Well please keep your Bibles in hand and turn this time with me to the book of Joshua as we continue in our studies in the sixth book of the Bible; Joshua chapters 3 and 4 this time. You can find it there on page 179 in the church Bibles.
So far in our study of the teaching of Joshua we have watched the people of Israel encamped on the eastern shore of the Jordan River making their preparations for the crossing, at last, into the Promised Land. Joshua, remember last time, sent two spies ahead into Jericho to check out the enemy defenses. They have returned now and the people are ready, at last, to cross the river themselves. It is a momentous occasion for the people of God and in their national life. They had been wandering in the wilderness now for forty years up to this very point and everything is about to change forever. And because of the significance of the occasion, Joshua slows the narrative down. He takes two whole chapters to describe the moment when God’s people enter the land of promise at last.
And as we consider these two chapters together, I want to notice four themes. I think we’re meant to take notice, first of all, of the priority of God’s presence. The priority of God’s presence. The people are to cross the Jordan, they are commanded to go, but they are only to go where and when the ark of the covenant leads them. The priority of God’s presence. The ark was the great symbol of the presence of God. Secondly, we are to notice the method in God’s madness. The method in God’s madness. God has His people cross the river at the worst conceivable time when the crossing was extremely dangerous. It seems like a crazy plan, but there is a method in God’s madness. And then thirdly, we need to notice the symbols of God’s salvation. Having crossed the river, God commanded them to build two monuments – one in the middle of the river; one on the western shore in the land of Canaan; twelve stones taken from the riverbed so that they could always remember the mighty work of God and never forget His wonderful grace. And then finally, we are meant to see here the pattern of God’s purposes. The pattern of God’s purposes. Joshua is central to the whole story; the figure of Joshua. And the text tells us he is being exalted by this miracle of the crossing of the Jordan River in the sight of all the people. But why is he being exalted like this? Well, there is a pattern here that we will see ultimately points ahead to another Joshua – the Lord Jesus Christ. And we learn a great deal from the pattern that is being established here about Jesus’ person and His redeeming work.
And so those are the four themes that we mustn’t miss as we work through the text together. The priority of God’s presence, the method in God’s madness, the symbols of God’s salvation, and the pattern of God’s purposes. Before we look at them, let’s pause and pray together and ask for His help. Let us pray.
O Lord, please send us now the ministry of Christ, our Prophet, Priest and King, by the Holy Spirit, that as our Prophet, He may speak His Word to our hearts, that as our great High Priest, His sympathy might be extended to our need, and as our King, He might rule us by the royal scepter of His Word. Do it, we pray, for His name’s sake. Amen.
Joshua chapters 3 and 4. This is the Word of God:
“Then Joshua rose early in the morning and they set out from Shittim. And they came to the Jordan, he and all the people of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over. At the end of three days the officers went through the camp and commanded the people, ‘As soon as 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. Yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about 2,000 cubits in length. Do not come near it, in order that you may know the way you shall go, for you have not passed this way before.’ Then Joshua said to the people, ‘Consecrate 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.’ So they took up the ark of the covenant and went before the people.
The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. And as for you, command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant, ‘When you come to the brink of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.’’ And Joshua said to the people of Israel, ‘Come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God.’ And Joshua said, ‘Here is how you shall know that the living God is among you and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is passing over before you into the Jordan. Now therefore take twelve men from the tribes of Israel, from each tribe a man. And when the soles of the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off from flowing, and the waters coming down from above shall stand in one heap.’
So when the people set out from their tents to pass over the Jordan with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people, and as soon as those bearing the ark had come as far as the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the brink of the water (now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest), the waters coming down from above stood and rose up in a heap very far away, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, and those flowing down toward the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. And the people passed over opposite Jericho. Now the priests bearing the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firmly on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, and all Israel was passing over on dry ground until all the nation finished passing over the Jordan.
When all the nation had finished passing over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Take twelve men from the people, from each tribe a man, and command them, saying, ‘Take twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priests’ feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight.’’ Then Joshua called the twelve men from the people of Israel, whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe. And Joshua said to them, ‘Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.’
And the people of Israel did just as Joshua commanded and took up twelve stones out of the midst of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, just as the Lord told Joshua. And they carried them over with them to the place where they lodged and laid them down there. And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the covenant had stood; and they are there to this day. For the priests bearing the ark stood in the midst of the Jordan until everything was finished that the Lord commanded Joshua to tell the people, according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua.
