Let us go to God in prayer.

“Our dear Father in heaven, as we open up Your Word to study it, we pray that You will help us take heed how we hear and cause our hearts to be like the good soil to receive this Word and to respond, and to bear fruit from it, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”

There is a place in London, it’s called Postman’s Park. And in this park, there is a wall, a wall of heroes. There’s plenty of words on this wall, and basically, they are records of normal human beings who became heroes because they gave their lives for others. And the youngest entry on this wall is a boy by the name of Henry James Bristow. More than a hundred years ago, a mum left her two children in a room; the older son to care for the younger sister. Now unfortunately, the sister knocked over an oil lamp. The oil spilled on her and she caught fire. Now the inscription on this wall, it says this: “Henry James Bristow, aged 8, saved his sister’s life by tearing off her flaming clothes, himself dying of burns and shock.”.

Now, this is quite a significant event, at least for this family. For the sister who was probably too young at the time to remember what happened, surely her parents will tell her of her brother who gave his life for her. Surely this family’s life will be changed by this event. And if ever they would forget this, all they need to go is to go to Postman’s Park, to this wall, and they will be instantly reminded of this young boy’s sacrifice. Today that is our focus: memorials. We have plenty of memorials. Memorials are objects used to remind us of significant persons or events. And as we continue our story in Joshua (Joshua chapter 4), that is really our focus this morning.

Let me remind you that we have been following this story where Joshua was leading the people (the Israelites), and they came to the River Jordan. And the last time we saw this story, they were stuck there. The River Jordan is this great river, at least four hundred metres apart. They could not even see what was on the other side, and it was full at that time. They couldn’t cross it. And so they had a problem at the Jordan, that’s what we saw the last time. We saw the purpose of the Jordan. God used this event to show that He was mighty, and then God displayed His power over the Jordan. Now as we continue this story today, we shall quickly look through the narrative here to just see what is going on. And then I’ll give you three phrases, three points of application.

So let’s look through the narrative very quickly. Look at verse 1: “And it came to pass, when all the people had crossed over the Jordan, that the LORD spoke to Joshua, saying: “Take for yourselves twelve men from the people, one man from every tribe, and command them, saying, ‘Take for yourselves twelve stones from here, out of the midst of the Jordan, from the place where the priests’ feet stood firm. You shall carry them over with you and leave them in the lodging place where you lodge tonight.’””.

The first three verses, we receive the next instructions. God gives the next few instructions to Joshua to tell the people. And the instructions are these: You choose twelve men, one man from each tribe. And what are they to do? Bring them to that place. What is that place? You see verse 2: “Go take for yourselves twelve stones from here, out of the midst of the Jordan”, more specifically “from the place where the priests’ feet stood firm.”. This phrase itself is amazing. Remember the Jordan, supposed to be full. Why is there dry ground in the Jordan? How can people stand in the Jordan? It was an amazing event, and they were to go to that exact place where the priests’ feet were standing and take stones.

And so Joshua told the people exactly these instructions in verse 4: “Then Joshua called twelve men whom he had appointed from the children of Israel, one man from every tribe; and Joshua said to them: “Cross over before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of the Jordan, and each one of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel”. And so what we want to take note from here is they are pretty big stones such that they need to carry them on their shoulder. And again he makes sure that he has the correct number. Every tribe is represented so no one would say: Oh wait, where’s my stone? How come I don’t have a stone there? No, every tribe.

The tribe of Dan will say, look at that one, that one is our stone. The tribe of Zebulun will say: Oh, that one, the funny-looking one. That one is representing our tribe. Every tribe is represented here. And so the first five verses, we see the instructions, the next piece of instructions. And they are quite peculiar. You start to wonder what is going on here. Yes, we are crossing this river. Yes, we crossed on dry ground, but now why is the next instruction picking stones? And not just any kind of small stones, big stones. Well from that instruction given, now we see the explanation. Verse 6: “that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’”.

