Our text this morning comes from Joshua chapter 5. We’ll read verses 1 through 12 because the last paragraph really goes with chapter 6 and the great battle, such as it was, of Jericho, the fall of Jericho, Lord willing, we’ll come to next week.
Let’s ask the Lord’s help before we come to His Word.
Father in heaven, give us ears to hear, give us hearts to feel, minds to understand, wills to trust and obey. Speak to us just what we need to hear. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Joshua chapter 5.
“As soon as all the kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan for the people of Israel until they had crossed over, their hearts melted and there was no longer any spirit in them because of the people of Israel.”
“At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the sons of Israel a second time.” So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the sons of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth. And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: all the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the men of war, had died in the wilderness on the way after they had come out of Egypt. Though all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people who were born on the way in the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised. For the people of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, the men of war who came out of Egypt, perished, because they did not obey the voice of the Lord; the Lord swore to them that he would not let them see the land that the Lord had sworn to their fathers to give to us, a land flowing with milk and honey. So it was their children, whom He raised up in their place, that Joshua circumcised. For they were uncircumcised, because they had not been circumcised on the way.”
“When the circumcising of the whole nation was finished, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. And the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” And so the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day.”
“While the people of Israel were encamped at Gilgal, they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening on the plains of Jericho. And the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. And the manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land. And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.”
Here we are in chapter 5, and you can glance at the page over and see chapter 6, the fall of Jericho. Maybe you’ve been eager to get there. If you grew up around the Bible, perhaps even if you didn’t, you may have heard of that story. March around and blow their trumpets and the walls come a ‘tumbling down. You’re ready to get to Jericho. I imagine the people were ready to get to Jericho.
It may feel like, here we are, we’ve been in this book for over a month and it seems like we haven’t quite made it there yet. We had a commissioning in chapter 1, then we had the whole Rahab thing in chapter 2, and now we’ve been crossing the river, and that’s a big deal, but crossing the Jordan River it seems like it’s taken a long time to explain this. First they go across and then we need a chapter about setting up some stones and now surely after all of the stones and the commemoration and the commissioning and everything, we are ready to march on Jericho and actually conquer the Promised Land.
But just when you think you might be there, not so fast. In fact, not so fast at all. You need to slow down once again. I wonder if you’re ready to get there. I wonder if the people we’re ready to get there. Sort of like if you have kids or grandkids on Christmas morning, that’s not the time you say, “Hey, before we have presents, thought maybe we could do some chores around the house. Thought maybe I could regale you again with how you mom and I met. Perhaps now would be a time to just tell some stories. Perhaps I could share something of my dissertation with you.”
No, we’re ready to get onto the main thing. We’ve been waiting a long time and it feels like that with Jericho. But we slow down again, we’re not quite ready to march on Jericho. There is some very important business to attend to before coming to Jericho.
That’s why this chapter is here. It was to teach them something and it’s to teach us something. I want you to see three things from this chapter, three lessons for us.
One. A lesson about the Lord’s priorities.
Then next we will see a lesson about the sacraments. Now that’s what we call them, that’s not what they called them, but that’s what we’re seeing here, a lesson about the sacraments.
And third a lesson about the Lord’s provision.
I tried to get the middle word to be a “P” but I just stuck with sacraments. Priorities, sacraments, provision.
So first of all, the Lord’s priorities. Now I want you to notice how surprising it must have been, and you maybe didn’t catch it on the first reading, but from verse 1 to verse 2 is quite surprising. Verse 1 tells us the kings of the Amorites beyond the Jordan to the west and the kings of the Canaanites, just different language for the same pagan kinds of people that lived in the area, different parts of the land, well, they had heard, the word had spread. We already saw that with Rahab and the king there. Word was spreading throughout the area that God had delivered them and defeated them and now they had a new miracle to hear about, the dry land, not only the Red Sea but the waters of the Jordan. You can imagine as word is passed around from mouth to mouth, people are fearful. There’s a great and mighty nation and He delivered them from Egypt and now He dried up the Jordan River and they’re marching upon us, they’re here, and their spirits melted.
