B
Y MORNING
J
OSHUA’S
confidence in God and in himself had returned. He energized the people and got them moving toward the Jordan River where they set up camp. His renewed zest for life caused me to wonder about what had changed in his spirit and why. Just the day before, Joshua doubted his motives, the people, and his ability to hear from God, although he clearly had. I myself heard the promises God spoke to him. I clearly heard God say the words, “Be bold and very courageous.” Yet, Joshua was feeling anything but that. Why? He had affirmation from the highest authority there was on the matter.
Depressed and unsure of himself, he shared his feelings with Jehoa and Simon, underlings in the power structure for sure. Then Simon said to Joshua, “Be bold and very courageous,” the exact words God said (which, to be honest, hadn’t produced all that much confidence in Joshua), and look what happened. Overnight, Joshua recovered and was squarely back in control of the situation. Why would a human’s words mimicking God’s words cause such a reversal in attitude, especially when there was no new information contained in them? It was just a repeat of what God had said. Do you see my perplexity? Why weren’t God’s words alone good enough to keep Joshua cheered up?
I feared I was about to figure out something else about God’s strategy for humanity that Satan was not going to like the least little bit. God’s words in the mouth of a human can carry the same authority, cause, and effect as if God Himself were speaking. Say, for example, God speaks a prophetic word into the spirit of a person. The person may know what he heard, and he may even believe it was God, but after a while when nothing seems to be happening, doubt creeps in. He begins to say things like, “I don’t know if it was God or me.” I’ve heard you people do it thousands of times. Not being 100 percent supernatural like we are, you simply don’t trust your ability to operate in the supernatural and hear God without doubting yourself. If you only knew how supernatural you really are, but I digress. To compensate for this flaw in your makeup, God causes another human to audibly speak His exact same words to the same person; it’s as if God is bearing witness to Himself.
I struggled for a way to describe such a dynamic.
Encouragement.
There’s no other word for it. A human speaking the words of God to another human gives him courage. I don’t say I understand how such a thing
can
work, but there is no doubt that it
does
work every time.
Oh my, but this was not good news for Satan.
Encouragement combined with intercession could be a onetwo punch for any scheme a demon might have. If the chosen person had one human interceding for him and another speaking God’s encouragement, who knew where it could end? Joshua would prove to be a textbook case for what was possible.
After they’d been by the Jordan for three days, God said to Joshua, “This very day I will begin to make you great in the eyes of all Israel. They’ll see for themselves that I’m with you in the same way that I was with Moses. Now, command the priests who are carrying the ark of the covenant to go to the edge of the Jordan’s waters and stand there on the river bank.”
Joshua called the leaders together and told them what to do. “Get ready to go through the camp. Tell the people that when they see the ark of the covenant, carried by the Levitical priests, to start moving. Follow it. Make sure they keep a proper distance between themselves and the ark, but don’t lose sight of it, because they’ve never been on this road before, and we don’t want any wrong turns.”
Then Joshua called out a rallying cry to the people: “Sanctify yourselves. Tomorrow God will work miracles and wonders among you.”
Next, Joshua turned to the priests. “Take up the ark, and step out before the people.” So they took it up and paraded before the people.
Joshua turned to the people. “Look at what’s before you: the ark of the covenant. God Himself will cross the Jordan as you watch.”
Turning back to the priests, Joshua instructed them. “Now take the ark and step into the water. When your feet touch the Jordan’s water, the flow of water will be stopped and the water coming from upstream will pile up in a heap.”
That’s when the honeymoon ended between Joshua and the priests. The priests carrying the ark froze, stared in disbelief at Joshua, and wouldn’t take another step. They exchanged fearful looks between themselves. Then, turning his back to the people, the chief priest motioned for Joshua to come to his side. He whispered so none of the people could hear him rebuke Joshua.
“Have you lost your mind? Are you mad? Look at that river. It is far above flood stage. You can’t be seriously telling us to just march into the river like there’s no problem.”
“We can’t be sure where the bottom is,” came the voice from one of the other priests.
“We could drop the ark. We could drown,” another chimed in.
“How about you send a good swimmer out there first, and let’s see how he does before you imperil the entire Levitical priesthood?”
“Have you no faith?” Joshua whispered back.
“I have faith, but I have eyes also, and so do the other priests.”
Joshua looked at the frightened faces of the priests and could see they were in agreement and in deep fear.
“Are you refusing to obey your God?”
“No, no, it’s not that, but just look at that river!”
Joshua didn’t respond. The priest was visibly uncomfortable in challenging Joshua, but no one with a sense of self-preservation would have dared walk into the river. Those swirling waters even made me dizzy. Looking to the other priests, then to the people, then to Joshua, the chief priest asked what no one had dared to ask before.
“Joshua, how sure are you that you’ve heard from God?”
This was the first real test of Joshua’s leadership apart from Moses. What if the priests wouldn’t obey? If they showed no confidence in Joshua, the people would scatter like frightened sheep. Oh, I could see clearly what was really at stake here, and I wondered if God had a backup plan if the priests faltered. This particular scenario hadn’t ever happened before.
In other crisis moments of obedience, God spoke to His anointed, and the anointed spoke to the people who obeyed or didn’t and were rewarded or judged pretty much on the spot. But this was different. Between Joshua, the anointed, and the people was a whole new layer of management: the priests. Moses and Aaron, as well as Joshua, had spent a lot of time convincing the people to respect the priesthood. The people saw Joshua as the leader but saw the priests as their religious authority, who presumably also heard from God. What would Joshua do if the priests flatly refused to step into the water? He wouldn’t dare send the people into the river unless the ark went before them as God had instructed. The rest of history would depend on that moment and what the priests did.