And so we have an explanation. You do this thing which is quite peculiar, but you do this because this is going to be a sign for you. We understand what signs are. When we see a sign that says five hundred metres ahead is Sunway Lagoon, we don’t stop at that sign and we start to change into our swimming trunks and start to prepare. No, the sign is pointing us to the main thing. The sign, we don’t stop at the sign. And so this peculiar event, where they are supposed to pick stones, it’s just a sign. What does it point to? People will ask, they’re going to be curious. What do these stones mean, the young ones might ask? And this is your answer to them.

Verse 7: “Then you shall answer them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.”. This is the answer Joshua wants them to give. And you would realise that this answer doesn’t just say that the meaning is that once upon a time we managed to cross the Jordan, or when we reached the Jordan the waters were cut off. No, you see him attributing every part of it to God’s doing. He says: “the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD”. And then he rephrases it. When ‘it’, referring to the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD. When it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.

And so don’t lose sight of that, God is the One doing it all. And these stones that we collect, these twelve stones shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever. Something amazing has been done for the children of Israel, and God wants them to not forget it. Remember it. For how long? Forever. Verse 8: “The children of Israel did exactly that, as Joshua had commanded”. Now from verse 8 onwards to verse 10, we would see a few phrases being repeated. Now I won’t go into too much detail. In fact, all the way to verse 14, I won’t go into too much detail. You might have to (if you’re curious) go back and find out a bit more for yourself, but I’ll just give you a keyword to sum up these few verses, and that is the exaltation of Joshua as their leader.

The phrases: “they did just as Joshua commanded”; “just as the Lord commanded”; “just as Moses commanded”. Wah, suddenly the old legend now comes back again. Why are they talking about Moses again? It is because Joshua is remembering the advice Moses gave to him. Moses, in his perhaps his last words to Joshua, he said: “Joshua, you’re going to be a leader to these people. You’re going to face some challenges, but just remember one thing: If you were to obey and follow God fully, all will be well with you.”. If only you can obey God exactly, everything He says. And that’s why you see these phrases being repeated. “God told Joshua”; “Joshua told the people”. They obey, they obey, they obey.

And so in verse 14, you will see that “on that day the LORD exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they feared him, as they had feared Moses, all the days of his life.”. So these few verses, the exhortation of Joshua. Of course, if you’re also curious about the two-and-a-half tribes there, you could learn more about that in Numbers 32, but that won’t be our focus this morning. And so continuing the story from verse 15 to verse 18, we see them coming out. They have completely crossed over the Jordan, and the next command is to ask them to come out, and they came up out from the Jordan. Verse 19: “Now the people came up from the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they camped at Gilgal on the east border of Jordan (of Jericho, sorry).”.

Now the date (the tenth day of the first month) may not seem significant to us, but we will see soon enough that it is pretty significant to those people. Verse 20: “And those twelve stones which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up in Gilgal. Then he spoke to the children of Israel, saying: “When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, ‘What are these stones?’ then you shall let your children know, saying, ‘Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry land’”. This is your answer. People will ask you what is going on. They may see this monument that they have just erected there, gigantic stones, making a monument there. And perhaps not just months later, maybe even years later when they come back, they would still see it there. And some of them might not know what’s it about.

And your answer to them is: God’s people, Israel, crossed over this Jordan on dry land. This is an amazing miracle- crossing the Jordan, which supposed to be full, they crossed on dry land. Who can perform such a wonderful thing? Who is powerful enough to do something like that? Verse 23: “For the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over, as the LORD your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed over”. This is the only One, the only being who can perform something so great, so miraculous. The LORD your God, He did it just as He’d done before to the Red Sea. And what is our appropriate response?

For the people of Israel, how should they even respond to such a powerful God? Verse 24: “that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty, that you may fear the LORD your God forever.”. So see the effect of God performing this for them. The only response, the only logical response is what a mighty God, able to bend the laws of nature as He wants. Gravity says what goes up must come down. God says if I want- if I want the river who’s supposed to be going down to go up and stay there, up to Me. What a mighty God. And the only response is to bow down, to worship this God, to fear Him, to obey Him.

