Joshua 4:1-5:12 Stones, Circumcision & Passover

Dr. Terry talks about Joshua's leadership, crossing the Jordan River, and the importance of the 10th day of Nisan. Joshua is highlighted as a significant leader, and preparations for the Passover at Gilgal are mentioned. Good morning. How are you all doing? Good. Glad to see you. Barbara is exactly right. This is the first time in my entire get-along that I've ever worn a pair of jeans to church on Sunday. Now I have worn them to church when I was a high school kid during the week to go to royal ambassadors and to youth meetings. But I grew up with a strong, very strong, classic Catholic mother who said, when you go to church, you wear the very finest that you have in order to honor God. And that was the way I was reared. And so I can't help it. And next Sunday, I will be back in a tie and a coat and a suit, just like I am every Sunday, because that's the way mom told me to do it. OK, and that's the way my wife tells me to do it. She's just like my mom. And she she said, no jeans on Sunday. OK, that's OK. I'm not terribly uncomfortable. I'm just uncomfortable because I feel like I'm halfway dressed. I feel like I've forgotten something, you know. So anyway, so interesting story. One day we had a friend come to our house. His name was Vincent, Jane Vincent. And I was about 10 or 11. And she came in and I walked up to her and I said, hello, Jane. When I kind of came back to my senses after mom hit me, she looked over at me and she said, Jack Jr., her name is Mrs. Benson. I said, yes, ma'am. Her name is Mrs. Benson. And from that day on, her name was Mrs. Benson in our house. So, you know, it's just kind of how you were reared, how you were brought up. And I was brought up a little bit different from other people. And it's kind of interesting. So we got to get on with it because we've got a fresh fire and I'm going to kill it pretty early so we can all get out to Eddie's house and eat him out of house and home. Just eat everything you want, clean the tables and take it home with you if you need to take it home with you. OK, we're going to finish up. We're going to do chapter four and go into chapter five. Now, the reason I'm going into chapter five is because it actually there should have been a chapter break after verse 12 in chapter five. There should have been a chapter break. There wasn't. And the writer of Joshua just keeps on going and he picks up on another story, which has been carried. The story is carried over into chapter six. And actually, that part should have been in chapter six because it runs in to the story that's picked up in chapter six. And the story is about Jericho and the stories about how Joshua met an unusual that we would call a theophany. And interestingly enough, they say that actually he met Jesus at the wall of Jericho. And all of that in chapter five, twelve and the following should have been in chapter six, but it wasn't. So I'm stopping there so Brother Jimmy can pick up because Brother Jimmy is going to take us to Jericho and in chapter six and chapter seven and see what happens there. So we're in chapter four today. Now, let me tell you about chapter four, chapter five. Three very important things happen in chapter four and chapter five. Joshua is being magnified by eternal God. And on many occasions in the scripture, it says, and God magnified Joshua. Now, what that simply means is God made him to be of the same quality in the eyes of the children of Israel, as was Moses. So what God's trying to do is he's trying to show the people of Israel that this new leader is none less than Moses was the good leader. And so many, many times in the scripture and Joshua, it says, and God magnified Joshua in the eyes of the people. And simply what that means is that he was telling the people, follow him as you follow Moses, because he is just as good as Moses was. He is my leader. He's the one that you will follow. Of course, all of them were following eternal God and all of them were following the ark of the covenant because the presence of eternal God was always present in the ark of the covenant. And when the ark of the covenant was at rest, it was in the middle of the camp. When the ark of the covenant was at the lead of the procession, like the crossing of the Jordan river, it was the presence of God saying, follow me. And you follow the presence of God in the ark of the covenant going across the Jordan river. Now the children of Israel have just crossed the Jordan river. And I tried to help you understand last week that God dried up the river to a crusty, dusty, uh, little, uh, uh, clear Creek. And he did it for 31 miles. In fact, he had a 31 mile strip from all the way up north of the city of Adam all the way down to the salt sea and everything of that 31 miles that was there in front of the children of Israel who had about a million and a half, 2 million people that had to crawl, come across this Jordan river. They couldn't all come across at one spot. They had to come across in big groups. So God had to dry up a large portion of the Jordan river for all the children of Israel to cross over in one day. And Joshua had intended that they would