The people passed over in haste. And when all the people had finished passing over, the ark of the Lord and the priests passed over before the people. The sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh passed over armed before the people of Israel, as Moses had told them. About 40,000 ready for war passed over before the Lord for battle, to the plains of Jericho. On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they stood in awe of him just as they had stood in awe of Moses, all the days of his life.
And the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Command the priests bearing the ark of the testimony to come up out of the Jordan.’ So Joshua commanded the priests, ‘Come up out of the Jordan.’ And when the priests bearing the ark of the covenant of the Lord came up from the midst of the Jordan, and the soles of the priests’ feet were lifted up on dry ground, the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and overflowed all its banks, as before.
The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they encamped at Gilgal on the east border of Jericho. And those twelve stones, which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up at Gilgal. And he said to the people of Israel, ‘When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.’”
Amen, and we praise God for His holy Word.
The Priority of God’s Presence
Let’s think first of all about the priority of God’s presence. The priority of God’s presence. The people, as we said, have been in the Sinai Desert for 40 years. Forty years of wandering under the judgment of God. They had come up out of Egypt, to be sure, but that first generation that had been delivered from bondage have now perished on the road. None but Joshua and Caleb now remained alive of those who came out of slavery at first. So this entire generation that we are reading about here in the book of Joshua has never known anything but the life of a nomad and a wanderer. They had grown up constantly moving from place to place in the arid waste of the wilderness. And now they have arrived at the Jordan River at last. They can see the land of promise on the far shore, and they lodged there, we are told, before they passed over – chapter 3 verse 1.
Now you remember back in chapter 1, God had told Joshua to get the people ready, to prepare for the crossing. And now they have been preparing for several days, waiting on the banks of the river ready to ford the Jordan. The spies that Joshua sent across the river have returned. Everything is ready at last. And as if to underscore the significance of this moment, the Hebrew verb, “to pass over” or “to cross over,” gets used again and again and again in these two chapters. Twenty-two times over it keeps appearing. It’s used here with such constant repetition because this is not just a river that they are crossing, trying to find the safest and most expeditious route. This is a boundary. It is a line of demarcation; a point of transition in fact, beyond which everything will be different for them forever. On the eastern shore they were pilgrims, homeless wanderers, judged by God because of unbelief; left to move around year after year, never settling anywhere. Restless. But on the western banks of the river they will be home at last. The eastern bank was the place of their restlessness; the western bank a home of rest. The eastern bank – a place of wilderness; the land of divine displeasure. But the western shore – the place of covenant blessing. The eastern – the wilderness. The western – a land of milk and honey. And the river Jordan is the border between the two. And so the narrator, understandably, puts a great deal of emphasis on this crossing. It’s not just a movement from place A to place B. It is a transition from curse to blessedness. From wrath to grace. From rebuke to renewal. From homeless wandering to citizenship in the kingdom at last.
And you’ll notice, before they could make the crossing, they are given some very specific instructions. Aren’t they? Look at chapter 3 verse 3. “As soon as 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. Yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about 2,000 cubits in length. Do not come near it, in order that you may know the way you shall go, for you have not passed this way before.” So they were not allowed to cross whenever they felt like it or take whichever route seemed best. No, they had to follow the ark of the covenant because they have not passed this way before. This is something entirely new in their experience; something utterly unprecedented.
And you know when a person becomes a Christian, it is something very much like this that happens to them. Isn’t it? It’s not just that they found religion; it’s not just that they have adopted a new lifestyle. It’s not even that they have made a change or turned over a new leaf or resolved to be better and do better. That’s not what a Christian is. A Christian is someone who has crossed the Jordan, as it were, and moved from all those years of wilderness wandering and entered the land of promise. They have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of life, from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. A critical transition has taken place, decisive and utterly unprecedented. They have never passed this way before.
But you’ve changed your ways before, haven’t you? You’ve tried to clean up your act before. You’ve come to church often enough and tried to be religious and tried to be good, but none of that will do. No, you must cross the great boundary, the great dividing line into the kingdom of God. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come.” Paul’s not talking there about trying harder to be a good person, is he? He’s talking about something far more radical. New creation. New life. New birth. You must be born again. And that has no precedent in your life. You’ve never passed this way before. It is entirely new.
