Dennis Tuuri

# Joshua Chapter 4 Sermon Transcript

Fourth chapter. Please stand for the reading of God’s command word. Joshua chapter 4, and I’ll read through verse one of chapter 5.

And it came to pass when all the people were clean passed over Jordan that the Lord spake unto Joshua, saying, “Take ye 12 men out of the people, out of every tribe a man, and command ye them saying, ‘Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priest’s feet stood firm, 12 stones, and you shall carry them over with you, and leave them in the lodging place where you shall lodge this night.’ Then Joshua called the 12 men whom he had prepared of the children of Israel, out of every tribe of man.

And Joshua said unto them, ‘Pass over before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of Jordan, and take you up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of the tribes of the children of Israel. This may be a sign among you, that when your children asked their fathers in time to come, saying, “What mean ye by these stones?” Then ye shall answer them, But the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, but it passed over Jordan.

The waters of Jordan were cut off. And these stones shall be for memorial unto the children of Israel forever. And the children of Israel did so as Joshua commanded, and took up 12 stones out of the midst of Jordan, as the Lord spake unto Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, and carried them over with them into the place where they lodged, and laid them down there.

And Joshua set up 12 stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place of the feet of the priests, which bear the ark of the covenant stood, and they are there unto this day. For the priests which bear the ark, stood in the midst of Jordan, until everything was finished, that the Lord commanded Joshua to speak unto the people, according to all that Moses commanded Joshua. And the people hasted, and passed over.

And it came to pass, when all the people were clean, passed over, that the Ark of the Lord passed over, and the priests in the presence of the people. And the children of Reuben, and the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh passed over armed before the children of Israel, as Moses spake unto them. About 40,000 prepared for war passed over before the Lord unto battle to the plains of Jericho.

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. And the Lord spake unto Joshua, saying, “Command the priest to bear the ark of the testimony that they come up out of Jordan. Joshua therefore commanded the priest, saying, “Come ye up out of Jordan.” And it came to pass, and the priests that bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord were come up out of the midst of Jordan, and the soles of the priest’s feet were lifted up unto the dry land, that the waters of Jordan returned under their place, and flowed over all its banks, as they did before.

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. And these 12 stones which they took out of Jordan did Joshua pitch in Gilgal. 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? Then you shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land.

For the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you until you were passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up from before us until we were drawn over.” Then all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, that you might fear the Lord your God forever.” And it came to pass when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until they were passed over, that their heart melted.

Neither was their spirit in them anymore because of the children of Israel.

We thank God for his command word and ask now in our Prayer of song that he might illuminate it to our hearts and understanding.

—

Okay, we’re continuing with our series of sermons going through the book of Joshua. Trying to do a chapter a week. And I appreciate your patience with me. I’ve never tried to do this before—preach through a book of the Bible so quickly and cover so much material—and I’m still kind of fine-tuning, maybe rough tuning, the approach and how to do that.

So I appreciate your patience. This morning I’m going to try a little different approach than we’ve done. I’m going to do an overview of the text first, simply to make sure we all understand what the chapter says and some of the significant elements of it, and then I’ll just try to draw out three highlights of the text in terms of application to us and what the text seems to be stressing in terms of biblical truth.

Chapter 4 is kind of a tying off of the crossing of the Jordan River. Chapters 3 and 4 both talk about that crossing. Chapter 1, of course, was the preparation for the people of God for the conquest. We talked about that in the first chapter of the book of Joshua. And you remember there that we said that there were four speeches that characterize chapter 1, indicate a line of command, of course, going on—God to Joshua to the officers to the people.

Then the response of the people is an obedient people. It’s all very important because that’s a theme we see repeated throughout these first few chapters. Very critical for an understanding of the conquest. We also said from that first chapter that it had military, covenantal, and social concerns. There were this is a host on the march, and in the middle of this chapter, chapter 4, you probably already recognize we have a little brief insertion.

It seems that there’s people equipped for war as they crossed the Jordan—the two and a half tribes who were going to actually have their homeland on the other, on the previous side of Jordan. There’s a military theme to it. There’s a covenantal theme with the ark of the covenant, the ark of testimony, and there’s a social theme as well with the 12 tribes being represented by the 12 stones erected as a memorial.

So these same themes are repeating from chapter 1. So these first four chapters really form a pretty good unit and give us a good introduction to what will become the rest of the book—the details of the conquest of the land.