You would think then that that’s chapter 1, chapter 2 would be “and as the people of the land melted with fear, God commanded Joshua to march upon the city of Jericho.” The timing is perfect. They’re afraid, they’re cowering, now go in and conquer the land. Instead, we have something very surprising. People are afraid, they’re nervous, they’re cowering, now I want to stop and the whole nation needs to be circumcised.
It would seem now is the time to attack, not now is the time to incapacitate for a few weeks all of the men and all of your army.
Now you might be able to move around well enough after a few days to take the Passover as they do. Without going into details, when adolescents and grown men are being circumcised, this is going to take a little bit of time before your back at full strength. You may remember the story in Genesis 34 when the Shechemites, in order to become part of the people of Israel, they had to be circumcised, they and all their men, so they’re circumcised but Levi and Simeon, two of the sons of Israel, they use it to lay a trap and when all the men are in the weakness of those days after their adult circumcision, they go in and they slaughter them. So that tells you just how incapacitated a whole nation could be when all of the men have had this minor, but still, procedure.
It seems like, in other words, exactly the wrong thing to do. If you are drawing up a few chapters earlier your military plans for the conquest of Canaan, you do not put in there, “And right when we’re on the doorstep of Jericho, let’s incapacitate all of the men in the nation.”
And yet verse 2, somewhat surprisingly, tells us now at that time the Lord said to Joshua, just when you think He might say to Joshua, “March on Jericho,” He says, “Make knives and circumcise the sons of Israel a second time.”
No, they are not being circumcised a second time any one person, but rather the nation collectively. As we read in the explanation that the nation had been circumcised but you recall that when they refused to enter the Promised Land because of unbelief, except for Joshua and Caleb, the whole nation at that time was cursed to wander for 40 years until they all died off. So that generation that had been circumcised and had come out, they had died off. We haven’t heard anything about it until this point, about the lack of circumcision, but now we read, well, in those intervening years when the current nation was born and grew up, they had yet to receive this covenant sign.
Remember way back in Genesis 17, the Lord had said to Abraham that his son and all of the men of his household and all the sons after them were to be circumcised as a sign of the covenant. So these men had not yet received that sign.
There is no indication that Joshua hesitated or doubted. I don’t mean to make light as if it was a humorous occasion, though you don’t know if you laugh or cry because you can imagine Joshua might have, “Come again? What’s happening now? How am I to explain this to all of the men? How am I to explain this to the nation? That now at the doorstep they have to undergo this massive ritual.”
And it may seem like a rather small point, but you can see right here in the space that it’s given, it’s belabored quite extensively. And it was not just a small point, but I think why we are given this detail is because in miniature, this is emblematic of Israel’s entire history.
Here’s what I mean. This was the first example when they’re technically in the Promised Land on whether or not they were willing to do things God’s way. Now on this occasion they did, it will only take to get to chapter 7 right after Jericho when they don’t, and it will be the entire history of God’s people. When you do things God’s way, you’re blessed. Now that doesn’t mean in the nation of Israel every single person had everything they wanted and no one ever miscarried or no one ever died young, but it meant as a totality the people as a nation, when they did things God’s way, God blessed them. And when they did things their way, they inherited the other side of the covenant, curses, not the blessings.
This is that moment when it probably made very little human sense. Really? Lord, I mean, we haven’t done this for 40 years. Don’t You think we can get in? You know, give us some weeks or months. Let’s conquer some of these places. I promise You, pinky promise, we will do this. Let’s wait until we’re comfortable under our own vine and fig tree and we’ve settled the land and all is at rest and I promise You we can make it a month-long holiday. Let’s do it then.