cross over in one day, which meant that they had to have a large swash of the Jordan river dry in order for them to cross over. And the reason Joshua wanted them to cross over in one day was the day was the 10th day of Nisan. And the 10th day of Nisan, as I have hoped, I have shown you is a very important day in the life of the people who celebrated the Passover in Egypt. It was on the 10th day of Nisan that the children of Israel selected the lamb that was going to be the sacrifice that would get them in under the blood and God would pass over them. The 10th of Nisan was a very important day. A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated Palm Sunday. Now, if you get to a Hebrew calendar and look at it carefully, you will find out that every time God does something that he's going to deliver some people, he does it beginning on the 10th day of Nisan. And if you remember, Jesus Christ came into the city of Jerusalem for what was called the Palm Sunday. We call it Palm Sunday. We call it the celebration of the 10th day of Nisan. And he came into Jerusalem on the 10th day of Nisan because four days later was Passover. He came in on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, came in on Sunday, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. And on the 14th, they killed the lamb. And that evening, when the sun went down, it became Friday and they ate Passover. So Jesus came into the city of Jerusalem on the 10th of Nisan. Always that day is the day of deliverance. They delivered them out of Egypt with the lamb on the 10th day of Nisan, delivered you and me out of our sin with the lamb of God on the 10th day of Nisan. And look here, God's getting ready to deliver his people out of the, out of the ugliness of the wilderness. They've been out there for 40 years, two years of Sinai, 38 years wandering around in a bunch of dusty wilderness. And they have been there and they are tired and it's time for God to deliver them. And he's going to deliver them on his day. He's going to deliver them across the Jordan. That's why he had to dry it up for several miles, about 31 miles from that dam down to the salt sea. He dried up the entire Jordan river. Here's about a couple of million people with all of their cattle and their land and their herds and everything ready to go. And they're all have to come across and they all have to cross in one day. And the day they're crossing is the 10th day of Nisan. And so they have already, the river's been dried up. The priests are still in the middle of the, of the Jordan river. All the children of Israel are staying their distance from the ark of the covenant, which is about a Sabbath day's trip. And they're all crossing all of them, crossing the Jordan river in this 31 mile slosh in one day. And they're all getting over to the other side. And that's where this chapter begins. The children, the priests are still out there. They're still in the middle of Jordan. It's dry. They're still holding the ark of the covenant. They're still waiting. You see the children of Israel never moved until Joshua commanded them to move. When he commanded the priest, they put their feet in the water. God pushed the water back. The priest got in the middle. He commanded the people. They walked across on dry ground. Now the priest is still standing in the middle of Jordan. Jordan's dry. The people are all across. And now it's time for Joshua to do three things. The first thing he has to do is get a memorial set up. The second thing he has to do is get several thousand men circumcised because the third thing that he's going to do is they are going to celebrate the third Passover on that side, on the Western side of Jordan at a city called Gilgal. And by the way, the Jews named Gilgal. They said, this is Gilgal. In a few moments, I'll tell you why they named it Gilgal. It's a Hebrew name, which means something very important to the Jewish people of what happened at Gilgal. And so Joshua now has three things that he has to do. He has to get some stones. Now, prior to their crossing the river on the Eastern side of Jordan, in what was called the, uh, the, actually the Valley of, of, of, of, of, uh, uh, the Valley of Moab, Joshua said to 12 men, one from each tribe, pick up the largest rock that you can find. And you see the priest standing out in the middle of the Jordan. I want you to take that rock and I want you to take it by near where the priests are standing. Don't get too close to the Ark. Be sure you stay about a half mile away. And when you get that rock, those big rocks, as big as you can carry to the middle of Jordan, you put those 12 rocks in the middle of Jordan. He chose one man from each of the 12 tribes. Now, Joshua is getting ready to plant a thought in the mind of the Israeli people. And that thought is we are getting ready to form a 12 tribe Confederacy, which will conquer both the Eastern and the Western side of Jordan, 12 tribes. They're going to conform a Confederacy. God told them to take all of the land of Israel. And at that time, the land of Canaan also extended over all the Eastern side of Jordan. And so there were three tribes. You remember that ask if they could