The Pulpit Commentary — Joshua — Section 113

:rou to God nnd _man, would _result in enlnrgement of henrt, ennoblement of pur- 11osc, streng!hemng of conscience,. lt!ld enjoyment of pence. Sometimes the crisis is n tcmpt!ttion, pressmg on il!e spi!·it on every side, nnd by guile, clamour, terrorR, arnl nllmements compellmg its divergence from the path of duty. I need' not enumerate other kinds of crises. Let me only urge that, in whatever wny the crisis c-on:i.c, we meet it manfully. ,viien you come to Jordan see that you cross over it. God will not fail yon if you do not fail yourself. II. I ask you to_ obs?rve, secondly, TH_E CRE_ED Fon A CRISIS. It is given us here·: one of those benutiful mstances of faith m winch noble benrts find at once their ex- pression nrn1 their sustenance. Here is one couched in a name of God. Here 11re two 1-ii::nificnnt titles, neither of them in common use previously: He calls God" the living God," and "the God of the whole earth." Once only is the former of these names found in Scriptme before this use of it, and the other is not found in use until long after. They are, therefore, not trnditional words II parrot might have used, but grea.t original words which register the truth Joshua bad conqµered for himself. And if we would meet our crisis, when it comes, as nobly and grandly as Joshua met his, we must try and get his creed of two articles. 1. We must believe God is the living God, for all do not believe that; not that they would fonnulate the idea that on such a day God died, and has not been heard of since. But the general feeling is, He is as good as dead. A distant God, with- out liYing eye to mark our necessities, without living hand to help us, without a liYing heart to feel for our distresses. And if Joshua bad been of that creed there would ha-.e probably been no passage of the Jordan, and no victory of Jericho, and no conquest of the land. But by the ever-extending obedience or experiences of his life he had learned this mighty secret-that God is alive, is here, gives their bias to all e,·ents, can bear a prayer, can save a soul, can cleave a passage through sea or rJTer. 2. A.nd the second was like to it. He deemed God " the Lo1·d of all the earth." No local deity, like those heathen deities whose sovereignty was often ..s !limited as a German duchy ; no limited being ; but master of all powers of nature, master of all tribes of men, with the government upon His shoulder of all things ; able to open a path where all passage seemed denied; so that his and Israel's future would not depend on their own wisdom, strength, or fortunes, but would depend supremely on the fa-.our of God. Aye, and that is the sort of creed which we all need for the crises we ha-.e to face. God living and reigning; earth alive with His presence and His work; all eve!lts dependent on His will. Oh, let us catch from heroic souls at least their creed. Their faith, which works such wonders, must be the true faith. God rs living, His heart is alive with tenderness. He is not the great grave into which all things fall, but the great fount of life from which all things live. So alive that He could become incarnate and take infinite trouble to redeem us. So alirn He is here to-day, ready to help us. If you suspect the creed of priests, here is a layman, a soldier, a hero ; this is the first article of His creed. Have you that creed ? If not, pray for a large enough heart to hold it. And espec!ally if you a:i:e in any crisis of your life; for if in any crisis of our life we assume m our despall' that, so far as we are concerned, God is dead, or unable to control the elements of nature, the fair results of all opportunity are lost because it passes 1;1-nused.. ~f y~u have come to Jordan, cross over it; and if you want strength to do it, find it m this creed : God is the living God, and the Lord of all the earth. And observe lastly- III. CRISIS GRACE comes wherever there is crisis faith and obedience. It is a Ftrange story, in its circumstantiality, that of the dividing of the Jordan. The baring of the bed of the river, the water gathering for thirty miles up by the sudden arrestment of its flow into a lake like Loch Lemond in size and form, while below the point of transit it flows away as if its career was ended. There is interest in all explanations that are suggested; in that, for instance, which, combining ~he de- struction of the walls of Jericho with this dividing of the river, and both with the numerous traces of volcanic action in the neighbourhood, and demonstrable changes in the riYer bed, sees here the action of an earthquake, upheaving the bed, and thus ior a day or so making of all the deep valley of the Jordan above it a temporary ea. m. 1-6.] THE BOOK OF ,JOSHUA. 49