But no, the Lord wanted them to do it His way. Even when it may not have made sense. Before you go into battle, when it seems most opportune that you would march forward, you need to be circumcised, every male among you. That’s what God was telling them to do. Would they be obedient? Even when God’s Word may not have made immediate sense to them, or it seems like for all the world God was mistaken.
I bet you have times like that in your life. Maybe you’re facing one of those times right now. It’s not so much that you can’t understand what God’s Word says. I think most of the time we can actually understand. There’s some hard things, there are some difficult ethical gray areas. That happens. Most often we know what God says but we’d really like a way for some smart person to tell us that maybe that’s now what He really meant.
Maybe you’re facing that right now and you know what God’s Word says but you can’t see how for all the world He’s not mistaken. No, no, this can’t be the way. Maybe you’ve been dating a non-Christian and you know what the Bible says about not being unequally yoked, but you’re so far in and you just think, “No, I can’t see another way. I just, I have to do this.”
Maybe you desperately want a divorce and you have no biblical grounds for a divorce, but you’re seeking somebody to convince you that you can nonetheless. Maybe there’s a sin that you’ve kept hidden for weeks, months, maybe even years, and you’ve convinced yourself that nobody needs to know about this. There’s no one you need to confess to or share it. Maybe there’s a compromise at work that’s so common and so accepted and you can’t imagine not doing it or not going along with what the team or the boss or the department says. You simply can’t see any other way around it and you’ve convinced yourself obviously you have to do it this way.
Here’s the first of many times where the Lord wants to teach His people, are you going to do it My way? Are you going to listen to Me? And they do here, and they are given a great victory in the next chapter at Jericho.
Or maybe it’s not so much that you’re facing this ethical quandary and you’re about ready to compromise and you’ve convinced yourself, maybe you’re simply experiencing a delay in what you thought was God’s plan for your life, what you thought was the next step. Whether it has to do with a relationship or a family or a job or a place and kind of like the Israelites here, “All right, we were ready, and next up Jericho. Oh, circumcision. That’s not what I was expecting. This is a bit of a slog, this is a bit of a delay.” Will you trust there’s a reason? God does not give detours that go nowhere, even the wandering in the wilderness was a lesson to be learned that eventually they might get to this place.
Look at verse 9. I hope you have your Bibles open. Look at verse 9: The Lord said to Joshua, after they circumcised the nation, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt.” So the place is called Gilgal, which sounds like “to roll.” The reproach of Egypt does not mean here the reproach from having been in Egypt, that’s one way you could read the preposition. Reproach is another word for shame or derision, but it’s not saying the shame that you had from being slaves in Egypt. No, this I think is the reproach that comes from the Egyptians. That is the mockery and the scorn that the Egyptians might say if God had let all of His people just die and the nation fall apart in the wilderness.
Here’s what Deuteronomy 9:28 says. Deuteronomy 9:28 is imagining the land of Egypt saying something like this, “Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land that He promised them, and because He hated them He has brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.” So Deuteronomy says there may be people in Egypt, the land from which you came, and they’re looking at this wandering period and they’re saying, “Well, looky, fancy what happened to all of those Israelites. God brought them out, Yahweh gave them release from captivity, and what did He do? He was so angry with them, they’re such a stiff-necked people, that they had to kill them all and they never even made it to their beloved Promised Land.” That’s what is meant, I think, by the reproach of Egypt. In this context it means mockery, scorn. Look at those people, their might God, He couldn’t even deliver on His promise. They were so bad he had to just kill them all, they never even made it to Canaan.
So verse 9 says that derision is rolled away.
They had been cut off from the land of the living because their hears had not been circumcised before the Lord. Certainly that’s part of the image. We know for many places in the Pentateuch that circumcision, though it’s a physical act in the male member, it was also representative of the cutting away of the foreskin or the hardness of the human heart. That it was supposed to mean that you have a heart that is right with the Lord and cut away. Otherwise you will be cut off.