stay on the Eastern side, not cross over with the children of Israel, but the tribes stay on the Eastern side. And that was Reuben, Gad and one half Manasseh. But before they could do that, God said, you're fighting men of Gad, Reuben and one half Manasseh. You're men of war. You're fighting men will have to cross Jordan and come with the children of Israel because they are going to become the vanguard, the lead troops that are going to lead the children of Israel in the conquest of the Western side of Jordan. You see, they'd already conquest of the Eastern side. They had already beat Edom and Ammon and Moab. They'd already taken all of that. And they had already given that to Reuben, Gad and one half Manasseh. That side was settled. The Western side was not settled. The Western side was the largest side. It was going to be the greatest conflict. It was going to be the greatest war that they would fight as they were conquering the Western side all the way from Kadesh Barnea all the way up to Mount Hermon. And so Joshua said to them, to the people of Reuben, Gad and one half Manasseh, you're fighting men must go over with us. And they are going to form the vanguard that's going to lead the troops of Israel in the conquest of the Western side of Jordan. And it's going to begin at Jericho. And so the fighting men of Reuben, Gad and one half Manasseh went over Jordan with the children of Israel. They were over there waiting for the conquest to begin their families, their cattle and their possessions stayed on the Eastern side. And the provision was when the Western side is totally conquered, then you will be able to go back to the Eastern side with your family, with your wives, with your possessions, and it will be waiting for you when you come back. And so now they're across the river and they have these big stones that one of each of the 12 men are putting in the middle of Jordan and they get those stones piled up. Now there are no inscriptions on the stones. During this period of time, Abraham was the leader of the establishment of memorials. And when they put down a stone memorial, they didn't write anything on it as we do on our memorials. They just made a memorial to the fact and what they were doing, they were putting a memorial of 12 huge rocks in the middle of Jordan. And then after they got those there and they were across, Joshua was fed to them. Now you men come back. I want you to do one other thing. Now I want you to go back into dry Jordan. The priests are still there. I want you to go back into dry Jordan and I want you to pick up 12 other stones from the middle of the river of Jordan. Now these other stones were already piled up on the other side. They were there. They would stay there. And when the waters come back, they're going to cover those stones. And these 12 men go back into the riverbed of Jordan. Each of them picks up a huge stone and they bring it to the Western side near the place called Gilgal and they build this memorial at Gilgal of these 12 stones to be a memorial. You remember Abraham built a stone altar memorial when he was sacrificed to Isaac. You remember Jacob built an altar at Bethel when he saw the vision of the ladder going up and down to heaven and he built an altar there. He built a stone altar. No inscriptions, but there was a place there that always came back and said, refer to Bethel. And Jacob built the stone altar at Bethel. Now they're building a stone altar and it's there by Gilgal and it's going to be built there. And he says to the children of Israel, let me tell you why we built this memorial. In the future, when the children come down to this area and they are visiting down here near Gilgal and they see these stones piled up in a big heap and stones just don't run around and pile up by themselves. Somebody has to pile them up. And they see these big stones piled up in a heap. The children are going to say to you, mom, dad, what do these stones mean? And he said, when they ask that question, then you can have a religious education class and you can tell them that God almighty, El Shaddai, the provider, I shall provide for you, cause the river to dry up and these stones came out of the middle of the Jordan river and they stand here to this day as a memorial to eternal Shaddai, El Shaddai, God who gave us the conquest of the land of Canaan. It will be a memorial reminder. That's why we put them there. And so the men brought the stones up and they piled them by Gilgal. And when all the stones were in place, then Joshua stood up and commanded the ark of the covenant priest who was still standing in the middle of Jordan, completely dry to come out of Jordan. He said, now, gentlemen, bring the ark of the covenant over to the Western side of Jordan. Now the presence of eternal God is going into the land of Canaan. And as the priests come out of the river, Jordan, and as their feet leave the dry Jordan river, here it came. God released the river. And the scripture says in the fourth chapter, that as they, their feet left the dry Jordan river, it released up at a dam. The whole thing came through. The river came flooding back down again, and it flooded the place just as it was