Good Morning Friends,
“Joshua called together the twelve men he had
appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, ‘Go over
before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you
is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of
the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children
ask you, “What do these stones mean?” tell them that the flow of the Jordan was
cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan,
the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the
people of Israel forever.’” (Joshua 4:4-7)
God instructed Joshua to have the people of
Israel build a memorial to what He had done in drying up the Jordan so they
could cross it on dry ground. Twelve stones, one for each of the twelve tribes,
were set up as a marker to remind the people of Israel of the miracle God had
done for them.
God knew the people would need help to remember
His provision for them. In the day-to-day busyness and stress of life, people
forget the past. It’s easy to fall prey to the thought that God really doesn’t
care, that He really isn’t there, or that He doesn’t have the power to help. When
the people looked at the stone memorial it would remind them of a time God
showed His care and His power in a very direct way. The memorial was for the
weakness of the memory of the people.
The memorial was also for future generations.
It would provide an opportunity for children to ask questions and for their
parents to explain God’s work among their people. It would serve as an aid to
pass faith on from one generation to another.
The Gilgal memorial, the Passover feast, and
several of other memorials were given by God to the people of Israel to help
them remember and to help them pass their faith on to their children. Baptism,
the Lord’s Supper, and several other memorials have been given to us for the
same reasons.
Our memories are weak, we live in the present
and forget God’s work in the past. Our children need to ask questions and hear
us talk of how God has acted in love and power on our behalf.
His, by Grace,
Steve
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