In chapter 2, we talked about salvation and resurrection. That was Easter Sunday. Remember, we talked about Rahab and her profession of faith based upon the acts of God in history. Really very symbolic, emblematic of what our profession of faith in the historical acts of God through the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished. And the thing I really tried to stress was the relationship of that salvation message in the midst of the opening chapters of Joshua to the conquest of the land as a picture that salvation involves this conquest aspect or victory as well.

And of course, we said that the big picture of all of this is we’re not talking about wiping people out. We’re talking about converting people. We’re talking about bringing God’s order, putting feet to the prayer, “may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” There’s a heavenization process going on here that is emblematic of the heavenization process that goes on over the whole world once Jesus Christ comes and says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given into my hands.” He gives us then the command to go into all the earth and wherever our feet tread, victory is assured to us as well.

And this conquest to the preaching of the gospel is certainly a key—being key to what’s being pictured in chapter 2. But ultimately it is the preaching of the good news of the historic acts of God in history and the offer of salvation to people through the work of Christ that is the core motivating factor and the means by which the earth is heavenized.

Then last week we talked about the crossing of the Jordan itself and drew out some implications of that. And as I said, this is really sort of the second telling of that crossing. Chapter 3 forms a unit all by itself, but this goes back to describe some other things that happened in the context of that crossing.

So, let’s look at Joshua chapter 4 now. And we can you can follow along with me in your Bibles. We’ll just read through this again a little bit slower and make sure we know what’s going on here and how it correlates to chapter 3.

Okay? And we pick up another work out here: when it came to pass when all the people were clear passed over Jordan that the Lord spoken to Joshua saying—and I want you to notice there again, “all the people.” I’ve said this a couple of times, I’ll continue to say it as we go through this book. It is very significant that the terminology used—”all the people”—he could have just said, “well, the people crossed over,” but he emphatically points out the unity of the people of God in terms of this conquest action. So the whole social dimension is emphasized again here and will be throughout this chapter as well.

All the people, when they passed over Jordan, the Lord spoken unto Joshua, saying, “Take 12 men out of the people, out of every tribe of man, and command ye them.” Now, remember in chapter 3, we’d already seen this where God had told Joshua to take a man from every tribe, okay? To represent every tribe. We didn’t know what was going to happen with those men in chapter 3. So, now in chapter 4, he goes back to that and he tells us the story now of what those 12 men were all about and why they were chosen.

So, he says, “Command you them, take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priest’s feet stood firm, 12 stones, and carry them over with you and leave them in the lodging place where you shall lodge this night.”

The people were crossing the Jordan. And as everybody went across before the priest came out, God said, “Take those 12 guys now, send them back to where the priests are standing by their feet. And each one of them take up a stone and carry it back to where the people are now over on the other side of Jordan, at the place that will be identified for us in a couple of verses as Gilgal.”

So they take 12 stones up out of the bank of Jordan River, and take it onto where they are headed to. I might just mention here that it says “out of the midst of Jordan.” The word this—now remember the priests are not standing in the middle of the river. If we’re going, if we’re thinking in terms of the river being a mile wide, for instance, they weren’t half a mile in. Remember when the priest stood at the very edge of the water, the water piles up at Adam, cutting off the curse of Adam symbolically.

And cutting off the Dead Sea, result of the sea of the sin of Adam. That water piles back up there in a huge mound, 17 miles away, which they probably passed through the shadow of. But in any event, it was when their feet just touched the edge of the river—the first little bit of water to the Jordan, overflowing all of its banks at that time of year—that the water did that. So, the priests weren’t halfway in.

When it says “midst” here, you can either think of it as the Jordan being bisected. You know, we got the side on the left of us and the side to the right of us. The right was actually where Adam was. I said Adam over here. They were coming, you know, from the east into the west across Jordan this way. And so, the river mounded up on their right hand back at Adam. And the river Jordan was bisected, I suppose, in one sense, by that crossing there.

But the word “midst” doesn’t really mean halfway through at all. It just means in the context of, or the middle in the vicinity of, I suppose, is another way we could think of it. So, this is not right in the middle of the river flowing across the Jordan, but rather at the outside edge. So they’d go back across all the bank of the Jordan to the outside edge where the priests first touched water. That’s where they got these 12 stones from.

Joshua called the 12 men whom he had prepared of the children of Israel, back in verse 3, out of every tribe of man. Joshua said unto them, “Pass over for the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of Jordan. Take you up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder.” So what he’s saying here, they don’t go in front of the ark. The ark is still standing there.

