ONE MORE RIVER TO CROSS
By Pastor Jim May
There is an old song that we once sang that went like this:
There’s one more river to cross; one more mountain to climb
One more valley that I have to walk through
Then I’ll leave my troubles behind
One more battle with the devil, and I know He’ll understand
I’m going through with Jesus, Hallelujah
Holding to His nail scarred hands.
Tonight, I want us to talk about that final river that we all must cross. But let us begin our journey to that river by looking back at the Children of Israel and their travels for awhile.
In the Book of Exodus we find their story. Take time to read for yourself soon. I won’t take the time right now, so just listen for now and then go home and prove what I will say by the Word of God.
After 400 years of captivity, the Children of Israel were finally free – free from slavery, free from the brick pits, the slime pits and endless hours of toiling in the hot sun. They were free at last and now began the long journey through the wilderness of the Sinai as they slowly made their way eastward.
But it wasn’t long after they were free until they met the first major hurdle in their journey. Just a few days journey from Goshen, the Jews came to the banks of the Red Sea. Pharaoh was hot on their trail. After having finally hardened his heart and gathered his chariots of war he had come to put an end to these people and to this prophet named Moses, once and for all.
Of course we all know the story of how Israel went across the Red Sea on dry land, and how that Pharaoh’s entire army was drowned in the sea as the waters came crashing down upon them. There isn’t a child in the church that couldn’t give you an outline of the story.
But there is much more to this than meets the eye. Buried between the lines of what is printed in the Bible, there is an underlying meaning, an analogy, that carries such a powerful words for all of us. Israel’s journey from Egypt is symbolic for all of us as well.
Let me begin by saying that all of us were slaves in Egypt at some time. Whether we are new babes in Christ or whether we are Elders in the church with many years of serving the Lord behind us, we all came from Egypt.
Egypt is a type of the sinful life that men live in the world. It is a symbol of Satan’s power to enslave mankind in the pits of sin and impose upon him a life that is hard and full of trouble. That’s not how God intended for it to be for mankind. God had created Adam, placed him in a Garden Paradise, created woman as a companion for him, and gave Adam the rule over all of God’s creation. It was, and still is, God’s intentions that mankind should one day enjoy life and live in God’s protection forever.
I believe that one day soon, all of those who are of the True Church, the true Body of Christ, born again by the blood of Jesus Christ and who are found watching and waiting, will once again live in a new “age of innocence”. We will be made innocent because of the Gospel and the blood of Jesus Christ.
Out of Egypt’s land God called for us. He sent His messenger, in the form of a man, anointed with the Holy Spirit, to give us the message of deliverance. Moses, as a type of the Messiah, didn’t have an easy time convincing or leading Israel out of bondage, even though God was with him through it all. He knew that he could have faced certain death at the hands of Pharaoh for even entering into the land of Egypt. Likewise it was not a walk in the park for Jesus to come and lead you and I from the pits of sin either. He had to lay down his life and die for you and me.
Satan didn’t want to let us go, but he couldn’t stop it either. Satan has no power to stop that man or woman whose heart is under conviction, from bowing their head and hearts before God and surrendering their lives to Jesus.
Through Moses God sent seven plagues upon the land of Egypt. Each one of them represented God’s judgment against Egypt, not just for the mistreatment of God’s people, but they also represent God’s wrath against the idol gods of Egypt.
The first plague was aimed at the most valuable resource of Egypt, the powerful Nile River, along with the gods the Egyptians associated with it. Egypt’s food supply depended on the flooding of the Nile, as well as its annual deposits of silt to replenish the fertility of the soil. Sometimes, failure of the Nile to overflow its banks would result in a famine. So the Egyptians prayed regularly to their gods for abundant water. The first plague made the water undrinkable and rancid. The fish, a valuable source of food, perished.
The Egyptians counted on the Nile goddess Hapi and the powerful Osiris to protect the Nile. Nothing resulted from the prayers of the Egyptians that their gods would purify the Nile when it turned to blood. Only when Moses and Aaron prayed to the true God were the waters refreshed.