There’s a play on words there. Cutting off and circumcision. If you disobey, you will be cut off. So the people had been cut off. They had to die, they wandered in the wilderness.
But now that reproach, the punishment for their disobedience, the temptation that Egypt had to mock and deride them, all of that has been rolled away because this act of national circumcision is a sign that once again they were marked out as the people of God. God had dealt with the sin of that generation and now there was a new nation and this new nation was marked out as being His people and they were obedient and they were ready to march on Jericho.
I think it’s not too much to see one of the implications here. You could put it like this – God’s priority is worship before warfare. This is an act of worship, corporate worship before the Lord. Before you go and fight, a higher priority is worship.
I don’t think it’s too much to relate this to our own day. There are people, Christians sometimes, and they may even mean well. They’re eager for war. They may even have their sights set on something very good. These Israelites, they wanted to get the Promised Land. God had told them about that. They wanted Jericho. They were right to want it.
But before they go to the warfare, they needed to worship. There are some people, now it happens in particular with the young but not only the young, it may happen particularly with men but not only with men, they are eager to fight more so than they are to fall on their face before God. The cause may even be right. You may say it’s the cause of America, or the cause of Western civilization, or it’s the cause of reforming the Church. God wants to make us warriors perhaps, but first He wants to make us worshippers.
One of the most important things you can do, parents, for your children is to establish by your actions even more powerfully than your words, that the most important thing you do as a family each week, you have to do and you get to do, is the corporate worship of God’s people. Now it’s no guarantee that our kids will then continue in it when they’re gone, but you can be quite certain, you should not be shocked if your children put many things in front of worship later if you are modeling now how many more important things there are than worship in their life.
You expect them to go off and live better than the example that you’re giving them now, not talking about times where we go on a holiday and worship somewhere else or the exception to the rule or the illness, I’m talking about the regular patterns that sometimes people set. I just saw and thankfully I can’t even remember the name of the church or where it was, but it was a pastor who was saying, “I think we’re going to set up,” he said, I think it was, “A Thursday night service because we know it’s hard, so many of you have sports over the weekend with your kids and you can’t get here on Sunday, so we want you to be able to do that so we’re going to cater to that and give you a special service to come to right here on Thursday.” What a wonderful way to encourage people in their idolatrous pursuits.
Now we love our kids’ sports, too, and track them all around, but we see here this priority, worship comes first.
Second lesson. There’s a lesson here about the Lord’s priority, there’s a lesson here about the sacraments.
In the first act as God’s people in the Promised Land, notice very obviously the Israelites are called upon to apply the two signs of their covenant relationship with God. Now they’re not called sacraments, and in fact that’s not a word in the Old Testament or a word in the New Testament, at least in English. It’s a Latin-derived word. But what we have here are essentially Old Testament sacraments.
We use the language of signs and seals, which is biblical language. It comes from Romans 4:11 where Paul says that circumcision was a sign. So a sign signifies something, a sign points to something.
A sign that says “stop” is communicating something. A stop light with the three colors signifies something. They communicate something to you. Some signs don’t have any words on them, they just have pictures. If you’re, sometimes when I’ve run a race by the coast in South Carolina I ran one on Kiawah, it’s a little disconcerting as you run around and there’s little signs with alligators and things, chomping things near marshes. Now that sign is signifying something – don’t go looking for trouble down there.
So it’s a sign to point to something, to signify, but it’s also a seal, like a seal on an official document, that is it confirms, it authenticates, it ratifies to us God’s promises.
Now notice how these two sacraments, or we could call them here ordinances, function. You have circumcision in verses 2 through 9 and then you have Passover in the next paragraph. So these two ordinances, one is about initiation and identification. You receive the one upon your entrance into the covenant community and once given the sign it marks you out as belonging to the covenant community. That sign is applied only once. So there’s one sign for God’s people, it’s a sign of initiation and identification. You’re in, you belong.
