Conflicts And Conquests In Canaan

When Israel was leaving the wilderness with its sad defeats to enter upon the winning battles of the Promised Land, Joshua was ordered to make two monuments to signalize the crossing of the borderline at the Jordan.

The one monument was to be buried in the river, and the other conspicuously put up on the other side, so that, in days to come, when the children asked the fathers, “What mean ye by these stones?” (Joshua 4:6–7), they could say in reply, “The waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord.”

God’s people in the literal land of Canaan had many battles and took much booty from the foe. Canaan, in the Christian life, is not heaven. Canaan is a place of conflicts; but, thank God, in the Christian’s experience in the plan of God, after every battle there comes new possessions to be enjoyed.

The one monument was laid down, the other monument was raised up. These facts have a deep spiritual significance.

If you read God’s Word as you read any other book, you are losing out. In all of the journeyings of God’s people, every stop they made, every new experience entered, had in it some deep meaning to be used by the Holy Ghost in bringing deeper depths of blessing to open, seeking hearts.

Men are trying to explain this miracle by a purely natural principle, and give very ordinary reasons as to just why, at that particular moment, a wind came up and held back the waters for a little while so that God’s people could cross over.

In the fullness of time, God Almighty brought His people out from under the hand of Pharaoh, and led them through long wilderness wanderings.

When God was about to fulfill His promise and take His people over into the land of Canaan, He spake and the waters stood up. We do not care how it was done, but, as God’s priests bearing the ark of the covenant came to the banks of the Jordan, and the waters wet their feet, then at that instant—that was God’s signal—the river opened wide and solemnly the men of war marched over into the land which God had promised. God was going to spew out the inhabitants of that country from before His face and give those rich cities and fertile fields to His people.

As they went down, God spoke through His servant Joshua and said, “Take ye twelve stones and carry them down into the bed of the river, to the place where the feet of the priests which bare the ark of the covenant stood, and lay them down for a monument; and from the place where the feet of the priests stood take up twelve stones out of the bed of the river and put them on the shoulders of these men (a man from each tribe of the children of Israel appointed and anointed for this service), and carry those stones over to the place where you are to lodge on the other side of Jordan, and there build them up. Do not lay them down, but build them up into a monument.”

The Holy Spirit uses every seemingly trifling thing. First the stones laid down, and then the stones raised up.

The Milestones of History

Monuments mark history through the ages all over the world. Wherever you go, you will see monuments erected because of some important event or person. In Boston, there is a monument which stands up and points to the fact that, at that place, the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought, and that a victory was won. In Europe, I saw a monument the like of which I had never seen before or since. It was a high hill cast up to commemorate the victory won on the field of Waterloo. On top of the mountain the figure of a lion looked down over the field that has been of such thrilling interest to us all, where we saw, in history the forces of the French and the armies of the allies surging backwards and forwards, winning and losing, until at the close of a fateful day, just as night was falling, we saw the Old Guard around Napoleon and saw them falling one by one, invulnerable unto the end, but falling now one by one, until the hero of the world, at last with bowed shoulders and a broken heart is seen riding off the field a defeated man. And there, on the field of Waterloo, the Lion Monument marks the spot where the destiny of Europe and of the civilized world was settled. The Allied troops brought shovels and baskets and barrows to dig up the blood-soaked plain and cast up a mountain barrow by barrow, basket by basket of earth to commemorate the great event.

Counting Our Blessings

We have reached the place of our monument. Looking back over the past year, thinking of the multitude of God’s goodnesses so richly bestowed upon us, we feel to say, in our hearts, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us,” and we put up our “stone of help,” our “Ebenezer,” and we bow before God in recognition of the wonder of His grace and the bounty of His provision for us.

It becomes us to stand still and take a look backwards at 1920. That is retrospect. Then take a look forward into 1921. That is prospect. Then a look around us. That is the circumspect view. As we look back, and as we look around, and as we look ahead, we can see the mercies of God and the magnificence of God’s provision for us. Oh that God would give us grateful hearts as we sit here on this first Lord’s Day of the new year. How much God has given us. We have just held out our hands with hardly a thought and taken it as God has put it into our hands. How He has kept us from accident and unseen dangers in this land of disaster and sudden death.

