Studies in Joshua
Study 6 – Ch 4 & 5
Visual Aids
Introduction
From time to time when I speak to the children on a Sabbath morning during the children’s address, I will bring along with me some form of visual aid – maybe a personal walkman, or a hiking boot or a doll or whatever. And of course the aim of using a visual aid is to use something tangible, something the children can see and can identify with in order to teach them some important spiritual truth.
The Lord Jesus during the course of his preaching and teaching ministry often used visual aids to impress spiritual truths upon his hearers. He pointed to field that contained a crop that had reached full maturity, ready to be harvested and spoke to his disciples of the great spiritual harvest that lay before them and of the need for workers to go out into the harvest field of the world. I am sure that each time the harvest season came around and the disciples looked out upon such fields they would have remembered the Lord’s teaching. Every time they saw sheep wandering over the hillside they would have remembered his teaching about the good shepherd. Every time they saw a farmer going out and sowing seed in his field they would have thought about the importance of scattering the good seed of the gospel. Jesus used visual aids in seeking to get his message across to his hearers.
The impact that a visual image can have upon people has of course not only been recognised by, it has also been used with great effect by the advertising world. They will take the message that they want to convey about their product, whatever it might happen to be, and link it in such a way with a striking and memorable image, or picture or famous person so as to create a direct link between the two in the minds of the people they are seeking to influence. Every time that image, picture, or person appears on the T.V. screen or on an advertising hoarding people immediately think of the product associated with them. They get their message across by means of a memorable visual aid.
Joshua chapters 4 & 5 could be entitled the Visual Aids of Gilgal. In Chapter 4 we have the visual aid of the Heap of Stones and in chapter 5 we have the visual aid of the Holy Sacraments. And this evening I want us to consider both these visual aids in order that we might discover the significance of each to the people of God then, and their relevance for us, God’s people today.
Consider with me first of all
1) Gilgal’s Stones;
Last week we saw how the children of Israel, by faith, crossed the Jordan – that seemingly insurmountable barrier that stood between them and the blessings of the land of promise. Here in chapter four we find them all safely on the other side. However before the waters, which had been miraculously held back by the power of God to enable the people to cross on dry land, returned, God commanded Joshua to send twelve men, one from each tribe, back into the river bed in order to find and bring out a large stone each. The reason they were to gather these stones was so that they could be placed one on top of the other in the land of promise as a witness to and memorial of this amazing event which had just taken place. God wanted them to build a Monument. And he wanted them to build this monument for at least three, possibly four reasons.
This stone monument at Gilgal was erected with a view to, first of all,
(i) Influencing Their Memory
We see this at the end of v7 – “these stones are to be a memorial to the Children of Israel forever.”
God knew only too well that His people were very susceptible to bouts of amnesia. They suffered from memory loss. They often forgot how good God had been to them. They often forgot how he had exercised his power on their behalf. How he had been faithful to His promises. How he had ministered to their needs, how He had been patient and merciful towards them and so on. The Psalmist identifies Israel’s susceptibility to amnesia in Psalm 78/10,11 where, speaking of the time of their journeying through the wilderness after their great deliverance from the awful slavery of Egypt, he writes “They kept not the covenant of God and refused to walk in His law, and forgot His works and His wonders that he had showed them” With their own eyes they had seen the great wonders God had performed on their behalf with a view to bringing them out of Egypt. They had seen the waters of the Nile turn to Blood, they had watched as the Locusts came upon the land of Egypt in their millions and devoured the crops in the fields, they had seen how boulder like hailstones had fallen from heaven upon the land of Egypt killing & maiming people and destroying property while in Goshen where they dwelt escaped the storm. These mighty works of God and the others he performed on their behalf they had witnessed. But as time went on amnesia set in and they forgot about these things. The Psalmist takes up the same theme again in Ps:106/7,13 “Our fathers…did not remember the multitude of your mercies…he rebuked the Red Sea and it dried up…He saved them from the hand of the foe…but they soon forgot what he had done…” Once before in their history they, by the power of God, had successfully undertaken a miraculous crossing of what appeared to be an impassable expanse of water. Once before they had seen the waters being held back and a dry passage formed through those waters to enable them to cross over. But although they had seen this with their own eyes, they soon forgot what God had done. And if you read not only the rest of those psalms but also the historical narrative of the events to which they refer in the book of Numbers you will discover that forgetfulness of the great things God had done for them led to spiritual backsliding and all kinds of disobedient and sinful behaviour by the Israelites.
