cloud preceded the host. David at Baal-perazim was to know that the Lord went out before him when he heard “the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees;” not till then was he to go forward to the battle. What else was the waiting for Pentecost by the men who were to tarry in the city of Jerusalem for this preceding presence of God? It was of no avail for even apostles to go, till God went before them. They were men of good ordinary ability, they had recollections of the Saviour’s example to guide them, and glorious memories of His love to inspire them; yet they were to tarry, as though they were helpless as children, waiting for the promise, of the Father. The Saviour’s words, “Without me ye can do nothing,” are written not simply in the Gospel of John, but throughout the Bible.
2. The Pillar of Fire and Cloud, and the Ark of the Covenant, were the two and only visible guides, indicating God’s presence, that the Israelites had to accompany them in their journeys. There is one feature which is common to them both: in times of rest they were with the people, in times of marching the Cloud always and the Ark sometimes went before them. Resting, the Cloud stood over the camp; marching, it went before the people. The Ark, too, was set up in the middle of the camp, and in ordinary marches was carried in the midst of the Israelites; but in a great emergency like this the Ark leads the way. Surely all this is significant, and intended not merely for the Jews; read in the light of the tarrying for Pentecost, does it not seem “written for our admonition”? God’s presence with us should always lead to praise, worship, and work; there are, however, solemn seasons in the history of the Church when God seems manifestly to go before His people, and then both Testaments teach that His people must follow. There must be no resting then, nor are ordinary methods of worship and work sufficient for periods like these. Does not this comprehend all great revival movements in the history of the Church, not excepting that which has recently excited so much attention throughout England, and is now stirring the multitudes of London to new thought and intense feeling? Is God with this work? Are men being saved, and helped to turn to holiness? If so, energy of this kind does not come from beneath, neither is this the manner of man. There cannot be the least doubt that ordinary methods of teaching and training are good for ordinary times; but ought we not to be prepared for God to sometimes go altogether before us? And if it be God who goes before, we must follow,—follow gladly, heartily, and earnestly. The Ark of His presence may get quite out of the usual track, it may wander even into the bed of the river; timid Israelites may fear lest it should be swept away in the flood; yet, if it be His presence, they will do well to follow, for even this unusual way leads to a rich inheritance for the teeming thousands of the people, who till it is trodden only experience the bitterness of a grievous bondage, and the possession of a barren desert. Holy fear and holy caution may be well, and none should be angry or harsh with any who are moved thereto, for things are not so visible to sense now as on the banks of the Jordan; yet those who fear harm from the flood of unusual feeling may do well to remember that the Ark commands the waters, and not the waters the Ark.
II. Even when God is most manifestly present with His people, He ever leaves ample scope for faith.
1. The Pillar of Cloud was, at this time, probably withdrawn. The people had only the every-day Ark. That which for forty years had been a supernatural assurance that the Lord was with them, had probably vanished altogether. This could not but have been a trial to those who were weak in faith.
2. Although the passage was to take place on the morrow, it does not seem that the people at this time had any idea of the manner in which it was to be made.
3. When they arrived at the river, much firmness would be needed by them all. Think of the faith required by those who were the first to cross, and of the demand made by the accumulated body of water on the trust of those who crossed last. However much faith may be taxed when we see few signs of God’s presence, let none think that poor faith will suffice when God is manifestly with us. Faith is taxed then more than ever. True, it has blessed encouragements, but the encouragements are not given for nothing. Those whom the Lord most helps, have temptations to unbelief which His ordinary servants know little of, and from which the boldest might well shrink. He is but poorly taught, who thinks that any of God’s children on earth ever walk by sight.