Then there is a second ordinance which is about remembrance and renewal. First one initiation, identification, the second one remembrance and renewal. You receive this sign in order to remember what God has done in the past and recommit yourself to God that you might experience His grace now in the present and into the future.
Just as that first sign is given upon initiation once, the second sign, an act of renewal, remembrance, recommitment, this one is experienced many times throughout your life. Two signs. The sign of initiation, obviously, is circumcision, and the sign of covenant renewal is the Passover meal to be celebrated.
Exodus 12:18, this is the first Passover, the angel of death passes over the Israelites, they have the blood on the doorpost, they’re getting ready in haste to leave and get out of Egypt. It said, Exodus 12:18, Passover should be celebrated in the first month beginning on the 14th day.
So look at verse 10 in our text – they kept the Passover on the 14th day of the month in the evening in the plans of Jericho. Same exact day. The first month of the year, called Aviv, sometimes it’s called Nisan, the first month on the 14 day is when this Passover celebration begins. So a deliberate echo of that first Passover. Here they celebrate it again; once when they were leaving Egypt and now again when they have finally entered the Promised Land.
Now these two signs, one intensification/identification, and then another one remembrance and renewal. It is not hard to see how these are the two sacraments that are given in the New Testament. Now, yes, there are some differences old to new, the Old Testament points forward to the work that is to be done in Christ and the New Testament points back. Grace is more clearly seen, more effectually applied, but there is a fundamental unity.
The spiritual significance of circumcision and the Passover are ascribed to the New Testament church. And then the language of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ascribed to the Old Testament church. So it goes both ways. Both circumcision and Passover, the meaning is imported and ascribed into the New Testament Church, and then looking back the language of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are put on and used to describe the spiritual reality in the Old Testament church.
Let me show you what I mean. Here’s Colossians 2:11-12: In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
People sometimes say where is a verse that says, “Hear ye, hear ye, baptism replaces circumcision.” Well, it happened much more organically than that. Circumcision fell away as the Church became more Gentile and less Jewish and for a time they both operated, but we see there in Colossians 2, in the same breath in the same sentence, Paul can say “having been circumcised, having been baptized.” The same spiritual reality is pointed to in each.
So that circumcision is a sign of initiation/identifying, baptism also a sign of initiation and identification.
Then listen to 1 Corinthians 5:7: Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened for Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
So Christ’s death on the cross is called the Passover lamb Passover was pointing to, so you don’t have to keep the Passover. Sometimes people of Jewish descent still do and sometimes people join them and see what’s happening, but we don’t have to do that. Passover has been fulfilled in Christ. He is the Passover lamb.
So you see there that the spiritual significance of circumcision and Passover are pulled forward into the New Testament Church, and then likewise the language of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ascribed to the church of the Old Testament.
Here’s 1 Corinthians 10: All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the same spiritual rock that followed them and the rock was Christ.
Now the language of baptism there is explicit. The Lord’s Supper isn’t mentioned with that word but you hear the expression – they ate the same spiritual food, they drank the same spiritual drink. So Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 10 what they experienced was a kind of baptism into Moses. Now they were not literally immersed into Moses, the word baptizo does not have to mean a literal submersion. It’s used here in a theological significance. They identified with Moses. So they were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
You could say, well, they were baptized in the Red Sea. Yes, and they didn’t get a drop of water on them, because it’s used in a theological way. They were, as they passed through the water, it was their baptism. It was their initiation and their identification with God’s people, and they ate the same spiritual food and same spiritual drink.
All of this is to show why we are right to derive from the Old Testament these two signs and then from the New Testament these two corresponding signs, which have the same spiritual import and significance.
So what’s the payoff from all of this? Well, it’s one of the reasons why baptism must precede the Lord’s Supper, just like they needed to be circumcised, it makes sense, you need to have the initiation and identification before you have the ceremony of remembrance and renewal. Circumcision then Passover, baptism then the Lord’s Supper.
