The great fact was to be seized, and practically carried out by the whole assembly, "of every tribe a man"--"every man of you a stone upon his shoulder," a stone taken from the very spot where the priests' feet stood firm. All were to be brought into living personal contact with the great mysterious fact that the waters of Jordan were cut off. All were to engage in erecting such a memorial of this fact as should elicit inquiry from their children as to what it meant. It was never to be forgotten.
What a lesson is here for us! Are we erecting our memorial? Are we giving evidence--such evidence as may strike even the mind of a child--of the fact that our Jesus has vanquished the power of death for us? Are we affording any practical proof in daily life that Christ has died for us, and that we have died in Him? Is there aught in our actual history, from day to day, answering to the figure set forth in the passage just quoted--"every man of you a stone upon his shoulder"? Are we declaring plainly that we have passed clean over Jordan--that we belong to heaven--that we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit? Do our children see aught in our habits and ways, in our spirit and deportment, in our whole character and manner of life, leading them to inquire, "What mean ye by these things?" Are we living as those who are dead with Christ--dead to sin--dead to the world?
Are we practically freed from the world--letting go our hold of present things, in the power of communion with a risen Christ?
These are searching questions for the soul, beloved Christian reader. Let us seek to meet them honestly, as in the divine presence. We profess these things, we hold them in theory. We say we believe that Jesus died for us, and that we died in Him. Where is the proof--where the abiding memorial--where the stone on the shoulder? Let us judge ourselves honestly before God. Let us no longer rest satisfied with anything short of the thorough, practical, habitual carrying out of the great truth that "we are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God." Mere profession is worthless. We want the living power--the true result--the proper fruit.
"And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericho. And _those twelve stones which they took out of Jordan_"--stones of peculiar import--no other stones could tell such a tale, teach such a lesson, or symbolize such a stupendous fact--no other stones like them--"those twelve stones did Joshua pitch in Gilgal. And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? then ye shall let your children know, saying, _Israel came over this Jordan on dry land_. For the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up from before us, until we were gone over: that all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the Lord your God forever."