Stones of Remembrance: Teach Children God's Power and Reverence

Again, we've been talking about how God's people are finally allowed to enter the promised land because they were faithful and they were obedient. Because let me tell you, if I'm one of the 12 that gets called out, hey, I would like you to go pick up the stone and carry it on your shoulder to the place where I'm going to camp. There's a good chance that's a task I wanna delegate. There's a good chance I'm gonna find some other shmo and be like, hey, Mick. Grab the stone for me real quick because I got a little I got a cramp going on right here. [00:37:06] (35 seconds)  #FaithfulObedience

So what was the purpose of these 12 stones and this command? Well, they're signs. They were meant to be something that when people came along, they would see these stones and be like, what are these for? And we would have a chance to articulate what these stones are actually for. And so notice what it talks about here. The so when people come up to this point in the future, they will see these stones and ponder so that your children will ask, what do these stones mean? [00:39:50] (35 seconds)  #StonesAsSign

Look at the language here. Now the priests who carried the ark remained standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything the Lord had commanded Joshua was done by the people. Remember, the ark of the covenant where God dwelt was right there in the middle of the Jordan River on dry ground being held by priests as God's people passed in through it, passed in front of it. The people hurried over. And as soon as all of them had crossed, the ark of the covenant of the Lord and the priests came to the other side where the people watched. [00:43:38] (34 seconds)  #ArkInJordan

I wonder if you can see the faithfulness of God's people on display here. Every time God gave a command, Moses or excuse me, Joshua relayed that command. And every time he did, they just faithfully obeyed. They were obeying the word of God. They were obeying what he had called them and told them to do. Everything that he said to do, they did it just as they were prescribed and they get to see right in front of them the the miracle that god provides for them and this water that stops and the dry ground that they get to walk across. [00:45:10] (35 seconds)  #ObedienceWitnessedMiracle

And Joshua was promised in chapter three of of Joshua that he would his name would be made made great. And there's an indication here that it's happening just this way. These people saw that as God spoke to Joshua and Joshua relayed that message that it happened just as it was prescribed. And so Joshua was being elevated and exalted, not as someplace superior, but someplace of recognizing that he is a man of God who is following what God calls them to do. [00:46:41] (30 seconds)  #GodlyLeaderJoshua

You know, so much the last two weeks have been talking about God's people being faithful. And I wanna reiterate something that's very important to all of us. We need to make sure we're looking through the correct theological lens as we think about a text like this. It is the sovereignty of god, the god of heaven and earth that brought all these people to the promised land. It is by grace through faith. Yes. Their faithfulness, but don't forget how it started. By grace, by the sovereignty of God, by the power of God at work, enable God's people to enter the promised land. [00:47:29] (40 seconds)  #ByGraceThroughFaith

It was the tenth day of the month. It was springtime. It was also a reminder that this was the exact time of the year when God brought his people out of Egypt. It was the exact time of the year when God's people in Egypt put the the blood of the lamb around the threshold of the door. This was the Passover time. It was the exact same time of the year as the Passover. It's the exact same time of the year that God enabled his people to cross over the Red Sea and now over the Jordan. [00:49:08] (38 seconds)  #PassoverTiming

The first point I think that he's trying to make to us is we need to be responsible for teaching our children. Teaching our children. Fathers, mothers, teach your children the word of God. You see, what do we do is we account on churches or programs or teachers or Sunday school teachers. They're gonna teach my kids these things. No. The responsibility for teaching your kids the word of God are parents, moms and dads. Teach the kids the word of God. [00:51:29] (38 seconds)  #ParentsTeachFaith