Discussion Questions
- When the priests started into the river they stepped into the water and their feet got wet but when they got to the middle of the river, the ground was dry under their feet and everyone walked across the riverbed without getting their feet wet. How did that happen? Can you see how complete God is when He does something for us? There is no detail that He doesn’t see.
- Did the priests say that this was a bad idea or that they didn’t want to try it? Why were they obedient? They were obedient because God had been faithful.
- Can you think of other things that remind us that God is always faithful?
- Rainbows - God’s promise
- Sunrises - every day starts with one
- Spring - new life
- The Bible - God’s guidebook for us
- Why is it important to be faithful? Who has been faithful to you? Are you faithful? Why or why not?
Transcript
Do you remember last week what story I said might be the most important one in the Old Testament? The story told over and over again? It's the story of God delivering the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, and how they crossed the Red Sea safely. Well, today's lesson happened forty years later and has another great God miracle in it.Let me fill in a bit of the backstory before we jump in. After the Israelites were miraculously saved, they needed to travel back to Canaan. Canaan is known as the Promised Land, and it's where the Israelites lived before they were slaves in Egypt. But along the way, they began to grumble and complain. And there was one teensy little problem with just going back home....in the hundreds of years since they'd left Canaan, other people had taken over the land. Cities with big protective walls had been built. The Israelites couldn't just barge in and announce that this was actually their land. So they sent in twelve spies. The Israelites were made up of twelve tribes, so they selected one man from each tribe to go into the Promised Land as a spy and scout things out. Those spies sneaked into the land and looked all around. They saw incredible fruit growing, the grapes were so large they had to carry one bunch on a pole between two men! They called it "a land flowing with milk and honey".
One of the spies, named Caleb, told the people to listen to what Moses had to say. Caleb said, “Let’s go now and take possession of the land. We should be more than able to conquer it.” But the men who had gone with him said, “We can’t attack those people! They’re too strong for us!” (Numbers 13:30-31)
When the rest of the Israelites heard how afraid the spies were they rebelled against Moses and God. To put it simply--they lost their minds! They started totally freaking out! And they refused to even try to go into battle and take back the Promised Land. Remember how I told you that God is always faithful to his people, but sometimes he has to punish them? Well, when you talk back to your parents, and lose your minds, and don't obey....do you get punished? That's how God felt about his children, the Israelites. And he had to punish them. You might get sent to your room or be grounded or something. The Israelites had to wander in the desert for forty years.
Now, God is faithful so he took care of them in the desert. This is when he started providing manna for them to eat, and he made water come out of a rock so they could drink. The Bible tells us that even the soles of their shoes didn't wear out. Yes, God took very good care of them while they were in the wilderness. He didn't leave them on their own, even if he was punishing their disobedience.
And when the time was right, God made a way from them to enter into the Promised Land so they could begin taking it back. This is the story we're going to talk about today. It's been forty years, and even their leader Moses has passed away in the wilderness outside of the Promised Land. A new leader is chosen by God. His name is Joshua, and it's the book of the Bible named for him where we read what happens next.
In the book of Joshua, in chapters 3 & 4, we find that the Israelites are finally ready to go back home. But in order to get there, they must cross the Jordan River. Now rivers can sometimes shrink down and be small, like when it hasn't rained in awhile. But sometimes rivers can swell and overflow the banks, like during a rainy season. And in Joshua 3:15 we read that the Jordan River was in a flood stage. Imagine what it's like when a road gets flooded over and the high water signs get put up. Have you ever driven on a road like that, maybe before the signs are posted? It's a little scary, isnt it? You're not sure your car will make it through the water or if it's too deep. Imagine what it would be like to have to walk through a river that's flooding over its banks. Can you picture the water flowing fast? Can you hear what it sounds like? What it would feel like?
So here the Israelites are finally ready to enter the Promised Land and it looks like they're stopped by water. Again. Only some of the people facing the Jordan River now would've experienced the parting of the Red Sea when they left Egypt as children. Remember, it's been forty years. So many of the people had been born in the wilderness and grown up out there. And some were still just children, like you. But do you think they remembered the story of what God had done in parting the sea? Do you think maybe they hoped he would do something about the water now?
Let's read on and see what kind of faith the people had. Joshua commanded all the priests to travel ahead of everyone else. They were carrying the Ark of the Covenant. Let's pause for a moment to explain what that is. An ark isn't always a big giant boat carrying animals. That was only for Noah. An ark is a vessel--it can be a ship, or it can be a box. It's something which can hold and carry things. And the Ark of the Covenant was a very special chest which held the slabs of stone with the Ten Commandments written on them in God's own handwriting, as well as jars with manna inside. Most importantly, the Ark of the Covenant was where God in the form of the Holy Spirit would settle.It was a very holy, very special chest, and it could only be carried with long poles by the priests. If anyone else even touched it, they would die. So, the Ark of the Covenant was a big deal. No wonder Joshua wanted to have it go first. He wanted to be sure that the Israelites were following God into the Promised Land and not just going into this new journey on their own.
So four priests are carrying the Ark of the Covenant. Let me read to you directly from the Bible. This is Joshua 3:15-17, "...reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground." (Joshua 3:15-17)
Now, let's keep going with Joshua 4:1-7: When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.”
So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”
When the people finished crossing and the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant crossed over into the Promised Land, the water came rushing back and continued flowing like a flood as it had been before! God stopped the water again for his people.
Did you notice that the priests just stepped into the water? They had faith that God was going to act. They trusted his faithfulness. And what do you think about those stones God told Joshua to command the people to gather?
They couldn't just grab a stone from somewhere on the other side of the river, or even just anywhere on the riverbed. God told them to pick up stones from where the priests were standing. These stones were to help the Israelites always remember what God had done for them. The stones were there so their children and grandchildren would ask and want to know why. God was helping the people to remember his faithfulness to them.
Can you think of something most churches have to help us remember God's faithfulness? How about a cross? The cross was where God's ultimate act of faithfulness took place. He allowed his only son, Jesus, to die as payment for our sins. That's a very important thing to remember!
Today, I want you to think about some ways God has been faithful to you and your family. Maybe you've never seen a flooding river be stopped at your toes, but I bet if you try you can think of some other things. And we can always think about and thank God for Jesus and the cross.
Let's pray together.
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