III. The consciousness of God’s presence best goes with deep reverence and profound humility. The people were not to come near the Ark by a space of more than half a mile. With so much reason to love God for His mighty works on their behalf, it is just at the point where His goodness should provoke love, that His wisdom finds an occasion to teach them reverence. Glowing with thankfulness for Divine help, the very distance at which they are kept teaches them to walk “in awe, and sin not.” The advance of the Ark for nearly three quarters of a mile in front was calculated no less to teach them humility. There was the Ark, borne only by a few weak priests quite away from its armed guard, and right in the direction of the enemy. It should have been enough to make Israel say once for all, “We can do nothing to protect that. Our many thousands of armed men are not needed to guard the Ark, however much, as these rising waters teach us, they may need the Ark to defend them.” Thus we have an inter-working of several things: Mighty works are wrought, which tend to provoke love, love must not forget reverence, triumph must go with humility; and then we are taught incidentally by the distant Ark that the position of reverence and humility is after all the very best position in which to see God. Had the Ark been close to the people, few would have seen it; the distance that is favourable for right feelings is also best for clear perception.
1. The tendencies of love to familiarity. Flippant thoughts; flippant quotations of Divine words; flippant prayers.
2. The tendencies of reverence to a cold and stately formality. God loves this no better than irreverence. David is called the man after God’s own heart; seemingly this was most of all on account of his enthusiasm.
IV. Reverence is nothing, and humility is nothing, unless there be also holiness. “Sanctify yourselves.”
1. Holiness is to be the rule of God’s people in every-day life. Luther said, “Holiness consisteth not in a cowl or a garment of gray. When God purifies the heart by faith, the market is sacred as well as the sanctuary; neither remaineth there any work or place which is profane.”
“We need not bid, for cloister’d cell,
Our neighbour and our work farewell:
The trivial round, the common task,
Would furnish all we ought to ask;
Room to deny ourselves; a road
To bring us, daily, nearer God.”—Keble.
2. Yet there are solemn seasons in our lives, which demand our special consecration to God. The very work that we do, the journey that we take, the new period of life on which we enter, the special tokens which we have of God’s presence; these, in themselves, may urge on us this old commandment, “Sanctify yourselves.”
3. Remember that “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” It is said that an atheist, well known to the late Bp. Wilberforce, once contemptuously and flippantly accosted him by saying, “Good morning, sir: Can you kindly tell me the way to heaven?” With dignity and wisdom quite equal to the occasion, the Bishop is said to have immediately answered, “Turn to the RIGHT, and then go straight on.” Salvation is through Jesus Christ only; it is never by works, it is also never without works.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Joshua 3:1-2. THE PENALTIES OF GREATNESS
I. Great encouragements are to be followed by diligent service. The people gladly owned Joshua as their leader, and Joshua at once began to enter on his arduous service. He “rose early,” and set to work diligently. (See introduction to previous discourse.) It is said that when an ancient Roman was once accused of witchcraft, in drawing away the fertility of his neighbours’ lands into his own, because he had great crops and theirs were but small, he had brought with him to the place of trial his well-fed oxen, his industrious servants, and the instruments of his husbandry: pointing to them in the presence of his judge, he exclaimed, “These are the instruments of my witchcraft, which I diligently apply, and besides these I use none.” The idle find that nothing prospers; the diligent, that there is little which fails. God’s blessing comes to men through their efforts, not instead of them.
II. The avowal of the public confidence should be succeeded by prompt efforts for the public good.
1. No one will trust for long those who are slothful.
2. Self-seeking is even worse than idleness. Joshua, in his energy, sought not so much an inheritance for himself, as for all the people.
“Self-love thus pushed to social, to divine,
Gives thee to make thy neighbour’s blessing thine.
Is this too little for the boundless heart?
Extend it, let thy enemies have part.
Grasp the whole world of Reason, Life, and Sense,
In one close system of Benevolence:
Happier as kinder, in whate’er degree,
And height of Bliss but height of Charity.”
Pope.