So as soon as they have crossed over the River Jordan into the land of Canaan God instructs Joshua to set up this stone monument so that it would be a permanent visible reminder of what God had done for them in bringing them across the Jordan into the land of promise. Every time they saw that heap of stones their memory of that great event would come flooding into their mind. God didn’t want them to forget this amazing event which demonstrated not only his mighty power but also his covenant faithfulness and covenant love towards them.
The words that are inscribed on many a cenotaph up and down our country “Lest we forget” could be written large across the stone monument that Joshua set up at Gilgal.
But the Gilgal Stones were not erected solely to Influence Their Memory, as though God simply wanted them from time to time to call to mind what He had done for them, they were also erected to
(ii) Inspire Their Praise
Look at the very last phrase of the chapter in v24 “…so that you might always fear the Lord your God” God is referring here to the drying up of the waters of the Jordan, the very thing that the heap of stones commemorated, and he says that the calling to mind of this event should cause Israel to “…Fear the Lord their God” Now the word fear there is not to be understood in the sense of being seized by an overwhelming sense of dread or apprehension. That is one meaning of the word fear. But it’s not that sort of fear that is in view here. Rather the word fear here means to regard with reverence, to be filled with awe, a reverence and awe which finds tangible expression in worship, adoration and praise. Every time an Israelite walked pass this monument he would have cause to reflect upon not just the event it commemorated, but also upon both the nature and character of the God who performed this great miracle and the fact that He in Love, had done this for them. And the realisation of these things should have had the effect of moving them to worship and praise God.
It was built to Influence their memory, It was built to inspire their praise.
Now before we go on to look at the third reason why this monument was built, let me just take time to bring in a word of practical application here from what we have already studied.
Isn’t it true that we like the Israelites of old, can and often do fall into the trap of forgetting the wonderful things that God has done for us as Christians. The greatest thing he has done for us of course is to deliver us from our bondage, our bondage to sin. To save us from the eternal consequences of our sin. How did he do that? He did it by sending His own dear Son into the world to bear in his own body on the cross at Calvary, the penalty of sin – the wrath of God that should have been directed against us. And that work of redemption which included The incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus was a mighty demonstration of the love of God for his people and of the power of God being exercised on their behalf. It is an event that he does not want us to forget. It is something that He wants us to have at the forefront of our minds. And of course it was with a view to overcoming our forgetful tendencies that God, through His Son, gave us that memorial feast, The Lord’s Supper. That feast which speaks so powerfully to us and reminds us of all that was involved in our redemption, each time we celebrate it. The bread speaks to us of our Lord’s broken body, The wine speaks to us of his shed blood. And part of the raison-d’etre of Lord’s supper, and no small part of it at that, was to stimulate the memories of God’s people and cause them to think back to and call to mind the events of Calvary. Jesus said “this do in remembrance of me”
The poet put it like this
Lord lest I forget Gethsemane
Lest I forget thine agony
Lest I forget thy love for me
Lead me to Calvary.
But then too, isn’t it also true that we tend to forget and have very short memories when it comes to recalling other blessings that God has bestowed upon us. Other times in our life when he drew near to us and ministered to us perhaps in a time of need. Having come through that particular experience, and put it behind us so to speak, we become so occupied in our thinking with other things that the memory of God’s goodness to us at that time fades from our minds. Philip Keller writes “Far too often we quickly forget the great achievements accomplished on our behalf by God. We…have incredibly short memories when it comes to recalling the blessings of Christ conferred upon us. We so soon let slip from our recollection those special benefits bestowed on us by God’s gracious Spirit. We need to keep some sort of permanent record of the great things our father has done for us. It is a splendid habit to write them down, to record them in a dairy perhaps, to keep a permanent reminder of all the wondrous ways in which God has granted us deliverance…”
And of course we are not only to call to mind God’s gracious dealings and merciful blessings that have been bestowed on us in the past as individuals, we are also to call to mind his gracious dealings with us in the past as a Church and even as a nation.
Warren Weirsbe makes a helpful comment in this regard when he says “There is nothing wrong with memorials…provided they don’t so link us to the past that we fail to serve God in the present…the next generation need reminders of what God has done in History, but these reminders must strengthen their faith and draw them closer to the Lord.”
And just as the monument at Gilgal was set up not only to influence the people’s memory but also to inspire their praise surely brethren as we by means of our various memorials, personal, sacramental, ecclesiastical or national, are caused to reflect upon God’s gracious dealings with us in the past, such recollections should inspire our praise. Such memories should cause our hearts to be filled with adoring wonder and grateful worship.