If the Israelites have such a God, who in their right mind will want to go after another god? Who would want to go after idols? And so this, as we briefly have looked through, is the crossing of the Jordan. Chapter 4 describes this peculiar event where they were to pick up some stones for themselves. And it’s pretty clear why, as we have seen the answers being given by Joshua. God has performed something miraculous for them, and definitely, it is something they should remember because by remembering this, it will have a profound effect on their lives. Their lives would change because of this event, this memorial. Now this is the twelve stones, a sign for the Israelites. But what does it have to do with us? I’ll give you three phrases as we try and see how might this have a relevance to us.

What does it have to do with us? The first phrase is a mighty miracle. Just as Israel saw a mighty miracle being shown by God, so did we. If we think about it, now what do we mean? I’m not talking about the little, little miracles that God performed in your life, like oh, maybe I didn’t study well for my exam, and yet God gives me A. Oh, what a miracle. No, I’m not talking about that. The mighty miracle as described here is something impossible, like the cutting of the Jordan for them, what is impossible. Perhaps even more impossible than the cutting open of the Jordan, giving life to the dead. Now that is even more amazing, and that is what we as sinners were, as described in the Bible.

People who are dead in sins and trespasses, who are spiritually dead have no life, God can give life to this person. Now R. C. Sproul says: “Don’t think of a sinner as someone who is in trouble, drowning- drowning in the water, and then God throws a rope and rescue them. No, think of a sinner as someone at the bottom of the ocean, perhaps dead for months maybe, and God saves that person.”. A mighty miracle. If we are believers, we have experienced for ourselves this mighty miracle in our lives. Now another reason why I would say that this really is a miracle, asking us to remember God’s work of redemption, it’s because of the date that’s given there in verse 19. Let’s pay attention a little bit more to that date.

Verse 19 says: “Now the people came up from the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month”. Now we are clueless what this means, but let us flip over to Exodus chapter 12, and then we will know for sure. Remember the date- the first month, the tenth day. Exodus 12:2- “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.”. Verse 3: “Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household.”. You see the exact date there, the tenth day of the first month. What was being established in Exodus chapter 12? The Passover. You will see a lot of similarities actually.

If you continue reading this Passover, you can go all the way to verse 26 and you will see the same words there: “And it shall be, when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’”. You see the similarities there? They were also performing something, something that was very peculiar. But there was an answer for that as well. Your children will ask what is it all about, and they would tell their children God saved us. The Israelites, by performing this, they are remembering God’s work of redemption, and so do we. A commentator, CFQ, helpfully pointed this out that this date is the same date in Exodus chapter 12, and it is exactly forty years later. So in a sense, you could say that God began forty years ago the delivering, the saving of these people.

And forty years later, not even one day later, on the same date, they are here. They’ve finished crossing the Jordan. They’re in the Land already. And so we see again this mighty miracle that they are to remember. They’re not to remember all the little, little miracles that God had done for them. No, they are to remember this work, God’s work of redemption. That is the focus for us as we look at this story: God’s work of redemption for us. And this causes us to be full of joy. When we think of God’s saving of us, causes us to be overjoyed, just as the Israelites were. They were singing and dancing, remember? God saved them, and when the enemies pursued them, they were drowned in the Red Sea.

And they sang: “Oh happy, sing to the LORD. He has triumphed gloriously. The horse and it’s rider, He has thrown into the sea.”. And yet very sadly three days later (or if you count in your Bible three verses later), they complained. Where’s the water? I’m thirsty. Now we have seen our first point- a mighty miracle. But the second point that I’d like to make this morning, a lesson that we can learn is yes, we have seen a mighty miracle but we have a miserable memory. Just like these Israelites, they were complaining. Where’s the water? God perhaps gave them water in that episode, but the next episode they went one step further. Wait, I’m hungry. Eh, Egypt was better. We were enjoying last time. Oh, really ah they were enjoying last time? All the lies.

