Joshua 3:9-17; 4:1-109And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of the Lord your God. 10And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites. 11Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan. 12Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man. 13And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap. 14And it came to pass, when the people removed from their tents, to pass over Jordan, and the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people; 15And as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, (for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest,) 16That the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed, and were cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho. 17And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan. (Joshua 3:9‑17)
1And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over Jordan, that the Lord spake unto Joshua, saying, 2Take you twelve men out of the people, out of every tribe a man, 3And command ye them, saying, Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests' feet stood firm, twelve stones, and ye shall carry them over with you, and leave them in the lodging place, where ye shall lodge this night. 4Then Joshua called the twelve men, whom he had prepared of the children of Israel, out of every tribe a man: 5And Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of Jordan, and take ye up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of the tribes of the children of Israel: 6That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? 7Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever. 8And the children of Israel did so as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan, as the Lord spake unto Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, and carried them over with them unto the place where they lodged, and laid them down there. 9And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests which bare the ark of the covenant stood: and they are there unto this day. 10For the priests which bare the ark stood in the midst of Jordan, until every thing was finished that the Lord commanded Joshua to speak unto the people, according to all that Moses commanded Joshua: and the people hasted and passed over. (Joshua 4:1‑10)
There are two things, beloved friends, that we have to look at to-night. First of all, there is the passage of the Jordan itself, and what lies around it in the way of instruction for us. And secondly there is this beautiful memorial of it that we find in the Ex. 4. Those are the two points I should like to concentrate your thoughts upon this evening.
But before doing so, we will look back for a moment in order to get the connection of the passage of the Jordan with what we have already had before us. Without going too much into detail, we have had the Passover, and we have had the Red Sea: that is to say, we have dwelt upon God’s judgment of sin according to His own holy nature—that is the Passover. And in a certain sense, as we were seeing, that has a deeper aspect even than the teaching of the Red Sea, although there was the judgment of God there in power upon the enemies of His people for their deliverance; still His own nature and holy claims were more in question, so to speak, at the Passover than at the Red Sea. In the first it was a question of what would suit God, and therefore the blood of the paschal lamb put upon the lintel and the two side posts was the expression of God’s own intrinsic holiness. Nothing else could meet the claims of His holy nature, but the blood of a victim that (speaking of it now in type) was spotless in itself, and besides that, with the excellency pertaining to it—that is the Passover. It was the judgment of sin according to the claims of a holy God.
Now at the Red Sea there was judgment too, but there it was God putting Himself, as He could now do consistently with His own character, between Israel’s enemies and Israel, so that God could now come in as their Redeemer-God. He passed over them in judgment because the lamb met His claims; He came in for them in deliverance and redemption at the Red Sea; it was God interfering to free them by redemption, to bring them out and to bring them in. Whereas in the Passover it was God judging Egypt and passing over Israel when He judged Egypt; it was God meeting His claims as judge in the Passover, it was God expressing Himself in all the delivering power of redemption at the Red Sea.
After that passage of the Red Sea, what is called the wilderness journey of the people began. And it is an important thing to bear in mind (sometimes I do not think it is enough disconnected in that way) that that journey had two parts. God never journeyed with them until they were in the circumstances of a redeemed people. Neither does He with us. God never walks with us till we are redeemed. He visited us in grace, but He never walks with us, and we never can walk with Him until we are a redeemed people. Of course the redemption of Israel was merely an external redemption, and therefore typical of the spiritual and real redemption God has given now. But it is on the basis that God has brought us to Himself, in suitability. His own character, that He not only walks with us but dwells with us. You never get dwelling at all until after redemption. God never dwelt in Eden, God walked in Eden, He visited Eden, but He never dwelt. He never even dwelt with the patriarchs, blessed men though they were. He talked with Abraham, took him into intimacy and friendship with Himself, but never dwelt with him, or with Isaac or Jacob. And it is very interesting as showing the community of thought that existed between God and His people that, as soon as ever they are in the circumstances of a redeemed people, “habitation” was the very thought of their minds; as you find in Ex. 15, “I will prepare him an habitation,” a wonderful thought: now God can come and have His dwelling-place amongst us. now we are in the circumstances in which He can dwell. That is a wonderful thing beloved friends, God in His infinite grace give our hearts to enter a little more into it! I do beseech of you to take it in and think of it. I have been only speaking of the type; but the real grand antitype of it is that God has now a dwelling-place; He has those on earth amongst whom He can dwell—what is called “the habitation of God through the Spirit. God has His house here, and He dwells in His house. That is a wonderful thing, because the effect of it is that it prevents us from running off into mere individuality. Not that I would in the least forget that individuality has its place, but we should lose an immense deal of the truth of God, we should lose sight of some of the most precious things that God has been pleased to reveal in His word, if we were to limit everything to individuality. You will find in this typical history that God’s ways and dealings with men and people upon the earth are what characterize the book of Genesis throughout. But when you come to Exodus, which is the book of redemption, the grand feature of it is, that when redemption is accomplished, God can come and dwell; He can find a dwelling-place suitable to Himself on this earth, in the midst of a people whom He has brought by redemption into suitability to Himself. That runs all through the song of Ex. 15, it is one of the keynotes of that song. There are two words that give their character to the song in Ex. 15, “salvation” and “habitation,” and I put the two together.