In the river Jordan with the priest carrying it. And he repeats the instructions to the men that God had told him to tell the men. He says, “Go back there now to where that ark is. Go in front of the ark. Pick up 12 stones, each of you a stone, and carry it back here. So, we’re going to put up a monument.” That’s what’s going on. It’s interesting, of course, that we have 12 men representing the 12 tribes of Israel and the representation that is seen in that, and each of them reps up one stone.

Okay. And then in verse 6, Joshua says the reason for this—that this may be a sign among you that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, “what mean you by these stones?” you shall answer them. So the purpose of this memorial group of stones that’s set up at Gilgal is now given to us, and that is that it might be a sign of what happened at the river Jordan—a sign, a picture, a symbolic representation, and a cause to remember. It is an example to explain to them—to the children to come—what happened at the river Jordan. And that is explained in verse 7.

Ye shall answer them that the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord when it passed over Jordan. The waters of Jordan were cut off.—repeated twice for emphasis.

And these stones shall be for a memorial. A memorial to mark something. Okay? To remember something. In this case, a memorial of the crossing of the Jordan River. And this should be a memorial unto the children of Israel forever.

And the children of Israel did so as Joshua commanded. And see again throughout these first four chapters, we see repeated over and over and over again this chain of command. And we have an obedient people here who are obedient to the leaders that God has raised up, who are obedient to his word. And so this chain of command cycles through. This is the kind of people that conquer nations. This is the kind of people in the gospel age that evangelize nations—people that are obedient, who have leaders that listen to the word of God, that tell them that word, and the people then follow that word in obedience.

Children of Israel did so as Joshua commanded and took up 12 stones out of the midst of Jordan as the people spake in the Joshua according to the numbers of the tribes of the children of Israel, carried them over with them unto the place where they lodged and laid them down there.

And Joshua verse 9 set up 12 stones in the midst of Jordan in the place where the feet of the priests which bear the ark of the covenant stood, and they are there unto this day. A little one verse and yet we are told here that Joshua takes 12 different stones and sets them up at the feet of the priests in the Jordan River, although on the edge of it, not right in the very middle of it. He sets these 12 stones up in Jordan. So, we actually have two sets of 12 stones that are being talked about here.

Now, if some of you have NIV translations, they actually change verse 9. I don’t know if they have a comment over the side or not, but few people have in the last 2,000 years changed this verse to say that actually these are the same stones and Joshua, representing the 12 men, is taking them up out of the midst of Jordan and bringing them over to Gilgal. In other words, they would change the word—in the King James it says “Joshua set up 12 stones in the midst of Jordan.” They would say, “Joshua set up the 12 stones from the midst of Jordan, from the place the feet of the priesthood.”

I can see no reason in the textual commentators that I’ve read—see no reason for changing the text to indicate that. Some people want to change the text to indicate that because they think, “well, what’s the point of the second memorial? Hasn’t been talked about much by God up to now. Not at all. And it’s going to be underwater a lot of times. So, what’s the point of that memorial?” Well, that may be an interesting thing to ponder. We will in a couple of minutes, but I don’t think it’s any reason to change the text.

Everything I’ve uh read in terms of the commentators who are a lot better at Hebrew than I ever will be—I don’t really know that language—but I use commentators that do know the language indicate that there’s no reason to change the text here. That it means quite simply that Joshua set up 12 different stones in the midst of the Jordan, so to speak, where the feet the priest stood.

By the way, the Septuagint, which was the Greek version of the Old Testament produced about the time of our Lord, the Septuagint actually uses a different word for stones in this verse 9 to make sure that people understand these are a second set of stones. So, and they were 2,000 years closer to the original than we were. Doesn’t mean they’re infallible, but it does—is it an indication that these are completely separate stones.

Okay. So, what we’ve got so far: two sets of 12 stones. Each 12 set up by the representatives of the people—the 12 men each carrying it on his shoulder back to the Gilgal, the resting place after they crossed the Jordan—and 12 stones back in the Jordan River that Joshua is said to have placed there. Probably using people, but they are identified with Joshua, not with the 12 men.

Then verse 10, “for the priests which bear the ark stood in the midst of Jordan until everything was finished, that the Lord commanded Joshua to speak unto the people according to all that Moses commanded Joshua and the people hasted and passed over.” And it came to pass and all the people were clean passed over that the ark of the Lord passed over and the priests in the presence of the people.