And isn’t that exactly our experience on an occasion such as for example a communion season, when having spent time recalling and focusing our minds upon our saviours dying love for us, we find do we not our hearts filling and overflowing with thankfulness, adoration, love and praise to God.
But lets move on because the monument at Gilgal was erected not only with a view to influencing Their memory and Inspiring Their praise it also was intended to
(iii) Instruct Their Children
Look at v6,7 21
We all know how inquisitive children can be, always asking questions about any and every subject. Well in ordering the establishment of this Gilgal Monument God was providing a teaching aid for parents that they could use, and which he expected them to use to instruct their children about Him.
You can imagine how perhaps some years later a family of Israelites might be travelling through this area and one of the kids pointing to this monument asks “daddy what’s that over there” “Over where son?” the daddy replies. “Over there look, see all those stones set one on top of the other” “Oh that, that was built by Joshua at the time when our ancestors first came to this land. It was set up to commemorates a great miracle God performed for them. Did I never tell you the story of what God did that day? Well this is what happened – and so the dad would tell the story of how God dried up the waters of the Jordan to enable the Israelites to get into the promised land, no doubt emphasising as part of his story those important points he wanted his children to take note of. Emphasising perhaps some of the wonderful characteristics of their great God that were demonstrated that day and which these inquisitive children needed to hear about – His mighty power, His faithfulness to His promises, His love for His people and so on.
God saw it as important that the rising generation be taught about the mighty works of God and the Gilgal Stones provided an occasion for such teaching.
This of course is an important theme that one comes across time and time again in scripture – the teaching of our children the Word and the Works of God. You find it in Deut 4/9 where the people of God are told “Take heed to thyself and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life; Teach them to thy sons and thy sons sons” Another example is found in Psalm 78v4,5.”we will not hide them (the word and works of the Lord) from their children, showing to the generations to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works which he has done…he commanded our fathers that they should make them known unto their children.”
And of course that same responsibility falls to us who are Christian parents today. We are to train our children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and part of our fulfilling of that responsibility will be to instruct them and to answer their question and to give them information regarding the things of God.
And just as Israelite parents used this Gilgal monument as a teaching aid to instruct their children about the greatness and the goodness and the love and so on of God so too we as Christian parents are to use our memorials to teach our children. For example we have at least one memorial established by God that we can use – The Lord’s Supper. Most of us as parents have had the experience of our children whispering to us during communion “what is that? Why are you taking that shortbread? What does it mean? Why can I not have some?” and their natural inquisitiveness provides us with an opportunity to teach them, when we get home, the truths that lie behind the symbolism of the sacrament they have just watched.
Perhaps some of you have something in the house that is your own personal memorial to some past experience of God’s gracious blessing and you can use that as a visual aid to tell your child of your experience and teach them something of the being and character of God.
One of the things that thrilled me towards the end of last year when I took the young children for their sabbath School exam was to witness the way in which those children were all able to answer their catechisms, repeat their Psalms, say their memory verse and recount the stories from the Bible that they had learned. It confirmed to me that the children had not only been well taught in Sabbath school, but more importantly, had been well taught at home by their parents. Mum or dad had sat down with them and spent time gong over these spiritual truths. Why ? So that their children would be trained in, and by God’s grace in time, would walk in the ways of the Lord.
The stones at Gilgal – they served as something to Influence the People’s memory; To Inspire the people’s Praise; To Instruct the people’s Children.
Well having spent some time considering Gilgal’s Stones, lets spend the time that remains considering
2) Gilgal’s Sacraments:
In Chapter 5 we have the record of how, in obedience to the command of God, the children of Israel submitted themselves to the rite of circumcision. From a military point of view this appeared to be a crazy move. Here they were just setting foot in enemy territory and the first thing that Joshua does is to incapacitate his army. Marks out of ten for this move Joshua, speaking militarily of course, NIL POINTS. From a human point of view Joshua was jeopardising everything in circumcising the male population. Why was this act so important? Why was it so necessary? Well, it was necessary first and foremost because God commanded him to do it and regardless of how irrational it appeared, if God said to do it Joshua wasn’t going to argue. He was demonstrating implicit obedience to God. But it was also necessary because, by means of this religious ritual, God was reminding the people of certain truths that He wanted them to consider and have at the forefront of their mind at this crucial point in time in their life as a nation.