Unannounced Mercies

Because our blessings have come in some miraculous way, we have hardly noticed them. Pray for grateful hearts, and praise God with bowed heads and with tears of gratitude upon our faces. How wonderfully good God is to us, although our blessings have not come in extraordinary ways. Perhaps we have not stood out in our dooryards and looked up in prayer, like the Chinaman did who boasted that God would answer and not forsake him. He knew God would provide Him food in the midst of a heathen village. So, as he prayed, God sent a bird, and the bird dropped a piece of meat into the dooryard of that man. Our meat, perhaps, has not come that way. Nor like that Christian fleeing from the soldiers that were after him in the days of the Huguenot persecution in France. He would have starved under a barn where he sought shelter, but there came a hen in her accustomed way and very carefully deposited the egg that kept him alive. So day after day, for several days, the appointed hen came and left the egg right there within his reach. “O God,” he cried with streaming eyes, “O God, you have answered prayer. O God, I thank you.”

Has not God answered prayer for us? Has He not given us enough to keep body and soul together, and more? Has He not given us a wonderful supply for our table, given raiment, given us a good portion of health and strength? Has He not given wealth of spiritual blessing? Has not God given us these thing? And should we not thank Him for them, even though they came to us unheralded, and not in some strange and miraculous manner?

As a church, how much we have to thank God for. Sunday after Sunday, fifty-two Sundays in the year, He has permitted us to come together to worship Him in peace. No great schisms or divisions among us, and there we are with our pastor on the other side of the world in missionary service, and we just gathering again about the Lord’s table with hearts filled with praise still undivided. God is going to keep us an undivided church, however our members may be scattered abroad, until Jesus comes, and we trust that when Jesus comes, there will be no division then and that we shall all go up together to meet the Lord.

Money has come in for our needs, and the converts have been brought by the Spirit, and the spirit of love and unity and loyalty has been present in our midst. These things have not come in some miraculous or strange way; and we have taken them all as a matter of course and thought that God simply had to bless us. Sometimes we have been far from grateful for the multitude of His mercies toward us. May He give us thankful hearts and expectant hearts as we look back over the past, as we look around the present, and look out into the future.

Rock Reminders Of God’s Deliverances

“Monument” is from the Latin word “moneo,” to remind, and these two monuments at the Jordan were reminders to Israel. The first, buried in the bed of the river, spoke of the Red Sea. It took them back to their deliverance under a dead Moses, and the second one there on the bank at Gilgal pointed to prospective victories they were to win and deliverances that were to come under the living Joshua. Some of the older brethren had seen this water before. Long years before they had come up to Kadesh-barnea and there had failed God, and He, in distress of heart because of the backslidings of his people, had to let them all go back to years of wandering in the wilderness. Some of them could remember the Red Sea; some of them could remember the coming out from under the hand of the taskmaster, out from Egypt; they could remember that God-planned trip. God had planned their trip, and God had made a trap for them at the Red Sea.

It is marvelous how God deals with us. He plans our pathway. Sometimes in hard places we say, “God never planned this.” But He labored to prepare that place for us, for, in that place, God had planned a further revelation of Himself which He could make in no other spot on Earth.

There, at the Red Sea, God had planned a trap for them. There were a great company of people—600,000 who were young and strong and able to bear arms and fight. The mountains were on either side of them. Behind them were the hosts of Pharaoh, and in front of them was the Red Sea. Their difficulties were increased by chronic objectors in their midst. Every company of people has objectors among them.

Then God spake unto Moses, saying, “Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward.” An objector growled “I cannot believe my ears. Listen to that man Moses. How can we go forward? Has he no eyes at all? What does he think we are—fish? Or have we got wings like birds? Doesn’t he know the sea is before us? Yet he is commanding us to go forward. This man Moses has lost out. We need another leader. We need a man with more pep, with more mental vigor.” We do not know what good objectors are, but we know they are always present when the people of God are planning a forward movement, and, as soon as some man of God endeavors to lead God’s people forward, an objector rises up and says, “It cannot be done.”

God knew He could open a way. Moses knew God was with him and that what He promised He would do. God had led them into a trap; He had taken those people that He loved into that difficult situation.

Why did He do it? There in that place, God wanted them to get their eyes off of Pharaoh, off from the mountains, off from the water before them, and lift their eyes unto Him and know that from Him their help would come. God wanted to reveal Himself in a way that He could not have done in any ordinary way, under any ordinary circumstances. God can manifest Himself in the hard places of life in a way which He cannot do under more favorable circumstances.

Perhaps you are having things too easy in your life. Your spiritual life would be invigorated if there were more hard places and difficult situations. Is your business life all right, no particular difficulties; your family life delightful; you do not know anything of the sorrows that rack men’s souls? You may not know anything of the awful disturbances which come into families that separate mercilessly and leave broken lives behind. Perhaps some hard and difficult situation in your business, in your family, in your inner spiritual life has brought you into that place where, after looking all around you and seeing no help, you have looked up and beheld God and the wonderful provision of His love and mercy. God arranged that experience for you in that place.