And that’s why, you will notice, they were told to keep their distance from the ark of the covenant. Do you see that in verse 4 of chapter 3? They are told to stay 2,000 cubits away. That’s about 1,000 yards. Now some of you may recall that in the Old Testament, unauthorized proximity to the ark of the covenant was deadly. In 2 Samuel chapter 6, for example, Uzzah reaches out and touches the ark when he was not supposed to do so and he was struck down for it. The ark is this awesome thing; awesome in its holiness. And so it was weighty, even scary, to have the ark going ahead of you. And the people were wise to keep their distance. But that is not the main reason for the gap between the ark of the covenant and the people of Israel as they cross the Jordan here. You see, the ark was the great symbol of the presence of the Lord God in the midst of His people. And that’s why it was terrifyingly holy. It was the emblem of the presence of the Holy One of Israel. But the whole point of what is about to happen here at the Jordan is not that Israel were being given an efficient mechanism by which to cross the river, but rather the big point is that God, God Himself was going to bring them across and He wanted them always to see that it was only because of His presence in their midst that they were safely delivered from one shore to the other. And so they always had to see, not to crowd too closely but so that they had enough space to see the ark of the covenant always before them. To know, as it were, that God is in their midst and so they were delivered.
Think about a bustling tourist city, Edinburgh or New York or London or Barcelona or Paris, and there are tour guides all over the place, you know, meeting their tour groups on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh or in Times Square in New York or in Hyde Park in London or on Las Ramblas in Barcelona or on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. And each tour guide, you know, walks around holding up their little flag so that their group, as they talk about the sites and point things out to them, that their group doesn’t ever get lost and they can always see their guide. That’s something like what is going on here. God’s presence, God’s presence is the one thing He wants the people to be sure they do not miss or lose sight of. Not the water standing in a heap upstream. Not the dry ground miraculously under their feet. But the presence of God who opens the way across the Jordan.
Joshua himself actually makes that point to them quite forcefully in verse 9 of chapter 3. Do you see it? “Here is how you shall know that the living God is among you and that he will not fail to drive out from before you the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites.” So how do they know? “Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is passing over before you into the Jordan.” Alright, so how do you go from the wilderness to the Promised Land? How do you move out from under the judgment of God, which is your natural condition, to come and live at last under His blessing forever? How shall you leave behind all your years of empty wandering and find rest? How do you get across the Jordan? The answer of our text is only by the presence of the Lord of all the earth. It is His work alone to bring people across the great dividing line and to open the way through an impenetrable barrier. You cannot get across on your own, but He, only He can open the way. Give up on any attempt of yours to find or to secure eternal life. There is no way into Canaan but by the mighty power and outstretched arm of the Lord of all the earth. He must do it and He is pleased to do it for all who seek Him.
The Method in God’s Madness
And that brings us to the next major theme that I want you to see here. First the priority of God’s presence. God must work in your midst to be your deliverer. Secondly, notice the method in God’s madness. The method in God’s madness. Joshua has delivered the command of God to the people, chapter 3 verses 12 and 13. Do you see the plan now for crossing the river? When the ark goes down into the river and the Levites are carrying it and there are twelve additional men, one from each of the tribes to go with them, and when their feet touch the waters, the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off from flowing and the waters coming down from above shall stand up in one heap. So there’s the plan. A miracle is promised.
And verses 14 through 17 tell us what happens. Look at chapter 3:14-17 and notice carefully how the narrator tells the story. It is, frankly, infuriating. As soon as the feet of the priests bearing the ark touch the waters – and we all sort of hold our breath, right, and lean forward to see the miracle, and instead, verse 15, he tells us about river conditions. One commentator remarks, “Getting you on the edge of your chair, he does the most maddening thing. He supplies you with a little data on river conditions in springtime. The effect is akin to watching a 1950s television drama in which the hero and heroine are closing in for a climactic kiss only to be cut off by a Rice Krispies commercial!” Right? So you see how the action is building, it’s building and building, and we are waiting for the miracle. We want to see the miracle! And then everyone’s phone goes, “Meep, meep, meep! The National Weather Service in Shittim is predicting river conditions will be in flood.” Of course to interrupt a drama like this with something so apparently mundane can only mean it’s not really that mundane after all. That this is something worth noticing. So verse 15 says the Jordan River is in flood and it overflows its banks all the time, every time at harvest. Chapter 4:19 gives even more specific about the timing. They cross the river, we are told, on the tenth day of the first month. We’re going to come back to that point later.
