The Pillars That Grace Built
The roar of the waters, mixed with the churning brown torrent, were a forbidding objection, “You shall not pass!” A flooded Jordan was no Red Sea, yet the effect was just as devastating. Cut off from the promised inheritance, it would be easy to lose hope and instead cultivate dissatisfaction, after all, they had been culturally conditioned for such a response.
But God.
I love that sweet interjection; that grace-filled declaration of a God who is not content to sit and let us wallow in our own forgetfulness. When God acts, creation bends to his command. When God speaks, light erupts in dark places and paths appear in ways untrodden.
In the account of Israel’s redemption from Egypt, it is easy to pass from the Wilderness to the Promised Land without pausing too long at Joshua 4, but to do so would be a disastrous shortcut. God has much to teach us about ourselves here.
As Joshua steps forward in obedience, as the priests place their feet into the churning waters of the flooded Jordan, Israel discovers what has always been true of our God—He is a God who saves. More significantly, He is a God who saves by grace. What had only been a story of a memory to all but two in that company, quickly firmed beneath their feet as they slowly passed from punishment to promise.
God rescues. God saves. God provides. He did then. He does now.
You and I weren’t there that day, we didn’t feel the wet sand clinging to our feet as we walked forward in wonder, but it is here that our story unites with theirs.
God rescues, but we are forgetful. God saves, but we are prone to short-term memory. God provides, but we are in continual danger of self-sufficiency. Yet even in this, even in our tendency to enjoy the benefits of salvation without acknowledging our saviour, God’s grace continues to extend toward our calloused hearts.
God instructs Joshua to have twelve stones plucked from their place, carried to the bank of promise, and placed in a pile. A pillar of grace was to be erected. A gracious reminder of God’s faithful salvation, yet simultaneously, a testimony of our forgetfulness.
The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they encamped at Gilgal on the east border of Jericho. And those twelve stones, which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up at Gilgal. And he said to the people of Israel, “When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ For the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the LORD your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the LORD is mighty, that you may fear the LORD your God forever.” Joshua 4:19-24 (ESV)
This rough pillar was no Golden Calf, no enshrined place of worship, it was a pillar of remembrance—a pillar of grace.
Three implications for us
No matter how great God’s gracious acts are, we will allow them to fade from memory. It may be that they are not forgotten in our generation, but what about the next? We are no different to our brothers on the brink of the promised land, who celebrate deliverance today, but spurn the grace of God tomorrow. Remembrance is a great theme of the Scriptures for a reason; without a means for remembrance, ignorance is only a night away.
God’s gracious acts in our generation are meant to create testimonies for future generations. Each of the stones selected would have been nondescript on their own, blending into their surround with no discernible story to tell. But stacked together—heaped up in such a way that they drew curiosity from those that passed by—they gave opportunity for a testimony to the gracious salvation of God. In a foreshadow of Jesus’ declaration, it was as if these stones themselves cried out in a glorious proclamation of the grace of the gospel. What are you building now—what pillars have you erected—that your grandchildren may one day ask to hear the story of God’s grace in your life? What testimony are you creating for future generations?
Ordinary stones spoke of an extraordinary God. Don’t wait for a Jacob’s ladder moment, or a speaking donkey, to know that God is graciously intervening in your life. Train your heart to see the thousand ways that God is delivering you, then take stock of the moments and build them into a pillar of grace. This isn’t a monument to your achievement. This is a pillar of remembrance. As we fix our eyes firstly on the Cross, the testimony shaped in us becomes a part of the pillar of grace that will speak to another generation. As you meet to share bread and wine, simple earthy elements that give testimony to the divine act of redemption, know that you lay a foundation on which the countless other moments of God’s gracious interventions find their ultimate worth. So take those ordinary moments, heap them up for your own soul’s sake, that one day in dim wandering you may stumble over those cracked and worn stones, and hear an unmistakable voice echo across the years, “The hand of the LORD is mighty. Fear the Lord God forever!”
This was first written for, and published with, The Gospel Coalition Australia.
