Wednesday, April 3, 2023
Then Joshua said to the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. Joshua 3:5
Tomorrow the Lord Will Do Wonders
It was the night before the Israelites were going to finally cross the Jordan River and enter the Promised Land. It was going to take faith. It was going to take courage. They were going where they had never been before.
Joshua had given them the directions for what to do when it was time to go. They were to keep their eyes on the ark of the covenant, which was God's throne or dwelling place on earth. They were to keep their eyes on God, and they would know the way to go. Now Joshua was preparing them the night before.
Consecrate yourselves - Joshua is telling them to prepare spiritually because this would be a spiritual battle. They needed to set themselves apart and not focus on anything else but God. They were afraid. The river they were about to cross was raging and it could be life or death. Also they were going into a new land, where they had never been before. They didn’t know what to expect, but they knew there were people they had to defeat. Their ancestors had let this fear keep them from their Promised Land but this generation was ready to face whatever was coming because they trusted God and they knew that lack of faith and lack of courage would keep them out of the Promised Land just as it had their parents and grandparents.
…for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. - Here is a generation of Israelites that had been born and grown up in the wilderness. They had seen God provide Mana and they had heard the stories of Moses leading them out of slavery. They knew that God is faithful. This was a pivotal moment in their lives and in their nation. They believed this when Joshua said it. They knew that they were about to be a part of something amazing.
In the morning, he assembled them a half mile behind the ark of the covenant. He sent the Levite priests with the ark to the Jordan River, which was swollen and treacherous, overflowing its banks with snowmelt from Mount Hermon.
The minute the priest’s toes hit the water, the water stopped flowing and walled up on either side, exactly as it had for the generation before them as they escaped Egypt. As the priests waited with the ark in the middle of the river, the entire nation crossed over on dry ground. The Lord had done wonders just as Joshua had said, but He was only beginning.
While the priests waited in the middle of the river, the Lord commanded Joshua to have 12 men, one from each of the 12 tribes, pick up a stone from the center of the riverbed. Once this was done and everyone had crossed, the priests with the ark came out of the riverbed. As soon as they were safe on dry land, the waters of the Jordan rushed in.
The Israelites camped that night at Gilgal, about two miles away from Jericho. Joshua took the 12 stones they had brought out of the riverbed and stacked them into a memorial. He told the nation it was a sign to all the nations of the earth that the Lord God had parted the waters of the Jordan, just as he had parted the Red Sea in Egypt.
Imagine the faith it took to step into the raging river. Have you ever felt like you were standing on the banks of a raging river and you needed to get to the other side but you were terrified to step off into the water? What a picture of the reward of faithful obedience God gives us here. The waters parted the moment they stepped into the water. Not right before, and not when they lifted the ark into the air, but when they took the step God was telling them to take.
The Lord is waiting to do wonders among us - in your life and in mine. He is waiting for us to trust Him enough to be obedient and jump into the water. Do you want the Promised Land? Do you want God's good and perfect plan to be fulfilled in your life? It takes courage to take the step of faith.