The second plague targeted one of the creatures the Egyptians associated with the Nile. Egyptians worshiped the frog in the form of Heqt, whose statue bore the head of a frog. This god was symbolic of good crops and blessings in the afterlife. Egyptians noticed that, when the Nile reached a certain level and overflowed, frogs abounded. Their presence was an omen of bountiful crops and control of the insect population. A low Nile with few frogs meant a lack of silt, poor crops and many insects.
Heqt, god of the frogs, supposedly controlled the frog population. When the second plague produced too many frogs, it appeared to the Egyptians that the god who governed them had lost control. No amount of prayers and incense burned before the idol alters would change the situation. Only when the true God intervened did the frogs die and the crisis end.
The third and fourth plagues featured another favorite god of the Egyptians, Kheper, the scarab deity represented by beetles and other insects. The image of the scarab god appeared frequently on amulets. Various types of beetles were worshipped in Egypt; among them the dung beetle. It became the emblem of resurrection and eternal life.
When a swarm of lice tormented the Egyptians, the court magicians asked the insect god to control them, but to no avail. Only when Pharaoh pleaded with Moses to ask the God of Israel to remove the pests did the plague stop.
The next plague affected cattle, which the Egyptians considered to be under the control of Apis, the bull god, and Hathor, the cowlike mother goddess. The bull was considered sacred. When the bull that lived in a temple stable died, it was mummified and buried with great pomp. The fifth plague struck at this mode of worship.
Next came a plague of boils, which the Egyptians thought they could cure by resorting to their god of medicine, Imhotep, a legendary Egyptian physician who came to be worshiped. They also revered Thoth, the god of magic and healing. But again in this case the boils did not go away. Even worse, the court magicians who besought these entities were themselves covered with the same boils. The idol gods had no power and couldn’t even keep their own priests from the wrath of the God of Israel.
The seventh and eighth plagues struck Egypt’s crops. First, a horrible hailstorm hit the harvest; then a swarm of locusts completed the destruction. The crops were supposed to be guarded by Seth, the harvest god, and it was up to Nut, the sky goddess, to prevent weather disasters. Yet the pleas of the Egyptians fell on deaf ears.
The final two plagues were directed at the two mightiest gods of the Egyptians, Ra the chief god, represented by the sun, and finally, Pharaoh himself.
Egyptians believed Ra to be the source of life, bringing light and heat to the earth. The ninth plague brought three days of no sunlight. The darkness was so "thick," says Scripture, that even lamps could not dispel the blackness. In spite of the prayers and supplications the Egyptians must have offered up to Ra, the sun god did nothing.
The final god in need of humbling was Pharaoh himself, who supposedly descended from the god Ra. Pharaoh’s patron gods were Osiris, the judge of the dead, and Horus, the god of light. Egyptian worship of the Pharaohs found expression in the construction for their leaders of great pyramids as tombs. The 10th plague struck even the offspring of the Egyptians’ man-god.
All of these plagues and the judgment that God brought upon Israel are symbolic for you and I too.
When we heard the gospel message and responded by giving our heart and life to Jesus Christ, God judged the gods of this world, casting off their powers of bind us, destroying their power to possess us as slaves. In the process God delivered us from the power of Satan who had us under sentence of eternal death. He delivered us from every influence of the world around us and made us Overcomers by His own blood. He crushed the power of those demonic spirits who attempt to make us serve them and worship them as idols.
When a Christian is saved it’s a wonderful miracle of deliverance from sin and death. We are called forth and we step out by faith, headed for the “Promised Land” that lies somewhere over the horizon, closer than we think, but just a little farther than we can see clearly.
God destroys the power of everything that could become a god to us in this world, lastly destroying that old man and making us a new creation in Christ Jesus. Just like God persuaded Pharaoh to let His people go, He still forces the devil to set his children free today.
But like the Children of Israel, there comes a time that we must face the first major hurdle in living for Jesus. We must come to our “Red Sea”. Until that point, the baby in Christ is just elated with his deliverance. He is on “cloud nine” as he walks without the weight of sin that has held him captive for so long. But that soon fades when he faces the reality of the spiritual warfare that doesn’t stop trying to bring him back to Egypt.
Satan doesn’t give up easily. The fleshly desires don’t stop instantly; they keep nagging us all along the way. The Children of Israel came out of Egypt but Egypt was still in the hearts and minds of the Children of Israel. It took a long wilderness journey, and passing through the waters, and the loss of many of God’s chosen ones along the way before the victory could finally be realized.