I may add in passing that there is no word that is more commonly used and so little understood as that word “salvation.” It is a blessed word.
“Salvation, O the joyful sound”; but it is an immense thing to enter into it according to the thoughts of God. Salvation does not mean merely that God has reached me where I am in my misery and distress, and relieved me from the pressure that was upon me there—that is in it certainly—but there is a great deal more in it than that. He has met the needs of my conscience, but He has also taken me out of the condition in which I was, as in those needs, and brought me to Himself—that is salvation. And I think you will find that “salvation” is ever used in scripture with that meaning attached to it.—It always means change of position. You have not got the true thought of salvation if you have not the thought in your soul that God has by blood and power interfered in consistency with Himself to bring you into a totally new place to Himself—that is salvation. Would to God that all the Lord’s beloved people in this world had only the thought of salvation in its fulness in their hearts, what a different thing it would be! They would then find they could not go on with the things of the world, because if it is only a question of relief, you relieve me, but you leave me where I wanted the relief. You say, “I do want relief,” and I do not deny it or want to minimize it; but I want something more than relief, I want emancipation, or, as some one has called it, and I think it is a very good word, extrication. I need to be extricated, and redemption does that for me, redemption has extricated me not merely out of the effects of my sins, and set me free from the impending judgment which my sins exposed me to, but it has extricated me out of the place where I was exposed to the judgment. So I change my ground altogether, and therefore I am not only sheltered, but I am saved. The 12Th of Exodus is shelter, the 15th of Exodus is salvation; and when you put them both together, you have got the thing complete. You are sheltered from judgment, but you are also saved out of the place to which the judgment applied, and where you were exposed to judgment. That is what introduces us into what we call our pilgrimage. The moment I am a participator of God’s redemption, “guided by Thy strength unto Thy holy habitation,” the moment I am brought to God, and brought to God, remember, while we are down here in this world—then I begin to walk with God, and God begins to walk with me; and I never walk with God until this is true of me. He interfered for me and visited me in grace, now He walks with me, and I walk with Him.
Now that journey is made up of two parts. The first part of it is from the 15th of Exodus up to the20th of Exodus, that is to say, up to the time when they came to Mount Sinai. And the first part of that wilderness journey is all grace, there is no testing at all, it is all pure grace. They hungered and He fed them; they thirsted and He gave them drink; He looked after them, cared for them, watched over them, and they stood on the ground of pure sovereign grace with God. They got their blessing upon that ground, there was no question of law or demand at all, God brought them to Himself; God was acting towards them in suitability to that blessed character which He displayed towards them in salvation, and they walked with God.
Then in Ex. 19 they come to Mount Sinai; and there the second part of the journey begins. Now God tests them, and the test was this. Here is a people who had been redeemed out of the house of bondage and brought to God whom He had walked with, and acted towards on the ground of grace; now He tests them—will they take their blessing still on the ground of grace, or on the ground of what they can give to Him? That is how the law came. The meaning of the law was to test a redeemed people, as to whether they sufficiently knew their own hearts as to say, as it were, No, if we are to be on the ground of law with God, the ground of exaction, the claim of God upon us, we shall thoroughly break down, even though redeemed, even though brought to God. And remember, law is a very much larger and wider thing than the mere ten words. Suppose a man says he is bound to love Christ, I say that man is under law in principle. “Bound to love Christ!” how could we talk like that? The moment you bring in exaction, you bring in law in principle; and that is exactly what came in at Mount Sinai. God proposed the law as a test; the people did not know themselves, though in the ways of God this was brought about that they should know themselves, and know it through exercise; yet they elected to take their blessing on the ground of law instead of on the ground of grace, and God accepted them on that ground. It is a mistake the way people speak about it. They say God put the people under law. No; they put themselves under it, and what God did was, He tested them under law. And that is the meaning of an expression you may have read, that the law came in by-. the-by. It was the test of a people who had been redeemed and brought to God as to whether they would continue to stand with God on the ground of the pure grace that had been manifested towards them up to that moment, or whether now they would take the blessing upon their own answer to the claims of God as expressed in law. Israel elected to take their blessing under law, and God accepted them on that ground, and tested them by it. This is the second part of the journey. And then it is the real character of the wilderness comes out.