before they met to go across the Jordan. And God on the same day, dried the land on the same day, cross the children on the same day, flooded it again. And he said, these stones will be a memorial to your children so that they will be able to come and understand why they stand there. And so they're across. And the priests are out of the Jordan. And the Jordan is now at flood tide again, full of the bank, full brim to the banks. And the rapids are running again. And it's just as it was before they crossed. And now Joshua calls the children of Israel together. And he says to them, we must do something that has not been done since Sinai. You see, ladies and gentlemen, when the children of Israel abrogated the will of God at Kadesh Barnea, and they had the spies that came back and kids, Ken said, no. And Joshua and Caleb said, yes. God told them because they were disobedient. They would have to wander for 38 years in the wilderness. So a total of 40 years, two years at Sinai, 38 years wandering around in the wilderness of Jordan. And brother Jimmy has told you and I've told you we have been through that area of the world. It is wilderness. And I cannot imagine people having to live out there for 38, 40 years in that wilderness. Now, Joshua said we had the second Passover at Mount Sinai. See, the first Passover was in Egypt. Now they come across and now they spend a year at Sinai, God giving them all of the necessities of the tabernacle, all of the equipment and material in the tabernacles. He gives them the Levitical law. He tells them how the Levites are going to be in charge of the law. He tells them about how the tabernacle will work. He tells them about the Ark of the Covenant. He tells them about Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. God gives it all to them for a period of two years of our period of year at Sinai. And as he comes to the end, it's time for Passover. And so they celebrate the second Passover at Sinai. Now, they were supposed to celebrate the third Passover in Canaan that next year. They were supposed to just keep walking and walk right into the land of Canaan and keep conquesting it. And when Passover came up again, they were supposed to be able to walk in. But you know what happened? They disobeyed. And because some of the children of Israel, as they lived in the land of Goshen, had forgotten the responsibility of the male members of the family, and many of them who went to Mount Sinai had not been circumcised. Now, it is a truism. You cannot participate in Passover unless you are certified as a true son of Abraham and of Israel. You have to be circumcised. So they had a circumcision at Sinai. Go read about it. I'll put you some scripture text in it. Go take a look at it. They had a circumcision at Sinai. And because Joshua, when he's telling them about this circumcision, he's saying, and this is going to be the second circumcision. Well, if you've got a second, somewhere you've got to have a first. And the first was at Sinai. And so he's saying, now we have all of these young men who are under the age of 21, when Kadesh Barnea calls God to punish us and not allow us to come right into the land of promise. And all of these men now who are under 21, now some of them 60 years of age, 59 years of age, many of them still younger, none of them had been circumcised. You can understand in the desert, walking, dust, dirt, you don't take time to circumcise anybody. So none of these men had been circumcised, which meant that now across the River Jordan at Gilgal, and now ready for Passover to come in four days, Joshua has to certify all of the fighting men of the men of Israel who have come out of the wilderness, who are not circumcised. And so the scripture tells us that it was time that he wants to circumcise them. And he says in verse five, in chapter five, he starts talking about, about circumcising them. And he says to them, I will need, and it is called Brit Milah. Now that's the Hebrew for circumcision, or that is the Hebrew for the right of circumcision. Actually, the Hebrew word means to shorten, to shorten. And so he's going to take a flint knife and he's going to take that flint knife and with the flint knife, he and others are going to circumcise all of the fighting men of Israel. In fact, in verse two of chapter five, it says, at that time, the Lord said to Joshua, make flint knives for yourselves and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time. Okay. If you've got a second time, you got to have a first. And the first was at Sinai. And he says, you'll do it a second time. So Joshua made flint knives for himself and circumcised the sons of Israel at the hill of the foreskins. And in fact, he circumcised all of the fighting men who had not been circumcised of Israel. I checked on it just for my own information. What period of time would it take an adult male who had been circumcised to be well? And every place I checked said at least two to three weeks. Ladies and gentlemen, they're going to go in four days because this is the 10th day of Dyson. And he's going to be doing this on the 11th day. And he has four days. These men under the miraculous hand of God are going