Israel’s passage through the Red Sea can be likened to our burial of the old man in the baptismal waters. It can also be liked to being born again of the Spirit as we begin our walk with Jesus.
All through that long wilderness Journey, Israel was trying to learn to be obedient to God, failing miserably at every turn. Doesn’t that sound like the Christian walk today? How many times do we fail God? How often do we find ourselves in doubts, fears, frustrations and almost ready to throw in the towel and walk away, going back to Egypt?
Eventually, after traveling through the wilderness for 40 years and more, the Children of Israel came to another river, the River Jordan. This river was more of a horrifying sight to them than the Red Sea had been because this one meant total commitment and what was on the other side was greatly unknown. The pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day wouldn’t be there to guide them now. They had to learn to walk by faith and not by sight.
God had given them hints and glimpses of what that Promised Land would look like, but they could only “see” it in their minds as though they were looking at it through a darkened glass.
As each of us walks with the Lord through this wilderness called life, we are walking in the same manner that Israel did. Like Israel, We can either go quickly to our high calling in Christ by faithfully, with a full commitment, obeying and following the leading of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. Or, we can do like the Children of Israel and take many years to make the same journey. The point is, that whether we take the short road or the long road, the destination is the same.
We are all going to have to face the Jordan River. We will all have one more river to cross before the victory can come.
When they reached the Jordan River and looked over into the Promised Land, they still couldn’t see what was really there. Sure God had said that it was a land flowing with milk and honey. He had promised them that it would be theirs forever. God had painted a wonderful picture of what Israel would be like if they just trusted and obeyed Him and walked by faith.
That same thing is true for you and I. God, through His Word, has given us glimpses over into the Promised Land. You can call it Beulah Land, Heaven, the New Jerusalem, the Eternal Kingdom, or whatever you want to. We can try to describe it. We can dream about it. Study about it. Read about it, and believe that it’s a wonderful place, but the fact is that none of us really know what it will be like.
Each one of the Children of Israel had to make up his own mind whether he would cross Jordan and take the Promised Land. Each of those spies had to make up his own mind.
When that day comes that we must face Jordan alone, how will it be for you and me? Will we face Jordan with confidence, knowing and believing that God’s Word is true, and will we be like Joshua and Caleb and tell the world that we are well able to take the land? Or will we be like all the others who doubted whether crossing Jordan was worth the trouble because all they could see was the obstacles?
When Joshua and the Children of Israel finally crossed over Jordan they found that God’s Word was true. The land was more than they had imagined. The enemies were there but God had already made the way for Israel to overcome them. They picked up 12 stones and built an altar in the middle of the river before the waters came back.
In Revelation 21:14 John saw the New Jerusalem on the other side of Jordan. Listen to how he described it. "And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb."
I believe that we all have one more river to cross. We’ve passed over the Red Sea in salvation and baptism, and now we have to face that last great hurdle as we stand at the edge of our Promised Land. There will stand before us, the River Jordan, overflowing its banks in a menacing tide that seems impossible to cross.
I’m convinced that our time will come to step into the waters of Jordan. Will we step out in faith and walk across as on dry ground, or will it become a raging torrent, will billows that will drown us in fear and doubt?
I believe that if we stay close to God and keep our faith strong in Him that when we have to cross that final river, we will be cross it in a moment as though it wasn’t there. If you keep your eyes on Jesus, on the other side, and put your trust in Him to carry you through to victory, your “one more river to cross” will be the greatest step that you will ever take.
For those who refuse to trust God in the wilderness, that River of Jordan will be a horror to their hearts. Great waves of fear, doubt, unbelief and mistrust will overwhelm them as they slip into the waters for the last time.
In the story of “Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan, two pilgrims, “Hopeful” and “Christian” come to that final river and there a discovery is made. The story says that we will find that river as deep and wide as is our faith in the King of Heaven.
If you don’t know the Lord as your Savior, and you come to the edge of that last river that each of us must cross, it will be a sad day, for all hope will be gone. Make sure that you are ready to go. You have one more river to cross.
Heed the words of the Lord that He spoke to Israel about that river.
Deuteronomy 30:15-20, "See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it. But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them; I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them."
