STANDING AT THE JORDAN

JOSHUA - THE ADVENTURE AND VICTORY OF FAITH

by Doug Goins


In Joshua 2 we examined the saving faith of an individual, the Canaanite woman Rahab. Now in this passage the focus moves to the faith of an entire nation. As we study, please keep in mind that this book deals with much more than the history of what God did centuries ago for the Jews. It's also about each of our individual lives and the life of the church today, about what God wants to do here and now for those who trust him and who are open to his leading. The book of Joshua is about the victory of faith and the glory that comes to God when his people trust him and obey him.

The nineteenth-century British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli said, "The world was never conquered by intrigue; it was conquered by faith." The report of the spies to Joshua at the end of chapter 2 was virtually word-for-word the observations of Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute. And that report was not a report of intrigue, but words of faith. Joshua 2:24: "Truly the LORD has given all the land into our hands; and moreover all the inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of us."

In the Christian life we are either overcomers or we will be overcome, either victors or we will be victimized. After all, God didn't save us to make us statues and put us on display in a museum. He saved us to make us soldiers, to move us forward by faith to claim our rich inheritance in Jesus Christ. Moses described that process perfectly, speaking to the nation of Israel prior to the conquest in Deuteronomy 6:23: "... and [God] brought us out from there [Egypt] in order to bring us in, to give us the land which He had sworn to our fathers." Too many of us as God's people have the mistaken idea that salvation, being delivered from the bondage of Egypt, is all that is involved in the Christian life. But salvation is just the beginning. Both in our personal, spiritual growth and in our service for the Lord, we can apply the word that God spoke to Joshua later, after the initial conquest of the land: "...There remains yet very much land to be possessed" (Joshua 13:1). This theme from the book of Joshua is also a theme in the New Testament book of Hebrews, where the writer says, "Let us...go on to maturity" (Hebrews 6:1-12).

The only way to go on is by faith. Faithlessness, or unbelief, says, "No, let's go back to where it's safe." But faith says, "Let's go forward to where God is working." Forty years before, Joshua and Caleb had assured the Jews with these words: "Let us go up at once, and occupy it; for we are well able to overcome it." That's faith. But the people said that they weren't able to. That's faithlessness. That unbelief cost the nation forty years of discipline in the wilderness. The apostle John assures us today, "And this is the victory that has overcome the world---our faith" (1 John 5:4).

Ever since I was in high school, one of my passions has been the study of church history, especially Christian biography. I love reading about the lives of men and women whom God has used to challenge the church and change the world. That has been going on for two thousand years now. These Christians have all been very different from each other in their ethnic backgrounds, cultural settings, socioeconomic status, training, personalities, and all the ways that they served the Lord. But they had one thing in common: They believed God's promises, and they did what he told them to do. They were all men and women of faith, and God honored them because of that. One such saint of God profiled in Christian History Institute's Glimpses (Issue #59) is William Tyndale, the British theologian and Bible translator who was martyred because he was committed to making the Bible available in the English language so people could read it. He was a man who lived by faith.

God hasn't changed in all these years of church history, and the principle of faith hasn't changed. But what does seem to have changed is our individual attitudes as God's people. We no longer believe God and act by faith in his promises. His promises never fail, but we can fail to live by the grace of God, and as a result, not enter into all that he has promised for us. Again, in the words of Moses, God has brought us out so that he might bring us in. But too often we are, in the words of the writer of Hebrews (3:19), "...not able to enter because of unbelief."

In the opening verses of Joshua 3, God illustrates for us three essentials for moving ahead by faith, claiming all that he has for us. This is what God desired for Israel and also what he desires for us. First, the Israelites were willing to wait on the Lord even when it was difficult to wait. Second, they were willing to follow the Lord unconditionally. And third, they were willing to consecrate themselves before the Lord. Joshua 3:1-6:
Early in the morning Joshua rose and set out from Shittim, with all the people of Israel; and they came to the Jordan, and lodged there before they passed over. At the end of three days the officers went through the camp and commanded the people, "When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God being carried by the Levitical priests, then you shall set out from your place and follow it, that you may know the way you shall go, for you have not passed this way before. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, a distance of about two thousand cubits [about one thousand yards]; do not come near it." And Joshua said to the people, "Sanctify yourselves; for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you." And Joshua said to the priests, "Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass on before the people." And they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people.
These three days of waiting at the Jordan River were days of preparation for crossing it. They describe the kind of people that God wanted the Israelites to be and the kind of people he yearns for us to be. This issue of waiting is addressed in the last phrase of verse 1 and the first phrase of verse 2: "...before they passed over. At the end of three days...." If you've served in the armed forces, you're probably familiar with the phrase "Hurry up and wait." That's what Israel was experiencing at the Jordan. After the spies had returned from Jericho with their favorable report, Joshua had led the people on a march from Shittim to the Jordan. It was about a ten-mile journey; it would have taken them about a day to mobilize, travel, and arrive at the banks of the Jordan. Then they were ordered to make camp again, to await further instructions, and that wait was three days. The people were ready to move when the command was given, but then they were asked to wait for Joshua's instructions from the Lord to be transmitted through the officers.

As they waited, they had a growing awareness of the human impossibility of what God was asking them to do. The nation must have wondered what Joshua was working out in this interim period. They certainly couldn't swim across the river. They couldn't build enough boats or rafts to transport almost two million people, including women and children, across to the other side. Besides, either of those approaches would have made them sitting ducks for the Canaanite enemies on the other side. Remember that for more than six hundred years, the Hebrew people had been trying to imagine what lay beyond that river. For forty years they had also cultivated deep fears about the Canaanite inhabitants of the land. In addition, God intentionally brought them to the Jordan at the time of year when the river was swollen by the spring rains and by the melting snows from the Lebanon mountains. It was at this time, when the people were faced with tremendous difficulties and they knew that they were at the end of their resources, that God would be able to show his power.

There must have been a lot of conflicting thoughts going through the minds of the people waiting through those three days, just as there are for us when we're faced with our own inadequacy and impotence to have any effect whatsoever on circumstances. Some of them would have said, "Let's go back to Shittim." It was a lush oasis of acacia groves, a beautiful setting. Or, "Let's spread out with the two and a half tribes and take

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