I think we also ought to see how we ought not to neglect baptism for yourself or, I might add, for your children. I know there are some beloved brothers and sisters in our church who see things differently and we are glad that you’re here and understand that not everyone is equally convinced of infant baptism, but I would ask the question do you believe that your children belong to this community? I think instinctively all of us would say that they do. We want them to be taught the ways of the Lord, we want them to follow the ways of the Lord.
They belong with us, they are here in the building. Many of them are in this room, some of the wee littles ones are in the nursery, but absolutely they belong to this community. We don’t keep them out of the total membership list, we don’t keep them out of the directory, we pray for them, we love them, and if they are a part of this church, I think if you were to ask a 6-year-old if they had the wherewithal, and you said, “What church are you a part of?” they probably would not say, “Well, I’m not really a part of any covenant community.” They would say, “I go to Christ Covenant,” or, “I don’t know, that big church where I go to school,” or they would say something and they would understand intuitively this is my church and they identify with this church. If that is so, they ought to be marked out as belonging to us.
Moving from the Old Testament to the New Testament, God has not excommunicated our children. It would be strange to move from the Old Testament to the New Testament and have greater exclusion, but rather in an act of greater inclusion He now invites women as well as men, girls as well as boys. The sign in the Old Testament was only for males. Now we have a sign that encompasses men and women to receive the initiatory sign, the sign of identification, that you belong to this family and you should be marked out as being a part of the people of God.
Then also let us not neglect the spiritual food and the spiritual drink that God has provided regularly for us at the Lord’s table. Some churches do it quarterly, in the history of Reformed churches there has been many different practices. Some do it every week; you can make a good case for that. We do it monthly. If they were drinking from the rock that was Christ, that’s what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, how much more are we eating and drinking of Christ? Not in a corporal bodily manner, but spiritually, truly feasting upon Him. I hope every time you come monthly with great anticipation that God is going to feed us in a unique way at the table.
It is sadly true that most evangelical Christians think far too little about the sacraments. They may be able to name them, they may see them as somewhat important, but not something to talk too much about, read too much about, but here we see the first act of God’s people in the Promised Land is essentially to be faithful to the signs and seals that God has given. You must be circumcised and then celebrate the Passover. We would say baptism and the Lord’s Supper. That’s what you first have to do. More important than conquering Jericho, before you get there, I want you to worship and I want you go have the enjoyment in the application of these two signs.
Then a final lesson. So the Lord’s priorities, sacraments, and then look at the last verse 12. Just think for these last moments about the Lord’s provision. Because verse 12 indicates a significant event has taken place in the life of Israel. After 40 years of wandering and miraculous provision, we read “and the manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land. There was no longer manna for the people of Israel but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.”
There are two things going on at the same time. They eat their first meal in the Promised Land, and from the Promised Land they begin to enjoy this land flowing with milk and honey. So that’s good. Notice also the manna ceased. This temporary provision for 40 years of wandering now that they have a home they don’t need the snacks for the road trip anymore. They don’t need the fruit rollups. You don’t need the Gushers; those things are messy and the dentists don’t like them. You don’t need the granola bars. We’re having a real proper meal.
As excited as they must have been to be in Canaan, and I imagine the manna, they got sick of manna and it was good to have the fruit of the land, nice to have some variety, but I also have to imagine they had gotten very used to waking up in the morning and ta-da, the Lord gave them their food for the day. That’s not a bad way to go.
That’s why you go on a cruise. Somebody made the food for the day.
I imagine some of them wished that the manna could continue. But that’s not the way God was going to provide for them now, and surely there’s a lesson here. God will give you what you need until you don’t need it anymore. Even when you feel like you still need it.
I just love how it’s the day after, like the Lord allowed you’re going to overlap one day. Manna in the morning, fruit of the land in the evening, next day no manna. He brought them exactly to the point that they needed to be.