Right then I knew why I could never be a leader. I couldn’t stand the stress. I would never have the nerve to tell people to do something with real consequences for fear that they might not do it—like what was happening right there with Joshua and the priests. If they didn’t obey me, I would have no idea what to do next. I was suddenly glad that my entire role in life was to watch and report and nothing more.
Joshua stepped closer to the chief priest, nose to nose and toes to toes. He did not blink, he did not raise his voice, and he did not plead.
“Step into the water, and see the salvation of the Lord.”
The priest did blink—several times, in fact—but said nothing. Signaling the other priests, he turned, and with each in position and wide eyes locked straight ahead, they stepped into the whirling waters of the Jordan. When they did, the waters began to heap up just as God had said they would.
I’m telling you, this would have never happened had it not been for the encourager. If God hadn’t put His words into the mouth of Simon, I’m convinced Joshua would never have had the courage to stand up to the priests.
Those priests carrying the ark stood firmly planted on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel crossed before them. Finally, the whole nation was across the Jordan, and not one foot was wet.
God spoke to Joshua again. “Select twelve men from the people, a man from each tribe, and tell them to take twelve stones from the center of the river where the priests are standing. Carry them across with you, and set them down in the place where you camp tonight.”
Joshua called out the twelve men and said, “Cross to the middle of the Jordan, and take your place in front of the ark. Each of you heft a stone to your shoulder, one for each of the tribes of the people of Israel, so you’ll have something later to mark the occasion. When your children ask you, ‘What are these stones to you?’ you’ll say, ‘The flow of the Jordan was stopped in front of the ark of the covenant as it crossed the Jordan. These stones are a permanent memorial for the people of Israel.’”
The people did exactly as Joshua commanded. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, carried them across to the camp, and set them down.
The priests carrying the ark, trembling the whole time, continued standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything God had instructed Joshua to tell the people to do was done. The people crossed quickly; no one dawdled, but it seemed like forever to the priests, who thought the crossing was never going to be complete. When every last one of the Israelites stepped out of the river, the ark of the covenant and the priests crossed over as the river closed in behind them. You have never seen a group of holy men hightailing it like those priests were as they ran out of the river.
The Reubenites, Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh lined up in battle formation as Joshua had told them to do. All told, about forty thousand armed soldiers crossed over before God to the plains of Jericho, ready for battle.
Just as He said He would do, God made Joshua great that day in the sight of all Israel. For the first time, they were in awe of him just as they had been in awe of Moses. This was a risky move on God’s part, if you ask me. He should never allow humans to get to the “awe” state. Why would God think humans could stand up under adoration any better than Lucifer had when all the other angels were in awe of his beauty and majesty? If I’d been God, I would have gone with letting the people feel gratitude and be done with it. There was way too much danger in allowing awe.
Joshua stretched out his arms over the people and proclaimed to them, “God dried up the Jordan’s waters for you until you had crossed, just as He did at the Red Sea. This is so that everybody on Earth will recognize how strong God’s rescuing hand is to save you.”
When all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and the Canaanite kings along the seacoast heard how God had stopped the Jordan River before Israel until they had crossed over, their hearts sank, and just thinking about it made the courage drain from them.
Figuring Joshua would ride the momentum of the moment, I expected him to go after Jericho right away, and he probably would have except that God had another idea.
God said to Joshua, “Make stone knives, and circumcise the people of Israel a second time.”
Can you imagine how that news went over? I still had nightmares from the time Abraham had to circumcise all the males and I had to watch. Certainly Joshua had seen circumcisions before leaving Egypt, but it had always involved a baby eight days old—not too much blood or kicking and screaming. But when it came to circumcising grown men by the hundreds, there’s no way he could have imagined how bad it was going to get.
This was a good time for me to leave. I needed to report in to Satan, and if Joshua went through with it, the men would be laid up for three days at least. I could get to the second heaven and back before the siege against Jericho began.
By the time Joshua raised his new flint knife into the air and began explaining what he was going to do with it, I was airborne and headed for home.
S
ATAN LAUGHED WHEN
I told him about the circumcisions.
“Why does He keep making them do that ridiculous self-mutilation?” he asked, meaning God, of course.
“I know. It sounds more like something
you
would’ve come up with.” That’s what I wanted to say. What I did say was less inflammatory.
“I really don’t know, sir. As far as I can recall, He’s never said why.”
“Will wonders never cease? There’s
something
you don’t know about God? You who are always so quick to lecture me on the what and why of God?” He raised his claws and grasped his head, feigning amazement. “At last, to find something about Him you don’t know.”
I did know one thing: I’d better not offer a response to such a loaded remark. If I’d had the nerve, I would have pointed out to Satan that, as a matter of fact, most of the time I was exactly right in predicting or explaining what either God or humans were apt to do. But as for the circumcision business, I have to admit I’d never quite figured that one out.
Ignoring his jab at me, I went on to tell Satan about Rahab and then about the priests carrying the ark and the Jordan River heaping up so the people could cross, but he just yawned and looked bored.
“I care nothing about harlots and priests. As for the river, is God still relying on that old trick, splitting waters in half? He should know anything after the Red Sea is passé. It’s a shame He hasn’t moved on by now and developed a new act.”
“Well, the truth is, sir, most of the people who were alive at the time when the Red Sea split are pretty much dead now. The new generation has heard the story from their parents. Not having been there, they’re pretty impressed with making the waters of a river rise up and stand at attention.”
He yawned again. “So, basically, you have nothing new to report, and you’re only here because you didn’t want to watch the circumcisions. Is that about it?”