They were exaggerating here. They were insulting God. God has done nothing but good to them. When they cried out to Him, He delivered them. And yet days later, they are complaining, they are questioning God, they are insulting, attacking the character of God. Now although we look at this story of the Israelites and we say oh, what a miserable bunch of people, what a stubborn bunch of people, remember what the Bible says about the Israelites. They stand as an example to us. Every time we see the Israelites performing some acts of sin, we say that is exactly us. Aren’t we the same? We have a miserable memory as well. We have something to remember, this God’s work of redemption for us. But how quick we are to forget? So many things we can remember.

When is Taylor Swift’s birthday? That one easy to remember. When is the next iPhone coming out? Oh, that one we know already. All these things we remind ourselves often, but when it comes to these important truths, we forget so soon. Now when I say forget, I don’t mean that it goes out of our memory. Oh, got memory loss, we forgot. No, it just means that we don’t dwell on these things. These are things we know, yes, but we don’t dwell on them. And in that sense, we forget. And forgetting, as was in the case of the Israelites, same for us, it leads to so many other sins. It leads to sins of ingratitude and complaining. Isn’t that so true of us? On Sunday we can come to church.

We can sing: “We thank Thee, then, O Father, for all things bright and good”, but by Wednesday we are tired of the boring same old food- rice and cabbage again. Complain, not happy. It leads to doubting, sins of doubting. Every time we doubt, we attack God’s character. We can listen to a wonderful message that on Sunday we heard God is for us, who can be against us? And then on Tuesday, we receive a lot of work from our boss. On Wednesday, we are bitter against them. Finally, on Thursday, we say God is not good.

You see, forgetting. Forgetting can lead to so many other sins. We may hear on Sunday of how our sins have been forgiven. It was an unpayable debt, and yet we were forgiven, our sins wiped away. A huge debt has been wiped out. And then on Monday maybe it’s still fresh in our minds. We’re very polite to everyone. On Tuesday, some people cut our lane, horn them. On Wednesday, you’re impolite. Someone’s impolite to us, we hold a grudge against them. I hate this person on Thursday, I hope he falls down from the stairs. We are like that ungrateful, the wicked unforgiving servant. All because of what? We don’t dwell on things that are important. We hear on Sundays, so quickly we forget. We are people of a miserable memory.

There’s a story of four friends. These four friends spend their retirement days playing golf. Soon one of them passed away, and he was their only pair of good eyes. He’s the only one who can see properly. And so soon these three friends who could not see properly found a new “four” friend who had a good pair of eyes. And so they played golf, and then they hit the golf ball. Do you see where it went? The fourth friend said: Yeah, I saw. Then they drove their golf cart, but they drove and drove and they looked around, they couldn’t find the golf ball. They asked this friend: I thought you saw the golf ball? He said: Yes, I saw, but I cannot remember. What’s the use? What’s the use if you know something, you can see something?

We learned on Sunday all these things. What’s the use if you don’t remember? Now we have experienced as Christians a mighty miracle, but we understand. We know for ourselves that we are people of a miserable memory. Well, God is so gracious to help us. And our third point, we want to see a meaningful memorial that God has graciously asked us to set up. Now in this story, what we have seen so far is the twelve stones, and that is the memorial for the children of Israel. Just as they had these stones, we have today elements as well to remember these truths. We have the cup, we have the bread. And when we partake of all these things, we are doing the same thing as them. These things help us remember.

Now there was nothing special about these stones. There was nothing intrinsically valuable about these stones. These are just ordinary stones picked up from the river. And so the same thing, there’s nothing special about the Ribena that you drink or the bread that you eat. Nothing special in them. Now one British preacher says that the Roman Catholics got it wrong. He says it took the mumbo-jumbo of an idolatrous priest to turn these elements into their god, to say that this stone is something special and then they worshipped them. Or this bread and this cup that we drink somehow becomes god, somehow goes in us and turns into the actual flesh and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. No, there’s nothing special. It’s just normal Ribena that you can get from Speedmart. Nothing special, but they remember a sign. What is a sign?