Okay? And again repeating all this for emphasis in terms of the priests being obedient, standing there till they were told to move, etc.

Verse 12, another kind of funny verse thrown in. The children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh passed over armed before the children of Israel as Moses spake unto them. This is the two and a half tribes that were going to live back on the east side of the Jordan. And remember, they had made a deal with Moses. They said, “We want that east side of the Jordan River.” And he says, “Well, okay, but this better not be just a ruse for you to get out of fighting. I’m going to command you that you take part in the conquest of Canaan when we cross that river.”

And here they are fulfilling their obedience to Moses’ command. They made a deal, so to speak, and he said, “You can have your land east of Jordan, but only after the rest of the people are settled in their land.” And so, here we have the recitation of the obedience of the two and a half tribes in terms of their promise to Moses and to God that they would indeed fight for the children of Israel, all of them, the promised land.

It’s interesting here that it says that these—uh verse 13—about 40,000 prepared for war passed over before the Lord into battle to the plains of Jericho. So we’re also told here that these two and a half tribes were all armed for war. Now remember that this is not all the tribes—of all the people of the two and a half tribes. It says there are about 40,000 of them. A census of actually just available fighting men from these two and a half tribes puts it at least over twice that many.

So the wives and children stay back on the east side of Jordan where they’re going to settle, and some of the men, a lot of the men, stay back there too to protect them while the other men go out to warfare. We could talk about some implications of that in terms of division of labor, etc. But you get the point.

Another point you should get here is that these 40,000 now are men. The rest of the tribes, you’ve got men, women, and children. But these two and a half tribes, it’s just these 40,000 armed men. And the word says here that there were 40,000 prepared for war, passed over before the Lord. These were men who were mustered, so to speak, and actually I think the terminology indicates that they were in military array—five across, five being the number in the scriptures of military strength. And these men were in military formation. In other words, crossing over.

And it says that they were armed for battle. And again, this is a picture that as they go forward in the salvation that God has given to them, being pictured by the death and resurrection of the Jordan, they go forward from that salvation, march looking forward into battle, prepared for battle, and with their best warriors—the ones who are unencumbered by families—in the front of them. Okay, that’s where these two and a half tribes were.

So, that’s what’s going on here. We got these memorials are being pictured right in the middle of this memorial stone account. We have these two and a half tribes, warriors, all of them going forward armed for war.

Verse 14, “on that day the Lord magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel. They feared him as they feared Moses all the days of his life.” Again, the authentic of his leadership here—of God’s presence with Joshua.

And if they’re going to fear God, and they’re also going to fear God’s man, Joshua. The Lord speaking to Joshua saying, “command the priests that bear the ark of the testimony that they come up out of Jordan.” Now the word this is a change—up to now it’s been the ark of the covenant. Here it’s the ark of testimony. And this terminology refers to the stones, the testimony refers specifically to the testimony to the covenant—the stones, the tables of the law that were found in the chest, which was identified as an ark for us here. Those two stone tablets of which the law was written was the testimony—the witness to the covenant between God and his people.

And sometimes the ark is referred to as the ark of the covenant, the ark of the Lord, the ark, and sometimes the ark of testimony when it’s being stressed these two stone tablets and the witness to the covenant that they bear. So here we have the stress on the stone tablets themselves specifically to command the priest to bear the ark of the testimony that they come up out of Jordan.

Joshua therefore commanded the priests, again obedience being stressed, saying, “Come ye up out of Jordan.” And it came to pass the priest that bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord were come up out of the midst of Jordan. And the soles of the priest’s feet were lifted up into the dry land, that the waters of Jordan returned unto their place and flowed over all his banks as they did before.

We won’t go back to chapter 3 to look at this, but remember in chapter 3:15, we read about the actual miracle that happens at the Jordan when the priests go in and they touch that land, and then it parenthetically says that it was the flood stage then by the way—in order to float all its banks. And there’s a sense in which suspense is built up through chapter 3 up to verse 15, and then in the middle of 15 it even gives you a little more suspense taking, spending a little bit of time talking about the conditions of the river before it gets to the actual miracle in terms of the waters opening up. And verse 18 is kind of a correlator to that on the other side.

Now comes to pass when the priests bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord were come out of the midst of Jordan and the soles of the priest’s feet were lifted up out of the dry land, that the waters of Jordan returned into their place and flowed over all his banks. The sense of anticipation here for the closing off now of the miraculous event.