Now perhaps I am lingering rather over first principles, but I really find that many of God’s saints do not know these things; and I think we take for granted that people know a great deal more than they do. But if you think of how little you know, then you know how little other people know. We talk about the wilderness and the desert, and think it is very fine to use certain expressions, but people really do not understand their meaning. The meaning of it is this, that the wilderness is the place where under law I am tested as to what is at the bottom of my heart, what is in me. Redemption was that in which God is displayed; the wilderness proper is where what is in man’s heart comes out under law. And you will find that while the same offences were committed by Israel before the 20th of Exodus as were committed afterwards, yet that whereas in the beginning of the history God passed over these offences with all the blessed exercise of the grace that marked Him, afterwards the same offences were punished with the greatest severity. Why? Because the people were on a different ground.
As long as ever they were on the ground of grace, then God acted toward them in grace. As soon as ever they stood on the ground of law, God acted toward them on the ground of law. In the wilderness of Shur, which was the beginning of their history after redemption, they walked with God, and suffered the trials, and difficulties, and exigencies of the wilderness, and God dealt with them in the greatest grace, and kindness, and forbearance. Afterwards, when they walked through the wilderness of Sinai, they committed the very same offences, and God punished and scourged them with the greatest severity. They were under law, and that accounts for it.
Now that will bring us to our subject to-night. All through that second part of their journey, they were tried and tested as to what they were. And what came out? Every kind of departure from God, and that they were not in the smallest degree altered. That is an immense thing for our souls to learn, even that the state of our flesh, the vileness of our nature, the wickedness of our heart within, the hidden depths of that sink of iniquity that is inside—redemption does not change in the least—though I fear there are some of God’s people who think it does; but it is the same after redemption that it was before. My position is changed, my standing before God is altered, redemption effects that, but as to all the evil principle that works within me, I am just the same. What comes out is this, that I learn practically that, after redemption and under law, that it is not a question now of my sins, but of myself. Before, it was a question of my sins; my conscience on fire, so to speak, as to my sins and as to the judgment of God because of my sins; but when all that is settled and for ever disposed of, and I know the blood on the lintel has completely met His claims, and the Red Sea has completely disposed of all the enemies, and that God has brought me to Himself, and I am now redeemed to God, and walking with God and God with me, now I find out what I did not know before, “that in me, that ms in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” Have you made that discovery, beloved friends? Have you learnt this practically in your soul, down deep at the bottom of your heart (I am speaking of Christians, of people who are redeemed, not of unconverted people), that in you, that is, in your flesh, there does not dwell any good thing, that “from the crown of your head to the sole of your foot, there is no soundness in you, but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores,” that you cannot alter it, or mitigate it, or mollify it, that if you put restrictions upon it, it comes out all the worse, that the strength of that evil principle is law, for “the strength of sin is the law.” Do you remember how the apostle puts it himself? He says, “I was alive without the law once”; that is to say, he thought that he stood in that position, he thought he was a living man all right, so to speak. He had no hard feelings against himself then, “I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived.” He does not say “sin came”—it is wonderfully blessed the distinctness and accuracy of scripture about all these things. Sin was there already, but it revived, just like a viper that had been there slumbering and which the heat would bring out: “when the commandment came sin revived, and I died; and the commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.” The strength of sin is the law, and the law is the rule of death, not the rule of life, for the very exactions and claims of the law bring out the vileness of my heart that will not and cannot answer to it.