III. The utterances of a God-taught mind are to be sustained by the most scrupulous fidelity. It was in no mere enthusiasm that Joshua had promised that the Jordan should be crossed in three days; even if it were so, he here shews himself faithful to his word. Lavater wrote: “Words are the wings of actions;” with too many they are wings to nothing but the tongue. How much higher than the common estimate of the dignity of speech was that of the late Canon Kingsley, when he gave utterance to the following thoughts: “What is it which makes men different from all other living things we know of? Is it not speech—the power of words? The beasts may make each other understand many things, but they have no speech. These glorious things—words—are man’s right alone, part of the image of the Son of God—the Word of God, in which man was created. If men would but think what a noble thing it is to be able to speak in words, to think in words, to write in words! Without words we should know no more of each other’s hearts and thoughts than the dog knows of his fellow dog; without words to think in, for if you will consider, you always think to yourself in words, though you do not speak them aloud; and without them all our thoughts would be mere blind longings, feelings which we could not understand ourselves. Without words to write in we could not know what our forefathers did—we could not let our children after us know what we do.”
If such be the dignity of speech, how sacred our words ought to be. Think of the careless words, the deceitful words, the vain words, the malicious words, the slanderous words, in which men sin with their tongues. No wonder, when we think of the high dignity and distinctive privilege of speech, that Jesus Christ should say, “Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment.” When the Saviour speaks thus of men generally, what manner of persons ought His disciples to be in all holy conversation and godliness? And when God gives to men special light, and a prominent position, how carefully they should speak, and with what holy fidelity should they seek to let none of their words fall to the ground.
If preferred, the subject of these two verses might be thrown into some such form as the following: I. The responsibilities imposed by great encouragements. II. The responsibilities imposed by the confidence of our fellows. III The responsibilities imposed by words based on superior know edge.
Joshua 3:3-4. FOLLOWING AFTER GOD.
I. He who follows God in His covenant must follow Him at all times and everywhere. Of what use would it have been for Israel to have marched after the pillar of cloud in the wilderness, where there were no rivers and no enemies, if they had refused to follow the ark through Jordan?
1. Men select the paths of life, even when conscience points clearly to one, and no better reason than personal preference can be found for the other. Even Christian men are found doing this. Unlawful callings, questionable companions; forbidden pleasures. Bye-Path Meadow looks fairer to walk in than the King’s highway, and men choose the pleasant, irrespective of where it leads.
2. Men select the principles which guide and direct life. Political society is made up of parties; it would be very interesting, but perhaps not a little humiliating, could we know how far father, mother, friends, and family traditions have had to do with the formation of these distinctive associations of men, and how far each member of political society has been guided and ruled by principles. Religious society is made up of many denominations; how far are these the outcome of taste, preference, and love of ease? It is not a little strange to think how many Christian men inherit not only their bodies from their parents, but also their consciences and their creeds. It is fashionable in high life to think much of descent, and to trace it through as many generations as possible: think of the divine historian writing down for our perusal presently the ancestry of our individual conscience, and the genealogy of our personal faith. What a book it will be! What a holy satire on ecclesiastical polemics, and on the enthusiasm of our Christian (!) controversies!
3. Men select the duties of life. Some are ignored as inconvenient, while others are performed because they are not so particularly troublesome; and when the process is over, the performer lies down to sleep, softly murmuring to himself as a preliminary dream, “I am a Christian; I am a Christian too.”
4. Men carry this idea of selection even to the precepts of the Bible. As Dr. Bushnell has forcibly pointed out, we have “respectable sin” and sin unrespectable, where the Scriptures make no such distinction. Fancy any church gravely proposing to exclude a member for being covetous or a railer. Yet these are deliberately included by the apostle with the fornicators and idolaters, with whom, if called brethren, he told the Corinthians not even to eat. People are quite willing to think that some of the sins named in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, are fatal to a Christian profession; judging by the love of money and the love of scandal current in many churches, they seem equally willing to forget that in these same verses it is said of extortioners, of the covetous, and of revilers, they “shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” With ever so much indignation against Darwin and Spencer, Tyndal and Huxley, the Church also has not only its theory but its practice of “Natural Selection,” and the “survival of the fittest.” The inconvenient commandments of God are pushed out of life, and left to weakness and death, while such as are thought bearable, and at the same time helpful to respectability, are selected as the essentials of piety, and made, according to the doctrine that prevails, the sign of a living faith or a direct passport to eternal life. O for more grace that shall lead Christians everywhere to say from the heart, “Lord, I will follow Thee withersoever Thou goest.”