Verse 19, “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.” So, we’re told the day of this crossing—that day being the tenth day of the first month. And we’re told now that this lodging place where the stones will be set up is referred to as Gilgal. That’s the name of the city, the name of the place.

Now, that isn’t the name of the place yet. Actually, we’re going to see in the next chapter why it’s named Gilgal. It has reference to a specific event that will occur there. We’ll talk about next week. That’s circumcision. But here, the name of the town is referred to as the encamp in Gilgal. That’s what the name is going to be when they circumcise themselves there.

And “these 12 stones which he took out of Joshua did Joshua to a pitch in Gilgal.” The word “pitch” means to arrange in some fashion. Usually means to raise up. We don’t know. It doesn’t always mean that. We don’t know if they made like a tower or if they made a formation. What they did with these 12 stones, but somehow they were very identifiable. Wasn’t just thrown in a little heap. Could have been actually piled up one on top the other. It’s hard to say.

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?” Then you shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land.

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 from before us until we were gone over.’”

Okay, that’s very significant here. These pronouns that are used—he’s saying when your kids ask you, “What do these stones mean?” Here’s what you’re supposed to say to them. Quote, “You say to your kids these words: The Lord your God children dried up the waters of the Jordan from before you children until you children were passed over as the Lord your God children did to the Red Sea which he dried up from before us your fathers until we your fathers were gone over.”

See, he tells them they crossed the Jordan represented by the hall of people, but they have a place in that. It’s not simply some sort of memorial device in terms of remembering something. It talks about their—the children’s—the future generations to come—their participation in that crossing of the Jordan River.

And now the reason that “all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord that it is mighty. This isn’t just restricted to our children. This event is supposed to be memorialized for the purpose of teaching the whole world, all the people of the earth, that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you might fear the Lord your God forever.”

Okay? That the world might know that God’s hand is mighty and that you the people of God might fear him forever. There’s a lot said these days of fear being reverence and awe, and fear certainly has that context to it. That’s part of the connotation of the word “fear” old and new testaments. But you know there is a healthy respect that is involved in the fear of the Lord as well.

And when you go through a miracle like this—when you see those waters stand up miles high, probably—I don’t think that fear of the Lord just means you think, “gee a neat God we have.” Yeah, we got a neat God, but we’ve got a God who, the words of Ados Scott, is no buttercup. He does marvelous, tremendously powerful things. And if we don’t fear God because of what he does do or what he will do to his enemies, then we’ve missed the point of much of this whole occurrence.

And then goes on to say that the effect is on the part of the people of the earth. In verse one of chapter 5, “it came to pass when all the kings of the Amorites which were on the side of Jordan westward and all the kings of the Canaanites which were by the sea heard what the Lord had dried—that the Lord had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel until we were passed over—that their heart melted. Neither was their spirit in them anymore because of the children of Israel.”

They have just gotten on the land, and they’ve already won. The enemy is totally demoralized. Their heart is melted. There’s no spirit in them. The spirit is what God puts in the clay, you know, to make it man back in the creation. And here their spirit leaves them. They have no courage. They are almost as it were dead men. And of course, covenantally in God’s sight, they are dead men, lumps of clay. And God will cause his people to just crush them as they roll forward now into Joshua, except for a very important incident in a couple of chapters from now at Ai.

In any event, see, this is a memorialization of conquest and victory. Not simply salvation, but of conquest. And the effect it has—what is being memorialized—the crossing of the Jordan River is what produces the fear of the people of the land that they might be conquered by God’s people.

Okay, so we’ve got this picture, this nice story. Let’s talk about three implications of this for our lives.

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## First: The Importance of Memorials to Conquest

We usually we have memorials in terms of time. There are memorials in terms of place. This is a memorial of place, but we have memorials of time frequently in our particular social setting. I suppose we could have put the sermon off for a few weeks. We actually tied it to Memorial Day itself. We do have a Memorial Day coming up in a few weeks when people remember the acts of men in warfare long before this.

It’s interesting though that most of our memorials seem to stress what men do as opposed to this memorial, of course, which is stressing not what men did at all but totally what God did. Totally the grace of God that produces victory. Now, memorializations of what men do isn’t wrong, but it is wrong if that’s always your emphasis in a culture, and it certainly always is in our culture.