Now that is what came out in the second part of the journey, and you will see how blessedly our subject tonight comes in to meet that. When Israel had finished their wilderness journey, there they were with Jordan between them and the land of promise, a good-for-nothing, worthless generation, a people that set not their heart aright, that always turned aside like a broken bow; as Moses said, “Ye have been rebellious against the Lord since the day I knew you.” Every kind of thing that was contrary to God had come out, so much so that the enemy comes and says to God, as it were, Are you going to bring such in? That is the great point there, after the wilderness journey, when it was all over, and they are found committing whoredom with the people of Moab, and mixed up with every kind of iniquity—are you going to bring that people in? Then when God meets the enemy, God goes back to His own redemption, and love, and purpose, and says, as it were, I will bring them in, not on the ground of what they are, but on the ground of what I have done for them. He meets the enemy by pointing to the Red Sea, “God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn; He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, nor seen perverseness in Israel.” According to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought?—not, What hath Israel wrought? but, “What hath God wrought?” When it was a question of the enemy disputing the right of God to bring a people from wilderness circumstances into the goodly land, the land of promise, God reverts to His own love that was set forth at the Red Sea, when He accomplished redemption. He says, as it were, “I have redeemed them, I have brought them out in consistency with my own nature, my own holiness has been vindicated, I have wrought for them, and I will bring them in on the ground of what I have wrought.” The question of their title was raised, and if title is raised you must always go to what God has wrought. When it is a question of your own conduct, that is another matter, but your conduct and your title are not the same thing; do not mix them up, they are totally distinct. If my title is called in question, I must go back to my title deeds. If I talk of my conduct and put that into my title, see what a wretched, miserable thing it is. I say it advisedly before God, I would as soon expect God to save me by means of my sins as to save me by means of my conduct as a Christian. If it is a question of title, it is a question of title deeds. And this is how God met the enemy, and therefore the great question was, What had God done? The enemy could point to Israel down there in the valley, and say, as it were, “Look at them, look at their character and their ways, what they are doing!” Quite true, that is not denied, but God says, There is what I have done, there is my outstretched arm, there is my purpose, there is redemption, there is salvation.
And when it comes to a question of ourselves and our own conduct, what you find is this, the more you struggle the worse it is. I believe there are numbers of truly anxious souls who have learnt their nature is bad and vile, and they are trying to keep it down—and God forbid I should say a single word that seems indifferent to any really earnest movement abroad amongst God’s people. But I see the solemn mistake of the whole thing. I see that all these exactions and claims are put on a nature that only shows itself the worse because of them, and that there is no deliverance or power in it, there is no liberation in it; on the contrary the people are kept miserable and wretched. It is exactly like a man down at the bottom of a deep ditch or quagmire, and he is now awakened up to the fact that he is down there; and not only that, but that there is a kindredness between him in his nature and the miserable quagmire he has got into; and he says, as it were, “I will get out of this,” and the more he tries to get out, the deeper down he gets. That is exactly where numbers of souls are.
Now see how wonderfully our subject tonight comes in to meet that. In Josh. 3 we come to the end of the wilderness journey, the manifestation of the people to be as bad and vile in their own condition and nature as could possibly be; and what is to be done? Here is the Jordan rolling between them and the land of promise. Now you have the simple history. God commands that the ark of the Lord is to be taken up by the priests; there was to be a sufficient space between the ark and the people; but the people were to follow, because there was association. That is the very thing you do not find at the Red Sea. There it was, “Stand still and see the salvation of Jehovah which He will show you to-day.” But at the Jordan there was association; there was a space between them and the ark to set forth the dignity of the antitype of the ark—the Lord Jesus Christ—there was a space, but they followed. And as soon as ever the feet of the priests that bare the ark touched the brim of the water (and mark you, it was the time of the year when the river was at its height, when it overflowed its banks, the putting forth of the whole of its power), the river rose and went up, and a dry footway was made for the people. What is the meaning of that? It does not mean Christ’s death and resurrection for the justification of a poor sinner; and I will tell you a very simple reason why it cannot mean that—because the people were associated in the passage of the Jordan with the ark. If it is a question of the justification of a sinner, it is done by Jesus Christ alone for us, not by our association with Him. But here there is association; the people followed the ark borne by the priests; there was a space, but still there was close association between the two. But what does it mean? It means this—the ending by God of that which the enemy could touch, which is human life, that in which the enemy had power, by which he could prevail, is ended, so to speak, here; that is to say, they died and rose again in figure with Christ; it is Christ’s death and resurrection, and our death and resurrection along with Him, so as to leave behind completely in death, to faith before God, all the old thing, and to take a new place the other side altogether with God.