A God-Arranged Stopover

When God planned the trip for the children of Israel, He put a stopover in it, and it was right there that He wanted to show them marvels beyond what He could have shown them in any other way and place on Earth. He wanted to show them the wonders of His love and the might of His power right there at the beginning of their journey.

There is a rich spiritual significance to these monuments at the Jordan.

We like to read and follow a cunningly devised plot. We like to note the choice of words which the writer employs in telling his story. We are interested in a good book. But can we find a book which has a more skillfully devised and carefully concealed plot than the Bible? Do we know of a book that is of more thrilling interest and that repays searching into like the Word of God? Marvelously constructed Word of God! We shall spend ages finding out the wonders which God has already written in this Book.

Spiritual Significance Of The Monuments

These inanimate monuments are alive with spiritual truth.

The first one was made of stones that were laid down. It was buried where the priests stood with the ark. Afterwards it was covered with the waters. “All thy waves are gone over me” (Psalm 42:7), said David. Does not this monument speak of Christ there on the tree, the life crushed out of Him under the awful weight of our guilt, going down into the waters of death, to be hidden, to be covered over with fullness of judgment. This heap of stones laid down speaks to us of His life laid down for us. Certainly God has hidden these things from the wise and prudent, but has revealed them to the babes that search for them. God means that we shall feed upon these truths and revel in them even as we revel in new discoveries, new inventions, new achievements in art and literature.

Look at the one raised up, built up of stones which came out of the bed of that river opened by the marvelous hand of God in such a miraculous way. These stones tell this glorious truth: that He was raised up for us among the dead ones and that newness of life is ours in Him over in the land of Canaan, not in the river of judgment, but over in the place of victory, or winning battles and rich booty.

These monuments speak to us about both substitution and identification. Christ died for us. But that is only half of the truth. There is another side to it. We died in Christ. Halleluiah! That is the whole truth. Christ died for us, for our sins; we died in Christ. We were judged in Christ; we were counted an unclean thing in Christ. God judged us in Christ, and the penalty of our sin was paid for in Christ. In Christ, the life was crushed out of us, and we became as dead men.

The law has no rights over a dead man. Here is a murderer that has been hanged. His mother can take away his body and hide it away in the earth. The law has exercised all of its rights over him.

Not only did Christ die for us according to the Scriptures but we died in Christ. Not only His substitution for us, but our identification with Him in death. Oh, the fullness of blessing the apprehension of this truth brings to our hearts.

In Galatians 2:20 we read: “I am crucified with Christ.” I died with Jesus. I was nailed there to the Cross with my dying Redeemer. I was identified with Him. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live.” I was killed, but nevertheless by the power of God, I live. “Yet not I, but Christ, liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

Here are three great truths: Death, resurrection, newness of life. Christ died for us, and we died in Christ. Christ arose for us, and we arose in Christ. Christ lives for us, and we live in Him.

By the Holy Ghost, Christ liveth in us. If you say, “I cannot live a Christian life,” you have learned a great truth. You cannot live a Christian life; but the living Christ, by the power of the Holy Ghost, can come into you, and you can then have Christ living His life out through you by the spirit of God. Victory is just Jesus. Do not look for some strange, subtle, mysterious kind of victory to come into your life in some such way as you get a Christmas gift. Victory is identification with the Lord Jesus. I die with Him; I rose with Him; I live with Him. I live in Him and He lives in me, halleluiah! Victory is living with Jesus! Oh, the glory of it! Christ living in me and living out His own life. That is the real Christian life. The apostles says, “The life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God.” In another part it says, “Christ liveth in me.” We have been delivered from the law of sin and death and judgment. We have been already delivered from the only adverse judgment we can ever know.

We look for three judgments yet to come. The next one due is in the air above, then one upon our green Earth, and after that, the last one in heaven.

The first is for the raptured and raised saints who are to receive their reward at the judgment seat of Christ. The second is for the living nations who will be on the earth when Jesus comes and sets up the throne of His glory. And the last one will be the Great White Throne judgment. That is in Heaven, when God shall judge the wicked of all ages. You will be on the judgment seat and not at the judgment bar when these latter judgments take place. We were judged for sin at Calvary. We paid the penalty in Christ when we were crucified with Him, and for us, there remains no other adverse judgment to come.

Multitudes Awaiting The Gospel Messengers

The world is just yearning to know the wonderful sweet Gospel news. How many hopeless broken lives there are—how many hopeless ones who are stretching out dumb hands in despair, longing for one to come with just a little love. Millions have never yet heard the precious name of Jesus. Multitudes have never had any portions prepared and nobody to go and carry to them. God’s wonderful provision of love.