Today, is our nation celebrates Mother’s Day. And so, we have these various memorials of time, and we also have memorials of place. I was thinking, the Rodney King verdict in Watts has been a memorial of sorts—not officially commended as such, but if you’ve been around, if you’re, you know, 30, 40 years old, you remember the Watts riots. You know that Watts is a name that memorializes something. And now, of course, it’s been superseded by a bigger memorial in Los Angeles.

Although it’s memorial to essentially the same thing. We can look at the trashing of Los Angeles in the last couple of weeks as a memorial to the failure of the Great Society and the attempts at ending racial discrimination through the power of the civil state—the results of socialistic enterprises. All these things end up in a fanning of the flames of envy. And we saw Envy break out. We have a great memorial to Envy now in Los Angeles that will take billions of dollars probably to repair. Much of it won’t be repaired ever. Probably Watts was just now being rebuilt in some areas and now it all gets burned down again.

So we have memorials of place as well, sometimes officially designated, sometimes not. We have The Vietnam Memorial, of course, a black big stone. I don’t know what it’s supposed to symbolize. It seems a little stark, death-like, purposeless. But in any event, these are some memorials of our day and age.

And we—this is a story of a memorial. And what this passage from Joshua tells us is that memorials are quite important in terms of the faith and in terms of conquest. Memorials are always interpreted by way of presuppositions or faith. They don’t teach us doctrine. These memorials of the scriptures, they become a teaching device for doctrine, but they’re understood in light of the doctrines of God’s word and the faith that he has brought us to.

Well, I said that—let’s see—memorials serve at least two purposes. One purpose is as a metaphor for something that has occurred, as a picture, a symbolic representation of something. And so the sort of thing you erect like that black obelisk in terms of Vietnam memorial means something. It’s supposed to bring some connotations to people’s mind. It teaches of the event. So it serves as a metaphor for what occurs the same way that the Rodney King riots as a metaphor for what’s going on our society today—the real racial discrimination, the real inequities, but also the real failure of the civil state to address those through socialization and through trying to act the role of the priest, the church, when it isn’t the priest of the church to bring people together. Only the church of Jesus Christ can address racial discrimination.

But in any event, one purpose is as a metaphor for things that have happened. The other purpose of memorial, of course, is to remember something and to bring something to mind and serve as a teaching. It has a pedagogic or a teaching aspect to it. And of course, these are very important in the scriptures.

In fact, the scriptures say that one of the great failures of the church is when she forgets what God wants her to remember by way of memorials. We used to read Psalm 78 a lot in this church, and I suppose some of us still do too. But it’s a excellent psalm in terms of our day and age and hopefully what we’re trying to accomplish at Reformation Covenant Church. We read there in a in a this psalm of Asaph in Psalm 78:

“Give ear, oh my people, to my law. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old heard and known as our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and strength and the wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children.”

It’s transmission—faith to faith, generation to generation.

“Verse 7, that they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments. To forget the works of God is to move away from obedience to God’s commandments.”

Verse 8, “might not as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their heart right, whose spirit was not steadfast with God. The children of Ephraim, being armed, carrying bows, everything provided for them, turned back in the day of battle. They kept not the covenant of God. They refused to walk in his law and forgot his works and his wonders that he had showed them. They forget.”

One of the great enemies of the faith is forgetfulness. Forgetfulness of God’s law. Forgetfulness of God’s covenant and his sovereignty that’s demonstrated through those things and forgetfulness of his mighty works that are always given throughout the scriptures to tell his people that they are not a defeated people—that they are a triumphant, conquering people. That’s what this mighty work we’ve just read about at Jordan is all about—personal salvation, yes, but conquest pointing to the conquering of the whole world through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The distinctives of Christian Reconstruction are really throughout the scripture. What’s said we should remember the law, the covenant, and victorious eschatology. And these are the things the church forgets. And when the church forgets those things and doesn’t obey God’s law, then they’re cursed. Then they’re excluded from the land or tossed out of it. And then they become the ones that God wages war against as we shall see toward the end of this talk.

So remembering is an important part of memorialization. And here we have some rocks to help them remember. I might mention by the way that we just sang that song “Here I Raise My Ebenezer.” I selected that song because an Ebenezer was a rock in 1 Samuel 7. It says that as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel. But the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines and discomforted them. And they were smitten before Israel. The men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and smote them until they came upon Bethcar.

Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, “Hither hath the Lord helped us.”