But the bottom line is, it’s springtime, which is when the harvest took place in Israel. So the snow has melted on the mountains of Hermon and the March rains have turned the Jordan River into a raging torrent. So for much of the year, to be honest, the Jordan River is not much of a barrier. It’s wide, it’s shallow, there are a number of fords that make it easy to cross for much of the year, that is, except this one short period when it is extremely difficult to cross on foot indeed. Now why in the world would the Lord bring His people to the Jordan at this particular moment? He has them delay till this particular moment. Had they arrived a few weeks earlier or perhaps even stayed in Shittim for a few more weeks later, the river wouldn’t be nearly so dangerous. But here they are now with children and the sick and the infirmed, with their livestock and all their worldly possessions in tow, an entire nation faced with the deafening roar, the thunder of a river in spate. And as the people all crowd around on the banks of the river, looks of alarm on their faces, here come the Levites carrying the ark and the twelve men chosen from each tribe. Were they rather dragging their feet at this point, I wonder; each one trying to hang back, you know, to make sure they’re at the back of the line as they approach the raging Jordan. Are they nudging each other? “You go first, George. I’ll be right behind you!”
It’s a really terrifying moment, but of course as soon as their feet touch the water, the promise of the Lord comes true. The waters upstream stand up in a pile. Downstream, the waters are completely cut off. It’s wonderful, certainly, though if I were a betting man I’d wager that some of these twelve men and some of those Levites were wondering why the miracle had to be quite this scary. Why did it have to be quite this scary? This daunting? Did it have to happen at flood season when approaching the river on its own was enough to give them a heart attack? What could possibly be God’s rationale?
Well a quick scan through the Scriptures and you’ll see actually this is often God’s way, isn’t it? Got any rivers you think can’t be crossed? Got any mountains you think can’t be climbed? Got any friends you think can’t be saved? Nothing is impossible with God. And sometimes, He takes not the path of least resistance but the path of most resistance to prove it to us. After all, isn’t that what Jesus did? You remember in John 11 when He learned that His friend, Lazarus, was sick, He told His disciples, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” And verse 6 of John 11, “So when He heard that Lazarus was ill” – get this – “He stayed two days longer in the place where He was.” He didn’t rush to Lazarus’ side to heal him. He stayed behind until Lazarus was dead. In verse 14 He explains to His disciples, “Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” He could have gone right away and healed Lazarus. In fact, when He arrived at Bethany, Martha said to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” And it would have been wonderful, to be sure, if Jesus had delivered Lazarus from his sickness. But He waited until the sickness took his life and Lazarus was laid in the tomb, and then with a word, effortlessly raised him from the grave. He waited, we might say, until the river was in flood.
Why? Well you remember the two parts of Jesus’ answer – “It is for the glory of God that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” And, “I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe.” So now do you see the method in God’s madness when His answers don’t come when it’s easy, when things are harder and harder, when the river bursts its banks in a raging flood? “What is He doing?” That’s our question. Well, He is at work to display His glory and the sufficiency of His grace in the extremity of your need, and He is at work to teach you to trust Him, not just when the river is easy to cross, but when it is apparently an impenetrable barrier. He wants us to learn the hard way, if necessary, that there are no rivers His power cannot stop. There are no barriers He cannot surmount. And there is no one so stuck, so lost, that He cannot save to the uttermost all who come to God by Jesus Christ.
The Symbols of God’s Salvation
The priority of His presence. The method in God’s madness. Then, look at chapter 4 and notice in the third place, the symbols of God’s salvation. The symbols of God’s salvation. In the first seven verses of chapter 4, we learn the people are to collect these twelve stones and carry them on their shoulders from the middle of the river bed and to erect them on the far shore on the side of Canaan. And then in chapter 4 verse 9 you’ll notice Joshua himself does the same thing right in the middle of the river so that presumably, when the waters recede and the river returns to its regular, sedate course, the stones will appear out of the water in the middle of the river. And verse 6 tells us what this whole thing is about. Why are they doing all of this? Well, my friend, Rhett Dodson, calls this “the Canaanite catechism.” Can you see it in verse 6? The first question and answer of the Canaanite catechism – “When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.’”
And then just to underscore its significance, the whole story is told all over again in chapter 4:19-24. Do you see that? We might even say that if verse 6 is the shorter Canaanite catechism question and answer one, verse 21 is the larger Canaanite catechism question and answer one. “What do these stones mean? You shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over,” – notice this carefully – “just as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.’”
