HIGHLIGHTS IN JOSHUA
Number 4
A SIGN AND A MEMORIAL AMONG YOU
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"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 4:6,7.
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ONE OF our greatest failings is that we forget so quickly. God speaks to us or deals with us in some powerful and blessed way. We feel that we could never forget, but after the passage of quite a short period of time, the memory fades, and often much of the strength of our experience of God's dealing with us is dissipated. When we first believed, the power of God's salvation in Christ greatly effected us, but the passage of time causes the memory of it to fade. God understands this and so he gives us signs and memorials to be an everlasting remembrance of himself and his gracious love.

For the Israelites here the memorial was these stones taken from the bed of the River Jordan, and from the place where the priests stood when they held the ark of the covenant in the middle of the river, when God held back the flood water so that the people could cross over into the promised land. This was a great deliverance and salvation for them. It was for them the beginning of their entrance into the promised land, and into the enjoyment of the blessings God had promised them so long in the past. For us there are the sacraments, particularly the sacrament of Holy Communion. This is a sign and memorial to us of the redemption we have been blessed with in Christ Jesus. These memorials which God gives are not just simply some aid to our memory, but in the remembering, it is a time when God renews to his people something of the greatness of the act of salvation remembered and gives a renewal of the blessing of it. It is a powerful and experimental renewal of God's covenant to us and all that it means, and a powerful renewal of his presence to us and in us.

A SIGN AND MEMORIAL

It is so important to note the exact words of scripture so that we do not turn a blessing of God into error or an idolatry and blaspheme. The words of God here in verse 7 are "a memorial to the people". It is clear that God's intention was simply that of reminding the people. It was a an action on the memory of the people, so that they would continue to be blessed with all that was to be remembered. It was a means given by God, so that the people were helped not to forget what God had done for them, and in the remembering may retain and have strengthened the experience of God and his action in their lives. This was for the purpose of causing them to enter into the strength and power of what God had done for them, and would continue to do for them in the present and the future. The movement is one way - from God to the believer, in order that the Christian might be blessed.

This may seem a very obvious point, and hardly worth being laboured in this way. Indeed it is so obvious that to imagine that anyone should make anything else of it seems ridiculous. However as far as the sacrament of Holy Communion is concerned it is so very necessary that this point should be made. The communion, we are told by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians, is something we engage in to remember all that Christ did for us on the cross. It is not just a bare remembrance, for as we come to communion, and we are reminded of the cross and all that it means, Christ meets with us by his Spirit, and applies powerfully and experimentally to our heart and mind some aspect of Christ's great redemptive work for us that is particularly our need at each particular time we partake. Every time he reminds us of the completeness of his work for us, and renews the assurance of his great eternal love for us.

The movement in the sacrament is from God to us in blessing us in Christ. It is Christ coming to us. Yet in our Church of England communion service we say that in communion is making a memorial of Christ's death for us, or celebrating this memorial. The idea of making a memorial suggests that God is being reminded of something, which is really blasphemous. There is the idea of our offering something to God, by which we are accepted. Here is something alien and different. Instead of God coming to us in blessing, the officiant is said to be do something to and before God. He is making a memorial before God. The sacrament is changed from God reminding us, to the officiant reminding God. In fact the idea seems to be that the officiant, on behalf of the people is reminding God of the death of Christ for us, and by this reminding is seeking to obtain from God his mercy and the application of the benefits of Christ's death for us.

At first this may seem something of great worth and insight. However it is a dangerous change to the purpose of the sacrament which Christ ordained. Firstly there is no need for any priest on earth to remind God of the death of Christ. We have a great high priest, Jesus the Son of God, who ever liveth to make intercession for us. Jesus, sitting at the right hand of God, with the marks of his death in his hands, feet and side, are an eternal remembrance of his work for us, and Christ by this high priestly work, completely and perfectly claims for his believing people all the benefits of his redemption. We need no earthly priest to make a memorial for us. Christ already has and does do it perfectly. For an earthly priest to make this memorial is to usurp the office of the redeemer, and blaspheme by suggesting that Christ is not capable of doing it completely himself.

Secondly, we need no earthly priest to make a memorial for us. Through Christ's priestly work in heaven all the blessings of redemption are already ours in their fulness. What we need is what had been provided for us. We need to be reminded of all these blessings and to have them applied to our hearts and minds in a powerful way, and to be assured of the eternal love of God for us. This is what Christ provided for us in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

A SIGN AND MEMORIAL OF GOD'S COVENANT

What were the stones set up at Gilgal really meant to do? Of course they were to remind the Israelites of the miraculous act of God in drying the Jordan so that they could cross it, but it was not simply a bare remembrance of the event, but to remind the Israelites of what this event signified, which was the honouring by God of the covenant of grace he had first made to Abraham, and which he had repeated so often down the history of Israel to this time.