Now if you apply that for a moment to the state I have been speaking of, you see a person struggling and finding what is in this terrible heart within, with all its terrible motions and movements; and he tries to get free, and says, I will keep this down. Like Jonah when he was in the belly of the fish, he says, “I will pay my vows.” But he is not let out for that. “I will look toward thy holy temple.” “I will cry to God.” Neither does he get out for that. But the moment he says, “Salvation is of the Lord,” the fish vomits him out on dry ground. And thus it is Jordan comes in for our comfort—that we learn that we have died with Christ—not only that Christ has died and risen again for us, and accomplished redemption for us, so that we have been brought to God, but that as to the nature we had from Adam, that evil vile principle that is in us that could not be corrected or changed, that came out all the worse because of the exactions put upon it, because itself in all its native blackness the more it was put under law, all that has come to an end judicially in Christ’s death, we have died with Christ.
Now it is quite true that that is experience, but it is the experience of a fact; because when the Lord Jesus Christ died upon Calvary’s cross 1800 years ago, the Passover lamb, the Red Sea, the Jordan side of the truth, was there in the one antitype. We see different sides of it, and quite right too, but the whole thing there took place in the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only was God’s holy, righteous nature completely met by that precious blood, that entirely answered His claims, but redemption was accomplished, by which we have been entirely delivered out of the house of bondage and brought to God. But besides that, all His people there died with Him 1800 years ago in the cross; and therefore our souls now, in their agony of distress when we find out the nature that is in us, learn this and experience it. Because you never could know what sort of a being you are except by experience. You have to go through the depths of agony to find out the vileness of your own heart, and you never could learn that objectively, it is here subjective exercise comes in. As a beloved brother used to say, he found himself always at home. Then we find out practically what sort of being we are: “I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” I give it up as all bad, I cannot alter it or check it or make it better, I cannot make an Ishmael into an Isaac. Then what do I find? I learn that I died with Christ, and that is the river Jordan—not only that Christ died and rose again for me at the Red Sea, but that I died with Christ, not to be justified, but to be set free by His death from all that I could not alter or make better, so that now I have got a new place entirely. I have come in His resurrection into a totally new position before God, because I have not only died with Him, but risen with Him. And that is what is set forth in the Jordan.
And see how blessed it is. There was a power in that ark that accomplished victory, and associated the people with all the blessed results and triumphs of that victory; there was not a single drop of water there—they passed right over, when they came to the river it was perfectly dry. That is the passage of the Jordan, and that is what it really means. It means Christ’s death and resurrection, and our association with His death and resurrection to set us entirely free from all that was proved in the wilderness to be perfectly good for nothing, so that we now are brought into an entirely new position before God on resurrection ground, and take new ground entirely with God.
Now look for a moment at the beautiful memorial of this. The first was that on the other side, at Gilgal, where the people came when they passed through Jordan, twelve stones were taken up to show the association between what was done and the people for whom it was done (twelve being the number of the tribes of the children of Israel). Twelve stones, as emblematic of the twelve tribes, were taken up by Joshua’s orders where the feet of the priests stood firm, and put on the Gilgal side of Jordan. Now see what a blessed thing that is—the blessed witness of Christ’s death and resurrection and victory, with which we are associated, was carried to the place of communion, for that is what Gilgal was; they always returned to Gilgal after their victories and journeys, and to that spot of communion, the standing witness of Christ’s victory and triumph, with which they were associated, was carried and set up. And these stones at Gilgal spoke to conscience, and said to conscience, you are a dead and risen people. carry that out, walk in the truth of that; that is the meaning of it. It is not trying to be a dead and risen people, but it is carrying out what you are. And thus every time an Israelite stood at Gilgal and saw those twelve stones, his conscience was at once addressed by the fact that he had passed the Jordan; and all that was connected with the Jordan, the triumph and victory, was to be made good practically in him. To us now it is—we have died and risen with Christ, let us walk now as those who have died.
But then there is more than that. Joshua himself alone sets up twelve stones in the bed of the river, in the place where the priests’ feet stood firm, and then when the river returned, of course it flowed over those stones. Now that speaks to our hearts. I think these two heaps address conscience and heart. The first speaks to my conscience, and tells me I have died and risen with Christ. And, beloved friends, be assured of this, the more you allow your hearts to get exercised, and the more you seek to let the truth work upon your consciences and souls, the more you find the grand secret is—insisting to your own heart upon what is true, not what you want to reach to, but what is true. As a beloved brother has so blessedly said, Christianity works by what it brings, not by what it finds. There is the secret of it. That is to say, I am put into this position—not only has Christ died and risen again for me, but I have died and risen again with Him. In the one case I am emancipated from the house of bondage, in the other case I am brought into an entirely new resurrection status before God; and now I have got to hold that as true. But suppose I walk ever so faithfully and diligently in the truth of it, it would not make it one bit more true than it is; and suppose I walk ever so unfaithfully, suppose I am deficient or break down, it will not alter the truth one jot. You cannot add to the truth of it by devotedness. and you cannot take from the truth of it by carelessness. The thing is true, but of course if there is no faith in your soul to carry the thing out that is true, and to walk in the truth of the place that God in His wonderful grace has set us in, you lose the communion and joy that goes with it. It does not touch the question of your title, but it does touch the question of your communion; you have not then communion with God. And there is the mistake people make—they confound title and communion. Communion has its place in connection with title, but the grand ground of everything is title. See what a wonderful fact that is—I have died and risen with Christ.