II. He who follows God fully must be prepared for much walking by faith. He who “commits his way unto the Lord” will often be led to wonder at the strangeness of the path. There is no saying where the next steps will take him; they may lead into darkness quite beyond the power of human ken, and into depths where the only voice that reaches the ear will be simply one that says, “Take no thought for to-morrow.” This is not by any means the only instance where those who follow the Lord have had to walk through the place of mighty waters, and where the only thing seen interposing between themselves and destruction has been the covenant which told of help from an omnipotent Arm, and of love and sympathy and care from a Father’s heart.
III. He who follows God need have no fear; for when men really follow, God Himself goes before. God asks us to go nowhere and do nothing in which He is not willing to be with us. If God be with us, that is salvation; the very rocks will have water for our thirst, the skies manna for our hunger, the torrent a path for our feet, and even the walled cities will fail to lend to our adversaries any sufficient defence.
IV. He who follows God will constantly find himself walking in new paths. “Ye have not passed this way heretofore.” There will be new service, new experiences, new prayers, and new songs, till he shall enter into the heavenly inheritance, and take his part with celestial hosts in singing the song of the Lamb. The way down to death is ever the way to obscurity and contractedness, till it ends in the darkness and narrowness of the grave; the way after God is incessant development and increasing light, till it leads into the broad expanse of heaven, and into the effulgent brightness of the Divine presence and glory.
Joshua 3:4, last clause. SERMON FOR A NEW YEAR
When the Israelites heard the evil report of the ten spies, and rebelled against Moses, God said of all of them under twenty, “Your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years.” During that long period the people must have become very familiar with the desert; its principal geographical features would be known by heart to men who frequently crossed old tracks and re-trod old paths. Crossing the Jordan, the way would be strange and altogether new; it would be new, moreover, not merely in a geographical sense, but altogether, to most of them, a totally fresh kind of experience. That they might know this way, which they had not passed heretofore, they were to follow the ark, and follow it in such a manner that each could see i for himself. Time has strange paths an new experiences as well as territory, and the teaching of God to keep the Ark of the Covenant in sight is important, not only in the one case, but equally so in the other. We who “know not what a day may bring forth” may well wonder into what strange and new paths we may be led by a whole year. Happy is he who can walk every step with his faith directed to a present God, and his eye looking into that covenant which is “A lamp unto the feet and a light unto the path.”
I. The year upon which we have entered may bring new perplexities; therefore we should seek afresh the Divine guidance. Financially, socially, spiritually, the days may form a very labyrinth and maze about us. How are we to walk where our own discernment is insufficient, and when the wisdom of men would be only as the blind leading the blind? It is said that when Philip of Maccdon was about to set out on his Persian expedition, he sent to consult the oracle of Delphi as to the issue of the war. The answer was given with the usual ambiguity, “The bull is crowned, everything is ready, and the sacrificer is at hand,” a reply which would do equally well to foreshadow the king’s victory or depict his death. Within a few days Philip was slain with the sword of the assassin Pausanias. These old oracular utterances form a grim satire on the advice of men, not a little of which is given more with a view of avoiding responsibility, than of affording genuine direction. Jonah was by no means the last of the race who think more of the prestige of the prophet than of the fate of the city. What with human selfishness and human blindness, we often need better guidance than that of our fellows. He is led well and wisely who makes the Scriptures the man of his counsel,—who prays, “Shew me Thy ways, O Lord, teach me Thy paths;” for “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will shew them His covenant.”