They point us to the main thing. And what is that main thing? You see in verse 6, Joshua chapter 4, this sign will cause people to ask you. Could be the future generation, could be your children, could be strangers who don’t know what is going on, and hopefully of course we pray that the young ones in our midst would do the same as they see us every month drinking this cup and partaking this bread. Hopefully, they would become curious. And when they do, we have an occasion to teach them.

For now, Ezra can only say papa, papa. But hopefully one day, he will be able to be old enough to ask: What do these stones mean to you, or in our case what does the drinking of the cup and eating of the bread mean? And then we can teach him, tell him what it means. The question is not what do these stones mean. The question is: What do these stones mean to you? It’s no use if you can just tell people, answer them questions, tell them the accurate picture of the gospel, and get all our answers right. Tell them what it means to us. Tell them that we are the ones. We are that lost ones. We were people who were without hope, perhaps dead in our sins, completely lost, and yet God gave us life.

And when the young one asks: How is that even possible? You are talking about something that’s impossible. And you tell him: Yes, impossible with us, but this is God we are talking about, and He can do what seems to be impossible. And of course, we pray that these young ones, the effect in them would be that they too will know that God is mighty. When you tell them, they would know that God is mighty and they themselves would fear God forever. What do these stones mean to you? That is a question I’ll like to ask you. Now about this memorial, we do once a month or we do often to remind us. We know that we are people who really need plenty of reminders. We are people who suffer from a condition called spiritual amnesia. We forget and forget and forget.

And how do we find some more help to fight this spiritual amnesia? Now the psalms is one of the best places to go. The psalmist is someone who always thinks. And when he thinks a lot, it leads to him thanking, being so thankful, and from there it will lead to him telling people about the goodness of God. Just consider a few examples from the Psalms. We read of Psalm 63:6 when he says: “When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches.”. This is the psalmist. He doesn’t quickly forget. At night when he sleeps, he remembers. He’s a thinker. He dwells on these things. He meditates on God in the night watches, and this leads him to then give thanks to God.

In Psalm 75:1- “We give thanks to God. To You, O God, we give thanks!”. This is the spirit of the psalmist. Psalm 92:1- “It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; to declare Your lovingkindness in the morning, and Your faithfulness every night”. You see the psalmist. He thinks often of these truths. It leads him to be thankful of all that God has done for him, and it leads to him telling people about this. If you tell people often, you will remind yourself as well. The psalmist in Psalm 66:16 says: “Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will declare what He has done for my soul.”. See the psalmist. May we learn from the psalmist. This is his attitude as he fights our sin of spiritual amnesia.

And so, as we consider Joshua chapter 4 this day, what we have learned is that yes we are people who have experienced a mighty miracle in our lives, but we are people who have a miserable memory. And remember, the forgetting leads to all sorts of sin. But we thank God that He’s so gracious, He knows that we are weak. He gives us a meaningful memorial, a memorial where we perform. And these things, nothing special in them, but these things remind us of truths that are all worth remembering. And so I’ll leave this question with you this day: What do these stones mean? Do you know what do these stones mean? And not just answer what do these stones mean, but what do these stones mean to you? Let us pray.

“Our Almighty God and our Father in heaven, as we ponder upon Your greatness in creation, You spoke everything into being just by Your mere words alone. You are the God who is almighty, sovereign, and in control over all things, and Your people have seen You display Your power in their lives. We pray that we will respond rightly this morning. Help us respond rightly this day that as we consider Your mighty works in our lives, it will cause us only to bow down with our faces pointed to the ground and worship You, and fear You, and obey You. Help us to do these things, and help us to never have any gods before You, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.