Interesting, isn’t it? There we have Samuel offering up worship—the burnt offering. The Philistines are drawing close. And as he offers up the burnt offering, the Philistines, God strikes at them with a thunderbolt from heaven and discomforts them. They go into a tizzy. They don’t know what’s going on. And God defeats them as a result. Properly, yes, there’s a mopping up operation that Israel does. They chase after him, but ultimately it’s the worship of God, God’s favor to his people being demonstrated by his wrath against their enemies and his enemies—that’s talked about here.

And then Samuel sets up a stone. Eban is the Hebrew word for stone that we read here in Joshua 4. Eban Eer means hell. And so Samuel said, this is a stone of help essentially—saying, “hither hath the Lord helped us.” The Lord is identified as that rock as he is throughout the scriptures—the rock, the sure defense, the stability and steadfastness of the Lord. And so when we sing, “Here I Raise My Ebenezer,” we’re talking about a big stone that Samuel set up when God routed the Philistines. And God does the same thing for us.

He routes our enemies—our own personal sin often, but other enemies as well. Well, these stones were set up to help them remember this. The same thing that Samuel is remembering—that if God is for us, who can be against us? The matter is settled and all we have is a mopping up operation at the end of all that.

Now, memorials are important in terms of the faith as we’ve said here, but also important in terms of other things in our lives as well. Anniversaries are a memorial of time for our marriages. One commentator that I read this week said that the real threat, for instance, to marriage may not be infidelity, but simply a slow process of forgetting and a gradual failure to remember the preciousness of the other person.

Well, that’s a that’s a good thought, isn’t it? And we can we avoid divorce and we can avoid open fornication and infidelity and these kind of things pretty easily in the context of the marriage. But all too often marriages are marked by this slow forgetting of the preciousness of the person that God has and his grace and providence given us as marriage mates.

And it would be helpful to us on a regular basis—or anniversaries maybe a good time, maybe not—but to remember the preciousness of the people that God has brought us into relationship with.

Remembering in the Hebrew by the way is not just a reminiscing upon, not just kind of a thoughtful act. It involves actions based on remembering. It’s like the word “shama” here, “O Israel.” It doesn’t just mean listen. It means listen and do. And to remember—Hebrew is a very active language and it has implications throughout it. And in terms of remembering, remembering has the implication of acting upon the basis of that memory.

It doesn’t do any good just to remember, “oh yeah, my husband sure was a neat guy at one time and maybe is now too,” and then not do anything about it. Then you’re like the foolish person who walks away from the mirror forgetting what God has showed him. But if you recognize that God the scriptures say that he has married you to this person and this person is precious in his sight and should be in your sight, and then you act on the basis of that’s knowledge of the scriptures—that’s true remembering.

So we should have memorials in the context of our marriages. And I use the marriage metaphor because really that’s somewhat of what God is doing here with Israel as well. Remember Israel is God’s bride. The church is Christ’s bride. And it’s easy to come and remember occasionally who God is, but it’s also easy to sit in the pew every week and forget, over a period of time—particularly if you’re not doing your own reading of scripture—the preciousness of the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who we should be praising every Lord’s day when we come forward.

We’ve been married a long time. It may we may not go off into utter idolatry with some other religion or some other culture, whatever. But if our heart grows cold to the preciousness of our savior, if we if we leave our first love—and the Scriptures call us to repair on that as well—and to remember the preciousness of the one with whom we have to do—ultimately the ultimate bridegroom—the Lord Jesus Christ.

And memorials are important to bring all these things to pass in our lives, and that’s why God gives a memorial. They’re very important things to have happen.

Well, I said that memorials are a metaphor—a picture of some things—and I want to go through several things here. This particular memorial pictures a redemption accomplished. Of course, one thing that is pictured here in these stones—although this is specifically a memorial of place, not of time—it does give us the time when this action took place. Remember, it was the tenth day of the first month. Well, back in Exodus 12, we have another occurrence—the only other one I know of in scripture—to the tenth day of the first month. And that was when the people were preparing to leave Egypt. That was the day when they were supposed to take a lamb and prepare for the Passover.

So, the tenth day of the first month here, 40 years after this event, is a picture of redemption accomplished. The beginning of the Passover feast—the preparation of the lamb by households, covenantal representation by households—40 years previous is now tied off at the end of all that 40 years of time. Redemption began here, redemption accomplished at the end of this—the passing over the Jordan River.

