“Be With Us Always, We Pray!”

Joshua 4:1-9

It must have looked like an impossible task. A hundred and seventy-five years ago, three pastors, count them. One, two, three. Got together to form a new church body. Why do you need a new church body? Well, they can’t rely on pastors to come over from Germany forever, or teachers. In fact, they probably can’t rely on that to happen for much longer at all, if at all. So we’ve got to start a seminary and we’ve got to start a teacher training college. And we’ve got to do other things like mission work here in the United States, as well as further around the world, wherever people might go next or be next. And we need to set up a publication so we can be communicating regularly with our membership and teaching. And there was how many of them? Three. And things here in America were way different than they had been back in Germany. Back in Germany, the state basically paid for the work of the church. Not in America. In America, they were going to have to do this all on their own. And there were how many of them? One, two, three. It had to look impossible. There’s the Israelistes were standing near the edge of the Jordan River. The promised land was just over there. But there’s this problem. We have a flooded Jordan River between us and the promised land. We have a flooded Jordan River between us and the promised land. Now, because of the topography of that part of the world, the likelihood isn’t so much that the river Jordan was rushing fast, although it probably was rushing faster than it normally would, but rather that it would have spilled over its banks and spread out all over the place. How are you going to cross that? You’ve got little kids. You’ve got animals. You’ve got household goods stuff. How are you going to get across that thing? It had to look like an impossible task. But not for God. God gave Joshua the plan. He said, “Here’s what you are to do. You have the priests carry the Ark of the Covenant on the poles. That’s the symbol of my presence.” And oh, when he describes them carrying the Ark of the Covenant, he describes it as the Ark of the Lord of all the earth. And of course, when the Lord of all the earth speaks, what does the earth have to do? Listen. And so, God said to Joshua, “What’s going to happen is as soon as the priest’s feet hit the edge of the water, I’m going to cut off the waters of that Jordan River. It’s going to be as if I drop this big old dam right down in the midst of that flooded river, and the waters will be cut off, and you will be able to walk through the Jordan River flooded on dry ground. And the priests with the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of all the earth are to stand right in the middle of the Jordan the whole time as a reminder that it’s me who is with you that is causing this to happen. That this is my power. This is my might. This is not some fluke of nature. This is me being with you.” And sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. The priest got there and touched the edge of the water. Boom! Water cut off up the stream aways. Rest of the water runs away. All of a sudden, you’ve got totally dry ground. And across the river you go. And God said to Joshua, “Here’s what you are to make sure happens at the end of the crossing. I want you to pick out 12 guys, one from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, as a reminder that I am the God for all of Israel, not just some, not most, all. And I want them to pick up stones from the middle of that Jordan River from right where the priest stood.” Why? Because it was the presence of God that was the important thing going on here. And I want you to pick those 12 stones up and carry them across the river to where you will spend the night, where you will lodge for the next little while, and you set those 12 stones up in some sort of a monument. Why? Because later, when your children see those stones and see that monument that’s set up, and they ask, “What do these stones mean?” Then you are to explain to them, “Those are the stones that came out of the middle of the Jordan River, the Jordan River that the Lord your God, the ruler of all the earth, cut off.” So that your ancestors could walk through on dry ground. The Lord was with us. And perhaps at first glance, you and I might think, “Why would they even need some sort of memorial to this? I mean, this is so stupendous. Of course it’s going to be remembered, right?” And I would guess that that generation who experienced it, yeah, I guess they remembered it, because it would have been such an amazing event. I don’t know how anyone who experienced it could possibly forget it. But what about the generation that came next? And the generation after that? And the generation after that? I would bet if we went around Milwaukee and asked a hundred people who General Billy Mitchell was and what he did, or who Clement Zablocchi was and what he did, or who Baron von Steuben was and what he did, I would guess 98% of the people would have no idea. And I honestly don’t know who Clement Zablocchi was or what he did. I know that the VA is named after him. That’s as much as I know. So what has to happen? If we want those people and their deeds to be remembered, there has to be some sort of a monument that’s set up, and then there needs to be some sort of instruction that goes along with that monument so people don’t see it merely as a name on some building or a name on an airport. And as it is today, so it was back then. In fact, tragically, when we get to the book of Judges, very early in the book of Judges, we read, “A generation grew up who did not know the Lord.” What? Now, that passage could possibly mean that they didn’t know the Lord in the sense that they hadn’t experienced the miraculous interventions of God. They hadn’t eaten manna. They hadn’t been there when the Jordan River parted. They hadn’t been there when the walls of Jericho fell down. And so they didn’t know the Lord that way, the way the generations who experienced those things did. Or it could mean more literally what the text says, that a couple generations of people did such a poor job of teaching that they didn’t even know who God really was. And I’m going to guess it’s somewhere in the middle that they neither had experienced the miraculous interventions of God, nor had they been well taught, with the result that they were, at best, really spiritually dull. Do we hear the warning? How incredibly important it is for us to be into the Word of God, for us to be Word of God people, so that we can be reminded of the great deeds of God for us. How vital it is for us to pass those words of God along to the next generation and the generation after that, that they can be Word of God people, that they can know the great deeds of God and what He has done for us and what He has prepared for us. And that He’s with us always. And God has been that. He’s been with you always to the very end of the age, as He promised, and He will continue to be. He’s been with our congregation. He’s been with our church body. And now He calls our church body to do what Matthew 28 said, to go and make disciples of all nations. And we look at that and go, “That’s an impossible task. We’re about 250,000 people.” And connected to another, probably two, 250,000 people around the world in our world missions. That’s 500,000 people. What is 500,000 people in a world of, what is it now, 8 billion? We’re just a blip on the radar screen. It’s an impossible task. But not if the Lord of all the earth is with us. And what does the Lord of all the earth promise? He promises to be with us always to the very end of the age. And He urges and encourages us to be into the Word of God. Why? There’s a really cool little note right near the end of the text where it says that the men took the stones from the middle of the river and brought them the overside. And the translation says, “They placed them there.” They put them there. I can’t quite remember how the NIV translates it. But the Hebrew is literally, “They rested them there.” That’s really weird. You would not expect that Hebrew word to be used in that context. Why does God use the word “rest”? That they rested in there. Is it maybe because He’s wanting to remind His people that He had brought them to their land of rest? No longer were they slaves in Egypt. No longer were they wanderers in the desert. But now they were in their promised land, their land of rest. But of course, you and I see it with New Testament eyes and see so much more because what does Jesus say? Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy-burdened, and I will give you rest. You will find rest for your souls. And by dying for you and rising for you, Jesus has done exactly that. He has won you and me rest for our souls.” Oh, and there’s even more. While that Old Testament promised land was great, it was still a land in the midst of a sinful world filled with sinful people and battling against sin, death, and the power of the devil. God has promised us a brand new promised land. A promised land that will be actual rest, real rest, eternal rest, awesome rest. Where you will be with Jesus forever and ever. And so what is our prayer? Our prayer is simply this. “Lord, be with us.” Just as your presence was with those Old Testament Israelites with the Ark of the Covenant, just as you were with our forefathers 175 years ago to help them do the impossible, “Oh, Lord, be with us. Be with us, we pray, now and forevermore.” Amen. And Amen.