Of course the covenant was something much greater than simply inheriting the promised land of Palestine. It involved the coming of the Messiah, who would redeem his people, whether Jew or Gentile, and reconcile them to God. The physical promised land of Palestine, however, was firstly a means to that greater end, without which the greater end of the coming of Christ would not happen; but also it was illustrating what Christ would do for his people. The promised land was a figure of the promised land of heaven, which Christ opened to all who believe.

The stones, therefore, were a memorial to the fact that God was and would honour his covenant to his people, so that nothing would be lacking in all the blessings he had promised. The stones, reminding the people of the crossing of the Jordan by the hand of God, reminded them that God was able and active in fulfilling all he had promised for them. They were meant to remind the people that as they went forward in life, and many difficulties presented themselves, that God is faithful to his covenant, and is thoroughly able to bring about all he had promised. Thus when in the future the people came face to face with a problem or difficulty that seemed impossible to surmount, and which caused them to fear, they would have in this memorial and reminder that there was no need to be afraid, or to doubt that the difficulty would be overcome by the power of God.

The sacrament of Holy Communion is God's sign and memorial to us that he has fulfilled his promise of salvation by grace alone. It is a memorial to the complete and perfect work of Jesus in atoning for our sins completely and bringing in for us the gift of everlasting righteousness which meets on our behalf all the demands of God's law. It is a memorial to us that in Christ we are redeemed and adopted into the family of God; that God is our Father, and that we are in his everlasting care; that God will never leave us or forsake us, and will surely bring us to his everlasting glory, where we shall dwell in his love forever, and rejoice in his presence, and be able to give him perfect glory and praise.

The devil's ploy is to undermine continually the memorial to us of the perfecting and power of the work of Christ for us, so that we may doubt and be cast down, and left weak and struggling in our earthly pilgrimage. Regular attendance at the Holy Communion is perhaps one of the chiefest ways God has given to remind us that we are utterly safe and saved in and through Jesus. The sacrament is not just a sign reminding us of the facts, but also a powerful drawing near of Christ to his people in order to bring to them a renewed sense of his love and presence, and to apply balm and healing to their souls in those areas that particularly need his care.

The minister or officiant is not a priest offering a memorial to God, but rather the humble servant at the table of the Lord, dispensing the food which Christ has prepared for his people. The real officiant is Christ himself, who, as the food of the bread and wine is distributed by his appointed servant, comes in blessing to each believing person who is attending his supper. Christ assures us again each time of the fact that God has honoured completely his covenant of grace towards us, and that he, Christ, has fulfilled all the terms of the covenant so that his believing people have in him everything they need to be right with God and holy before him, and that a place is surely reserved in heaven for them.

A MEMORIAL TO GOD'S POWER AND VICTORY

The stones also were a reminder to the Israelites of the power and victory of God. It reminded them of the true nature of God as creator and redeemer. In the holding back of the water in the river Jordan was seen an act of the creator, changing for a time one of his natural laws for the purpose of blessing. It was a memorial to the fact that the whole of creation is in the sovereign hand of God, that God is over all, and there is no power in heaven or earth that can gain any victory over him.

God had promised to be the God of the people of Israel. What assurance to Israel to be reminded that the one true God, omnipotent, was their God and engaged on their behalf.

In the sacrament of Holy Communion we have a memorial to this great and sovereign power of God. God sent Christ to overcome Satan, and free God's people from his dominion and authority. Christ in his life and on the cross and in his rising again completed a final and perfect victory over Satan, thoroughly delivering those who believe on him from Satan, sin, death and hell. The sacrament of Holy Communion is a memorial to this great victory. It reminds us also that, although Satan seems to have so much power and success in the world, he is in fact a defeated enemy. In Christ, believers are totally and eternally delivered from Satan's power, and although Satan troubles the Christian, he can never claim or capture the Christian.

The sacrament is also a memorial to the fact that as Christ has won this complete victory, all the troubles, pains and injustices in the world, and the power of sin, will be finally destroyed, and the world will be free and beautiful again. So the memorial of the stones, and the memorial of the sacrament are also a reminder to the world of the power of God, so that they might fear him - Joshua 4:24.

A MEMORIAL TO THE LOVE AND CARE OF GOD

Lastly the stones were a memorial to the Israelites of God's undying care, love, help and protection for them. Here at the Jordan they were in great need. The promised land was denied to them unless they could cross the river. There was no way they could cross the river safely when it was in flood by themselves. What were they to do? God's care and love is seen in the fact that he acted at the right moment, and enabled them to cross into the promised land.

The sacrament is a memorial to us of the same truth. Paul puts this truth so well in Romans 8:31,32. He says, "If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things." As we are reminded of the gift of Jesus at Communion, and all he did by his life, death and resurrection, it assures us that God will withhold no good thing to them that love him.

CONCLUSION

The stones were to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever (Joshua 4:7b). The sacrament of Holy Communion was given by Christ that it may be a memorial of the death of Christ to believers for ever. As the people of Israel looked at the stones, they were lifted up by the memory it created. How much more should we use the memorial given to us by our Lord of Holy Communion, so that we may not forget, but rather live in the blessings of the victory of Christ when he died and rose again for us.