to be well in four days. And by four days, when Passover is ready to come, these men are going to be well. And so it says, and this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them. All of the people who came out of Egypt who were males, all of the men of war had died in the wilderness on the way after they had come out of Egypt for all the people who came out had been circumcised. But all the people who were born in the wilderness on the way as they came out of Egypt had not been circumcised. And as you know, you cannot participate in Passover as a Jew unless you have the sign of Abraham. And Abraham had the sign of circumcision and God gave it to Abraham. And it is a sign of Judaism. And so it says, and they had not been circumcised for they had been walking in the wilderness for 40 years. And all the people who were men of war who came out of Egypt were consumed because they did not hear the voice of the Lord. And so it was such in the land which the Lord had sworn to their fathers, they would be certified to participate in Passover. And so all of the men of Israel are circumcised. They are all qualified to participate in Passover. And so as you look at verse seven, it says, so Joshua circumcised his sons and he raised up their place for they were uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised all the way. So it was when they had finished circumcising all the people that they stayed in their place in the camp and they were healed. Four days and they were healed and the men of Israel in four days were ready to participate in Passover. And so the next verse, verse nine says, then the Lord said to Joshua today, I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt. Therefore, the name of this place will be called Gilgal. That's kind of interesting. God named the place. He said, because of the reproach of Egypt, which had been on the Israeli people, I am on this day removing that reproach. I'm doing away with that reproach. Those folks who were all kinds of criminals coming through the wilderness out of the land of Egypt, all who had been incarcerated in Goshen for 400 years, all of them now who are free Israeli men, all of them now have been circumcised. He said, I am going to reverse the rebroach of Egypt and I am going to give you a fighting force and a 12 tribe confederacy to go into the land of Canaan. And he said, because of that, you will call the name of this place Gilgal. The name Gilgal in Hebrew means to change or reverse. It means to, we would use this word to transition. That would be the best word for it. So the children of Israel, when they came to the city, when they came to the place where God had called Gilgal, they transitioned from the people they were under the hand of Pharaoh in Egypt for over 400 years now to the people of God who are going to conquest the land of Canaan. And now they are transitioned away from the scourge of Egypt and into the hand of almighty God and moving on into the land of promise to make it God's place. For God said, this land is mine and I will give it to you. He didn't say he had to fight for it. He never told them they had to fight for it. They determined they had to fight for it. Quite frankly, ladies and gentlemen, we are like they, God tells us a lot of things to do and we have a better idea. And we have a better idea and always fails. If we would simply listen to, follow the commands of God and do what he says to do, would we not be better off? Were not, would not the children of Israel have been better off at Kedah Barnea if they had just kept walking? Would they have spent 38 years in the wilderness if they had just kept on walking? Would they have had to wait 38 years for another Passover if they just kept walking? But they were under the scourge of Egypt. They were under the scourge of where they were and they were still sinful men and they just didn't want to keep walking. And so God said, now you are at a transition place. Gilgal, actually it means to circle, to circle and you are circling out of the scourge of Egypt and you are circling into the identity of almighty God and his land of Canaan, which I have given to your father, Abraham. Therefore, it will be called Gilgal, transition, change, different way. So the children of Israel encamped at Gilgal. Kind of interesting. Have you ever read anything by the writer Josephus? Have any of you read anything by Josephus? Josephus wrote some magnificent books called the Hebrew Wars, the Jewish Wars. He writes all about, he was a Jew who was the commander of a fortress in Galilee, was captured by the Romans, became a very close friend of Caesar. In fact, he even went to Rome and they made him a Roman citizen. Later on, his name was Kohen. His name was Joseph Kohen before he was changed and they changed his name from Joseph Kohen to Josephus when he went to Rome. And later on, he wrote a history of the Jewish Wars, all of the Jewish Wars that the children of Israel had fought, Josephus wrote a history. He was a historian. And in the history of the Jewish Wars, he writes these words, God sent them to Gilgal to encamp because it was a perfect camp site. It had beautiful palm trees for shade and it