I remember hearing not very long ago of a simple soul, who was reached by the truth of our death and resurrection with Christ. She was continually, prior to it, finding the vileness and the feebleness of her nature, that she could not control it; but when the great fact got hold of her conscience in the power of God’s Spirit that she was dead and risen with Christ, in her own simple way she used it thus—when she was vexed, and harassed, and troubled, she would say, “But you are dead”; “but you are dead.” She insisted in faith upon the fact, and she got victory in it. And that is where victory is. I like to put victory in its right place; it is not victory by faith, but victory by the fact which faith accepts. I have died with Christ. Very good; now if that is true, let us go and carry it out. There are various ways in which the flesh seeks to assert itself, and what we have to do is, to have the recollectedness in faith of these facts in our souls. They are true, and if I fail to walk in the truth of them, they are true for all that still. Do not tell me it is a question of experience. I am insisting upon the great fact of our having died and risen again with Christ; we have parted company in His death and resurrection with everything that was uncontrollable and vile before God, and there is the measure of God’s thought about it, it is all left behind in death.
I have often heard people say that you have to put your will on God’s side. Your will is sin, Lord help us to remember that. Do not talk about putting your will on God’s side—your having a will is sin. You ought to have God’s will, not your will. Christ could say, because He was perfect intrinsically in His own nature, “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God,” not His own will, though He was perfect; the will of God was the spring and motive of everything in His own soul. What I say is this—I ought not to have a will; if I have a will, and allow it, it proves that I am not in faith taking up the fact that I have died with Christ. A dead man has not got a will, or lust, or temper. There is the way you have to work it; I say I have died with Christ, and you cannon charge lust, or temper, or will, or inconsistency on a dead man.
But one word further as to this second memorial. It is not the witness to our conscience, like the first; but these stones put down in the midst of Jordan, where the feet of the priests stood firm, are very touching to the heart. It is the memorial of Christ’s death—not the memorial of your having died and risen with Him, that is Gilgal, but the memorial of His death, that you can sit on the heavenly or resurrection bank of the river in blessed fellowship, that you look there, but you can see nothing, save by faith. Jordan waters have rolled over those stones, but your heart is in fellowship with Him in His death. It is really the Lord’s supper. It is one of the most beautiful illustrations of these twelve stones in the bed of the river. It is the memorial of His love in death, of what His soul passed through, it is not the memory of my victory. And there is where people mistake the Lord’s table. They constantly make the Lord’s table the place where they remember the Lord’s victory and triumph for them; but the Lord’s table is where I remember Christ in the sorrows and sufferings of His soul, and I forget myself altogether. I think of the One that traveled down into death for me. And that is what these stones are. And it says, “They are there to this day,” that is spiritually, there is always the memorial of the cross; it is an abiding reality, never to be obliterated, it will never be forgotten, there in stands.
May the Lord in His grace give our hearts to praise Him for this great deliverance. As I look at the cross, I not only see Christ’s death and resurrection for me, but I see equally my death and resurrection with Him—I have parted company now through grace, with the old thing; I am not trying now to regulate this wretched flesh, for nothing could cure that.
That was a wonderful thing—I have often thought it over in my own mind—when Naaman, who was a leper, with all his grand position, a great man, mighty and honorable, who had won victories, but had this horrible disease, when he wanted to be cleansed, the message of God was, as it were, Nothing can cleanse defiled flesh but death—Jordan, the very thing we are looking at, “Go and wash in Jordan seven times.” Naaman replies, “Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.” Afterwards, when he went down and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child. Nothing can end flesh but death. Law will not cure it; restrictions or demands on it, or holy good resolutions will not cure it; it will break out through them all; death has judicially ended it, and through grace a Christian can take that fact up to-day, and say, “Jesus died, and I diedwith Him, buried in His grave I lay.”
I have died with Christ, the whole thing has gone to faith in His death, and now I am risen with Him. The Lord grant we may enter into it in all the blessed reality of it, for His Name’s sake.