By means of the observance of this sacrament God
(i) Reminded Them Of Their Covenant Status
Circumcision was the visible sign of the Covenant relationship that existed between them and God. It had been given initially to their forefather Abraham as that mark which identified him and his children as being in Covenant with God. The sign had been administered from one generation to the next down through the years. But during the 40 years of the wilderness wanderings, the sign of the covenant had not been administered to the rising generation. We don’t know for sure why this was. Possibly , through neglect and unbelief on the part of the people, or possibly because God had forbidden them to apply the sign of the covenant to their children because of their unbelief and rebellion, whatever the reason, the fact of the matter was that this generation which crossed over the Jordan had not received the sign of the covenant. And before they went one step further in their quest to possess their inheritance, God would have them receive the sign of the covenant. In so doing God was reminding them that they were different from the people’s in whose lands they now stood and with whom they were soon going to come into contact. They were HIS people. His chosen and redeemed people. The objects of his Covenant love and they were not to forget that.
And following on from that the observing of this sacrament at Gilgal also
(ii) Reminded Them Of Their Covenant Obligations
Because they were God’s people. Because they were bound to Him in covenant, they were obliged to trust Him and to obey Him. The very act of submitting to this religious ritual demonstrated their willingness to trust God. After all they could have reasoned – ‘if we allow ourselves to be circumcised, we will be in no fit state to fight against the people of Jericho if they should decide to attack us at any time over the next few days. It’s one thing having this done to you when you are eight days old, its not too pleasant having it done at our age, in fact it would be sheer agony for a few days. And we would be making ourselves very vulnerable if we were circumcised’. But they didn’t they willingly received the sign of the covenant and it reminded them of their covenant obligations to trust and to obey God. The people’s of the land of Canaan worshipped other gods and part of their worship included acts of sexual immorality. No male Jew could engage in such practices without being powerfully reminded that He was in covenant with God and as such obliged to obey God’s Holy moral standards.
But as well as reminding them of their Covenant Status & Obligations the observance of the sacraments at Gilgal also
(iii) Reminded Them Of Their Covenant Blessings
The sacrament of circumcision would have undoubtedly reminded them of the fact that hey were a special people in the eyes of God and that in itself brought tremendous practical blessings. But the other sacrament they observed after they had been circumcised, the sacrament of the Passover (v10ff) was of course a powerful reminder of past blessings and an assurance of future blessings. The Passover reminded them of their redemption from Egypt. It caused them to look back to that night when the Passover was first instituted and how through the shedding of the lambs blood and the application of that blood to the door-posts and the lintel of their homes, they were preserved when the judgement of God fell upon that land. And how the next day they were set free from their slavery. But not only that. This sacrament would have reminded them that the reason God brought them OUT of Egypt was so that he would bring them IN to Canaan. This was part of the Covenant he had made with Abraham. This was one of the blessings of the Covenant. God had promised them a land of their own, and now that promise was about to be realised. They were about to enter and take possession of their inheritance.
So the sacraments celebrated at Gilgal were like the stones erected at Gilgal – visual aids to the people of God. Visual aids that reminded them of their Covenant Status, Obligations , & Blessings. They had to keep these things at the forefront of their mind as they to do battle in the name of the Lord and to gain that inheritance that lay before them
And if we are to go forward with God and begin to take possession of our glorious inheritance in Christ and enjoy those blessings that he has secured for us and that He wants us to lay hold off by faith, then we need to remind ourselves of our Covenant status – That we are different from the people around about us. That we are The Lord’s people. That we are bound to him in Covenant. We need to remind ourselves too of our Covenant Obligations – that being the Lord’s people we are to be men and women and young people who trust him and who obey Him completely. We need to remind ourselves that regardless of the beliefs and the standards and practices of the people around us, the people in whose midst we live, we are to live Holy lives according to those standards which god has given us in His Word. And we need to remind ourselves also of those wonderful covenant blessings we already enjoy and by faith look forward to those blessings that we will yet possess. We already enjoy the blessings of having been redeemed. Since our redemption we have known God’s good hand upon us sustaining us and providing for us. And there is even greater blessings in store that we can possess if and when we go forward in faith with God.
And isn’t that one of the reasons why God gave us the N.T. sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper and one of the purposes of our celbrating them, to remind us of our Covenant Status, Obligations and Blessings.
Gilgal’s stones and Gilgal’s sacraments spoke powerfully to Israel of Old, may the lessons of Gilgal be written upon our hearts this evening.
