|
|
Giliad Stones
by
Josprel
Joshua 4:1-24
Israel’s forty years of wilderness wanderings were over. In the “very
same day” that Israel entered the Promised Land, God commanded Moses to
ascend from the plains of Moab into Mount Nebo to die (Deuteronomy
32:48-50). Nebo is the summit peak of Pisgah, part of the rugged Abarim
Mountain range in the headland in Jordan. On Mount Nebo, God gave Moses a
glimpse of the Land of Canaan – but only a glimpse, “because you
trespassed against Me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah
Kadesh, in the Wilderness of Zin, because you did not hollow Me in the
midst of the children of Israel . . . you shall not go there into the
land which I am giving to the children of Israel” (Deuteronomy 32:51-52).
“Then Moses went up . . . to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah . . . and
the Lord showed him all the land . . . as far as Dan, all Naphtali . .
. Ephraim . . . Manasseh . . . Judah as far as the Western Sea, the
South, and the plain of the Valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, as
far as Zoar . . . And the Lord said to him, ‘ This is the land of which
I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob . . . I have caused you to
see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there. So Moses the
servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab . . . And He buried
him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor; but no one
knows his grave to this day . . . Now Joshua the son of Nun was full of
the spirit of the Lord, for Moses had laid his hands on him, so the
children of Israel heeded him and did as the Lord commanded Moses.”
(Deuteronomy 34: 1- 9).
After the death of Moses, the leadership of Israel fell to his protégé,
Joshua. It now was time to cross over into Canaan; time to claim the
land God already had given to His people; time to trust Him to remove all
obstacles to complete victory and, of course, the first obstacle were
the waters of the Jordan River that, normally so placid, now were at
flood stage, “ . . . for the Jordan overflows all its banks during the
whole time of harvest” (Joshua 3:15).
Undeterred by this seemingly insurmountable obstacle, Joshua gave the
command to cross the Jordan. Heading the procession were the priests,
bearing the Ark of the Covenant with its Mercy Seat, upon which the
Shechinah Cloud - the manifested Presence of Jehovah – was often seen.
Visible as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, the
Shechinah had faithfully led the children of Israel during their Wilderness
wanderings. Though no mention is made of the Shechinah at the crossing
of Jordan, the power of God was no less evident. As soon as the feet of
the priest who bore the Ark of the Covenant dipped in the edge of the
water, the headwaters “which came down from upstream stood still, and
rose in a heap very far away at Adam, the city that is beside Zaretan. So
the waters that went down into the Sea of Arabah, the Salt Sea, failed
and were cut off, and the people crossed over opposite Jericho” (Joshua
3:14-17). The priests who bore the Ark of the Covenant stood !
on dry ground in the middle of the river until all the people had
crossed over (verse 17).
With the people safely on the opposite bank of Jordan, the Lord
commanded that twelve stones – one for each of the twelve tribes - be gathered
from the riverbed, where the priest still stood. Positioned at Giliad
(also called Geliloth in Joshua 18:17) the location where Israel rested
the night of the crossing, the stones were to serve as a memorial to
future generations of the miraculous event. Joshua also set up a second
memorial of twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, where the feet of
the priest who bore the Ark of the Covenant stood. “And they are there
to this day.”
Giliad memorial stones are necessary in our spiritual pilgrimage; they
evoke the memory of God’s blessings. An old standard hymn of the Church
exhorts us to count our many blessings - to name them one by one. The
hymnist informs us that it will surprise us what the Lord has done.
When was the last time you counted your blessings?
We shall consider three spiritual Giliad stones in this article. Of
course there are more; perhaps they’ll be commented upon in a future
piece. Foremost among our Giliad stones is the remembrance of the price of
our redemption. We are a people inclined to forget what God has done
for us (Deuteronomy 8:13-14). The Lord Jesus apparently realized this
tendency in His followers when He instituted the Communion Supper and
exhorted us to “This do in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). He desires
that we regularly recall the price He paid to redeem us. William L.
Pettingill wrote, “The Lord’s Supper is at once a Memorial, a Covenant, a
Communion, and a Call to Separation.”
It is this Giliad stone - reminding us that Jesus shed His blood for
our redemption - upon which all other Memorial stones rest. It is the
foundation of our approach to God.
A second Giliad stone is that of the love of God for His people. Among
my favorite hymns is “The Love of God,” the last stanza of which was
found, more than one hundred years ago, penciled on the wall of a cell in
a mental institution. It was claimed that the man who wrote them was
insane; the words he composed were discovered after he passed away.
Insane or not, he authored poignant lines that always bless me when I read
them: “Could we with ink the ocean fill, And were the skies of parchment
made; Were every stalk on earth a quill, And every man a scribe by
trade; To write the love of God above, Would drain the ocean dry; Nor could
the scroll contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky.”
I’ve often wondered how the author who penciled those beautiful words
came to be in institutionalized. Judging by the words he wrote, the
memory of God’s love sustained him in his sufferings.
The last Giliad stone that we consider in this article is that of
prayer. Prayer is the believer’s communication line with God. So essential
is it that one of the ministries of the Holy Spirit is to assist
believers in prayer: “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For
we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit
Himself makes intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered”
(Romans 8:26).
Years before the Niagara Falls was harnessed to generate electricity,
an American and a visitor from England were viewing the whirlpool
rapids.
“Come, I’ll show you the greatest unused power in the world,” the
American said to his friend.
Taking him to the foot of Niagara Falls, he proudly exclaimed, “There
is the greatest unused power in the world!”
“That’s not so,” the Englishman replied, “The greatest unused power in
the world is the power of the Holy Spirit.”
The writer paraphrases that statement by saying, “The Christian’s
greatest unused spiritual Giliad stone is the intercessory prayer power of
the Holy Spirit.”
-30-
© Josprel (Joseph Perrello)
josprel@verizon.net
About the Author:
Many of Josprel's articles appear online and in print. His
story “Horses in Heaven” first was published by his denomination’s
official magazine, and later reprinted by others denominations, and home
missionaries to the racetrack industry. He is the author of two novels
in progress, "Beloved Apostate" and "Kanfal."
|
|
Management