So what are these stones for? They are a memorial of salvation, aren’t they? A memorial of salvation. Verse 23 explains that the crossing of the Jordan was a sort of reenactment for a new generation of the Exodus crossing of the Red Sea. And that connection, by the way, between the exodus and what was happening here at the Jordan, is crucial to notice. In fact, the text makes the connection for us a couple of different times, certainly here in verse 23 but also back in verse 19. Remember it told us that little detail, that little calendaring detail that the crossing took place on the tenth day of the first month. That may not seem all that significant to you, but actually it is a thrilling detail because it tells us that it was on this very day, 40 years earlier, when the lambs were slaughtered and their blood daubed on the doorposts and on the lentils during the very first Passover so that the Hebrew firstborn might be saved from death.
So what’s going on? This whole thing, this whole event is a memorial of God’s salvation. From death and judgment He has delivered His people. That’s the message. And by erecting these two stone monuments, God wanted to make sure they never forgot it. And of course we have symbols of salvation too, don’t we, given to us by our God. Better symbols, by far in fact, than these two stone piles. Interestingly, our text links what happens here at the Jordan both to Passover and to the crossing of the Red Sea. And both of these events are taken up in the New Testament and we’re told they point to the cross. The Passover points to the cross of which the Lord’s Supper today is now the great memorial. And the Red Sea deliverance points to the remission of sins secured at the cross of which Christian baptism is the great sign. So while these two piles of stones preached a message about God’s gracious salvation, we have much better monuments to grace, don’t we? Much clearer and fuller. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper speak to us about the cross where the Lamb of God shed His blood, our Passover Lamb, that we might live. And where Christ, the great representative and substitute of His people, was deluged beneath the flood of God’s judgment that our sin might be washed away. When Jesus said on the night in which He was betrayed, “Do this in remembrance of Me,” He was giving a far more precious memorial by which we may enter through faith into the benefits of His saving love. And we need to remember, don’t we, the wonder and the horror, the love and the cost of our deliverance. We must never lose sight of it. It must never become old news lest, as one commentator puts it, “we begin to regard the cross as a piece of furniture rather than the throne of a shepherd who soaked up the wrath of God for the sins of His flock.”
The Pattern of God’s Purposes
The priority of God’s presence. The method in God’s madness. The symbols of God’s salvation. And then the last thing to see – the pattern of God’s purposes. It is woven into this story like so many desperate threads that will one day all come together most beautifully in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Remember, God told Joshua, chapter 3 verse 7, part of the purpose of all of these events was to exalt Joshua in the eyes of all the people. Chapter 4:14 tells us that is exactly what happened. “On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they stood in awe of him just as they had stood in awe of Moses, all the days of his life.” Now do you see the Gospel pattern there? Joshua saved the people, led them through Jordan into the Promised Land, and therefore God highly exalted him. That’s the pattern. That’s the type. But the full reality to which it pointed arrived when another Joshua stepped alive from the waters of Jordan. Those waters were, to Him, a sign of the baptism of God’s wrath that He would shortly undergo at the cross. And He would go on to make conquest of the powers of darkness, triumphing over them, making public spectacle of them at Calvary. “And having become obedient to the point of death, even the death of a cross, God therefore highly exalted Him,” Philippians 2, “giving Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of” – Yeshua, at the name Joshua – “at the name Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”
What is the big point of this story? Isn’t it that Jesus Christ is a perfect and all sufficient Savior? He is God’s Man, the only one who can lead you safely over Jordan. There is a priority of God’s presence. We must have the presence of God. There is a method in God’s madness. There are symbols given to us by which to remember His salvation. And there is a pattern to His purposes and all of it is designed to rivet your gaze upon Jesus. Jesus is the center, not just of the meaning of this passage, but of the Gospel of God, and He is your only hope of passage from the wilderness into the land of blessing and promise. So may God help us, help you today, to rest upon Him alone. Let’s pray together.
Father, we praise You for the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Savior of sinners, who is offered to us freely in the Gospel. Help us now, please, to receive and rest upon Him. Teach us that He is our true Joshua who leads us safely across the Jordan into our inheritance. Help us not to try to make the crossing on our own. It is impossible. But by His presence and power He can bring us home. O Lord, help us to come and rest upon Him, for we ask this in His name. Amen.