There is a touching story of a girl twelve years of age, who had been stricken by infantile paralysis. For six long years she lay on a cot in a poor farmhouse. Her parents were unable to supply her with the comforts that are needed in a sick chamber. She lay at a window which overlooked a railroad track. Every day as the fast train came from Chicago, that wonderful land of delights and splendor, and rushed past that farmhouse, she would wave her emaciated hand at it. And as another train came from the Southland of flowers and sunshine, she would wave again. And how her heart would cry out for just a little of the blessing and plenty of the fairyland of North and South from which the trains came.

Finally, the trainmen got to know her, and they would wave their hands at her as the train glided by; and they learned to love her because, night after night, as they came rushing along, she would listen for the rumble of the wheels, and then would light a match and wave it as a signal. How often her hands would reach out into the darkness to receive the love that would come to her from the hearts of those grim trainmen. The men took it on their hearts to bring joy to her heart. Their plans matured, and, at last, one morning the train rolled down from Chicago and came to a standstill opposite the cottage where the invalid lay. The train crew unloaded a wheel chair, a steamer rug, a bath robe, and many other things. A train from the South rattled up to the farm and stopped with a grinding of brakes at the unaccustomed place. The train crew got off and walked into the house with another lot of presents, and, before she could thank them for what they had done, they told the girl that enough money had been raised to give her the very best kind of treatment under the most skilled physician. As far as her prayers were concerned, God had met her, and God has blessed her.

It is a story to make tears come to our eyes when we think of that helpless girl lying there, those long years on that cot, shut away from all the blessings of the outer world. But think of the multitudes shut in beyond in the faraway regions of the lands of night who never once have heard the precious name of Jesus.

Fighting In The Land Of Rest

In typology, Egypt represents the world; the Red Sea stands for separation from it; and Canaan is a place of rest. “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” We may rest in the land of conflicts. We do not have to fight, but we fight to win. Exhilaration and exaltation come from winning. We do not have to flee from the devil and his minions, and cower like beaten slaves before him.

Before Canaan could be entered and possessed, Moses had to die, signifying our death to the law. Then, after the Jordan was crossed there was circumcision at Gilgal, which speaks of death to sin and the flesh. Joshua surrendered to Jesus, which is the surrender of self.

A Christian has got to fight as long as he lives on the earth, but he may win out and not lose out. Our fight now is with the world, the flesh, and the devil, and is a personal conflict.

Those who know your Bibles, know that there will be fights even beyond death and the rapture. When Jesus comes back, we are going to be with Him in that great fight with Satan; that battle which will inaugurate the thousand years. At the end of the thousand years, there will be another fight, and we will be with Jesus when fire comes down out of Heaven and devours the adversaries. The first is the “Stone Fight,” and the other is the “Fire Fight” after Satan is loosed for a little season. But in these fights, we shall be with the Victor, the Captain of our Salvation, the Lord and Ruler over all.

And then we will take possession of all the booty of Earth and the universe. If we do not have all we want now, we shall have more than we know what to do with when we begin to take possession of our Canaan beyond.

First, there was the battle at the Jordan. That was a fight of faith. Then they came to Jericho. That was another fight of faith. Then there was defeat at Ai because there was sin in the camp. They were deceived and brought into league with the Gideonites who came to them as angels of light. But all through Canaan, God’s people went on their conquering way until they had taken thirty-one kings, and in every place they took their cities. It was in God’s plan to give this land to His people that they might possess it and enjoy it, and His earthly people shall have it and enjoy its fullness under their own King.

Life is only a little while after all, and, if we do not have all we want now, we should not worry. We are going into some real fighting with Jesus by and by against the rulers of the world and the wicked spirits who are with Satan, and, when we win, we shall have the booty of the universe. Somebody is piling up money for us now. The Bible says that in the last days men shall heap to themselves riches. It is said there are over two thousand millionaires in this country. “Ye have heaped treasures together for the last days.” Then presto, when they think they have them, they do not have them all. They are just being heaped up these mountains of money for God’s people. If you do not have all you think you ought to have, praise God, after the fighting, after the conflict, after the battle has been won, after the conquest, we shall take the booty God has provided for us. In the meantime we may enjoy a wealth of spiritual blessing in our Canaan here.

What mean ye by these stones? We look back over the past year and put up our monument and say, “Ebenezer, hitherto hath the Lord helped me.” How wonderfully He has helped us and blessed us! How we praise Him out of the fullness of our hearts? “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.” So we put up our monument this morning, and ask God, as our prayer ascends unto Him, to forgive all failures and defeats of the past, and to strengthen by His grace so that we may go out in the year 1921 and make it a year of blessing and of conquests in our Canaan above all we have ever known before.