Now some of you are facing loss and great pain, much more pronounced than losing manna on the ground. It’s not to say that you don’t need what you’ve lost, especially if you’ve lost a loved one, or that you can’t miss someone who is gone, but it is to say that God will now in this new place still give you exactly what you need.
Notice that God has moved from a supernatural provision to His ordinary provision. It may have seemed like to some of them, “Well, God doesn’t take care of us anymore. We knew every day God was taking care of us. We woke up and there was manna. Now we got to go and we’ve got to go pluck down the fruit and we’re going to have to plant the vineyards and we’re going to have get the water and we’re going to have to harvest and now God’s making us do all the work. He’s not taking care of us.”
But no, He is. In fact, He doesn’t normally take care of us by that supernatural provision. He can, but usually it is by his ordinary providence. We ought to see in all of the ordinary providences in life, nothing less than God still loving us, taking care of us.
I ran across this week this great quote from Luther. Luther was writing to a friend of his, the chancellor at the Diet of Augsburg and lots of the Lutherans in the Reformation movement were nervous, understandably so. It was a very tense time. There’s fearfulness and typical Luther writes to his friend, and he says, “I fear not, and why should I fear? I have seen two miracles lately. I looked up and I saw the clouds above me in the noontime and they looked like the sea that was hanging over me and I could see no cord on which they were suspended, and yet they never fell. And then when the noon tide had gone and midnight came, I looked again and there was the dome of heaven, spangled with stars, and I could see no pillars that held up the skies, and yet they never fell. Now He that holds the stars up and moves the clouds in their course, He can do all things and I trust Him in the sight of these miracles.”
A wonderful perspective. I see the sun in the sky; it doesn’t fall, the Lord holds it up. I see the stars at night, the Lord holds them up. The God who does these things is the God who oversees all things and that is the God who will take care of us. He can do it by miracles. He can do it usually by His ordinary providences, so the people needed to learn a very valuable lesson. Will you trust Me in coming into the Promised Land? That though the manna has ceased, the Lord’s love has not and His mercies will be new every morning and He will care for you and provide for you in a different way, just as He did in that supernatural way.
Then I want you to notice just one other thing with this last verse. Because, yes, there’s a lesson about God’s ordinary provision and providence, the kind that uses rain and sunshine and seed and farmers and factories. But I also want you to see how this one verse 12 is about the story of faith becoming sight. It goes by quickly, but it’s a monumental verse. For all those years, those decades, those generations, even if you go back to Abraham those many centuries of slavery in Egypt, they had been as a people hungry, hungry to taste not just the promises but the Promised Land.
Oh, God, we love Your promises, but can we have the thing that You have promised? When will the faith become sight? Surely it must have felt for many of them at many times that the faith never would become sight, it was only promises, never the Promised Land. But here verse 12 tells us they did actually eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.
Now, saints, you have loved ones that have already crossed over the Jordan and they are in the Promised Land, and though you wish that they were here, if you knew the joy that they had, you would not wish for them to come back. For they are living not just on promises, but in the Promised Land. You and I, by God’s grace, His persevering power, will make it there. Not by our strength, but by God’s grace in Christ.
That one day clouds will be rolled up like a scroll, a trumpet will sound, and Christ will descend and the faith will become sight. Remember it, dearly beloved, as we walk through this world which is a world of faith. A little glimpse is enough, baptism, Lord’s Supper, the Lord’s kindnesses to keep us going, but it is not ultimately the place yet of sight, but to trust and obey and know that as you belong to Jesus and rely on Jesus and trust in Jesus, you, too, will cross over into Canaan and one day it will be said of you, and of me, they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year and every year forever.
Let’s pray. Father in heaven, we give thanks for Your Holy Word, and we pray now that You would work it deep into our hearts, and that when we cannot see the way to go, that you would be our vision, our presence, our power, our ruler, and that with a heart of faith we would follow You all the way to Canaan’s side. In Jesus we pray. Amen.