II. The year may bring new afflictions; therefore we should each cultivate a closer union with God. He who forms a lowly habit of depending on Divine help, gradually gets his life rooted and grounded into the life of God. “Growing up into Him” who is our strength in days which are calm, we are not likely to fail in the day of tempest and storm. How the ivy clings to the strong oak, just because when the last rough wind which had loosened it ceased to blow, it began afresh to knit fibre to fibre, and ivy-root to oak bark, so as to be prepared for the trial that should come next. Nature uses her calms in preparing for her storms. So should we use the peace and prosperity of the present to anticipate the possible strife and adversity of the future.
III. The year may bring new temptations, and therefore calls on us to “watch and pray.” As we get older we are apt to grow into a careless feeling of security. Men virtually say, “I have stood, I do stand; therefore I shall stand.” Christian history should rather teach us to put it, “I have stood, I do stand; therefore I may grow careless and fall.” It was just after the destruction of Sodom which threw Abraham’s fidelity into prominence, by disclosing the fall of Lot and the guilt of the cities of the plain, that the father of the faithful denied his wife. It was the long-tried Moses who sinned at Meribah. It was after David had so long behaved himself wisely before Saul; after he had danced before the ark, written many a sweet song for Israel, and volunteered to build the temple, that he turned adulterer and murderer. It was long after his noble confession, at the end of all the miracles, and when he had for years delighted in the teaching and love of the Saviour, that Peter said, “I know not the man.”
IV. The year will discover new duties, and thus requires our re-consecration to the service of Christ. There will be new demands for work, new opportunities, and new responsibilities. The ardour and zeal of the past will suffice but poorly for the labour of the future. It was on “the first day of the first month” that this Ark of the Covenant was set up; it was God’s new year’s gift to encourage His people to a year of fresh work and worship. When David was called from the sheepfold to be a king, Samuel anointed him with oil in the name of the Lord; the new sphere and the new duties were anticipated in this customary act of formal consecration. So we need stage by stage throughout our lives “an unction from the Holy One.”
V. The year may bring new privileges, which we should be prepared to embrace. The new way will have new scenery, new possessions, new joys, and should have new songs. As a traveller in classic Rome, or among the mountains of Switzerland, provides himself with a guide, that he may see as many things and points of interest as possible, so we should be careful to search out the mercies which are “new every morning,” and often place ourselves where broad views of Divine greatness and love shall gladden our spirits and renew our life.
VI. The year may reveal a new life and a fresh inheritance; therefore we should be prepared for death. Our cold river may also have to be crossed. Shall we find on the other side the New Jerusalem, and one of the many mansions ready for us? Shall we find again, waiting for us there, our loved ones, who have already departed to be with Christ; and with them, and the whole host of the redeemed, take our part in the New Song?
I. The Lord’s wonderful works demanding His people’s special sanctification. This is by no means a solitary instance in which God requires His great works to be received by man with peculiar holiness. (Cf. Exodus 19:10; Numbers 11:18; Joel 2:15-32.) If the more wonderful workings of God are not met on our part by increased holiness, they will assuredly do us harm. The Pentecost that blessed three thousand, probably left a multitude in Jerusalem harder in their hearts than ever.
II. The Lord’s wonderful works demanding His people’s devoutest reverence. The priests carried the ark only on very solemn occasions. They, and not the Kohathites, were the bearers here. It was the same in the march around Jericho, and in other important events where God was, or was supposed to be, specially present. The same feeling was taught to Moses; with God before him in the burning bush, he was to put his shoes from off his feet; with God passing by, he was to hide himself in the cleft of the rock; and when God met His servant on Sinai, we are told that it was amidst such manifestations of power and majesty, that Moses said, “I exceedingly fear and quake.” Faber’s beautiful hymn, beginning
“My God, how wonderful Thou art!”
is written throughout with exquisite feeling, beautifully expounding the awe that should go with love, and the rapture that may mingle with our lowliest adoration.