had an abundance of fresh running water. What could you ask those of you who camp for a better camping spot than shade and all of the water that you need? And Josephus says it was the ideal spot for God to rename the children of Israel from wanderers to conquerors from Egypt to Gilgal and now they're there. And now Joshua says it's time for Passover. Fourteenth day of Nisan, day getting ready, night time when the sun goes down, they eat the Passover. What did the children of Israel eat at Gilgal? What was their diet at Gilgal? Well, there had to be some certain things. Number one, they had to have unleavened bread and the unleavened bread had to be made out of some kind of grain, some kind of grain. Most of the time it was made out of wheat and barley and it was made into a matzah, into a kind of a paste and they cooked it over an open fire and they called it matzah bread, unleavened bread, had no leaven in it. And so they had unleavened bread, but they also had some other things. They were now in the wonderful provision of the people of Canaan and they had wheat, they had barley, they had oats, they had corn, they had all kinds of wonderful vegetables, all kinds of grapes and they had figs and they had fruit and they had all of these provisions and God wanted them at this Passover not only to eat unleavened bread, but he wanted them to eat the provisions of Canaan. And for the first time, the children of Israel changed the diet of Passover from just unleavened bread and burned meat to a full diet of all kinds of vegetables and fruits and wheat and nuts and they had a wonderful time. And the scripture says something interesting. On the day after the Passover, God stopped the manna. The manna stopped. It's like it says here, Passover on the 14th day of the month of twilight, verse 10, on the plains of Jericho, and they ate the produce of the land on that day after the Passover, unleavened bread and parched grain and the very same day now the manna stopped. Verse 12, on the very same day, the children of Israel ate of the, what did the spies call it? What did they say this land was? It was a land that flowed with what? Milk and honey, which meant that it had the very finest food that you could eat. And now in verse 12, the children of God in Gilgal, in the transition place, getting ready to go into the land of Canaan, promised by God to their father, Abraham, are eating the produce of the land of Canaan. And they'd eaten the produce of the land and the children no longer had manna, but they had the food of the land of Canaan that year. And from that day on, the children of Israel were in the land of Canaan. Now they're getting ready to have to start fighting, not fighting. They had to get ready to follow the commandments of God. By the way, just in your own knowledge, and brother Jimmy will tell you about it next week. How many of them fought at Jericho? Zero. Not a man fought at Jericho, but God conquered Jericho as God could have conquered all of them. And now they think that they are such a great team that they're going to go up on AI and they're going to take on AI because God didn't tell them to, and they're going to get a real surprise. And brother Jimmy will tell you about that next week, because he's going to tell you about Jericho and Achan and AI and what happened to the children of Israel when they so quickly forgot. Isn't it interesting how quickly we forget? God said, I can do some things for you, right? I don't think that's what the scripture says. The scripture says, I will do all things for you. And God says to each of us, what part of all do you not understand? And that's what he wanted to do for the children of Israel, but they got to the place where they thought they were so high handed that they could do it for themselves. And so Frank Sinatra gave us a lie. Frank Sinatra said, I did it my way. And ladies and gentlemen, that is the worst way in the world. Anybody can do it. Let's do it God's way. And when we do it God's way, follow the scripture, listen to what he says and follow him. He always provides all the necessary victories. Amen. And so the Passover is over. The children of Israel are circumcised. The monument is built. The Jordan is back to flood stage and everything's ready to move into the Western side of Canaan and begin the conquest of the land of Abraham. And so we go from there. It's a great story. Father, we thank you for this passage. We thank you for all that Joshua had to do in order to prepare these children to move into the land of Canaan. We thank you that he helped them to understand that each of these items were necessary for their religious education and for their understanding of you, eternal God, for you were El Shaddai, the great provider, and you were God Almighty with them as they came through the desert and they now get ready to conquer the land. Thank you, Father, for the way you help us. Forgive us, Father, for the way we don't listen and help us to be more concerned about your will than ours and help us to live in the light and the glory and the justice and the love of eternal God. It is in his name that we pray. Amen. See you next week. Brother Jimmy will be here.