And now we have the effects of redemption being the conquering of God’s enemies, being God’s mighty warriors in his place now as they go into the promised land. But redemption is accomplished. Jesus is the alpha and the omega. And here these stones are a picture of Christ ultimately. Of course, the rock without hands that grows to fill the whole earth—the kingdom of Christ. And so as the lamb was a picture, so the rock and stability of our salvation is pictured in this car of this mound of stone set up—two of them, two sets, one in Gilgal and one at the river itself.

Redemption accomplished is certainly one of the things that’s pictured in this memorial.

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## Second: Covenantal Representation

Secondly, we have the idea of covenantal representation is pictured in these 12 stones as well. It’s not one rock set up. Could have been that, but God chose to use 12 stones and then very deliberately sets each stone to represent a particular tribe because you’ve got 12 tribes. Each sends out a man. And so covenantal representation is one of the things that’s pictured by this metaphor, this image of this memorial that God has them build up.

God is building up his people. He has—he goes through all time building up his church. And throughout the scriptures, stones are correlated to people themselves. Eventually, the stones of the temple themselves are related back to the people of God in the new covenant. When we now comprise the temple, we get together and all you stones sit there. You come together. The mortar between you is the love of Christ, I suppose the love the Holy Spirit sheds abroad in our heart, and we come together and constitute a temple around the throne of God on the Lord’s day.

We’re living stones is what the New Testament refers to us as. Stones are a picture of people in that sense. And in this sense, they’re representative of tribes. And very importantly, while we can’t take a lot of time on it, covenantal representation is an extremely important element of what this story has to say.

We live in a day of democratization, of atomization—breaking down of people into smaller and smaller and smaller groups and breaking down of the family and the individuals. We live in a church that is taking an individualistic approach to the faith instead of a covenantal approach by families and tribes and groupings. And so as a result of that, we have churches that aren’t really temples. They’re just scattered stones who happen to come together into a little heap of stones every Lord’s Day, but have no correlation to each other throughout the week.

We’re trying to do something about that here at Reformation Covenant. We’re stressing the covenant union of the family, the covenantal unit of the church as well. But that’s very important.

We have a book that’s should be coming. I ordered it several weeks ago called “The Fountain Head of Federalism” that talks about the implications of covenantal theology on the development of the political understanding or political makeup of our country. The federal system is based upon a covenantal system. That’s what federal means. It’s covenant and representation.

I said last week during the question and answer time people are going to get a little upset that the college—the electoral college—this coming election has some surprises formed, but it has its rudiments. It has its basis back in a covenantal representation of people politically based upon the scriptures and their covenantal representation of things such as this memorial.

You know, ultimately what we want, I think, in Oregon, for instance, is not a house and a senate where everybody is elected on the basis of popular vote. The Senate, that second house in any particular state or the federal government, is supposed to represent counties in Oregon, not individual people voting for them. In other words, it’s kind of hard to explain, but the whole system of federal theology includes various covenantal representations.

You had a House of Representatives at the federal level who would speak for the people individually—now as they vote for each of the House of Representatives. But originally the Senate at the federal level, two for each state, right? Regardless of population, that was chosen by the state legislatures to represent the state as a covenantal unit at the federal level. And eventually part of the task of reconstruction or transformation is transforming back into a covenantal appreciation of the faith, which then has downstream implications for a covenantal approach to business, a covenantal approach to political affairs, etc.

I it’s amazing to me that we still have a Senate where each state, regardless of population, gets only two senators. It’s a good thing, but it’s an amazing thing. And it’s a thing that without the underpinnings of a biblical faith based upon this memorial picture—the metaphor of covenantal representation—it’s a faith. It’s a system that without that will eventually be done away with.

So we have covenantal representation and as I said before—accomplished the beginning of the Passover feast, the preparation of the lamb by households, covenantal representation by households, 40 years previous is now tied off at the end of all that 40 years of time. Redemption began here. Redemption accomplished at the end of this—the passing over the Jordan River. And now we have the effects of redemption being the conquering of God’s enemies, being God’s mighty warriors in his place now as they go into the promised land. But redemption is accomplished. Jesus is the alpha and the omega. And here these stones are a picture of Christ ultimately. Of course, the rock without hands that grows to fill the whole earth—the kingdom of Christ.

And so as the lamb was a picture, so the rock and stability of our salvation is pictured in this car of this mound of stone set up—two of them, two sets, one in Gilgal and one at the river itself. Redemption accomplished is certainly one of the things that’s pictured in this memorial. Secondly we have the idea of covenantal representation is pictured in these 12 stones as well.